Chapter 11: Unleashed

She couldn’t allow herself to panic and freeze up. Right now, Lisa had to act. Unless she wanted to be arrested for breaking and entering, she had to move. Could they also charge her with public indecency? Best not to find out.

Lisa grabbed the bag that Debra had been carrying and used it to scoop up her disappeared friend’s clothes, as well as her own. No time to think about what had happened to Debra. The canvas didn’t trigger any reaction when Lisa touched it, so clearly the lightning shock only applied to clothes. Although, if she were to cut a couple of holes in the bottom...

“Mmph!” Lisa stifled a cry as the canvas suddenly became too hot to touch. Had the curse advanced that quickly? No, it had been her thoughts. She remembered the cardboard box in the alley.

“It’s just a bag,” Lisa whispered to herself. “I’m going to use it to carry things. It’s not an outfit. I’m not going to wear it.”

She steeled herself and reached out to touch the canvas again. It felt fine. Totally normal.

“Phew,” she said, as she finished scooping up the clothes. “Now to get out of here.”

Lisa slung the bag over her shoulder and tiptoed towards the entrance of the boutique. Slowly, carefully, she peeked around the corner. She could still hear footsteps and see flashlights, but they were on the lower floor of the mall. The security guards, or police, or whoever they were, were conducting a thorough search, and they hadn’t yet reached her level, let alone the boutique. But it wouldn’t take them long.

Heart pounding, Lisa advanced out of the boutique entrance and into the open hallway. The mall was large and spacious, so she pressed herself against the window of the boutique. The glass was cool against her bare ass.

Then, slowly and carefully, she pulled the boutique door closed. Lisa had picked up everything they’d left inside, and she could see no signs of disturbance—they certainly hadn’t stolen anything.

Luckily, the boutique door locked automatically when shut—just like her dorm room door. Lisa remembered how terrified she’d been when Wendy had stolen her towel and made her streak back to her room. Her current predicament made that look like a walk in the park.

The flashlight beams disappeared, heading deeper into the mall. So they weren’t coming upstairs just yet. Relieved, Lisa pulled herself away from the wall and into the main walkway.

A beam reappeared, shining up onto the walkway from the lower level. It glanced over her, then immediately returned. Momentarily, she locked eyes with a security guard, standing on the lower level, looking up at her. His mouth hung open.

Lisa sprinted across the hallway and towards the fire escape, holding tightly to the canvas bag. She heard confused shouts from below, and pumped her legs even harder.

She skidded around the corner and through the metal fire escape door, then down the metal stairs, taking two at a time. Then she was out in the cold night. The breeze chilled her bare skin.

But she was still on the mall’s grounds, could still hear the shouting and barking dogs. She needed distance. That was the only thought on her mind as she ran through the parking lot, and out towards the street.

Out on the main street, the streetlamps shone brightly. A car zoomed passed, and Lisa crouched down and slunk back. They hadn’t seen her, or at least, hadn’t cared to stop. But the street was too bright, too exposed. Lisa crouched low, hung towards the facades of the downtown buildings, and continued her frantic run.

She zigzagged down the streets, keeping low to the ground and out of the traffic lights, only stopping once she was certain she had gone far enough way from the mall. But she still felt exposed, endangered, and so she ducked through a nice, dark alleyway, far from her pursuers and any prying eyes.

It then occurred to her that a dark alleyway in the middle of the night was, in all probability, a much worse place for a naked young lady than a brightly lit downtown street.

She heard a scream from deeper in the alley, only confirming her fears. Her blood ran cold, and she dropped the canvas bag to her side.

“Help! Thief!” came a shrill woman’s voice from deeper in the alley.

Then there was the sound of running footsteps, and a black shape barreled towards Lisa, who still stood frozen in fear.

The shape collided with Lisa and ... recoiled back. Lisa stood firm, shocked as a black-clothed man, who had at least a foot on her in height, and was almost twice as wide, seemed to bounce off her. Like her, he had a balaclava over his head, so she couldn’t see his face, but she imagined it was just as shocked as hers. Perhaps even more so, given her nudity.

After standing for a moment, stunned, the man let out an angry roar, and ran at Lisa again. She put up her arms in defense to shield her face, and shut her eyes. As her arms shot up, she felt something contact her fists. Then ... nothing.

When Lisa opened her eyes again, the man was splayed out on the floor. The lady’s bag he had been carrying in front of him lay at his side. He was completely motionless. All Lisa could do was stare. Had she done that? Lisa, the naked superhero!

Heels clicked against concrete, first cautiously, then with increased confidence as the bag’s owner approached it, and quickly snatched it back up. It was an older lady, though one with a fairly robust frame, dressed in evening-wear. Several strands of hair had escaped her up-do, and her makeup was somewhat smudged, but otherwise she looked fine. Her face was a stern mask of composure. Lisa locked her gaze for a moment.

The woman looked Lisa up and down, and then whacked her in the face with her bag. “Disgusting!” she shrieked, before hurriedly disappearing around the corner. “Put some clothes on!”

By the time Lisa regained her composure, the woman was long gone. The purse thief was still out cold at her feet, but Lisa thought better of waiting for him to wake up. Her face still smarting from the impact of the lady’s bag, she picked up her own bag and scampered out of the alley and down the street.

Lisa found a quieter alley to take stock of her situation. The encounter with the thief was confusing, but it had assuaged some of her fears about her current situation. Whatever had happened there, she could probably make it happen again if she needed to.

But what had happened there? Going over it again in her mind, it seemed as though she’d been able to inadvertently body-slam and then punch out a large man. What’s more, she’d managed to run full tilt with barely any breaks from the boutique, down her crazy winding path, all the way to this alleyway without even needing to catch her breath. And furthermore, she was outside naked in the middle of night, and could barely feel the cold.

Lisa thought back to the Fresher’s Streak, and how she’d performed so much better than any race she’d been in before. She cast her mind back to Shelly’s experiments with temperature, and how comfortable she’d felt in the nude when Shelly’s teeth were chattering beneath multiple layers. Ever since she’d started living life this way, her focus had been on how uncomfortable she felt in clothes, and how to reduce that. But now she was noticing the opposite—how very comfortable and strong she felt in the nude. Was this some unintended consequence of the curse?