Craig watched Hudson walk across the room with a contented smile then, picking up the TV remote, he scanned the channels, searching for something to watch while he waited for her to return. Finding an irreverent cartoon for adults he pressed select just as the first rock smashed through the window—showering the carpet with jagged shards of clear glass—and bounced across the coffee table. In the few seconds it took Craig to understand what had just happened, another two rocks came through the broken window. One landed on the couch next to Craig while the other clipped the edge of the television, narrowly missing his unprotected head as it tumbled through the air.
“What the fuck!” Craig spluttered, finally reacting to the danger and scrambling behind the couch.
“I can see people out in the woods,” Hudson stated calmly, as if unaware of the rocks still rolling across the cottage’s stone floor.
“Hudson! Get away from the window,” Craig screamed at his unsuspecting girlfriend. His voice came out in a high-pitched croak, his throat felt tight and dry. Several heavy thuds resounded off the cottage’s old brickwork which Craig assumed were more rocks, only these had missed their intended targets.
“They’ve got flaming torches, what the fuck is that all about? Don’t they know it’s the twenty-first century?” Hudson darted through from the kitchen, her long, dark hair trailing out behind her.
“Who has?” Craig gave her a confused look. He obviously hadn’t heard her earlier comments.
“The people standing in the woods.” Hudson gave him a disapproving look as if disappointed he had not hung on her every word, despite the rocks and glass that had been raining down on him at the time.
“What fucking people standing in the woods?” Craig’s confusion only deepened with her explanation.
“I think they were in The Slaughtered Lamb earlier, but there are more of them now.” Hudson didn’t even flinch as another rock sailed through the window, dislodging another shard of glass, before landing in the fireplace with a loud crash.
“Why would the villagers throw rocks at the cottage?” Craig had pulled his jeans off the back of the couch and, such was his haste, was now struggling to get them over his feet.
“They’re weird, superstitious folk down here,” Hudson replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, added, “And it’s a full moon.”
“Do they know we’re in here? They could kill us if one of those rocks hit us.” Craig had finally pulled his jeans up and was reaching for his sweatshirt.
“They know.” Hudson thought back to when she stood naked in the window, in full view of the villagers gathered in the darkness outside. “And I rather think that’s the point. I don’t think we’re welcome here.” She made no effort to find her clothes, although she felt vulnerable naked; Hudson saw little point in getting dressed.
“Why? Why would we not be welcome?” Craig pulled his sweatshirt over his head as he spoke. Hudson noticed it was inside out and was about to tell him, but then thought better of it as he continued. “What could we have possibly done to deserve being pelted with rocks?”
As if to punctuate his words, a rock smashed through the kitchen window and landed in the stainless steel sink with a loud clatter. Several more thumped into the cottage’s brickwork. Then one bounced off the front door with a thunderous crash, causing it to rattle and shake within its wooden frame.
Hudson felt her anger rising, but she didn’t feel scared. Frustrated maybe, annoyed undoubtedly, but not scared. Her fiercest emotion threatened to overtake her soul, threatened to unleash itself on those who chose to ruin her weekend away with Craig. He had tried several times to lure her away but she had always put him off in the past. But when he suggested this weekend it just seemed right, and she couldn’t possibly put him off again, not without running the risk of damaging their relationship. This weekend she planned to tell Craig her secret, but not like this.
Another heavy impact shook the front door as Craig scrambled to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this. They need to know they can’t scare us away, whatever their reason!” His words were full of bravado, but his actions were far more cautious as he crept towards the door.
“You can’t go out there,” Hudson said, a note of alarm obvious in her voice. “I don’t think you can reason with them.”
“So what then? We stay trapped in here all night, or at least until they decide to storm in and stone us to death? What will that achieve?” Craig had stopped in his tracks, unsure what to do next. His eyes darted nervously between the front door and Hudson, who remained huddled behind the couch.
“I don’t know, but I know it’s not safe out there. Why don’t you try the police?” Hudson’s words had an edge to them that hadn’t been present before as she hugged her knees to her chest, fighting the urges building deep within her body.
