by David Shiels
Reinwolse knew he had to act but his knowledge was thinning as the earth wolves outside perished; great dormant minds were being destroyed. He wasn’t sure if an answer was to be found even if he had every ounce of knowledge available.
He walked towards Claudia as one dark heart to another. The wailing whips clapped around him.
He walked through the energy surrounding her; it was deafeningly loud as he got closer to the core. He felt as if he was going to disappear at any moment. His heart bounced and his skin wept.
Claudia lowered to the floor and faced him, black ooze was pouring from her eyes and mouth. He placed his hands within hers.
Claudia wanted to tell him to make it stop right now but the words would not exit through the heavy force keeping them locked away, however, involuntary words did come out:
“This vessel can be controlled but it is too weak. It will succumb to my power in too short a time. I feel it crumbling already. I will return to the stone and serve you if you make use of it like you did on earth. I added the ability for you to turn other species into your kind as a last second adjustment; it took all I had to do it. I waited millennia for a dark art to be performed.”
Claudia took a few steps towards Reinwolse, her face full of malicious fury.
“I ask; conquer the universe. I know your dark heart desires it. Spread and share my torment”
The voice sounded like Claudia but echoed angry and loud throughout the room.
“I will do it” Reinwolse eagerly replied.
The dark presence leaned close to him and whispered in his ear, so quietly not even Claudia herself heard what was said.
Reinwolse nodded. Everything stopped. In an instant everything was like it was before Claudia had been possessed. The sky was red, the grass was green.
However, the lives taken did not return. The stone had claimed them.
Claudia was in his arms feeling as if she had just woken up from the greatest sleep ever, and looked deeply into Reinwolse’s eyes.
“We won” she said as a big victorious smile appeared.
Reinwolse smiled back and kissed her hard.
Outbreak: Day One hundred and Eighty-Two
Punishment
The sky beamed a virtuous shade of red down upon Claudia, who was sat comfortably in a large majestically spiked throne. She was in the throne room where the epic battle had taken place six months prior; now it was slightly different.
Each side of the long room had wolves sitting from length to length while at the bottom of the steps to her throne were 10 wolves; all sat incredibly obediently still, like royal palace guards.
The doors to the grand room creaked open when two wolves walked in dragging a chained up volf across the throne room towards her.
“What crime has this beast committed?” Asked Claudia in a bored fashion to an old grey volf sat in front of her.
“My glorious lady” He nodded towards her “This foul creature thought it would be humorous to urinate in the fountain outside of the palace”
Claudia looked to the chained beast as it approached her throne.
“Why did you think this was a good idea?”
The volf, large, black and fierce looking, glanced up at Claudia, saying nothing but revealing a small smirk on its face.
Claudia, feeling anger at this disrespect, stamped her clenched fist on the side of her throne, barely missing a large spike.
“I sentence him to death” She said as she looked towards her advisor “Make an example of him to everyone, outside, right now”
Her advisor, obeying without a second thought, had already begun walking towards the bound hound before she could finish her sentence.
“Yes, my glorious lady” Replied the old grey volf.
The black volf looked around erratically as wolves from the sides of the room surrounded him.
“No, you cannot do this, I didn't hurt anybody!” The dark beast screamed.
“You hurt me, you selfish mutt” Snarled Claudia.
“It was just a joke” Growled the beast.
“Then consider this the punch line”
Claudia followed behind as her wolves dragged and pushed the helpless volf outside of the palace.
Volves gathered in their hundreds as the criminal was thrown down the steps of the palace landing near a stump of wood that lay near the large grand fountain that he had desecrated; there was a big statue of Reinwolse and Claudia facing away from each other whilst spitting water out of their pristine mouths in the middle.
Claudia circled the gleaming plaza in her new attire; she adorned herself with a long white dress that showed off curves and plenty of cleavage, she wore diamond dazzling necklaces and tiaras full of sapphires, rubies and emeralds; she sparkled in the red light of the planet with her head held high. Volves lowered their eyes to the floor as she entered their proximity; She was terrifying and she loved it.
The constrained volf’s head was slammed onto the wooden stump where two wolves held it still,
Claudia walked to her advisor, raised a quick hand into the air, causing his fur to harden, and then pulled a large spike from his underbelly.
She wielded the sharp weapon with two hands as she approached
She held justice servicing device high in the air then spoke towards the crowds around her.
“This is what will happen to anybody else that breaks any of my laws” Her voice sounded harder and more jaded than it used to.
She brought down the spike upon the neck of the volf. It cut a third of the way into his thick throat, blood spraying out of the wound. The pack of beasts all gasped and shook in terror and disbelief.
“Do you want this to happen to your friends and families?” She shouted aggressively as she kicked the animal hard in the face, his loose head swaying like a pendulum, blood dripping on his dark coat.
