Rage, a Short Story NSFW
Vanessa disappeared over three days ago.
The local Tribe Elders dismissed it, saying “This City eats the weak and defenseless.” More ignoring the problem, more sitting with their heads in the sand and wishing it will all just go away. A bunch of toothless old wolves sitting around a fire and remembering what things were like when they were young...I bet they can't even remember back that far.
Vanessa was the first girl I ever loved.
That may not mean anything to those grizzled elders, but to me it means everything and more. She's a piece of my life I've no intention of losing to this cesspool of a city, and especially not to the filth eaters and defilers who live in it.
She'd been hanging around this new guy a lot. They're “just friends” she tells me, but seeing the way he looks at her makes my skin want to crawl right off my bones. I go sniffing around his upper-class suburban home, but I can't pick up her scent. If he's involved, then she never came back here.
My turn to play the stupid ape. Smiling vapidly and hanging off his arm like everything is right in the world so long as I have a big strong man to protect me. I've watched Garou torn limb from limb without gagging, now it takes all my willpower not to vomit all over his new gap sweater.
He moves fast...though not in the way I figured. He wants to corrupt me, make me like him before he fucks me. We're sitting at the drive-in when he leans over to me and says “So...you like girls right?”
What the hell do I say to that? What I want to tell him is that I like girls more then I could ever like a filth spewing hollow man like himself. Instead I just bat my eyes and stare demurely at my nauseatingly white pumps. “Maybe a little.”
“There's this place I know that shows some movies...I hate going there alone.”
“What kind of movies?” I think I know the answer already, but it turns out to be worse then I figured.
“Sex movies.” He says breathlessly, leaning closer.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against consensual sex. But putting it up on a screen for all the world to see is cheap and disgusting. It hasn't gotten worse yet, trust me, you'll know once it has.
“I dunno...” I mumble, shifting a little in my chair, pretending I'm wet at the thought.
“...I bet you'll like it when they scream.” He slobbers, lips against my ear. It's all I can do not to rip them off his face and shove them down his piggish throat. I taste the Rage on the back of my tongue and try to will my hackles down. There'll be time for that later, right now I need him.
“Maybe I will.”
“I'll pick you up tomorrow at about eleven then. Wear something nice.”
Something nice, like this is a formal occasion. We sit through the rest of the movie in silence, me trying my best not to gag on the smell of his sudden arousal. There are times when a heightened sense is nothing but a burden.
I “dress nice” and meet him on the curb the next night. He's closed lipped about it until we're parked outside the theater itself. It's a run down building in the middle of the worst part of town. I know full grown wolves who wouldn't be caught alone at night here...more the fools they. We're the epitome of wolves in sheep's clothing and we shouldn't try to be otherwise.
He reeks of Baccardi as he leans over, gripping my wrist tightly. I pretend to squirm in pain...it takes a lot of pretending. “Tonight we're going to see some bitches die fucking...does that make you hot?”
There's no controlling the rage this time. I throat him with one blow, watch his eyes turn glassy as he tries to staunch the spray from his open neck. As his eyes start to roll into the back of his head I grin at him, all wolf teeth. “Tonight you're the only one I'm going to watch die...does that make you hot?”
The theater manages to smell even worse then it looks. The carpets have gone to mildew and there's mold growing on the walls and under the seats. The concession stand is closed, probably after the owner was arrested for crimes against humanity.
There's one theater open, and I can hear the sounds from halfway down the hall. The screaming isn't bad, I've been known to do it myself in the throes of passion, but the obscenities the girl on screen is suffering aren't special effects.
Snuff porn. Can man sink any lower?
The theater is almost full, Mother above is there any hope for us? The snickering as I slink into the darkened room is enough to raise my hackles, but I try and force it down. There's all types of scum in here; The chronic viewer, barely dressed and reeking of his own filth. The family man looking for a dark thrill, looking furtively around the theater in hopes no one recognizes him. The sadist, gripping the back of the chair in front of him, waiting for the big...wait...
There's a wolf in here.
It takes me the better part of fifteen minutes to find him, and when I do I can scarcely believe my eyes. Shrouded in a trench coat he looks like every other pervert in here. Maybe the Elders are onto something when they say the other tribes are...what's he...
Sometimes I kick myself for my assumptions. He's not watching the screen, he's watching everyone else. The tattoo on the back of his neck marks him as a Child of Gaia...what's a peacelover doing in a place like this?
