Wolf Pack

by Bridget Essex

  Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm afraid of that big wolf, the way the ground seems to shake when its paws touch down as it paces, hackles up, circling the smaller wolf. But I'm not terrified enough to get myself away to safety. And, honestly, it's not as if either of the wolves are really paying attention to me; they're too absorbed in each other. The first one, the smaller one, did glance in my direction, but she hasn't looked my way since...

  Huh. I'm thinking of her as a she now.

  That's...weird.

  I watch the two wolves lunge at each other, and I try to make peace with how big the one wolf is. Maybe it's just a skewed perspective. The larger gray wolf can't possibly be that large. Maybe there was something in the wine, something that causes strong hallucinations. I know that I'm not dreaming, but I also know that a wolf is never as tall as a horse.

  As I aim my flashlight beam at the wolves circling each other, low growling filling the clearing, I gulp. My light isn't strong, but it's strong enough to see that the smaller wolf's back is slick with blood, and that her right leg is cut severely; I'm assuming the wound was inflicted by the other wolf's teeth.

  And there isn't a mark on the other wolf, not a piece of fur out of place.

  As it circles the smaller wolf, the smaller wolf who lifts up her paw, limping, trying to keep the bigger wolf in front of her at all times...it almost looks as if the bigger one is...smiling.

  I shiver, training the flashlight beam back on the smaller wolf.

  But that's when the bigger one turns, its nose in the air, its ears pricked forward.

  Oh, God...

  It's looking at me.

  It finally noticed me.

  Fear, cold and sharp, rises in me instantly as it turns toward me, its lip curling up higher over its extremely long, extremely white teeth. It lowers its head, and I know, unmistakably, that this is what it looks like when it's hunting something.

  The big wolf begins to pad slowly toward me.

  Oh, my God. I'm shaking so hard that I almost drop the flashlight, but I think back on everything my parents ever told me about bears. Bears are like wolves, right? If you make a lot of noise, bears don't want to mess with you and will leave you alone.

  If I turn and run, it's going to come after me, I just know it. I know how dogs operate; I know that dogs love to chase running things. Surely a wolf would, too. And if that massive creature comes barreling toward me, I don't stand a chance.

  So I grab hold of every last scrap of courage inside of myself, and I take a single step forward.

  “Hey... Hey, you!” I shout as loudly as I can, waving my arms and the flashlight beam back and forth, very quickly, in its eyes. The wolf is still in the clearing, but it's rapidly closing the distance between us since its legs are so long.

  “Hey, you, get out of here!” I shout, kicking leaves up with my legs, trying to be as loud and scary-to-a-wild-animal as possible. I jump up and down, waving my arms, feeling my heart in my throat as the wolf advances.

  Yeah, it's not even flinching at my antics.

  That's when I realize that I'm in really, really big trouble.

  The massive thing advances on me as I hold the flashlight in my shaking hand and try to keep the beam trained on its face. But I have to point the flashlight beam up, and when the wolf gets within ten feet of me, I'm having trouble breathing, because...it's true: the wolf really is that big. It's as tall as I am, even when it's just standing on all fours.

  Impossible. But whether it's impossible or not, it's real, and it's right in front of me.

  The wolf stomps its front right paw down, its lips over teeth as long as my fingers. It snarls at me, then, its lip wrinkling as the low growl causes my entire body to vibrate. And it does almost look like it's smiling as it lowers its head, as it lowers its whole body, its eyes unblinking and trained on me.

  It's getting ready to spring on me, I realize. To spring on me and sink its enormous teeth into my skin and eat me up.

  I brace myself. And I take a deep breath, tensing.

  But the wolf doesn't attack me. Because the smaller wolf chooses that moment to ram itself into the side of the big gray wolf. The big wolf hardly moves when the smaller animal collides with it, but it moves quickly, turning, snarling, picking up the smaller wolf in its teeth and shaking her like a rag doll.

  I gasp, my hand over my mouth as the smaller wolf goes sailing into a tree, thrown by the big wolf's jaws. And I couldn't tell you why I do it; my body moves of its own accord: I run straight toward the fallen wolf.

