A Writer's Tale Ch.4

A Writer's Tale
Annemarie Smith has traded London for South Bronx. As a professional writer, she needs to submit new work every now and then too maintain her income. Out of the blue she experiences the nightmare of any novellist; a writer's block. Too keep the inspiration and money flowing she takes a side-job at a certain bar. Then everything spiralls out of control after a brutal murder that seems to center around her more than she likes to.

Rated T for violence, language and possible minor adult situations. Rating may go up!

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Chapter 04: 180 degrees

“Welcome to our midst Miss Smith.”

“Thank you Mister… Bluebeard, right? I am looking forward to working with you.”

“So am I.”

Ann’s hand still felt strangely tingly from the handshake after she exited the building. She had a job, but a different one than she had intentionally come here for. She was going to be the secretary of a guy named Bluebeard. He was bald, well-dressed and sported a tightly cropped Van Dyk beard that was a very dark blue.

Something about this Bluebeard gave her the jeebies and made her wary of how he played with the words rolling from his lips. He was the type of person that was used to getting what he wanted, no matter the means. Despite that, Ann was glad that she at least had a job.

Her heels clicked on the pavement as she walked home, releasing her fire-red hair from its bun and allowing the wind to have a go at it. It felt like something heavy was lifted from her shoulder and god damn it felt good.

Something in the corner of her eyes attracted Ann’s attention. She halted in her stride and glanced at the opposite side of the street. It was that girl with the black hair.. the one that she had almost bumped into just a few days back. She was leaning against the wall and talking with a tall bald man with a green tartan patterned shirt that almost hid her lithe form from view.

‘What the hell is she doing there..?’

The girl talked animated, her hands reaching out to the man and casting down her eyes shyly only to look up through her eyelashes. It were the gestures of a woman seducing a man.. or a possible customer in her case. A sigh escaped Ann’s lips. She should have figured. Every big city has hookers in one way or another.

‘But she looks so young..’

Deciding that this was none of her business, how frustrating it was to see, Ann resumed her pace to the warm safety of her home.

The image of the girl and the man was still burning inside her mind when she entered her apartment after bellowing a ‘good evening’ to the door of Mr. Toad (it had become a habit even though he didn’t answer half of the time). She hadn’t seen her neighbour for quite a while.. she guessed he was a busy man right now.

Ann threw her coat and scarf to the Hall Tree.. and missed. Not bothering to pick the items up, she took a nice hot shower and sat down on the couch with her laptop on her lap and with Microsoft Office Word throwing a white and blue hue across her PJ-clad features.

Her fingers pressed several buttons of her keyboard creating one sentence that was deleted after a mere second. This process repeated itself several times as Ann tried to come up with something.. anything that would’ve blown away the publisher. Ann’s brain groaned with imaginative cracks appearing here and there.

“Hopeless.. ” She seethed and slammed shut the laptop with more force than she intended to, almost dropping the electronic device that she cursed ever so sweetly.

Her bare feet carried her across the smooth dark wooden floor to her bedroom, tired and slightly dragging with the edge of her over-sized black shirt -with NEW YORK printed on the front- skimming her legging covered thighs. She loved that combination; over-sized shirt and tight leggings. It was warm, comfy and didn’t get in the wa-.

SLAM!

Her lights flickered and then died when something heavy landed on the floor above her. A lamp dropped from a cabinet and shattered in a thousand little pieces. Her ears picked up some muffled shouting and a high-pierced scream. Someone was in trouble!

Without a second thought Ann threw open her front door and stepped outside, the cold tiles of the hallway sending chills via her bare feet up to her spine. Dodging the shopping cart her eyes spotted a man in the entrance of the building, in front of the large staircase in front of him stood a.. toad.

In an instant the man’s hazel eyes glanced at her and instantly darkened. He looked familiar..

“I don’t understand of your fucking laxness despite you have Mundy living right next to you,” he growled and gestured to Ann’s approaching form, who was growing less and less confident of her decision to help the one who was in trouble just one floor above them.

