“Help.” The plea was barely audible. I spun to face the abandoned car again. “I fell. Please…”
Muffled sobbing followed the plea.
I couldn’t find the source of the voice. It seemed as if it was all around me. I shook my head. Impossible. I tucked the flashlight under my chin and reached into my pocket for my phone. I dialed 911.
WHAM!
Everything I had been carrying fell out of my arms as I was propelled forward. I twisted my body sideways to minimize the impact. I met the ground with terrible force and a wave of pain rippled through my right hip, my ribs, and then finally, my head. I moaned aloud, quickly reaching up to my head to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. Thankfully, I hadn’t been knocked unconscious, but I couldn’t move without considerable effort. I don’t think anything is broken. Fuck. Thank God. What the hell happened? I strained my head and body to try to get a look at what had hit me.
Bristly, thick fur brushed against the nape of my neck.
A scream echoed off the trees. It was mine.
I scrambled into a crouched position, momentarily forgetting the pain pulsing throughout my muscles. There was nothing. The flashing of red from the clicking hazards of the car for which I’d stopped continued. Burying my fingers into the grass, my breathing quickened. My fingers drew together to create a fist, then released. I inhaled sharply, then allowed my hands to dive deeply into the dry tufts and weeds, searching for my phone, for the flashlight, for my flares, for anything at all. I heard the soft, begging voice once again.
I did not respond this time. I persisted in my search. The familiar, sturdy plastic of my phone’s case was at last discovered underneath my fingertips. I gripped the phone tightly and rose from my crouched position. I wobbled. I wobbled again. I kept my grip on the phone and steadied myself. I listened for the voice, for whatever had slammed into me.
Click-click-click.
The air was ominously heavy, and my resolve began to buckle under its weight. There were eyes watching from somewhere in the darkness. There was no doubt about that. Panic spread through my bloodstream like a greedy virus. I sprinted to my car. Quick, ragged breaths were all that I could manage since my concentration was staunchly fixed on my door handle. I barely grazed the steel of my car before my worry for the desperate stranger returned. I set my feet firmly in place, trying to convince myself not to leave when there was clearly someone in distress.
“Can you walk?” I yelled into the darkness.
Nothing. Again.
The crunch of breaking glass was the first thing I heard. I tasted the bitter iron of my own blood. Pain ripped into my flesh like a monster ripping through its prey. But the monster was real. The creature was real. It was on top of me – an enormous, black mass had me pinned on the hood of my car in the time it took to blink once. Struggling to see through my now foggy vision, a form developed with each click of the hazards accompanied by the menacing glow of yellow eyes. It was a wolf. A very big wolf.
I screamed.
A low growl erupted from its jaws and the ear-splitting screech of its claws scraping against the metal of the car’s hood below forced me into a catatonic stillness. A viscous liquid slithered across my face. There was no way to know whether it was blood, tears, or the saliva that was oozing from between the teeth of the wolf. Maybe it was a mixture. I suddenly remembered the knife in my pocket. It was my only option, the only way I had a chance of survival. The black beast kept its yellow eyes on me as I slowly edged my hand along the hood of the car to my pocket, careful not to draw the attention of those nightmarish eyes. I regretted not having the knife in my hand from the start. It was partially exposed, so I was able to grasp it unnoticed. Or so I thought. The wolf peered at me as if it somehow knew what I was trying to do. Its lips tightened in warning. It was a warning I did not heed. I needed to move.
The pain of the wolf’s bite was all-consuming. The fragile flesh of my shoulder was no match for the titanium strength of its jaws. Guttural shrieks broke free of my throat, vanishing into the darkness. Vomit bubbled up from my belly and filled my mouth. I coughed violently, spraying jellylike chunks which attached themselves to the wolf’s fur. It burrowed its teeth deeper, tearing through tissue and bone.
I reached out with my right hand, feeling around for anything on the hood of the car I could use. The sharp end of broken glass sliced my arm, but I ignored it. I moved my arm up, allowing my hand to close around the oddly-shaped shard of glass that had been expelled from the windshield when my body was thrown against it. It was slightly bigger than my hand. Blood poured from the wounds it was creating in my grip. There was no time to care about that. I quickly sunk the shard into its neck, feeling the wolf’s skin and my own split beneath the pressure of the glass.
The monster withdrew and yowled, shaking its head to try to rid itself of the shard still lodged in its neck. This was my chance. I rolled off the hood of the car, falling to the ground. In a weak state, I frantically reached for the handle on the door. I lifted the it quickly, nearly hyperventilating from shock.
A crushing pain exploded in my ribs.
There was nothing after that.
There was only the lingering memory of those yellow eyes.
Chapter Two
“Page Dr. Macgomery.”
Through the dreamlike fog I recognized the voice of Rosemary Summers. I opened my eyes slowly, then I remembered the wolf, and my eyes darted around the room, hunting frenziedly for the hellish creature. Summers came to my side and held me down.
“Bonnie, listen to me. Listen! You were attacked by an animal. A man was driving by and saw you being attacked. Luckily, he had a gun.” She loosened her grip on my arms. “You won’t be able to speak yet because we had to intubate, but you can nod. Do you remember what happened?”
