Our Short Eternity by O. S. Smith

Author:O. S. Smith [Smith, O. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-21T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

The night was a rich black tapestry of silvery clouds, tinged white at the edges by the light of a waning crescent moon. Sophia prowled among the trees, grateful that her wolf form’s black coat made it easier to slip into the shadows anytime a car drove past on the nearby country road. She had spent the last several hours running, tracing a circle around the city’s perimeter. There was little chance of being seen, and even if someone did see her, nobody would ever believe the stories. Still, Sophia worried about the heart attack she might give anyone who happened to catch a glimpse of her in their headlights.

She was guided by the distant sound of a beating heart. Since she’d woken up after her dream-visit with the child Izumi, Sophia had been able to feel the vampire’s heart pulsing in the earth. It reminded her of the few times she’d worked as a volunteer bouncer, back when her highschool friends had been playing rock shows at the city’s seediest clubs. Standing outside, she hadn’t been able to hear the music, which always made her a little sad. But she’d still felt it, a distant thrumming that she sensed in the soles of her feet.

Now, with her wolf-self’s acute senses, the heartbeat was like a beacon, drawing her towards a remote stretch of forest.

Sophia wasn’t sure what she expected. But when she finally arrived at the source of the noise, she found herself facing the crumbling remains of an old radio station. The building was little more than a brick shack, its roof caved in and heaped with untouched snow. All of its windows were broken, the few remaining shards of glass black with smoke and age, reminding Sophia of creepy gap-toothed smiles. The whole station lay in the shadow of a semi-collapsed electrical pylon, its many iron girders bent and twisted like the bones of a mangled giant. A leash of black cables hung from the pylon, and though they were certainly dead, Sophia still gave them a wide berth as she circled towards the station’s caved-in door.

The thrumming of Izumi’s heart was directly beneath her now.

Sophia shifted back into her human form, regretting that she hadn’t thought to bring any clothes with her. She shoved the busted door off its hinges and stepped into the ruined building. There wasn’t much, just a few desks, some control switches, and plenty of old cables that had been stripped of valuable metals long ago. Sophia had to duck to avoid hitting her head on the collapsed roof. Snow crunched under her bare feet, and beneath it she felt wood paneling. But the paneling was old and warped from decades of exposure to the weather. Kneeling down, she yanked some of it away. The heartbeat was nearer now.

Beneath the wood, Sophia didn’t feel the bare, cold earth she’d been expecting. Instead, her fingers touched freezing metal, which tore away strips of her skin as she pulled her hands back.

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow…” Sophia yelped under her breath.

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