In the darkness of the night, close you windows, and bar your door. For I run on two legs, Before I run on four. The moon sings in my blood, and echoes through my soul. There is no difference between Lover, friend, or foe. Oh, Love you are lost to me as elusive as a wolf running free. When the banshee wails through the trees Beware the call of the wild, for the Wild calls to me. Don't say that you love me, Because I don't want to know. When the wild calls to me Fur, Fangs, Flesh and Fury, Are the only things I know. Diana calls me to her pack The Huntress commands my soul And there is no difference between Lover, friend, or foe. Oh, Love you are lost to me as elusive and a wolf running free When the banshee wails through the trees Beware the call of the wild for the Wild is in me. Tell me, is your heart fresh? Tell me, is your heart pure? Tell me, is your blood sweet? Is it as sweet as my dark desire? When the Wild calls to me The Hunt runs in my blood And the moon consumes my soul. In the darkness of the night close your windows, and bar your door. For I run on two legs Before I run on four.
Tag: Supernatural
Day 1 : Do Brains Taste Like Chicken?
Write about a delighted zombie.
It is light, but it is cold. But I am always cold now. I don’t really understand why. I think that I died, but I didn’t really die. Oh, there is so much that I don’t understand, so very much. I should be worried about the state of things, but I just can’t bring myself to care. I think that I need to sleep, but I am too hungry to sleep. It just smells so good.
Everything seems so fast. Those dogs are lightening fast. How did they get so fast? I try to grab one, but it is just to fast. I want to cry. All I want to do is touch one. It is so cute and fluffy and it smells really good to, not as good as the other thing, but really good all the same. All I want is just a little taste. Come closer doggy. I won’t bite. I promise. I will just take a little nibble, if only you will let me pet you. Why do you have to run so fast.
I wish that I could run that fast.
I remember running fast. It was so long ago. I had two feet then. Yes, I remember, it was Bob. Bob ate my foot. Fuck you Bob. I liked that foot. It was my favorite. Now, my legs don’t work right. I want my foot back.
Someone is shouting. I think that they are shouting at me. I try to say something back but I can’t remember how to talk. The sounds coming out of my mouth don’t make any sense. They are just sounds. I sound like a ghost, like from one of those really old movies.
Others are there. There isn’t going be enough left if I go with them. There are too many. That is okay, because, I can still smell it. They can have the shouting people. It means that I can have the hiding ones all to myself. I am too hungry to share.
They are quiet, but I find them. They did a really good job at hiding. This is like playing hide and seek. Why is it that I am always the seeker? When is it going to be my turn to hid?
Ahh, there they are. They are fast, but not as fast as the dog. People, especially the little ones are so much better than dogs. They smell better, and taste better. Oh, I am so hungry. They can’t get away. One tries to push past me, but I grab him. I like hugs. You won’t mind if I take a nibble will you? I haven’t eaten since, forever.
This is so much better fresh. Leftovers are okay, they will do in a pinch, but nothing beats fresh. The texture is still somewhat mushy, and it smells soo good. It smells better than it tastes. Why do brains always taste like chicken?
The Long Way Home
It was unfortunate that the coldest time of the night was right before dawn, even in the winter. It was bitterly cold during the warmest part of the day, so when the coldest hit, it became cold enough to freeze hell. Jane stared at the windows for a few minutes longer. She was not looking forward to the walk home, but on the bright side, it wasn’t snowing at least.
She would have killed for enough spare cash to buy a cab ride home, however, she was going to be short on rent as it was. The only good thing about working the midnight shift at the local McDonald’s was that she wasn’t going to starve. This wouldn’t be the first time that she had needed to live off of stale fast food and she doubted that it would be the last.
Jane finished wiping down the tables and slipped back behind the counter. There was still a few things that she needed to take care of before the morning crew started to arrive.
“Hey Babe.” The large man leered at her, and the entertainment of the evening just arrived. A few hours late. On this shift, there was always one. Some drunk bastard from one of the numerous bars down the street would stagger in and demand more than just a greasy burger. They usually showed up shortly after 2 am, right about when the bars closed. Jane didn’t know where this guy was hanging out for the past couple of hours. He was more than a little late. “Why don’t you blow this joint and come home with me eh?”
