by TJ Klune
It was Halloween, and the sidewalks should have been filled with people getting ready for the trick-or-treaters. Instead, Green Creek looked abandoned. A ghost town.
There was a shriek of static as we drove down Main Street. I glanced over as Rico picked up his phone off the dashboard, frowning down at it.
“And another thing, I… that you’d…. Rachel told me that you talked… and—”
“Bambi, you’re breaking up,” Rico said. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“What? I’m… if you’re… I’ll kill you… don’t think I… there’s….”
The phone beeped as the call dropped.
“Huh.” Rico picked up the phone from the dash and frowned down at it. “No bars.” He looked over at me. “Think it’s the storm?”
I shrugged. “Could be. We don’t have the best cell reception up here to begin with. Surprised you lasted this long. Though I don’t know that’s necessarily a bad thing.” I glanced down at my own phone. No service.
“Boss,” the CB crackled.
I picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Tanner.”
“You leave the garage door unlocked when we picked up the tow truck?”
“Yeah. Have Chris get out and open it up. We’ll—”
There wasn’t time to react. One moment Chris and Tanner and the tow truck were crossing the T intersection, pulling even with the diner off to their right. The next an old crew-cab truck with a black snowplow blade attached to the front slammed into the driver’s door of the tow truck. Rico shouted next to me, screaming Tanner and Chris and no no no as the tow truck began to tip onto its passenger-side wheels. The sedan being towed fishtailed to the left, then snapped right as the truck flipped onto its side, skidding in the snow. Metal shrieked as the boom pulled the car over along with the truck. It smashed into the diner front, glass breaking as the truck went into the diner.
I swerved hard left even as a bright burst of something exploded in my head, the old truck groaning as it began to slide on the slick surface. The steering wheel jerked in my hands as I struggled to hold on to it, gritting my teeth against the onslaught rolling over my body, my tattoos feeling like they were on fire. I thought we were going to tip over too, but somehow we stayed upright, coming to a stop yards away from the intersection.
Red blazed in my chest. The tangled roots were writhing.
“What the fuck!” Rico was screaming, voice breaking. “Gordo, what the fuck!”
The crew cab began to back away slowly. I groaned, bringing my hands up to my head, trying to focus, trying to clear my vision and—
“What do we do?” Rico asked frantically. “What do we do?”
“Something’s wrong,” I ground out as I looked back up. “Something’s—”
The passenger door on the crew cab opened.
A man rose from inside, standing against the door. He was wearing Kevlar, a balaclava covering his head and face. Goggles over his eyes. All I could make out was the tip of his nose, the white flash of teeth.
In his hands he held a semiautomatic rifle.
He pointed it directly at us, elbows resting on top of the door.
I grabbed Rico by the neck and shoved him down as gunfire erupted. The windshield shattered. Rico cried out, but I didn’t think he was hit. I couldn’t smell blood.
The raven spread its wings even as something tried to cage it.
I slammed my hand to the floor of the truck. The frame rattled as the pack bonds flared brightly, blue, ice blue, and red, red, red. I was buried in my fury, I was reveling in it, and deep in my head and heart, the roots of the threads that bound us together roiled like a den of snakes, thrumming and writhing.
But it felt different.
I couldn’t pick out the wolves.
I couldn’t hear them.
I was pissed.
The road cracked beneath the truck as I pushed.
I gritted my teeth as the pavement slid apart, shaking the truck around us as Main Street split right down the middle. The gunfire cut off, and I heard the man yelling back back back, and all I could think about was Chris and Tanner, Chris and Tanner, knowing they had to be hurt, knowing they had to be scared, and I wouldn’t stand for it. I wouldn’t stand for any of it.
“Stay here,” I growled at Rico.
“What? Gordo, no. We have to—”
I ignored him. I reached up and snapped off the rearview mirror. Cold air and snow blew in through the shattered windshield. Glass littered the dashboard.
I threw open the driver’s door. It creaked on its hinges.
I stepped out of the truck, leaning my back against the door. The storm swirled around me. No one approached from behind us. I held up the rearview mirror above me at an angle, twisting it until I could see in front of the truck.
I could make out the tow truck on its side in the diner. The back tire was still spinning. The boom had snapped off, and the car they’d been towing had slid away from the diner. The driver’s door was still closed, which meant that Chris and Tanner were probably still inside. I tried to feel them, tried to reach along the threads, but it was as if they were muted, and I couldn’t find them, couldn’t hold on to them.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I turned the mirror.
