TAKEN BY
THE
GREMLINS!
It was late, too late to still be at work, and the CEO of Dante Publishing had finally finished her responsibilities for the day. Gwen Dante, the head and face of the largest book publisher in Manhattan, who had revitalized the borough's East Side economically over the past few years, had had enough of overseeing staff conflicts, analyzing budgets and giving pep talks for one day.
As she walked to the closest elevator, all she wanted to do was to go home, brew herself the darkest cup of coffee she could manage, and sit back and relax with a nice horror movie. As the elevator doors closed behind her she sighed.
"Ground floor, please."
The voice that answered her was a quiet, harshly whispered growl that simmered with barely restrained malice, but she was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice.
"Ground flooooor..."
She shook out her long, dirty blond hair behind her and lamented the fact that she worked on the top floor of what was already an enormous skyscraper. She did a last minute check of her orange and black shoulder slung purse to make sure she had everything, and tried to settle into non-work mode. She stared at the closed doors in front of her with cool blue eyes and pursed her glossy pink lips, reflecting on where she'd come from. She had gotten to where she was today because she could never really wrap her head around following others, and because she couldn't think of any alternative to being her own boss. She genuinely enjoyed being the head of a publishing company, to be able to give up-and-coming writers a chance to bring something great into the world. The fact that many of those same individuals had gone on to be hugely successful bestsellers was something she would always be proud of.
And yet, being in charge had its own way of getting old, especially when the people around you were constantly disappointing you with their incompetence, or with their unwillingness to challenge anything you said. She leaned against the side of the elevator and sighed again. Maybe she could even get some work done on her own writing later—a short horror fiction piece she had been working on for a few weeks.
Then the elevator stopped with an abrupt, grinding clank.
Gwen was jostled out of her own internal world, her balance faltering in the few seconds it took for her to catch up to gravity. She still wasn't sure what was happening when she got her bearings, but she was certain she couldn't be at the ground floor yet. There had to be dozens of floors left.
Then the lights went out and left her in total darkness.
Before she could react to much of anything, they had come back on, the elevator whirring back to life, humming softly as it descended. Whenever something like that happened, Gwen always liked to imagine that she was about to be visited upon by some horrible paranormal phenomenon. It made long, isolated trips down dark hallways and down dimly-lit elevators a little more exciting precisely because she knew it was extremely unlikely to happen.
Unlikely
instead of impossible because while she wasn't superstitious, she wasn't
totally
closed off to the idea.
Almost as if her thoughts had spawned it into being, a hushed, muffled laughter drifted to her ears from beyond the cold steel walls of the elevator. The playful daydream of being haunted died quickly after that, being replaced by a trapped, claustrophobic uncertainty.
"W-who's there?" She asked, immediately regretting having done so, thinking that if she did get an answer she might not like it.
"Who's there!"
A chorus of raspy voices called out, all repeating the phrase like a flock of shapeless, faceless parrots. When the mocking calls died down, Gwen could hear a busy collection of animalistic gibbering, accompanied by soft giggles and laughter.
BANG!
She screamed and scrambled away from the nearest wall of the elevator, retreating as fast as she could in her awkward heeled shoes from whatever had struck the outside of her rectangular prison. Her purse swung back and forth as she ran, and she almost stumbled in her efforts to reach the opposite wall. Breathing heavily, she tried to think of something, anything to do—but it was hard when she didn't even know the threat she faced.
When a fire axe smashed through the wall inches from her face, she screamed again and fled helplessly, having nowhere else to go but the side of the elevator she had just been on. Her heart beating what felt like several thousand miles per minute, she watched in disbelief as the axe chopped through the steel wall, a long, bladed drill boring a sizable hole into her small world only feet away from that.
Cruel shock after shock was disrupting the dull peace of her day-to-day life, and when the invading weapons were replaced by green, scaly grinning faces in the openings they had created, she felt her throat getting sore from her own shrill cries. When she had a moment to study those same faces however, she found herself getting strangely calmer. Years of engaging with horror media had led to her finding the monsters and malcontents of those stories fascinating, and much more appealing than your average fictional character.
The creatures accosting her now—assuming their proportions were consistent—were smaller than humans, more like large, vaguely humanoid animals. They had large, leathery ears like bat wings, flared nostrils, and wide open, haunting yellow eyes with sharp black serpentine pupils. They grinned at her with mouths lined with gleaming white fangs, housed in lumpy, spiked skulls. Their faces were hideously wrinkled, with deep-set creases forming around their dry, skinless lips and sunken eye sockets.
...And they were beautiful. Their faces were so flawlessly detailed, every gruesome feature highlighted by the dim fluorescents of the elevator, proportioned and positioned in the most artful of ways to bring out their truly terrifying natures. They were almost
cute
, in a grotesque way. Gwen decided then and there that if she had to die today, it would at least be at the hands of these wonderful monstrosities.
But the creatures didn't move from where they were, not proceeding to break down the walls further to get at her as she assumed they would. In fact, they weren't even looking at her anymore, but were instead looking at something that she hadn't even realized she'd dropped. When she followed their eyes to the book on the floor, her cheeks burned hot in embarrassment, even though the only witnesses to her choice of reading material were these fantastical beasts.
The creatures stared at her floor-bound copy of
Snuggling with Sasquatch
for a moment, taking in the cover image of a smiling human woman in bed, the covers pulled up to her neck, next to a tall, shaggy beast—that took up a good percentage of the cover with its absurd size—sporting glowing red orbs for eyes and long sharp claws. They looked back up at her, and then back at the book, a look of understanding coming over their goblinoid faces. Goblin faces? No, for some reason Gwen thought that these were definitely Gremlins.
Then their suddenly much more inquisitive faces disappeared from the holes. Taking her chance, Gwen rushed forward and picked up her book, stowing it safely back in her purse. Even if they were only gremlins, for anyone to know her shameful secret was almost too much for her to bear. She couldn't let anyone know that she read
erotica!
She quieted her thoughts, focusing on her surroundings. It sounded like the creatures were conversing, chattering to one another. Were they plotting on how to dismember her, limb by limb? Or perhaps devour her alive like a pack of wild hyenas? She could only wait in terrible anticipation. The gremlins returned quickly without fanfare, and almost immediately threw down their weapons. The gleaming axe and the stationary drill slid to a stop at her feet, leaving their former wielders unarmed. Gwen looked curiously back up at them.
The gremlin on the right then ducked back into his hole, and when he returned there was a different body part shoved through it. There in front of her, was a proportionately long, thick, veiny gremlin cock. The face on the left watched her solemnly, casting her a questioning glance.
And then she understood completely what they wanted and the significance of their actions. She wasn't sure if or when the plan had changed, but it was pretty clear that they didn't mean to harm her, at least not anymore. Gwen squirmed, her legs shifting back and forth under her short skirt, her translucent pantyhose hugging her thighs uncomfortably close.
Sex was not really something she "got", unless you were talking about continuing the species, and the mere mention of it in public was enough to send her walking fast in the opposite direction. Her exes had tried to convince her of its merits, but one to five awkward minutes of quiet grunting and awkward flopping hadn't been much of a powerful argument. What she was convinced of was that it was something you were supposed to do in private, in the dark, because you