by Elena Lawson
A glimmer of silver caught my eye and I snaked my hand in to retrieve my cell phone. It was beyond dead. Or worse, maybe it was water damaged. I couldn’t afford another one. It would take all the savings I had left.
I jammed it deep into my front pocket, hopeful that I could find a way to fix it.
That’s when I heard it. Higher up the mountainside.
A sort of rumbling, rushing noise. Growing louder by the second. It wasn’t thunder. I could still hear the deep growl of the clouds as they moved further south. This was something else.
I limped to the edge of the tent and tried to see past it into the forest.
Were the trees further up moving? I shook my head, wondering if I’d hit it too hard in the fall. I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes of rainwater and tried to make sense of it. The trees were moving.
I gasped.
It’s a mudslide…
My heart leaped into my throat and I took off into the trees. It was coming down the slope of the mountain fast. But if I could just get to the outside edge of it before it hit, I could…
Dad.
I stopped, my hard breaths clouding in the night as I stared sadly back at the battered tent laying in the brush. I clamped my mouth shut with an audible click. Cursing myself, I ran back, my ankle protesting each step. It took me a second to get the photo unpinned from the tent, and by the time I did, the mudslide was nearly upon me.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
The ground under my feet shifted as I ran, trying to make me lose my footing. Trying to suck me down. I just had to get to the edge of it. I’d been caught in one of these before, but I’d been on my old Yamaha 250.
Go diagonal, I remembered that much. Run down and away. Don’t stop until it’s far behind you.
Except my ankle was about to give out, and any second now a heaving tree root was going to send me sprawling. I couldn’t move fast enough.
A streak of white to my left caught my eye and I saw an animal running in the same direction and pattern I was. As it neared, its front paws tearing up loose dirt, its snout twisted in an angry snarl, I saw what it was.
A wolf. Huge and powerful with muscles rippling beneath its fur. Its eyes seemed to glow in the dark. One of them somewhere between copper and gold. And the other the same but with a bright fleck of green. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Pity then, that the beast would probably eat me if we both made it out of the landslide in one piece.
I tried to put distance between me and the wolf, but as I side-stepped to the right, my foot caught on something sharp in the dirt and I went down hard, losing my breath.
The wolf charged the last few feet to me, its glowing gold and green eyes fixed to mine. I couldn’t breathe. The mudslide was sucking me down, pulling me away. And every time I tried to yank my legs free to stand up, they got sucked back down again.
I realized too late that the photo was no longer in my hand and scanned the shifting dirt for it. But the last picture I had of him was already being sucked down into the mud more than six feet away. His grinning face vanished beneath the cold earth.
A vise gripped my heart and hot tears carved twin trails down my cheeks.
My entire body was covered in cold grime and I coughed as some made its way into my mouth. When I looked up again, the wolf was there. Close enough that I could smell its loamy breath and feel its warmth. The thing was larger this close up. Double the size of a normal wolf. The fucker must have been on goddamned steroids.
Make it quick, I thought, my throat going dry as I closed my eyes.
A cold nose pressed insistently against my temple and I jerked back, my eyes snapping back open. The wolf made a pained sound in its throat and something in its eyes struck me.
A kindness.
Was it…was it trying to help me?
The ground beneath us shifted again, heaving up from beneath. It was enough to jostle my legs free as we continued to slide down the side of the mountain. The ground shook as a tree fell five feet to my left.
I had to move. I couldn’t stay here, or I’d be killed.
Tentatively, I reached out a hand, pushing it into the wolf’s thick fur. It lowered its head, still making small sounds in its throat and shuffling its feet to keep them atop the moving dirt.
When it made no move to attack me, I fisted my hand into its fur. Then reached my other hand up and did the same. As soon as my hand was secured, the wolf began to pull. It dragged me over the dirt, between moving trees. I resisted the urge to scream as all manor of rocks and dirt and sharp debris scraped my side. It stopped suddenly and put its body lower for me to readjust my position.
I moved one hand so I could grip its opposite side, and when the wolf lifted its body the second time, I was laying over its back. Its knobby spine jabbed into my breastbone, but it was a hell of a lot better than being drug over the forest floor.
The wolf had us out of the brunt of it faster than I could have dreamed, its sides heaving with the additional effort of hauling a second body. When the groaning sound of moving earth stopped and I thought it was clear, I let go and slid from the wolf’s back, feeling like the whole world was spinning. My shoulders and biceps ached from clinging to the animal that’d saved my life. I rolled over and retched into the bushes.
Please don’t eat me. Please don’t eat me. Please don’t eat me.
The words were like a mantra in my head, but when the spinning finally subsided and I chanced a glance at the enormous wolf, I found it watching me.
And not in an I’m going to eat you way. In a curious way, with its head tilted to one side. There was something unnerving in its stare, though. Something intelligent that made my skin crawl. Wolves were smart. Most animals were. But this was more than that.
I spat bile into the mud and wiped the corner of my mouth. “Um…” I started, afraid if I spoke too loudly it would break the spell and jerk the string that would ring the proverbial dinner bell. “Thank you.”
It continued to stare.
“You…you can go now.”
