by David Shiels
The video paused and the tablet slipped from Claudia’s now limp hands.
“Could this super power of a country not defend itself against an animal?!” Claudia stomped her foot onto the tablet, smashing it’s fragile screen.
“And could YOU, my main security personnel, not defend my precious livelihood from a mere animal?” She pointed her finger so hard that it looked like it might pop out of its socket.
“What is all the commotion in here! we’re trying to sleep! have some respect when you’re on watch- Oh...Claudia”
Two men and women sleepily walked in from the small office.
“Oh, even more losers who could not protect this place!” Claudia sneered, saliva flicking out through her now slightly yellowing teeth.
“Look” said one of the women. Claudia knew this woman was one of the cleaners. She was supposed to keep the walls clean. All day. Every day. “We only barely survived ourselves”
“Oh shut up you dirt faced whore” Claudia blasted.
“You had one job and look at the state of my precious Canadian pine walls. Look at them!!” She ran up to the wall and dramatically waved her hands in front of it.
“too busy sleeping huh? well it won’t do you any good. you’ll still be an ugly bitch no matter how much sleep you get” The veins in her neck appeared as if they were ready to abandon ship and find a new home.
The dark skinned man grabbed at Claudia to calm her down; she wriggled free and backed herself against the wood in the entrance doors.
“You never respected me. You only did this for the money and you still did a terrible job. I’m done with you all!”
She slowly pushed open one of the doors.
“No! don’t go out there. we’re sorry!” one of the women at the back announced.
The young tan skinned woman ran forward to prevent Claudia from leaving but halted her advance when she saw the head of a wolf reveal itself through the open door.
“I have no further use of you.” Claudia said. Emotionless. She slammed the door shut behind the wolf.
A Business Between Woman
And Wolf
The dark skinned man went to pull his pistol from his belt but he was too late. The wolf was in the room and had already fired a spike into his chest. He fell to the floor.
Felicity made a run for the doors but Claudia blocked her way, spreading her arms out wide. She turned around and met her end as the wolves razor sharp tail sliced her head from her body. Her corpse continued walking for a few moments until it released it had died.
The two men and women at the back of the room split up running away into different rooms. The wolf gave chase.
“Oh well, what’s a little more mess if it’s for a good cause?” Claudia giggled to herself.
The dark skinned man began his transformation from man to wolf and Claudia watched every second of it. When it was complete the wolf walked to her side and sat beside her staring ahead into the distance.
“Perfect” Claudia said to herself “Now I have two wolves” She smirked to herself and exited the room, away from where her employees ran.
Now was the time to relax. As Claudia made her way to the underground bunker she could hear no sounds. She worried slightly that the workers had overpowered her companion and would initiate a counter attack; these thoughts spurred on her sluggish, tired movement and she hurried along the long glass corridors.
The rooms she passed were all see through. Claudia wanted to be able to see what her employees were doing whenever she wanted; the entire place held no secrets. She could see into every room without needing to open a door or look at a camera. Every room was filled with various torn clothing items and splatters of blood. Some rooms were so filled with torn clothes that it was not possible to see the once immaculate gem encrusted floor beneath.
The glass in the hallways was not shattered but much of it was pierced with razor sharp pieces of, apparently, wood. But she knew it was the fur of wolves.
Each inch of the golden rimmed corridor and rooms passed made Claudia feel more and more sadness at what had happened in her building. All the times she had held business meetings that had earned her millions. All the times she had her staff members begging for another chance. That legacy that her father started and untrusted to her was now at an end; all her staff members, no matter how much she looked down upon them, did have uses, but were dead. It was time to move on.
She approached a line of four elevators and pushed the white button on the wall. This caused a deep mechanical sound to ring throughout the hallways and shortly after, one of the elevator doors opened. She quickly moved. Just before the doors had chance to close, a paw wedged itself through the gap, causing the doors to momentarily swing open.
It was Claudia’s companion.
Claudia couldn’t help releasing a small smile that the creature had not failed her, and a part of her, that she would never admit, was glad to see it was completely unharmed.
After riding up the elevator to floor sixty, which was also the top floor, she arrived at a small hallway and at the end was a room that was the only room in the building to not be completely made out of glass; her office.
She placed her hand on the scanner and the heavy, thick door slowly opened for her.
A man’s voice came through from one of the speakers in the room.
“Looking beautiful as always today Miss Claudia” But she didn’t feel beautiful right now.
Her room was untouched by the savage outside world and has been ever since she claimed the room as her abode the day she took over as rightful owner.
