Chapter One
Roni was in trouble and she knew it. This wasn't an unusual
condition for her. As a con artist and petty thief by profession, she often
found herself on the wrong side of the law; and, so, in trouble. But this time
the men who were chasing her wouldn't read her rights and lock her up if they
caught her. No, this time the end of the chase would be far more violent. Roni
knew this and knew that because of this she had to make sure they didn't catch
her, which she was trying desperately to do. If only she hadn't put on the damn
high heels when she left home earlier!
She had worn the heels because she knew how important it was
to look one's best; especially for one with her vocation. Roni barely cracked
five feet tall in her stocking feet and wearing the highest of high heels was
just one of the ways she manipulated people's impressions of her. Besides, they
made her legs look longer and her butt look good. But, unfortunately, none of
that changed the fact that they were very difficult to run fast in!
It all started when she'd found herself short of money for
her rent and had tried to throw a quick con together so she wouldn't be evicted
from her rat-trap apartment. She was
new to the city and hadn't learned who all of the major players in the underworld
were yet. She'd had to leave her last
city of residence rather precipitously, and so she hadn't had time to do her
usual amount of homework.
Roni wasn't classically beautiful, and was far too
voluptuous to be fashionably beautiful, but she'd found that there were always
men who'd follow her wicked curves around anywhere she'd cared to lead
them. Her tits and ass coupled with her
unusual complexion served to keep men guessing; which, of course, kept them
interested. Roni's parents had both
been of mixed race, though they refused to disclose what exactly those races
were; even to Roni.
She, herself, had no idea what parts of Earth she owed her
genetic heritage to, but she knew that the unusual mix of features and the
indeterminate skin tone she had been blessed with made it possible for her to
be a veritable chameleon. A simple
change of clothing and slightly different shades of makeup and she could change
her appearance dramatically. Was her
skin a lovely creamy cocoa a la Halle Berry?
Or was she a tan Malibu beach bunny?
Or perhaps she was a descendant of the place that had once been commonly
referred to as 'the Orient?' She'd never tell. Throw in some hair dye or a wig
and she could be a completely different person.
Her current predicament stemmed from her most recent
mark. He had seemed like any average
Joe and she had picked him out almost immediately from all of the possible
suckers who had been at the club she'd ventured into earlier to ply her trade. He hadn't been very attractive, but he
hadn't been impossibly ugly either.
He'd obviously had money, but he hadn't seemed to be rich enough to have
the money to be a problem later. In
short, he'd seemed perfect, and he'd responded beautifully to the scam she'd
run on him. How was she supposed to
know he was the local gang leader's brother?!?
He hadn't dressed with the ostentatious flair that most of
the successful criminals favored. He
hadn't seemed to have an entourage or any 'security' with him. His face had been open, and rather guileless;
not the hardened, cynical expression most people who spent time with the
less-than-pure-as-the-driven-snow elements of a city usually developed. He hadn't had any of the normal signs that
would have warned her away.
She had given him a professional evaluation before she'd
even approached him, and he'd seemed like a very safe target. The only thing that would have made him more
perfect would have been for him to keep his wallet in an easily accessible
pocket. Then she would have dispensed
with the whole charade and just light-fingered herself into solvency. Unfortunately, he'd been savvier than that
and had kept his wallet buttoned up in an inside pocket at the front of the
sport jacket he'd been wearing. She'd
been able to see the outline of the wallet from across the room, but knew she'd
have to get up-close and personal to have a chance at relieving him of it.
She'd begun by dancing her way through the crowded club
towards him. She knew the second he
noticed her; she had felt the way his eyes caressed her body. Once he'd finished studying her breasts in
her low-cut dress he'd raised his eyes to her face and she'd met them with
hers. Her 'come-hither' smile had him following
his dick straight to her side and from there it had been easy.
He'd bought her drinks which she'd pretended to drink and
she had acted progressively more intoxicated as the night progressed. As she
swayed her body in time to the music she had moved closer to her target, and
when she suggested they find someplace more private to get to know each other
he'd been all too willing. Once he'd
taken her to his apartment, it had been easy to get him out of his coat and to
convince him that she just had to have one more drink to calm her
nerves. After all, the thought of being
with someone as handsome as him just had her poor, little head in a spin. He'd swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and
had left the room to get a bottle of 'the good stuff.'
Naturally he hadn't put his jacket back on just to go to the
kitchen and she'd been able to nick his wallet out of his pocket and silently
depart via the window and fire escape.
That's when she'd realized her mistake.
As she'd climbed down the fire escape she'd noticed that the
outside of the building was crawling with just the type of 'security' that had
been notably absent from the club.