Her green eyes were glued to the toad as it turned around, his hand pushed in the pockets of his brown vest and.. and..

“Shit.. well, hello neighbour.”

Ann felt the blood being drained from her face. Mr. Toad didn’t just have a strange name; he was in fact a toad. A fucking talking toad. His weird yellowish eyes almost bulged out of his tiny head as he took her in.

“Hi..” Ann weakly murmured raising a ghostly white hand and did something with it that should have looked like a casual wave, but seemed more like a weird twitch.

The man standing in front of the Toad, who didn’t appear to be shocked at the very least to the strange 3 feet tall amphibious creature who stood in front of him, pinched the bridge of his nose probably to fight an upcoming headache.

“Look, I don’t have time for this shit now. I need to check up-”

There was another loud slam and the sound of something breaking. “YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Someone bellowed from upstairs, sending Ann back to reality and reminded her of the reason that made her to come out of her safe apartment in the first place.

“Then don’t fucking stand there! We need to help!” She growled, forgetting Mr. Toad for a moment (she would have to deal with that later) and stormed upstairs. The wooden staircase creaked underneath her bare feet. Someone cursed behind her, muttering something about a glamour –whatever that was- and heavy footsteps followed her.

Ann walked passed the matches and the dangling phone on the wall and pressed her ear against the chipped green door. A woman shrieked and the sound of breaking furniture reached her ears.

“Let me han-”

With a powerful thrust of her shoulder the door slammed open colliding against the wall with a loud BANG. She didn’t have time to listen to a man’s ranting, someone was in danger! Ann’s pale green eyes instantly found the grey ones of her neighbour, the bald guy with the beard and green shirt. He was standing with a raised fist in front of a familiar girl with black hair (the woman she had almost bumped into and saw on the street!) and punched her hard in the face.

“HEY! What the fuck are you doing?!” Ann slammed herself against her tall neighbour who lost his balance out of surprise and collided against the wall behind him.

Ann was slightly taller than the average woman easy matching the height with the average male, but damn. This guy was huge. So were the fists that knocked her off her feet.

The man that had followed her now pressed her neighbour against the wall, his elbow at his throat. “Whoa! Hey! Calm the fuck down. What’s going on here?!” He yelled trying to get some sense in the Woodsman who looked around with frantic brown eyes.

“Hey, you got something on your face.”

“Fuck are you talking about you stupid cu-”

The woman spat some blood in the man’s face in a mocking sense. It was the wrong move for it made his rage burn a little hotter. “I’ll fucking kill you! You FUCKER!” Woody then broke out of the stranger’s grasp and head-butted him with a sickening sound. Miraculously he only stumbled a bit, shook his head and glared at the Woodsman.

“What are you going to fucking do, huh? Get the fuck out of the way before you get the axe again.”

Ann couldn’t help but gulp. Axe? Her eyes slid to the silver axe leaning against the wall behind her. On a normal day she would call it beautiful with the dark handle and faint runes written on the handle and the blade, but now it screamed DANGER! DANGER! to her. No way that she was going to let that maniac get that and chop them all into little bits. Carefully she scrambled on her bare feet, her jaw pulsing vigorously.

The stranger sighed, his dark eyebrows knitting together. “You’re drunk alright? Think this through. If you keep on like this, I won’t have any choice but to put. you. down.” His emphasized his last words strongly. Hoping that the Woodsman would see reason, but he just cocked his head back and laughed humourless.

“Put me down? You’ve got a shit fuckin’ memory, Wolf. That’s not how it went last time.”

“This isn’t last time,” the guy named ‘Wolf’ almost growled.

It seemed to be the cue that the Woodsman had been waiting for and threw a large fist at him. Wolf dodged, grabbed the fist and twisted it on his back only to receive the back of the Woodsman’s skull colliding against his face and breaking his nose.

