October 6th, 2009
Ruthlessness is the law of the world. It takes no prisoners, shows no mercy. Humanity excels in its application. Compassion and understanding are endangered emotions in the modern world. Man now rejects pleas for help. The species is reverting back to self-preservation, the selfish individual. It's survive alone or die alone, the odds stacked against you. Callousness rules.
Three more rejection emails. Atulia hunched over her phone, numb to the stabbing of the job market. It was all the same:
'Given the high standards of all applications, your application has not been successful on this occasion. We are not able to provide individual feedback."
Yep. Ruthless.
The graduate job market was a mess. Skilled workers in science, technology, engineering and maths were said to be in high demand everywhere. Employers fell over themselves to snatch up mathematicians, engineers, chemists and physicists fresh out of university. But ecologists, marine biologists, zoologists? It was strenuous work for peanuts at best, or a job unrelated to her degree, not requiring a degree, at worst. There was nothing she could do but keep kicking doors.
Personal messages lying on her screen, foolishly opened by her impatient fingertips, really stung, especially considering the progress she'd already made on her journey.
The motorway service station buzzed with families and travellers, driving the length of the United Kingdom for work, holidays, or to see friends, relatives, maybe people who were more...
Queues of empty stomachs snaked from fast food outlets into the central area of the services. The elderly and young bonded over the extortionate prices in retail stores. Modern highway robbery, someone called it. There was always someone passing through the toilet doorway. Everyone was en route a destination. She was meant to be in the same boat.
Not anymore.
'SORRY RUNNING AN HOUR LATE.'
It was from the guy she'd gotten 'involved' with, just before finishing university. Just before moving away to a temporary job, which had now finished. He'd sent it an hour ago, just after she left the last service station.
'SORRY GOING TO HAVE TO CANCEL. HOPE YOU'RE NOT ALMOST HERE. WE'LL REARRANGE SOON.'
No. No we won't.
This wasn't what was promised. University: the doorway to a world at your fingertips. Better paid jobs, friends for life, life-changing experiences. Next to none of those promises held. Not many people had clicked with her while she was there. Not her housemates, nor most of her course-mates. The number of people she could rely on for support at the end of her degree numbered in single digits. And the one person she'd got closest to was half an hour away, and suddenly unavailable.
Dragging herself off the table, Atulia dropped her empty coffee cup into the bin. She couldn't stay. Doubtful thoughts were ganging up inside her head again. Itching her neck underneath neatly brushed brown hair, she began making her way back to the car. Two hours of travel wasted, and God knows how much in petrol.
Weaving through the car park, her green eyes zeroed in on her old red Honda Civic. Slotting the key in the door, she threw it open and climbed in. Turning the ignition, she checked her mirrors as the CD player whirred back into life, blasting out chunky power metal. Two tired, green eyes stared back at her. Guiding her car out the parking space, she made her way back towards the motorway slip road.
***
The thrashing of the distorted guitars, drums beating like demonic hearts underneath shrieking banshee-like vocals, was exactly what she needed to keep the disappointments at bay. The youth of today were meant to have it easy, free of rations and the threat of war. But the people who had lived through those times failed to see how the benefits they took for granted were ruining opportunities for others. Graduates filled the non-graduate job market. House prices were insane. Even her own car cost more to insure than buy, and would be written off by the smallest fault claim. People didn't bond or interact the way they used to. The digital age had leapt ahead, and Atulia was unable to keep up, and not wanting to. That was a disadvantage now, a barrier to interacting with all those that had embraced the gimmicks and marketing.
Flicking her indicator, she turned off the motorway, a nice stretch of country road now all that was between her and home, Gehiwian Circle. As the song finished, she pondered her life choices. She'd done her animal degree due to her love of dogs. Furry friends of all sizes, they had an interesting natural and human history. The journey from fish, to synapsid, to mammal, to domesticated animal bred for dozens of different tasks, was fascinating. That and their behaviour, appearance and lovable charm...
The skies melted into the warm hues of dusk, creeping into darkness as she drove on. She flicked her headlights on. Trees hunched along the road's edges, gnarly shapes that hid the stars in the heavens above. Her car chugged along, winding through the empty country roads.
Her feet stomped the clutch and brake pedal as a horrid sight burst into her high beams. The car seized, tyres squealing over the stereo as the pads clamped onto the brake discs. Atulia's body lurched forward, snapping back as the car came to a stop. She knocked the stereo off. Her left hand returned to the steering wheel, massaging it tight like a stress-ball. Atulia's eyes fixed on the thing in the road. A gruesome, bloody mess.
