FICTION SHORT: The Shortcut


This is another horror short under 1000 words. I hope to do one a week to keep my fiction writing skills up. This one is regular horror. The next one will be erotic horror like the one on last Sunday was. This will give everyone a bit of something they like....

The party ended but Danielle had sobered up a good half hour before when her boyfriend leaned over the little blond propped against the wall and brushed his lips across her forehead, his finger casually easing beneath the fabric of her low-cut top.

Perhaps sober of the heart, but not of the body, Danielle stumbled in her heels and finally stopped and peeled them off, dangling them from one finger as she turned the corner in the private neighborhood and realized that she had no idea which zig-zagging roads would take her back to her apartment. She did, however, know the woods led her directly to the back of her complex.

Danielle eyed the full moon overhead and that glance upwards made her stumble back. Perhaps she shouldn't take the street, she might fall into traffic and cause more harm. It was a warm summer night, the grass was soft beneath her feet and the woods unzipped themselves to open up a cozy well-lit path.

She could easily be home in 10 minutes.

Her mind replayed that scene over and over again, Doug bent over the petite buxom child-woman, his finger stroking her orangish fake-tanned skin with the same relish he paid to her own naturally honeyed breasts.

As if to punctuate her inner pain, Danielle stepped down on a rock with the arch of her foot and stumbled forward onto her knees. Her long hair hung in front of her, blotting out the moonlight. One tear splashed onto the grass between her clenching hands.

She sniffled. Something growled. Her head came up, her face covered in her own hair, she held her breath and listened as the growl purred louder from behind the line of dark trees behind her.

Feeling around the ground, she grabbed up a rock and held it tightly in her fist, stood up slowly as to not cause any reaction in the dog. She walked forward confidently, quietly, the rock digging into the flesh of her palm, afraid to look back and instigate a confrontation. She grew up with dogs and knew their ways. If she did not pose a threat, he would leave her alone and let her pass.

The underbrush within the darker woods rustled, leaves crunched, something padded alongside her paralleling her trek as the path she took grew more and more narrow by the foot and the trees swallowed up the last of the moonlight.

Surely she was halfway home, but should she enter the dark woods with whatever was pacing her or turn and go back? Either offered a long trek. The thought of her apartment and the safety of the second floor sounded better than running into the suburbs, a dog at her heels that probably lived in one of the homes and was territorial.

It was ahead of her just slightly now as she walked in and out of the last bits of moonlight. Danielle stopped and it stopped too. The woods were silent. The air was thick and moist from a recent rain, the sultry feel of it making her flesh damp, her hair curly and her breath heavy under the weight of it.

Then, the bushes parted and her eyes adjusted to the darkness within to see a leg in blue jeans, the edge of a dark t-shirt. She swallowed with relief as the man emerged enough to tell it was no dog.

Then, her heart thumped wildly to know it might be worse to be alone with a man in the woods. Danielle clenched the rock tightly in her palm, taking one cautious step back into the light. This, however, made her ability to see him nearly nonexistent. She searched the darkness to make out his shape, but in the light she was blind of him.

He took another step closer, just enough that she saw the glint of his long blond hair. She had seen him at the party, the brother of the little slut.

"I'm fine. I live just over there." She pointed into the woods, thinking perhaps he felt the need to usher her home after his sister seduced her boyfriend. "My roommate, Mark, is waiting for me." She lied. "He's probably going to meet me halfway."

She pushed herself deeper into the woods at a faster pace, hoping she had discouraged him, measuring every foot closer to her apartment she was. Danielle could hear the footfalls behind her on the path. He was ushering her, but she would not stop and confront him. She didn't have a chance against someone his size if he meant her harm. She could only get closer and closer until a yell might call attention.

The growl sounded again and this time she swung around, hearing it right on her heels. In a flash he lunged at her and the parting of the trees cast moonlight on his face, fangs exposed, eyes gleaming red as he opened his wide mouth, whiskers glistening silvery as his arms swung up, hair covered, claws flashing at her, catching the edge of her shirt with a tearing sound.

Danielle screamed and ran madly through the bushes, dropping her shoes and the rock, fighting against limbs that lashed at her face as she stumbled into the moonlight of her apartment complex and thankfully into the bright glory of a floodlight.

She swung around to stare at black still woods, heart pounding, breathing coming so quickly she swayed dizzily on her feet. Not wanting to know what it was, she was simply relieved it didn't follow her into the light. She scrambled through her pocket and climbed the stairway to her apartment, surprisingly falling into a drunken exhausted sleep on the sofa.

It was the next morning when she heard the news. Still feeling as if she'd dreamed the night before and it hadn't happened, reality hit her hard. Doug was found dead in a house in the suburbs, the party house. He was found in a pool of blood, torn to bits, a petite blond woman and her tall blond brother were bent over him, still ravaging bits of his flesh when the police opened fire on their feral bodies.

Comments

  1. I do like a good werewolf story. I'm working on one myself at the minute. I reckon I'm going to be waiting for these regular little tales with eagerness in the future. Have to admit though, this one did more for me than your erotic one. But then again, Horror works well with a bit of sexiness. So, you might have struck the right chord here.

    Well done!

    Craig

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  2. Another spine-chilling werewolf story... I do like your short stories especially the ones that gets your heart going because you know exactly how scared Danielle was. I am glad she made it home but not too sorry the boyfriend was wolf meat.

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  3. Thanks, Craig. I always appreciate other writer's opinions, they hold a lot of merit. I made this one twice as long so I could "flesh" it out more. Hee hee

    Julie;
    You know the expendables ones in stories-the jerks, the stoners and the total dicks.

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  4. She left him in bad hands.

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  5. Echo;
    Yeah, and to think she was worried for her own safety!

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  6. I'm not a big fan of werewolves, but that was good!

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  7. HN;
    Thanks so muhc! How can you not like werewolves? I like them best because I ran the woods as a kid like a feral creature and I appreciate the concept of man become more beast and less "human." We often seen in society how the animal side of man comes out like when they run in packs and kill. I think it just reminds me we are a touch away from beast.

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