The two fought with fire. Breaking the sink, sofa and bed, but it seemed a one-way battle. The guy named Wolf had the upper hand. He was quicker, agiler and probably threw heavier punches than his counterpart judging by the Woodsman’s messed up face. When the Woodsman’s finally landed a well-aimed punch at Wolf, his eyes feverishly sought around.

“Fuck no,” Ann hissed and snatched the axe from its spot against the wall. The Woodsman advanced holding out his hand.

“Give me the axe.”

“No!”

“The axe. NOW!”

He launched at her, but dodged a swipe with the weapon. Unused and clumsy to the weight of the large axe in her hands, Ann stumbled and lost her footing. The Woodsman grasped this opportunity and pulled the axe out of her flailing hands instantly smacking Wolf’s jaw with the pointed end of the handle.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

“Calm down, it’s going to be alright.”
Ann’s eyes met relaxed emerald. The girl was favouring one leg and seemed to be checking her make-up and the damage whilst the two men were still fighting. It seemed that the Woodsman was now slowly gaining the upper hand.

“Calm down? Calm down?” Her voice pitched. “He is going to be chopped into little pieces!” Ann pointed to the fight. Wolf and the Woodsman were now fighting for the possession of the axe.

“No he’s not.”

At those words Wolf tore the axe out of the Woodsman’s hands and threw it on the ground. His large hands curled around the green shirt of his attacked and stormed towards the window, throwing him and the Woodsman out of it.

“Holy fuck!”

Ann ran towards the window, spotting Wolf lying on top of a yellow, heavily dented car but there was no sign of her crazy ass neighbour. The woman scrambled towards the door, snatching the heavy axe from the floor and stormed out of the apartment.

Her breath was ragged in her ears and her heart drummed powerful against the inside of her ribs as she flew down the staircase, jumping over the last few steps, and ran outside. The pavement sent shivers up her spine through her bare feet, but she had no time to truly register it. She could only see Wolf dangling in the air by the throat with his feet twitching and the Woodsman shouting at him like someone with a mental disorder. The axe slipped out of her hand and clattered on the street.

“I know you’re in there! Come out and play!!”

“Stop it! You’re killing him! STOP!”

Ann pounded against the broad back of the Woodsman, but he did not react no matter how hard her small fists collided against his back. She had to stop him! But how?

‘The axe..’

She snatched the heavy weapon from the ground and lifted it. Was she ready to kill someone? To cleave his skull like a watermelon? Wolf’s eyes started to roll into the back of his head and his struggling slowly ceased. It was kill or be killed. Who knew what the Woodsman was going to do when he killed that man..

The moment she let the axe fall down on the back of the Woodsman’s head she could see a flash of yellow eyes and sharp teeth in the corner of her eyes before she closed them. There was a sickening crunched when the axe imbedded itself in its victim, who instantly let go of Wolf.

Ann tore her hands from the axe as if she was burned by it and stood back. Her face pale and her breathing laboured. Her wide eyes tore themselves from the motionless ‘ex-neighbour’ and focused on Wolf who coughed just a bit and pressed his hand on his forehead. The girl who had been the centre of the fight squeezed his shoulder reassuringly for a moment and-

Oh, god. Did that guy move?

Filled with horror, Ann gasped as the Woodsman groaned, crawled a few inches and then fell to the ground again motionless. ‘That guy shouldn’t even be moving. Holy sweet jesus.’

“Hey.. thanks.”

A gruff voice pulled Ann out of her initial shock that people with an axe embedded into their brains shouldn’t be moving. The guy that the Woodsman named Wolf was standing in front of her, his chocolate eyes apologetic but grateful. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm her nerves. The yellow eyes and sharp teeth must have been a figment of her panic deranged mind. Yes, that must be it.

“I.. no problem.” Her soft voice suddenly held a venomous edge to it. “What are you doing?”

The black-haired girl looked up with innocent eyes as she searched the man’s pocket. “Getting, what’s mine.” When she pulled back her hand it only held a few coins.

“What? He’s dead and now you are going to rob him?”