The room was of a large size housing many trophies and pictures scattered all along the left and right sides of the room. The pictures were mostly from award ceremonies and parties she had attended; she would have a picture taken with any person she deemed worthy, usually celebrities or people as rich as she was. She wanted to remember these people as she was usually surrounded by people far beneath her she believed. The far corner housed a large life size golden statue of Claudia; she would regularly polish it to keep it shining and today it was still shining bright.
She passed the trophies stroking each one of them with one finger as she slowly passed by; the awards were ones she had won from since she was a child; they ranged from beauty pageants to cheerleading trophies. When she passed a large silver trophy with a small blue and white ribbon attached to the rim she paused and had a vibrant memory of the evening she had achieved it.
The constant camera flashes assaulted her gleaming face; her perfectly aligned teeth reflecting the light back causing a mesmerising chain reaction to all those who had attended. Her long red hair swayed as she elegantly walked through the aisle, flawlessly shaking her hips from left to right, all eyes on her admiring every step she took. Her long silk red dress complimented her curvy figure, the bottom slightly touching the tips of each step she took as she climbed her way to her prize.
On the stage she spoke soft yet confidently as she explained why she deserved this award so much and how she had yearned to help the less fortunate people.
The bottom of the trophy read ‘Community Figure Of The Year 2014’.
Because that is what she was, or that was how she appeared. Most of her staff were either incredibly poor and desperate, dumb or people with criminal records.
Only a handful of her staff were actually qualified to do the work. This gave her two benefits; she could rule over her staff with an iron fist as she knew that without the job she had given them they would never get another job because of their history. She had always promised them a terrible reference.
Also it gave her publicity which made other companies more likely to want to be associated with her. The pay was low and the staff worked hard for it; mostly out of fear.
The window of the room spanned the entire of the back wall giving her a view of the entirety of St Petersburg. She placed both of her hands firmly against the glass and scanned the view from left to right.
“O
ne day I was going to rule all of this” She looked down at the wolf as if speaking to it; Sadness began to take hold of her tired face.
“America will have to do.”
In many of the streets below, so small yet so large at the same time, she could see small brown dots scurrying around; the wolves. There were still many of them and she was surprised how she had never seen any on her travel throughout the city.
She was glad they were on her side. She turned around and faced her desk; on it were modelling pictures of herself, but also one of the person she respected most in the world; her father.
She pulled open one of the desks drawers and emptied its contents onto the floor. At the bottom of the draw was another scanner which required her hand print; she obliged and pressed her palm against it. The centre of the wall on the right hand side of the room began to smoothly turn, barely making a sound.
Behind it was another elevator. Before moving towards the elevator Claudia’s eye caught notice of something on the floor sparkling in the light of the city; a red spiked collar on the floor. Memories swept over her thoughts, penetrating her view.
The memory was of her in her back garden as a young teenager. It was by her side; a large Siberian husky. Loyal, strong, dependable. That day was the day that snapped Claudia.
Another memory locked away hidden behind drunken nights and missions of powerful success.
A young boy. A special boy. A knife. A Slice. A stab. A game to someone whose brain knew no better. A bleeding dog. A broken young girl. Father murdered then best friend murdered too soon after.
The collar had belonged to the dog that her twin Brother had killed. Less than a year after her father was murdered. Her two favourite people gone in a year. Taken by other people.
Rare thoughts. Claudia couldn’t help shaking her head to rid herself of the memory, and the pain.
Claudia slightly squatted down to be face to face with her wolf friend. He reminded her a lot of her dog, Hilisky. She rubbed it’s ears then placed the soft collar around its neck. It did not seem to mind this.
“Good boy, Hilisky” She patted it’s head.
Claudia slowly approached the elevator, Hilisky by her side, and placed her eye towards a small red bulb; a blue light shot out into Claudia’s right eye making a satisfying bleeping noise.
The elevator doors slid open.
She took one long forlorn look at a room she had spent so much time in making so many decisions affecting the lives of so many people, but ultimately she concluded, it was all for nothing.
She entered the elevator and pushed the small red button on the wall. The elevator descended below the basement level and opened out into a dimly lit corridor.
Relaxation
At the end was the large, thick iron door which hid behind it the room in which Claudia planned to spend a lot of time reenergizing, thinking and strategizing.
She again placed her eye to a red bulb and the gigantic door slowly opened itself to her. She walked inside, her wolf companion still besides her, and the door closed tightly behind them.
The moment she entered the room the ceiling lit ablaze as power from the lightly humming generator from below the room automatically turned on all of the lights and lamps in the room. She raised her right hand and shielded her eyes from the sudden assault of illumination, while cursing the person who thought this was a good idea.
