I Kissed a Dog

chapter 46

“Chloe, is that you?” a muffled voice put a rapid halt to my vengeful thinking.

I turned expecting to see one of my former roommates behind me. “Deb? Connie?” I questioned the silent room, listening intently. It was impossible to gauge where the voice had originated.

Besides my ragged breathing, the other perceptible sound came from just outside the door.

I remembered with horror the first time I’d seen the entrance to my room. The deep gouges had supplied the visual evidence of some sadistic monster’s attempts to tear through the door.

What I heard right now sounded like something making forceful strokes — like razor-sharp claws scraping the door’s full length.

The image sent a spike of terror through my chest. Being mauled to death when freedom had been so close was unacceptable.

Using my mind magic, I thrust my mental feelers out and into the formidable enemy’s thoughts now ripping at the door, like a dog digging for its long lost bone.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill Ki …

Halfway through the fifth kill I pulled out. Whatever was pawing so maniacally had a mental makeup unlike any I’d ever explored.

Its psyche was blacker than black, obsidian — a pool of swirling darkness with the audible word — kill — rising from its murky depths with increasing volume and intensity.

The clawing creature’s sole purpose was to cause my death.

Zane had supposedly delivered me to safety. Wouldn’t he be surprised?

I took advantage of an unexpected stretch of silence. Was it gone? Maybe it had given up after breaking a claw.

Cautious, with all my senses screaming for me to stop, I crept toward the door, I could picture The warning sign, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” from Dante’s Inferno. A well-crafted description of hell’s portico and possibly my door.

What waited on the other side was as inhuman as they came.

The devil himself? — I doubted it, but whatever it was could inflict diabolical damage that I wouldn’t survive despite my increasing arsenal of supernatural weapons. I wasn’t sure how I knew this. But I did.

I was aware that I’d met my match. I had to escape. Beyond that I didn’t have a clue what my next steps would be. Before I could change my mind, I spun to face the four familiar dressers.

My claustrophobic fears paled in comparison to whatever waited in the hallway. I’d navigate the hidden air shaft rather than risking a faceoff with the beast.

Maybe there was another way. I had allies, and one committed purebred-protector. For an instant, I’d forgotten the war just beyond my little prison. It had to be raging out of control.

Sending out a mental probe, I located and latched onto Stryder. I needed to see Zane. I didn’t know what I’d do if he was injured.

To my relief, he was very much alive and fighting viciously in his more mutant-like form, his teeth shredding through the thick neck of a male mutant.

Tracking the movements of my group was nearly impossible. Everything was happening faster than my human eyes could process. Fur, blood, and body parts were blasting from the moving mass, and I had no clue who was slaughtering who.

Stryder was shielding a small group of mutant women, who’d switched to our side. Others were attempting to join their cluster. I wondered why they weren’t advancing against Jazmine’s hordes. It appeared they were cowering instead.

With every breath I drew, I wanted to contact Zane for help, but resisted the urge.

Popping into his, or one of my other friends’ heads, in the midst of this merciless carnage, was bound have unpleasant consequences. Ones I wasn’t willing to risk in order to save myself. They needed to keep their thoughts undivided. A blink at the wrong moment could equal a gruesome death.

Instead, I continued my surveillance, hoping to catch sight of James McQuillen. After a few minutes, I gave up. Getting back to the battle and away from whatever was lurking beyond my door was my present priority.

Slipping from Styder’s mind, I hurried to the dresser. I was able to pull it away from the wall, revealing the shaft’s murky maw. I wouldn’t be surprised if it spouted teeth and chewed me to pieces.

Hesitating, I glanced one final time around the room. Part of me wanted to curl up on my cot and bury my head under the flimsy pillow until danger passed.

Renewed clawing jolted me into action.

I entered the duct head first and made every attempt to distribute my body mass evenly, making sure to keep some weight on my legs. I forced myself to slide along rather than crawling.