Jane stepped back. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Awe, come on.” He leaned as close at the counter would let him. “I will show you a really good time.”
“I am afraid that I am going have to ask you to leave.” She replied.
“Why do you have to be such a stuck up bitch?”
Jane took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You have to either order something or leave. Only paying customers are allowed to hang out here. Especially at this time of night. You understand.”
It was nights like these that made Jane seriously consider finding a new job.
“But you haven’t given me my burger yet.” He pouted. “You gotta give me my burger.”
“You didn’t order one. What would you like?”
“Babe.” The man took his hat off, used his fingers to brush back hid fading hair. “You know what I want.”
Gods, how she hated people. She really needed a new job. One where she didn’t have to deal with this kind of crap day in and day out. But the truth was, between her three jobs, she just didn’t have the time. She couldn’t afford to take time off of any of them in order to find something better. In short, she was stuck here, working the graveyard shift while being leered at by a man who was more than old enough to know better and was most likely married.
“I have other duties to attend to.” She went on. “If you could tell me what you want, I can get your order under way.”
He winked at her and did as she asked. “Give me a double big Mac.”
Jane gave a sigh of relief. The boss hated it when they had to have a customer removed from the place. If it wasn’t for the fact that the labour board would fine him big time for firing her, she would have been let go along time ago. If Jane didn’t have to toss the man out, she would save herself the trouble of dealing with a cranky boss.
Jane took her time awhile later to finish sweeping out back and running a wet mop through the kitchen. Everything was already done in the front and the drunken creeper was still lurking out there. It was precariously close to the end of her shift and in another half hour or so her shift was about to end. She eyed the man from the back. It was hard to say if he would let her be or if he was going to try and follow her home. That had happened once or twice.
“I got the garbage.” Mitch said, as he came and stood beside her. “After the night you had, I wasn’t comfortable with you taking it out. The natives were restless tonight.”
Jane huffed. “That is the understatement of the year. There must have been something in the air tonight cause there is nothing else to explain it. Can’t even blame it on a full moon this time. And thank you. I wasn’t looking forward to going out there.”
“Its still dark out there.” Mitch offered. “You want a ride home?”
Jane paused. Her gaze fell on the predawn shadows that lay beyond the window, then shook her head. “Nah, I will be fine. I don’t live that far away and I am sure that I can get myself home before the sun comes up.”
Mitch snickered. “I knew it. You are a vampire. You are going to turn into a pile of ash with the first rays of the sun.”
Jane rolled her eyes at him. “No more than you are. I just happen to know that you like to stay late in order to flirt with the new chick. What’s her name again?” Mitch turned a deep red. “And I am tired. I really want a good long nap before I have to get up for work again.”
“I don’t know how you do it.” Mitch looked out the window. “Three jobs. When do you find time to sleep?”
“Mostly I don’t.”
“Well, ff you are sure, the offer is there. Just be safe eh? I would hate to have to break in a new person if something happened to you.”
“I would hate if something happened to me too.” She replied. “There wouldn’t be anyone around to feed my fish.”
“You have a fish?”
Jane grinned at him. “Of course. Fish make the perfect pets. They don’t make any noise and they don’t die from loneliness if you spend every waking moment working. I swear, if I couldn’t nibble while I am working here, I probably wouldn’t eat at all. I am always either going to work, working, or going home after work. What can I say? I have no life.”
“You should get yourself a man.” Mitch advised. “Then he could help you out. Men are useful you know.”
“Why, Mitch,” Jane tilted her head. “Are you offering?”
Mitch threw up his hands and backed away. “No, not me. You are too temperamental for my tastes. I like my bits just as they are.”
Jane laughed. “Your safe. From me at least so you don’t need to worry. Your bits will be intact for Sarah? Is that her name?”
“Close.” He returned her grin and waved her off. “It’s Sonya.”
