Awhile later, the young man comes back out the door and into the barn carrying a tool box. Scott intensely watches and slyly follows the man in towards the garage, keeping an eye on every step down the row of the cornfild that leads to the barn. Coming out of the corn, second row, first row and now looking both ways, dashes across the lawn to the corner of the barns edge. Hearing metal on metal as the tools jingle together onto a metal table with the metallic sheens, Scott heads towards the source of the sounds. The man is now under the truck, turning wrenches and Scott says, “Hello.” The man under the truck jumps and hit’s the top of his cap on the radiator and yells “Ohh, shit” and wheels out from under the truck mad . “What the hell?”
As doing so he says, “Damn it. This better be good.” As he slides out from under his truck, he’s startled to find a wolf staring right at him. The man slowly backs away with his arms fumbling around behind his back, hoping he’s headed towards the back of the barn where the door is. He finally bumps into the door in which a board has it clamped shut tight. Turning around his head to keep his eyes on the wolf, he squats down and pushes up on the wooden board that secures the door to somehow pop it off and get out of the barn, calmly as possible.
“Good boy”, the man says.
Scott slowly approaches the man in the same calm fashion and says, “ It’s ok, I won’t hurt you.”
The farmers eyes widen even more and he pushes up faster. The door flies open he runs outside to the right corner of the barn and towards the back door of the house. Not slowing down or looking back, if that damn dog or whatever it is, is coming, he don’t want to see it hit him. Faster and faster he runs, not caring how fast his heart is beating from the fright.
“Did I just see that?”, the man thinks to himself as he’s running toward the door. Turning the knob of the door and bolting in. Turning the door and locking it behind him. The man runs straight to his gun cabinet and grabs the shotgun and the rifle. He thumbs through different cartridge boxes to find the right ones, keeping a good grip on the weapons at hand that he carries to the window ready to go at it with this wolf if it comes near him. Scott slowly trots to the front door of the barn and goes right following the way the man ran saying out loud, “That didn’t go very well.” Approaching the outside corner of the barn, he hears a thundering bang and scurries back alarmed and confused. Pellets of the shotgun,hits toothpick size splinters, explode away from the side of the barn. Scott says, “Not well at all.” and runs back into the cornfield as fast as possible. Crossing the gravel road in a straight line through the woods, back into the safety of the rocky ridge hills and bluffs alongside the distance before him. Thinking about being around humans may not be a good idea. But not knowing what else to do, he keeps following the road. At a very safe distance back, he finds another house. This ones more of an animal farm than the other one was. He could smell it hours ago. Taking advantage of the bluff, he climbs up for a higher look, when he finally finds a hill that he thinks he can make. The steeper areas of the hill were getting more climbable and easier to access so he attempts the high ground. Trees were growing more easily within the area so he knew that if he happened to fall maybe one of them would stop his descent and using them kind of like pegs to leapfrog across if need be. The dirt was harder and dryer the more he ascended up, not giving him anything to grip with his pads and claws, kicking his back legs harder with every good grip he could muster. Leaping and hard strides to the next tree he finally finds give in the hill with more slopes and dips as he deeply pats slowly approaching the crest of the hill. Scott lies down and catches his breath, pants fiercely. He ponders now. “Now its as simple as backtracking to where the farm is on the top of the bluff along the edge until I get a good look see at the house. Easy as pie. I just sit and wait it out. Plus if the other wolves try to track me down, maybe they wouldn’t go this way and if they do I could probably see them from up here to. All I have to do is wait it out. I ain’t doing much anyway. It is awfully lonely though.”
Scott slowly rises and calmly heads towards the bluff. Enjoying the scenic view, he just calmly walks and looks, surveying and stopping once in awhile to listen with his ears at all the subtle movements of the animals and birds that take refuge deeper in the woods. Enjoying the best of both worlds, in a way. He could hear and see the wonders of the woods and at the same time look down at the long flat fields of farmland for miles with the gravel roads snaking along the bluffs edge and little patches of tree here and there like stalks of broccoli lying within the drainage ditches of the fields along the gravel road where it branched out into straight lines so far into the distance heading towards that monstrosity humans call a highway full of bad air and noisy automobiles towards their cities and towns. Scott knew he would never be accepted equally, but respected as a thinking entity by even a handful was Scotts goal. He didn’t want to live alone and he don’t think he could live as a wolf in a pack, if they would even have him. Scott sensed that the wolves wouldn’t . They would know he was different too, just like this human did.
“Yea, I will have to be more careful with the next one for sure.”
But all hope wasn’t lost. In Scotts earlier years, he discovered that people really did enjoy animals quite a bit. With their movies and news stories even of animals rescuing people from fires and calling 911 or so many people really do love animals. So maybe it will work. Maybe he will find somebody.
“Maybe that farmer was just too scared. He wanted to protect his family and farm. I mean, its not like I’m a fuzzy bunny. I’m a predator. I’m an animal. And once that sun goes down, things might be a lot worse. If my suspicions are right, I might be up for a long night.”