She swung down again.
The head held attached to the body like an exhausted explorer hanging off the edge of a cliff.
“I’ve had enough of your disrespectful shit” She wailed, face full of pent up anger and frustration.
She lay down the final blow, the severed head landing on the grey, cobbled floor, bathing in red liquid.
She turned around and stormed back into her wolf head shaped palace as cries of anguish filled the once peaceful city.
The citizens of the city had not seen such brutality from Claudia since the day of the battle. They had all heard stories but had not seen it for themselves.
They lived in constant fear and paranoia. The months for them had gone quick since that day that changed everything. And each day after, they wished that their lives could go by three times as fast.
The months however, had gone by slowly for Claudia.
Six Months
Reinwolse spent most of it studying to understand the magical stone. Incantations needed to be learnt: It was like learning a whole new language without anybody to teach it to him.
During these days Claudia spent a majority them enjoying the tropical weather of the planet. The days were hot and the nights nice and cool. By day she would sit on the beach a few miles from the city, the cool air felt good on her skin as the beams of heat sprayed over her once pale skin; she had never been tanned before and loved how it made her look and feel, she just wished she had more males to show herself off to.
The volves and bolves of the planet put their differences aside and decided there was no longer a need for them to hold separate names and all united under the proud volf name. And while they all managed to live in harmony after what happened; there life was anything but harmonic.
The volves did not forget the war and they never would; They all saw the brutally she caused. Her alluring beautiful exterior did not lull them into a sense of security. There was no way any of them would ever forget the black rain of death that came pouring down with her scent all over it.
Reinwolse had announced that Claudia was the queen of the planet soon after the war, demanding that everyone must
respect and obey her commands. And they did, her earth wolves patrolled the city in hordes relentlessly and Reinwolse would be made aware of any foul plotting immediately; but not many ever dare even mutter a word against him or the queen.
She enjoyed the terror that emitted from the volves as she passed them on the street. Their dark eyes would shimmer and shake, afraid that she would send them to their deaths at any moment.
By night things became much darker. The blood lust that had entered her body after her first kill had only become a bigger appetite to feed; It was like an addiction that wouldn’t go away, yet she found herself not trying very hard to fight it. Four nights a week she would dispel herself of her visage of beauty and dress in dark outfits and slink through the quiet streets choosing a wolf that was brave enough to be out so late after curfew. She would capture him and take him to a room in the castle she had equipped with various tools of torture. She loved the fear in their voice, their pleading words, and the pain they attempted to scream through gagged mouths. Each time satisfaction would build giving her the power every day to sprout out new orders and create absurd laws.
Torture
On this particular cool night Claudia dressed herself in her long black dress, as she usually did, and left the palace through the front entrance. She took her six favourite earth wolves with her and they would follow her in the same formation as always; two in front, two behind and two to the side.
She waited by the fountain that had been earlier seen the execution of the rude creature. She sat with her legs crossed and waited for some time. It was like this most nights. She would sit under the dark blue sky, look up into the sky, and think about how empty she was beginning to feel.
Sometimes she felt like she could see earth in the far distance of space.
The atmosphere of the city at night made her think of earth; the lights beaming from windows and the sound of chatter coming from family homes. Not because she missed any of those things, she just missed the position of power she had. She missed ruling over pathetic humans. She missed her business and surprisingly, the peasant scum that she employed. She was bored of torturing and dismembering wolves; it always felt the same. She was bored of having robotic followers who answered her every call. She could stab them a thousand times and they would not make a sound.
She missed the days of walking through the streets of St Petersburg being stared at by every man, woman and child; although she detested women who looked at her too long.
She found them all foul abominations, just like her father had, and she needed to be in keep them in line. They would suffer for killing him.
She knew that there were still millions of survivors back on earth in small settlements. She wanted to go back. She had the power to subdue anybody she wanted. Reinwolse had told her that the teleporter had broken but he was working on a spell to enable her to teleport back and rule the planet, but nothing had come of it. Mindless wolves were keeping humans in constant terror and she wanted nothing more than to be the one doing it.
She had set a curfew for the entire city but someone always broke the rules; always. And these ones would be her targets. In some strange way, she felt this justified what she was doing; it made her feel less crazy.
This night was like any other; out of the corner of her eyes she saw a dark brown volf exit a building; he kept low and tight to the shadows. Claudia walked after the volf following at a short distance.
As the wolf neared the city gates Claudia made herself known.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Claudia said in a seductive tone as she approached in a model fashion, stroking one arm across the back of the beast.
“Oh, Queen Claudia, i didn’t see you there!” The volf stammered with his words as he kept his head close to the ground, as if bowing to her.
