The Rival

By Alan, The Webmaster

She was terrified, absolutely terrified. She had never been so scared in her whole life.

She ran through the moonlit woods, heart pounding, mouth dry, stomach wanting to regurgitate its contents, her whole body bathed in an ice-cold sweat. Her dark tights were laddered. One shoe was off. Her white blouse had been partially ripped open, exposing the top of her white lacy bra.

She didn't know how long she could keep on running like this, for she was beginning to tire, to lose her breath, panting heavily, the sharp stitch that had developed in her side only exacerbating her condition. Yes, any moment now, she felt she would collapse to the ground.

And all the time, the thing that had been chasing her through the forest was gaining on her. It seemed so close behind her now that she could almost feel its hot fetid breath on the back of her neck. Oh dear God help me, her shocked mind was screaming. Please, please HELP me!

A blood-curdling howl suddenly ripped through the night. The heart-stopping sound of a wolf.

A werewolf!

The howl sending her fear soaring even higher, she felt her nerves were about to give out completely, that she would finally become a gibbering, helpless wreck, a state that would render her totally at the mercy of the hideous thing that was pursuing her. Oh how she regretted deeply that she'd ever allowed herself to be smooth-talked by him into taking a "romantic stroll" out into this forest. It was the biggest mistake she had ever made in her whole life. But how was she to know what he really was? When she'd first met him, he'd seemed such a nice, quiet, inoffensive guy - certainly the last person you'd ever suspect of being a lycanthrope. And never once had he warned her that he was not like other boys - unlike Michael Jackson in that Thriller video, where he gives his girlfriend fair warning before transforming into that unforgettable werewolf.
But there was no point in crying over spilt milk now. She'd made a bad blunder, and now she had to face the horrifying consequences.

The heart-stopping howl came again. A distinct rustling of bushes just a few feet behind her. The hideous beast wasn't too far away now. A heavy padding of paws through the undergrowth, twigs snapping like whiplashes under those feet.

The girl screamed and screamed, but nobody came to her aid in this dark, desolate forest. And then her screams were abruptly cut off as, running as panic-stricken and blindly as she was, she suddenly collided with something tall and solid. She fell to the ground with new shock.
At first, her dazed brain thought that she had ran into a tree trunk or something. However, when she looked up and saw a tall, dark figure standing over her, she soon realized that she was no longer alone in the woods with the beast that was chasing her.

It was the figure of a man. He was quite a thin man, and he was clad in a long dark overcoat. He looked to be in his early sixties, for he had grey hair and a rather wizened countenance. His pale face glowed in the bluish moonbeams. His large piercing eyes were staring down at her solicitously.

"What on earth is the matter, my dear?" the man asked, his voice gentle and soft, barely above a whisper. "Who were you running away from?"

Shaking uncontrollably, her eyes brimming with tears, her lungs finding it difficult to catch breath, the girl struggled to speak: "H-Help me . . . P-Please, please, help me . . ."

"Why of course I'll help you, my dear," the stranger said, in that same soft tone. "But you'll have to tell me what's wrong first."

"I'm . . . I'm being chased."

"Chased?" He frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand. Chased by whom?"

"By a werewolf!" she shrieked, her panic getting the better of her. At the sound of more rustling in the bushes behind her, the girl whirled round, then returned her gaze to the man pleadingly. "Oh God no, no. There it is again!" She pushed herself to her feet and, with trembling hands, seized the stranger's sleeve tightly. "Please, we've got to get away from here, now!"

"A werewolf, eh?" the man murmured, a thoughtful expression breaking out across his face. Then his eyes seemed to darken with disapproval. "Hmmm, I see we're going to have a little problem here."

"Please, we've got to get away from here," the girl babbled on, tugging at his sleeve insistently.

"SSShhh, my dear," the man urged, raising a hushing forefinger to his lips and gently patting the girl's shoulder with is other hand. "Calm down. I'll soon sort this beast out. I know all about these things, you know. Leave him to me." With that, he gently prised the girl's fingers from his sleeve, then slowly stepped towards the thick undergrowth where the werewolf's movements emanated from. Considering he was about to confront a ravenous, bloodthirsty lycanthrope, the man seemed remarkably calm and unafraid.