This was the first time she had ever entered this domain. She designed it and planned it to the finest detail but never thought it would ever be used. She was impressed with what she saw; it was all a person would ever need.
The room spanned the length of a football field and was filled with many still wrapped luxurious items; large leather sofas, a large king-sized bed, pinball machines, arcade machines, chandeliers and many more items which were still unseen due to being overshadowed by other larger items.
Claudia walked further in the room. She had no idea where to begin as there was no order to how items had been placed; the entire room looked like a warehouse.
Hilisky quickly decided to make a long beautiful red sofa his current bed, laying his head on his arms while watching Claudia.
On the left wall of the room was a large display of monitors which were showing live footage of the entire building. There was enough monitors to see each and every inch of the building, even the outside. Claudia stopped and looked at a monitor that caught her attention. She saw a pack of wolves skulking around floor seven with their noses firmly stuck to the floor; they were hunting prey. She saw on the next monitor that nearby there more of her staff members hiding. This annoyed her; while she was starving to death outside, all of her workers were cowering indoors selfishly helping themselves.
She willed on the wolves to find their prey.
And they did very soon after. Now the building was being patrolled by even more wolves.
One of the monitors was turned off, causing Claudia to see her appearance staring back at her. She immediately ran into one the room at the back of her football field bunker and the sound of a shower head pouring streams of water was heard soon after.
The water felt good as it fell against her face and down her aching shoulders and back; she did not have to fiddle with the dials on the shower unit to find the perfect water warmth.
She tore off the now wet dress she had been wearing for four days, making an echoing slapping sound as it hit the floor, and let her entire body feel the force of the rejuvenating waters as she repeatedly spun around and around, embracing the cleansing nature.
The floor around her feet was black with filth as the dirt, blood and sick fell from her body. She rubbed hard against her skin repeatedly using a small red sponge; she made sure to cover every inch.
Her mind blanked out the ordeals and horrors of the previous days as she felt an intense feeling of euphoria come all over her, causing her body to tingle so fierce that she had to hug herself so intently, her knees almost buckling under the pleasure, and let out small gasps of sensual relief.
She remained in the shower for one hour before the feeling wore off and she noticed how pruned her hands had turned; she immediately turned off the shower, grabbed a large blue towel from the side, not needing to move a centimetre to acquire it, and dried herself down, slowly.
The bathroom was surprisingly small considering how grand the main room of the bunker was. It contained a simple shower, a toilet imported from Japan which could squirt water to clean hard to reach places and a life sized mirrored cabinet; which inside had over six dozen toothbrushes, toothpastes, mouthwashes and an unnecessarily large range of cosmetics which took up over 80% of the space; all still in their original packaging.
After satisfying that craving Claudia decided now was the time to feast, and feast she did. Her curves were what made her feel powerful, she could feel superior to girls who were thin and shapeless, while also making large girls feel inferior every time she, purposely closely, walked past them flaunting her shape.
The room next to the bathroom was the food storage room which was mostly made up of shelves and large freezers full of food. The canned food consisted mainly of baked beans, meatballs, spaghetti, tuna, fruit cans and all day breakfasts. No fresh food was available nor food with shelf dates shorter than 2 years. She had requested to the builders to ensure all kinds of food was available as she always tends to have varying craving. The food would last years but after it’s inevitable diminishment, there were thousands of packets of powdered food which would last one person's lifetime.
In the excessively large freezers there were mainly salads, mixed vegetables and fruits. This food would not last as long as the canned food and was replenished only every six months, the last restock being luckily one month ago.
She sat down at the small circle table with her meal; she had decided to eat tuna, vegetables and some bananas cooked the food on a small portable hob. As she began to eat she looked through the open door and witnessed Hilisky sitting down motionless in the same position he had
chosen when he entered the room.
She wanted to know why she cared so much but without much thinking she stopped her meal, grabbed some meat from the freezer and threw it out for the beast to eat. It jumped down from the sofa and began chomping.
Her meal did not last long but left her now smaller stomach as full as it would like to be.
Although she now wanted nothing more than to sleep on her prestigious king sized bed she felt the sudden desire to gossip. She had been without true social interaction for so long but she wondered if her best friend would still be alive after all that happened.
She returned to the monitors, now displaying an abundant amount more wolves than before, and picked up the nearby phone, carefully tapping the small numbers with her now smooth fingers. As the phone made a grizzled ringing tone she sat, back, crossed her legs and braced herself to present a monologue of the weekend from hell that she had just endured, and proudly, survived.