The crew cab had fallen into the crack in the middle of the street and lay, nose first, at a sharp angle. The rear of the vehicle pointed up toward the gray sky. I couldn’t see the man with the rifle.
I looked back in the truck. Rico was staring at me with wide eyes. He had a gash on his cheek, and blood was trickling down his jaw. “To me. You stay right by my—”
A bright lance of pain roared through my head. It was as if long, spindly fingers had reached inside my skull and were gripping my brain, squeezing tightly, digging in. I gritted my teeth as a wave of nausea rolled through me, vertigo causing my stomach to swoop. The wards. Someone was fucking raping my goddamn wards.
I heard Rico saying my name, telling me to get up, I had to get up, please, Gordo, please, and somewhere in the furthest reaches of my mind, I heard gordo gordo gordo, and I knew that voice. I knew the wolf behind it. He was furious, and he was coming for me. I tried to tell him no, no, no, to stay away, to stay back, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t find the thread that connected us, lost in a haze of the storm that raged in and out of my head.
Then, from behind us, a voice in the snow.
At first I couldn’t make it out. What it was saying. It sounded bigger than a normal human voice should have. Amplified, somehow. I was on my knees in the snow, bare hands cold and wet on the ground in front of me. I tried to lift my head, but it was so heavy.
“What is that?” Rico asked, voice cracking. “Gordo, what is that?”
I breathed and breathed and—
“—and this town has been marked by God as an unholy place, in need of a cleansing. Your sins are many, but you are human. You are fallible. It is to be expected. The blessed waters have receded from the earth beneath your feet. And do you know any better? Do you understand the depths of what hides in the forest? It is unfortunate, truly. You walk the streets of this town, cowering behind the abominations that have infiltrated your very lives. Their shadows stretch long, blocking out the light of the Lord. You tell yourselves that your eyes are playing tricks on you, that you don’t believe in the twisted depravity. But you know. Each and every one of you knows.”
I lifted my head.
There, walking down the middle of the road toward Green Creek, was a figure. At first it was nothing but a black smudge against the white of the storm, fat flakes swirling around it. But with every step the figure took, it came more into focus.
It was a woman.
She was speaking, her voice booming and echoing around us.
Behind her was a line of vehicles like the one that had crashed into the tow truck, the tires crunching in the snow, snowplow blades on the front. Some had light bars across the top, rows of LED bulbs shining bright.
And ther
e, on either side of her, was something I did not expect.
Two shifted wolves.
The one on the right was red and white, its coat thick and long. Its teeth were bared in a silent snarl, a thick line of drool hanging from its mouth.
The one on the left was gray and white and black, like a timber wolf. But it was bigger than any wolf I’d seen before, its back almost to the woman’s shoulders, its massive paws looking bigger than the spread of my hands.
Both of them had chains wrapped around their necks, silver links that looked as if they had been embedded into their skin.
The woman was holding the ends of the chains.
Like they were leashes.
The eyes of the unknown wolves flared.
Violet.
Omegas.
The woman spoke again. Her voice carried through the storm, blaring from the vehicle directly behind her. “The cities of the plain knew sin. They knew vice. They were Admah. Zeboiim. Bela. Sodom. Gomorrah. All in the land of Canaan. And God sent three angels to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. The Lord revealed unto Abraham the egregious sin that was Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham, the prophet, begged the angels to spare those in the cities of the plain if fifty righteous people could be found. And the Lord agreed. But Abraham knew what the people were. He knew what they were made of. And he returned to the Lord again and again, asking that the number be lowered. From fifty to forty-five. Forty-five to forty. To thirty. To twenty. To ten. To find ten people. Out of thousands, who could be righteous. And God agreed. He said yes. Find just ten righteous people and the cities would be spared.”
The wolves at her sides growled. Their nostrils flared.
Rico’s breathing was quick and high.
The woman wasn’t dressed like the man that had fired upon us from the crew cab. She didn’t have a Kevlar vest or a balaclava. She wore a heavy coat, the collar pulled up around her neck and face. Her skin was pale, her lips thin. She had a scar on her face, starting on her forehead, crawling down over her eye and onto her cheek. She was lucky she hadn’t been blinded. Something with large claws and teeth had tried to kill her. And she had survived. I wondered if she now wore that wolf’s skin over her shoulders, the head of which rested on top of hers, the length falling behind her like a cape.
