“We have to go.” Sasha pulled herself up higher, pulled the sheet off her, and once free, swung her feet over to Rachel’s side of the bed.
Brandon watched her with intensity. “Can’t you change?” It sounded like a good idea, if there ever was one. If another one of them was coming, she seemed to be their best bet for a defense against it.
Sasha brought her feet to the floor. It felt cold. It felt smooth, almost like ice, and with her weakened state, she wasn’t sure if she could even stand at first, but she did manage to do it. It took everything she had to keep from falling. “I can’t.” She steadied herself with the bed behind her for support.
Rachel turned around to her and helped her with her right arm under her left.
“Not when I’m this weak. The wolf won’t come into me. It will kill me in this state.”
Brandon sighed. Great.
“We have to get you out of here. We have to find a way out.”
Brandon looked back to the two doors behind him. The idea of hiding in the bathroom didn’t sit well with his fright. He knew they would be cornered in there, so that left only one other option. “We have to go to the next room.” He could now hear the thumping of something walking closer to the room from where he was. It told him that if they were going to go, now was the time.
Rachel agreed. She pulled Sasha’s arm and pulled her from the bed.
Sasha nodded, allowing the help.
Brandon opened the door, trying hard to be as quiet as he could be, went through it first, and stepped into the adjoining room.
Rachel led Sasha to the door and joined him there.
Once they were clear of the door, Brandon closed it again behind them.
There they waited. There they heard the footsteps approach the door of her room on the other side of the wall. Hearing them, they held their collective breaths. They couldn’t do anything else but wait.
Rachel clenched. She could tell that it was now inside Sasha’s room. She could hear it breathing. She could almost smell it. She turned and looked at the door to the hallway from the room they were now in, behind them, and saw it open. It was time to go. She took Sasha firmly under her left arm and pulled her to the doorway, looked back to Brandon and nodded.
He saw the look on her face, and nodded too. He understood everything. It was time to go. It was time to run.
The three of them left the room and fled into the hallway, moving as fast as they could go and headed right. They all separately tried not to look back.
Rachel couldn’t even if she wanted to. She was far too busy trying to keep Sasha on her feet. She tried hard to keep her moving. In fact, with her weakened state, she had to do most of the work.
Brandon, however, was free to do so, so he kept looking back. As they reached the halfway point of the hallway, moving back to the lobby, he saw a large, massive dark black beast turn to them from where they just were. His mind screamed from the sight of it. His heart flashed with the horror, as he watched it turn. He watched it move.
It left the room and saw them in the hallway, moved, howled, and then roared.
Rachel made it to the lobby with Sasha close by her side, and made it to the glass double doors, slamming into them with all of her weight.
The doors wouldn’t move. They did nothing.
Brandon made it to the counter and then stopped directly behind the two of them. He saw her stop at the doors, and easily saw that she wasn’t opening it. He hated everything that he saw. “What the fuck is it now?” his voice echoed around the small room. Behind him, the footsteps came strong. They came fierce. The thudding grew louder with every sound they made. With it all, his heart kept pace with the sound. It thumped right along with them.
“We’re locked in.” Rachel winced at the thought. Sasha braced herself for the attack that she knew was about to come.
Brandon gasped.
The footsteps sounded like they were almost to the corner of the hallway, but suddenly stopped. The entire area grew quiet with only the sounds of their own breathing with them.
Brandon blinked.
Rachel did too.
Sasha wasn’t fooled. “He’s playing with us.” She looked to the side of the counter. She was well aware of the tactic. The wolf was alone, and like that, it was using stealth to attack. It used fear as part of the game that it played.
“How do you mean, playing with us.” Brandon’s eyes grew wide and unforgiving. He didn’t like the sounds in her voice. He hated the words. He had never been hunted before, at least not by this thing, and he began to regret ever coming there. He felt so helpless. He felt so wrong. There wasn’t anything that he could think of to do. Hell, there wasn’t anything that he was even aware of being able to try to do, even if he could.
Rachel looked from the glass door and back towards the counter. The woman that helped them when they came in was gone. She could only think that the wolf had gotten her already, but other than that thought, something else caught her attention. In the shaded darkness, she could see something rather large and red hanging on the wall besides it. It looked like a fire extinguisher. Seeing it, it gave her an idea.
Brandon turned from watching Rachel move away from the door and looked back to the hallway’s corner wall. He strained to listen. He tried to hear it, but he heard nothing. Even with that, it had to be there. It had to be waiting for them. Like Sasha said, it was hunting them. It was waiting for the right time to strike them.
Sasha watched Rachel disappear to the side of the counter and then stand up again. She could see something in front of her that she now carried with her. She couldn’t see what it was, so she turned back to Brandon.
He walked back to the corner, using the counter on his right for support, having his right hand on top of it as he moved. He walked, almost scuffling his feet along the white tiled floor, sliding closer, still trying to listen. When he reached the corner, he stopped. There were no other sounds. He heard nothing moving. He heard nothing at all. “I think it’s gone.” He turned back to the others.
The shadows were heavy over Sasha’s face, with only the light coming into the lobby from the double glass doors and the parking lot lights outside behind her, but he could still see her eyes flare with what looked like fear.