Cursing like a sailor she threw the coins down on the ground. “Fuck!” She stood up and stuffed a cigarette between her painted pink lips. “He’s not dead. Don’t worry about it.”

There was something in the girl’s voice and Wolf’s stance next to her that made Ann held her tongue and not question further. She suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that she heard some snippets of a secret that she wasn’t supposed to know. Her green eyes slid from the girl to the man lying there on the ground. Almost on cue the man’s fingers curled and his feet twitched.

“I’wwll fwucking kwill yewll!” He groaned muffled with an obviously broken jaw.

“No you won’t.” With an unlit cigarette dangling in the corner of her mouth the girl added some pressure to the axe imbedded in her not-so-ex-neighbour’s brain. Ann couldn’t help but to become as white as a sheet. That man wasn’t normal!

The girl then picked up her purple purse. Trying to get on a different topic Ann walked to her, taking a deep cool breath and trying to suppress a shiver. Now that the adrenaline was leaving her body she could feel the icy autumn wind blow through her shirt and chill her to the bone.

“I guess that you owed that guy some money? How much?” The girl merely shrugged.

“A hundred.”

Sighing Ann touched around, only to be reminded that leggings didn’t have pockets, nor did her over-sized shirt have. Wolf reached onto his pocket and pushed some coins and dollar bills in the girl’s hand.

“Fifty-eight. It’s all I got but I must help right?”

The girl’s mouth opened and closed, but eventually pulled upwards in a small delicate smile that lit up her bruised face. It made Ann smile a bit too, and made her jaw sting a bit.

“It does. Thanks. You’re not so bad as everybody think you are.”

Wolf’s eyes shimmered confused, but before he had the chance to reply the girl had patted Ann on her shoulder and took off. Taking an occasional hale from her cigarette.

For a moment Wolf and Ann stood there watching the retreating form from the girl until she rounded the corner and vanished. A deep breath escaped Ann’s lips and with a trembling hand she tried to tame the wild fire-coloured mess on top of her head. Her eyes glanced sideways at Wolf; his nose was bloody and obviously broken.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

~~

With a cool baby-blue cloth Bigby Wolf carefully cleaned up his face hissing in pain when he applied a little too much pressure on his broken nose. It wasn’t perfectly aligned, but the damage seemed to be a lot less worse after he cleaned away all the blood.

The girl, who introduced herself as Annemarie Smith, held an icepack to her slightly swollen jaw and watched him from her spot on the couch. There was something shimmering beneath all that pale green.. questions mostly.

“So what kind of name is Bigby Wolf?”

“What kind of name is Annemarie Smith?” Bigby gruffly talked back as he made his way towards her, but never took a seat. He preferred standing.

Ann shrugged. “A normal one. So..” she drawled. Carefully picking the words that she should use to describe this peculiar situation.

“Care to explain why my neighbour is a frog, my neighbour is a maniac with an axe and why you have yellow eyes and sharp teeth one moment and gone the next, and the girl didn’t even seem fazed by all of this? To me this all sounds like a deranged tale of a loony..”

“Or a fairy-tale,” Ann quietly finished and exhaled.

Bigby sighed and rubbed his forehead, the obvious sign that a mean little leprechaun was pounding away inside his skull. “It’s not my place to explain. That’s all I can say, I’m sorry.” Ann merely shrugged at his response her eyes leaving his and settling on her bare feet, puzzled. His hazel eyes then travelled from her green eyes, down her jaw and finally settled on the purple and greenish bruises on her neck.

“How’s that neck going?”

Her slim fingers ghosted up to touch the painful spots with images of that fateful night flashing before her eyes. She inhaled. “Better. It’s still a bit sore, but after a few days it luckily isn’t that black and purple anymore.”

Bigby inhaled sharply in surprise when her pale green eyes suddenly caught his. “Thanks,” Ann whispered with a something akin to a smile tucked gently at the corner of her mouth.

“For what?”

“Saving me.”