I nodded hesitantly.
“I will take care of you. I promise,” she cooed sweetly. The sincerity in her tone made me feel safe.
I was so overwhelmed with relief that I began crying. The doctor entered from the hallway, followed closely by a nurse and a tech. He started talking to me, but I couldn’t focus on his words at all. I was alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. Nothing else mattered at that moment. My tears blurred my vision and the doctor’s voice faded.
I fell asleep to the sound of Rosemary humming a soothing tune as she worked.
*
My skin was hot. Blistering. My mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. I pressed the call button for a nurse. Something was off. Wrong.
Rosemary came in a short time after. She looked at me and then said, “I’m sorry, but this visit has to be cut short.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Jr.! How long has he been here?
“Please, for now, go to the ICU waiting room and I’ll find you soon with an update.”
There was no argument. I heard the door close and a wave of nausea rushed upwards in my digestive tract. Rosemary held a vomit bag to my lips. Something that looked just like water was expelled with each heave of my stomach, and when I finished, Rosemary disposed of the bag and checked my temperature. She grimaced.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“103.1.” She muttered something else afterwards, but I couldn’t make it out for the ringing in my ears.
“Why are you here?” I croaked.
“What do you mean?” she asked absentmindedly, pressing a button on the monitor to check my vitals. The blood pressure cuff began to squeeze my arm tightly.
I forgot I had asked her a question. My head hurt from the ringing in my ears, which had now become much louder. I squinted, finding the light in the room suddenly too bright. Rosemary shouted to someone I couldn’t see, and relief settled into my chest as the lights dimmed. She replaced my saline bag and dextrose.
“Your sugar keeps dropping. Your body is burning your glucose too quickly.”
“Why are you here?” I asked again. Now I was sure I had already asked that question. Did she answer me?
“Thanks,” I replied feebly, shivering uncontrollably against the chill in the hospital air.
“I’m going to see if the doctor can come up with a solution to get your fever down.”
I think I nodded. I couldn’t be sure. She turned off the lights and exited the room quietly. I slipped into the cool embrace of sleep once again and didn’t awaken until I heard Rosemary whispering by the door to my room. I pried my eyes open slightly. I could barely make out the shape of her body, but I was able to determine that she was speaking to someone on a cell phone.
“She’s still alive, thank God No, I don’t think she knows…” Rosemary turned to me and smiled upon seeing that I was awake. “I have to go. Yes. Yes.” She hung up the phone, offering me a sympathetic smile. “How do you feel?”
I was too exhausted to entertain suspicions or ask any more questions.
“Like I was attacked by a very big wolf.” My voice was rough, probably from the combination of screaming and having a tube stuck down my throat.
“Seems you are feeling a little better now.” Rosemary checked my vitals. “You’ve been out two days since you were last awake.”
My stomach growled, and I thought of the wolf. The yellow eyes.
“You will never face him again,” she said in a deep, almost inhuman tone.
Him?
“If you keep improving like this, you’ll be out of this hospital within a week,” she advised, tapping the screen of the monitor to draw my attention. “How about some food?”
“If it’s hospital food, I’m not interested.”
Rosemary shook her head. She held up her index finger and disappeared into the hallway, returning a minute later with a brown paper bag in hand. Rosemary reached into the bag and pulled out two big, pulled-pork sandwiches. My eyes widened. The growling in my stomach intensified.
“Jr. brought it. He told me it’s your favorite.”
She helped me into a sitting position, and I snatched the sandwich from her hand, unwrapping the foil and devouring it in less than two minutes. My gut was churning, and my hands quaked like a drug addict experiencing withdrawal, but I didn’t care. Rosemary had the second one already unwrapped for me before I finished the first. I swiped it and inhaled it just as quickly as I ate the first sandwich. I wanted more.
“He’s bringing more food in a few hours. Can’t hide that much good food in this hospital.” She giggled. “Our little secret.”
I smiled. “Definitely.”
We talked for a while until exhaustion returned for me. Sometime during our conversation, I floated away. It was a much sweeter sleep this time.
Chapter Three
I dressed in the clean clothes Jr. brought from my house. The bandages covering my shoulder were rigid, so I had to dress with caution. The room was silent except for the sound of fabric against skin. I was grateful to Jr. for this silence. He somehow succeeded in keeping my roommates from visiting, which was fine with me. I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to go home.
Last night I was reshaped into something other, but I wasn’t certain what that something was – as if the cells in my body had shifted. However, the change was imperceptible to the doctor. The tests, the blood panels, the endless poking and prodding. Everything was normal, save for my miraculously swift recovery. But apparently, that could be easily attributed to my youth and good health. I never really expected him to say anything different.
Just outside the door to my room I heard two distinct voices speaking in low, serious tones. I recognized one of the voices as belonging to Rosemary. I peeked around the curtain surrounding my bed which I had drawn in order to change, trying to get a better look at who she was talking to. Through the glass panel of the door I spied a woman facing Rosemary.
