by Mark Fuson
“Terri, listen carefully,” Darwin stated as calmly as he could. “Stay in groups of six or more. Nobody, I mean nobody, is to set out anywhere alone…do you understand?”
“It’s these woods, ain’t it?” Terri asked.
“How’d you know?” Darwin quickly asked.
Terri said, “we’ve all felt it, like something is stalking us. We all feel like it wants to pounce on us.”
“It does,” Darwin confirmed. “Something took Tim. It took control of him, and he floated away. Yes I said floated!” Darwin barked making his message as clear as he could.
“You alone?” Terri asked, not questioning the unbelievable story.
Darwin had to admit the truth he was alone and very scared. He softly pressed the button on his radio and meekly said, “Yes.”
“You head back to base camp just as fast as you can, we’ll get a group to bring you out to these bodies and…” The radio again began to experience severe interference and as abruptly as it had started, his communication with the outside world ended.
As the forest stilled once more Darwin had the distinct feeling of someone, or something, standing directly behind him. Whoever they were, they were staring through his soul and dancing on his grave. His skin became clammy and his arms began to judder rhythmically. As he did when he was a child, Darwin closed his eyes and told himself that nothing was there, and that nothing could hurt him.
There is something there you fucking pansy! Face it or run!
Frozen in place, Darwin knew he had to move if he had any chance of making it out of the forest before the forest decided to consume him, too. How could he run? He could barely reopen his eyes after he had voluntarily closed them. The shaking in his arms had now spread throughout his lower extremities. Was it fear crippling him or was it something else?
What stood behind him was draining him. In his weakness its strength grew. Darwin understood it, but he was losing his will to fight. His only chance was to face the entity, to turn and look at it and see it for what it was.
Blending what remained of his adrenaline and guts Darwin snapped his neck to face his rear. In one quick motion he had succeeded but his eyes remained glued. Could he force himself to man up and face the fear that was there? He had told himself ever since he had become a werewolf he would no longer be afraid, that he would face his problems head on. But here he was, cowering in his own filth.
What had been allayed became broken with a deep harmonious tune that Darwin recognized even at a distance. The monks were on their way back; they were close.
Panicked, Darwin broke the seal on his eyes and looked deep into the woods in the direction of the tone which was now rumbling through the treetops blurring everything it touched. His senses heightened, knowing danger was approaching but he also experienced a moment of relief when he realized what had been staring at him was not directly behind him, at least not in physical form. In any case, he accepted the momentary reprieve on his nerves. All he had to do now was force himself to rise and begin running.
From thin air a recognizable face skidded up next to Darwin as though he had always been there. “Darwin! You have to change! Change damn it! They’ll get you if you don’t. I love you!” Steve quickly grabbed Darwin’s face and kissed him on the lips before evaporating into mist.
“Steve! Steve!” Darwin cried seeing the last of his friend dissipate. The lips felt real and even the smell was undeniable. The message felt safe.
Looking back to the approaching tone Darwin saw Tim floating several hundred feet away combing the woods. His body was still rigid and the color had leaked from his skin leaving nothing but a ghostly gray shell. Darwin tried watching him but as Tim disappeared behind bushes he would quickly reappear closer, still raking the woods like a lawn mower.
“Tim!” Darwin shouted towards the demonic sight.
With his jaw still forced open and the undying timbre continuing to flood the forest, Tim’s head rotated ninety degrees to look at Darwin. The white orbs of his eyes began to swirl like a black and white tunnel in a hypnotist’s trick.
Change!
Time was up and he knew Steve had told him the truth. Looking at the ground Darwin tried to summon his monster. He began thinking about growing stronger and hairy and then he switched to an image of the moon. The normal feeling of the wolf emerging wasn’t there and Darwin began to huff in panic.
“God damn it, change!” he yelled at himself.
Still he could feel nothing even though his blood temperature was rising. The wolf was still asleep. Again looking at the ground Darwin noticed a skid mark on the ground. Steve hadn’t been an imagination, he had been there, and real enough to scrape the ground and up turn a rock. Instinctively, he grabbed the stone and placed his left hand on top of a much larger boulder protruding from the ground.
He took one last look towards Tim who was still watching Darwin and sweeping in closer. Fearing what he had to do, he braced for the pain that was about to envelop his body. In one fast and hard swing the rock smashed into the fingers, momentarily breaking some of them.
Surges of cold heat radiated outwards from the index, middle and ring fingers flooding his body. Dropping the rock he cradled his hand knowing the pain was only beginning to rev up. His three central fingers were all slightly upturned, bleeding and reddening from the damaged tissue. Looking at his hand made the immediate sensation in the aftermath go away, but it was quickly filling in with the more familiar rage that followed when one stubbed their toe on a coffee table.
Darwin remained silent with his mouth open but audibly mute, stroking his damaged appendage with his right which only further aggravated the nerves. He closed his eyes attempting to give in to the growing rage but it was like tugging on a stuck door. The lights dimmed and Darwin found himself looking down a narrow tunnel to the real world. The pain was ruling him now and the wolf had been thoroughly kicked in the balls and was slowly waking from its slumber.