It didn’t budge.
Okay then.
I used a nearby tree to help me stand, gripping the rough bark hard enough to aggravate several cuts I didn’t know I had on my hands. I winced, hopping on one foot. It felt like my ankle had swelled to double its size.
When I finally dared to take my eyes off the wolf still watching me intently, I noticed three things.
I couldn’t feel my toes or my fingertips.
I had no fucking idea where I was.
The storm had finally ended.
Great.
The wolf turned and lumbered into the trees. I watched it go and something tugged at my chest. Without that wolf, I’d probably be dead right now. Buried beneath a good six feet of earth. No one would’ve ever found me.
My eyes burned, and I wasn’t sure if it was more from the dirt still inside them or the threat of tears. “Bye,” I whispered as it vanished into the dark, and scanned the trees around me to try to figure out where I was.
If I just kept moving down, I would make it to the main road. The mudslide had probably taken me most of the way already. It shouldn’t be far.
I started to move and cried out at the pain in my ankle. Pins and needles from the numbness radiated up my calves like little daggers.
The sound of the wolf’s panting alerted me that it’d returned and the hairs on my neck rose as I spun. It was holding a long stick in its jaws. Long fangs stark white against the damp wood. It dropped the stick at my feet, and I reached down for it, careful to keep my movements slow.
It was long and sturdy. Mostly straight except for a crook near the top. The perfect walking stick.
“Smart pooch,” I muttered under my breath, side-eyeing the huge wolf.
It moved several steps to the east and then waited. I narrowed my gaze. When I tried to move a couple steps south, the wolf let loose a low growl. I stopped. It moved another two steps to the east and then paused, w
aiting with its head tilted back to watch me.
“You want me to follow you?” I spoke through chattering teeth, my voice hoarse.
With ears pricked to listen for my advance, it began to move further into the woods with slow steps.
“Uh…I need to get to town…” I told it, not really knowing why the hell I was arguing with a wild animal. Truth be told, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do when I got to town, but at least there would be shelter in case the storm came back. Judging by the sky, it was only a couple more hours until sunrise. I could wait outside the school until the janitors went through.
Then what? The other part of my brain rationalized. You have no clothes. No money for food. Your schoolbooks, boots, and wallet are all back in the blind—probably buried somewhere in the mountainside.
And if someone sees you covered in mud and leaves from head to toe, they’re going to think they’ve just sighted bigfoot.
The seriousness of what happened finally hit me like a punch to the gut. A weight on my chest made it hard to breathe. What was I going to do?
The wolf barked, still waiting for me to follow it.
I pursed my lips, looking to the direction I thought was south, and back to the wolf.
What the hell…I thought. I didn’t know where the fuck I was anyway, and the wolf hadn’t eaten me yet. I had to hope it was leading me to shelter and not to a pack of other wolves it wanted to share its dinner with.
It barked again.
I used the walking stick to help me along, limping to follow the oversized fleabag with all the strength I had left. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “I’m coming. But if you eat me, I’m going to make sure the devil saves a special place for you in hell.”
3
We walked for what felt like at least an hour but was probably less. By the time I saw the mellow orange glow of artificial light through the trees and caught the scent of burning firewood on the breeze, I was half unconscious.
Between the cold, the adrenaline crash, and all the exertion, I was past the point of no return. I had just enough presence of mind to recognize shelter and sigh in relief before my body gave out under its own weight and the darkness at the edges of my vision started to spread. Come on, I shouted in my mind. You’re almost there.
Call out for help or something.
I parted my lips to call out, but my voice rasped out barely above a whisper. I tried to push my body up, but the numbness had spread to cover most of my hands and forearms. They were practically useless at this point.
Army crawl it is…
I pulled myself forward on my forearms, using all my shoulder strength to move the rest of my aching body. As I nudged a particularly spikey shrub from my path, I saw it.
Nestled in a grove in the trees, down a gently sloping hill. A wooden structure, like a modern hunting cabin, or maybe a private chalet, crouched among the foliage. It had two levels, each with their own wraparound deck. A big peaked roof with a chimney puffing out coils of dark smoke made me shiver, anticipating the warmth it would provide.
If only I could make it there…
I glanced around for the wolf, hoping it could help me get the rest of the way. Pull me like it had when I was stuck in the mudslide. But it was gone.
I sent a silent thank you to the white beast, bowing my head for a moment of rest. It had gotten me this far. I could make it the rest of the way. I just had to try to stand back up. I’d never get there dragging myself across the mud.
“I’ve got you,” the rich male voice made me gasp and recoil as a strong, warm hand curled under my left arm to help me up. “It’s okay, Allie. It’s me. It’s Jared.”
I all but squealed, wanting to wrench my arm away, but he was holding me tightly as he braced my body with his other hand around my middle and lifted me to standing. He pulled my left arm around his neck and then held my hand there to keep me in place, securely against his toned torso.
His naked torso.
A pair of beige khaki shorts hung low on his tan hips. He was barefoot and when I turned in horror to meet his gaze, I saw that his eyes, a beautiful caramel color with a bright fleck of green in the left one, seemed to be lit from within. Glowing.