Her posture was stiff, the angles of her body were extreme. She looked like the living embodiment of a geometric shape. As she spoke to Rosemary, the coffee-colored hair she had swept up into a ponytail rocked from side to side. Contempt seeped from the pores of her olive skin. My eyes locked with this woman and I was still. For only a second, I noticed her displeasure. I looked down at myself and cursed. I was still without a shirt, and I noted that I had lost some weight.
When I looked up, she was gone, leaving only Rosemary in hallway. I watched as she fidgeted with her chin and then her hair, her gaze lowered. What was that about? I slipped into my shirt. I was more concerned with the throbbing in my shoulder for the meantime.
I moved from the curtain as Rosemary entered the room. “You should eat something soon.”
“I plan on it.” I zipped up my jeans and turned to see Rosemary standing next to a wheelchair. “Really?”
Rosemary shrugged.
“I feel fine.” She rolled her eyes in response and so I changed the subject. “Who was that woman you were talking to?”
Rosemary started to reply but stopped herself, then said, “She’s an old friend. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. She just…didn’t belong.”
Rosemary stiffened. She motioned for me to get into the wheelchair and I did so grudgingly. While wheeling me out of the hospital, she tried to keep the conversation light. I couldn’t pay attention, though. My mind was full of yellow eyes and a body with far too many right angles.
*
“You think she really wouldn’t like a party?” The voice belonged to Alicia, one of my roommates.
I sat up in the darkness of my bedroom. My legs were comfortably entangled in the cool sheets that embraced my mattress. In spite of this, I couldn’t fall asleep, even with the aid of painkillers. I checked the time on my phone. Eleven. I blew air between my lips exasperatedly.
“I don’t know. She didn’t seem interested when I suggested we do something to celebrate her recovery.” It was Sandy, my other roommate.
Clearly, they wanted me to get out of bed if they were standing outside of my room talking about me. I had no desire to listen any longer, and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep. At least, not anytime soon. I untangled my legs from the sheets and hopped out of bed, trying to straighten my pajamas as I moved. I fumbled around in the dark for a minute, looking for my bedroom door. Once I found the doorknob, I opened the door quickly, half-expecting to find my roommates right outside, but the hallway was empty. I heard the television in the living room, so I followed the noise and found both of my roommates sitting on the couch eating pizza.
I frowned.
“Join us,” Sandy urged after she spotted me coming into the living room.
I still wasn’t tired, but I thought I might be able to drain enough of my energy in order to sleep if I did eat some pizza. I grabbed a slice and started munching away. I fell onto the small sofa, laying my legs over one arm and resting my head against the other end. I could feel the eyes of my roommates boring into me.
“What?”
“You hungry?” Alicia asked sarcastically some time later. “You ate nearly the entire pizza.”
I looked over at the pizza box. They were right, but I wasn’t baited by the comment. Thankfully, there was another box, and I dug into it with gusto.
When I was done, I surveyed the damage. “I’ll pay for the pizzas.”
“It’s all right,” Sandy assured me. “Let us take care of it as a way of welcoming you back home.”
“We are happy you have an appetite at all,” Alicia added. “And we were thinking that maybe…”
“Alicia!” Sandy snapped, narrowing her eyes at Alicia.
Alicia was undeterred. “How would you feel about having a party? You know, as a way for everyone to welcome you back?”
“For surviving a wolf attack.” It was a statement, not a question. I was beginning to feel irritated by their needling. A party wasn’t what I wanted right now.
“Well…yeah,” Alicia replied carefully, sensing my frustration.
Sandy raised h
er arms in defeat. “It was only a thought. If you’re not up for it, it’s absolutely fine.”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” I sighed, fatigue finally beginning to set in. “Right now, I want to go to sleep. But I promise I’ll think about it.”
I stood up, leaving behind the remains of my one-woman feast, and made my way back to my room. I already knew that I would refuse the party, but I didn’t want to be rude, especially when they were only trying to cheer me up.
“Night,” Sandy and Alicia called to me as I reached my door.
I didn’t respond. I shut the door behind me, flung myself onto my bed, and let sleep take me.
*
I cautiously approached the car, its red hazard lights flashing menacingly as if in warning. But I was too stubborn. A small voice was calling, crying out in the darkness. I had to find the source of the pleas.
Click-click-click-click.
My breathing quickened. It was dark. It was too dark. A low growl echoed in the blackness. I froze. Yellow eyes. Yellow eyes. Yellow eyes.
A hellish and otherworldly scream. It was mine.
I awoke drenched in sweat. Another nightmare. I grabbed the bottle of water I left on the nightstand last night and gulped it down in two seconds. The air was heavy with a myriad of smells, some I could identify, others I could not. I tossed the covers aside and got out of bed. A drive might help. I tried to change in haste, but I was delayed when I noticed that I could move without pain. I unraveled my bandages and discovered that the massive wound from the wolf bite healed entirely. I was stunned. I needed to investigate. I needed to get out of the house.
*
“You shouldn’t be here, Bonnie.”
Thanks for the warm welcome, Rosemary.
A Night Claimed Page 2