The Lost: Book Two of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 24

I often think that that fear might have been the first true emotion experienced by man when he was put on this Earth. Fear of a new world. Fear of every sight, sound, taste, smell. Fear of the unknown. Fear of existence. Maybe it's what we feel as soon as we are born. Fear of being taken from the womb and thrust into this vast world of bright lights, loud voices and the touch of another, when all that time you had felt nothing but the soft nurture of a small enclosed space where everything was muted.

Fear seems instinctual, which makes it the hardest to fight. Because how do you fight something that we are all born with? How do you fight something that comes so naturally to you? It's like fighting how to breathe, stopping yourself from taking that vital breath you need to stay alive, to keep going, to survive.

I couldn't fight the fear as I fled from Brandon's compound. As he howled out his rage, I sank to my knees, the tight spasms in my bladder squeezing painfully and I knew just how close I was to curling into a ball and accepting my fate. From upstairs, I could hear the crashing of furniture as it was tossed around the room and the ceiling seemed to shake, small particles of dust drifting down lightly and settling on my blood stained hands. For a moment I was lost in the void of terror that was overwhelming me, unable to move, frozen to the spot, just listening as the beast was unleashed above. Then, when I heard him pound the floor, I knew I had to move. I had to run. 

Wrenching the front door open, I threw myself blindly out into the night. The snow had been washed away and replaced with torrential, unforgiving rainfall which lashed against me as soon as I stepped outside. It stung my skin, like the attack of a thousand angry wasps seeking out any bare flesh to assault. Within just a minute of fleeing the house, my dress and hair were drenched through and both stuck to me as if they were fused to my body.

I ran with no real sense of direction. All I knew was that I needed to run and I needed to run as fast and as far away from this place as I could. Staring wildly about me as my feet hit the ground, I could see a short driveway ahead of me and the house was surrounded on all sides by the blackest of forest. Tall imposing oak trees crowded in; as if at any moment they would uproot themselves and fall upon me, preventing my escape. The moon was lost behind thick cloud and the stars were ominously absent. The dark sky seemed oppressive and malevolent and a part of me wanted to be back inside that room, safe from the outside world and all the vastness it had to offer.

I took off down the driveway, sharp little stones digging into the soles of my bare feet, the rain doing everything in its power to slow my pace as it blurred my vision and made me gasp out loud to feel its icy touch upon my skin. The wind whipped at me, rushing into my open mouth and stealing my breath, but still I ran. Up ahead I could see the driveway open up to reveal a gate-less entrance, high grey wall stretching out on either side. The closer I got, I realised there was a road there running past the compound and it spurred me on to see it, the road had to lead somewhere, it had to lead to safety.

Just as that glimmer of hope sparked in my head, I heard him.

The sound of his roar made me stumble, stubbing my foot on a particularly sharp stone, my toe scraping across the ground and shaving off part of the nail and a good portion of skin with it. I whimpered as my steps faltered, turning to glance back at the house in panic.

What is it they say about never looking back? I wish that I hadn't. I wish that, despite the blood seeping out from what was left of my nail, I had just gritted my teeth and kept going because there, standing in the same doorway through which I had just ran moments before, was the blackest beast, the same one that had gifted me Felix's decapitated head. The rain was doing its best to impede my vision, but nothing could have prevented me from seeing the size of it, nothing could have stopped me from moaning in fear at its sheer bulk, towering easily over seven foot high. It had great broad shoulders and its arms seemed monstrously big; muscular and long with those awful misshapen clawed hands at the end. It was far bigger than any Varúlfur that I had seen so far and I could feel its strength and power from here, rolling out in waves across the courtyard. A seed of doubt was already germinating in my gut, stretching out its creepy tendrils and gripping my limbs in a tight hold. I wasn't going to get away. I wasn't going to escape this.