“Sonya then.” she smiled. “I am almost done here. You mind if I take off a few minutes early? I kinda want to be gone before mega-bitch comes in. I really don’t feel like dealing with her, and there is something that I need to do before I get home.”
Mitch made a show of looking at his watch. “I don’t know.”
Jane sighed.
A smile slowly crept across his face and he gave her a sidelong glance. “Okay,” he said. “Go. I will cover for you. There is only five minutes before its time for us to sign out anyways.” Mitch made shooing motions with his free hand. “I can take care of the rest.”
“Thanks.”
Minutes later, Jane was out the door without even a backward glance. Leacherous drunken dude didn’t even look up when she walked past.
The wind hit her as soon as she stepped outside the doors. Jane gasped once, then twice. It was the cold more than relentless movement of air that robbed her of her breath and what little warmth that she could muster.
She only lived a few blocks away. If she walked there right away it would only take her twenty minutes or so to get to the closest that she called an apartment. She took a brisk place
A north wind picked up the newly fallen leaves and made them dance about her feet as she went. It played with her hair with phantom fingers and pulled at her jacket here and there. The streets were always quiet at this time, but tonight they were unusually deserted.
What could she say? Cities as a rule didn’t sleep. As tired as Jane was, there was someone who she wanted to talk to first. That meant that she would have to take the long way home and it was cold. Jame thought it over as she pulled her tattered coat around herself.
This time of year Clive like to hang out in the ally behind the nearest Subway. He liked it there. Apparently there was a vent there that blew warm air when the ovens were going. He told her that it was the best way to stay warm in the winter. She just shook her head at the thought. Clive was a character and a good friend. Jane smiled. He was her only friend, if only because he was the only person who was around when she had a spare bit of time to socialize.
It wouldn’t take her much longer to go around to Clive’s box than it would if she went straight home. Jane really wanted to check on him and see of there was anything that he needed. She worried about him during the winter. The forecast over the radio called for a deep freeze over the next couple of days. She would see if he needed any extra blankets, or even better, maybe she could convince him to sleep on her couch over the next few days.
Jane paused. The ally was just ahead of her and she peered into its depths. She couldn’t see much. The ally stretched beyond the reach of the yellow light of the flickering street lamp and went into a darkness that was so complete that not even shadows dared to exist down there.
Clive had told her more than once that the dark made it a safe place to sleep. You couldn’t see the boxes that the homeless used for shelter from the street and that meant that they could rest relatively undisturbed. Jane could see his point. From this end of the ally the only thing that she could make out were the dumpsters. She pulled the collar of her jacket up to protect the back of her neck.
He isn’t there.
A chill ran down her spine. It was more than just the biting north wind robbing her of what little warmth she possessed. The longer she stood there, on the space where the sidewalk became the ally, the less she wanted to take even a single step down that path.
He isn’t there. There is no one down there that you want to meet. It’s best if you take a different way home. But she really wanted to see him. What did it say about her that she was willing to forgo checking on the only person whom she could call friend?
Jane took one step. Her toe rested right on the edge of the shadow, then she turned. Clive was a career street person. He had told her once that he had spent most of his life on the streets. The man knew ways to survive that she couldn’t even guess at. Clive would be alright. She was more likely to die from the cold out here than he was.
She stepped back, then took another. Without thought she turn back into the light and simply walked. Jane didn’t pay any particular attention to where or how fast. She simply trusted her feet to carry her home.
Her path eventually wound itself around to her favourite short cut home then stopped. Jane paused at the edge of the ally’s mouth and stared into its shadows. She had come this way hundreds of times and this morning was no different, but the fresh memory of the other ally that lead into nothing but darkness, she wasn’t going to attempt to step into another. All of the same shadows were there, all of the same dumpsters and garbage cans. It was all the same rusting fire escapes hanging from the aging brick, but she just couldn’t bring herself to take even the smallest step inside.
Don’t go that way. A thin silvery voice echoed through her mind. It was the same voice that tile her that Clive wasn’t there. It’s not safe to go that way tonight. There is someone waiting in there for you. You do not want him to find you.