  I kneel down beside it, tears springing into my eyes as I see all of the lacerations and wounds crisscrossing the creature's body. It's obvious that the larger wolf has every advantage, and still this wolf bravely fought it. Why? None of this makes sense. Just like it makes no sense that I was compelled to see if the wolf was all right. I can't help it. I can't save it. And it's a wild animal—I shouldn't even be trying.

  But that's when the wolf looks up at me again, her golden eyes glowing. Those beautiful, golden eyes that are so incredibly familiar. I gulp down air; a tear courses over my cheek.

  It's crazy, ludicrous, what I'm about to do, but I do it, anyway.

  “Shannon?” I whisper into the dark.

  And slowly, painfully, the wolf blinks her golden eyes—and she nods her head.

  I breathe out, my heart rate skyrocketing as the wolf rolls over, as she gingerly climbs to her feet, limping as she holds up her front right paw. She gazes back at the big wolf, and she lifts her chin proudly.

  Is this even happening? I feel the muddy ground beneath my knees, feel the flashlight in my hands. It all feels very real, too real. I draw in a deep breath as the smaller wolf lunges, again, for the bigger one.

  Did she really nod?

  Is she really Shannon?

  I try to piece everything together in my head as I pale further. Earlier tonight, there was a wolf—this wolf—in the center of the bathroom floor, and when I looked again, a few seconds later, Shannon was there. At the time, it was convenient to think that I'd imagined the wolf (but, really, is this something people imagine? I mean, my imagination is pretty good, but not that good!). But now, thinking about it...

  My mouth goes dry.

  Do I really believe that the wolf in front of me is Shannon? And that she's, well, a werewolf? That's utterly insane.

  But I entertain the thought for a nanosecond. Because if that wolf is Shannon, does that mean that this other wolf...

  Is Barbara?

  I think back on all the times Barbara made me feel uneasy when I was growing up, all the things about her that never quite made sense. I was, instinctively, scared of her, even though I wasn't usually scared of adults, not even the adults I should have been scared of. There was just something ominous about her that I felt but never could place, and sometimes, when she looked at me...

  I try to breathe, find that I'm kind of failing.

  Barbara always looked like she wanted to eat me.

  The larger wolf chooses this exact moment to look back over its shoulder. It just bit the smaller wolf again, delivering a vicious wound to her back left leg. Blood leaks down onto the carpet of leaves at the wolves' feet. The bigger wolf staring back at me now licks its lips, and it turns, coming for me.

  Oh, my God. I scramble to my feet, keeping the flashlight beam trained on the wolf. I peer over its shoulder, and my heart sinks as I catch sight of the smaller wolf, trying to stand, swaying.

  Whatever is happening right now, whether it's two wolves fighting, or whether it's two werewolves fighting...the big one is winning.

  And the smaller one doesn't stand a chance.

  I feel, in my gut, that this isn't right. There's something in me that deems this as incredibly unfair.

  I'm not an extraordinarily brave person, but justice is pretty important to me. It also helps, adrenaline-wise, that I'm about to get eaten by this big wolf. I take two steps forward and swing my flashlight—the big, heavy-duty park ranger flashlight that Barbar
a had been carrying—at the wolf's head.

  The metal flashlight connects with bone, and there is a sickening thud. The wolf yelps, taking a step back, sneezing and shaking its head.

  And that's when the smaller wolf steps up.

  And she lunges at the big wolf.

  Again, they go rolling end over end, but this time, it's the smaller wolf who comes out on top, snarling as she clamps her jaws around the bigger wolf's throat, a lucky gamble, but she's clinging to its throat, biting down for all she's worth.

  For a long moment, nothing happens. The two wolves stand there, the smaller one gripping the bigger wolf's throat in her jaws. But then, with a shuddering groan, the bigger wolf rolls down, lying on its side on the ground, crumpling.

  And before my eyes, something very strange happens.

  The big gray wolf begins to shrink. That's the best way to describe what I'm seeing, what I'm impossibly seeing, but there it is: the wolf is growing smaller. But that's not all that's happening. The wolf's back legs grow longer, while its front legs grow shorter, and its nose begins to push back, into its head...

