*Like I stated, there is some suggestive things in this piece, but no language at all. It's all in the details. Oh and this piece has a sub-genre of Fantasy and Action*
9. Frozen Howl
The door's crash against the frame reverberated through the house. Chloe trod down the hall, zipping up her pants. She gritted her teeth as the zipper dug into the flesh of her finger. As she retched it back and began rubbing it with her other hand, he threw open the door.
“Come on, we can go again,” the boy said.
“No!” she screamed back at him, breaking into a run.
“You know you want to,” he called after her.
She could hear his foot falls behind her as she rounded a corner. Chloe knew that if he broke into a run there would be nothing she could do. It felt like there was a bug crawling in her wrist as her pulse raced.
Chloe stumbled on something in the dim hallway and fell on her knees. Without checking to see what it was she sprang back on her feet. The boy in pursuit. She knew she was close to the door. The problem was getting there before he capture her.
“Girl, you don't even have to do anything, I'll do all the work, the boy said.
Chloe shuddered, he was so close. Chloe cut through the kitchen and maneuvered around the island, toward the other opening.
“We could have dinner here. All organic,” the boy said.
“Leave me alone!” Chloe screamed, making a mad dash down the living room.
The boy laughed. “I love fast food!”
Rounding a corner, she saw it, her exit. She hunched her shoulders with determination and made it. She turned the knob, but the door would not budge. Chloe was about to slouch against the wood and weep, before she came to her senses and unlocked it. She yanked open the door and threw herself into the darkness. Chloe jumped over the steps, nearly collapsing on her shaky knees as she landed on the concrete.
“No! Don't go, my delicacy!” the boy called after her.
“No! Don't go, my delicacy!” the boy called after her.
Chloe sprinted along the sidewalk, wondering if the boy would continue to chase her. Cars shot by, their headlights bathing her in white fire. She was not a fast runner, but her stamina was good.
Music blared from a house somewhere, an aged car rattled as someone tried to turn it on, and a dog barked. Terror has a soundtrack, Chloe thought. She walked into the grass, startled as street racers tore down the road. The cars screaming like banshees. After the curtain came down on the sun, the city became a mad house.
She was a ten minute drive from her house, but on foot, she guessed it would take about half an hour to get there. Chloe knew that being out of the boy's house did not mean she was safe. No, if anything else, she is was in the most danger she had ever been in her life.
Out in the open, she could be abducted, raped, killed, and thrown into a river. She sucked in a mouthful of air, trying to push the thoughts away, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other. The moment she got home she would take a shower. But nothing would cleanse how dirty she felt inside.
The closer she got to her home, the more forbidding her surroundings became. Darkened stores and businesses stared at her with their many vacant glass eyes. A few, however, were still up and running. In those, people were at cash registers, paying for their merchandise. They had no idea that outside was a girl running home after foolishly entering a dog's cage.
They were like dead zombies, only stumbling along with society. A zombie, was already dead, but Media influenced people were in a realm beyond death. Because a zombie could still decide for itself, but a Media slave only did what it was told.
As Chloe passed a strip club, she bit her lip. The women in their charged for sexual fantasies, but Chloe offered her body for free. She hadn't realized that she had stopped running until it dawned on her that it was taking a long time to get out of the glow of the strip club's flashing neon lights.
Chloe closed her eyes as she past it, but the intense blue glow still burned through her lids. It was an ego killer. Strippers had more morals than her, because they would at least tell a poor man no. But she wouldn't even do that.
“What's wrong with me?” she whispered. She was answered by an alarm going off in a store far behind her. It didn't surprise her. It was just another robbery. Besides, she was only about fifteen minutes from her house.
The cops would catch any burglars within four. The men in uniform were almost as feared as those that they arrested. Sirens blaring in the distance confirmed that the entire situation would end in within a minute.
Chloe began the countdown in her head, and played out the process. The cops are following the burglars heartbeat on a radar screen, they're putting their car into auto pilot, upholstering their Eel T-360s. The cars have already surrounded the poor fools, and if they're smart they will surrender. If not, their bodies are about to be brought to the ground by the electric jolt of a cop's gun.
