Scarlet Prison

Chapter 4

The wind was relentless that night. I could hear the trees outside thrashing violently against themselves. I pictured myself looking out the window in the morning to meet a flattened world. What kind of world would that be, with the wall beaten to dust? The pitch of the wind momentarily rose to a haunting scream. I put my pillow over my head and lulled myself to sleep with my fantasy.

Screams. I jolted upright and ran to my window, remembering as I got there that the wind had been screaming all night. I almost went back to bed, but then I noticed lights flicking on behind windows of the houses on the street. I checked the time. 3:30 a.m.

The screaming was growing more chaotic now, erupting into a mesh of clashing tones at uneven intervals.

A chill ran down my spine. The screams belonged to humans. Figures started to stumble out front doors and pour into the street. The doors were forgotten, left hanging open like dislocated jaws. Red eyes followed. Then growling. Low and roughly audible among the screams.

I pressed my face to the pane of glass. I was detached from the scene and yet strangely aware, my senses heightened from a strip tease of adrenaline.

The red eyes belonged unmistakably to dogs.

A dog caught one of the people. It was a woman holding her daughter. The dog bit the woman's leg. Her arms went slack, and as the child fell onto the pavement, her mom collapsed into an unmoving heap. I threw my hand over my mouth to muffle a squeal of horror. The toddler started crying as she shook her mom, but the dog wasn't finished yet. It charged at the little girl, who attempted to run, but she tripped over the hem of her dress. The dog bit her, causing her to twitch and fall motionless. That was just one small scene. All around, more dogs were attacking, and more people were collapsing. I opened my handphone.

"What's your emergency?" a calm voice asked me.

"There's a dog attack on Sunny Lane." The people were now climbing onto the roofs of their houses, where the dogs couldn't reach them.

I opened my mouth to explain further, when I heard a low growl develop in the background. "Peter?" the woman on the phone wasn't talking to me. "Peter, quiet. Peter!" The last word turned into a scream before the phone went dead.

I tried to make sense of what was happening. I went through what I was seeing like a checklist. Dogs were growling and biting people. After the people were bitten, they fell to the ground. The dogs couldn't climb onto the roofs. People could climb onto the roofs. People were screaming. The dogs' eyes were glowing red. I most likely had a viscous dog hiding in the garage. Every family in town owned a dog, which meant every family was in danger.

Well, my thoughts were organized, but the situation was still extremely chaotic. I'll just take it one step at a time, I thought. First, I had to wake up my parents. Shit, they had been dreaming of this day. Except none of their crazy dreams had quite predicted this scenario. I ran down the hall and burst through my parents' door, slamming it closed behind me. They both sat up groggily.

"Zermia?" My dad squinted at me.

"Mom, Dad, we have to get on the roof. The dogs..." I was cut off by the sound of splintering wood.

"What was that?!" my mom asked, alarmed. She reached for her pistol, which was conveniently located under her pillow.

The growling started to become more persistent and vicious. "Max," I answered. "C'mon." I ran to the closest window and pushed it open. The growling was right outside their room now, so I didn't take the time to remove the screen. Instead, I kicked it out and climbed onto the sill. "Get out here, now!" I demanded and didn't look to see if they listened. I grabbed onto the gutter above me and hitched myself onto the roof.