Strange Strangers Read online

tongue, when suddenly a loud bang filled the air and the car lurched to the side, nearly smashing into a tree as Joe fought the wheel for control. After skidding bumpily for several feet, the car finally came to a halt.

  “What was that?!” Gloria demanded, Tootsie barking loudly while trying to wriggle free of her tight grip. In her peripheral vision she saw that Raze was looking even more angry than before, his hand buried in his pocket.

  “Damn tire blew out.” Joe replied grumpily. He put the car in park and turned off the engine. “You two wait here. I’ll go take care of it.”

  “I’ll come too.” Gloria said anxiously, reaching for the door while still struggling to keep the furiously barking yorkie under control. “I’ll hold the flashlight or-”

  “Nah, just stay here. I’ll get it done quicker without you jumping at every damn shadow out there.” As he climbed out of the car, his door closed with a sense of finality, leaving Gloria alone with the young man, with only her small, angry dog between them.

  Raze’s earlier smile had transformed into an ugly snarl, baring his own small, pointed teeth. His eyes were narrowed to furious slits as he looked right at the tiny dog. “Could you silence that damn rat-dog?” He spoke softly, his voice barely more than a growl, his misshapen teeth giving him a strange, almost monstrous appearance.

  Gloria looked frantically out of the window, catching a faint glimpse of her husband as he opened the trunk, then he was once more swallowed by the surrounding darkness. Frantically, Gloria began petting the anxious dog, making ineffective hushing noises. Ignoring her, Tootsie continued to yap and snarl while struggling to get loose from Gloria’s grip.

  Cloaked in darkness, golden eyes watched the stranded car. The activity within drew the attention of the watcher. Pointed ears perked forward, listening, hearing, and understanding every word.

  Tootsie’s barking became more and more shrill the more Gloria tried to silence the animal, which continued ignoring soothing words and commands for silence. “SHUT UP THAT STUPID DOG!” Raze yelled, jerking his hand from his pocket and holding it forward. “OR I’LL GOD DAMN WELL DO IT MYSELF!”

  Gloria cried out in surprise, finally grabbing the small dog’s muzzle and holding it tightly while jerking the dog further away from the young man’s reach. “That’s completely unnecessary!” Gloria cried out, her voice just as shrill as that of the dog. “And I will not have you threatening me or my dog, young man! Joe! JOE!”

  “SHUT UP, YOU OLD WINDBAG! JUST…SHUT….UP!!!” Raze’s lips pulled back in a snarl of hateful rage. He lunged forward and Gloria could see a flash of metal before the blade of the knife was pressed against her neck. The smooth metal felt strangely warm, as if it had a life of it’s own.

  Gloria gasped and felt her throat tighten in terror, her voice reduced to a mere squeak. Her grasp over the terrier also loosened in her fear, allowing the small dog to break free of her grip and launch itself at the stranger. Tiny but sharp teeth closed on Raze’s hand with a snap, causing him to scream in pain and drop the knife. He shook his arm, sending the dog flying against the windshield. Tootsie let out a loud yelp before collapsing to the dashboard and sliding into the vacant driver’s seat.

  “TOOTSIE!” Gloria squeaked, grabbing the small dog and cuddling it closely against her chest. “Just you wait until Joe gets back, you hooligan! Then you’ll be sorry for this!”

  Raze growled angrily, clutching his bitten hand while bright crimson blood boiled out from beneath his fingers. “God damn I hate dogs!” He snarled venomously, reaching down and patting the floor for his dropped knife. “I’ll deal with that old fart when he gets done with the damn tire. First, though, I think I’ll just kill you and that stupid mutt! Maybe that will keep you quiet!” Feeling something hard and round in the darkness, he grasped it and lifted it up high enough for him to see it.

  The object turned out to be a flashlight. It looked to be in almost new condition. “Damn old fool forgot this here, didn’t he.” Raze commented, a sneer crossing his face, then fading as a new thought suddenly bloomed in his mind like a late flower. Renewing his effort, he reached down again and found his knife before sitting back up in the seat. The woman was cowering in her seat, pushing against the restraining straps of her seatbelt to get herself as far from the young man as possible, the dizzy-looking terrier once more clutched tightly in her arms.