He saw the look. Her eyes looked huge and wide. Her face looked drawn out and long. She also looked terrified. She looked petrified. She looked down right scared to her very core.
Behind Brandon, standing a good two feet above his firm face, the wolf came around the corner and looked down to the top of his head.
Brandon heard something that sounded like breathing coming from above him. A slimy clear, but yet murky substance came down to his left shoulder and splattered to the floor. The little that hit him felt warm. He heard it splat onto the tile. He continued to watch the look on Sasha’s face, and stared into her petrified eyes.
The wolf snarled, curling its snout.
Hearing the snarl, he knew what was now behind him, literally. He turned fast. His entire body trembled as he did it. The wolf roared to his face. The smell coming from it seemed beyond horrible; it smelled rotted. It smelled with a stench of sweet. It smelled almost like decay. With every sense he had, he screamed a high-pitched sound of pure terror after smelling it.
“Lookout!” Sasha shouted to him, trying to warn him, trying to get him to turn, but she knew it was already too late. It was already there. It was already too close.
The wolf reached out with a solid, large, heavy arm that came so fast that Brandon couldn’t do anything about it. He barely even saw it coming.
The blow struck him in his left arm and caused his entire body to recoil from the blast. It felt beyond intense. It felt downright powerful. It felt almost like someone had just swung a sledgehammer at his arm with their full strength behind it. The momentum carried him up and over the counter with such force that he barely even touched the top of it as he went over it.
All Sasha could see was his shoes fly over the top o
f the counter and disappear behind it.
Rachel turned and watched only his feet in the air. She rushed past Sasha’s right arm and stepped in front of the wolf. She pulled the pin at the top of the two-foot long red barrel extinguisher, squeezed the handle, and aimed the cone shaped nozzle ahead of her.
Vapor exploded from the cone.
The wolf roared, watching a cloud of ice-cold air flow over its face. It blasted its fur. It scorched its snout with nothing but ice.
Rachel squeezed with everything she had. She couldn’t stop. She forced her right hand to only press harder to the handle.
Brandon climbed to his knees. His left shoulder raked with pain, and it already began to throb. It already started to burn. A single chair, a normal desk chair with rollers at the bottom of its legs, was there in front of his face. He pressed his right hand to the seat and used it to climb back to his feet. He looked to the back of the counter and winced with what he saw behind it.
Lying on the floor, he saw a woman looking back at him with what looked like blood covering her face. Even with the lack of light, he could still see that half of her face was missing. He couldn’t even recognize her, but he didn’t need to. He knew that it had to be the young woman that was at the counter when they came in. Seeing her, or what was left of her, he gasped. He gagged. He almost threw up.
Rachel continued to blast.
The wolf continued to yelp.
The thudding sound it made echoed from the room.
She heard it slowly grow softer. Hearing it, it dawned on her that the beast must have turned and left, so she let go of the handle and made the carbon cloud fade out to nothing. She kept her eyes focused on the area that it filtered. She readied to squeeze again, but the wolf was gone. She confirmed everything with a nod.
Sasha watched it all, and when Rachel dropped the nozzle to her side, she moved to the open side of the counter behind her and softly walked to Brandon. She took his right hand into hers.
“I’m fine.” He grimaced. He let go of Sash’s hand and rushed it to his painful left shoulder. He tried to hold it and hoped that it would help to stop the pain. “The girl’s back here.” He swallowed nothing but a dry mouth. “What’s left of her anyway?”
Sasha turned back to Rachel. “You stunned it, but it will come back.”
Rachel turned to her, listening. “Then we don’t give it the chance.” She passed the counter, walked back to the double glass doors, lifted the tubular extinguisher to the door on her left, and using the handle, she swung the bottom of it towards the door.
It crashed. Shattered glass flew everywhere.
She made sure all of the glass was gone from the door by continually swinging the extinguisher up to the glass, and when all of it was gone, she turned back to the others. “Time to go.”
Sasha led Brandon out from behind the counter and to Rachel with her right hand under his right elbow.
“You’re telling me.” Brandon limped some, but not a lot. He and Sasha crossed through the right door and walked out to the sidewalk at the front of the building, until they reached Rachel’s car. There they stopped and turned back around.
Rachel looked back to the counter one final time before she left. She still didn’t see anything, so she ran outside and joined the others there.
42
Jimmy ran as fast as he could go, making it back to the little town of Castleford in only about an hour, and by then, the sleepy little town looked quiet. Every house that he passed looked still. Now all he had to do was to find the clinic that Rachel took Sasha to, and quite frankly, he had no idea where to start looking for it. He figured that it had to be on the main road, so it was the best place to start his search.
He made it to the downtown section when he heard something off in the distance that sounded like glass breaking. It sounded soft, but was still there all the same. He didn’t expect to hear it, and couldn’t imagine what happened to cause it, but he didn’t care. Following the sound was the best place to start.
He ran, following the main road out of downtown Castleford, and found a rather large one storied building on his right. It was far larger than the surrounding homes and buildings around it, so he figured that it had to be the place that he was looking for.
