Opening Image - Indigo Dreams

CHAPTER ONE

My green runners slapped hard against the chilled cement of the cracked sidewalks as I ran, all the muscles in my legs firing like an NRA convention. Heart banging against my heaving chest, sweat dripped under my arms to soak my white cotton t-shirt, down my neck, and that super uncomfortable place under your cleavage that nobody ever tells you when you’re a kid. And it wasn’t like I had those little a-cup skinny girl boobs either. My girls in their c-cups were a little tight in the uncomfortably damp bra. Sue me, I hadn’t really had spare money to spring for a good bra. I was a curvy woman, and running without one was out of the question unless I wanted to put out someone’s eye.

But no matter how fast I ran down Grand Rapid’s wasted streets under the towering husks of architecture, I couldn’t escape the shattering screams and gravelly howls of the monsters gaining on me, every sound bouncing in the bizzarre acoustics of the rubble.

My lungs screamed as I huffed air in and out, wiping my sweaty blonde hair out of my face and dodging rock rubble in the empty streets. I really hoped I didn’t trip like those idiots in the cheesy horror flicks I watched. I lamented then how very different the entertainment of watching someone flee from a monster was compared to actually running for your life, believing you were going to die at any second.

Very little prepared you for it. Even the very mundane monsters I’d faced during my life.

I cracked my neck as I ran, the tension overflowing in my shoulders. Were they animals, I wondered. Were they monsters? Fucked if I knew. “What did I even do to deserve this, anyway? I’d already been through so much trash in this life! Didn’t I deserve a break? I was a good person! Well, I mean sure I jaywalked and went above the speed limit, but everybody does that shit!”

Another screaming howl split the night. The echo off the dilapidated buildings made it difficult to pin down where it was coming from. I slapped my hands over my ears as the sound vibrated right down to my bones and sent tingling shivers down my spine.

I came to another back alley crossroads and whipped my head left and right, smacking myself in the face with my lengthy ponytail, frizzes sticking out all over. Sputtering, I cleared the hair out of my eyes. The left alley had a half dozen dumpsters lining the corroded red brick walls. Trash overflowed, it even stacked up in piles against the walls, but it was a dead end. Stench slammed into my nostrils and I gagged, staggering to the side.

There was no way in hell I was running into a closed alley. Animals had enhanced senses, and I wasn’t going to dive into a bunch of trash to hide. How could I even know if the garbage was enough to cover the scent of my BO? Hell, I could smell myself, and that ain’t pretty.

Then I noticed movement in the trash piles.

Yeah, nope. Looks like the left was a hard pass.

Right looked much the same, though fewer trash piles, but had another turn about fifty yards down.

I turned right and hoped for the best.

Moving forward at a quick jog, I kept my eyes and ears peeled. There were occasional squeaks and bird sounds, even the flap of bats, but I never saw them. At least my sciatica wasn’t acting up. If I survived this, I swear I’d exercise more. Maybe do the physical therapy I pretty much always neglected.

Stupid monsters. Stupid boob sweat. Stupid sciatica. All of this sucked. Although, if I was gonna die, I was by-god gonna make the beasts work for it.

The alley dumped me out halfway down a city street lined with crooked trees, tiny leaves rotting on the branches, while others were in pristine bloom - with violet and indigo leaves. The air was still. Quiet. I crept down the open street and stuck to the edges of buildings, and scurried from one dark shadow to the next.

I hoped the monsters choked to death on my shoe. Or got indigestion. I furrowed my brow and considered the options. Rubber was hard to digest, yeah? Some sort of gastrointestinal revenge from beyond the grave. If there’s one thing that drove me, it was belligerent spite. And my kids. And maybe a soft spot for tacos, but in survival mode they weren’t truly on a list of priorities.

Well, that was three things, but still.

I darted right around a corner, skidding on the damp asphalt as the crescent moon beamed like a smirk in the night sky behind purple clouds. My whole body heaved the the side as my center of balance took a hike, and my hand slammed on the cold surface of the sidewalk, scratching up my palm. It ground dirt in, but gave me enough leverage to catch my feet under me. I took off running again.

Too much noise. I was making too much noise. I grit my teeth and forced myself to stop and find a deep shadow.

The city was horrifyingly empty. No cars ran by, just beat up husks parked along the sides of the streets, waiting for owners to come back who never would, who’d just left the metal hulks here to break and rot. The windows were broken and windshields cracked. Doors seemed frozen in the middle of falling off, with rusty under carriages, sunburnt paint, and flattened rubber tires.

I narrowed my eyes and knotted my brows, peering closer at the wreckage.

Wait, I wondered. Were those claw marks?

I glared as I paused and caught my breath, listening in the eerie silence for a snort, a breath, a howl, the tap of claws on the blackened pavement, anything to give me a warning as to when to run like the devil was after me.

Nothing.

