Howl

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Emma’s alarm went off at nine thirty the morning after her date with Lukas. She had planned on meeting up with Beth, and she was glad she had made those plans. If she hadn’t, she’d have found her best friend anyway, as she really needed to talk. It wasn’t normal for Emma to have a problem, especially not a relationship problem, but she did, and she needed someone with more experience.

Emma spent an hour getting herself ready before leaving to pick Beth up from church. On rare occasions, Emma would go with Beth to church, but it wasn’t something she was very fond of doing. It was one of the few places she felt completely out of place. Instead of Emma going with Beth to church, they decided that Emma would pick her friend up after the service and they’d spend an hour or two together.

“How’d your date go?” Beth asked as they sat down in a pair of large, comfy chairs inside a nearby Starbucks. “You push him in front of a bus or anything?”

“Nope. Actually, it went pretty good.”

“That just breaks the moon!” Beth said loudly. “So now what?”

“I have no idea,” Emma sighed. “I’m not sure but I think I kinda like him.”

“Woah. Hold on there. Em, you’re Em. You never let yourself like anyone.”

“I know, but I don’t know. This guy seems different.”

“Does he know about you?”

“Not about that.” She guessed the meaning behind her friends words, as there was only one thing that Emma imagined could be a concern as far as a relationship went.

“Em, I’m only saying this ‘cause I don’t want you to get hurt, but I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”

“It was your idea for me to go out with him in the first place!”

“Yeah, just to make him run away! I never expected him to hang around this long! I didn’t think you’d like him!”

“Thanks for the concern, Beth, but I really just want to see where this goes. I know it’s not likely to amount to anything, but still, what do I know? What if it does work out? I swear, I’ll kill you if you tell anyone this, but I’ve always wanted to have a boyfriend and do all that romantic kinda stuff.”

“I think you’re trying to save the Permian over there.” Beth shook her head and took a sip of her coffee. “But I’ll support you no matter what.”

“Thanks, Beth.” It took Emma a few moments to figure out just exactly what her friend meant with her first statement. Emma did recall that the Permian period was a time period in the geologic history of the earth that ended in a great mass extinction, and therefore, was not something that could be saved. She assumed that Beth meant trying to make a relationship work would be near impossible. She didn’t get upset about that – Emma felt the same way about herself and relationships. She was just glad that Beth was behind her. “So, what do you do with a boyfriend?”

Emma spent the next hour with Beth giving her advice on how to proceed with Lukas. The more Beth talked, the more Emma realized she likely didn’t need too much help. She liked people enough to be able to befriend nearly anyone and get along with them well, and with Lukas so determined to like her, she started thinking it didn’t matter so much if she didn’t know how to be romantic. Much of the time was spent coming up with ideas for their next date, which Emma considered the first.

As they were both students, they couldn’t hang out all day even though they wanted to. Both worked hard to get where they were and needed to do homework and study. Emma had a paper that she needed to start, while Beth had a test to study for. When they first met, they had tried doing homework together, which worked when they were in the same biology class, but after that, they found they couldn’t work well on two completely different subjects and not get distracted by talking to each other.

After Emma dropped Beth off at home, she made a quick run to the grocery store before returning to her apartment. In an attempt to save money, Emma had decided to only use one loaf of bread a month, and it was time for her September loaf. She also picked up ramen, which was the main portion of her diet, and a few other things on sale.

Once at home, she spent the next several hours going through her books and making an outline of the paper she planned on writing. She didn’t find the subject particularly interesting, but it only had to be five pages, and she was grateful for that. She could easily pull five pages out in a single night – and she had done so during her first year of college – but she found it far too stressful and learned to pace herself better.

She also knew better than to spend too much time at once on a particular project, and around five in the evening, she decided to go for a quick walk. The sun shone brightly and it looked warm, but Emma knew that could change very quickly and grabbed her hoodie before walking out the door, making sure she locked it behind her. There wasn’t much for anyone to steal, but she still wanted to keep all her stuff.

As she made her way back to her apartment building, she found her phone in her hand. She wanted to call Lukas, but Beth suggested waiting a day. Emma thought it was a rather dumb suggestion, but as she had so very little experience dating, she decided to follow her friend’s advice. It wasn’t as if she wanted to hang out with him that night anyway.

She pulled her keys from her pocket as she walked up the stairs. Her thoughts were focused on Lukas, and although she noticed that there was a man in the hallway, she didn’t think anything of it and barely even looked at him. It wasn’t until she turned the door knob to get inside that she became fully aware of what was going on around her.

A large hand covered her mouth while an arm wrapped around her body, holding her arms to her body. She squirmed and struggled to get free as she was pushed inside her apartment. Getting her arms free was not successful, but once she kicked the man in the shin, she was able to get her left arm free, and that allowed her to elbow the man in the ribs. His hand moved enough that she was able to bite it, drawing blood, and she managed to break free. She ran towards the door but opened it only to find two more men blocking her way.

The men forced their way in, pushing her along as they did so. Emma screamed, but it was cut off as one of the men punched her, nearly knocking her down. In retaliation, she kicked him as hard as she could in the crotch, which put him down, but the first man had recovered enough from the minor injuries she’d inflicted earlier to rejoin the conflict. Emma knew she couldn’t win, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. Nor did she have any intention of fighting fairly.

With the door still blocked, she darted over to a nearby table where she had been studying earlier and grabbed her heaviest textbook. The original man that had attacked her went after her only to find himself getting hit with a heavy book in the face. Seeing that her book defense was rather successful, she tried it again, only to be disappointed. The next man was prepared and caught the book and ripped it from her hands, then punched her hard enough that she did go down to the ground. Before she could get up, she felt another blow to her head, and then everything went black.