Scott really enjoyed the bluff with the open sky and the nice cloud forms of puffy shapes. He could eye out little bits and pieces of shapes. One looked like a frying pan. Another like a face looking down. And other farther away looking like small vehicles and a puppy dog with two tails. And the smells of the grass and the weeds and the dirt. Earthy smells that would instantly draw his nose to the ground to investigate canine sense of smell. He knew that there were stories of poisonous mushrooms but the smell was so invigorating, he just had to take a taste. First licking with his long tongue, getting the texture to savor on his upper lip, he goes right in and bites and chews it down and swallows it quickly smelling for another little treat, grazing on the clover patches when he finds them, between the smells of the mushrooms as he realizes how quickly his organic form needs nourishment. He loved the texture of the clovers and the nice mushroom chewy substance in his mouth. He stops all together searching for the white farm house below the bluff. Scott can hear a slow trinkling sound of water from a running creek going to the bluffs edge. Scott trots to it. He indulges in the nice cool water, licking up a storm to quench his thirst enjoying the waters tastes and feels as much as the clover and mushrooms, but yet for entirely different reasons. With the texture of the food being so much different than the wetness of the water or the tearing of the flesh earlier, Scott quickly puts that to the back of his head and just shakes it off, at the same time in a way, getting the water off the bottom of his chin. Scott grunts with satisfaction of that and goes back to the mission at hand, finding the house. Casually just looks up from the water falling over the bluffs edge, he can see the white shape of the house below. He moves dangerously towards the edge of the bluff for a better look. Scott watches as a woman comes out of the house with a basket of clothes, hanging them on the clothesline towards the back of the door of the farmhouse. Four smaller figures of dogs clumsily follow her while chasing each other. Playing like puppies do. The bigger one of the bunch looks like a pitbull. Another looks like a poodle. The third looks like a small hairy rat without a nose. And the last is a Scottish terrier, gray with white spots. The smaller one runs frantically and barks at all the bigger dogs. The bigger dogs chase the smaller one in futile attempts to catch the small dog off guard and it always jets away just in the nick of time before the dog gets tackled down in the
ir thunder of play as they slowly progress towards the owner busily hanging the clothes on the line, the white flowered sheets and pillow cases flapping in the wind in unison with her long brown flowery dress altogether kicking in the air as the bursts of wind come bouncing off the bluff at the same time into the wolves face. The small cloud earlier moves a little faster as it blocks out the rays of the sun. it’s the one that looked like the small automobile, moved forward right towards him like the light just turned green on an invisible street . Scott grins his canine teeth at that thought. Looking back down, he sees now that the small dog has gotten one of her
socks out of the clothes basket along the bristly grass at the lady’s feet and now not only are the dogs chasing the small rat like canine with long hair, but the lady is as well and they all join in. The dogs thinking that it’s a new game go and try to rescue the sock from the small canines mouth. The lady being shoeless falls and all the dogs pile up on her. The small dog instantly drops the sock and runs to play with the others. She gets up, picks up the sock, finds one of the dogs toys a ball and throws it. As all five dogs go to chase that one ball, the lady goes back to the clothesline with the sock. The sock once pink and bright, now looked more dirty than when she washed it. She sticks it in the empty laundry basket. Scott liked the comedy routine. She might be more accepting to the notion of befriending me. But I might have a problem with all those other dogs. I just don’t know how they are gonna react. Scotts ears perk up and his head jerks back in a start as he hears movement in the brush behind him, completely leaving all attention away from the little farmhouse down below. Scott can’t smell what’s coming from that way being upwind, but sees a shadow behind a tree move a little. Scott instantly crouches down in gard ready to lunge on anything that comes out of that brush, his teeth smiling in a wicked, grin and a low growl emerges out of him from nowhere. Scott almost feels possessed at times when this happens, but figures its just some kind of deep rooted survivor instinct, like when he ate in the cave and didn’t know it. Or went into a dream like state while running away from the pack. He appreciated it, sure, but it scared the hell out of him at times too. Almost as if the inner werewolf was still there with its thirst for blood and a need to kill. He leaps towards the darkness and lands his front paws precisely at the spot he saw the movement. Nothings there. Scott turns to the left and right and then turns again, surveying, looking, smelling with his nose. The wind is blowing in the wrong direction, but Scott tries anyway. Now straight ahead he sees a face appear out from a knot in the tree and then submerges back into the tree. Scott wonders what the heck is that. Crouched down again, he leaps again toward the tree. He smells harder. With a more strange aroma than the woods, but Scott can’t just place it. As he looks into the rotted gore of the trees knot with sprouts of life popping out, Scott sees nothing. Now a white transparent head slowly appears from behind Scotts tail and rises. Now a shoulder rises. Scott senses it and turns to see a lady standing before him scrowling. She has a determined look on her face of unease or pleasure toward the wolf as she slowly creeps up from the surface of the woods through the scattered leaves and brush, without making a sound. Scott looks puzzled as his body turns to face the creature. In a stern voice the lady says, “What is your purpose moon beast?”
Scott answers, “Moon beast?”
