The Spiked Wolf

by David Shiels

  Once she had soaked herself in her own glory, lavishing every single second of it, she turned to Studley, wondering what she should do with him. He was nothing but an empty shell to her, she felt nothing for him.

  For now she decided to keep him around. He listens to her, although she never speaks to him, plus he made a great punching bag for her. She knew that could come in useful again.

  When the screaming ceased, Claudia put on a voice she had not used in a long time, she named it the ‘loving sister voice’ “Studley darling, it’s time to go” It was the voice she had used when they had lived together before their parents divorced. She would use Studley to impress her friends in the neighbourhood by making him indulge in silly, cruel pranks that left him looking humiliated, leaving Claudia looking hilarious.

  Claudia remembers these as the only good times involving Studley; the rest was him lashing out at everyone or breaking all of Claudia’s toys because he believed a demon possessed them as she played with them, then one day his brain completely broke down and he became the statue that assists Claudia on the greatest and most defining moment in her life.

  Studley lurched to his feet, looking as if he had felt no pain from the punishment he received. Claudia did feel some admiration for that, but silently thanked her father for it, he was always such a resilient man.

  The three wolves surrounded Claudia, giving her an unprecedented sense of protection, the last time she felt this way was when she was deep inside her bunker, but it wasn’t real protection. She was quick to leave the wolves behind and attempt to carry on alone but now she knew she needed them as much as they needed her, and she understood exactly why they needed her. If she dies, they die. However, this deal worked just fine for her: she rules the world, they get to live.

  Before she was allowed to be satisfied with the safety she felt, an electronic alarm echoed throughout the hallways with a man's voice that carried with it the sense of utmost urgency.

  “All guards to containment block C. Kill all targets on sight. Do not hesitate.”

  Claudia suspected that this was containment block C.

  The First Taste

  Of Blood

  The two humans and three wolves delayed no longer and ran down the bright hall. Two wolves ran in tandem with Claudia, slowing their speed down to match her injured run pace, as one followed just slightly behind them.

  Soldiers popped out of doorway after doorway, yet each time they did, as if the wolf could predict it, they would receive a spike to their throat just as they appeared. The screams behind the pack would echo throughout the hallways, drawing the guards behind into that direction.

  As they reached an intersection things became extremely tricky. Armed armoured guards, the same armour used when they raided Claudia’s business, ran towards them from all four directions. There was at least three of each per hallway. Each wolf ran off into a separate direction to face their foes, leaping from wall to wall, shooting as rapidly as their strong bodies would let them while dodging bullets and smashing gun’s out of stiff, heavy arms.

  Claudia thought one of the hallways had been left undefended until a wolf crashed through the grated ceiling, crushing one of the guards underneath the netted grill, the wolves weight adding enough kilograms to instantly squeeze the life out of the guard.

  While Studley looked on, mesmerized, Claudia slipped into a nearby room as the fighting went on, no longer were her good looks and charms a boon to her, everyone in this building knew she had to die, she couldn’t take bullets like the wolves could, or run at 40 miles per hour. No, she had to use her wits and keep out of the line of fire.

  She slammed the door shut behind her, quickly ensuring it stayed that way for a while by sliding the nearby cabinet over the door. In her frenzied rush she had failed to look at who or what was in the room. It turned out that a familiar face was in here, a familiar face that needed to suffer.

  “You!” Claudia shouted, before she even finished fully turning around.

  “I have been hating myself since I found out.” Jessica pushed herself off of her small bed, her eyes red and black, stained with tears. “If only I would of let Badger kill you, this would have all been over”

  Claudia reached behind her and grabbed the vase on waist high cabinet she had moved, smashed the edge of it on the side to make it into a sharp weapon and looked towards Jessica, directly into her eyes.

  “You know, the only thing that kept me going during those torturous moments was seeing your face smashed in” A confident smile merged onto her face. She stepped closer.

  “It was all in the name of science, and as god is my witness, I wish I had never gone so easy on you, I could have ended it so easy. All those lives that are currently being lost are all my…” Jessica’s speech was cut short as Claudia flung the broken vase directly into Jessica face; it smashed on impact, glass shards stabbing into her thin cheeks. Jessica flew back onto her bed, blood now dripping from the deep wounds, staining the once crystal white sheets.

  Both women were hardly adept at fighting. Both had led relatively physical combat free lives. Claudia had fought a lot with children when she was younger but it was mostly her pulling at their hair in a surprise attack. When she was older she had other people to fight her battles.

  “You do not deserve to become one of my minions!” Claudia jumped on the woman as she lay trying frantically to pick the large shards out of her face.

  Claudia was on her too fast. She used her fingers and pushed the glass further into her face, this caused her fingers to bleed and burn, yet she knew the woman on the other end was feeling much worse.

