The Outskirts 1.

The man closed his eyes. Sniffed the air. Clenched his fists. Where? To the east. The smell was wrong. Wrong in his city. His city. Audacity. Punishment. Kill. Kill. Snap. Bite.

He shook his head, shoved the feelings back down. Made human take over. His face relaxed from the rigid snarl that had taken it over. The man took off to the east, running fast as his legs would take him, and for a moment, a flicker in time, a man driving the same way could've sworn a huge wolf was keeping pace with his car. The driver blinked and it was just a man sprinting, full tilt, mouth twisted into a grim rictus smile.

Grass left long untended swayed. The outskirts. Unwatched, untended, untainted. Projects had sprung up to build malls and shopping centers and other such, but over the years they always seemed to simply fade away, unbuilt. A few sparse trees burned red by the November wind. The homes and stores of the city in the short distance. The highway on the other end. Smelled wrong. Wrong. His lip twitched. He snarled. His mind howled. Something wrong was in his sanctuary. Where w- He froze. Behind him. Inches. He could feel it. Something inhuman. Enemy. Food. Tresspasser. Eat. Eat. He forced himself calm. Turned slowly. Fought down the instincts saying form and smell did not belong to each other. A woman. Eat. Slight. Kill. Completely unintimidating. Tresspasser. White hair. Howl. An overcoat with straight jacket in its ancestry, covering the feet and buttoned up to the chin. Rip. Straight white teeth. Tear. Humorless smile. KILL. Barbed tentacles emerging from sleeves instead of hands. Shit. That voice was human. The wolf read it as surrender and took over.

Claws closed on thin air. Dripping fangs barely avoided biting their own tongue. In the feild, the man took a defensive stance born of time spent street fighting. He carefully wiped a bead of canine drool from his lip. It was laughing at him. Soft. Subtle. His ears barely had to make an effort. The wolf again. Gnashing teeth and flailing claws. Got it. Eat. The wolf held up its kill triumphantly in massive claws. The human sighed. Turned the thing in his hands. Coat. Hair. Skin. Nothing inside but a mass of black blood. Behind him, the thing laughed. The wolf tried to take control again. The man let it- to a point. Human mind guiding the hulking form. The wolf howled its rage in the background. A man's tactics. Feint. Charge. Dodge, Circle. Wolf's speed. The thing raised an arm. Smile threatening to split its face in two. Shit.

From the split in the beasts face came an unslaught of tentacles. Tendrils. Segmented stingers like a scorpion's tail. Latched onto trees. Pulled. Extracted itself. The man paused to fight down vomit. It had eyes everywhere. The woman smiled. The thing from her face screeched. Whipped out tentacles. Grasped trees. Ground. Pulled itself towards the man. The thing wearing a woman's skin floated towards him. Raised its arm. Fire. The wolf howled, rolled out of the way.
Broke. Ran.