The metal had deep gouges in the sides. The tires were all chewed up, too. Everywhere there were signs of former inhabitants, trash in the streets, but the city was barren of humans like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. The streets were cracked and overgrown, weeds smashing their way through the asphalt like slow motion demolition men taking a break for lunch.

It was night, and the streetlights gave decent enough illumination from the bulbs that were not broken, and cast long dark shadows that blended into the murk of the buildings.

The most fucked up part was that every single streetlight seemed to have some weird indigo lightbulb in it. What idiot puts purple bulbs in lamp posts?

I glared up at the lights, somehow bright enough to put spotlights and patches of light on the broken sidewalks, yet dim enough so they didn’t block the view of the night beyond. Even the stars seems to glint indigo in the blackened sky. The half moon beamed with a purple haze.

I paused briefly, struck by the sight. Tense as a rabbit waiting for the snake to strike. Wasn’t that a crescent a minute ago, I thought, confused.

Howling shrieks echoed behind me, too close, but with the acoustics of the dead space I couldn’t pinpoint where from. They sounded like a cross between a wolf howl and a gorilla’s scream who’d both been smoking too much for fifty years. It made my bowels a little loose and my small hairs rise.

I snapped out of my musings and put on the gas, sucking in great gasps of air as I tried to keep going. Despite being that weirdo hiding in the computer lab in school, I had always loved running, and high school track had always served me well. I could always outrun the bullies. Couldn’t bully me if they couldn’t catch me.

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Never did college track, but kept up my morning runs then, too. Being thirty-eight and chasing after two kids gave me an entirely different kind of running experience. Though I had no idea how much of either I needed to outpace the creatures I feared behind me.

I groaned deep in my throat, trying to balance breathing with vocalizing my frustration. And kinda not doing very well at either at this point. I cringed. Fuck, if I died, who was gonna take care of my kids!? And why was I only thinking about this now? Am I really that shitty of a mom?

My heart squeezed as I booked it past a ruined coffee shop, that familiar ache of not being enough stinging my eyes and heart. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them down now. Fuck these monsters. Disaster mom though I may be, I wasn’t leaving this earth, or whatever weird place I was stuck in right now, without a hell of a fight.

Clenching my fists, i was quite proud of my resolve until I realized I didn’t really have anything to fight back with unless the creatures wanted a thumb war or a slap fight.

Fuck.

I picked up the pace, legs burning in the humid night. Even the air drifting past was thick and wet, slapping me in the face and chest like a wet towel. Hot night and cold cement. This place was wreaking havoc on my senses. Visiting Georgia once in the summer was enough humidity for me forever, thank you very much. Wasn’t Michigan supposed to be cooler?

Nearly tripping over a bunch of bricks and dirt clods brimming with unidentifiable weeds, I heard the scrape of claws and the drool-filled growls of whatever slobbering creature followed behind me like a shadow I just couldn’t shake. But I could tell it was to my left, so I sprinted right down an alley and through to the next street over.

I developed a stich in my side as I fled, desperately panting in the purple murk around me, and my arms pumped furiously as well. Graffiti reflected like black light where the moon’s light hit it as I twisted onto a main street. With a pink or blue glow, It seemed to be some of the few alternate colors in this space. Darkened buildings rose high on both sides.

Eyes watched me now from the dark. I could feel them on my skin as much as I could see their pupils reflecting brightly back at me. Blue here, red there, green on that fucker behind the garbage can.

I shuddered and kept moving.

The high towers and beautiful buildings of Grand Rapids lay mostly empty and desolate around me as I dodged past, some simply looking like they’d been abandoned, some were collapsed, an old church spilling river rock everywhere.

The ones that disturbed me the most were the ones that looked perfectly intact, though no lights shone within.

Someone would have to have been taking care of them, and I sure as hell didn’t want to meet anyone or anything that thrived in this desolation.

I looked around carefully and furtively scurried across the street, the dull chill of fear melting in my stomach. A big crunch came from ground level - I had apperantly stepped on something because I was looking around and not at my feet.

And it wiggled.

I looked down and slapped my hands over my face to keep from screaming and lept backwards into the wall. It was a cockroach twice the size of my foot.

I fucking HATED cockroaches.

It limped towards the other side of the street, heading for a sewer grate.

Oh.

Oh no.

There were things in the sewer under me. Yup, that settled it. I was in hell. Things couldn’t get much worse than this.

Suddenly, a massive brown rat the size of a terrier burst from the sewer grate, pounced on the struggling cockroach and bit hard through it’s shell. Bug innards began leaking out as I watched in horrified fascination. The cockroach hissed and squealed, flailing it’s pencil-legs, but the rat was relentless, and dragged it’s squishy squeaking prize into the sewer grate and down below.

And then the squealing cut off. I wanted to gag.

Then I noticed the other sewer grates, and the bright reflective red of eyes watching. Eyes just the same size and shape of the giant rat.

Shit. It looked like this place totally could get worse, and it was my own fault for thinking it.