Fortunately, she'd seen them before they saw her and she'd been able to
slip away, but she had heard them talking about their chief, the city's top
crime boss, and how they hated babysitting his brother, and she'd known it
wouldn't be long before they'd be on her trail.
She hadn't even made it back to her tiny apartment before
she'd noticed them shadowing her. She
had considered just making a break for it, but she'd wanted to collect some
personal items before she skipped town (again) and had thought she'd be able to
give them the slip. She'd made it to
her place and had managed to throw most of what she wanted to take with her
into a duffle bag, but before she'd had a chance to change clothes and alter
her appearance she'd seen them circling the building. Not wanting to be trapped in her apartment, she'd made her way to
the roof and had been able to jump the short space between her building and the
building next to it.
Roni had been able to make her way back to the street and
away from her apartment, but the part of the city she was in didn't give her
many options for losing herself at that time of night. The streets were deserted and the few
businesses in the area had long since closed and locked up tight. Even the clubs and the bars had closed down
and the local drunks had made their ways home to escape the winter chill. Everything was still and silent and
deceptively peaceful.
The cold winter wind cut through her thin club-wear like a
knife and the click-clacking her high heels made against the pavement was
painfully loud in her ears; she felt horribly exposed out on the open street.
Convinced she was being watched, she ducked down a side street and hurried
through the narrow alley as quickly as she could. When she'd reached the other side she turned and saw the outlines
of four men following her. Knowing
she'd been right and that stealth was pointless at that point, she'd run as
fast as she could and had zig-zagged through a number of smaller streets and
alley-ways.
She'd finally found a building with an unlocked door and had
ducked inside and closed the door behind her just before the men who were
chasing her had turned the corner. She
knew they were right behind her and she looked around desperately for a place
to hide. The room she was in seemed to
be some kind of warehouse and there were boxes and equipment stacked around at
what seemed to be random intervals. She
dashed into the maze of odds and ends and found a small, concealed space that
she thought she could hide in.
Just as Roni found her hiding space she heard the door open
and the footsteps of the men following her.
They knew they had her cornered and didn't seem to be in any hurry as
they split up to search through all of the junk scattered around. It would only be a matter of time before
they found her; there was no where for her to go.
As Roni scrunched down into her hiding place, she wished,
not for the first time, that she could just give the wretched wallet back, but
she knew that would be pointless. Roni
knew exactly what type of men she was dealing with, and she knew they would not
be willing to just forgive and forget.
If they caught her she'd be lucky to escape with her life, and if they
did kill her she was sure she'd be wishing for her death long before it came.
One of the men passed close by the place Roni was hiding and
she tried to quietly snuggle deeper into the small cavity. As she did, she realized she was sharing the
space with a half-grown, black and white, short-haired kitten. The animal was regarding her with wide eyes
and just as she started praying it would remain silent it let out an
ear-piercing yowl and jumped into her arms.
Roni jumped up out of her hiding place with her duffle bag
still slung around her back and the small cat still in her arms and she ran as
fast as she could for the far side of the room. The men had all started to converge on her position as soon as
the kitten had given her away and were close behind her. As she ran for all she was worth, Roni
tripped over some debris on the floor and began to fall towards a dark spot on
the wall.
Expecting to hit the wall hard, and unable to put her hands
out to catch herself without dropping the cat, she turned to take the impact on
her back instead of on her face. She
was astonished when she kept falling, and falling, and falling. She looked back up to see that the light
from the warehouse seemed to be getting very far away and that the four men who
had been chasing her were also falling down the same hole she seemed to be in.
It seemed to Roni that she had been falling for quite a
while, and she was beginning to wonder when she'd land, and if she'd survive
when she did, when she was suddenly caught in a vortex. The cyclone took her breath away and ripped
the kitten from her grasp. She had just
long enough to worry about the poor creature before the lack of oxygen stole
her consciousness and everything went black.
...
Roni slowly came back to herself and the first thing she
realized was that the air was no longer cold and biting; it was warm and
wet. She opened her eyes and discovered
that she was laying on a leaf-strewn ground and that it was daylight instead of
nighttime. She wondered how long she'd
been unconscious.
As she took stock of herself and found that her limbs all
seemed to be in working order and that her duffle bag had miraculously remained
strapped to her back, she looked at her surroundings and saw that she seemed to
be in the middle of a jungle. There
were trees all around her which seemed to disappear into a sky that she could
only catch glimpses of through the green canopy above her. Close to the ground, the trunks of the trees
were as big around as a small car and there also seemed to be quite a few
bushes, vines, and creeping vegetation scattered in places where there were
breaks in the towering foliage.