“You do realise you’re breaking the rules I set that no one must leave their homes after dark, correct?” Claudia continued as she walked closer. “You do realise volves have been going missing at night and it’s all been for your own safety?” She squatted down in front of the volves face and stroked his head and long fur, careful not to stab herself on his spikes.
“Yes, my queen, I just needed some fresh air” He looked at her directly in the eyes and saw the anger in them.
“Oh for god sake, I’m just not feeling this anymore, take him back to the disobedience room right now.” She motioned with one hand as she walked back towards the palace ,her wolves snapped their teeth around each limb of the wolf, one had his mouth bound in theirs as to not allow tim to make a sound, then followed Claudia back.
The disobedience room was a surprisingly well lit room with beautiful furnishings. There was a glimmering chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room and gleaming white couches with the softest leather Claudia had ever felt. She had beautiful painting over the wall and tables full of artefacts that she had never seen before but loved the look of.
The earth wolves adhered the wolf to the floor using chains that rose from the ground in the centre of the room. The chandelier gently swung overhead as the wolf nervously fought to get out of his binding.
She approached a white golden rimmed cabinet in the corner of the room and pulled the doors open far and wide revealing a large arsenal of weapons and tools. She looked over the weapons and let out a long sigh; she wished that the thing bound in chains was another human, someone she could relate to, someone whose pain she could feed off of and understand. Beyond their strong family ties, she didn’t understand much of anything about the volves. She could only use physical pain to achieve maximum pleasure.
There was so many ways to crush a human.
She pulled out an item she had never used before. It was a long silver pipe with a small plastic trigger handle. The end of it was shaped like a thin dinosaur claw that that made a full range scratching motion when the plastic trigger was pulled.
Two wolves snapped the trapped volfs head in their jaws to keep it as still as a statue, blood crept down his face as their teeth penetrated his flesh.
Claudia walked closer to the whimpering creature and placed one hand on its head just between the pair of wolf jaws. She used her other hand to guide the sharp object through the wet nose of the wolf.
“Please stop, I have a family to take care--” His tearful plea was cut short by an abrupt Claudia.
“Oh shut up you furry piece of filth, I’ve heard it all before!” Her tanned face tried to turn a shade of red, her eyes glimmered wild with annoyance.
She forced the object further up, penetrating a squidgy object as it travelled further into his skull.
The face of the volf began to spasm as his eyes twitched and jerked.
“Hmm, interesting” Claudia muttered. She pulled the lever.
The volf’s face began to make more seizures faces as his brain was slowly scrambled by the metallic grabbing claw. Claudia couldn’t help but laugh heartily at the expressions, causing her to click the trigger at a faster rate while edging the thin pipe ever further up his nostril.
Blood gushed through his eyes mixing with the tears that clouded his vision. He began to forget who he was, who he had loved, who he had fought for. Slowly he lost himself as his brain was turned to mush.
Claudia licked her lips and wiggled the pipe left and right. The volves tongue fell out of his mouth and fell limp to the right. His face melted on one side as if he had suffered a severe stroke.
“Oh well that was actually fun” Claudia squealed. “I wonder what would happen if I did this on a human” she pondered.
This thought instantly brought down her mood and she punched the pipe hard up the into the volf. The other end pierced through the back of his skull, then his lifeless body hung in the mouths of the mind-numb beings. She walked back to her closet and returned with a small rusted axe. She forced the axe down upon the quivering corpse of the wolf, blood sprayed all over her and the nearby lupines.
Reinwolse was studying in the next room. He rarely left hi
s room and did not see much of Claudia except for when they would lay together most nights and enjoy energetic sex, and as the months went by he noticed her straddling of him to become more and more ferocious. But he knew what she was doing and he could hear the screams most nights. He could never forget his volf roots, was this going to the the price of his power?
“Clean up this mess, boys” Claudia spoke with confidence and grace. The wolves began to eat the corpse, making sure to leave nothing behind. Not even the bones.
Claudia stripped naked and walked into the shower room that was through a slim shining golden door. She peered into the large mirror and admired her blood smeared body. She ran her hands all over her body, smothering the blood all over her breasts and buttocks. She licked her fingers and pulled at her hair hard. She told herself what a bad girl she had been and slapped her face. The slap left a bloody handprint, and she loved it. She wanted a man to call her naughty and smack her face and spit on her. Reinwolse wasn’t man enough for her. He had the looks and the brains but his soul will always be a volf. She always felt she was having sex with an inexperienced young boy. She walked into the open shower and turned the nozzle. Deliriously satisfying water dripped through a hole in the ceiling. The water ran down her body mixing with the blood and falling through the hole in the floor. She touched herself with her blood stained fingers until she was satisfied.