Until they, too, heard the noises behind me, and the dozens of eyes winked out, back down into the grates.

If the scary rat-things were scared of the other scary dog-ape-thing, I sure as hell didn’t want to meet any of the scary things in a darkened alley. Or even in a brightly lit patch of road, either. Although that seemed more and more likely to be my fate.

I shuttled down the main street, t-shirt flying behind me as my shoes kicked up rock and dust. A growling roar came from an alley to my right, so I dove left down a cross street.

It was then that I realized I was being herded.

Ice splashed into my stomach and fire shot through my limbs as anger, adrenaline, and terror all had a fiesta in my stomach.

Fuck this shit.

I looked up at the full moon, shining brightly over the city in a cloudless sky, and even it had a tint of indigo to it. I glared at the brilliant orb in the sky. Was the moon fucking with me, too? It kept changing every time I looked away! I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.

The moon was simply gone.

Cold sweat broke out on my forehead and chills rode down my back as the night around me grew darker still, violet and royal turning into deeper plum and midnight velvet. Then I watched the stars blink out above me one by one.

Extinguished like fireflies being eaten by bats.

None of this could be real. Me and the kids had pancakes for dinner last night! How had one day managed to turn my entire universe upside down?

Too late, I noticed that I was still staring at the disappearing stars as if they were eating my attention purposefully. My feet had stopped of their own accord as they tried to catch up to the thoughts whirling through my head like bees on speed.

I chanced a glance behind me - I know, rookie mistake. I don’t know why I did it. Hell, I’d even watched like a million horror movies where that one moment the fleeing protagonist looked behind was the moment she tripped on her feet and got eaten by the monster-of-the-week.

Time to nope on outta here.

Skidding sideways in preparation to sprint, it was in that moment that I saw it. As big as a horse, it galloped along almost like an ape, long limbs with ropy muscle ending in a cross between paws and hands, knuckle walking like an ape, but clearly tipped with curved claws tucked up near the palm. A creature used to two legs as much as four. It’s fur was dark as night, blending in with the sharp shadows cast by the now full moon (fuck you moon) and the misty purple murk that seemed to float like low lying fog.

I couldn’t see any real features, just two glowing eyes full of malice, their golden glow luminous around the pupil reflecting red in the moonlight, and the outline of a canine shaped head with heavyset neck and jaws.

And then my rabbit brain kicked in, that little part of every human that screams NOPE when something is beyond comprehension and then just removes itself from the situation as soon as fucking possible.

I finally noped on out of there as hard as I could.

I ran faster than I had at state championships against fucking Lily Maddox, and that high school bitch ate my dust.

On the other hand, Lilly Maddox didn’t seem like the type to eat me if she caught up with me, so I suspect my adrenaline fueled panic had a hand in my increased speed. My lungs sure didnt.

It didn’t matter.

I could hear the heavy weight of the creatures front limbs thudding, back claws striking the pavement in clicks and scrapes. I could hear it gaining, hear its wet breath and grunts chasing me down. And to be wetter than the humid air, that was saying something. That thing was totally spitting at me. That had to be it. Monster spit.

Couldn’t possibly be that it was close enough to drip saliva onto my arms. Hopefully anyway.

I shuddered. I was losing speed. I couldn't get enough air.

Swerving sideways down another alley, I glanced off the rough brick wall, and chanced pausing at random doors, rattling handles, praying to a God I didn’t actually believe in that something could protect me from the monster following me.

I pounded on the rusty doors, smashed at the corroded handles, but everything was locked, and my desperate scrambling cost me heavily. I could hear it panting over my shoulder, and saw it’s massive shadow closing in and blocking any escape.

It was right behind me.

Fuck me.

Suddenly, I clocked a broken wooden pallet. It wasn’t much, a two by four with some nails in it, but it was a weapon. I snatched the heavy board up and hefted it like a nail bat as I spun around to face my doom.

I swallowed and grit my teeth, tears making their way down my cheeks. I’d never see my kids again. Or have another taco. Or swear at the drivers in front of me in traffic. I had a few choice swear words at the ready, but was frozen in fear and shock at the creature that blocked my escape.

In the direct light of the street lamps was a massive wolf, it’s body misshapen somehow, forelimbs overgrown and shoulders and back hunched. It’s jaws hung open, panting and spilling spit onto the pavement over it’s massive sharp yellow-white teeth as it prowled ever closer. It had some serious plaque going on. Did monsters not remember to brush their teeth? Crap on a crap cracker, that thing had carrion breath something fierce. I tried not to gag, and waved my hand in front of my nose, desperate to get the stench out.

I was dead. There was no escaping. I was going to die to a monster with some serious dental problems. My grip on my board loosened and it drooped in my hands, my shoulders falling in despair.

I didn’t even have time to draw enough breath to scream as it bunched it’s ropy muscles together under it’s fur and leaped, claws and jaws forward.

Fuck this thing.

I swung my nail-board as hard as I could at its fat head as it aimed right for my throat!