The girl thought that to judge by his confident remarks, he could well be an expert on werewolves and, as such, knew how to dispose of them. Didn't seem to be carrying a gun with a silver bullet, though. Well, she could only hope he was as good as his word, put her trust in him to stop this thing in its tracks before it got its claws on her.

She watched his tall, authoritative-looking figure disappear into the bushes and, feeling a sudden pang of concern for him, shouted: "Be careful."

A deathly silence fell on the scene, a quiescence that seemed to last an eternity. In the night sky, the moon continued to shine full and bright.

Then came the animal squealing. The squeals turned into howls of anguish, of pain. It sounded like a dog being cruelly treated by some sadistic animal hater. Bushes shook violently, leaves flying from the branches and up into the air, to scatter down again into the thick grass.

Then a voice. A man's voice. HIS voice. She couldn't be sure, but she could have sworn he'd uttered something like "Let THAT be a lesson to you!"

There came one last howl - an agonized, gut-wrenching sound that seemed to echo around the whole forest - then silence fell again.

Finally, after a minute or so, the man emerged from the bushes. A complacent smile beamed from his thin lips. He looked unruffled, showing no signs of any struggle whatsoever, as calm as ever. "It's okay now, my dear" he reassured her, gently touching her hand like a kindly old uncle.

"That thing won't bother you again."

The girl stared at him questioningly. "What did you do?"

"Never mind," the man said, curtly and dismissively. "As I said, that thing won't bother you again." He took the girl's arm. "Allow me to escort you out of these woods." He began to walk back in the direction of town, the girl obediently accompanying him.

Christ, what a mystery man he is, she thought. Still, for all his strangeness, she couldn't complain, for he'd done her a big favour, hadn't he? If it hadn't have been for his timely intervention, she might well have been lying dead in these woods by now, her throat torn out by that werewolf. Whatever he had done to it, she owed him her life.

Eventually, they emerged from the woods and onto the main road leading back to the bright lights of town. The moon was still full, but now that the monster was presumably dead, that silver orb in the sky once again resumed romantic rather than sinister connotations.

The girl looked up at her saviour and smiled gratefully. "Well, I guess I'd better be heading back home now. Thanks for . . . well, saving my life." She extended her hand for him to shake. "Nice meeting you."

And then she gasped with shock as the man shot out his hand and seized her wrist in a vice-like grip. "You're not going anywhere, young lady!" he hissed. "You owe me something."

What the hell did he mean by that? Did he want money? Or, worse, did he want . . . sex? Oh, God, no . . . Was he going to rape her? A horrible case of out of the frying pan into the fire seemed to be ominously looming up.

The girl's unease rose higher as his other hand shot up to close around her throat. His fingernails were like sharp talons digging into her skin. Her head fell back with the force of his hand around her throat, and he pushed her, slowly but forcefully, towards a nearby tree trunk. She opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a strangulated gasp. Terror gripped her once more . . . and somehow this terror seemed even more profound than the terror she'd experienced when the werewolf was chasing her.

"That thing had a damn cheek encroaching on my territory like that," the snarling man hissed. "And stealing my victims too." Through his bared lips, the girl could just about discern two razor-sharp incisors. They looked like . . . fangs. "Well, I soon put a stop to all that nonsense. I am the King of the Hill around here, and always will be. Nobody is going to take that honour away from me, nobody. Not ever. This town is not big enough for such rivals as werewolves."

The man's eyes were now blazing red coals in his pale face. Opening his mouth wider to fully expose his gleaming white fangs, his foul breath - the breath of something that was once dead and rotting but was now fully resurrected - was unbearably hot against the girl's cheeks. Having now pushed her back right up against the tree, he slowly bent his head closer and closer to the inviting silky-smooth skin of her neck.

As the vampire's fangs sank deeply, savouringly, into her neck, and as she felt her lifeblood being drained away, the last realization that registered in the girl's numbed brain before she finally sank into dark oblivion was that she now knew exactly what it was this man - this undead fiend - wanted from her when he'd said, "You owe me."

Her very soul.