Dream Lover

TWO

Elle was strategizing. The goal, she decided, would be landing the low-blow. She could take a beating. She didn’t want to be beaten and violated. Her best chance would be to make sure she only had to take one of them on at a time. So, weapon in hand she spun, took a wild swipe at the man behind her, and ran back into the trees.

She wasn’t entirely sure where she was running. The forest was a blur of mossy greens, browns, and grays but she ran with the kind of flawless precision adrenaline could give. As she was running, she caught a glimpse of something. Her brain fed the image back to her after she’d passed it by. It had been black, it had had two glowing yellow-green eyes, and it had been about to pounce. She ran faster, heart pumping, breath still even and controlled as she burst back through the wall of trees and into the clearing.

She was well into it when she risked glancing over her shoulder and almost relieved when she saw what was chasing her was running on two feet. Abruptly she spun in his direction and, in a move more coordinated than she would have thought herself capable, she swung the branch hard into his middle still running at top speed. She was a step behind him when he doubled over. Her grip and stance changed, set, and she took a golf swing, it was another of the three all-state sports. If the man’s testicles would have been a golf balls, both of them would have been on a two hundred yard trip down the fairway. His knees seemed to melt from beneath him. She hit him a third time, this time aiming for the shiny patch of scalp at the back of his head. When she was sure he wouldn’t be getting up again anytime soon, she started running again. 

Both of her other potential attackers emerged from the trees a hundred yards ahead of her. She stopped short and set her feet waiting for one or both of them to charge. They were about to do just that when a black animal pounced on the one closest to the woods with a snarl.

It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that should exist. It had the body of a large cat with the exception of its front two feet and its mouth, which seemed like they belonged on something that could fly. The thing led with its talons and finished with a peck of its beak so fast Elle would have thought she imagined it if it weren’t for the audible crack and mush the man’s skull made as it caved in. The man was dead before he knew what hit him. The animal’s eyes went immediately to the man closest to it.

He was dead just as quickly.

For Elle, whatever part of the brain that processed threats and how to respond to them was drawing a blank. When its back was too her, she’d seen that it, whatever it was, probably had been able to fly at one time. Two gnarly scars on its back suggested that someone or something had cut off its wings. If it had been a person, it was probably some kind of mandate. If that thing had the advantage of striking from the sky, Elle couldn’t imagine anything human or animal alike being able to enjoy being outside without watching the skies.

 Then, it was looking at her and Elle wished she’d been running instead of thinking. But it didn’t charge her. It made a terrifying noise, some cross between the scream of a falcon and the snarl of a cougar that ended in a loud crack as it snapped its beak shut. Then it started back for its first kill, settled over the body, and began to eat keeping its sharp eyes on Elle.

 With those strange yellow-green eyes on her, the hundred or so yards between them seemed like mere inches. She eased back a single step, its eyes didn’t shift from her but it didn’t seem to tense for the chase either. She took a few more steps back barely breathing sure she’d be next if she didn’t take it slow. She tried a step for the trees and the thing shifted suddenly from its haunches to its feet Elle corrected by taking two giant steps away from the tree line.

“Easy,” She breathed “alright, take it easy, no more moving.” She promised as it watched her, still tensed. Elle took a risk and eased as slowly as she could to her knees to prove she wasn’t going anywhere. The thing seemed to settle down as she lowered.

More than willing to wait the thing out, Elle kept eye contact with it as it ate, and told herself she was watching a really high quality National Geographic special. When the thing was sure she wasn’t going anywhere, it seemed content to get on with its meal. It only ate the organs. Elle tried, but not even putting her fingers in her ears could block the sound of it. The grind and snap of the rib cage giving way to the crushing force of the beak, then the wet pull and snap of the organs as they were ripped from the body and swallowed seeped into her ears and echoed there.

When it turned on her to settle down to the task of eating the second man’s insides as it had the first’s, Elle thought it had forgotten about her. Cautiously, she began to move intending to get on her feet and clear out before it started considering thirds. She’d been wrong. She hadn’t gotten one foot fully out from under her when the thing snapped its head around. Elle passed off the movement as if she was only shifting from her knees to her bottom, after a tense moment it turned its bloody beak back to its meal.