Wasteland Saviour - Flight - ch1
#2 of Wasteland Saviour
I got to her house faster than I thought, my legs were warmed by the run, but the speed I had moved should have left them burning. Maybe this wasn't quite so bad after all.
I checked the front door, it was locked but after quickly checking a few spots found a key under a garden gnome.
"Arggg" I yelled, trying to call her name, then growling further at my ongoing inability to talk.
I searched the whole house, I could smell her I realised, and ran to her master bedroom, where 'her' smell seemed to be strongest.
Opening the door I found the room empty, I stared at the bed and a thought came to me. Sliding one paw into the bed it felt warm.
If she had to be awake early why did she stay in bed so late? And where was she now?
Finally, after another ten minutes of searching I was convinced she was not in the house.
I sighed, figuring I would wait out front for her.
As I stepped out the front door I heard a voice, "Hey there's another one of them varmints!" and an engine roar, coming toward me.
Eyes and senses instantly drawn to the truck coming toward me, thankfully it was travelling too fast for the guy in the back to take a clean shot.
Gunshots did ring out though.
I ran.
It was something my mind didn't need to process, something inside connected the vehicle as 'larger predator' and that part had my legs moving before I could even start to break down and understand the situation.
Running, sometimes upright, sometimes I dropped to all fours and moved like the wind, using the extra traction to make fast turns through backyards that their big truck couldn't work around.
Instinct was driving me, and it told me I would not last long like this, I could run very fast but not this fast for long, it told me up was the only escape.
Scanning around, forcing my adrenalin charged brain to work with my instincts I saw a two story house and I darted for it. In that moment, the vehicle out of sight, I leapt to the second story balcony and dropped flat against the floor.
The roar of the engine came close again quieting after a while.
"You see where it went?" someone was saying, not the same voice as before, must be the driver I thought.
The familiar voice of the guy in the back returned, "Nah, must have run off, damn cat was quick wasn't it?"
The engine roared again and receded into the distance.
I lay there a long time, waiting for the sound to come back, so long I am not sure when I fell asleep.
I woke with a start and felt much much better.
Reaching forward and stretching I felt my tail arc out behind me.
Wait, tail?
The 'dream' came back to me, the change, the sinking feeling at not finding Anne, the red-necks chasing me.
I sat there, soaking in the suns warmth, and trying to speak.
After about two hours I gave up, something was really wrong with my mouth. I had a lot of very sharp teeth now, a tongue that, when I consciously thought about it, felt weird and my muzzle was... a muzzle.
I worked at the large door that led out to this landing and eventually gave up and drove my elbow through the glass and jumped over the shards on the floor into the room.
It was a large bedroom, empty, like I found the rest of the house after I was done checking it.
By now I was hungry and went to the refrigerator. Opening the door illuminated the inside and a sight immediately caught my eye.
A package of steak, fresh.
Ripping open the plastic with my now built in 'swiss army claws' I tore into the meat raw, marvelling at the taste of it, savouring every chunk as I swallowed.
Once sated I realised I couldn't wait here, I had to get out of town before those bastards came back looking for me.
Remembering a door I had opened earlier in my search that led to the two bay garage, I set about finding the vehicles keys. The master bedroom had neither a key hook nor any keys evident on bedside stands.
It was in the kitchen, behind where I had flung open the fridge door I found the hook, one of the keys saying 'Jeep' on it.
I pocketed those and went through the fridge and, when I found it in the basement, the deep freeze. Piling all the meat I found into a drink cooler, persuaded the refrigerator to dump some ice into it and made for the garage.
I clicked the button on the keys and the Jeep, closest car to me, flashed and unlocked. I smiled.
I made quick work of loading my supplies in the back and decided one quick search of the garage would be in order. Luckily for me.
I found a gun cabinet, it was locked shut but, consulting the keyring in my hand I found a key with a brand name that matched the padlock and quickly had the thing open.
Two pistols and a shotgun were inside, I grabbed all three, throwing them onto the passenger seat of the car and returning for every single round of ammunition.
I wasn't a die hard gun fanatic, but my parents had insisted that I learn how to use and shoot a pistol. I owned one too, and it was safe in my house on the other side of town, damnit.
Climbing inside the car, I took the time to pause and load both pistols, the shotgun and a pair of extra clips for the browning hi power pistols.
