Authors: Jennifer Bull
‘It was you three!’ Beth screamed as we ran out of the ride and straight into the three missing friends who were sitting at the exit looking extremely guilty and trying not to laugh. Rex was holding my hat. I’m also pretty sure they were hiding water pistols behind their backs.
I leant over and rested my hands on my knees; my heart was still racing and I was starting to feel light headed. I could feel my control slipping and my hands started to throb.
No, no no.
I needed to get it back, quickly. I couldn’t let the monster out. I took a few deep breaths and tried to zone Beth’s voice out. She was really laying into them hard.
I took a few steps away and gulped in some of the cold fresh air, hoping it would bring me to my senses. My heart was still pounding away in my chest, despite my attempts to calm down.
‘Dan, are you okay?’ Beth called, taking a break from her lecture. Rex, Ty and Zach were actually looking a little sorry now. Whether that was because of their prank, or because they were getting told off, I wasn’t sure.
The throbbing in my hands was getting worse. No, this could not be happening. I tried to calm down, bring my mind back, but it wasn’t working. I swallowed hard.
Come on, you can do this. You’re just in the park, nothing’s wrong. You are in control.
Shit, I could feel my face throbbing now. In fact my whole body was throbbing. I bent over further as a stabbing pain hit my stomach.
I managed to gasp a few words out, ‘Run. Now. Please, run. Get away.’
The others just laughed, although Beth was looking a little concerned.
‘He’s just playing a prank,’ Rex said smiling at Beth, ‘You’re not very good dude. What are you doing, trying to pretend like you’re a werewolf or something? One of these days we need to teach you how to pull a proper prank.’
I was still in pain, and it was just getting worse. This wasn’t a prank. How could I get them to understand that?
‘I said run damn it!’ I said, my voice barely above a croak. Beth was looking pained now. She thought I was joking around too. Oh damn. Beth. I needed to get her out of here. I looked around for the nearest security cam. Luckily there was one not far off. I waved at it with difficulty, hoping I could get Jeff’s attention, hoping he would understand. Jeff knew about my condition. He’d always been really good to me. Never treated me differently to anyone else.
I couldn’t hold on much longer.
‘Okay dude, this is getting boring now,’ Rex said with a yawn, ‘Come on, I promise we won’t pull any more pranks. We’ve only got another hour or so until Jeff kicks us out. Let’s make the most of it.’
I barely heard the mumble of agreement from the others. Everything was starting to get a little fuzzy. I tried to back away but my legs wouldn’t move. They weren’t under my control any more.
‘D—Dan…’ Beth started, ‘What’s up with you? You’ve got…’
‘Whoa, okay, I take back my previous comment, this is actually a pretty good prank,’ Rex said leaning a little closer and squinting at me, ‘How are you doing this? You’ve got the werewolf thing down.’
I looked down at my hands. Shit, they were covered in thick grey fur. In fact I could see out of the corner of my eyes the fur starting to grow on my face. Not that they were my eyes any more. Once the wolf comes out, I’m nothing more than a prisoner in my own body. I tried to shout again but no words came. Just a deep, throaty growl.
‘I don’t like this Dan, please stop it now,’ Beth pleaded. The wolf looked at her and she screamed. She grabbed Rex’s arm. ‘We need to get out of here, please. Now. Let’s go.’ The Potato Heads were already backing away.
Rex seemed to agree but he looked uncertain. I could tell he didn’t want to run and then find out I’d just pulled off the prank of the century. I begged them silently to go. This could not end well for anyone if they didn’t go now. In fact it was probably too late already. The wolf growled again and started towards Beth.
I yelled. Well, in my head at least. I had no control over anything anymore. All I could do was watch. Rex grabbed Beth’s arm and the two ran for it, with the wolf in hot pursuit. The wolf loved a chase; it was so much more fun to have to catch your dinner before you ate it. Rex and Beth ran past the potato twins who were desperately trying to run without falling over. It wasn’t working very well.
