Dream Lover

THREE

Elle thought she might have been sitting in the short grass of the clearing in the presence of this impossible creature for maybe an hour while it eviscerated both men ate the organs then picked at their brains through their shattered skulls. During that time she’d thought of about a thousand reasons it wanted her to stay where she was. Nine hundred and ninety-nine of them went along the lines of bringing something home for the kids or a hot snack for later. Still, the one she liked most, the one she was clinging to, was that it wanted to be friends and filthy men were just its favorite food or something.

After its meal it stretched, rolled on its back, wriggled with its strange assortment of legs in the air, and wiped its beak on the grass. Elle had a sudden flash of dog she’d once had that went through a similar process after he polished off a rawhide. It was the last thing she thought for the next twenty seconds as it trotted over to her. She’d shut her eyes and prepared for the worst heart thumping in her throat. Seconds later, when she hadn’t felt her heart being ripped out, she risked opening one eye.

Her legs lay stretched out in front of her sitting between two lethal, three-clawed feet. She was nose to beak with a proven man-eater who seemed content to watch her out of one of its wide set eyes and then the other.

“Hi” Elle said hesitantly. Sure, now that this was a dream and it was going to talk to her in a deep intelligent sounding voice, maybe Morgan Freeman’s, or the female equivalent, Elle thought when she noticed the lack of male parts just beyond her brightly painted toes. Its head tilted to the side as it sat fully on its hind legs and continued to study her. “You’re going to eat me aren’t you?” she asked it in the same way she would have asked house pet, minus the smile and ear scratching. It didn’t have ears. “Yeah, you’re going to eat me,” she concluded. When it didn’t respond to that either. It jerked its head toward the trees and made a raspy purring noise. Elle wasn’t sure if it was growl or friendly but she made a show of looking toward the trees. It nudged her with the smooth curve of its sharp tipped beak. Elle was to afraid to consider if this was in encouragement or impatience.

Aiming to please, Elle got to her feet and so did her new hybrid friend or possibly kidnapper. As she walked, she wondered if there were any natural instances of hostage taking in the wild in real life. She doubted it. Still, she walked with it and commended herself on her superior bladder control. She didn’t want to think that anything could ever scare her enough to make her wet her pants but if it was ever going to happen, Elle thought, this was it.

When they came across the man she’d knocked out, he looked as if he had been awake for a while now and was testing his luck, as she had, by staying still.

His gamble didn’t pay off.

The beak came down on him and cut off a cry of terror before it could begin. It caught the man by the neck and casually continued to lead the way. Elle snuck glances at him, sure that her mind was incapable of conjuring up something so gruesome. There was a beak shaped crater in the man’s skull and what was left of his face was misshapen and coated in the blood that ran from the wound in thick red streaks. If by some slim chance the beak hadn’t killed him, he was going to either suffocate or have his neck broken before the animal got wherever it was going.

They hadn’t walked far into the forest before they came to the biggest tree Elle had ever seen. The animal dragged the man into the tree then began to climb vertically once inside. The odor inside of the tree was dizzying. It was the sweetness of something close to maple syrup blended with a strong smell of stale urine and some other eye watering stenches she couldn’t begin to name and was glad for it. She stopped at the entrance of the animal’s den and tried to breathe the air just outside the tree. Apparently, she offended it because it came at her shortly after talons first.

Elle couldn’t help but shriek, and try to get out of the way of the lethal claws but one of them dug into her left arm as the animal screeched back at her. 

Elle had reached her scary s**t limit. 

She ran as hard as she could, her left arm feeling like it was moments from splitting in half but she kept running pumping her legs as fast as she could terror fueling her determination.

This was definitely not a dream!