NOVEL NEXT Chapter 46: A Jumbled Mess
Erica
As expected, it was late evening by the time I reached my old neighborhood, the sun just beginning to brush against the horizon. To say it felt strange to be back would be a vast understatement. The forest at the edge of the road had consumed it completely, and the once familiar landscape now felt deeply wrong, like staring at a face you know you should recognize but finding no trace of what you once knew. The trees pressed in on all sides, like they did everywhere now, each one five feet thick, at least.
Worse still, I was being watched. I couldn’t say exactly what tipped me off, but something was watching me, following me closely. Weeks spent with Aoife had left me fine tuned to the presence of a predator. The same nervous anxiety that used to roll off of Aoife in waves was setting my fur on end. Willow said our mystery person traveled with a wolf, right? Maybe I’d been found instead.
I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been followed like this. Rob and his cronies, manipulating us from the start, shepherding us into Cyrus’ clutches. I wouldn’t be tricked like that again. I was in control here. I had to make contact, and I should do it before the sun set. Like it or not, a predator would have the advantage in the dark. My eyes were wide, my ears were open, but it was my nose that finally found my target. There was a smell like wet dog almost directly to my right, just barely carrying on the wind.
With no warning or preamble, I spun to face the smell’s source.
“I’m gonna hope you are who I think you are. Come out, I just wanna talk.”
I was answered only by a deep growl from somewhere within the shaded woods.
Behind me.
Before I could correct my mistake, a dark shape came barreling out of the woods, hooked claws digging into my back. A misshapen mass of clawed appendages, flailing tentacles, and snapping teeth, nearly as big as I was, grabbed me tight and began bearing me to the ground. I cried out, more in shock than in pain. My thick skin and thicker fur protected me from the worst of it, but even still, the creature’s constantly lashing limbs opened dozens of miniscule cuts all across my body, cuts that were slowly building to form a greater painful whole.
I staggered under its weight, tilting dangerously to the side as it attempted to drag me to the ground. The hell even was this thing? Most of the other monsters I’d seen had some origin in mythology or fantasy or religion or something. This writhing abomination held nothing familiar, just a pile of flesh and a lot of sharpness.
With a grunt, I reached back and managed to grab a tentacle(?), pulling up on it hard, but its variety of barbs and stingers and blades had dug in, refusing to release their hold on my back. Even as the flesh I held began to tear, the creature held firm. Fine then, if I can’t pull it off, I’ll just mash it into a pulp.
Groaning with exertion, I staggered over to a dilapidated car, clambering atop its hood. Step by little step, I carried the creature to the car’s roof before falling, back first, onto the torn up concrete. The creature emitted some kind of warbling shriek as it was smashed into the ground, and its hold on me went slack. Before it could recover, I burst free from its grasping appendages, claws and teeth, earning a few more wounds as I did.
I heard it flailing wildly behind me as I darted away, trying to build some distance. Aoife and I had spent quite some time learning about our new bodies, and not just in the fun way. While I may not have the ridiculous magical prowess possessed by her and Willow, I did have one thing: raw physical power and a pair of bigass horns. It was time to put them to use now.
I turned to face the malformed thing, and saw it head on for the first time. It really was indescribable. Like every nightmare and phobia rolled into one. Fear of spiders? Got it. Snakes? Got it. It even had some kind of cage literally built into its arm. Oh yeah. This thing had to go. It had almost gotten back upright again, whatever upright meant for this thing. I couldn’t let it recover any further. With my head tucked down, my body angled forward, my legs already in a sprinter’s stance, I lined up my target.
With a roar that sounded more like a really angry moo, I pounded across the pavement towards the monster, my deadly horns angled with precision, honed by weeks of practice with Aoife. Before I could reach it though, there was a voice to my right, coming from the same place I’d smelled dog before.
“Kick its ass, Lilly!”
A massive, snow white wolf, easily twice the size of Aoife’s true form bounded out of the trees, and started tearing into the creature with its massive jaws. It looked familiar. Could it really be..?
I’d halted my charge when the wolf appeared, but I had to help however I could. Quickly, I ran over to the corner of an overgrown sidewalk, grabbing the nearby stop sign and pulling hard. The metal creaked, then bent, then snapped. I smiled as I beheld my makeshift axe, holding it tight in one hand. The blunt edge of the sign was more than made up for by the weight of sturdy metal.
When I turned back towards the fight, it seemed like my intervention may not have been needed. The wolf had pinned the creature handily, and was now taking its time tearing it apart. Ah well, I’d do my part anyway. Flicking tentacles, flailing claws, and even a proboscis of some kind occasionally found their mark, and it wouldn’t do for my rescuers to be injured any more than was necessary.
I stomped towards the pair, raising the sign above my head before bringing it down hard on one of the monster’s many limbs. Again and again and again I hacked away at the jumbled mess, swinging in time to the wolf’s furious snarls. Eventually, it stopped moving, and I stepped away, tossing the now severely damaged stop sign to the ground.
There were footsteps behind me, and I turned to see a man, with black hair and tan skin, smiling at me. He was tall for a human, with broad shoulders and no shortage of scars, he was dressed in sturdy jeans and a plain t-shirt with some nice flannel on top. There was a rifle held loosely in his arms and a large pack slung over his shoulders.
“Thanks for the help, miss. That bastard’s been stalking the area for weeks.” Moving the rifle to his left hand, he extended his right. “I’m Pete, it’s good to meet ya.”
He wasn’t my father.
