Lone Girl (The Wolfling Saga) (15 page)

Saturday – 0 days to go

I was ill – so ill I couldn’t think straight. I felt like I was going through withdrawals. My body was on fire, but I was shivering violently. Sweat covered my skin making my hair damp and my teeth chattered violently.

“Almost there, Rosie,” my father crooned as we drove along a narrow dirt road.

“It’s coming,” I moaned against the passenger seat window, the glass fogging from my breath.

“It’s all right. You’ve still got fifteen minutes.”

“It hurts.” Tears stung my eyes. My ribs felt as though they were breaking one-by-one.

“Here we are,” said my father, pulling into the drive-way. “C’mon, out you get.”

I fumbled for the door-handle and fell out of the car, dust covering my jeans.

My father raced around the car and lifted me to my feet, half carrying, half dragging me towards the bomb-shelter.
His hands fumbled with the set of keys as he unlocked each bolt – five in total. I was barely aware of my surroundings. We’d barely made it over the threshold when I felt the moon’s pull. It tugged at my insides, drawing the monster forth and I knew the change was seconds away.

“Go!” My voice came out as a guttural growl. The fear I saw in my father’s eyes meant that I had begun to change. Without hesitation he slammed the bomb-shelter door shut behind him and I heard each lock click in quick succession.

I staggered forwards, looking around the small, concrete room. My vision was blurred. I’d taken barely two steps before I fell to my knees screaming.

Sunday
– 29 days to go

The taste of copper filled my mouth. I licked my lips and the taste became stronger. Perhaps I’d bitten my tongue. It was almost certainly blood in my mouth. My cheek was pressed against the cold floor causing some discomfort, but otherwise I wasn’t in too much pain.

I rolled onto my back with a groan and slowly opened my eyes, looking up at the
swinging florescent bulb on the ceiling. It flickered dimly and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I was, but the memory of my father driving me to the bomb-shelter returned soon enough.

Heaving a sigh of relief because I wouldn’t have to deal with another transformation for a month, I sat up and brought my knees to my chest, pressing my forehead against them, taking deep, slow breaths with closed eyes.

Strangely enough I was still clothed; albeit in shredded rags after the episode. The bomb-shelter approach seemed to have been a resounding success. I was not filled with pent-up rage from being strapped down all night, nor was every muscle aching from romping around the forest until the wee hours of the morning. I felt strangely relaxed as though I’d exerted excess energy without overdoing it.

I was calm.

Another deep breath later and I was hoisting myself to my feet, however my peace-of-mind was quickly shattered by the sight of my hands against the concrete floor. They were blackened with dry blood.

I looked down at my clothes and saw they too were damp and cold with dark stains. I frantically ran my hands over my body searching for the wound that had caused the
bleeding. Perhaps my calm state was a result of blood-loss. I could have hurt myself on anything in this bomb shelter.

However, I seemed to be unscathed.

“Not possible,” I whispered hoarsely. I’d been locked up all night. There was no way I could have harmed anything.
Maybe the monster destroyed the stockpile of food in the shelter. Tomato – or beetroot. Yes, that would be it. Food. It was just food.

But that taste of copper in my mouth was all too familiar.

Terrifying reality dawned upon me and I slowly looked up, peeling my eyes away from my own body. The swinging florescent bulb illuminated the grotesque scene before my eyes.

Blood.

Everywhere
.

It covered the walls and the floor as though a paint-shaker had exploded, spraying scarlet upon every surface. The secure, clean bomb-shelter had become a slaughter-house overnight. 

A strangled cry escaped me as my eyes fell upon a single, solitary item in the middle of the room.

A human leg.

My screams continued as I backed away from the limb lying in the middle of the floor, a deep pool of scarlet around it.

A foot. A human foot.

My mind could not comprehend what I was seeing.

I covered my mouth to stifle the shrill shrieks that were escaping me involuntarily.

Whose leg? Whose foot? More importantly, where was the rest of the body?

Horrible, unexplainable fear overwhelmed me, rooting me to the spot. It couldn’t be my father’s. No. It just couldn’t.

I was so overcome by panic that I didn’t notice thin, cursive writing along the foot of disembodied leg.

With shaking legs I walked towards the body-part, tears streaming down my face. I knelt down and read the ink.

‘
Such is life
’ was tattooed in neat, black cursive along the side of the foot.

It wasn’t my father’s.
So who was it?

“I’ve killed someone,” I said out-loud. I repeated it over and over again but the words didn’t make sense.

No, it
can’t be
.
My father locked the door.

To my utter shock I found that the door was still locked tight. Whoever I had killed had been in the bomb shelter before I arrived.

“Fuck. Shit. Fuck!”

In the distance I heard the sound of an engine and tyres crunching on gravel. The e
ngine stopped, a car door opened and boots hit the ground. Someone was mere feet from the bomb shelter.

Panic stricken, I looked for somewhere to hide. There was no escape. The footsteps approached the shelter and I dived behind several barrels of grain that were stacked on top of one another.

All five of the locks were unlocked and t
he door was pushed open allowing sunlight to stream inside. That’s when I heard it – the strangled cry of a man. The tone was instantly recognisable.

“ROSE?” My father bellowed, running into the room to search for me. He slipped on the blood and fell on his
ass.

“Dad!”
I poked my head out from behind the barrels and he stared; fear in his eyes.

“What – what happened?” he gasped, looking around. That’s when his e
yes fell on the disembodied limb. My father went pale.

“Rose … who … whose foot is that?”

“I don’t know.” My voice broke as sobs threatened to engulf me. “I don’t know.”

Sunday – 15 days to go