Jane shivered from more than the winter wind. She had heard that same voice before in the midst of her own thoughts. It had even saved her a time or two when she listened to it and took heed. Jane would listen to it now. The combination of the mass of cranky customers at work, along with the empty streets and an absent friend, made her inclined to listen.
Jane flipped her collar up against the northern wind and pulled her jacket tight. She stepped back into the newborn light of the dawn and avoided the shadows and took the long way home.
Into the Dark
He ran as fast as his lags would carry him. He really fucked up this time and this time they were not letting up. He didn’t know. How could he have known? Never in his worst nightmares did he imagine that things such as them existed. This was the real world. Things like them belonged in bedtimes stories about the boogyman and things that went bump in the night. They didn’t belong.
The air burned with each breath. Pain shot from his knee and laced itself up his leg. He couldn’t stop. He didn’t dare. He was always told that there were worse things than death, but he hadn’t believed. He didn’t believed until he had looked deep into that inhuman gaze. All he could do now was run.
Light shown ahead of him. That is what he needed now. A place with a lot of light, and people too. They wouldn’t take him where they would be seen. Where could he go? This was the middle of the night in downtown Ottawa. Wait, suddenly he knew. The old McDonald’s just up the street. It never closed.
He ran. Something fell behind him with a great ringing clang and he jumped forward. The ally ended just ahead. He could see the light of the street cutting through the shadows.
A lone wolf sang out into the night. It echoed through the night, and rang out between the towering buildings and filled the dark shadows. It was closes and fear granted him greater speed. He sprinted along and almost didn’t hear the choirs of inhuman voices that rose to answer. They were close. There was no time for him to wonder how no one heard that alien cry. There was nothing that he could do but run. Fear filled his feet and sped him along.
He burst into the light of the street. There was more light here, but not enough. Instinct guided him. He was close, but was he close enough to make it? Golden arches arose in his vision, an ironic beckon of life beckoned to him.
Almost there. He told himself. Just keep running. You will make it.
Something dark, blurred and utterly formless struck him from the side. He went skidding along the pavement and slammed into the base of the light. He kicked at the clawed talons that wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles. Something rough wrapped itself around his nose and mouth. Robbed of his ability or breath or scream, he twisted, bite and fought until the world disappeared into darkness.
His coughing awoke him. He took deep rasping breaths, but it was like breathing fire. Something, that was not rope, twine or anything else that he could identify, bound him. He wiggled about to get free but that only made the dark substance squeeze painfully tight.
“Enough of that little one.” The voice rasped from the shadows. He looked around, but couldn’t find it’s source. It seemed to come from the deepest shadow that drank what little light there was and made it its own, but he couldn’t be sure. “You have hurt us deeply, but we forgive you. You are only mortal and cannot understand.”
“I don’t have it.” He cried out. “I don’t even know where it is. I fucking swear on my life.”
“Oh,” The voice rasped. “We know, but we don’t believe you.”
It moved. He just stared. His eyes followed the movement but his mind failed to comprehend what he was seeing. It just wasn’t possible to anything to move in that jerky insect like grace. Nothing should be able to move like that.
“We really do forgive you.” It reached and wrapped a claw around his arm. It drew up close. He couldn’t move. He could only stare into the hungry darkness as it stared back into him. The hair on the back of his neck pricked up and he shivered. Cold breath froze his bare skin. He tried to turn away butit held him too tight. “Because we can make you understand. We can make you one of us. Then we will know everything. Don’t be afraid. It will only hurt for a moment. Then you will never feel anything ever again.”
The world fell to darkness as the thing enveloped him. The shadow crawled all over him as if it were a swarm of insects. It wormed its way beneath his clothing. It forced itself into his ears. He choked as it filled his nose and mouth. He tried to scream but only succeeded in breathing it in.
He burned. He froze. He was in pain and he was in ecstasy. A thousand sensations flooded his being all at once. Voices filled his mind in a great maelstrom of torment and pain. Every voice cried out for him to save them, but there was nothing that he could do. The beast tore through his skin and dug deeper. It wasn’t just consuming his flesh. It was taking everything that he was and everything he would ever be and tearing it out.
