Hacker

Chapter Thirteen

Theodore woke with a start, his heart beating furiously and muscles taut. He had heard a noise outside, he was sure of it. Rain was lightly ‘tinging’ on the cars roof but Theodore was confident that he had heard something much more darker and sinister than rain... A quick glance at Alison’s silent sleeping form ensured that she had not made the noise nor was conscious of it. Willing his ears to be sharper, he lay very still, taking in short shallow breaths. To his great annoyance his stomach chose at that moment to rumble thunderously. Theodore did his best to ignore the hollowness in his abdomen, it didn’t seem to affect the girl at all which made Theodore determined to show equal indifference. But then again she was a lot smaller, he tried to console himself, and a tiny bar was not enough for one person. Shaking his head at his own petulance, Theo returned to listening earnestly, the soft spattering of raindrops his only reward.

Theodore soon began to doubt the existence of the sound fairly quickly as nothing of the sort arose. I’m just jumpy he thought and decided that he should stop being so fanciful and go back to sleep. He rolled over and purposefully closed his eyes. It was nothing...

"Grrroarrrr" Theodore sat bolt upright in the back seat and narrowly missed cracking his skull on the roof. He had definitely heard it this time. The sound was like a huge warbling howl that grated at his sanity. An image of a monstrous, fanged animal cast in shadow plagued Theo’s imagination and a cold sweat drenched his body. He jumped jerkily as Alison stirred in her sleep. Theodore suddenly felt very foolish at having forgotten the very person that could help. Hastily and without thinking he gently prodded her left shoulder. The thoughts of the beast scattered as another danger surfaced. Alison sprang to life as if someone had just dropped a bucket of water on her head. She thrashed and flailed and hit Theodore very hard in the stomach with a clenched fist. Taken by surprise he bent over winded and marvelled at how such a small human could punch so hard. He gasped for breath and realised that he was no longer being pummelled. Looking up he met two very bright grey-blue eyes, they glared into his own, as unyielding as an old oak and he had the odd notion that they were stripping his soul. Then she spoke:

"What on earth are you playing at?" Alison snarled thickly and Theo instantly snapped out of it. Her slightly odd way of speaking enhanced by the scratchiness of just-woken-grumpiness.

"I, err heard something outside and thought you should know about it..." He trailed off weakly at the expression on her face. She watched him and eventually her eyes softened and she said gruffly " Try waking someone up by calling or using words"

"Yeah I’ll remember that. I don’t want to see what you’d do to an alarm clock"

"You said you heard something?" Ignoring his jibe Alison dove straight into the problem and Theodore felt relieved that she had believed him. Whenever Theo was checking over the numbers for his father’s business it would take at least an hour to convince his father if a mistake was made.

"Yeah, outside. It was like a roar or a howl" Theodore paused and concluded that she probably already thought he was chicken "It was unnerving" She didn’t laugh and Theo was grateful. Instead she climbed towards the only unobstructed window and wiped the dust away using her sleeves. Theodore realised with a jolt that her clothes had changed colour; gone were the pallid ivory trench coat and pants, they were replaced with an inky black of the same make. He could not remember an opportunity for her to change.

"Your clothes?" said Theo and Alison simple looked at him blankly. Understanding seemed to come to her slowly.