Frenzied (5 page)

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say, and he was unusually quiet for once.

At least he’s okay.

“Come on.” He gripped her wrist as he opened the door.

“What are you doing? That thing’s out there.” She pulled back.

“It’s okay. I found us a safe place to hide, but we need to go now.” His grip on her wrist felt like iron.

“Are you sure?” The hairs on her arms stood up as goosebumps popped up all over her body. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

This whole situation is messed up and wrong.

He leaned over and kissed her. It was a hard, punishing kiss. “You trust me, don’t you?”

She shook off the feelings of doubt. She did trust him. “Okay, but let’s hurry.”

He nodded before dragging her out into the hallway behind him.

“Are you sure it’s safe to go this way?” She eyed the blood spatters on the white walls. There were no bodies, but the stairwell looked as if it had been the place of a massacre.

“Yes.”

It was the first time he had spoken to her in such a clipped tone. She frowned as he pulled her after him. He hadn’t said much at all since they’d left the manager’s office. Just one-word answers to everything she asked.

Now probably isn’t the best time for an in-depth chat
, she rationalized.

She narrowed her eyes as he dragged her through the door into the third-floor corridor. He didn’t even check the hallway for monsters. His feet thumped heavily on the tiled floor as he rushed her towards the cinema doors.

Why isn’t he being more cautious? We sound like a herd of elephants.

There was a tingling sensation up her spine. Something felt very wrong, but she couldn’t decide if it was fear causing her to think irrationally or not.

She chewed her bottom lip when they stopped outside the doors to theatre seven. Blood was splashed all over the walls, but again there were no bodies.

“Where are all the bodies?” She glanced around.

“I don’t know.” He smiled at her. “But it’s safe in here.”

She nudged open the door with her foot and peered into the dark cinema. She couldn’t see much, just the back of a row of seats. “How do you know?”

“I checked it out earlier.” He gestured for her to go through the doors.

“But what if—” She didn’t finish as he took her in his arms and urgently kissed her.

“Just trust me,” he said when he pulled away from her. “We need to hurry.”

She nodded. Why not? She’d trusted him so far. She stared into his eyes. He seemed a bit off. But given the situation, that wasn’t a surprise.

She walked into the theater and turned to see him closing the doors behind her.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

His face blurred and reshaped before her eyes, his nose becoming a snout and his teeth elongating into vicious-looking fangs. “It’s feeding time, and the young ones are hungry.” He growled out in a guttural tone.

He slammed the door, and she heard something heavy slide against the other side of it.

No, no, no!

She almost went into shock, her mind racing over what had happened to Ben.

Was he playing me all along?

The betrayal seemed all the worse because he’d made her care about him first. She’d lost a friend as well as being tricked by a monster.

She tried the door, pushing against it, but it didn’t budge. He had locked her in here, trapped her like bait for the creatures.

She heard a distant growl from behind her and spun around, her pulse racing. She didn’t have any weapons. The mop pole was still in the office, and the dagger …

She frowned. Ben hadn’t had the dagger with him.

I guess with fangs like that, he doesn’t need one.

She jumped at the sound of a roar nearby.

Shit, shit, shit.

She froze, pinned to the door in fear. The short staircase that led up into the theatre was a protected box with walls on both sides of her and the locked exit behind her. The only way to go was forward, but stepping up into the theatre aisles seemed like a death sentence.

She jumped again when there was a loud crash to her left. Snarling and growling followed. There were more loud crashes and two distinctly different growls. After a few moments, a loud howl filled the air, followed by squelching noises and ripping sounds.

They’re attacking each other. Good. I hope they kill themselves.

After a few minutes of listening to sickeningly loud lapping noises, the room went silent. She didn’t dare move or breathe.

Please let them both be dead.

She trembled when she heard a sniffing noise above her. Gulping back the urge to scream, she looked up to see a canine face staring down at her with bared fangs.

The creature was the size of a large man, but that was where the similarity to a human ended. Its snout was wrinkled up in a vicious snarl, baring its long fangs. Saliva and blood dripped from its mouth and splattered onto the tiles in front of her.

Lucy spun around and began backing away, her eyes locked on its trembling haunches as it tensed on the railing above the doors.

With a roar, it launched off the barrier towards her. She turned and fled up the stairs, leaping over the row of seats in front of her and falling down the tiered aisles. She put her hands over her head to protect herself from a painful landing.

Her leg caught on the back of a seat a few aisles down, jerking her back. She landed heavily on a row of seats, banging her head on the back of the row opposite before sliding off in a ball of agony and falling to the floor between the rows.

She groaned and rolled over onto her back, clutching her head as pain blossomed around her wound. She fumbled for a handhold to pull herself up, finding what she thought was the arm of a chair. She tugged on it to stand up, but it shifted in the seat, and a corpse fell on top of her.

She choked on a scream as she stared up into the gooey red mess that had once been the face of a woman, judging by corpse’s clothes. It was hard to tell because her face had been ripped off, leaving only bone and empty eye sockets. Her shoulder bones were visible through her torn dress, revealing a gnawed body with bits of flesh hanging off it.

Lucy scrambled backwards in horror, pushing the corpse off her. She struggled to her feet and turned, crying out when she encountered a dead man with no head in the next seat.