Outwardly, Darwin opened his human eyes with two streams of tears rolling down his cheeks. Like a freight train running down a mountain with no brakes, sparks flying from the wheels seconds before it flew from the track. Darwin’s transformation now seemed unstoppable.
The tone and Tim were now closing in on the hunched over intruder, the forest quickly smearing on all sides, but Darwin didn’t notice.
The real world again came into focus and Darwin realized that his wolf was again going to sleep. He was close, he knew he would change; he should change, if it was any other time. In one final desperate act Darwin grabbed the stone and clobbered his injured hand repeatedly, further snapping the bones and dislocating the joints. His adrenaline was pumping as fast as he could produce it and the pain now rushed over his levees in volumes he had never experienced.
Swing after swing, Darwin bashed his fingers into a bloody pulp sending signals of fury to his brain.
“Change, damn it!” he yelled as his voice was swallowed by the tone, but his wish was granted.
The seams around his shoulders were the first to begin the retreat against his expanding frame, followed by the ones containing his thighs but Darwin kept swinging. The sound of his cartilage snapping and clothes tearing were obstructed by the vibrating sound from behind.
It was strange for Darwin, changing and being unaware of it. What existed in the woods made all the normal sensations disappear. Darwin took no notice to his growing strength, or his lengthening claws. His body felt almost numb as he continued to hit his transforming hand with the rock. It was his pants, shredding away from his waist that finally made him clue in that he was halfway though his metamorphosis.
As the Monet colors nipped at his bursting shoes, Darwin leapt up and dashed into the woods in the direction that appeared to be the way out. The forest had shifted into his animal spectrum but even as the wolf he could see the fogging that surrounded him had left only one route, and it looked to be the way he had entered.
At full speed he ran, still transforming and dropping
pieces of clothing as he went. The humanistic run style quickly morphed into the more efficient four legged dash and soon Darwin was pulling away from the tone of monks, leaving Tim behind. The branches and leaves whipped by, occasionally jabbing the wolf in the eye. Aside from some minor numbing the pokes went relatively unnoticed.
Darwin the werewolf was still frightened. Nestled deep inside the warm animal his conscience still feared what he had seen and what was coming. For once, his power was inadequate. It made him feel human and that made him feel vulnerable.
After a mile of boring a path, Darwin began to recognize features in the woods. Nothing specific, a rock or a clearing, but he no longer felt as though he was in unfamiliar territory. Instinctively, the wolf slowed his pace from scared to an uneasy stroll. The breathing began to lessen and calm began to settle over the creature.
The birds chirped high in the trees and everything seemed as it should as midday approached. Control over his power returned to him as well. Inside his mind, Darwin knew where he was and what he was. He also remembered what he had to do. He considered willing himself back to human form, but only for a moment. His lycan shell was fragile but he felt safer in it.
Trudging along in the thick underbrush, the quick progress the beast had made was swiftly eroded. It was proverbial, even if at times the land seemed fictitious. Darwin wanted to run and so did his wolf, but the energy to urgently push on was gone. All the monster could do was look at the ground and push onwards, slowly swaying his head from side to side.
The ground began to feel like wet clay even though it appeared relatively dry. As his claws touched the ground it took a tremendous amount of force to lift them again. In another time or place he might have thought it was an adrenaline crash, but he was lucid enough to know he was still heightened from his transformation.
The monks and Tim were gone, and the forest seemed normal but Darwin realized his vigor was diminishing like a battery left in the freezer. All he wanted to do was to lie down and sleep but he knew if he did that, he would never wake up.
Intuition was all that guided him. The evil existing in the woods was clever. The more he considered it, the more he realized he had not escaped the phenomena; it was all around him and suckling off of his spirit.
To acknowledge it or to continue to burn strength moving away in any direction he believed might be a the only way out. He didn’t want to give into irrational fear; but what about rational fear?
It took Tim instantly! If it wants me it will take me. Stop! Face it!
It may have been the only conclusion that Darwin could reach. Physically his paws were nearing immobility and his muscles ached as though he had been climbing a jagged mountain peak for days. Finally he stopped and began to revert.
The thick matting of fur began to thin, sliding back under his skin at the same time his frame began to deflate. The razor claws relaxed, popping and reshaping into his normal undamaged hands. His hind legs shrank and bubbled in small muscle spasm eruptions, normalizing with each pulse. The wolf man sneered as his teeth eased their way back into his gum line, returning his appearance to almost human with the exception of his beard which was also disappearing.
Exhausted, Darwin collapsed to the ground barely able to get his breath. Physically he felt horrible as though he was getting the flu. But this was not the flu; it was something else, like food poisoning. Whatever you wanted to call it, the reality was that Darwin had lost. Tim and the chanting monks would soon come for him and it would be over.
With his strength depleted and his will extinguished, he lay on the ground battling to keep his eyes open. If he was going to die, he would at least look it in the eye, if and when it came.
His heart beat inside his head, distinctly and slowly. For a moment it was all he could hear, the world outside was nothing more than a picture. He had to force his lycan ears to tune out his sounds to hone in out any unusual noise coming from the woods. Moment by moment he eliminated the sounds he did not need. First his own breath followed by the pounding of his hammered heart. His ear twitched and scanned the atmosphere like radar looking for intruders and for awhile he found nothing.