Piece by piece the darkness consumed him. His voice joined the chorus of the damned briefly until he was no more.
Northren Lights
Again?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Alright. I will tell you again, from the beginning. I will warn you, though, you are not going to like or believe anything I say. You are not going to believe a single fucking word.
Why? Well, because, I don’t believe a single word that is about to come out of my mouth and I was there. I saw the whole thing. I know exactly how it sounds, but I swear to you. Everything I am about to tell you is the god awful truth. I am not crazy. I wish I were, but unfortunately for both of us, I am not.
I can’t tell you the exact day when I first saw him. Or, even where. I was hitching along the northern stretch of highway one going through northern Ontario. There is little that I can say about exactly why I was there. A ride went bad and I got out of the car, and yeah it was bloody cold. If you have lived all of your life within city limits, it would be hard for your to imagine just how fucking cold it gets up there in the middle of winter. When it is that cold, you don’t stop moving. It doesn’t matter how tired you get or how long you walk on that road, you keep the fuck moving, because, it you stop, if you rest, you won’t ever wake up again. It won’t matter how many layers of clothing you are wearing. If you stay still for long enough, that bitter cold will worm its way through to your bones and suck the life right out of you.
So, yeah, when the car stopped for me, I got in. It didn’t matter where he was going at that point, or if he was safe, or if he was drinking or if I smelled some good shit, I was getting in that car. I needed to at that point, because after a few nights of walking through bugger fuck no where, I knew that I wasn’t going to make it through one more night. What can I say? People like me don’t have anything to loose. Sure, he could have killed me, but if I stayed out there I was fucking dead anyway.
I got in the car first. Fred or whatever his name was stopped for that guy sometime after he picked me up. I climbed into the backseat with my pack and let him ride shotgun.
Right from when I first set eyes on him, I didn’t want him touching me or my stuff. Picking him up wasn’t my call, it wasn’t my car. I don’t even know how he was alive. You see, an experience traveller like me comes prepared. You don’t need to be a genius to know that 40 below zero is fucking cold and to put on the layers, but this dude, he was fucked in the head. There just isn’t any other way for me to explain it. All he had on was a windbreaker over a t-shirt. He didn’t even have a toque on. I don’t know how he got all the way out there without his ass getting frozen off.
“Where are you heading?” Fred asked the guy.
“Just up the road a bit. I will show you where to let me off.” He replied. “I have to meet someone up there. I just hope that they will wait for me.”
“Good friends of yours?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Fred turned his attention back to the road. “We will get you there. You just sit back and get your self warm there. Just be sure to”
Our new comer smiled weakly and settled in. I did to for that matter. It would literally be hours before we reached a town or something. Okay, I admit it. I dozed for a while. It’s not the safest thing to do while hitching, but sometimes you gotta catch a few winks while you can. It was sometime later when I woke. It wasn’t so much the car slowing down that woke me as much as it was Fred quietly arguing with the guy.
“But there is nothing here.” He was saying. “I don’t even see a car or anything parked here, and it is going to get bloody cold after dark.”
“This is the place.” The dude replied. “They are expecting me to be here. It doesn’t look like they are here yet, but I will be fine.”
“I am just not comfortable with just leaving you out here.” Fred sighed.
“I’m with Fred here.” I had to put my own two cents in. “You can die out here if you’re not careful. It won’t take long for your ass to wind up frozen solid, and no one will find you till spring, if ever.”
“I will be fine.” He insisted.
“Just be sure that you want me to drop you here.” Fed said. “This is like the middle of nowhere. There isn’t even so much as a telephone pole out here.”
“And you are going to freeze man.” I quipped. “Or get eaten by wolves or something. Come with us to Sudbury or what ever the next town is called.”
He shook his head and continued to bundle up. I passed my spare gloves to him and he pulled those on to.
“I am going to be late.” He said. “I wish that I could take you too, both of you, but you need an invitation. They don’t like strangers.”