“Yes! Good idea, I’ll do that,” Craig muttered as he fumbled in his pocket, searching for his phone. After a few minutes of frantic, short-tempered dialling interspersed with loud curses, Craig dropped his phone on the couch. “No fucking signal! Bloody bumpkin village.”
“I got nothing either.” Hudson had pulled her phone from her jeans pocket which hung over the back of the couch. She swept her hair back from her face and tried to smile reassuringly. “I’m sure they just want to scare us. They’ll probably go back to the pub soon and have a good laugh at our expense.”
“What about the damage? Who pays for that?” Craig’s practicality was one reason Hudson loved him: faced with a bloodthirsty mob, he worried about the bill. “Maybe it’s all just an insurance job. We’ll lose our deposit then get sued for the rest.”
Hudson’s theory of the villagers being out to scare them quickly collapsed as a burning torch flew through the broken window. The flaming cloth, wrapped around a broken branch, landed on the flagstone floor and slid towards the couch. Hudson scrambled away from the approaching flames, her teeth bared in anguish. Craig, seeing the danger, reacted quickly, surprising even himself as he leapt into action. Grabbing the torch’s handle, he lifted it from the floor and swung it into the open-hearth in one smooth motion.
A second torch followed the first. Then a third crashed through the kitchen window, catching on the decorative curtains which quickly burst into flames as the torch swung back and forth, suspended in the material’s elaborate folds. Hudson screamed as she watched the fire engulf the curtains. Craig rushed towards the danger, the primitive need to protect his lover coming to the fore.
Hudson pulled herself to her feet using the couch for support. She could not fight the urge any longer, her primal fear of fire had released her inner beast and she was no longer in control. The scream that sent Craig rushing to the burning curtains was not because of her fear of fire, but by the pain shredding her insides. While Craig beat at the flames with a damp hand towel, Hudson staggered to the bathroom. She may no longer be able to hide what she became, what she was, but she could at least protect Craig from the horror of the transformation.
Hudson had barely twisted the bathroom door’s lock into place when her pelvis and shoulder blades twisted out of shape. She fell to the ground, her back arching as her bones tore apart at the joints. Another scream, deeper, more guttural than the first, ripped from her throat as her fingers and toes grew and arched into razor-sharp claws and the bones in her face ripped apart forcing her mouth open. Long pointed teeth broke through the gums in her newly formed muzzle as the top of her skull flattened and broadened. Her fine delicate skin sprouted coarse, dark hair and her long, luscious hair became a shaggy mane that covered Hudson’s reformed shoulders and stretched down to her flattened breasts.
Hudson straightened to her full height, the medicine cabinet’s mirror reflecting her wide, yellow eyes and slavering jaws, as she threw her head back and howled. The sound echoed back and forth off the small bathroom’s country-styled, rose-tinted tiles.
“Hudson? Hudson?” He sounded out of breath, his voice distant. “There’s a wolf out there. Did you hear it? Hudson? Where ar
e you?”
Hudson’s claws scraped across the tiled floor as her primal instincts took over. She felt trapped. Her flailing arms caught the shower curtain, ripping it from its plastic rings and pulling it down on top of her. The smell of fire filled the air as she clawed the door, scoring deep grooves into the softwood. She snarled, throwing her weight against the door, shaking it in its frame.
“Hudson? Is that you?” Craig almost coughed the words. “We have to get out, the fire, it’s spreading.” He sounded closer. There was a loud crash as another window succumbed to the barrage of rocks and torches.
Hudson turned and readied herself for another charge, her thick tail knocking her shampoo bottle and Craig’s aftershave into the bathtub. She hurled herself against the door and heard the wood splinter. Above the heavy, thick smell of burning wood and paper, Hudson could detect the scent of humans. It wasn’t Craig, she knew his decayed urban, artificially perfumed scent, but this was more earthy and basic. Salty sweat and stale tobacco mixed with the scent of sheep, cows, and farmyard muck and it was growing stronger. She tilted her head to one side and pricked her ears. Men’s voices, raised and angry, came at her from all directions, the speakers encircling the cottage.