Roni stood up and slowly dusted herself off, continuing to
stare in amazement at the verdant wonderland around her. The cat was no where to be seen but the four
men had made the journey to wherever they were with her. None of them were awake yet, fortunately,
and as she continued to look she saw that one of them would never wake
again.
One of the men was lying next to a tree that seemed to be
oozing a golden, viscous substance from its roots. The man's head and shoulders were already encased and the ooze
was slowly making its way down his body. It almost looked like he was being
encased in amber, but Roni had no interest in moving closer for a better
look. It was clear the man was dead,
but she still had three more to worry about and they were starting to stir.
Looking around for the cat one more time, and failing to
find him, Roni quickly started off into the jungle; seeking to put space
between herself and her pursuers. She
had to be careful about how she placed her feet in order to keep her heels from
sinking into the soft, moist ground.
More than once her shoes got stuck and she had to stop and free them
before she could continue. Because of
that she made much slower progress than she'd hoped and she began to worry that
it wouldn't take long for the men to catch up to her.
As if to confirm her fears, it wasn't long before she heard
her pursuers crashing through the underbrush and moving closer to her. She started to panic and looked around for
somewhere to hide. Unable to help
herself, she turned and looked over her shoulder and saw that one of the men
was nearly upon her.
Roni tried to stretch her legs to run faster but one of her
shoes caught again and she went sprawling on her face. The man chasing her
missed his grab at her when she fell, but turned to take advantage of her
helpless position. As she looked up,
expecting to feel his hands on her at any moment, she saw a blur of motion
approaching him from above.
While Roni looked on, a vine whipped out from the trees
above and severed the man's head. She
gasped as his head flew off into the underbrush and a second vine dropped down
to grab his body and quickly haul it up into the tree's branches. The whole procedure had happened between one
breath and the next and left Roni blinking in astonishment.
Scrambling to her feet, Roni desperately tried to avoid
looking at the place where the man's head had disappeared. She kept a wary eye on the branches overhead
as she scuttled underneath them to continue her flight from the remaining two
men. She could still hear them not far
away, and she didn't have time to contemplate the fate of the man who had
nearly caught her. She'd have to think
about that later.
As she ran she tried to keep an eye on the surrounding
forest as well as behind her for signs of pursuit. Her caution cost her speed, and it wasn't long before another one
of the men caught up to her. She looked
around for something to use as a weapon as he advanced on her. This man seemed to have learned from the
examples of his two unfortunate companions and kept part of his attention on
their surroundings, which slowed him down somewhat.
Roni picked up a stone she found lying on the ground near a
tree, intending to use it to defend herself, and was startled when it suddenly
sprouted a plethora of legs and began squirming and chittering at her
frantically. With a yelp she threw it away from herself, and it happened to
land on the leg of the man who was chasing her. They both watched in astonishment as rock-creature quickly
climbed to the top of the man's head and latched all of it's legs around the
man's cranium.
The man started screaming as if the rock-creature were
burning him and Roni, unable to help herself, raced over to try to help
him. The man was running in circles and
waving his arms around hysterically, and he knocked her several feet away from
him with his frantic flailing. Before
Roni could gather her feet under her again, she saw that the man was bleeding
badly.
The bleeding started underneath the rock-creature, from the
top of the man's head, but the man quickly began bleeding profusely from his
eyes, ears, and nose. Horror-struck,
Roni continued to watch as the man appeared to begin to melt. First his head seemed to deflate and sink
into itself, as if his skull had ceased to exist, then his neck sunk into his
chest and his chest seemed to melt down towards his feet. Mercifully, the man's gurgling screams ended
quickly, and it was only Roni who was left to be horrified as his bones seemed
to liquefy and what had once been a human being turned into a skin sack leaking
red, viscous fluid.
Once the man was a puddle of skin and goo on the ground, the
rock-creature settled in the middle of it and extended what looked like a straw
to Roni. It inserted the end of the
straw into the puddle and began making slurping sounds. Fighting her rising gorge, Roni ran off into
the forest.
Out of breath, Roni soon had to stop her headlong flight;
plus, it occurred to her that running blindly through the forest might not be
the best idea. It was clear to her that
she was either dreaming, dead, or someplace far from home. She immediately decided to operate under the
assumption that she was still alive (and not dead and in Hell), that she hadn't
lost her mind, and that she was awake.
This decision wasn't made because she was sure that all of these things
were true; she'd just decided that on the off chance that she was alive, awake,
and sane the best way to remain so was to act as if the dangers she perceived
were real. If it turned out that her
mind (either awake or asleep) was manufacturing nightmares for her to navigate
she didn't see how acting as if they were real would harm her in anyway, and if
she were dead she supposed she'd be beyond harm.
