by Nunn, Alexis
“I can’t kill it, it’s already dead!”
“No, he’s not! Please, listen, let him go!” Fadiyah begged, reaching for Robert's hand, trying to release the tension on his fist.
Lilya rocked in her chair, crying. She drew her hand back and tossed the stuffed rabbit at his face. It took his a little by surprise. His eyebrows raised, but it faltered, going back to anger. He shoved Fadiyah back and threw Feliks forward on the floor. His head and hips thudded across the ground, his torso shaking. I dropped frantically to his side, loosening the sack from his face and the rope from his neck.
“You better fucking explain,” Robert ordered to the room, directing it to me. I could barely hear him through the blood swimming in my ears and the urgency in my head to save Feliks.
TEN
Robert stared at us as if it’d poison us. His nostrils pulsed with every furious breath. I hugged my brother’s head to my chest, watching him with guilty eyes. Lilya shrank away from the table, wanting to approach him but he shook his head at her. Fadiyah swooped over to her, each movement sharp and deliberate. She grabbed her and took her off into a different room. It was an instinct to remove children from scenes of conflict. I could hear Lilya whine as she was walked away.
“Now do what I said. Explain!”
I looked at Feliks, whom seemed to be waving between unconscious and awake. Surely not dead. I could feel the air passing through the corners of his nose.
“It’s hard. He’s my brother,” I sighed, stroking my hand over his neck, smoothing out the fur, “He was my big brother. He is. One day I left our camp to get wood. I came back and it was bloody. Everything was covered in blood. Feliks was gone. I thought I had lost him. And suddenly I saw this dog approaching me, scratches across his face, blood in his fur. I thought I was going to die too. But he spoke to me! It was my brother. I was terrified.”
I inhaled, swearing my throat was shrinking with each word.
“The transformation was halted. He doesn’t eat human flesh. He’s still human. He talks. He breathes. His eyes are clear. He’s still my brother. His body is that of a dog, but that’s as far as the transformation went. Please. Don’t hurt him. He’s alive. He won’t hurt anyone!” I begged him. He seemed like a soldier, stance frozen, back straight. Robert glared menacingly at me, not showing a trace of emotion except anger.
I spoke in a hushed manner, my words tripping over my lips and falling quietly upon the floor, “Lilya loves him. Fadiyah loves him. Please let him stay.”
He stomped one foot, crossing his arms, “Get out. That thing is a threat to my family. Leave by tomorrow.”
I blinked, my face chilled and the feeling spread down my torso, “No. We can’t. We are safe here.”
He repeated himself, not caring about us or our safety. All he cared about was his family. It wasn’t a terrible trait, seeing as a family is a critically important factor in many people’s lives. Yet again, he should show compassion to others. My family is just as important as his. No one’s is better.
I heard a knock on the doorway next to us. Fadiyah stood there, scarf down around her neck and deep-black hair a mess. It looked as if she had nervously ran her fingers through it while we spoke. She fixed it hastily, recollecting herself. She stepped forward half a yard, “If she leaves, I go with her.”
Robert spat, “No you will not. You stay.”
“Try me,” She taunted him. Lilya’s hand appeared on Fadiyah’s leg, her head soon followed.
“I’ll take your precious granddaughter with me too. Either you allow her and Feliks to stay or everyone leaves with them.”
It the following silence, Robert drew a gun from the inside of his coat. He pointed it at us for a moment. I withdrew in fear, Feliks hazily scooting himself with me. I locked eyes with the barrel, but I saw something in Robert’s eyes change. His hand dropped to his side, finger leaving the trigger. I couldn’t tell if it was the thought of mutiny among his family or a flicker of sympathy towards us.
“If you screw up even once, you are done for. Get up or get out. I’m hungry,” He ended the conversation and walked forward.
My moral dilemma has somehow went from ‘how do I save my brother’ and now to ‘should I forget the past few minutes and eat.’ Feliks pulled himself together, looking up at me. I scratched my head, turning to face Fadiyah by the door. She cast her eyes to the ground before pulling Lilya forward with her to the table. Eating seemed to be the universal decision. I stood up, as well as Feliks, and sat back in the seat I had chosen.