The wolf slowed down. He wanted to enjoy the chase, I could see that. He could easily have caught both Ty and Zach by now. The wolf must have reached near 50mph before. I’d had to take a week off school to recover once I regained control of my body. Not to mention we didn’t want the teachers asking questions about all the cuts and bruises I had. Dad told them I had some autoimmune disease, which probably wasn’t that far from the truth. Luckily these days the wolf didn’t get control very often. I’d learnt how to suppress him, and it had been over a year since the last incident. I guess that’s why Dad relaxed the rules tonight, but I really wish now that he hadn’t.
Throwing everything aside that was in his path, the wolf caught up with Ty and Zach. He seemed to be contemplating which one to attack first. They both looked terrified. I wished I could shut my eyes, block out what was to come, but the wolf had other ideas. He loved to torment me. He must have been planning tonight for a very long time.
He decided on Ty, who was still in his Mrs Potato Head costume. Ladies first I guess. He placed a great paw on the costume as Zach got up and ran. There was nothing he could do for his friend now.
The wolf lifted his front paw up, slowly and deliberately, so both my eyes and Tyler’s were watching carefully. Both full of fear. Out of his paw came five razor sharp claws, extending inch by inch until they stopped, almost touching Ty’s nose. He tried again to break free of the wolf’s grasp.
The paw came slashing down, ripping Ty’s costume right off and leaving deep scratches all down his body. Ty was pleading with the wolf now, begging him to let him go. I desperately tried to regain some control, to stop the wolf from hurting my friend, but he was too strong. I never had been able to regain control once I’d lost it. Only after the wolf tired himself out could I start to take over parts of my body and slowly push him back inside. Still, I tried again and again, trying to stop the wolf from attacking Ty. He’d never killed a human before. Plenty of animals, yes, but never a human. I didn’t want him to start now.
Suddenly there came a shout and something cracked the wolf hard over the head.
Really hard; my head was throbbing now. Zach was jumping up and down from a distance, screaming at the top of his lungs. His potato costume was lying a few feet away. The distraction worked. The wolf took off towards the building Zach had run behind. Reaching it, he turned the corner, expecting to see Zach crouching down but there was no one.
The wolf stalked the area, sniffing the air and looking through the shadows for any signs of his prey. He uprooted a few nearby trees and used one to smash the windows of the surrounding buildings. He had to be around here somewhere. The wolf was just about to look in the large dustbin when a dragging sound caught his attention.
He turned the corner just in time to see Ty’s legs disappearing through the open door to the visitor centre. He growled and ran over as the door was slammed shut and locked. I saw Zach’s scared eyes peering through a window at me. I’d never forget the look he gave me; the fear in his eyes was distressing enough, but the loathing… that really hurt. In that one moment I knew, even if we could get out of this mess, he’d never forgive me for what the wolf had done. He didn’t understand that I had no control of what the wolf did. What the wolf does. I didn’t blame him, if it had been the other way around, I don’t think I would have understood either.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sarah's Story
I ended up back in my cell after that last escape. Locked up again. It was his favourite game. To scare me in any way possible. He knew my fears better than I knew myself. To him, this was all one big game. This whole place. He created it. He controlled it. He controlled me.
It was a few weeks before another chance came for me to escape. He actually fed me a little more during those weeks. Maybe somewhere deep down he felt guilty for scaring me. Doubt it really. More likely he wanted me to be stronger next time. Run a little longer, a little harder. He’d have more fun catching me that way.
The next time I got a chance to escape wasn’t because the door was left open. When my plate of slightly less stale food, and what might have been cheese at one point, was pushed through the gap, the door was quickly closed again and locked. But when I picked through my dinner, I found a key hidden under the plate.
I held the key for a while, turning it over and over in my hands, wondering what to do. The smell of metal was lingering in my nose by the time I’d decided. Even if it was all a game to him, at least escaping from my cell gave me a chance. What if he’d slipped up this time? If he had, maybe I could find a way out and get away from this place. I certainly wasn’t going to save myself sitting in the cell for the rest of my life, that was for sure.