  Raze glanced out the windows, but there was nothing but darkness on all sides. No flickers of light. No sounds of a tire being replaced. Only the hard panting and whimpers of the old woman and tiny dog. Something was wrong. Had the old fool gone running off through the woods looking for help? Raze knew there would be no dog teams searching for him, not yet, only when the roadblocks failed. But how far away were they from those?

  “Don’t need no damn witnesses.” He growled angrily, gripping the blade of the pocket knife tightly so that the slick blood coating his palm would not make it slip. “Gonna kill you and then go find that crazy old man.”

  He turned again to the old woman, his lips pulling back from his odd teeth as he began again to lunge at Gloria, who began to scream.

  A sudden tapping at the window stopped him. For a second he remained frozen, the old woman’s pleading ringing loudly in his ears. But then the tapping came again, the soft, insistent knocking of nails on glass. Slowly, nervously, Raze turned to look at the window, half expecting to see a cop with gun drawn and pointed at him. Instead, all he saw was a shadow that somehow seemed to be a darker shadow than the rest of the night. When the knocking came a third time, Raze leaned back into the back seat, perplexed, and fumbled around for the flashlight, unwilling to move his eyes away from the shadow. When he found it, he lifted it slowly, pointing at the window with an unsteady hand before finally clicking it on.

  A pair of large, golden eyes stared back at him, black pupils shrinking as the light struck them. A large muzzle with hooked, pearly teeth seemed to smile at him in the flashlight’s weak beam. And then Raze saw the long, terrible claws shimmering in the light as they tapped at the window again.

  Raze screamed in horror and flung the flashlight at the window, which bounced harmlessly off the glass before clattering down to the floor, illuminating his feet. A loud, low snarl filtered in through the glass as the beast outside snarled, it’s long, talon-like claws scraping at the glass. Raze held out the small knife as if it could protect him from the monster outside, pressing his body hard against the opposite door, while reaching behind him with his other hand, searching for the handle. If he could just make a run for it, the old lady would be much easier prey, and just might be a suitable distraction for the beast.

  But Gloria was faster. Snapping off her seatbelt, she shoved open her own door and bolted out of the car, disappearing into the surrounding darkness and taking the dog with her. As she ran, the beast seemed to disappear as well.

  Raze hoped that whatever the creature was, that it was now chasing the old woman and would be too preoccupied to bother with him as he slipped away. He had always considered himself the predator, the hunter, and he did not enjoy the role reversal in the slightest.

  Suddenly his fingers grasped the door handle and jerked. The door, with his weight pressed fully against it, flung open, sending Raze tumbling clumsily out into the night.

  It took several seconds for him to regain his equilibrium before he was able to rise to his feet, but once he was up he took off at a full run, unmindful of the trees and various bushes and plants in his way. At first he thought the noise he heard was his own, crashing noisily through the undergrowth, but then he realized he was being pursued! And the pursuer was huge, lumbering through the same trail Raze was taking. Knowing he shouldn’t but unable to stop himself, Raze looked back over his shoulder as he ran, catching a glimpse of a large shadow before he tripped over an upraised root and fell sprawling to the ground.

  Gloria shivered as she ran from the car, the skin of her neck tingling in memory of the blade that had been pressed so recently against it. Tootsie s
tayed silent as she clutched the small dog tightly to her chest, stopping to hide behind a nearby tree. Just as she made her way to her hiding spot, she heard another of the car’s doors opening and the sound of Raze spilling out and onto the ground, then scrambling away into the surrounding woods.

  Gloria let herself slump to the ground, still leaning her back against the tree as she listened helplessly to the sounds of pursuit, the beast giving a dreadful roar as it skirted around the car to give chase. The creature crashed loudly and carelessly through the undergrowth, then came the thump of a body hitting the ground.

  Gloria cringed as she heard the young man scream, but the scream was abruptly cut off, replaced by a ripping noise that was followed by a wet plop. A heavy, almost tangible silence seemed to fall, causing Gloria’s ears to strain for the smallest of sounds, but what she heard next made her clap her hands over her ears, trying to block out the soft noise, pretending she was not actually hearing what she thought, because she thought it sounded like chewing.

  It felt like hours before Gloria felt a presence before her and let her hands slowly drift back down to her lap, where the terrier rested uneasily. She looked up, but could only see a large, mountainous shadow that