“Hudson!” The urgency in Craig’s voice drew Hudson’s attention. He was right outside the door. She snarled. She felt threatened, it was involuntary and natural, an instinct left over from the days when her ancestors lived wild.
“Hudson? Are you okay?” The door’s wrought iron handle swung down and a weight hit the door. Hudson backed away. Nobody she had ever known had seen her like this and she couldn’t be sure how he would react—how she would react.
“Hudson! The cottage is on fire, we have to get out!” Another loud thump shook the door. The villagers’ voices were louder and more frantic. People shouted instructions as they approached the house, their obvious intention to trap Hudson and Craig inside the burning cottage.
Smoke began to find its way through the crack between the now-battered door and the damaged frame. Hudson sensed the time had come; to delay would be fatal, but to act would be a revelation she doubted Craig was prepared for. She had planned this moment so differently in her head, but those narrow-minded villagers, with their nineteenth century view of the world, had forced her clawed hand.
With a roar of frustration and anger, Hudson smashed her way through the door, sending splinters of wood in all directions as she crashed into the cottage’s narrow hallway. She shoulder-barged a shocked Craig to the floor as she struggled to regain her balance on the bunched up rug and splintered fragments of the bathroom door. Hudson’s lips curled back in a snarl as she stared down at him, an old world reaction to her closeness with a human, before she turned her attention to finding a way out of the burning cottage.
Craig lay on the floor in the hallway. He had thought his beloved Hudson had taken shelter in the small bathroom, a way of avoiding the flying rocks and burning torches. She had at first chosen to remain naked as they came under attack and he hoped she’d gone in search of something to cover her modesty. There was no way of telling what these villagers were after, especially after the way the barman had blatantly sized her up earlier. The burning torches may just be a way of driving him and Hudson out so the villagers could take their time with her.
He had heard a wolf howl but thought it came from the woods, never realising it was already in the cottage. But that was no ordinary wolf. And where was Hudson? He peered through the shattered door at the disarray in the bathroom beyond and felt relieved not to see her mangled body. Hudson had obviously not been in there when the wolf creature broke in and although this gave his anxiety a fleeting moment of respite, it didn’t get him any closer to locating her.
A bloodcurdling scream from the kitchen area pulled Craig from his brief moment of confused inactivity, forcing him unsteadily to his feet. Fear gripped his throat. His legs felt weak and his stomach churned as he stumbled back through to the cottage’s main room, fearing the creature or, possibly worse, the villagers, had attacked his future bride. A haze of dark smoke drifted across the room, stinging Craig’s eyes as he squinted towards the burning kitchen.
For a second, the creature stood silhouetted against the flames, the lifeless body of a villager dangling from one of its massive paws. Then it darted into the flames, leaving the man’s body slumped against the wall, before leaping through the broken kitchen window in one easy bound.
Hudson hated fire, but the villager had stood at the entrance to the kitchen brandishing a knife. With her increased turn of speed and the power of her strike she crossed the room and broke his neck before he had a chance to defend himself. He emitted one brief scream, which had died in his throat as the small bones in his neck separated from one another, alerting his friends to her attack. She had seen Craig stumble into the room and knew if she retraced her steps, returning towards the bathroom, her carnal, animalistic instincts would see him die in a similar fashion to the man hanging from her hand. Without thinking, she surged into the flames, springing onto the kitchen side, and diving headfirst into the small vegetable garden beyond the kitchen window.
Once out in the darkness and relative wilderness of the woods, Hudson felt more at ease. This was her natural environment, one in which she thrived. No longer trapped within her human skin or the confines of the burning cottage, she was free to hunt the yokel lycanophobes who still thought it acceptable to persecute her kind. She had seen the hatred in their eyes while in the pub; it was a look Hudson knew well. Some people, the uneducated and blinkered, still held on to their bigoted, outdated views so passionately they could sense the wolf lurking beneath the surface. If she were honest, Hudson expected the villagers to come, but Craig would never have understood why, so she’d just stayed naked and ready. The locals’ eagerness to use fire on one of their own cottages had surprised her, but that just paid testament to the fear created by centuries of folklore.