  At the same time that the fur begins to disappear...

  I stare as a woman's shape begins to materialize out of the mass of wolf. A woman's shape that becomes, in a few short heartbeats...Barbara.

  At the same time, the smaller wolf is changing, too, though her outline blurs much quicker. One moment, I think I'm staring at a wolf, and the next moment I'm not.

  Because there—on the forest floor—is Barbara, kneeling down, growling, completely naked. While Shannon stands beside her, swaying on her two feet, blood dripping down her arms...also completely naked.

  The two women stare at each other, ice in their eyes, their breath puffing out of their mouths like ghosts.

  “Is this...” I whisper, gasping. “Is this...really happening?”

  And though my words were very, very quiet, Shannon, ten feet from me, nods resolutely.

  “Yes. It's really happening, Abby,” she growls softly, glancing up at me quickly, then back down to Barbara, still glaring daggers up at her from her kneeling position. Barbara's hand is at her neck, massaging the back of it almost ruefully.

  When Shannon stares down at Barbara, there is anger in face, yes. But there's also pain. Blood is dripping from her wounds onto the leaves at her feet, blood pouring out of several wounds, more than I can see. My heart is in my throat.

  “You'll still have to leave,” says Barbara then, her voice twisted into a terrible, wolfish snarl as she sneers up at Shannon, spitting on the ground at her feet. “You know that no one saw us fight. This,” she says, waving her hand between them, “doesn't count. You will never catch me off my guard again,” she says, her mouth in a wide, leering smile, “and unless the pack saw the fight—it's over. You will never be alpha.”

  “What going on?” I ask weakly, and Shannon glances quickly at me again before staring back down at Barbara, her eyes distant.

  For a long moment, no one speaks. Barbara pants, Shannon breathes slowly, carefully, and I watch the two of them in disbelief.

  Finally, Shannon's lips part. “I've lived here all my life,” she says then, tiredly, in explanation. “Well...around here. In Olean, really. I was part of a pack that Barbara ran. But Barbara,” Shannon snarls then, “is not a, shall we say, good person. And she took the pack from my mother by force. My mother was a good alpha. But Barbara murdered her,” she whispers into the air.

  I stare at Barbara, my eyes wide. I remember all of the times I feared that woman. Though all of this is very hard to make sense of, I can make sense of this much: I was right. Barbara is not, as Shannon put it, a good person.

  “I wanted to get back what was my mother's,” says Shannon, lifting her face and glancing at me now. There are bright tears standing in her golden eyes, and it breaks my heart to see them. “And to become an alpha, you must challenge the current alpha. And I did,” she whispers. “And I lost, due to a technicality,” Shannon spits out bitterly.

  “Of course you lost,” growls Barbara then. “You're as weak as your mother.” She rises smoothly to her feet, with a wide smile.

  But Shannon turns. And the look that comes over her face, her golden eyes flashing with such a hateful, intense fire, renders her terrifying. Shannon's entire body tenses, and she takes one long, slow, calculating step closer to Barbara.

  “Be ready,” she whispers, the words carrying into the night.

  Those are, apparently, the words spoken when a werewolf fight is on, because Barbara snarls, and as I watch, her human face suddenly loses its humanity, watch her teeth grow long, pointy, terrifying. And I'm shocked in that moment how quickly Shannon transforms. She is Shannon, the human I know—the human I made love to not an hour ago—one moment, and within the very next heartbeat, she is something else entirely. She is a wolf, and she throws back her head.

  And she howls.

  It is mournful, like every recording of a wolf I've ever heard, but there is something else to it, in the darkness. Something sad and long and low and beautiful. The music of it makes my heart rise and ache, all at once.

  But then Shannon isn't howling anymore. Instead, she's lowering her head, and she gazes at Barbara, and she lunges for the much bigger wolf-woman. Barbara is only half-transformed, is right now a weird-looking half-human, half-wolf hybrid, with pointy teeth and extra-long ears and patchy fur all over her naked body. The two creatures meet, and they tumble across the forest floor together, snarling and snapping and growling, their claws or half-claws trying to gain purchase on each other's bodies, their teeth scrabbling to make contact and create pain.