Staring around her, she was repulsed by the gruesome corpses occupying most of the cinema seats. Each body had been ripped apart and devoured. She stumbled back, trying to get as far away from the dead as she could.

A quiet snarl behind her made her freeze in terror. She slowly turned around to see the creature hunched two rows behind her, watching her. Its eyes glowed red. It jumped across a row to land on the one in front of her, and she fell backwards into the dead man’s lap. 

Oh god!

The creature sniffed her, its fangs close enough to bite off her nose. 

That’s what it’s going to do when it’s finished scaring the shit out of me.

She felt numb as its fetid breath warmed her cheek. She was trapped and helpless again.

Something hot burned through her veins. For the second time since she had woken up, anger took over her senses.

If I’m going to die in here, I’m taking this bitch with me.

The creature pulled back its head, tensing its muscled haunches as if preparing to launch at her.

She kicked out at its face in a moment of blinding rage, knocking it backwards. Anger welled up inside her at an alarming rate as she leapt up in the dead man’s lap, so she was crouching in it. She launched herself at the creature with a roar as it leapt towards her from between the rows. They collided in mid-air, and she gripped it by the throat with her hands, pushing its head back as they tumbled down the aisle in a ball.

Its claws sliced across her torso, but she barely felt it as she bit into its neck and ripped its throat out with her teeth. Coppery blood rushed into her mouth, and she pulled back spitting it out as they landed on the stage of the cinema.

The beast hit the stage first, its elongated limbs bouncing on the hard wood, and its head following as it flopped limply onto the stage.

She clawed at its body, ripping it apart.

That’s what you get for trying to bite me, bitch!

Clarity filtered through her rage, and she paused with the realization that the creature was dead. She widened her eyes in horror when she glanced down at her blood-covered, clawed hands. Golden fur covered her hands, and her fingers were elongated claws.

She stared down at the beast in shock. It was dead, ripped apart by her. The body beneath her transformed, blurring for a moment before it reset into the shape of a human being; a young man, who was about her age.

She scrambled off him, shaking all over as she pushed herself backwards. Her fingers squelched into his open chest, and she yelped.

No, no, no. What the hell am I?

She stared down at her hands. They were red with blood, but completely human again.

What the fuck was that?

She hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth.

What am I? Are they all human? Is this how they died, by killing each other?

She didn’t know how long she sat there for. Thoughts tumbled through her mind, trying to answer the many questions that resided there.

Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I killed everyone.

Nothing made sense anymore. She’d become the monster that she was hiding from. She tried to rationalize what happened to her, but was weighed down by guilt.

I just killed a person.

No matter how she looked at it, she had just killed a man.

After a while, she managed to gain some control over her thoughts. Whatever was happening to her, she had been able to turn it off.

That means I can control this.

The thought didn’t make her feel any better.

What happened to me?

She rubbed her brow, and her fingers brushed against the scabbed cut on her forehead.

Is it this? Did I get infected by a scratch from one of these things?

She stood up, not wanting to look at the cinema of dead viewers, but knowing she had to. There could be more of creatures in here, and survival was the only mission she had left now.

She glanced at the front row, which was thankfully empty, barring one man with his head drooping into his chest. He wore a ripped t-shirt, and there were only a couple of small scratches across his chest and torso. She stared blankly at the man. He didn’t even look dead. It was as good a place as any to rest her eyes.

What the hell am I going to do?

She pondered her options.

Kill everyone in here to get out. Then what, scratch people and make more monsters?

She shook her head. She couldn’t allow whatever happened in here to happen anywhere else.

Stay in here and die?

There didn’t seem to be any options that led to a happy ending.

She wondered if she had a family who would miss her.

Was I ever human?

She didn’t know.

Her eyes lingered on the dead man in the front row.

Is he happier like that?

He looked peaceful. His dark hair flopped over his face, but his body seemed relaxed. Unlike the other corpses, he hadn’t died in a horrific pose.

Maybe he killed himself and took the easier way out of here.

She frowned as her eyes were drawn to a wound on his chest that she could see through the gaping rip in his black t-shirt. The scratch seemed familiar. It was just like the one—

Ben!

She jumped off the stage and rushed over to the man.

But it can’t be Ben. He’s outside the room.

She glanced up at the doors. They hadn’t been opened. At his hip, there was a knife holstered in his belt.

This is the guy who left the room, but he’s not the one that came back.

She knew that it was insane to consider, but she was convinced there were two Bens here.

She pulled the old leather-bound book from her bag and flipped through the pages. Post-It notes with random comments scrawled on them flipped past her eyes. She paused at a page with the word ‘Berserkers’ highlighted on a note. The book was unreadable, but she could just manage to read the scrawl on the notes, which were thankfully in English.

One word was underlined three times on the note: ‘Shapeshifter.’

She dropped the book and lifted Ben’s head.
This is the real Ben. It has to be!

She shivered at the thought of seeing his dead eyes, but had to look all the same. She needed to know what really happened to him.

His face was unmarred, and his eyes were closed.

She frowned.

What killed him?

She lifted his shirt and checked his chest and torso. Other than a couple of scratches, there wasn’t a mark on him.