So I played his game. The lock clunked noisily as I turned the old key in it. I opened the door slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the different light before leaving. I had to give myself a chance.
The corridors looked familiar this time. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. Should I go the way I went before and try to head for the door to outside, or would he be expecting that? I could go the other direction but I had no idea what would await me if I did. I decided I wasn’t a fan of the unknown. I tried to retrace my footsteps and find my way outside. That forest had been pretty big. There was a chance he didn’t know every inch of it, and I might be able to hide somewhere in there.
I followed the corridor, taking a little more time than my previous escape attempt. I was trying to remember which way I had gone. Right, left, right, right. No, that couldn’t be it. I hadn’t been down this corridor before. It stretched so much further than the others. In fact, it looked like it was moving, the end wall seemed to be getting further and further from me. That couldn’t be right.
As I walked down the corridor I heard his laugh. It was quiet at first, like a whisper through a locked door. It barely reached me. I thought perhaps I was imagining it, but then it came again a little louder. Not just a laugh this time.
‘Run, child, run,’ the whisper said, ‘The slower you go, the dizzier you will be.’
As the whisper said this, the corridor began to wobble. I clutched my head and shook it, trying to steady my vision. My feet felt stable on the floor, but my head was swimming from side to side. Actually it was more sloshing than swimming. I started to move and, as I ran, the dizziness lessened, so I ran even quicker.
Down the corridor I raced, desperate to get to the end. I just needed to find this door and get outside. I could really do with some fresh air. The corridors were feeling particularly stuffy, not to mention dusty. I remembered they had been cold the last time, but now they were unbearably warm.
I could hear the whispered laughter following behind me. Like it was chasing me down. I turned around more than a few times as I ran, but there was nothing there. My hands reached out to the walls of the corridor, trying to steady myself as I ran faster and faster.
I focussed on the end of the corridor. If I could just reach it, there must be a turning nearby. Somehow I must be able to get back to that door. It was strange, the end of the corridor seemed just as far away as it had a few minutes ago, even though I had been running towards it. I ran a little harder, pushing my body to the limit. My breath was coming out heavily now and my skin was starting to tingle from the effort.
No, that wall was definitely getting further away, not closer. In fact, all the walls looked like they were warping and bending. I slowed down and the dizziness hit me hard. I needed to get out of here. I clutched my head to steady the throbbing, spinning mess that was now inside it, and gave my breathing a chance to return to normal. If I kept this up I’d be dead before I found the door outside. He’d probably like that.
Before my head incapacitated me completely, I got back to my feet with great difficulty. It took a few goes before I was standing, holding on to the nearest wall. My eyes were still clenched shut in an effort to ward off as much of the attack as I could. Feeling along the wall, I started to run again. After a few seconds I opened my eyes and stumbled slightly as everything swayed, but I kept moving. I was determined this time. I would reach the end of the corridor.
The sound of my sore feet slamming on to the floor filled the air. Even the whispering had stopped. I don’t know how long I ran for this time, but the corridor just grew longer and longer. I couldn’t see the end anymore. The dizziness I felt now was more from the effort of running that anything he was doing. The chilling laughs started up again, louder this time. Clearly my effort to escape was amusing him greatly.
My legs couldn’t take the running any longer. To say they felt like jelly would be an understatement. They felt swollen, but empty. It was like they didn’t belong to me anymore. I don’t even know how my legs were still moving, and I was pretty sure my brain wasn’t telling them how to anymore, it was too tired. My arms were still moving too, keeping the momentum going. My chest was hurting from the effort of my heavy breathing, but the end of the corridor just wasn’t getting any closer.
I kept my eyes open, looking left and right, I needed to get away from here. There must be an exit somewhere. A door, or another corridor. I couldn’t see anything but wall. Lots and lots of wall.
I ran a while longer before my body decided it had had enough. I collapsed on to the floor, exhausted. Drifting in and out of consciousness, my mind was racing with images of endless corridors and spinning lights. My chest heaved under the harsh breathing and my throat was on fire from the warm, dry air. I needed some water.