Warped (Maurissa Guibord)

steps, landing with a heavy thud behind her as they reached the bottom floor.
    Claws scrabbled above them; then Tessa heard feet pounding down the stairs, chasing them. Thank God her father wasn't here, she thought as she and Will dashed through the back door to the store.
    Tessa slammed it, threw the dead bolt and leaned against it as a heavy weight struck the other side. There was a curse and then scratching high on the other side of the door. She smelled hot, pungent odors: dog and drool and human sweat.
    "It won't hold them," gasped Will. He grabbed her arm and pulled her, running across the wide, creaky floor of the bookstore. "Get outside--"
    "I'll call the police."
    "We'll both be dead before they arrive," he snapped, pulling her to the store's front door. The door behind them shuddered with a blow. Will dashed back, pulled a heavy dictionary from a display shelf and smashed the front of a glass case. Webster's Collegiate , Tessa noted dully. She didn't understand what Will was doing until, using the book, he began to swipe the shards of glass onto the floor. Without hesitating, Tessa bent to help spread the sharp pieces, brushing them in a wide path.
    "Tessa! Not with your hands!" Will cursed and grabbed her by her shoulders. He propelled her through the front door just as she heard wood splintering. The door behind them was being savagely broken down. Will pushed her forward onto the steps. "Run to Opal's house," he shouted over the wild barking coming from inside the store. "It's me he's after. Do you understand?"
    Tessa jerked a nod, turned away and began to run. Her heart thudded, as if slowed by fear-thickened blood. Behind her a melee of noises exploded from the store: a door bursting from its hinges, followed by the skitter of glass, then yelping canine cries.
    She slowed and turned to look behind her. Will was running down the sidewalk. They'll catch him , she thought. They'll catch him . The thought rammed her fear aside and replaced it with a fierce determination. No. She stopped and pivoted, then tore back after Will, running past the storefront again, where she caught a glimpse of the lymerer. His hulking, black-garbed form was bent over the dog, and he straightened just as she fled past. Tessa choked down a gasp as she saw him stand. The lymerer was gigantic; he must have been seven feet tall. He looked like some gruesome giant from a fairy tale.
    Tessa raced after Will. To her relief, it wasn't like a dream. She was running fast, covering ground, closing the gap between them. He threw a glance behind him and, slowing, shouted at her. "What the hell are you doing?"
    "Coming with you. This way," Tessa gasped, pounding up beside him. They raced side by side, Will nudging at her shoulder as she veered into an alleyway. They tore up the narrow, mud-slicked passage, dodging trash containers and restaurant delivery pallets.
    "Up here." She rolled one of the tall recycling bins to the wall, hoisted herself on top of it and grabbed the edge of a fire-escape landing. She hooked a leg up and pulled herself onto the rattling metal frame.
    "Faster," Will said. He sounded absurdly calm to her as he kicked the bin away and swung himself up. They scrabbled up the swaying iron steps to the second-floor landing as the lymerer's dog came whipping around the corner and along the alleyway. Unleashed, it bulleted toward them.
    Tessa stared. That couldn't be a dog . Its thickly muscled haunches must have come up to her waist. A head the size of a cinder block. Sleek black fur, ears flat, muzzle rolled back from red slavering gums. Teeth like sharpened white tombstones snapped the air, and its bark sounded like savage machine-gun fire. Her gaze flicked to the opening of the alleyway. There was no sign of the giant lymerer--yet.
    "Down," she tried weakly. "Heel. Sit."
    "It's no use," said Will, breathing hard. "A lymerer's dog obeys only its master, and it knows only two commands: 'Hunt' and 'Kill.' "
    "Great." Tessa found herself frozen. She was trapped by the monster Hell dog below and the wobbly framework of the decrepit fire escape above.
    "Climb!" yelled Will. He put a firm hand on her back end and shoved.
    Arms trembling, Tessa climbed the last section: a rusty ladder, bolted to the brick wall. She tried not to look at the sheer drop to the alley below. Tessa slung herself up and over the jutting ledge, onto the flat rooftop.
    She rolled from the edge onto her back, panting as Will landed next to her in a crouch.