“Five, four,” Chloe began to count out loud. “Three, two-” a screeching sizzle pierced the night, followed by another and another. Chloe sighed, of course no smart criminal ever went out alone.
She heard the low growls of the police cruisers draw closer, and walked closer along the walls. The black and white vehicles past by like a pack of killer whales. No doubt the arrests would serve as a warning to any other criminals planning anything tonight.
Chloe stopped at the mouth of an alleyway. On the other side was the housing district where her home was. Cutting through it would be quicker than going around. She squinted into the darkness, seeing nothing but dumpsters, trash cans, and stray garbage bags. She shuddered, the bags looked like bodies under the glow of the moon.
She could see the moon! That meant the city lights were already beginning to power down, the city curfew was starting. It didn't mean that people weren't allowed out, it just meant that there would be less illumination. She laughed nervously, anything that was meant to combat Global warming made her think of her mom.
Taking quick deep breaths, Chloe stepped into the alley. She felt like she was walking through a canyon. In a way, she was. A canyon in the concrete jungle, the world’s most dangerous environment. Chloe flinched at every creak, crackle, tear, and squeak of rats.
She stopped next to a man in grime coated clothes, sleeping next to a dumpster, using emptied trash bags as covers. It was such a depressing sight. She and her family were living in wealth, while this man didn't even have a home to live in. Chloe reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet, and emptied the contents out, she put the money under the man's forearm. If a wind came, hopefully his arm would shield the currency from it.
The luminous green eyes of a cat studied her from atop a dumpster. As she drew closer she saw that it had a mouse clamped in it's jaws. “Nice kitty,” she said. “You're just doing your job, keeping the rodent population down.”
The cat let the mouse drop from it's mouse and shrieked at her. The metal of the dumpster screeched as the cat's claws ran over it.
“Easy, I'm no threat to you,” Chloe delicately said.
The cat continued to hiss at her as she walked past. Chloe looked back over her shoulder. The cat was crouched down, and then it sprang off the dumpster, fleeing down the alleyway. It was if something had startled it. She shrugged it off. That cat was probably just scared by her.
Chloe started to shiver, her arms breaking out in goose bumps. The temperature had noticeably dropped several degrees. It wasn't uncommon for temperatures to fluctuate, but they never happened so swiftly. At least, she hoped that they didn't happen like this.
She jerked a hand out as a trash can spilled over. The air was now freezing cold. Her ears and nose were beginning to numb. What was going on? Is an ice age starting?
She ground to a halt as a savage howl paralyzed her legs. She was planted to the spot, too afraid to move. The creature behind her sounded like a wolf, only the sound was all wrong. It sounded like a a recording of one played backward.
Her neck muscles twitching, Chloe turned around. In the distant darkness a large wolf was stalking toward her. It's hulk almost taking up half the alleyway. For it's sheer size, it could have been a small bear, but the snout was too narrow, and it's legs too thin. The beast stopped and raised it's head to her.
Chloe put a hand to her mouth. The animal was as beautiful as it was loathsome. It's eyes glowed a bright yellow luster. They were like snake eyes. Hypnotizing, and she was the bird. She blinked her eyelids, and the creature blinked back. The animal was mimicking her, she realized.
When it opened it's mouth, vapor fumed from in between the large canines. It threw it's head back to the sky and howled. Chloe clamped her hands over her ears, it was a sound that could knock all the stars from the sky, and chase away the moon. The animal then raised it's fore paws off the ground before slamming them back on the ground.
It was a territorial display. The animal raised it's paws again, doing the same movement, and then it knocked over a trash can.
“Easy doggy,” Chloe said, her voice quivering. Her breath fumed from her mouth like a smokey serpent. “Just go back to the wilderness, you don't belong here, it's not safe.”
The animal walked toward her, low growls coming from it. She backed away as it drew closer. It became more frigid the closer it got. No! It wasn't possible! The animal couldn't be responsible for the sudden drop in the temperature.
Perhaps it was like an electric eel. But instead of producing electricity, it could emit liquid nitrogen. If so, what need could it possibly have for such an adaption?
“Easy, easy,” Chloe whispered. The animal did not stop, and kept homing in on her. “Please, leave me alone.”
