Calamity-Two Steps From Hell
Requiem For A Dream-Clint Mansell
In Time Main Theme-Craig Armstrong
My breath hitched in the back of my throat, thunder roaring overhead as I stumbled away from the large silver wolf, his dark eyes trained on me carefully, his tail swishing gently behind him. I wanted to die right then. Adam had told me stories about this, about people getting lost in the woods and sometimes being found after an animal attack. This must've been the type he was talking about.
The wolf whimpered lightly again, inching closer although I scrambled back further and further until I was up against a sticky wet tree trunk, my hair thick and tangled in Paul's leather jacket. I was shivering, and I couldn't tell if it was from fear or from the cold. The wolf whined again as my teeth chattered, coming closer and closer, so close I had to squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for it to snap and bite and tear, but all it did was nudge my chin with the side of its face and lick me.
I turned my face to it warily, my heart still pounding in my chest as it looked at me with eerily human eyes. There was something familiar about them, something that eased the pit of my stomach and brought my breathing to a normal rate. Its eyes were dark, studying my expression as if it were trying to figure me out, waiting for a reaction to its presence. I was too afraid to speak. What if I said something, what if my voice startled it and it decided to kill me? I thought about Paul again, telling me to take my chances whenever they presented themselves. Maybe he was right for once.
"You…are you going to kill me?"
The wolf barked in what felt like laughter, baring all of its teeth in a wolfish grin. Paul had been right. I should trust him more. The wind blew behind me, the wolf snapping to attention immediately.
Fuck Paul. I'm never listening to him again.
The wolf seemed to screech and roar, every grey hair on its body standing at a point, baring its teeth at whatever was behind me. The wolf brought its paw around, shoving me to the ground. For a second, I thought I was dead meat again. But I was being ignored. The wolf simply stepped over me, towering and covering my body from the rain whilst still growling ferociously at whatever was lurking in the trees.
"I should've known."
I snapped my head towards the sound of Jackson's voice, heat exploding through my chest.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" I screamed, lightening flickering across his smooth expression. I scrambled to my feet, the wolf shoving me backwards a few steps and standing between us.
"I tried, Haley. God, I tried." He sounded like he was choking on his words, crying almost, although I wasn't sure if his cheeks were wet from the rain or from tears.
"You have to leave!" I screamed, trying to run to him. The wolf shoved me backwards again, snapping in my direction.
I flickered my eyes between the wolf and my friend, a million different plans calculating themselves in my head at once. I needed to get to him, protect him, distract the beast so he could run.
"Cullen made it look so easy," Jackson cried, his face twisted in pain. "He told me that it had happened before, Singer's and the vampires they took hostage….I tried, Haley, I tried."
"This isn't the time for that!" I yelled, trying to shove against the wolf, who again, shoved me. "Get out of here!"
"You really haven't figured it out yet," Jackson wailed, looking up at the sky briefly, three ghostly pale angels appearing out of the trees. I furrowed my brow in utter confusion. Whoever would take a camping trip in weather like this was seriously demented.
There was something different about these people. Eyes glittering as red as blood flickered in the flash of lightning, their pearly white skin looking bleached in the moonlight. A woman with long, blond silky curls grinned at me, a set of fangs glistening in my direction. They were not campers. "I told you we shouldn't be friends." Jackson groaned, walking towards me. The wolf snarled, taking a step forward as well, and it suddenly dawned on me that it wasn't here to kill me. It was trying to save me.
"What are you doing- what are…." I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think straight because I was trying to hard not to pass out in the dirt.
"I've been going years without human blood. Years, Haley…I've tried so hard, worked so efficiently…and then you come along. My father had hoped maybe being half human I could resist….but I just can't, Haley. I can't do it," he looked as though he were about to cry, like a boy apologizing for stabbing you whilst still slowly sinking the knife into your heart. "But the closer I get to eighteen….the closer I get to my official change….the harder it gets. Every day," Jackson hissed, taking on the same manic look I'd seen in the garage. "Every God damn day it gets harder to breathe, to look at you without feeling like matches are being shoved down my throat."
"You're a vampire," I breathed, only half believing myself. I looked at him, begging for an expression that told me I was wrong, but he simply stared apologetically. "And…why m-"
"We all have a certain weakness, Hales. All of us. You're like my drug, like a perfectly concocted river of lust…it screams for me, tells me to come to you even though you want to resist me. It's the highest note in the most glorious him, yelling my name, shouting it, singing it in the most beautiful pitch imaginable….the most beautiful pitch."
The talking was over. The wolf lunged, snapping its jaws at Jackson so hard that I was sure he was goner. My eyes couldn't even register how quickly my old friend had moved, however, and within seconds he was swinging amongst the trees, making his way towards me with speed unrecognizable to the human eye.
The blond haired woman moved seconds later. She wrapped her arms around the wolfs ribs, pulling so hard that a crack whipped through the air, causing me to wince. The wolf barked in my direction, and although I'd never had any experience talking to dogs, I knew what it meant. Run.
No matter how badly I wanted to stay, there was something in its tone that made me nearly jump out of my skin. It had been an order, not a suggestion. I scrambled backwards, flinging myself over a log and hitting the ground with feet as fast as the lightning, completely soaked to my core now as a pale, twitching limb sailed over my head. The second it clattered to the ground in front of me I screeched, a pale marble hand sealing my mouth shut mid-scream.
"Just breathe," Jackson instructed, tilting me backwards as if we were dancing. "Just breathe and close your eyes."
