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Another branch underneath his feet; 'those boots,' he said, 'they're steel toed. I could kick in someone's skull and I wouldn't feel a thing.' Where was he? Pushing from the palms of both hands, a shaggy head of blonde hair ducks forward and circles around to the left side of the tree. Nothing. Fear, with its slow moving chemicals seep deeply into her muscular tissues, filling the microscopic spaces amid the inactive joints. She wants to move, survival instincts beg her to move and yet, poised flesh with the girthy base of a pine Jane Doe is losing this unspoken game of cat-and-mouse.
Consciously forcing her breath back, the cadence of breaking kindling dwindles from her immediate earshot. His voice calls, but further in yards and blocked by the thicket of trees, closing in together the further into it a person travels.

He's sick. He's sick. He's sick.

His back faces the tree that provided coverage, blocking the dirty wifebeater from the moonlight. Jane Doe doesn't know how well his night vision is compared to hers. The seconds that tick by, watching him scour a search area she's still part of, kill the very hope that lies east between the both of them. There's the eerie glow of a streetlight's rays coming in through the streets, inhibited by the needles giving it the ghostly appearance. It's possibly that paired with a fear that induced nausea and beckoned bile to rise and sting the back of her throat, that the supernatural lighting is just a trick of the eye.
Twin pupils dilate, widening with a rocky pulse. Closer now, the figure's hulking mass passes by her right side and stops an arm's reach short of that very statuesque girl, forming into the tree. Saying that the rhythm of breathing working the chest and shoulders in a predictable, continous motion was haggard hit the nail on the head. Exhaustion makes the mammoth limbs swing with little restraint behind them. The monster couldn't keep up the search any longer but there's a gamble to whether she'd make it to that street before he can. His only goal is to be able to outrun her.

The choice is decided for her when the boots began their pivoting one by one and the grizzly entity turns, the corner of his eye catching the blonde vagabond. Jane almost throws up, right on the very shoes that are going to cave in her skull and smear the insides with disarrayed brain matter. A paw separates its fingers, readying to take ahold of her arm; and it's like throwing gasoline into the remaining embers of a bonfire. Stumbling but steering herself off to the side to miss the hook, the alleged nomad crashes into the Earth a few feet away, cutting open her knees, tearing a chunk out of her forearm.


Would anyone? Passing beams of light don't stop as they continue onward on the road, the driver oblivious to urgent calls from the woods. Maybe it's the wind blocking out the sounds of pursuance, but he didn't sound like he's following. Her run staggers back to an awkward, lethargic hobble.


Thudded footfalls tell her - only too late - that this sprint must be the last dreg of energy and not one that able to be matched from her end. Yet with no other reason not to try, the right foot kicks off the ground and the left swings forward but gingerly lands to the woods uneven floorbed. A traveling sound, a bass rapping against the rickety windows of a beaten SUV. Almost to the clearing, the weight abruptly slams down on her from the back. The sky, the car, the sidewalk, dirt. The taste of it overpowered by the blood filling up the inside of her mouth. Some of it spurts out, creating speckled patterns in the grass just before the pavement.

Jane Doe screams; a high, hair raising kind of scream that hides her words. 'Help,' comes as an unintelligible shriek, animalistic. A last cry from a condemned sheep.


The hefty, faceless form isn't there anymore. Just this man, illuminated by the flashing lights of his vehicle. The same man driving the car she'd been trying to wave down. "Where is he? Did you let him get away? He killed my friends, and tried to kill me." Retreating, the man's hand went to his waistband of his pants and removed a gun from its holster.


Only the barely there threads of his shadow stretch across the grass. Enough distance that Jane is confidant when she lifts herself up and edges onto the sidewalk. When it's clear that he's too fixated on whatever's beyond the five or six trees at the clearing, the twenty-three year old gives a last ditch effort and sprints around a corner, bowling over a half broken in door. Old furniture is caked with dust, and her hand print stays behind after she moves a couch in the way of the rotted wooden door.

Tucking into a corner, a weary head rises to the ceiling and both nostrils greedily take in stale, decrepit air. Pulling out the scratched, damaged phone from her pocket, a thumb drives into the power option. The blank screen lights up, startling her and the hand that slams over the blinding square. A paper from the twin pocket; it's an old paper with smudges of cigarette ash and coffee stains on it. The words bled together but the numbers are unmistakable.