Hudson could smell her prey. Out in the dark, she was the superior hunter. She ran through the woods in near silence, her strong leathery pads barely touching the ground, her eyes clearly picking a path between the trees, closing in on those that threatened her. She ran past a young man holding a shotgun, tearing his throat out without breaking stride, before closing in on two older men shouting instructions to those nearer the cottage. Hudson relished the brief look of terror on their faces as her strong arm and razor-like claws tore one man’s face from the skull beneath while her teeth savaged his companion’s throat. She moved on swiftly, not caring whether they were dead or not, her revenge extracted.
Hudson circled the cottage, killing two more men and a woman. The woman stumbled right into her in the dark and Hudson dispatched her with a lazy flick of her index claw, neatly slicing the woman’s neck open. The men were happily chatting, obviously prematurely celebrating Hudson’s death, unaware she had escaped the burning cottage and was stood just a few yards away. The one lewdly boasting about seeing her naked in the window died without his testicles, his friend enjoyed a quicker and far more painless death.
Leaving the bodies for the wildlife, Hudson padded towards the cottage. She stopped at the treeline, where woodland gave way to mowed lawn, and sniffed the air. She smelt Craig, The Slaughtered Lamb’s barkeep, and another man. The steam rose from her coat, joining the vapour swirling from her snout as she slowly advanced on the burning building. The entire kitchen side of the cottage was alight, the flames flickering high into the night sky, the smoke drifting away into the trees while the cottage’s other side appeared untouched by the fire. Hudson moved round the building, avoiding the fire, looking for a way back in.
Finding a broken window, Hudson reared up and stared into the smoky interior. The thick, acrid smell of the smoke filled her nostrils, overwhelming her and blocking out her ability to smell the human’s scent. With a scrabble of claws, she was over the sill and prowling across the room’s thickly-quilted double-bed. Jumping down, she hooked the door wide open with her paw and
crept into the hallway beyond.
Craig lay on the floor near the front door. The sound of someone moving clumsily about the room came from another nearby doorway, and it was towards the noise that Hudson crept. Rounding the frame of the doorway, she saw the barkeep rummaging through her and Craig’s suitcases, holding a towel across his face to protect him from the smoke. Hudson let out a fearsome snarl as she reared up on her back legs. This time the old man’s eyes lingered not on her breasts but on her teeth, his leering expression replaced by a look of sheer terror. Hudson slashed his fat, bloated abdomen open with one powerful swipe of her arm, allowing his intestines to hit the floor shortly before his knees. She stared into his eyes as he died and was back in the hallway before his chest hit the floor. She was in a hurry.
Hudson returned to Craig’s prone form and licked his face until he moaned and tried pushing her away. She persisted, forcing him awake. With a start and a stifled scream, he returned to full consciousness, staring into her blood-coated face. Hudson’s tail thumped against the wall in her excitement and relief at seeing Craig alive as she turned away in search of the last of her prey, leaving her lover to find his own way out.
She did not have to search far; her prey came looking for her. He appeared at the end of the corridor brandishing a large knife, and without warning charged towards her. Hudson met him head on. Her claws tore into the flesh of his shoulder. His knife tore into the flesh of her shoulder, but she hadn’t finished. Her teeth ripped into his throat. Hudson ragged him hard, shaking her head from side to side, applying more and more pressure to his neck until his head separated from his shoulders. Then she limped back into the bedroom, up onto the bed and out of the window.
Craig stumbled out of the front door, coughing the smoke from his lungs as he shouted for Hudson. He wasn’t sure what he had seen in the smoke but knew he was lucky to be alive. That knowledge was reinforced when he came across the savaged remains of two men on the edge of the wood as he scoured the area surrounding the blazing cottage for Hudson. He feared the worst; he hadn’t seen her since the first few torches ignited the kitchen curtains, and he couldn’t even be sure how long ago that was.
Trapped Within Page 30
