A Night Like Any Other

This box called night hides many terrors.

Her black leather heels beat the ground, its clopping echoes in the dark reaching the ears of all that is nearby. She strays from cars, life, and street lights, trotting into a dimly lit alley formed by two windowless buildings; grey and black graffiti scribbled on both sides like a toddler’s ‘masterpiece’ presented to the world.

The moon, like a lamp, shines high behind the thin darkening clouds. Howling and thumping mingle with the tapping of her heels. Maybe the wind. She continues on, past the spray-painted red peace sign imitating a melting candle. Building upon building extended the alley, the few street lights blinking too often.

It appears behind her, two meters with its back arched, ears alert, eyes like bronze holding sharp irises. Its saliva oozes out in glops, thinning out before separating and slopping onto the ground.

Alarmed by a tremendous growl, her pace increases; it evolves into running when she hears the thumping speed up. But a bell-shaped black skirt squeezing her thighs together won’t take her far.

A few blocks away, in an overpriced wreckage of an apartment, Mayan prowled the hallway. She hurried towards an approaching eleven-year-old boy with scruffy, short, brown, hair; opened her arms wide then devoured him in her hug.

“How far did you go?” The worry in her eyes scanned L.J for any injuries.

“I forgot to check the time.” The boy wriggled in her arms, struggling to pull away from her suffocating embrace.

Her tears fell like rain, onto her son. “I keep telling you it’s too dangerous to go running at night.”

“But it’s the best time to go running. Mama, you’re worrying too much. I came back safely like always.” L.J loved the feeling of the gush of wind tangling his hair, and pushing his back as if encouraging him to run faster. Thinking about it made him want to go out again.

“You’re banned starting now! I want you back home straight after school, and Harmony must be with you at all times, otherwise you’re grounded for two weeks.” Mayan commanded.

He didn’t protest; any words he threw at her would be deflected.

The next night, knowing her son would sneak away, Mayan slept by his side, caging him in a hug.

Sure that his mum was in a deep sleep, Mayan’s son wriggled out of her arms before he slipped through the covers.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Her eyelids seemed to weigh a ton, her strength only allowed murmurs, and exhaustion left her in a state of paralysis.

He froze. “To the toilet.”

She returned to sleep before he finished speaking.

He tiptoed out of the room, and then fetched his trainers, which were ripped along the sides with shredded laces and a rabbit hole at the bottom leading to the outside. From the bathroom, he unlocked the window and jumped out with as little noise made as he could. Once he landed he sprang away, across the road, down several buildings and into the silence of an alleyway, chasing the moonlight.

***

A rotten stench escapes the beast’s mouth. After being chased further down the alley the woman stops at a dead end. It raises it’s claws ready to strike, a single nail able to slash across her face in a swoop. Just then Mayan’s son runs in front, his eyes lock with the werewolf’s putting it to a halt. It backs away. Suddenly a bullet enters its skull.

“I didn’t need your help.” The woman stands proud, her blond bob cheering at the clear shot against the wind as she eyes the boy.

L.J approaches the inanimate mass of fur, closing its eyelids, regretting that he didn’t arrive earlier. “Why was she chasing you?” Pain swells in his heart. He wishes to mourn the death of his friend, but not in the presence of the enemy.

She remains a distance from Mayan’s son, “it doesn’t matter now. What are you doing outside at this time of night?” Her words bare no emotion, they are carefree.

“Running.” L.J answers, analising her movements fearfully.

“You do this often?” She holds her gun in her mouth while her hands search through her handbag.

He eyes her weapon with a gulp, fearing its instant kill capabilities as evidence in the dead werewolf. “Yeah.”

“Where are your parents?” Her gun out of her mouth, she holds a thin transparent tube filled with blue liquid and a needle at the end in her right hand.

The conversation is dragging on longer than he wished. Run or fight? With that gun in her hand neither are an option. “I don’t have a father, my mum’s at home probably sleeping.” He hoped that somehow, something would wake his mum up, she’d find the empty spot on the bed and come looking for him. He re-thought, deciding she would be safer at home.

The woman approaches the eleven-year-old, swiftly stabbing his neck with the injection.

He falls to the ground, bones snap and reshape, piercing through his darkening skin. Ash fur grows all over his body. The intensity of the pain is at a magnitude far exceeding any transformation he’s gone through, like fire burning from the inside, spreading rapidly; an unfamiliar sensation which normally doesn’t exist for werewolves.

He has lost control of every cell in his body, whatever he was injected with is forcing his transformation.

“Sorry to put you through this; but I had to confirm that you really are a beast, or I get in trouble again.” She re-evaluates the boy’s state of agony. “I guess you can’t hear me.” A gunshot later, he stops moving. “You only have your parents to blame for being born with filthy genes.” She opens her bag, revealing a name tag reading ‘Aylin (eye-lin) Robbinson. Hunter class 1’ then pushes her gun inside.