Wrapping my paw around the grip on one of the handguns I noted my finger didn't quite reach the trigger, I was about to throw them away in a huff when I had an idea and stretched some new tendons in my digits, and watched as a large claw eased out and against the firing mechanism for the weapon, thankfully I had ensured the safety was on.
I started the motor and the dashboard lit up. I felt myself purring again, someone had paid a lot of money for a Jeep with all the extras.
With a grin that, when I glimpsed in the mirror out of habit, showed a row of pearly white teeth including a pair of very businesslike eye teeth. I punched the button on the dash that had a picture of a garage door on it.
Daylight flooded the garage but my eyes adjusted to the glare quickly. Once the door was all the way up and I heard it cease, I put the car in gear and set off.
Racing up through the gears, I left Italy behind and headed almost directly north and west, aware of a faint need to go that way.
I got seven hours from my home town before I realised my error, the car coughing and spluttering to the side of the road. I had just skirted around Clayton and I was edgy, if somewhat annoyed with myself and the car.
I lifted out the cooler of meat, put one pistol and the shotgun inside the box, slid the other in the waistband of my shorts and set off along the highway on foot.
It was just getting on dusk when I heard something howling, and I shivered. It wasn't cold, it because my instinct was telling me that the call was very different to how a wolf or a dog would howl and to find a cave or a tree to hide in.
I ran, ran for the river beside the road and when I reached it, leapt as far as I could, trusting my reflexes and instinct to judge the distance right. I landed on my feet and scurried up one of the tall plantation timbers there. I would have stopped at the ten foot mark but something urged me higher.
I stopped and froze dead still, below me, the largest dog I had ever seen sniffed the trail I left right to the base of the tree and then, following its nose, looked up.
I blanched, the thing was huge, if I had of stayed at the first level it would have been able to just reach up and snap me off the limb, as things stood, I preyed it didn't just try and break the tree down.
As night fell my stomach started to growl to me. I lifted free some meat and ate, tearing the steaks apart with my teeth and claws. Sated I relaxed.
Too quickly I realised my mistake, one of the guns in the ice box slid to the far end of the now empty case and pulled me off balance, I felt myself falling and reached for those and instincts. My reflexes, now extremely fast, reached out any limb it could to grab the branch, and failed, my instinct told me now, to flex and turn and stretch... and I was suddenly on the ground below, on my feet, two of my guns still hanging in the empty case far up in the tree the other was at my... at my... I looked, as I had fallen my pants had torn and there was the gun, on the ground behind the huge dog.
I backed up from the monster, standing hunched forward slightly, arms feeling natural at my side, claws extended.
It tried to lunge at me, quick as I could I raked at its face with a claw.
Backing up suddenly it yelped in pain, I had connected and it hadn't expected me to put up any fight.
Suddenly it was leaping, I just managed to get myself out from under its jaws in time, but could do nothing as the majority of its weight slammed into me. I felt the more primal instinct come to the fore now, sliding in over my well educated human psyche, it knew what it was doing.
Suddenly I lashed out again and again, the thing ripping at me in kind, I was breathing hard, it had bitten me quite solidly along one shoulder and I had other more minor wounds over most of my body. That was when it made its mistake, or so my instincts told me. It committed to a charging run, all power no finesse and my instincts told me.
Claw up here.
Grip its back with your claws, hold on as tight as you can.
The instinct guided my mouth in, stretched wide, naturally knowing which two vertebrae would be the weakest and easiest to set my specialised fangs into.
I bit down, hard, I felt muscles in my jaw rippleing and beading, gripping tighter and tighter and...
SNAP
I felt the neck under my mouth give and the beast slumped to the ground, motionless.
Panting I rolled off its back, disengaging my claws as I went. The taste in my mouth stirred something in me, the instinct part of me was happy.
Another howl cut through the air and, still on a high from the kill and the instinctual reactions still guiding me, I ran.
Running along, it had a chance to register that their last howl was very different and was from where the fight had been, likely not following any further.
I ran along a bit further, just pacing myself, and found a stream.
Dunking my head down into it to wash the blood off me, I drew back a little and started drinking.
It wasn't until my thirst was almost fully abated that my mind said, 'your lapping water'.
I grunted, that part of my mind was becoming less and less useful as time wore on.
Reaching back to instinct, I let it find me safety, shelter, a deep cave that had no recent smells to it.
Sleep found me at last, in the dark.
Can you guess what kind of cat yet (NO PEEKING AT THE TAGS!)