Feliks awkwardly clung close to the side of my chair, not having a seat of his own. Fadiyah hesitated before walking out into the house’s living room. She returned with a folding metal chair. I made room beside me at the end for Feliks's chair. He hopped up into it, his back paws slid forward and he tumbled off the seat. I gave him a pitiful look as he retried. The third time he got in the seat, he finally succeeded in staying in place. He put his front paws up on the table, “I hate this.” It was something he mumbled to himself, but I knew what he said.
I noticed when I looked up that there was a ridiculous amount of space around the man. Fadiyah and Lilya dragged their chairs close to ours. Robert was no one’s favorite person right now. Hell, we hated him. I had a good reason, and so did Feliks. I did not understand Fadiyah’s and Lilya’s though. Maybe it was something best left unsaid.
My friend left her seat to bring our bowls to the table. It was a serve-yourself dinner. I waited last to get my fill. I got Feliks his food before mine. The dinner looked so perfect and in that instant I felt almost hypnotized by the urge to eat. An actual cooked meal was so much better than what I’ve had for months. At our house we had canned food that we tried to save. Minimizing our food intake was a habit we developed on our own. However, this made me realize how much we’ve been cheated. They had real, fresh food this entire time.
In the silence, we all at our food. At least everything was silent until Feliks dropped his plate on the hardwood floor. He frowned and whispered, “Sorry.”
ELEVEN
Days like these were paradise. The sun was off center in the sky. Spring waved from around the corner, waiting for the time she could come to visit. Mother would be planning what to plant in our garden. Feliks would save up money to plant flowers on our father’s grave. This year none of that will happen.
I sat on the porch of the house, watching a bird fly over the sky. Today was the last day of safety for me. Tomorrow would be the first scouting trip around our town to keep track of the werebies. A pile of leaves we left set out at the edge of town was flattened by morning. We were sure no one touched it, leaving only animals. Robert also warned me that his food supply was getting low. Instead of going into the next town over to get food - though we had no vehicles and would have to walk defenseless through the forest. Robert wanted us to start considering hunting.
Hunting in a werebie infested forest? Sounds like a great idea to Robert. I’ve hunted before, although I hated killing things. I used bow and arrows before back at home for fun. As for hunting, I caught a wild squirrel in the forest a while back to survive. Risky but, oh well, I wanted to live. Feliks caught fish once for dinner too. This was an altogether different scenario.
When the time came, Robert handed me a gun. It seemed old and the chamber only held six bullets at a time. The revolver wasn’t for hunting. Robert told me it was for emergency protection only. The sound of a gun firing would attract werebies to us like moths to a flame. It was also considering he only had six bullets left to load it with. I guess his gun took different bullets. Once my bullets were gone, they were gone. I was also armed with a bow as well as Robert. Our goal for today was not to hunt, but to survey. If we had the opportunity, that was what the weapons were for. Though the likeliness of us coming across an animal we would risk to kill and bring back was slim.
And so, we headed out. My ankle was fully healed and I could walk just fine. That meant in a heartbeat I would be expected to fend for myself. No pit
y from the jury.
Robert knew the surrounding forest by heart. This place was his home, as it always had been. I followed him everywhere we went. From the place we now were, you could still see the light of the town center’s fire. The hill we ascended took us back in the direction Feliks and I originated from. If we kept going in a straight path it would take us past a tall rocky cliff, swing by a flat treeless field, and take us on a path leading to the hill Feliks got changed on.
The farther we walked, the more boring it became. I kept my bow up and ready and an arrow in place. My boots crushed the stiff, dead grass underneath me. I watched the tree leaves up above us with apathy. Nothing was preventing me from falling asleep on my feet, not even the threat of a werebie attack. I probably did fall asleep until Robert slammed into me - or maybe me into him. His arm pointed out to halter any procession.
