Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 4: Packing Heat

Chapter 4:

“Get the hell out of my house.” I finally barked at him, losing all the control that I had once had. The appearance of the gun finally seemed to startle him, his expression slacking and darkening at the same time.

“Where the hell did you get a gun?” he bellowed at me, his voice sounding more like a beast than a person.

“Get the hell out of MY DAMN HOUSE!!!” I screamed, moving toward him with the gun aimed firmly at his chest, effectively moving him backward toward the exit, hislarge frame making the floor boards groan. When he got to the door he paused, his hands on the door frame.

“You know that you just made this much worse for yourself don’t you? You might be able to push me out of the house with that gun but what will you do when there are more of us? Do you know how many laws you have just broken love?” he asked me, his tone both dangerous and somehow admiring.

“If you are not out of my sight in three seconds I will shoot you. One…”

“You can’t be serious.” He laughed.

I stepped back at shot at his foot. The loud bang startling him out onto the small porch like a cat on a hot tin roof.

“TWO!” I yelled a little louder.

“You’re going to regret that honey.” He promised me just before turning tail and running, shifting into his gruesome dark coated beast form midstride and galloping back toward the uptown sector.

What the hell did I just do?

Cheyenne suddenly came flying around the house at the sound of the gun shot, her eyes full of tears.

“Juniper.” She cried it terror.

“Go to Nash’s house.” I barked at her the two and a half years between us suddenly becoming twenty.

“But Juniper!” she cried.

“I SAID GO DAMN IT!” I screamed at her. She turned tail and ran then two up the two streets to Nash’s house so fast that I wondered briefly is she thought I would shoot at her too.

As soon as she was out of sight I bounded upstairs to my windowless closet room. I grabbed my satchel full of weapons and the canister of food that I kept hidden under the floor boards in case of emergencies. I had to leave and I had to leave fast. I didn’t even know if I had much of a chance but I had to try.Like hell I was going to sit around here like a sitting freaking duck. As soon as I had my things I bolted out the back door of my house down toward the woods. If I could just make it to the river, to the raft that I had hidden in the brush to fish on when we ran low on food. If I could make it to the river, to the raft, my scent would be washed away and I would be untraceable until the next crossing.

                I was running fast, faster than I think I had ever run in my entire life. I could feel my lungs about to explode and the adrenaline pumping so hard in my veins that I could taste the fear in my mouth. I was almost to the river bank when I heard the howl, a loud piercing howl that made my skin crawl.

They had caught my scent.

I picked up my speed if that were possible and practically flew to the side of the river, coming out of the brush like a bat out of hell. I fell into the icy water, half swimming my way to where the raft was tethered. I could hear them now, barks and growls and the sound of paws against earth. I fumbled with the rope finally freeing the raft and pushing out onto the river just in time to see the freakish wolves appear at the water’s edge. There were six of them, stalking along the edge like they were stuck and for half a second I felt a sudden wave of ease fill me until a seventh monster appeared at the bank, a big dark looking creature with elongated fangs and huge claws. The creature took one look at me, stuck on my raft almost in the middle of the river and it threw back its head and howled, long and threatening before leaping into the water.

 Fear and panic gripped me once more as I aimed my gun at swimming beast and pulled the trigger. Click....cick....cick, cick, cick. What the freaking hell? What the hell was wrong with my gun? I clean you every day for God's sake. Deciding my gun was usless, I ripped my satchel open and pulled out a dagger, taking a defensive position just as the other beasts followed the lead of the first.

“Shit.” I swore, suddenly realizing that if they got to the raft I was done for. There was no way that I could fight of that many of them at once. Of course they would be too large to get on the raft but they could easily tip it over to knock me off of it, or they could just transform into their human form and actually board the raft.

 So I took the only option that seemed feasible to the time.

 I grabbed my satchel and promptly dived off of the raft.

The chill, hit me straight in the gut before I started kicking wildly up to the surface and then free style swimming down the river. As crazy as I thought the plan initially was I soon found out that I could swim a lot faster than they could at a doggie paddle.

Once more I thought somehow I might get out of this mess when I looked behind me to see that the Dark wolf had transformed into its human form and was now coming after me with amazing speed. Damn it! I pushed myself harder but I could feel my body giving out, my legs growing heavy. Oh for God’s sake, COME ON!!!

Something caught my ankle and yanked me back and I screamed under the water as I felt too muscular human feeling arms wrap around my head in a headlock and sturck the dagger out of my hands before starking to drag us back toward the bank of the river. I tried to fight back, reaching helplessly for my thigh sheath only to have my hands grabbed by another set of human hands and my legs restrained by yet another. The person holding me in a choke hold stood once we got to the back and drug me ashore, the arm that it had been using to swim, now locking around my arms, penning them. The monster holding my legs let go and I kicked out at them, clipping them in the leg with the toe of my boot.

“Damn it Sean I have had enough of your mate.” The monster at my feet growled. The arm around my waist and arms tightened and suddenly I was turned around in their arms so that I was facing them. I closed my eyes, not submitting. I would never submit of one of these monsters.

“Open your eyes.” the monster holding me snarled sounding anything but human. Someone else came up behind me and forced my eyes open, holding my lids open even as I tried my hardest to keep them shut. Unwillingly I saw a pair of black eyes flash into mine and a look cross over them that made me want to throw up.

He had seen my eyes.

His grip on me tightened and I felt his head bend down to the crook of my neck.

“MINE.” he snarled before I felt the stab of his canines rupture my skin and a scream escape my lips. One of his hands covered my mouth as he bit down harder. I trashed against him but I could feel my limbs going numb and my head become dizzy. I felt myself go limp as I felt the hair prickling feeling of blood ooze down my shoulder as the world began to grow dark and for the first time in my life I fainted.