I bolted toward the road. I didn’t know what else to do. I still had my cell phone, one shoe, and a little hope. I could hear him crashing through the bushes behind me, still laughing, like this was all a game to him.
I exploded out of the woods. I was exposed, but at least I could run. The dirt road was cool against my bare feet. It seemed like I’d been running forever. My lungs burned, my legs ached, but I couldn’t stop. He was still back there. I glanced over my shoulder and saw two red eyes following me. They were glowing.
I blundered off the road. Smashed into a tree. Stars and colors exploded behind my eyes. My phone and shoe flew into the dirt.
The psycho with red eyes laughed, louder this time. Pounding closer. I made a futile grab for what I thought was my phone, came up with a rock instead, and threw it as hard as I could at him. There was a sharp crack. The glowing eyes snuffed out like candles. A body hit the dirt.
Did I kill him?
I stood there in shock, trying to catch my breath, wondering how far I could get without my phone or a weapon. I knelt down and felt blindly for them. I kept throwing backward glances at where Red Eyes had gone down. He wasn’t getting up.
I found my phone, but only because it was in a sparkly pink case. Dad had complained about the extra cost when we’d bought my phone, and maybe it had been a waste then, but now it might have saved my life!
I heard movement behind me. Red Eyes was getting up. I turned on my screen and whirled around. He wasn’t there. Not sneaking up, not lying dead or dazed, nowhere! It made zero sense. I backed up, away from the spot I’d last seen him, and bumped into a tree. Only it wasn’t a tree. It was him!
I screamed, flipped around, and stared directly into those impossible crimson pits that passed for his eyes. I was drowning in them. Wanting to die, to let him do whatever he wanted, and that terrified me even more—enough to shove my phone in his face. My thumb hit the photo button. There was a bright flash; Red Eyes threw up his hands and reeled back from the light. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him though because I was already running, using my phone to pick out the path, knowing it was stupid—that he could easily follow me—but it would be even dumber to run into another tree and knock myself out.
I’ve got his picture now. I can turn it in to the police.
I heard Red Eyes behind me, only he wasn’t laughing anymore. He was making an angry, animal sound deep in his throat. The kind of sound a monster makes right before he eats you. I didn’t bother glancing back. Not after what happened last time. But I could tell he was gaining and that this time, there would be no escape. There would only be him and me, death and whatever lay beyond . . .
Two bright lights punched through the darkness. Headlights! I was saved at last. I planted myself in the middle of the road and waved my hands up and down to get the driver’s attention. With any luck, it would be a cop and he could catch this creep before he found another victim.
The car screeched to a halt. I planted my hands on the hood as if that could stop a ton of steel, rubber, and plastic from crushing me. I was nudged backward a foot or so, but that was about it. Then the driver was getting out, and I was running around the passenger side.
“Help!” I shrieked. “That guy back there’s trying to kill me!” I yanked on the passenger door handle. It was locked.
“What guy?” the driver said. “Where?”
I looked back at the road. It was empty.
“I guess he must’ve run off when he saw you coming. But he was after me. He’s been chasing me all the way down from Lookout Ridge. Can you please unlock the door? We have to get out of here!”
“In a minute.” The driver kept craning his neck, looking around as if he didn’t believe me. He was a cute guy about my age, maybe older, with a thick mop of rich, black hair and smoldering green eyes. The guy looked at me, then back at the road. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.” He hit the door unlock. As soon as I heard it click, I yanked the door open and climbed inside, slamming it behind me. I tried calling 911, but couldn’t get a signal.
The driver got in, locked the doors, and began to drive. The only problem was it was in the wrong direction. We were heading back toward Lookout Ridge.
Panic rose in me. “Not this way! We’ve gotta get back to town, call the cops! I can’t get a signal up here.”
“Take it easy,” the driver said. “It’s a one-lane road; I have to find a turnaround.”
We drove on through the darkness. “I come here sometimes to think,” he said. “The Ridge has a great view, like you can see the world and almost feel like you’re part of it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I can’t talk about anything normal right now.”
“No problem. So this guy . . . Did you get a good look at him? Did you see his face?”
“I did better than that! I took his picture.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. I also hit the bastard with a rock, so he should be injured. That ought to make him easy to identify.”
“Nice,” he said, “but you look pretty banged up yourself. Did he hurt you?”
“Ran into a tree trying to get away.” I touched the knot forming under my brown hair and winced. “It hurts.”
He didn’t say anything. We were almost to the top of the Ridge. Back where it all started.
“Hey, shouldn’t we have turned around by now?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I didn’t see anyplace safe to do it and I don’t want to take a chance on us getting stuck up here. We’ll turn around when we get to the top.”
“But he could be waiting for us up there!”
“Did he have a weapon?”
“No, not that I could tell. But it was dark.”
“Well, if he had a gun, he would have shot you, right?”
“I guess.”
“Look, you said he wanted to kill you, so that means he didn’t have a gun or you’d be dead. As long as we stay in the car, what can he do?”
“Nothing . . .”