She took one step out onto the road, looking both ways. The cool of night curled round her legs. Atulia was just on the outskirts of Gehiwian Circle, alone. The road had been empty the entire way. Pushing her car door to, Atulia crept over to the corpse, leaning over as she stood to the side of her beaming headlights.
It was a sheep, or what was left of one, lying on its side. The stomach and throat were torn open, a red-brown puddle around its head, soaking into the white wool. Its thick underside had been ripped open and all the digestive organs disturbed. The liver was missing. Intestines had been torn out, a brown patch on the tarmac indicating where they'd be emptied. A warm cloud, the scent of flesh, emanated from the carcass, scrunching her nose up like paper.
Atulia bolted straight up, hands clenched, eyes wide and neck cold. This was no roadkill.
This was a predator's kill.
There was nothing in the UK that could kill like this. Badgers and foxes were too small to take on an adult sheep. A large dog could, but a pet one wouldn't have been allowed to hang around to eat the organs like this. The only, semi-logical conclusion she could surmise was it was one of the mystic big cats believed to be roaming the countryside. Sightings were rare, but not unheard of.
Car engine guzzling fuel behind her, Atulia remained motionless. Was it still out there, whatever it was, hiding among the trees? A mist descended, masking her surroundings.
The perfect cover...
Chills and sweats sprung up in different areas of her body. Her lungs inhaled a deep breath in an effort to stay calm. She closed her eyes for as long as she dared, tuning her ears in to the sounds of the night. Beyond her car, the veil of darkness yielded little.
Rustling. Behind her.
Spinning her head round, Atulia pinpointed the disturbance. The undergrowth parted on the other side of the road behind her car. On the cusp of the red taillight beams, a low, hulking shape, as black as the night itself, slunk onto the tarmac.
The creature's head snapped into position, it's eyes locked onto her. At first, Atulia thought the taillights were playing tricks. Two neon orbs of red stared at her, black pupils as small as pencil points. Her spine seized, as if her backbone had become encased in ice. This was no big cat, or anything from the animal kingdom she knew.
Her own evolutionary instincts kicked in.
Run.
Adrenaline hit her system with a ferocity she'd never felt before. Her legs took off, powering towards the trees by the side of the road. Only when she reached them did her brain catch up. Her body had cut through the front headlights, breaks in the beams signalling movement. The calling card of distress, irresistible to her predator.
She tucked in her arms, keeping them pinned tight as she weaved between the tree trunks. The heaviness of her footsteps masked any sounds made by the black thing with red eyes. Her mind forced the stomps, surmising that gnarling jaws could be a few feet behind. Tear droplets detached from the corner of her eyes and were lost to the world zipping away behind her. Trees thinned ahead, giving way to waist-tall shrubbery.
The drop was on her before she realised what was happening.
The shrubbery was the tops of trees.
Gravity threw her limbs into disarray. Atulia tumbled down the embankment. Jagged rocks pricked all along her body as she rolled to a stop. Wheezing subsiding, with a muted groan she forced herself up. Her eyes danced in their sockets, searching for the thing.
Atulia's foot hit something hard and wooden. Moonlight, despite the light mist, illuminated the lone railway track. A pair of rails stretched in both directions, disappearing into the fog. It was the single-track line that led to the station. A little up the line, the embankment subsided.
Movement.
The black shape moved with the fluidity of a phantom, breaking away from the dark trunks of the forest into the open. It paused in the middle of the tracks. Soft moonlight reflecting off the rails gave Atulia just enough light to examine her stalker.
The thing was more creature now. A quadruped, back straight like a dog, it was roughly a metre tall. Thick matted black fur adorned its back, leading to what she assumed was a bushy tail, her mind filling in the blanks. The build... it was the most muscular canine she had ever seen. Two large, bat-like ears rose atop its head as it looked at her. The nose on the end of its Alsatian-like snout twitched in the air as it tried to...
...find her scent.
The reddish eyes, more demonic than canid, found her again. The little information at her disposal collapsed into an illogical explanation. Demonic was on the mark. This was one of the black dogs of legend that stalked the British Isles.
A hellhound.
It had to be some hallucination. But the sheep had been real. The icky whiff of decaying flesh still circled in her nostrils. The hound turned, as if it knew not if she was going to run, but when. Atulia remained frozen. This wasn't natural. Too much was going on to decide on a word for it. Why was it chasing her? Why did it exist?
Two more black shapes emerged from the trees, then another.
A pack. The legends never mentioned packs.
A nasty ball of saliva hanging in her throat, Atulia fled for the cover of the forest on the other side of the line, straying further and further from the road. The disturbed ballast of the track grated against her eardrums as the hounds gave chase.