  As I stare at them, as I train my flashlight beam on them, trying to make out who might be winning this time, I feel a strange presence at my back.

  I turn, every hair on the back of my neck standing up, and I see them, so many of them:

  Wolves.

  They flow around me as if I'm a stone in the middle of a river. They move fluidly, in sync, like the pack they are. I count about fifteen wolves before I stop counting, before I take a step back, gulping as they move past me, not even glancing in my direction.

  They're staring at the two women, the two wolves, locked in combat, their noses pointed to the pair like a north star. The wolves' pelts range in color from red to somber gray to black, and though they are all very different, these wolves have one thing in common.

  They pause in their relentless motion. They stand still, the wind moving across their fur, and as they stand together, they throw back their heads.

  They lift their faces to the moon, a slim sickle of light overhead.

  And they howl.

  The two wolves fighting in the forest clearing—each of them fully formed now—pause in the midst of their battle. They back off from one another, huffing, shaking their ruffs, and they glance back at the other wolves.

  And, folding forward, growing fluidly, the fur disappearing into her smooth, tan skin, Shannon transforms to her human self.

  I wrap my arms tightly around myself, my hair still standing on end.

  What's happening? I want to ask her, as she stares at the other wolves, eyes wide. But I don't say a word. I remain crouched, silent.

  Shannon only nods once, and then she turns to me.

  “They're speaking,” Shannon whispers, and she watches me with tears in her eyes. “They said that they saw me defeat her. They said that it's over. That I'm alpha now.” Shannon is shaking her head, stepping forward. “They say,” she murmurs, gazing at me with her warm golden eyes, “that because you were here and you saw it...it counts. They felt it and heard it, but you were here.”

  Barbara is also in her human form now, and she's snarling at me. “Of course she doesn't count!” she bellows at the other wolves. “She is not part of the pack! She's not even were! This is insane!”

  I turn to glance back at all of the wolves, but they're not looking at me; their noses are up, quivering as they sniff in the dark. And they are all looking
at Shannon. So I turn back, and I look at her, too. I look at her shining, golden eyes as she comes close to me, gathering me in her arms and drawing me to her.

  “You've been coming here since you were very small,” she whispers then, into my ear, her breath warm against my skin, her bare body radiating heat against me. I sigh, lowering my head to her shoulder, all of the adrenaline pooling out of me. “I saw you,” she murmurs to me, nuzzling my hair with her nose, kissing my neck. “I saw you back then, when I was a kid, too. You belong here. You've always belonged here. You count.”

  Barbara snarls, but all of the wolves remain silent and still, sentinels staring at her. I can't tell what they're saying, but this much is clear: it's over. Barbara stands for a long moment, staring at the two of us with such anger and hatred on her face that the poison of it is palpable in the air. But then she's limping past us as the other wolves circle, moving with her, escorting her away, the lot of them disappearing into the woods like so much smoke.

  And that leaves just the two of us standing here—one woman fully clothed, and, you know, human. The other completely naked.

  And, you know, a werewolf.

  “This is...this is all so crazy,” I whisper to Shannon as she takes my face in her hands, gazing down at me.

  “I know,” she says, brow wrinkling, her mouth turning up ruefully at the corners. “I'm sorry for that. Most weres never even tell their partners what they are... You know, the whole worldview imploding thing.” She chuckles again, and again, the sound of her laughter, so rich and warm, makes a shiver of happiness run through me.

  Yeah, it's impossible that this is happening. But it is happening.

  I'm just going to go with it.

  “You know,” I tell her, my heart beginning to beat even faster, “I...um. Well, my family owns this cabin,” I tell her with a small smile, gesturing back through the trees in the direction that I think the cabin might be.

  Shannon raises a single brow.

  “This is the oddest one-night stand ever,” I tell her, and I'm smiling a little more now. “But I...really like you. Um. Everything is weird, and it's going to take some getting used to,” I say, “but...can I possibly...see you again?”