He smelled of cedar and birch with an undercurrent of something not entirely unpleasant, but unusual. Something musky and animal that I couldn’t place. “Jared?” I croaked, blinking away the black spots from my eyes and craning my neck to see him better. Had I passed out? Was this a vivid dream?
“Come on, we need to get you inside before you get hypothermia,” Jared said, helping me to move slowly down the slope to the cabin.
Hypothermia? Hypothermia caused confusion. Could it cause hallucinations? I couldn’t remember. But maybe that’s why his eyes seemed to be glowing? Maybe that was why I was seeing him here in the first place. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all.
What the hell would Jared freaking Stone be doing out here in the woods half naked and alone in the hours before dawn? He was in his senior year at Forest Grove High. Everyone knew him. And it wasn’t hard to see why. You couldn’t exactly miss the guy. With those striking eyes and high cheekbones framing an unnaturally symmetrical face with a dimpled chin. The perfectly tousled dirty blonde hair. Jared Stone could have any girl at Forest Grove he wanted—but he’d never dated any of them.
He’d never even spoken to me before I didn’t think. Not that I cared. I’d only dated one guy in my high school career and that turned out to be a big fucking mistake. Maybe Jared was on to something by taking himself irrevocably off the market.
“What,” I started, swallowing to ease the scratchy feeling in my throat. This was suddenly mortifying. I was covered in mud and leaves and god knew what else. I probably smelled like a sewer.
Fuck. My. Life.
“What are you doing out here?”
He paused and cocked his head at me, his brows drawing together in confusion.
A feral growl had me turning back to the cabin ahead, clinging to Jared as a wolf approached. Not my white wolf. Not my savior.
This was another beast. Bigger. I almost thought it was a bear, but it wasn’t. Its face twisted in a feral snarl.
The dark gray wolf skidded to a stop a few feet away and I let out a small sound of fear. Its hackles raised and it snapped in my direction, its piercing blue eyes locked on me as though it wanted to tear my throat out.
Jared squeezed my hand, stopping me from screaming and drawing my attention back to him. My heart was thudding so loudly I’d have been surprised if he couldn’t hear it. The black spots were coming back, now. The adrenaline too much for my body to take. But Jared stood calmly at my side.
In fact, he was staring daggers at the wolf. Completely unperturbed.
“Fuck off, Clay. She needs help.”
The wolf snapped at Jared and I yelped.
His hand around my waist held me closer, as though trying to reassure me.
My mind raced to make sense of what was going on. Was this…was this Jared’s pet or something? Some rare breed of domesticated giant wolf I’d never heard of?
But that still didn’t explain what the hell he was doing out here. Did he…did he live out here? That couldn’t be right.
“I’m bringing her inside. Move.”
The wolf snarled at Jared.
Sweat broke out over my brow, moving lower to coat my chest in a slick layer of ice.
The intense stare down lasted several more heartbeats before the wolf snapped its gaze away from Jared and tore off into the trees.
Relief flooded my body like a sedative injected into my veins. And once I couldn’t hear the wolf’s footfalls any longer, I slumped against Jared and gave in to the dark. The haunting sound of a lone wolf’s howl carried me into oblivion.
I awoke to the crackle and hiss of fire and the low hum of distant raised voices. It was bright and I was warm beneath a heavy quilt atop a bed I didn’t recognize. In a room I didn’t recognize, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the sunlight
streaming in from the large rectangular window several feet from the bed.
Panic lodged in my throat, and I shoved the quilt off and swung my legs over the edge of the bed to rise, wincing as I set my feet down on warm wood. I swallowed hard and breathed through the anxiety rushing to my head like a loud swarm of bees.
My clothing was stiff with caked mud and grime. There were scrapes up my arms and over my hands. When I reached a hand up, I found my long hair to be crunchy with bits of leaves in it.
Shifting, I found my left pant leg was torn to the knee. A tensor bandage wrapped around the swollen joint of my ankle.
The storm.
Dad’s blind had been destroyed. And I…I’d followed a wolf here.
And then Jared…
I inhaled deeply through my nose and tried to calm down and remember how I got here.
I was in a cabin in the woods. A cabin that must belong to Jared. He had to have carried me up here when I passed out. Judging by what I could see outside, I was on the second floor. And this must be a guest room, because there was nothing identifying it as belonging to anyone.
No photos.
No band posters, or school binders or textbooks.
It had the plain wooden double bed I was sitting on. The quilt looked to be hand-stitched—I immediately prayed the smears of mud and specks of blood from my scrapes would come off. I didn’t want Jared’s parents to give him hell because I’d ruined it.
There was a low nightstand beside the low bed, and a fireplace across the room—a low burning fire, mostly embers now, in its hearth. A metal grate was set around it, and a threadbare rug adorned the floor in front of that.
There wasn’t anything else.
Except…was that?
My phone! It was cleaned off and plugged in beside the bed. It had been tucked away on the wide ledge of the wooden bedframe. I snatched it up and sent a silent plea to whatever gods would hear me that it would still work.
I held my breath as I pushed the side button and tipped my head back in a sigh of relief when it powered on.