I scanned the alley before going down the manhole to the sewers. It would be best to be careful, because Tony knew where I lived and as much as I cried over him, I would not lay down and die of guilt. I’m not the suicide type of woman.

  Everyone thinks that the sewers smell bad. Oh, they do, but not as bad as you would think. There is a pungent moldy smell most often and not that much feces smell. Sometimes it was even a step up from the above-ground alleys.

  I slunk in through the narrow hatch to my living space. I reminded myself that I would have to widen the opening so that I could get in and out without a problem. And so that I could move things this way as well.

  I put my guns on my temporary bed and went into the narrow corridor to get to my safe. I needed some more guns and ammo, since I was going hunting, I might as well pack up and make sure I had what I needed for surveillance and enough firepower to take out a SWAT team.

  “C ‘here little mousy, mousy, mousy…” A raspy voice called from the darkness in front of me.

  I saw shape move into the mouth of the hall in front of me. It wasn’t a large shape, but something in the voice made me shiver. It sounded distant and not really here. I was halfway through the hall, but I could still reach the light switch. I switched the light on and saw a well-dressed guy, perhaps thirty years old. He had a dark leather coat, dark blue jeans, heavy boots, and a white shirt.

  He looked…wrong. I don’t really know how to explain it, but something wasn’t right with this guy.

  I could sense it.

  It made me shiver.

  “Aaahhhh,” The guy really drew that sound out. “Fear! I love the smell of fear. It is such a russsshhhh!” He looked at me as he hissed the last word. Unblinking eyes and rigid posture. This one was a wacko.

  “And that is because you went to Psycho Uni and learned all about it?” I asked.

  They guy just tilted his head a little more and kept that unblinking stare at me. No other movement. It was surreal having that guy just standing there not moving or attacking. Just standing there sending out really bad vibes.

  I shivered again.

  “Yesss!” He almost whispered. “Fear me. Feel that fear.”

  I laughed, trying to shake that feeling. “Have you escaped from your handlers? You know, you wackos should really have a pin or something that say you’re one of those idiots.”

  He hissed at me again and I could see that he was getting annoyed. His shoulders rose in tension. He was expecting some other response than my taunting.

  I shifted my weight and almost scraped my leg against the damn pipe. And let the knife slid down my wrist.

  “I am dangerous!” The guy made the statement like he was descended from heaven to smite sinners. I almost thought I saw his eyes glow when he moved his head to the other side, like he wanted to see if there was something he missed.

  He was still angry. His hands were clenched and his shoulders were tense.

  “Yeah, “ I said lazily, “you’re dangerous alright. That outfit definitely belong in a loony house, so you must be dangerous. Have you taken your meds today?”

  He hissed again and took a step forward. He moved so fast I almost missed the step. It was like a flash; suddenly appearing a long step forward. Damn, but the guy was fast.

  “No,” he said as if restraining himself and removed his leather coat slowly and folding it meticulously. He then put it on the ground behind him. “I will kill you. And then I will eat your flesh. Perhaps after that I will fuck you.”

  “Ahh,” I said and tapped my nose. “You have a prison love-life? Did Bubba spank you? Is that why you want to kill the voices in your…”

  I never even saw him move, but I was ready anyway. I had already read his character. This was a up close and personal kind of guy. Someone you could goad into making mistakes. Someone who took himself so seriously he couldn’t take taunting. Someone who thought the head-on approach was the right move.

  I was going to teach him otherwise.

  As soon as I felt his arms around me, I palmed the knife and struggled to get a grip.

  “Now I’ll kill you.” The guy said it like you talked about the paper quality of receipts. Not even interesting. This guy was a real basket case.

  His arms felt like a vice. He was strong as hell and was pressing the air from my lungs. He was laughing now, sure of his victory. I was starting to black out. And the stars were beautiful.

  That was when I drove the knife into his armpit and twisted.

  Damn that must have hurt, which was the idea. The screams made me all warm and fuzzy inside.

  He roared and dropped me. He scuttled back just as quickly as he had moved on me.

  I saw stars and my vision slowly returned to normal. He almost had me there. I nearly waited too long to act. I wondered what this guy was on or what he was. I would never have guessed anyone, much less a normal-sized guy to be that strong. He was way stronger than the guys you saw on the sports pulling trucks and lifting cars.

  “Scream, bastard! I’ll make you bleed for what you did to my friend.” My anger rose, but I wouldn’t let it control me.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  It was a cold rage. A rage that made me want to spend a day just skinning the bastard one inch of skin at a time.

  At that moment I could have tortured him for days and felt no remorse.

  I realized that he wasn’t screaming anymore. The guy was laughing. He wasn’t even whimpering anymore. “I wasn’t alone when we killed your friend. But you’ll be my first kill. You’re my initiation.”

  I shook my head. I still held the bloody knife in my hand. I could see he was wary, but there was arrogance in him that I would use. I wanted badly to survive, but the way he moved I knew I would have to have the Devil’s own luck to get out of this. I had to keep him angry. I let the other knife slip down my other wrist. He knew about my first knife.

  “Yeah, because you are graduating wacko-school and you need to kill and eat someone so that you can grow up and become an upstanding wacko. Shit,” I swore and took a small step back. If I got a chance I would go for my guns. I would need them for this madman. “Why can’t you fucking certifiable mattress-fucking shit-eating lobotomized crazies dare each other to eat flies instead, but noooo – let’s kill and eat someone. So is Bubba rewarding you with some quality time if you succeed?”

  That Bubba thing must have really got to him because he surged forward again. Not super-lightning fast like the first time, but almost as fast. He was a blur.

  Just as I thought he went for the knife. I palmed my second knife. This time I didn’t go for the armpit, but the neck. I jammed my second knife down, but he must have noticed it coming, because all I got was the shoulder joint. But damn that must have hurt.

