Hounds of the Hall

Hounds of the Hall: Part 2

"Yeah...how did you know?" I ask.

She looks at me and calms down as if she had never been afraid in the first place. "What are you going to do with that?" She points at my lacrosse stick.

"It's my weapon and it's all I've got. What's happening? Where is everybody?" My voice sounded weird to me, shaky and weak.

"I don't know," she says, rubbing her toned arms. "I'm Tamra. I'm just as lost as you."

"Well, we need to get out of here," I say, trying to deepen and steady my voice. "This place changes. I go to U of M and I was just in my residence hall, but when I left it became this courtyard."

"Yeah, this isn't my school either." Tamra runs her hand through her hair. "I'm from Indiana State and I've been for here for hours, but every exit leads me back to the courtyard. The windows don't break and my phone doesn't work."

"Have you seen the hounds?" I ask.

"The hounds?" Tamra cocks her head to the side. I know there are more important things I should be worried about, but I can't help myself.

"Yeah, I heard their howls outside of my door. Then they sounded...strange."

Tamra looked at me like I was a freak. I hated it, and I immediately regretted that I even brought it up.

"I haven't seen or heard any of that. Maybe we should go to the library," she says.

"Why?" I ask.

"I don't know. Maybe there's a clue there."

I want to offer a better idea, but nothing else came to mind. I'm just happy that someone else was here with me. She leads the way to the library and I keep looking back, thinking that I'm hearing something but it's just my own imagination.

We get to the library and walk in delicately like there's glass on the floor. It's like a storm has crashed through it. Books and papers are torn, bookshelves have fallen over, and half of the lights are broken and blinking and barely hanging on.

"So, what's your major?" Tamra asks, as we walk closer to the bookshelves.

"What?" I ask.

"Your major," she said. "You look like you'd be a business major. Finance perhaps."

"What does that matter?" I ask.

"If we're gonna be partners, it might be good to get to know one another."

"I think we should focus on getting out of here. Who we are doesn't matter." I stop and turn all around. "I don't see a door in here, I think we should—"

"Wait," says Tamra bending down and picking a book off of the floor.

"What's that?" I ask.

"The Mythology of Hellhounds." She flips through the pages.

"How's a book going to help us right now? We need a way out."

"We're dealing with the supernatural, Drew," she says. "I'm into sci-fi where weird stuff like this happens all the time. It's like Doctor Who, 'Silence in the Library'. It's all about solving the mystery."

"This isn't some space show. That stuff doesn't apply here." I put my hands on my head and start pacing around the room. "This has to be a dream...nothing else makes sense."

She points to a line on the page and says, "Here. Hounds, right? It references the hellhounds from the Scottish Highlands. Soul reapers. They're the size of calves with green fur, teeth like razor blades, and powerful claws. They take souls to the afterlife after they kill you and you spend eternity in a world of suffering."

"It could be them. I haven't seen them. I've only heard them."

"Wait, it says something else. Did they...take on any human characteristics?"

I stop pacing. "Yeah, well, their howls turned into human screams."

"Did they sound familiar?"

"What, the hounds?"

"Yeah."

"No, not really." I shrugged. "They just sounded like...a girl."

"A girl?" she asks.

"Yeah."

"Like me?"

I turn to Tamra and right before my eyes, green fur grows all over her body, piercing her clothes like porcupine needles. Her bones starts to bend in unholy ways and her muscles grow dramatically. She gets on all fours and I hear the sounds of Tamra's flesh shredding, like ripping tough leather. She turns her monstrous face to me. Her eyes are red and beady and she's drooling. I'm stunned, almost too fearful to move, but somehow I got my legs to obey and I run for the door.