Ali was in a daze, and she looked behind her. Trenton was standing where she’d been pulled from, and he was calling to her. Those eyes were black and fathomless from where she stood. Ali started to get back up to go to him when she heard a scream to her right.
Whatever hold the man had on her was gone as Ali’s head whipped around to find out the source of the sound. Goosebumps immediately ran across her skin and what she saw wasn’t at all what she’d thought to see. It was so unreal that her mind couldn’t wrap around it all. She was frozen in place, trying desperately to make it all go away. The image too hard for her delicate nature.
Meryl was not as shocked, or rather, didn’t act the same way. She grabbed her best friend’s hand and started to pull her away from where a tall woman was biting into a man’s neck. The scream that Ali had thought was a woman’s, was a businessman now bleeding profusely while wailing.
Another sound of terror resounded along with the panicked murmurs of the rest of the club. A second attack was in place, and Meryl was trying to pull Ali out. Ali wasn’t going without a fight though. Nothing in what was happening around her told her to move. She wanted to stay where she was, convinced that she could melt away and not be seen. That somehow the commotion going on around her would cease if she refused to acknowledge it.
“Ali, snap the hell out of it. We’ve got to go!”
She finally looked at Meryl and saw the fear in her eyes, the same look mirrored in her own.
“Where do we go?”
“Out of here.”
The two women started towards the front entrance, and they were stopped by the man Ali had come to know as Trenton. The rest of the club was too busy trying to get out to pay them any mind or to help. Everyone was out to avoid the hissing and biting few that were jumping around the room with grace and ease that was inhuman.
“Where are you going, Ali? We’re just getting started.”
Ali took a step away from the man, remembering how fast he had been before. She pushed Meryl away from her, telling her to run, while Ali moved further back into the club. She knew that the man was coming for her and she wanted her friend to get out. She didn’t have a plan, short of locking herself in the bathroom and praying that someone called the police and help was on the way.
After she got into the door, she half-expected him to pop in front of her, but he didn’t. He was stopped by the locked door, and she had her back against it while she caught her breath. Ali planned to use her weight against it to push back. But he wasn’t trying to break in like she’d thought and imagined he would.
Instead, he was talking to her, trying to convince her to open the door. Ali was convinced that she was never going to open that door again. What the hell was happening? Ali didn’t know what to think, though she assumed that it was a new drug making everyone crazy. That was the only thing that made sense, and that was really stretching it. They were biting people, drawing blood and she was scared that Trenton was one of them. He was far too calm in the thick of it all, so drugs didn’t make all that much sense when the theory was tested.
“Come on, Ali. You are safe with me. I’m going to show you a whole other world. You will not regret it.”
She ignored the man on the other side of the door and tried to find a way out. The bathroom was small, but there was one window that she might be able to crawl out of. Ali knew that she had to try, and while Trenton was still trying to coax her out, Ali eyed her escape.
Climbing on top of one of the toilet seats, she lifted the latch, the metal making the faintest sound.
“What are you doing, Ali? You know that there is no escape for you. I let your little friend go because you’re the one that I want. I’m not leaving without you.”
Ali didn’t know what he wanted with her, but the ever-loud gut reaction was that it wasn’t good. She had to get away from him, and Ali felt like her life depended on it. Her mind wandered to her friends for a moment, and she hoped that they would be outside of the club when she made it out.
As she opened the window, the door behind her slammed open. It appeared that Trenton was done asking nicely. Ali looked behind her and screamed as the pale man moved towards her. Those black eyes told her what he was, and she scrambled to get away from him before it was too late.