With that resolution in mind, Roni decided she needed to
either find her way out of the forest (and hopefully to somewhere safer) and/or
find people who could help her.
Considering what she had seen, climbing the trees to try to find out
where the edge of the forest was didn't seem like such a hot idea; so she
decided to just pick a direction (away from the last place she had seen the man
who was still chasing her) and go in as straight a line as possible. She couldn't hear the last of the men who
had been chasing her and she thought to wonder if he were already dead, but
erring on the side of caution seemed the better part of valor in this situation
and she started off into the forest again.
Just as she began to think she might be putting some real
distance between herself and the place where the third man had died, she heard
a plaintive mewing from nearby.
Sighing, but knowing she'd never be able to walk off and leave if the
kitten was near and needed her help, she started looking around; after all, she
considered herself at least partially responsible for the kitten being in
danger in the first place. It didn't
take her long to follow the crying and find the kitten. It was entangled in what appeared to be a web
of long, thin leaves.
On the ground in front of her, there was a plant that looked
like a giant, mutated tulip. It had
long, thin leaves and a central stalk with a blossom at the top; but instead of
standing up straight the leaves were woven into a cage, at the center of which
was a very frightened looking kitten.
She crouched down to get a better look.
The kitten didn't appear to be injured, just trapped.
Given what she had seen of the potential for violence among
the flora and fauna of this forest, Roni was rather reluctant to just stick her
hand into the tangle of leaves and try to pry the kitten out, so she began
looking around for something to use to move the leaves. First she had to be sure that whatever she
picked up wouldn't suddenly decide to eat her; it was a nerve-wracking process.
She finally found a stick that seemed both long and thick enough for the
purpose, and also seemed to be relatively inert.
She picked the stick up, keeping a wary eye on it, and began
to move back towards the plant that had trapped the kitten. It appeared as though the leaves were moving
closer together, trapping the kitten in an even smaller space. Worried that the kitten would either be
crushed or smothered, Roni began to hurry but was stopped as the kitten let out
an ear-piercing yowl at the same time something crashed through the brush
behind her.
Roni spun, raising the stick in front of herself, to face
the threat behind her. She saw the last
of the men who had been chasing her stumble out of the underbrush and fall on
his face on the ground. He lay there,
twitching, and then looked up at her, an expression of utter anguish on his
face. The man seemed to be trying to
speak, but no sound escaped his mouth.
Suddenly, he opened his mouth even wider and looked as if he were trying
to vomit.
Thousands of tiny, crawling creatures (distantly Roni's mind
tried to classify them as insects, though she knew she had nothing to base that
assumption on other than superficial appearance) came scuttling out of his
mouth. The man gave her an expression
of complete horror, and then his eyes rolled up into his head and he was still
except for the movement of the creatures.
Roni prepared to run, but the creatures didn't seem at all interested in
abandoning their meal, and were busily encasing the man's body in some kind of
web-like substance.
Trying to keep an eye on the mass of creeping creatures, she
turned back to the plant that had trapped the kitten. She could no longer see the animal, though she could hear his
mournful cries from inside the bundle of leaves. Poking the stick into the center of the tangle, she found the
leaves were difficult to move, and that they left marks on the stick as though
their edges were sharp. That knowledge
made Roni glad she hadn't just blindly plunged her hand into them, but she was
able to use the stick to make a large enough opening to stick her hand into and
grab the kitten.
As she pulled the kitten out, she found that there were
small vines wrapped around its back legs.
They didn't release it when she pulled it away from the plant, but she
dropped the stick and let the leaves close back together and the sharp edges
severed the vines. She was then able to
unwind them from its legs.
Roni looked the kitten over, but other than some lost fur
where the vines had wrapped its legs, it seemed none the worse for wear. She did notice during the course of her
inspection that it was a he. He didn't seem at all inclined to leave her arms
again, and he snuggled under her chin and purred. Even with the threat of the
men gone, Roni knew the forest itself was still a threat and she needed to get
out of it as soon as possible. Turning
to continue on her way, she found that she wasn't alone.
Between the trees, in the direction she had been headed
before she'd been distracted by her search for the kitten, stood a very tall
man with hair that was a blonde so yellow she doubted it was from nature. He was very well-built and muscular, and the
features of his face were stunning with large, purple eyes, high, sharp cheek
bones, and full, bowed lips. Roni
became lost in the beauty of his face for a moment, but soon realized that this
man might be the help she'd been looking for.
Just as she was about to speak to him an expression of
rage contorted his beautiful face and he raised his hand to point at her and
shouted in a language she'd never heard before. Afraid that the man meant to attack her, Roni spun, intending to
run away, but found that she was unable to move her feet!
What happened to her cat??
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to read to find out! :-)
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