Deb had mentioned that this method of travel would prevent the joints in the sheet metal from breaking. I hoped she was right. I’d heard that crawling through an air duct was a myth, but I was doing it. Granted, I was pretty small and this was a large vent. I hoped it would support me the entire journey.

Wishing I had a flashlight, I inched forward. The shaft slopped downward, leading, I guessed, to the basement.

The darkness felt alive, chilling me all over, and to make matters worse, a foul odor grew stronger the further down I progressed. I pictured dead rats just ahead, and waited with dread for one of my hands to come in contact with an animal’s decomposing corpse.

After what felt like forever, I came to a drop. A light was more than necessary at this juncture.

Remaining statue still, I attempted to shut off the rising panic constricting my throat. I sucked hard, gasping for breath. Then I remembered my cell phone.

Slowing my breathing, I retrieved it from my bra, and powered it up. It provided just enough illumination for me to identify an eight foot drop down a narrower shaft.

Taking several more deep breaths, I considered my limited options. One, slide down the shaft and hope I didn’t crash through; two, scale down with my back on one side and my feet across from me.

“Chloe, is that you?” A female voice filtered up the duct, sending my adrenaline soaring.

“Deb?” I asked my voice shaky. “Where are you?”

“In a shaft above the basement. Don’t jump!”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I confirmed, striking off option one as an alternative for my descent.

Confirming my chosen travel mode, she instructed, “Put your back against one side and your feet on the other; keep pressure on your feet and lower one leg, followed by your back, and then another leg. You can do it,” she encouraged.

Terrified, but without another choice, I followed her directions.

Eight feet felt like twenty as I inched my way down. At the halfway point, something gouged my lower back. Pain seared through my right side.

“I think I’m bleeding. Oh, God, it hurts,” I whimpered.

“Chloe, don’t stop. You’ve got to keep moving.”

She was right, but I knew if I didn’t alter my course, the sharp protrusion would damage more of my back.

With great care, and extra encouragement from Deb, I slid sideways, away from the source of what had become an agonizing intrusion to my escape.

Descending with greater caution than before, I managed to reach Deb, who was stretched out on her belly. Our faces almost touched.

“Thank God you’re all right.” She reached around and managed a half hug with us lying down.

She pulled her arm away and grabbed my cell phone, shining the light on her hand. I saw the blood the same time she did.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“How —?” It was her voice I’d heard from the room, and I was desperate to know what’d happened to her and Connie.

“I’ll explain when we’re out of here, for now, keep your eyes on the prize,” she encouraged.

With her mutant agility, she was able to maneuver into a new position with ease, her feet now in my face. But before I could complain about her shoes so close to my nose, she began her advance, using a strange army crawl to slither through the duct like a snake with appendages.

I followed her example to the best of my human ability and tried to keep up.

She could sense when I’d fallen behind, and slowed her pace to accommodate my lack of dexterity.

Sooner than I’d expected, we reached a grate. “This is it,” she said, sounding excited.

All I felt was relieved.

I heard the grate rattle before she tugged it off. She shimmied through the small opening and dropped to the floor.

“You made it!” Connie said from below.

Another flood of relief rushed through me at the sound of her voice. They were okay. But where was Dillon?

“Come on, Chloe. Stay on your stomach and lean through the opening. We’ll do the rest,” assured Deb.

Once my feet were on solid ground, I turned to embrace Deb, then Connie. “Thank you.”

“Here, sit down.” Connie led me to a card table with folding chairs around it. Several decks of cards were stacked on the table’s otherwise clean surface.

“What is this, the custodian’s lair?” I asked, surveying the room full of cleaning apparatus and supplies.

“None other.” Deb gave me a lopsided grin that belied the tension barely contained beneath her cool exterior. “Connie, grab the first aid kit. It’s on the shelf over there.”

While they cleaned my wound, which thankfully, wasn’t too deep, I learned where my friends had disappeared to. Although they were safe, Dillon hadn’t fared as well.

He was dead.