  Jessica thrashed out a knee to Claudia’s stomach, igniting the dull pain from Badgers abuse into a fierce one that made her writhe on the edge of the bed.

  Jessica sat up and screamed as she yanked out the pieces of glass, one at a time in quick succession. She tried her best to ignore the stinging sensation that felt like her face had been slashed with a large thick piece of paper then dabbed with a fresh shot of vinegar.

  Outside the room the fighting was still in full fury. Gunshots were heard for small amounts at a time; they came in short bursts, seeming to stop just as quick as they started.

  Jessica ran to the blocked door and heavily placed her hands on the cabinet, her shaking hands making it harder to push the cabinet out of the way than she thought they would. Claudia was on her again, up quicker than Jessica anticipated, catching her off guard. She grabbed her golden bun of hair hard from behind then smashed her forehead into the edge of the cabinet. Jessica’s vision went blank for a few seconds as her brain crashed against the front of her skull.

  Claudia was putting her full effort into each and every attack. If she wasn’t in an injured state then Jessica would have surely been knocked unconscious after the first attack.

  Again Claudia smashed her head down, then once again, each blow weakening Jessica, lessening her chances of escaping, and each one giving Claudia a satisfying bone crushing sound.

  “Please...Stop….” Jessica pleaded through bloody tears.

  Claudia stopped to let her speak, but only so could rest her aching arms to ensure the next blows deliver more impact. She was still so furious at this woman who had caused her so much pain and suffering.

  “I have a daughter and a family... I need to see them, please”

  After a few seconds longer of resting, paying no attention to the pleads of the seriously injured woman, Claudia slammed down Jessica’s head for the final few times, until the young scientists head went limp in her hands.

  Just before Jessica’s life drained away her heart broke into tiny pieces as she thought of her small, innocent daughter growing up without a mother, probably in years to come even forgetting what she sounded and looked like.

  But what Jessica did not know is that at this very precise moment her home estate had been over-run by the large pack of wolves that had managed to bypass the American borders armed forces.

  Mother and daughter
both died at the exact same time.

  Claudia released her grip from the lifeless head, the blonde hair now slowly turning a rusty red as the blood ran down many directions from the gaping hole in Jessica head that revealed part of her brain. The body fell onto the cabinet then slid off and cracked onto the floor.

  The murderer looked at her bloody hands knowing she should feel something. This was her first time, the first time she had ever taken a person's life. She had wished many people dead on almost a daily basis but never even thought of acting out her feelings.

  She felt nothing, no remorse, no empathy. This woman caused her more pain than anyone in her life and she deserved all she got. Claudia now saw herself as more important than ever before, the fate of a whole species depended on her life. This is how she justified it. It worked for her.

  On the outside of the room she could still hear gunfire, yet it was much further in the distance than before. She waited for a small amount of time, each second that passed making the puddle of thick blood around Jessica grow ever bigger.

  When the sea of blood had completely surrounded the corpse, the gunfire had completely stopped. Claudia knew that it was now the time to go. She was tired of waiting around.

  She pushed the cabinet aside, ensuring she didn’t place her hands on the area where Jessica’s brain was smashed apart, then slowly exited the room, this time making sure she peered out before fully dedicating herself.

  Deeper Into The Core

  The hallway was quiet but she knew it was safe as to her amazement Studley was standing exactly where she had left him. He was completely unharmed.

  “This game is really good” Said Studley in a monotone, lacking any sort of enthusiasm.

  “Yes, the game” Claudia didn’t even try to understand his thought process and walked right past him. He followed.

  She pondered which way to go. She wanted to escape but had no idea where she was. She looked down each hallway, they were as expected and littered with torn army clothing. This was good; each piece of clothing meant one less enemy and one more ally.

  Before she decided which way to go a wolf came trotting casually from the direction she was facing. It came close and gently placed its jaw around her hand, pulling her in the direction it had come from.

  Claudia did not find her hand being in the wolf's mouth a disgrace like she would a few days ago. She happily let the wolf lead her away at a slight jogging pace; after all, she couldn’t risk being alone anymore.

  After being led down many hallways which all looked the same as the last, each only differentiated by the amount of cloths that decorated it, they eventually ended up at an elevator. The wolf jumped up and firmly tapped the operating button with its paw. After a few moments the lift door opened and the trio walked into the large dusty lift.

  Claudia noticed at the bottom of the dial pad that a key was slinging side to side in a slot that had a red glowing sign above it that said “TOP SECRET”. She wondered if the wolves had inserted this key.