The lady just scrowls harder. Scott, feeling uneasy, would rather be anywhere other than that spot at that moment in time. The hunter takes over and Scott bows down again to leap and flies toward the lady again. Mouth, now open, ready to submerge those teeth into the being in front of him like a flying torpedo with jaws preparing to blow up its target. The entity vanishes completely as Scott rolls through, somersaulting to the ground with a sudden stop from a flaky barked elm that knocks the loosely formed bark impressions that fell brutally to the ground and shatter and split. Little brown termites come out of the holes and scurry to run under the bark back into a safe cover away from any impending danger. Scott shakes the wood chips off, rolling the muscles of his body all the way down his tail in a quick flurry and looks around to see where the woman went. There’s no sign of her anywhere as he turns and whispers in a very unsure, “Hello?” Now Scott hears again, “What’s your purpose here?”
Identifying the sound from coming above the tree, Scott looks up. Above into the tree he sees the woman, sitting on a branch, looking down, calmer, repeating, “Why are you here?”
Scott replies, “Why am I here? To live.”
“Go back to where you came from you monstrosity. You don’t belong here. Go now and take your friends, those other evil wolves and get out of here.”
Scott shakes his canine head left and right. His ears slope down just a touch.
“I can’t.” he says as he lowers his head.
“Why all of a sudden did you decide to stay?”
Scott appears confused by the question. “How do you mean?”
“We seen you guys come down in a ghost form, sort of like us, but you always returned. Now, all of a sudden, you stay. Why? And not only did you stay, you became of human plain. Not only can they see now, you walk in there realm. How do you walk in their realm?”
“You see us when we are in hologram form on earth?”
“Oh yea. Everywhere we see that. And we see other things too. But the old ones say, every three hundred years, you cause havoc on the earth. And when you guys die, you become our problem where you carry on in our realm and cause horrendous acts upon us. So a long time ago, when humanity began, there were the Firsts. And the Firsts created this coalition to protect the earth from the invaders in our realm of existence. And theirs too, “ as she points to the house down below the bluff. “Theirs is connected too for we were once human and that’s why we are the guardians of the earth and humanity. I am one of many and many are me.”
At that time the lady jumps down from the tree and lands in front of Scott and looks straight down at him and says, “Look, if you kill one human being, just one, in this plain of existence, you will suffer. For with any action, there is a reaction and we will react. Know this if you stay on earth.”
Scott looks at her and says, “Yes, I understand.”
The lady perks up and smiles a broad smile, reaches into her front jean jacket pocket, pulls out a cigarette, sticks it in her mouth, reaches back into the pocket, pulls out a lighter, lights a cigarette and leans back against the tree taking a big pull of the cigarette, inhaling deep and blowing out smoke rings in front of her mouth as she exhales with a stern blow shaped pattern, thrusting out with every ring to then slowly dissolve and break the rings of the circles that shoot out her mouth. “Now that we have that understood, I would be very intrigued to know why you are suddenly appearing and staying on this planet. You said that it happens every three hundred years?”
“Well, my theory is, every three hundred years, a new life cycle begins. To have a new life cycle, the old one must die. That is our laws. That is how it happens.”
“ So what you are trying to say is that some of these life cycles are basically trying to cheat death?”
“Well, that is kind of my theory. But to understand the technology takes years and years.” Scott answered. “Our brain functions are very short and limited at the beginning. Just like here you have to be taught, but you teach yourself. You’re totally independent until you slowly learn the ways of communication on our species being so different and not needing to know. After we learn how to manipulate the life force within us to control our surroundings and one another, we fall out of interest and learn of humanity and its struggles, which we have none. So humans drama inflicts us like a virus. Your emotions and how you are proud of your achievements and struggles, we get fascinated with this and we study harder and we mock it and we become it. Then we learn to, as a group, manipulate the light at full force to become it. And beam down and experience it until eventually its engrained into us.”
The spirit draws a little closer to the wolf.
“Yea, well if you love
us so much then why do you destroy everything that you hold precious?”
“I don’t know of any other ones except for our base. We might see them shoot down, but we cant really tell what it is. And the only time we see that is when we are actually shooting ourselves. I tried to find and investigate the first couple times I jetted down, but I never had luck at finding anyone. And you can’t really waste your precious time looking for somebody if you’re down here on a mission for your base. How many bases there are, I’m not sure. Ours is L6, so there’s at least more than five. They’re all separated. Who knows?”
“My best friend on L6 is Rob and he manipulated some cells and done some DNA work and created some wolves just last week. He was more of the technical guy. I just sat around and watched a lot of reruns on my monitors that we hacked into your satellites and wave lengths since we started created them actually. You’re world is so young. We been there a long time. I don’t know. We went down in bomb shelters a long time ago and never could come back out. The whole planet destroyed within itself and swallowed us whole. For some odd reason, I don’t know. Its been lost for a long time. All we can ever do is just root around what fragments they left behind. You think they would make better journals. I mean the language is so sophisticated, but I don’t know. All we know is that they had a few things left behind and maybe whatever swallowed us in to begin with, after we entered the bomb shelters, we got sunk in deeper swallowed, knowing that the only way to escape was through the weaves of light that it collects to feed to us and takes the organisms that kill us to nourish it in a way. But Rob changed things. He figures things out.”
Moonweavers Page 4