He left the main road and ran into the parking lot at the front of the building, and saw Castleford Clinic written in large red letters at the top and front of it. He also saw two cars parked in the lot. One of them was parked to the side of the building to the right, and the other one was in the center of the lot closest towards what looked like the front doors, and at that one, he could see three heads there, on the other side of the car from him. He could see Sasha’s tan colored hue glow around her, and could see two others that carried a yellowish tint around them as well. Thank God. He ran to them with a flurry in his steps.
“Guys?” He came to the car, ran around the trunk, and stopped at the passenger side.
“Jimmy, thank God.” Rachel dropped the fire extinguisher to her feet and flung herself at him.
He caught her in his arms and hugged her strongly to his chest. With her safe, he looked over to Sasha and then to Brandon. He could easily see that he was holding his left arm with his right, and could easily see that Sasha was wearing what looked like a hospital’s gown. Something’s wrong? He could tell. “What is it?” he asked, using his right hand to coddle the back of Rachel’s beautiful black hair.
“There’s a wolf inside. He was trying to get us.” Sasha turned to him, with her eyes still flaring.
Brandon winced from his pain.
Jimmy couldn’t believe what he just heard. “Who is it this time?” he had to ask.
Sasha shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s a black wolf. He has to be one of us.”
Jimmy looked to the front doors of the building, and could see the hint of glass at the foot of the doors. He took a deep breath and smelled the air around him, and could smell mustiness coming from the building. It smelled faint, but it was still there. Smelling it, he nodded. He let go of Rachel and held her out in front of him. “You okay?”
She nodded.
He could think of only one thing to do. “You all stay here.” He had to go in and find out who it was. He had to find it. He had to stop it. If it was one of them, then he knew that it was up to him to stop it. He could fight it. He now knew that he could do it.
Sasha turned to him fully. “Jimmy?” She stepped closer to him and stopped directly besides Rachel. “You don’t know who he is. He could be another like you are. He could be just as strong as you too.”
He could see her fear. He could smell it fully. “If it’s after you—if it’s after us, then I have to stop it. I have to.”
Sasha blinked. She could see the determination in his eyes. She could sense the feelings of curiosity in his soul. She understood his sense of fight. He was showing himself more as Kalima than he ever had before, and she liked seeing it, but even still, he still had to be cautious. There were things that he needed to understand first, if he was going to pick a fight. “If you’re going to go in, you have to first understand a few things.” She stared at his bright brown eyes.
He picked his head up and gave her his full attention.
“A wolf is intelligent, as intelligent as the person that he is, but as the wolf he will rely on instinct more than as a human. If you have to fight, don’t change until you have to. As long as they are the wolf, they will comply with that instinct. Stay human, and keep that at bay. Think, don’t react.”
He nodded, taking everything in. It all made sense, so he continued to listen with intent.
She nodded, seeing his eyes glisten to hers. “If one is alone they will stalk you. It will hide waiting for an advantage. If it is hiding, then cause noise. It will show itself.”
That word stuck out in his thoughts. “Noise?”
She nodded. “Something loud. Something ringing. It hurts us.”
He nodded, and understood. They had perfect hearing, so w
hat she said made complete sense. “Got it.” He let go of Rachel and turned to leave.
Rachel retook both of his arms. “Jimmy? Don’t go.” She heard what he was intending to do, and didn’t like it one bit. They had escaped, and it took everything they had to do it.
He turned back to her. “I have to. This stops now.” He smiled. He broke his right arm free from her grip and took the bottom of her chin into the palm of his hand. “I’ll be all right.” He squeezed her some there.
She bowed her head, knowing that it was pointless to argue with him with his mind made up.
He looked to Sasha and then to Brandon. “Keep her here with you.” He smiled and nodded. He looked back to Rachel’s powerful and hypnotic eyes. “I know you.” He chuckled some.
She smiled.
Sasha nodded.
Brandon leaned to the side of the car.
Jimmy turned from the car and left it, running up to the front doors of the building as the smell of the wolf grew stronger in his nose. He could smell strength. He could smell anger. He could smell coldness. The wolf had to be large. It had to be strong. It hated. It felt determined to kill all of them, all of those smells told him as he walked through the broken glass doors.
43
Once inside the lobby, the smell of mustiness came from all around the interior of the building, and quickly he noticed that the smell came strongest towards his left, so he turned, following the scent, which led him to a corner on his right and there he stopped. There, he turned quickly, moving fast, and looked around the corner.
A long hallway was all that was there.
If the wolf is still here, it has to be stalking me. Sasha’s right. It’s hiding. He looked back to the lobby. I have to find something that makes noise. It might be the only way to get the thing to tell me where it is. To the right of the lobby, he looked back to the double doors and saw nothing that he could use. Across from him was a door, but that was it. To his left, behind the counter just on the wall about half way up it, something was there, and seeing it, it looked like a fire alarm. He left the corner and made his way to it quickly, and saw that it was a pull box type. Pulling it would set off the alarm. He did everything quickly, without thinking fully. He grabbed the handle of the alarm and pulled.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 53