“That’s right. You’re perfectly safe, so relax. Whoever he was, he’s probably long gone by now. There are dozens of trails leading off the Ridge.”
“Thanks. I just can’t help being freaked out, you know? I never had anything like this happen to me before.”
“I’ll get you home, don’t worry.”
We got to the top. Lookout Ridge was empty. The driver stopped the car and stared at me. “What were you doing up here all by yourself?”
“I wasn’t by myself. This guy I know brought me here . . . you know, to see the fireworks.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t go thinking it’s like that,” I said. “You don’t know what happened. And obviously, nothing did, because the bastard dumped me and left me to walk home in the dark.”
“So that wasn’t your boyfriend chasing you?”
“No! I was walking home and then some random psycho started chasing me, so I ran.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said. He looked at me funny when he said it, as if it meant something more than that.
“Yeah, I’m lucky, all right. So now you know why I was up here. And this was my last time coming to Lookout Ridge, believe me. I learned my lesson.”
“Lessons are good,” he said. “You’d be surprised how many people never learn.”
“Sounds like you believe in second chances.”
“Sometimes.” He turned the car around and we drove on in silence for awhile. I kept checking the woods on either side of the car, just to make sure Red Eyes wasn’t lurking nearby. He wasn’t—at least not that I could see. When we got to the base of the Ridge, the driver pulled over just before we got to the main road.
“Why are we stopping?”
“You said you had a photo of the guy who chased you,” he said. “Have you seen it yet?”
“No.”
“Don’t you think you better? In case it’s someone you know or need to identify later?”
“Yeah, good idea.”
I tapped some buttons on my phone to get to the photo gallery. I was almost afraid to look. The photo was grainy, washed-out, nothing more than a close-up of Red Eyes’ snarling mouth. Not much good for identification, except for the fangs.
Wait . . . Glowing eyes and fangs? It all made sense. Red Eyes was a vampire!
The driver saw the look on my face. “Let me see that.”
I handed him the phone.
He frowned, tapped a button. “That’s funny. I don’t see anything. I thought you said you had a photo of him?”
“I do! Let me see.” I grabbed the phone from him, but the photo was gone.
“What did he look like?” the driver asked.
“I don’t know, but he’s got fangs and red eyes and—” That’s when I noticed the driver was staring at me with those same red eyes.
I threw open the door and jumped out. Into the waiting arms of Red Eyes. He had a large gash on his forehead from where I’d hit him with the rock. I could see through it to the gleaming skull, but the wound wasn’t bleeding. I wrestled with him, but Red Eyes was too strong. And the more I looked at him, the more I began to notice how much he resembled the driver.
I heard the driver get out. “My brother,” he explained, “likes to play with his food. Sometimes, it gets away from him.”
Red Eyes laughed and jabbed his fangs in my neck. His rough tongue lapped at my bloody skin. Drinking me. I began to go numb all over. Numb, and very cold.
“Please! You don’t have to do this,” I begged. “I won’t tell! Who would believe me? Besides, I thought you believed in second chances?”
The driver nodded. “Yeah, but not for you—for him.”
They were both on me then. Ripping. Tearing. Laughing. I’d lost everything. And the last thing I remember thinking was, Mom was right.
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AND MORE (SPECULATIVE FICTION)
Stories that were too interesting or unique to fit into a single category.
FOX RED
Amy Laurens
THEN
One: Zac
I remember the anger most of all, driving me through the freezing, early snow. I couldn’t feel my toes in my boots and my ears hurt like they’d fall off, but right at that moment, I hated my father so much it didn’t matter. I hated him enough that I brushed aside the early nips of the storm foxes’ teeth. I hated him enough that, striding through the bush, I wasn't even scared. I hated him. He was going to pay.
I reached the old, rust-red railroad, abandoned in the bush decades ago, the faltering line demarcating native eucalypts and wattles from plantation pines. Unlike the eucalypts, the pines looked natural in their coverings of snow. ‘Look at us,’ they seemed to say. ‘We were made for adversity.’
So, it seemed, was I.
It was anger that propelled me through the darkening forest as wind spat snow in my face. It was anger that drove me deeper and deeper into the trees that loomed overhead, blocking the light that glinted in storm foxes’ eyes. But it was grief, when at last I reached the Winter King’s clearing, that brought me stumbling to my knees.
I was eight, and Mum had gone.
“Fix it,” I told him, the Winter King, with his great stag antlers and all-seeing eyes. “Bring her back.”
He smiled sadly. “You know I can’t.”
I challenged his gaze. “Send your foxes. Find her.” The storm foxes, riding invisible on the wind, nipped at my ears, my nose. I ignored them.
His smile vanished. “They are not my foxes any more. They no longer do my bidding. I could not send them if I tried.”
“Then make me one.” My heart hammered in my chest; this was it, this was my father’s punishment, the thing I’d set out to do. He’d driven my mother away, and now I would leave him too. “Make me a storm fox, and I’ll find her.” If I could ride the winds as they did, I’d find my mother wherever she was. Nowhere in the whole wide world would be too far. I’d find her, and I’d bring her back.