A shadow passes over the screen, someone moving about in the projection room. When the light of the screen comes back, the Gaian is moving towards the stairs, men on either side of the isle shrinking back from him as he passes.
I can smell their fear.
A flight of rotting stairs and he pauses at the door to the projection room. I know he can smell me, he has to...but he may not know I'm following him. The deadbolt gives easily under a little pressure and he sweeps into the room beyond.
“Hey you can't be in here.” A voice, thin and reedy.
“I'm looking for the manager.” The Gaian sounds like a radio personality. More suited to stealing little girls hearts with his voice then stalking through the underbelly of society.
“Fuck off.” Surly now.
Bone snaps like eggshells, startling me. A muffled groan, the sound of flesh on flesh. Hand over the mouth to keep him from screaming...old fashioned, but it works.
“The manager.”
I don't hear what the other voice says, but apparently it's the right answer this time. The thud as his body hits the floor, a whimper from whatever broken bone he's gotten. “Quit this job. Now.”
The Gaian leaves through the other door and I enter the projection room. The man...no the boy on the floor can't be older then seventeen. So young and already learning to hate, already learning to take from women what they won't give him freely.
Youth is no excuse.
I make it quick at least, though the sight of those baby blues wide with fear is something I'll carry with me for a long time. I don't even lick his blood from my claws, just wipe it off on a dirty rag used to clean the projectors.
I'm behind now, needing to catch up, but I can smell the Gaian even from here. He smells clean, fresh, like a pompous breeze blowing away a fetid stench. I quicken my steps, hoping to hear what the manager has to say.
Voices ahead of me and I slow, tucking my body to the wall and hugging the shadows. I draw closer, perking my ears forward to catch what they're saying.
“I don't know anythin' about that man, I just play the films!” That would be the manager. Trying to protect his supplier...his meal ticket.
“Tell me.” The voice that sounded so warm earlier is cold as ice, and it settles in my gut like a chunk of the arctic.
“Fuck you man! I already told you I don't kno-...”
Knuckles make a sound sort of like bubble wrap when you break them. His screams are lost amongst the screams coming from down the hall. Two more bubbles burst before he starts to blubber, weeping for mercy.
I've never known a Gaian to torture anyone.
“Where do you meet your supplier?” That ice again, sliding through the screams like a knife.
Two more knuckles before the manager gives in, that's one whole hand he'll never use again. He's sobbing now, trying to tell the Gaian anything he can to save his skin. When he mentions the “new girl”, my blood turns to ice.
I'm standing in the doorway but I don't remember moving, and I'm staring at this monster in the shape of a man, curled up on the floor and moaning. There's no movement of pity in my heart for this creature. I'd sooner feel sorry for a mosquito.
The Gaian turns to me and it's all I can do not to gasp. His eyes are a frosty blue, bright, hard and painful to look at. For a long moment we stare at each other, hundreds of words passing at the speed of thought.
He brushes past me. I didn't even need to ask him to leave me alone. I close the door.
The manager tells me even more before I'm done, but I take my time anyway. If anyone ever finds the body down here, they'll wonder if it was even human.
Sick with rage, dizzy with nausea, I stumble into the foyer and out into the cloying night air. The Gaian is there, lighting a cigarette. Wordlessly he hands it to me and I take a deep pull, sucking on the noxious poison within rather then breath the same air as these monsters. He lights another and takes a pull, smoke wreathing his face as he exhales.
Something cool on my skin, a slight drop of water. It's the only warning we have before the sky opens up completely, drenching the filthy concrete with pure water from the sky. I turn my face into it, letting the water wash over me, cleanse the nausea from my belly. The Elders say that when it rains...
“...Gaia cries for her daughters lost here.” He says quietly, as if he could read my thoughts. Dark hair sticks to his scalp, soaked down by the deluge. He draws a deep breath in through his nostrils, eyes turned to the heavens. “She cries for the mothers and sisters who've no choice but to have been here.”
Oh Mother, how many more? How many more women will pass through places like this before the End Times? How much deeper into filth and degradation can the Wyrm force man?
Nothing more is said, the only sound is the rain pounding the pavement. We both draw on our cancer sticks, staring at the ground. The creatures inside don't even know they have until we're finished before their pathetic lives come to an end.