Fred and I exchanged looks. It was pointless to argue with the man as that point. You can’t argue with fucked up in the head, crazy like that. You just never know when someone like that is going to turn on you.
“Alright then,” Fred said. “Alright, I will let you out. But we are going to wait.” Fred and I exchanged looks and I just nodded. Leaving a man out in the cold like that, in the middle of winter, that is like a death sentence. “If you get too cold, come on back and I will take you somewhere, where you won’t freeze your ass off.”
I don’t know what he was thinking and I am not sure if I really wanted to know, to be honest. That man, he didn’t hang out on the road, or start walking along the highway. He climbed over the snowbank and headed into the bush. He didn’t have the gear for that sort of thing and I knew then, or at least I thought I knew, that he was a goner. He got right to the edge of the trees and that is when everything got weird.
The world got bright, and even though, it was still daylight, the northern lights came out to play.
Those lights were the most beautiful this you could ever see. Look, I’ve been around. I’ve even been up north and by up north I mean far up north. So, I can tell you that I have seen the northern lights and they don’t even come fucking close to what I saw that night and I have never seen anything like that. Those lights, they came down from the north and jived. They blocked out the sun and jived. Those colours danced so bright that you couldn’t see anything else. We couldn’t help but loose site of the guy. We couldn’t see anything other than those lights man. It was all just dancing colours, I don’t even think that there are names for any of those colours. So, yeah, since we couldn’t see shit, no snow no trees, not even the hands in front of our faces, if we even cared to look.
Then just like that, is was gone. Nothing was there, and everything was back too normal. Except for that dude. He was just gone. I asked Fred to wait and he said that he would. That Fred, is a really good guy by the way. I got out of the car and went to see where he went. I am not a tracker or anything like that, not how hard can following tracks through three feet of snow can be?
They didn’t go far. I followed his trail maybe, I don’t know, fifty feet into the bush. It didn’t lead anywhere, it just stopped, in the middle of clearing. You might want to get some experts or something out there to take a look, cause, from where I was standing, there was no where he could have gone. Three feet of snow remember. I know that sounds fucked up, but, I would have seen where he went. It was still daylight and, okay, I just don’t what else to say.
We stayed there for quite a while. It was getting dark when Fred decided that it was time to get moving. We didn’t say a word. Neither one of us wanted to just leave him there in there in the middle of nowhere, but we had to get our asses moving if we were going to make it to the next town before a blizzard or something hit. I went and found myself a bottle, as soon as I climbed out of the car and got shit faced. I don’t know what happened to that dude, and I never saw Fred ever again. Never wanted to, if I am going to be honest. I just want to forget what I saw that night. I am not crazy, but that is what happened. I am not going to try to explain it.
The Harvesting by Melanie Karsak
Have you ever picked up a book thinking that is was one thing, only to discover that it was something better? The Harvesting is that book. It is balsamic reduction on ice cream. There is no logical reason why those two should go together, but they just do. And they are delicious. The Harvesting starts out as a typical zombie apocalypse yarn in much the same style as the Walking Dead, but very quickly, supernatural elements creeps in and gives the over all work a whole different flavor. The Harvesting is a beautiful blend of horror and supernatural fiction. Karsak did such a masterful job in the blending of the two genre that there is no sense that it is contrived at all. It made for a very compelling read which sucked me in, despite a few flaws.
One of the best things though about this book is it’s heroine. Layla is unapologetically a warrior spirit. The most refreshing thing about her, is that she doesn’t fit into the over done trope of the female fighter with the tragic past. Karsak has successfully moved beyond the age old idea that a woman warrior needs to have some sort of trauma as a trigger for her to take up the sword. Layla is a warrior, just because she is a warrior and nothing more. This makes her a delightful character with a strong voice which draws the reader in. Unfortunately, the rest of the inhabitants of this world fall a bit short.