The Winter King’s eyes glazed up with tears. “Is this really what you want?”
My jaw ached. “I do.” Cold burned my fingertips. Alive. I felt alive, so damn alive; nothing could touch me now.
The Winter King bowed his head. “So be it.”
I stood, too agitated to kneel, robbed of the fight I’d expected. “I hate him,” I said, though it was none of the Winter King’s business. The storm foxes circled me, red fur and cream throat, black eye and white tooth, glimpses magically visible in the gloom. “I never want to see him again.”
The Winter King laughed without mirth. It sent shivers down my spine. “Be careful, child. You’ve lost one parent already.”
I scowled and swatted away a fox that nipped at my ear. “I’ll find her.”
The Winter King bowed and faded away.
The foxes’ nips grew restless, daring—a toothy, masochistic leer. For the first time, fear trilled along pathways that anger had made.
I didn’t scream when they tore into me—I’d asked for this—but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face. It didn’t take long before blood joined them, trickling from my eyebrows, dripping off my earlobes, oozing from wounds on my neck and scalp.
I closed my eyes, alive. It hurt, but in a way that was normal, natural: the physical response of a body being torn apart. For the first time since Mum had walked out, the pain in my heart dulled.
The sharp, sweet iron of blood overtook the crisp smell of the pines. My pulse rushed in my ears until I couldn’t hear the quiet yips of the foxes any more. Slowly, I sank to the ground, fighting against the impulse to shelter my head.
Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe the Winter King had left me to die. Walked out on me, just like everyone else eventually did.
I tried so hard to be good.
Under all the pain, something began to itch. I opened my eyes. At first all I could see was a haze of red—blood, maybe, or fox fur? It was hard to say. But then the musk of fox grew stronger, the iron of blood faded into the background just a little, and I realised the trees were taller than they had been.
No. I was shorter.
I swiped blood from my eyes—
Ow. I had claws. I stared at my hand—paw—hand? I had paws?
Oh. I realised the storm foxes had withdrawn a little, and that the pain had changed. Instead of the sting of open wounds, I ached like I’d run to Melbourne and back. And I had paws.
I tilted my nose to the sky and yipped with delight. I was a storm fox, and now I’d find my mother quick as breathing.
I leapt off the ground, ready to soar with the winds and the snow. For a heart-buoying moment I flew—
The ground smacked into me like disappointment, and I discovered the truth: I was a fox. Not a storm fox. Just a fox.
Foxes couldn’t cry. I was glad.
Two: Zac
I was a storm fox, it turned out, but only sometimes. In mid-winter, when the Winter King’s power was at its peak, I could soar through the winds with the others. But in the mid seasons, I was just a fox.
In summer, I was human. Some summer days, the thing I’d dreamed up as my father’s punishment felt an awful lot like mine. Even more so in autumn, when I was a fox again and the storm foxes could show the full extent of their resentment. How dare I turn human when they were trapped as spirits? The world was full of cruel ironies.
I never did find my mother.
Three: Zac
It was a bitter-sharp day near the end of autumn that by all rights should have had me soaring the stormy winds. Instead, I was plain fox. The air smelled like water and ozo
ne: a winter storm on the way. The first spattering of rain send fear tremoring through me—storms gave the spirit foxes power like nothing else, and I was far from home and safety.
I pounded through the pines, racing the rain. Lightning crackled on the horizon, a constant flickering ghost light with its grumbling, basso accompaniment. Any moment now the storm would break, and the storm foxes would be back in full force.
Wind gusted through the trees into my face, bringing a musky scent. They were here. In mid-form, I could barely see them, ethereal teeth and claws, ears, eyes and whiskers occasionally taking form on the gusts, streaks of red and white against the evergreen of the trees—but I could feel them. Sharp teeth nipped at my tail, tearing hairs out by the roots. Claws caught my ears. I ducked, yipped, swerved for the momentary protection of a low-hanging branch. I ran; I ran. My chest ached, my nostrils burned; my heartbeat pounding in my ears was easily louder than the thunder overhead.
I hit an unexpected clearing, needles slick and treacherous. I could have gone around. I should have gone around. But I was spent. So I tucked my tail in, flattened my ears, and sprinted.
Midway across, the cackling of the storm foxes rose the hair on my ruff. They howled straight out of the sky, pinning me to the ground in a puddle of muddy rainwater. I curled into a tight ball. Claws raked my skin. My fur was too soaked to provide protection and blood ran. I yipped, squirmed, shifted; if I’d been human, I would have cried.
They tore my ears, drove teeth like nails through my paws, picked and pulled me apart until I felt spread across the clearing in a hundred million pieces. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move—and there were too many of them regardless.
One last rattling breath, and I knew I was going to die.
Only then, I didn’t.
Four: Mina
Sailor, my dog, was dead. That was the only thing I knew. That, and the fact that my mother had killed him. Sort of. But sort of was enough.
That Moment When: An Anthology of Young Adult Fiction Page 58
