Werewolf Apocalypse: Rise of the Lycans

The clock

"I love you, Clara," I said. "Thank you for agreeing to marry me."

She smiled, but she didn't say a word. I followed the direction of her distracted eyes to the digital clock on the restaurant wall; it was moving irregularly. It paused for a few seconds, skipped a couple of seconds and then stopped working all together.

She let out a quiet breath from her lips and placed her fork on the rim of her plate, before finally turning to me.

"Leo, something is wrong." she said in a voice that was strangely quieter than its usual pitch and devoid of its usual warmth that was always there whenever she spoke to me.

"What's wrong?" I asked, pulling closer.

"Check your phone."

I pulled the phone from my coat and peered into it. The screen didn't display zero bars or a searching signal, the network icon had simply vanished, replaced by an empty grey box. I raised my head and looked around us. The low hum of dinner conversation in the restaurant was gradually dying out. Two men at the corner table stood up simultaneously and stared at their dead displays before glancing toward the tinted front windows.

"This has never happened before, a central grid failure," I muttered and slid the phone away. I could feel a cold terror settle heavily in my stomach. "Let's move before the subways lock their gates."

I tossed two crumpled bills onto the wood and took Clara’s hand. Her fingers were ice from fear, I could tell that whatever it was was already getting to her.

The moment we stepped through the double glass doors onto 4th Avenue, the difference in the air hit us. It didn't carry the usual stench of diesel fumes or damp asphalt, this time it had a thick, hot and metallic copper-like smell, like a copper wire had been held over an open flame.

Above us, the streetlights gave three long, shuddering pulses and then every bulb on the block shattered in unison, dropping the avenue into pitch darkness.

"What the hell!" I heard someone yell in the distance.

The high-rise apartments went dark instantly, and the first thing I noticed which was completely unusual, was that, no emergency generators kicked on.

"You were right Clara, something is terribly wrong." I said.

Three blocks north, a sudden screech of locked brakes ended in a wet, heavy impact. It was followed by the dull crunch of tearing frame steel.

"Leo..." Clara called. I could feel her grip tightening and her nails digging through the fabric of my jacket sleeve. "Listen."

I paused and listened... down at the intersection of 4th and Main, the heavy iron storm-grates embedded in the sidewalk weren't just vibrating, they were buckling upward! The two-inch-thick iron bars groaned under immense, subterranean pressure from God-knows-what.

As we watched, a roar tore out of the ground—it wasn't an animal’s roar. It vibrated through the soles of our shoes from forty feet beneath the concrete. And seconds later, the shrieks of humans shrieking individually in absolute, cornered terror, rose from the underground platform.

As if the horror of their shriek wasn't enough, the iron grate snapped and tore cleanly off its concrete frame, launching itself thirty feet into the air before coming down and smashing through the windshield of a parked delivery van.

Whatever they were, they didn't climb out, they spilled out in an unnatural, fluid velocity that made them nauseating to watch. They were nine feet of dense muscle and dark, coarse hair, upright on elongated hind legs. The lead creature who seemed to be their commander landed on the asphalt, its massive shoulders rolling as it turned toward the street. With a lazy, backhanded sweep of its forearm, it snapped a reinforced concrete light pole at its base, sending sparks cascading over the pavement.

"Run," I barely screamed. "Clara, move!"

She stood rooted to the spot and watched it like she was in a trance. I yanked her arm and brought her back to reality, throwing us into a sprint down the darkened corridor of the avenue as the street behind us detonated into chaos.

Without warning of any kind, shadows dropped from the sky and leaped from the subway maw, hitting fleeing pedestrians with the force of moving vehicles. Through the side mirror of a parked sedan, I caught a half-second vision of a shape flattening a man against the hood, the sickening sound of snapping ribs instantly cutting off his scream before his body hit the curb.

"The parking structure!" Clara gasped as her heels slammed against the asphalt. "The side door!"

We bolted toward the concrete slab of the garage fifty yards ahead. That must have been the longest run I ever had besides when I was chased by a chihuahua in high school. The ground beneath us was now steadily trembling with that with the weight of heavy, fourlegged strides closing the gap from behind. My lungs burned like raw fire and my heart hammered against my ribs so violently it blurred my vision.

I briefly turned to look at Clara, I have never seen her run that fast and strangely, it tickled me.

We hurled ourselves through the heavy steel fire exit and I slammed the door shut, throwing the manual deadbolt across the frame with every ounce of strength I had left. I was still catching my breath when just a fraction of a second later, I heard a loud BOOM! The entire steel door caved inward, but the nuts still held.

Another heavy BOOM! followed and dust rained down from the ceiling upon us. Clara collapsed against the interior wall from fear.

"Are we going to die?" She cried. "We had so much planned out together."

I walked closer and held her face, and under the sickly amber glow of the single battery-operated exit sign, I noticed it had been drained of all color.

"We will be fine, Clara," I said, not even convinced. "I will get us through this, I promise."

I turned away from her and turned my eyes wildly towards the dark concrete bay. I didn't exactly know what I was searching for, but I kept looking until my eyes locked onto a heavy, steel tire iron resting on an abandoned mechanic's cart. I grabbed and held it tightly, but that didn't stop my hands from shaking though. They shook so violently, I could hear the metal clatter against my ring.

"Get up," I whispered, pointing toward the concrete stairwell as the door groaned under another heavier and heavier strike. "We are heading up. Don't look back!"