I squeezed my eyes shut, clawing at his fingers. For a moment, his lips brushed the crook of my neck, goosebumps rising all over my body as acid churned in my stomach. Jackson seemed to fling himself from me, sending me crashing into the mud. I turned my head.
He sailed through the trees, branches snapping beneath the weight of his body as he clutched a pale, shocked face in his hands, the woman's blonde hair washing around his face with the wind. The force of her head hitting his chest had sent him spiraling backwards. I turned back to the wolf, now wrestling amongst the leaves with a tall, brawny red-head, his pale face twisted in concentration as he mirrored the wolf's movements.
"NO!" I screamed, the man grabbing hold of a paw and twisting. The wolf howled fiercely, whimpering loudly as his hind leg came around and caught the man in the face.
They broke like glass, these strange angels. Instead of blood and muscle, nothing but more marble was hidden beneath the surface of their faces, and as large chunks of the man's jaw flew into the air, he wailed, clutching his face just long enough so that the wolf could-literally- tear his head off and fling it into the trees behind him.
I watched the wolf silently as he skulked from here to there, piling branches on top of each torso until they were all covered, said for Jackson, who had escaped. As much as I hated they idea of touching anything remotely similar to those demons, I plucked all of the discarded limbs from their scattered places and brought them to the pile. The wolf rain a nail across a select branch, a spark flickering to life and sending the pile into a ten foot tall blaze in a matter of seconds. I wasn't aware wood could still catch fire in the rain, but as I looked closer, I realized that the angels themselves were flammable. They were bringing about their own cremation.
With a sudden jolt of fear, I realized the wolf was watching me again, inching towards me once more. I kept backing away, further and further before tripping over a thick black root, the back of my shorts catching on the limbs and yanking me to the ground. I stayed propped up on one elbow, watching as the wolf limped its way towards me, standing over me until it was straddling me on all fours, my body laying directly under its torso.
It growled, staring off into the trees as if challenging anyone else who dare cross it. I glanced over my shoulder, making sure we wouldn't have any more visitors before something started to shift above me. I furrowed my eyebrows, watching as the wolf bowed its head, whimpering lightly as it grew smaller and smaller, patches of fur seeming to disappear bit by bit.
The silver fur grew shorter and shorter, lying flat until it was nothing but a dark grey coat that slowly but surely began turning a very familiar shade of copper. I could not see the face, but the top of the head grew smaller, the grey fur turning into a mat of black, spiky hair, paws and limbs being replaced with feet and rippling muscles and arms and toes.
Paul Lahote was on all fours above me, wedged in between my legs, leaning on his hands for support. He looked up slowly, his cheek matted with runny blood, his eyes dark and fearful as he stared at me.
"You…" I breathed softly, unsure of what to say. I thought I had lost him, when he was the one protecting me. I wanted to hold him. Kiss him. Do him, seeing as he was already naked.
"What's up…Princess…." He breathed, panting as he hung his head once more. His left shoulder buckled as he groaned, a bone seeming to snap itself back into place. Tears were already rimming my eyes, and I was grateful for the rain, because if he'd seen how much I was crying I'd never hear the end of it.
"How could you be so stupid?" I breathed hoarsely. I grabbed his face in my hands. "You could've died!"
"I'm….Haley….I'm so sorry…." He fell against his newly fixed shoulder and rolled over on his back, closing his eyes as the rain attempted to wash away all of the blood and dirt, small, filthy streams running along his legs and torso.
It took me an hour to drag/carry him back into the house. I kicked through the back door, pulling his warm, heavy body towards the bathroom as a trail of dirt and blood followed closely behind us. I left him on the bathroom floor and threw off my jacket immediately, running hot bathwater in the tub and running to the back door, locking it three different times and flipping off the lights before going back to Paul.
Hauling him into the bathtub was even harder than getting him to the house. We sat there in silence for a few moments, me scrubbing away all the dirt and blood, only to find that each and every injury had healed itself, leaving a small pink scar at the most. It only took a couple minutes for the shaking to start.
I looked around, toothpaste and face wash rattling onto the floor, the cabinets shaking lightly, the water rippling so furiously that I knew immediately where it was coming from.
Paul shot out of the water and I flew backwards, scrambling until I was pressed up against the vanity counters, practically sitting in the sink as he roared, the bathtub cracked to all Hell, water leaking out onto the beige tile floors as he pulled himself across the water, steam rushing all over his body as he lay face first on the floor, panting, shaking, looking like he was a ticking time bomb about to explode. I squeaked, covering my mouth immediately as he looked up at me, his eyes fearful and darker than I'd ever seen them.
His lip began to quiver slightly. And then Paul Lahote did something I'd never thought I'd see in a million years.
He began to cry. First in restrained, silent, panting tears, and then as I slid down the counter, kneeling in front of him and tilting his chin up with my fingers, short, breathy sobs, each filled with such sorrow and shame and hurt that I started to cry too.
It seemed like the more he went, the more he shook, and we went through waves of it. First he'd shudder, then cry, then cry and shudder, then growl in frustration, angry with himself, then cry again, and finally it got so painful that every ounce of my pride flew out of the window and I pulled his face onto my thighs, stroking his hair and sitting cross-legged so that I could lay my cheek against his. We sat like that for a while, just crying and screaming and holding each other so furiously that I hadn't even realized his shaking had stopped. My mind flashed to the night before, how he had so selflessly taken care of me, and his words echoed in my head, tumbling across my lips before I could stop them.
"I know Baby, I now," I whispered, squeezing my eyes closed as a tear slid down my cheek. "Just hang in there. It'll be over soon."