  Another thing that hurt was the punch he threw at me before he retreated again. It made my knees buckle and I heard a ringing in my ear and sent me bouncing off the wall. “Yeah,” I muttered, “Fuck you too!” I felt like I had been hit with a two-by-four. I had to get to my guns. That was when I heard a growl. A real low rumbling threatening growl.

  When I looked at the guy, something was moving underneath his skin. He ripped his shirt off with one move. I always believed that was some damn Hollywood prick-trick for the Rock with loosened seams and all, but his guy pulled it off without a struggle.

  That was when I saw the wounds I had inflicted. They should have kept him down, if not make him dead dead. They sure as hell would have kept me down or at least they would have seriously hindered me. But they seem to heal as I watched.

  This guy pulled the knife out of his shoulder and when he turned his face back at me, his eyes glowed and there were canines visible. But it wasn’t just a face anymore. It was more of a muzzle. And he was growling.

  Hair, or should I say fur, was covering his chest. The ears looked like they had wandered up and his eyes glowed. This was the stuff of nightmares, but I knew I was awake.

  It wasn’t a nightmare. It was my death.

  “What the fuck are you?” I asked groggily.

  He panted as he looked at me. I could feel his hatred and his anger. “Only now doest thou see the nature of the beast. I’m the Tracker. I’m the first true Tracker in fifty years in this area. My Mael is proud of me, and you…you will be my first kill.”

  The fear I felt then was indescribable. It froze at first. It really was the primal fear the asshole had been talking about. The kind that made you want to lock yourself in and hide, pretending it had never happened.

  My legs felt like spaghetti. That’s the best way I can explain it. My legs shook and my heart pounded like it wanted out of my chest. The blood pounded in my ears and all I could hear was the sound of my adrenaline-pumped heart.

  I turned to run but I never even got one step before I felt a arm around my neck.

  Then I felt claws. One arm held me around the neck and the other shredded my back. From my shoulder to my lower back, the guy sliced and it felt like the skin just parted for the claws. It was excruciating.

  “Oh, kinky.” I said between clenched teeth. I should not have said that, but I was beyond caring. He reached in front of me and sliced my chest with the claws. I could see the claws clearly now. They were black-grayish and seemed to glitter like polished metal and hooked. They were obviously retractable, I noticed clinically while he shredded my chest and breasts.

  I remembered that I still had my first knife. It was still in my hand. I hadn’t let go of it. I tried to clear my mind. The knife wouldn’t be enough. I couldn’t hurt him enough with the knife to kill him. Not while being squeezed to death. Whatever this guy was he was definitely able to take insane amounts of damage.

  Then he bit me in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt that much but fear cursed through me like ice water running down my back. It was sickening to feel teeth dig into my flesh like that.

  I had to move.

  I plunged the knife over my shoulder, feeling it hit something. The growl and whine told me it had to hurt. I twisted the knife, digging with it like a spoon to maximize the wound. I felt hot blood running down my back and seeping into my own wounds.

  The guy disarmed me quickly, but he wasn’t holding me down quite as hard. I pushed him back towards the other wall and pushed my feet upwards. He must have expected that I would twist out of his grip, because he locked his shoulders, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.

  I put up my hands and locked his arm around my neck again and then I brought down my heals as hard as I could on the top of his kneecaps. He fell forward, my arm still locking his in an awkward position. I twisted my head and neck as far away as possible but the pipe still grazed me as it entered his scull through his eye with a sickening crunch.

  “Grshhrrrslllllll. Ahhhhhh. Shhisssssssssllll” He started to drool as he twisted, refusing to let go of me.

  He must have understood that he couldn’t really kill from that position, but when he tried a different grip his muscles betrayed him and I could roll away from him.

  “Kill me? Who’s dying now, shithead? Huh?” I didn’t have much voice left and my whole body was burning up. I kicked stomped his head further down on the pipe, which wasn’t that hard.

  I stumbled as I rose. I struggled to keep upright.

  Everything was spinning and my vision came and went, but I could feel the tears anyway.

  I felt relieved that I was alive. It felt good that I had gotten one of the bastards, but it looked like I was going to have to wait a year or two before I could go after the rest, unless they found me first.

  “Fuck you!” I cried. “Fuck you! I hope you rot in hell!”

  I leaned against the wall. God damn, how it hurt!

  Suddenly he was trying to un-thread his head from the pipe. And from all I had seen of this freak, he would probably heal if he got the pipe out of his fat head.

  I started kicking his head. I kicked and jumped to keep him pinned on that pipe. He was flaying his arms and drooling, trying to scream or curse, but nothing intelligible was coming out.

  “Die! Die, you fucking bastard! Die!” I was sobbing and screaming. My head was spinning and I felt like I was going to throw up, but I kept kicking and stomping on his head and neck until the top of the scull flew off with a sick wet noise and things started to fall out.

  I threw up then. I emptied my stomach there in the rest of the gore. I continued to heave until I faded away for a short moment, due to too little air in my lungs.

  I was hurting all over.

  My bones crackled and my muscles were cramping. It felt like someone was running me through a grinder.

  Pain raced through my body like wildfire. Guilt and pain and rage all came crashing down. The fear that I had felt but not acknowledged exploded and my body cramped with pain again.

  I screamed.

  I screamed like I have never done before. My wounds were still bleeding profusely, and the pain overrode anything but the most basic instincts. Adrenaline can only do so much. The pain cut straight through my foggy sluggish brain like white hot needles and shock threatened to pull me under.

  Everything was pain and pain and pain…

  The last thing I saw as I passed out was the dead wacko looking at me, with the top of his head gone.