I leaned to the side, looking down to his face. He paused, contemptuously studying the ground. I followed the stare to the ground. Below us in a not-so-uniform trail were paw prints. Off farther ahead I spotted a pattern of what looked like hooves. A deer most likely matched them, and by the gait, it was a healthy animal. Whatever was tracking the animal definitely was not healthy. The spacing was too unevenly space with poorly distributed pressure. A werebie was on the hunt.
Robert took back his hand as a shadow from the clouds cut off the light that streamed through the leaves. We both cast our eyes up then towards the direction the tracks headed. The message was clear: avoid that direction. With that obvious epiphany, Robert directed himself to me.
“We have to follow it.”
“Great plan,” I spasmed out my arms, hissing a severely sarcastic tone, “Go follow the deadly thing. Let’s get turned too!”
“Shut it, you brat,” He grabbed my shirt, the pressure popped open a button, “We have to follow it until we know it’s out of the boundary we set. If it circles back around we know we have to put up a wall or something. Or place traps.”
He let go and walked out into the bushes, following the paw prints.
After ten minutes we came across a thin creek blockaded downstream by fallen timber. The water ran thin, but deep enough for animals to drink from or wash off their paws. A snarling burst out from our right. I raised my bow and crouched down, the water still in my line of sight. Robert held his gun up, waiting. That was when I smelled it. A wafting smell of iron and rot. A gleam of grey poked out of the forest growth, a canine head followed the bit of fur until it snuck out and approached the water. The paws hit the water’s calm surface before it waded across, following the scent of something. A strip of stagnant flesh tumbled down in the water, a murky green cloud pouring around it. The large paws traced the trail of the deer’s, subconsciously more likely than not.
The archaic mind of a werebie couldn’t process the signals of us. It was set on that deer. It would follow that deer until the paws were worn to bone - more literally than figuratively - and the deer dropped dead of old age. Werebies as mindless as they were still hunted like average animals. Humans were a delicacy on the top, which set them apart. The clouded eyes were useless, following sound and scent as far as it could. It could sense shapes in its sight, but that was all.
Once it left, soon another animal breached the darkness. The tall, perched ears of a deer swiveled around while the beady black eyes carefully took in the wild. It remembered this place, and registered it as safe. The hooves rested by the water’s side, the head lowering to the surface. The doe started to back away once something nudged across her face. The skin drifted away and she licked the water.
We watched her drink from the still water, worried the werebie would attack. However there was an entire different problem that arose. The deer flung its head back, the body trembling. The legs bowed out from under the weight of its chest, bringing the animal down. For a second, I swore Robert fired an arrow at her, yet, it was clear he hadn’t. The animal swung itself around in pure agony. Along the back the fur bubbled, small flecks of black sprouting out along the neck and face. Instead of changing completely into the canid, it morphed into a werebie. There were a DNA similarity between them, but when the pathogen passed through the water or air, the change was less dramatic. It seemed only humans were changed completely, a hypothesis I’d rather not investigate further.
The deer snorted, digging its hooves deep in the mushy ground. She made a choking noise and hacked up a deep black ooze. It spilled out into the upset water like a toxic spill.
I readjusted my footing, crushing brittle leaves under my feet and gaining the dim-witted attention of the newly turned werebie. The funky whitened eyes wildly spun around, the ears trying to relocate the sound.
Stubbornly attracted to the noise, the deer stomped once again and started to come towards us. Robert raised his gun, eyeing the barrel towards a vital kill spot. He pushed me back, preparing to dart out. Before anyone moved the wolf surged forwards once again out of the bushes. The shriveled paws and mangled jaw pierced into the skin of the doe. They tumbled out to the ground. A fight ensued. Skin flew. Fresh, infected blood splashed out from the brew. We dragged our shirts up above our mouths then made a run for it.
Robert kept his gun aimed behind us. At least, I thought so. I was too caught up in running like a maniac back behind the boundary line and into town.
I saw the glisten of our camp fire flash to my left. Then, I felt safe.