  The wolf slammed his soft paw onto the key. The key pushed further into the keyhole making the entire lift glow with a vibrant red hue. Then lift then descended. Claudia noted that the lift was already on the lowest floor possible just as the lift further descended. She wasn’t going outside just yet.

  The journey took about two minutes, Claudia quizzed about just how far down the lab stretched?

  When the elevator stopped and the doors swung open Claudia found herself in an amazing place. A place on that makes the previous lab look like a children's chemistry set. She was on a small walkway looking down:

  She was in a huge open spaced lab. It must have spanned the length of at least four football pitches. Inside were more tools and futuristic looking gadgets to even begin to mention. She couldn’t even guess what even five percent of it was. She wondered how much it would cost to power the place. The amount of lights alone was staggering.

  The wolf lead her onto a small platform but this time Claudia pushed the button for herself. The lift lowered slowly down. Claudia noted all the wolves running around the large lab, they seemed like they were looking for something as they were jumping in and out of all the cabling and large machinery.

  From above the space looked humongous, yet being down amongst it did not feel it as there was so much stuff that it was hard to move. There were things that looked like robots out of sci-fi films; they came in all sorts of sizes, some were even as big as ones seen in crazy Japanese animated shows. There was large rockets, yet shaped different to rockets Claudia was used to seeing. There were screens everywhere displaying data and coding that she couldn’t even guess the name of.

  She was unsure what to think of the place. It was so alien to her and she was confused as to why she was here. She felt uncomfortable and beginning to feel that she was yet again not in control of the situation. She had hoped that the wolf was leading her to a helicopter, perhaps she could have gone to the white house and made a deal of becoming president and sparing the lives of the Americans if they agreed to obey her rule.

  The wolf lead her around the complicated maze of machinery to a place that actually looked familiar to Claudia and made her feel slightly more comfortable; a simple desk with a laptop computer on it and a basic computer swivel chair.

  She placed herself on the seat and let out a big sigh of relief that she could finally relax. She noticed Studley standing just to the side of her; she had completely forgotten he was even with her.

  She booted up the laptop, curious to see how the world above ground was faring since she had been captured.

  Achieving A Dream

  She found out that America had indeed been breached by the wolves and was currently in a mass state of panic as each state was slowly being destroyed, not only by the wolves but also by mass looting and a complete collapse of the justice system. But what shocked her most was that on every news site, even on the home page of Google, was a big picture of Claudia informing everyone and anyone who comes across her to kill on sight no questions asked. The reward offered was going down as the hero of the survival of the human race.

  “Oh so that’s how they want to be, wanting me dead?” She thought to herself. “Forget the plan to rule America. Let my beasts destroy it!”.

  Claudia browsed for a time as the wolves continued to search the room for whatever it was they were looking for. She read countless stories about herself from the perspective of the American audience.

  As she read the stories a wolf would place a plate of food on the table next to her. It was only cold food but with not being fed since being captured back in Russia, she was grateful for anything to eat, and this time they weren’t trying to feed her with human limbs like back on the island. It wouldn’t be able to stay this way however, this food was not food fit for a queen.

  The articles talked of her business, of how she had caused its profits to vastly fall since inheriting it from her father. These lies angered Claudia. They posted fake facts and figures showing her she had crashed down the FTSE as fast as a prostitute falls on a rich man's penis.

  They talked of her family, of her retarded brother, of her filthy whore of a mother. She was fine with this, they meant nothing to her. But certain articles spoke of her father, calling him the devil for creating such a spawn as Claudia, how did he raise such an evil bitch, why didn’t he abort her when he saw how ugly she was, and so on. This man was better than any of them and they would all pay for saying such things about him, and her.

  They used Photoshop to put her face in various situations that the other readers found hilarious. One picture had her giving oral sex to a transsexual ogre with two penises. She hoped that a large spike sliced through their skulls as soon as that picture was created.

  People truly hated the power that she possessed. It was the same in Russia and it’s exactly the same on this side of the world. People were jealous that it isn’t them that commands an army of bloodthirsty, loyal wolves.

  People envy that they don’t h
ave the charisma and eloquent aura that even animals cannot resist.

  She slammed the lid of the laptop down, tired of reading such things about herself. As a child she wanted her name to be in bright lights and her face to be the one that everyone wanted to have themselves, but just as these thoughts turned negative, words from the past came to her, words that changed everything:

  Her father told her when younger ‘Be prepared for people to envy you at every turn, you’re going to grow up to be the most amazing person in the world and there will be people who hate you for this and you cannot avoid it’ but she didn't know he meant it quite so literally. She knew these people truly wanted to be her, and they knew she was beautiful. She knew guys were masturbating over her picture at this very moment and women were sitting in their mirrors attempting to emulate her look. Every celebrity has their haters, and the haters are the most vocal. It all came to her now.