The characters which inhabit the Hamletville are very well rooted in reality. This makes it very easy to believe that they are ordinary everyday people who have been tossed into an impossible and horrific situation. Every kind of person that one can find in a small town, even the kindly priest and the town gossip can be found there. While, they are all believable, most are so ordinary as to be bland. This is their downfall. There just isn’t any, even those who are instrumental to the movement of the plot line, that are truly memorial, or stood out in any way. Most simply became a mass of faceless people which Layla needed to save and protect.
Though, the most disappointing thing about this work, is the fact that the emotional content is flat. The reader should have been devastated right along with the heroine of the story, when the grandmother died and even more so when Layla discovers that the old lady knew what was coming. Furthermore, for a heavy angst story arc of a love triangle between Layla and two brothers, it just feels empty and contrived. There is no angst or anguish and everything is simply a matter of fact. Even at the ending when Ian become vampire destroys himself to save her. We should have been weeping at that point.
Over all, there are good point and bad points. I wasn’t my intention to focus on the negative, but they were there. It was a damn good read with a really good narration. It just wasn’t above average in any way. I would give it 3 stars out of 5.
Into the Wilds
They were close. She could hear the hounds baying as they caught her scent. She could smell the musk of the hunters who followed them. If they got too close, there would be no loosing them. They would catch her, then kill her.
She gathered all four feet beneath her and ran. She had no time for anything else. There would be no backtracking, no laying down of false trails, or for any of the other tricks that would throw them off her scent. She had no time.
Her world was nothing more than the pounding of her heart, the rhythm of her feet hitting the ground and the trees that rushed by.
Her only hope was to put as much forest between herself and them. She didn’t dare think about who they were, or what they had meant to her. She couldn’t afford to let the grief consume her. Her life depended on it.
It didn’t take long for her to for the hunters to fall behind. The same could not be said for the hounds. The dogs were almost nipping on her heels. No matter how hard she ran, they were still closing the distance between them. These dogs had been trained to relentlessly run down prey. They had been conditioned to do so from the day they were born. She has only had a few hours to learn how to be a wolf.
If only there was a creek or river that she could use to make them loose her scent. If only there was time for her to change back into a girl. If only she knew how.
Her only hope was to get as deep into the forest as she could and prey that there was a point where the hunters would not pass beyond.
From the time before she could walk, she had been told stories about the things in the forest. Those tales wound themselves inside her head. Her aunt had filled the evenings with yarns of the dark and unnatural things that lurked in the shadows of the trees. Things that always waited to pounce on the unwary.
Naughty children were particularly delicious, she had often been told.
She had no idea if any of it was true, and it didn’t matter. There might be something dreadful in the wilds, and then, there might be nothing. It might kill her, and then, maybe it wouldn’t. There was no way for her to know for sure. But she did know, those who hunted her, people whom she had known her entire life, most certainly would end her life.
Trees grew larger the deeper she went in. The undergrowth became more dense. Branches clawed at her fur and the ground became uneven beneath her feet. Having more legs meant only that there was more ways to trip.
She burst through the trees and skidded to a halt. A deep ravine split the earth open before her. It was too wide to jump and too deep to climb. She could go left or right, and she picked one.
She did her best to hurry, but the uneven stone forced her to walk. The granite edges were uneven and unstable for her to do anything other than to walk.
She came to a dead end before long. Looking up at the crumbling wall of stone before her, she sighed. It was over. There was no where else she could go.
Her tongue rolled out of her mouth as she panted to catch her breath. The baying of the hounds sounded on the air, and the hunters would not be far behind them. Every muscle in her body begged for rest, and she lay to rest, first on her belly, then on her side. She had nothing left to do but wait. They would find her soon enough and end it.
Even wolves can cry.
The cold seeped from the rock and into her fur. She didn’t notice that the cries of the dogs are her trail faded away and ceased. There was a part of herself that didn’t care. She didn’t even hear the sound of the person approaching her. Feet covered in leather boots appeared before her eyes and by then it was too late.
Gentle hands rubbed her ears and she whimpered at the touch.
“It’s okay, little sister.” A deep voice said. “You are safe here. Welcome home.”
Flash!! 