Thunk!
Lying in spot, Darwin’s ear had picked up something. It was distant, even for his nearly perfect hearing. It was quick, but distinctive. The sound of a branch hitting a tree stump, or even a rock bouncing off a tree trunk, but it was so fast he couldn’t be sure. What Darwin knew as a fact was that the sound was not natural. A hundred explanations could have been given to what he heard, but his mind had settled.
It was still there.
Live rigor had rooted itself in Darwin. His eyes were frozen open and his head would not turn. If he needed to speak, he couldn’t. His eyes allowed him to view one direction which began to blur as his eyes dried. The only part of his body that continued to work was his one ear facing the sky. His brain continued to sweep the heavens looking for what he feared.
Crack!
That was a branch.
There was no questioning the sound. It was wood and it had snapped. Not like walking on a twig and causing a bit of a crunch. This was a big stick, maybe even an entire branch, but it was dry. Darwin also deciphered that it was closer, within a few hundred yards.
Again, he tuned his ears onto the silence waiting for the next sign. He struggled to move for a moment only to find he was still locked firmly in place, and that any attempt at movement felt like the phantom bolts of pain in his bones. Darwin quickly retreated back to his surrendered position of listening.
His ear picked up a sound; it was light, but near. What was approaching was from the side and away from his field of vision. The enemy was cold and calculated; never did Darwin hear a foot step or even breathing, just the occasional object being disturbed.
It could have been the wind? The idea rushed through his paralyzed mind as any explanation would give his mind some solace. A light breeze shifting the previous year’s dead foliage, a squirrel scratching at a hole looking for some buried nuts, anything could cause the small disturbance to his hidden feet.
Listening closely he searched for his proof, anything that could settle the waiting game. What was coming for him, and why was it taking its time? The power had already proven what it could do; now it was taking its time not because it was slow or weak—but because it could.
For a moment Darwin realized he had been straining to hear any sound that he had completely neglected the sense of touch. His body was still unmovable, but his senses still worked and what had been approaching was now touching him above his bare calf and was headed for a face to face greeting.
His stalker was quiet, but continued moving up his leg and across his ass cheek. What was invading him was not large and it was not the weight that made its presence known. Darwin could feel it; soft, cool, and moving methodically.
Darwin strained to look through his peripheral vision to get a glimpse but he still was unable to see much more than the lower portion of his pubic line. Anything beyond that point was blurred and out of focus.
The sly finger intruding his lower extremities was greeted by a second and a third voyeur. Darwin felt like an insect that had been caught inside a spider’s web and was slowly being tied up in preparation for a later snack.
What was around his legs? Whatever was there could have been anything from a rope to a vine. The possibility of it being a possessed tree branch even crossed his mind; in these woods anything could be the truth.
Darwin began to imagine the smeared colors of Monet twisting their way around his legs pulling him into the ground, consuming him. It was his mind’s way of entertaining the worst, even if time would soon provide him the answer.
A forth intruder now began to slip around his throat; again just out of sight, but the feeling remained consistent. Numbed but still coherent, Darwin waited for the noose to tighten around his neck. It would only be a matter of seconds before it happened and when it did, how could he possibly struggle?
Every limb in h
is body felt asleep. The brain sent commands to the arms and legs which were willfully ignored yet the nerves still sent word back of the invasion. The order was repeated and then it went out continuously like a frantic rapping on a door.
The lights began to fail; at least that’s what it felt like. His body had shut down and now his mind was going dark. The synapses flickered dimly as his batteries drained; the darkness enveloped him.
When Darwin arrived in Limbo the sensation was unnerving. To be aware of nothingness, and yet be unable to think was more terrifying than being unable to move. It had a color but his mind couldn’t discern it. Maybe it was black, or possibly gray. It could have been labeled clearly and he still wouldn’t know what color it was.
He could feel the sensation of having a body, but whether his body was there, was unknown.
Names and words drifted around in mid air, blurring as they approached what should have been his eyes. In this place was nothing, there would never be anything in this place. Conscience without thought offered only awareness but little else.
He had no eyes to close and no mouth to breath. Darwin became aware only for a moment that something was missing, though he was in a retarded state and couldn’t piece together what that was.
The feeling of no oxygen only translated into further discomfort and panic. Again Darwin could not recognize what was wrong, only that the sensation was growing but there was nothing he could do to stop it. With only a vegetative mind and no reasoning skills he suffered in suffocation. Since there was no need for air in death, the feeling simply grew without any resolution.
Thrashing like a child in a deep pool, Darwin felt death settle over him. He was neither okay nor upset at his situation. His mind wouldn’t let him comprehend what was happening. All he was allowed to know was in death, he would suffer cumulatively.
As the soured ground poured over his soul, Darwin was given one final reprieve of air that burst down upon him. The tunnel of wind momentarily relieved him, only giving his mind more reasoning. A moment later, another gust blew through the area of Limbo above his head, providing even more clarity.