Stay With Me

“Gabriel,” Terry screamed. The sound of her cry echoed sharply in the chilly night air and then disappeared into the surrounding dark. And in the strange in-between moment of high tension, the situation could have gone a thousand different ways…

***

A highly volatile cocktail of fear and desperation was pumping through Terry’s veins. She tried to think clearly, but all the fear she had been suffocating was coming to breathing, full-bodied life. So, she screamed with unashamed terror as she reached for the boy only a few feet away from her. Could he save her? Gabriel Vern was not an avenging angel or even her knight in shining armor. He was a monster. So maybe the more pertinent question was would he choose to save her?
“Gabriel!” Terry shrieked again, as fingers clawed into her back.
“Terry, I’m sorry…” he gasped, voice shaking like someone with a permanent speech impediment. His eyes sought hers out, and in them was a plea for forgiveness. The harsh, dirty sound of her attacker’s amusement filled her ears again as Gabriel stepped away. He was actually going to abandon her…
“Don’t leave me here!” she cried helplessly. “Gabriel. Don’t you dare fucking leave me”-
A hand went over Terry’s mouth. She twisted her head violently side to side, and as she struggled, she did not notice Gabriel. Terry didn’t see the sudden spasmodic twitching of his body or the way his eyes turned a strange color of milky unfocused white.

Hands that were restraining suddenly were releasing. Terry felt herself being thrown hastily to the concrete as a strange, animalistic cry filled the emptiness. Footsteps followed closely after, and they weren’t walking closer. They were running fast away…
Seeing a teenage guy turn into a husky was fucking weird. Terry knew that from personal experience. She had screamed like a mental patient, and almost wrecked her car when it happened. So, her attacker’s reaction shouldn’t have been surprising. But as she lifted herself up again, Terry couldn’t help wonder why a guy that was probably under the influence of a dozen types of drugs would be so scared of a husky?
Too grateful to actually care, Terry prepared to give Gabriel a big sloppy B.F.F style hug. She was going to squeeze him so tight; his eyes would bulge out of his wonderfully freakish face. Then she actually saw what had scared the pervert away, and Terry screeched something that might have been, “OhMiFuckingGod!” Even she wasn’t entirely sure.

An animal crouched low to the ground. In the gathering shadows of the alleyway, its body appeared as lean and fluid as a greyhound’s, but with much more muscle. Its head was also canine in nature, but with certain sharp differences. The eyes were pure white with no identifiable iris and the fangs…
They were white too and thin as gently curving needles. They were also several inches long and wickedly sharp. Terry stared at them, transfixed. After her initial scream, she was finding it hard to speak. Anything she might have wanted to say [yell] was trapped unexplainably in her throat. She also couldn’t make herself move. As much as she wanted them to, her legs refused to be functional parts of her body.
Gabriel, if it was actually him, didn’t suffer the same problem. The creature used its powerful back legs to launch itself forward. Then it slipped past her and ran in the same direction as the running footsteps…