Woodland Beast

Karen ran furiously through the trees, desperately trying to catch up with the object ahead. It was spherical, about as big as a car motor, and currently carrying her child to parts unknown. The young mother cursed the thing, whatever it was.

For a brief moment she wished she could just get a better look at it. She couldn't see if it was mechanical or ethereal, floating or using some sort of wheel. Perhaps it was the wheel? How could she go to the police with the information she had?! With that thought the train was broken. All thought was centered around rescuing her child.

She picked up speed, dimly aware of an assortment of limbs and branches scraping her legs and smacking her face. The object was much closer now, but Karen felt no joy, or noticed any details about it she missed before. She was a tigress on the hunt, and leaped onto the hated thing, where she started clawing and pounding it violently. She broke the case her infant son was in without even being aware it was there, or that it was glass, or that she had badly cut her hand in doing so.

She snatched up the baby and leapt off, and all the people who knew her would have been amazed. Nobody had ever seen her jump so far, or with such passion. She'd never been particularly into exercise, so the way she'd mangled the mechanical ball would have been jarring to see. Even her husband, who knew her better than anyone on this planet, would have been shocked to see her. Clothing was torn, face and hands were bloody, and the look in her eyes was savage and unthinking.

But no one was there, and her leap, one that would have made Olympic judges weep had they seen it, was witnessed by nobody but the machine, which was now dead, ripped to shreds; her infant son, who will remember nothing; and herself, where it will be remembered in blurs and triumphant nightmares. She carried the bundle home.