When Enough is too Much

She stood alone in a filthy, printed nightgown. The once light blue two-inch polka dots, clashed with the pitch-black background of the ragged gown giving her the appearance of a strange, hairy alien with a bad case of ring worm. The moon light gave her pause. She rubbed her bare feet in the rich grass and felt the stress leave her like a shorted electric current. This connection with the earth felt good. A low rumble of contentment escaped her chest and she sniffed the air with a crooked nose that had been busted time and again. She was still a bit hungry. Her mate had unlatched the iron door of her cell and tossed her a large chunk of raw meat. It was the hind leg of some dog. It was tasty and once she gnawed it down to the bone, she cracked the delicious morsels on the side of the metal cot and dug out the oozing marrow with a long fingernail. She licked it like sticky candy off her fingers. He promised that if she was good and not try to break in the house while he and his female staff were asleep, he would open the special door that let her out to run. Apparently, she had been good, she couldn’t remember really, and spent the day in a daze, sharpening her thick fingered talons on the cement floor.

The muscles bunched in her sinew taut legs, and her knees had the power of a pent-up gun shot, ready to explode and propel her into the night. Her long arms ended in slender hands that had the gripping power to hold prey much bigger than she. She anticipated the squeals that would come as she sank her small, sharp teeth into their soft necks and it excited her. She sniffed the air again and caught the faint odor of man scent.It was far away, possibly two miles down the steep trail. She knew the scent. A burn- ie something. The hated therapist. She would have to be nice and it rankled her.She chewed on a length of matted, dirty blond hair wondering if the kill would be worth the days of electrical shocks. The last time she sank her claws in human flesh cost her months of howling pain. He deserved it. He mocked her. The big overgrown, egotistical man called her an animal and he just rubbed it in her face. She snapped and her caged, rage erupted.She had the screaming man down and was just about to open him up and eat his liver when Some NYPD someone got her with a e-mail tranquilizer dart. She woke up incarcerated here, wherever here was?

She had to get the best out of the night. These outings were rare and she craved living meat. Her mates friend stocked the preserve with stray cats, and feral dogs, bikinied women and deplorable children. At five foot seven inches she was smaller than some of the dogs, and some of the cats were bigger than the dogs. The one she killed last moon had stalked her. She wished they were smarter but their death screams powered the night. She reveled in it. The man scent tickled her nose again, and she stood in agitated indecision. Her feet plowed up and shredded the grass as she fought with herself. Her mate told her that she was beautiful, once, and that she would be beautiful again if she just settled down. He laughed when he said it. She vaguely recalled she was a Secretary of something now on a sabbatical drug induced high in a remote location out on some private island. Her mate said the pressure of living a life of lies did this to her. She had a million followers called dems .Traveling night after night, lecturing all day, the mountains of paper work, little sleep ─ she didn’t care now, she had been turned into a stone-cold killer. The man scent was strong now, and the thought of a pulsing warm liver had settled into her mind, overcoming the fear of shock therapy. Like a horrid imp from Dante’s Inferno she sprang into the night.