"I'm here. Where did you say this place was again? Okay. Wish me luck."

It was a rare thing for the owner of Altaire Designs to be seated in her office, drawing up custom business plan. The room typically remained empty, the door closed and locked despite the ornate plaque proclaiming P. Altaire embellishing the equally fanciful name holder. For the few hours a week Nix actually checked up on her business, the office was a delight. Otherwise, during the remaining 718 hours of the month, it was a total waste of space.

The occurrence was indeed rare enough that the receptionist had offered to work a few extra hours while she was there.

"I have some filing to catch up on, so I'll stay late, just in case your client shows up while you're busy," she'd offered. Nix thought the woman's name was Shelly, but she really wasn't sure. It might have been Sheila. The redhead hadn't argued with the plump little brunette, so long as she stayed out of Nix's way. That was about three hours ago, when Nix had waltzed in just as the last design consultants were leaving.

"I bet the ***** wants a raise... or a promotion." There was Sheila or Shelly, nosing around her files like she'd been totally busy for the past three goddamn hours. As if she had that much rearranging to do in such a tiny office area. It was a painfully obvious attempt to make a good impression on her ever-absent boss.

Phoenix sorted her disdain, eyes flicking to the wall clock. In this day and age, who the **** wanted a wall clock? All it did was sit there and mar the room's silence with its incessant tick, tick, ticking. After three hours' worth of ticks, Nix was about ready to crawl out of her skin. At least the design plans were coming along well - they were here own, for her own home, but even so, she was all out of inspiration.

If only she could come up with a distraction.

Tick, tick, tick... went the clock, on and on until she had no choice but to get up and remove the damn thing's battery. Never again would a wall clock ever worm its way into her life or impose itself on her walls. Blessed silence reigned after that, save for the scratch of her pen across the stark white of her sketch paper and the occasional slam of a drawer in the reception area - Shelly needed to keep pretending she was busy, of course.

When the door chimed open, announcing the arrival of some soul particularly desperate for home decor, Phoenix glanced up from her schematics. When Sheila had offered to stay late and receive her client, the plump little woman hadn't been corrected. Phoenix did not have a client, but she found herself rather disenchanted with the receptionist's performance. Albeit the blonde walking in through the front door had little enough resemblance to any client she'd ever served, but that didn't excuse a lack of professionalism.

Head cocked to the side, Nix watched the disheveled little blonde, clearly some kind of vagrant, waltz up to the front desk. Shelly's chilly, immediately rejection of a potential client bothered her. What if that had been her client? Shelly's behavior would have been completely unacceptable and unprofessional - who was she to determine who was and was not good enough for their services? Who was she to refuse a client? Perhaps in staying late, the overly ambitious little worm had earned herself a dismissal; the thought made Phoenix smile.

Tutting to herself, the redhead went back to her drawing, intending to lose herself in the lines and angles and ink of a perfectly designed bedroom. She had time to make a single straight line indicating the placement of a tub in the master bath before her concentration was shattered by a thud, shortly followed by a scream.

Perhaps whatever gods that be had heard her plea for a distraction from the mind numbing task of slathering her vision across a sheet of grid lined paper. Honey brown eyes flicked up to take in the scene. Blondie had closed the distance between herself and the desk, but from the angle at which she sat, Phoenix could see no more than proximity. Standing for a better look through the glass walls of her office, Nix carefully smoothed down the simple black cocktail dress she'd opted for that evening. It was so very easy to set the pen and rule down, and let her curiosity carry her through those semi-frosted glass doors, past her elegant little P. Altaire plaque and out into the main reception area.

Once around the desk and perpendicular to the two women, it was quite obvious why Shelly had screamed. Though she'd managed to yank her hand out from under the force that had crushed her hand, the hand was visibly swollen, one of her reddened fingers seemed to be twisted at an awkward angle. Interesting, indeed. Blondie had done something, but that didn't stop her from glancing between the two with an impetuously arched brow and asking the obvious:

"What the hell is going on here?"

The skeletal woman stood tall, arms folded across her chest and stiletto heel tapping against the marble floor.