The creature prepared itself for the strike that Charles was sure would rip apart their defensive measures, he felt his muscles tense as his body went into fight or flight mode.
The silence was shattered when the beast crashed through the door, its powerful strike completely destroying the door and everything that was used to barricade it. The tables and chairs shattered into pieces as they flew everywhere, with large piece of a desk flew straight toward Selene who was still frozen in shock.
Marco was the first to react, breaking out from his state of shock, his military training kicking in, "Move" he barked, voice sharp, the same of note of command that would snap soldiers into attention. He was already pushing Selene towards the sofa where Phil was frozen wide eyed, while Charles rolled away dodging another piece of furniture, hands still clenched tightly around his pipe.
The table crashed into the wall behind where Selene was, shattering into pieces, but thanks to Marco she was out of harm's way, she was now covering Phil with her body to protect him from the remaining pieces of furniture that might harm him. Marco, now in a crouching position after dodging the table that nearly crushed Selene, gripped the spear in his hand tighter and without hesitation, he lunged at the beast, Marco was a tall man and he was muscular too, perhaps due to his military background. His strength stat was a 15 way higher than Charles 10.
He charged at the creature using momentum and his body mass to his advantage, with the calm of a veteran that had fought many battles, he analyzed his opponent. Noticing the fact that the creature stood on two leg, he decided to do what he'd do when fighting a human. He stabbed with his spear, noticing that it didn't go in too deep due the strong skin of the beast. Noticing that his spear didn't have the desired effect against the foul thing, he did the next best thing in his mind at the moment. He tackled the beast.
Yes, using the fact that the beast was still in the process of trying to take its first step towards its prey. He managed to somewhat catch it off guard, he managed to just barely lift the human sized rat of the ground and using the momentum pushed the beast out of the office and into the parking lot.
The beast was stunned for a moment, but with the instinct of the feral beast that it was, moved its mouth towards Marco's neck and snapped at it.
Marco with instinct trained over years of battle felt a tingle at the back of his neck, trusting his instinct, gave it one last push, pulled out his spear and retreated quickly before jumping back while making sure to keep the beast in his line of sight the entire time, he was just in time to notice the beast snap his jaw shut towards where his neck was a second ago. Cold sweat ran down his back as he gulped down saliva, mentally thanking the heavens that he trusted his instinct. His hand clenched tighter on the makeshift spear in his hand, wondering how the heck it had gotten to this.
For a moment, the sight of those jaws pulled him back—to the kitchen. To Carl.
He had gone there during his lunch break, expecting a meal and maybe a laugh. Instead, something had lunged at him in the storage room. Hollow white eyes. Rotten flesh. A goldfish tattoo under its right eye. His old friend Carl.
Its teeth would've taken his throat if not for the sandbag tied to his forearm. Even then, Marco had felt the pressure of jaws grinding against him. He hadn't thought—just reached for a kitchen knife.
"I'm sorry, Carl."
The blade had driven into bone. Even after the strike, Carl twitched and snarled like death itself hadn't reached him yet. And when Marco stumbled back into the kitchen proper… everyone was gone. Mary. The chefs. All feasting on one another, faces frozen in horror.
That was when Marco understood: hesitation kills.
Back to the present, Charles, recovering from the initial shock from watching a human, huge as he may be, tackle that beast, bolted out from the room knowing that Marco couldn't handle that beast on his own. Selene after making sure that Phil was well hidden behind a sofa, took a deep breath, clenched her makeshift spear and with eyes gleaming with determination ran out to help the others fight the creature. Her hands still shook, but this time she forced them to grip the spear.
The beast noticing that there was nothing in his jaws stared around in confusion before noticing Marco, Charles and Selene standing in front of it, all in battle poses, with the will to fight this creature and survive.