TWELVE
“Oh hell yeah, there are a bunch out here in this direction,” Feliks posed in the hunting dog’s pointer position. He involuntarily sneezed suddenly, flopping forward and landing with a thud while his tail pitifully dropped. He propped himself up, huffing out the dirt that wound up in his nostrils. After clearing out his nose, he sat there scratching his dew claw over his muzzle, “But yeah, there aren’t any too close to us. I smell the scent coming from the way we came, you know from the clearing’s direction.”
I brought my hand to the space above my dense eyebrows, “Great. How close?”
“I guess it’s hard to tell. Either real close or a bunch possibly far away. There’s a way to know.”
A bird fluttered above us, making me flinch. My heart jumped for a second before my skin settled and I shook it off.
Feliks laughed at me, whipping his tail. I was way too skittish sometimes, sometimes I was apathetic. For the most part it was definitely on the skittish side. I was a stubborn, cynical, pessimistic tomboy who jumps at a shadow. Feliks was only scared of spiders. Fitting. Well, and the occasional bird.
We walked down the trodden path beaten in by years of walking or wagons. I felt once again on our own but reminded myself that at our home we had food, a bed, a hateful sort-of-dad, and a teen who overly eagerly hugs me upon return. The sound of that strange fuzzy hum you hear in a forest was close to nothing. It faded in and out of audibility. Creatures like mice occasionally dared to peak out at us from under the branches. We ended up out in the section of the forest where the trees thinned. I knew we were nearing the edge of the clearing. Meadow? It was just a flat section of grassy land, void of flowers or trees. It couldn’t be a meadow. Those need flowers for the most part if I’m not mistaken. Flowers would not have been extremely helpful to us anyway.
Feliks seemed to have a difficulty with his breathing the farther we got. At this point I noticed his nose coated with a thick snot and a saliva trail leaving his mouth. The scent must have been killing him. His ears wavered back and forth and his head swung forward with each lung piercing sneeze.
My brother stiffened up his legs, waddling to a stop, “Get up in a tree. Now.”
I nearly knocked myself off my feet by stopping so abruptly. Crunching could be heard off in the distance and the approaching figure caught Feliks's attention so strongly that his fur bristled and his teeth bared themselves. I quickly turned over to the nearest tree, dropping the knife I was clinging to in my hand. It landed behind Feliks, though unwavering.
I grabbed the pieces of bark and tried to use them to prope
l myself up. My Docs succeeded in tearing the bark off. I felt blood rush to the palm of my hand as the sharp edges dug in. As fast as I could, I latched onto a thick branch, barely anywhere off the ground. I wasn’t strong, okay? I was far enough off the ground to be safe.
The beast soon waded out of the side, coming back from the clearing possibly. I only saw a smaller shape near Feliks, interested. It clearly spotted or smelled Feliks, drawing back its blackened ears and hissing. From my place, I finally saw it in full view. It looked as if it was a lynx-cougar hybrid. The size of a larger lynx, yet the paws and facial structure of a cougar. Likely, a lynx turned by a cougar which made sense considering not too far away rested our Chevy destroyed by a cougar werebie. Feliks shook and barked at it, growling deep.
It drew back, hopping away from him. Claws drawn, it danced forward but Feliks swiped it down quickly. He protectively lowered closer to it and guarded the tree behind him, snarling at that point. The werebie locked in its place before it turned and darted away, defeated. Feliks almost didn’t come out of the deadest stance. He still trembled, tail curled up. Fear dared to awaken in me, but I shoved it away when he dropped down to the ground, panting. As he wiped away at his face, I climbed up farther, curious to see what else I could catch a glimpse of.
From the highest perch, I gazed out across the earth. I saw the clearing on the horizon, also spotting a strange hollow circular space next to it. Small shapes of muddy brown, decaying grey and murky mix of colors began to swim around in the space. Werebies were cohabitating. It was a nest. The deer Robert and I watched get slaughtered the other day was laying torn apart on the farthest point from us, the organs and blood splattered across the space.
I nibbled at the edge of my nubbin fingernails. I carefully hopped down from branch to branch, “Feliks!” I urgently whispered, “There’s a nest. Out by the clearing. It’s like they became a pack.”