It stopped and arched its back, the muscles beneath the fur balling up. It was going to pounce! Chloe spun around and bolted down the alley. The animal snarling behind her. With every step, she was on the verge of collapsing on her twitching legs.
The animal's claws scraped against the concrete, tore through plastic bags, and could tear through back at nay second. Chloe jumped over garbage bags strewn all over the alley and dodged around trash cans. She slid on a torn bag of semi-frozen rancid food, but quickly recovered.
Lights bathed the other end of the alley as cars past by on the road. She was almost there, but that didn't mean that she would be safe. There was no telling if the predator would ever give up chase. Chloe could feel her bladder contracting in her abdomen.
The lid of a dumpster beside her scrunched as the creature landed on it. Chloe ducked her head as it took a snap at her, icy breath forming crystals in her hair. She heard it's tail slide against the lid as it plopped back on the concrete.
“Somebody help!” Chloe screamed. Cars continued to cruise by, nobody stopping. The animal howled, raising goose flesh on the nape of her neck. She was almost there, just a couple more yards.
Every stride of the animal was like a stampede of buffaloes. With her adrenal glands pumping, she increased the length of her strides. From the thundering concrete behind her, so was her pursuer. Her back was so cold that it seemed as if it were being glazed over in snow. It was only inches from her.
She instinctively threw herself against the far wall. There was a resonating metallic thud as the animal rammed into a dumpster. It was lifted off the ground and then crashed back on the ground. Chloe took the opportunity and sprinted off down the remainder of the alleyway.
The animal growled before resuming the chase, she could hear it's determined foot pounds, ringing in her ear drums. Chloe bit the side of her cheek, drawing blood. The predator's fangs could rip open the nape of her neck any instant. Though, the creature was so powerful it could kill her on impact.
Chloe shook the images off her twisted, broken body, and pushed forward. With three more foot steps, she was out of the alley. She ran a hand against the wall and turned right, and then ran across the road to the other side. The howl of the beast trailed after her like an evil wind. But the further she ran from it, the warmer it became. Chloe had almost forgotten how it felt, the ambiance of the city.
She was safe. The prey had eluded the hunter. But what about the homeless man? Had he already been devoured? If so, why wasn't there any blood on the animal? She didn't want to think about it anymore and took the absence of blood to mean that it hadn't killed him, but now that she had escaped it, it would likely go after him.
Chloe half stumbled and ran to her house, which was so close, she could almost hear her parents demanding why she had come home later than she had said. But first, she had to go through the security system and walk all the way across the long lawn to her house.
Chloe gazed up at the sky, the stars seemed to be shining just for her, like a cheering crowd. The moon the master behind the spectacle. Such wonder, nature was. Nature, she shuddered. Tonight it had shown her it's dark side. But what was that creature? Was it even an animal at all? Had the incident even happened?
Her eyes blinked and she could already feel the tears build. Was she simply going insane? Perhaps she already was, and she was just beginning to lose her ground on reality all together. Her sanity was losing gravity on it's already unstable terrain, and she was about to be launched into orbit.
She rumpled her nose as the retched stench from her shoes entered her nostrils. Chloe rubbed most of it off on the curb, peering over her shoulder. Nothing but the bright eyes of cars were behind her. As she made the last turn into her neighborhood Chloe wondered whether she should tell her parents about what she had seen. No doubt they would either be thrilled by a new species or insulted if they thought she was only messing with them.
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Chloe collapsed on the living room couch, hugging herself. A message that her parents left for her notified her that they had gone out to buy some supplies for a trip. She was grateful that she wouldn't have any explaining to do, but paranoid about being home alone. With the animal somewhere out there, what guarantee was there that the brick walls where high enough? The creature proved to have exceptionally powerful legs.
She rose from the couch, and turned out the light. Chloe felt safer in the darkness. It was as if nothing existed, just her. She plopped back on the invisible couch and stared at the empty abyss above. Chloe stayed that way long after her parents arrived, and not venturing into the living room, did not know that she was still awake.
Chloe tossed and turned on the couch, debating on going up to her parents and informing them of the creature, but couldn't muster the courage. Shaking off the idea she began to estimate the number of hours that went by, and guessed that she was still awake when the clocks hit 1:00 ante meridiem. Slumber slowly enveloped her in a deeper darkness.
