Dorothy

Chapter 11

Dorothy screamed. No one tried to stop her. Ronan stumbled back a few paces before straightening up. Auden froze. He hardly seemed to breathe. The man/beast (Dorothy wasn't really sure what it was) advanced on them. His bared canines were coated in something suspiciously red. He was salivating all over the front of his ripped shirt. Dorothy couldn't help noticing that these rips revealed a torso that would have made most teenage girls very excited, but the idea of such muscle behind this terror only added to her panic.

Rosie was the first to come to her senses. "On my signal we're all going to run, okay?" she said in a tone that was evidently supposed to be soothing if the beast man didn't know English. "Good. One, two, three, NOW!" A blinding red light issued from below Rosie's sensors, right at the man. Dorothy didn't need to be told twice. Of one accord, Dorothy, Ronan, and Auden turned and sprinted away from the hole in the ground. Rosie's diversion didn't work as well as anticipated though. Dorothy could already here the man running after them, panting loudly.

Auden and Ronan were just a few paces ahead. The beast was coming nearer. Then, for a split second, Dorothy could no longer hear feet pounding behind her. Only a whoosh of air.

Fire ripped through Dorothy's leg as pointed nails and teeth tore into it. She shrieked in pain as she fell to the ground. Ronan and Auden whipped around. They dashed toward her, but they were ten feet away. The beast pounced onto her back, digging its razor point nails into her shoulders. Dorothy convulsed, but knew she couldn't begin to shake him. He lowered his jaws to her throat. She could feel the heat of his breath on her exposed skin. Could smell its rank stench. Like that of rotting meat. Her heart hammered in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut.

A thud. The skin of her shoulders tore as nails were ripped from it. The weight of the man lifted from her chest. Then Auden and Ronan were to her. Auden whipped off his shirt and pressed it to her torn calf. It was soaked through quickly. Too quickly.

"OK. OK. It's gonna be OK. Hold on Dorothy, we've got you," Auden said, tying the makeshift bandage. Ronan was looking slightly lost in what to do in this situation. He started to move toward her shoulders, but a yell from their right took all of their attention. Dorothy finally saw what had pulled the thing off of her.

Another man was locked arm and leg with the beast thing that had attacked her. They were rolling on the ground so that it was hard to get a good look at her rescuer, but the dim light revealed glinting canines in his mouth too.

"I think that it's another one," Auden gasped.

"No it isn't, " Ronan sounded grim. "Look at its face."

This wasn't an easy feat. The men were wrestling ever more violently. The ground around them became spotted with blood. But when Dorothy finally did manage a glance at the man's face, she saw that it did indeed look human. It was not distorted as the other's had been.

Ronan finally tore his eyes away from the scene. "We need to get out of here."

Auden cast a somewhat skeptical look over Dorothy, then looked at Ronan and nodded. Auden moved toward her torso and put an arm under her back and another under her arms. The small movement made her wince. Ronan positioned himself by her injured leg and nodded. In one fluid movement they lifted her from the ground. Dorothy stifled a cry; water coming to her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

The men only a few yards away seemed to be breathing hard. One landed a punch to the other's stomach and he grunted, retaliating so fast he was a blur of teeth and nails.

Ronan and Auden carried her as far as she would let them, which really wasn't all that far. A few hundred yards from the fight they laid her behind a cluster of bushes. Rosie rolled in quickly behind them and they all sat in tense silence for what seemed to Dorothy to be an eternity.