She hadn’t had that scar the last time I’d seen her, sitting across from me in the diner when I was a kid, asking if we could pray.
Meredith King.
Elijah.
She was older now. She had to be in her early fifties. But she moved easily, artfully, like a much younger woman. She held the heavy chains in her gloved hands, and the wolves kept pace with her, matching their steps with hers.
She said, “Two angels were then sent to Sodom to investigate. There they came upon Abraham’s nephew, Lot. And while they broke bread with Lot, the sinners of Sodom stood outside Lot’s door. ‘Where are the men that came in to thee this night?’ they asked. ‘Bring them out unto us so that we may know them.’ And Lot refused, because he knew what these men meant. He knew what they were asking for. In their black hearts, they thought to defile the angels of the Lord. Lot, in order to appease the lust of the growing crowd, instead offered his two virgin daughters. The offer was refused. The crowd moved toward the house, intent upon breaking down the door. The angels, having seen there was no good left in Sodom, struck the crowd with blindness and told Lot of their decision to destroy the city. For there were not fifty righteous men. There were not twenty righteous men. There were not even ten righteous men in the city of Sodom. They harbored the monsters of man, the sins of the world. The angels told Lot to gather his family and leave. ‘Look not behind thee.’”
The fingers wrapped around my brain gripped tighter, and I cried out in pain, my head feeling like it was breaking apart.
“And they fled,” Elijah said. “They fled, even as fire and brimstone began to rain down from the sky. For God is a loving god, but He is also a vengeful god. He will smite from the world the wickedness that festers like disease. The cities of the plain were destroyed. And even though she was told not to look back, Lot’s wife did just that, and she paid the price for being a nonbeliever, becoming a pillar of salt. And when the fire ended, all that remained was a smoking wasteland, a dead and ruined land kept as a reminder of the power of sin. Of abomination.
“Green Creek is the New Sodom. You have monsters in your woods. There was a cleansing here once. At least, an attempt at one. God brought down his righteous fury through me, but I wasn’t strong enough. The wound was cauterized, but still it seeped. And soon it began to fester.” She stopped walking. The trucks behind her eased to a halt. The wolves brushed against her, shifting side to side, eyes filled with murderous violence. “I doubt there is even one righteous man in this place. One person capable of standing with God as I have.” Her voice echoed through the snow. “Green Creek is a gateway to Hell. Where beasts have crawled up from the burning fire and shoved their teeth into the earth. I failed once. And I paid the price for it.” She reached up with one gloved hand, the chain rattling. She touched the scar on her face, the eye underneath it foggy white and unseeing. “I will not fail again. All outside communication has been cut off. Your phones. Your internet. All the signals have been jammed. The town of Green Creek is under quarantine by order of God and the clan of the Kings. I am but a messenger, here to make sure the word of the Lord is carried out.” She smiled a terrible smile. “This place will know the light of God, or it will be nothing but a wasteland.”
She dropped the chains.
“Oh shit,” Rico breathed.
Elijah said, “Sic ’em, boys.”
The Omegas roared forward.
I rose quickly, slamming the door to the truck. “Don’t fucking move,” I snarled at Rico, ignoring the pull I felt in my head, the spindly fingers having become hooks as the wards shifted, becoming something twisted and rotten. My legs felt weak, and I stumbled with the first running step I took, somehow managing to keep myself upright. I heard the snarl of wolves behind me, the sounds of their paws in the snow, the heaving breaths in their chests.
The raven was struggling to flap its wings, exerting more force than should have been necessary. The roses felt like they were rotting, shriveling until I thought they were dying. The thorns were blackened and cracking.
I ran for the upturned crew cab still stuck in the remains of Main Street. I could see the men inside, slumped forward and unmoving. I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the red wolf leap over my truck, its chain trailing behind it until it landed right behind me. It hit the ground hard, its paws sliding out from underneath it. It slammed into the earth with a low whine, snow piling up around it as it landed on its side, heavy chain dragging behind it.
The bigger timber wolf didn’t follow. It came around the driver’s side of the truck, claws digging in as it course-corrected toward me. The red wolf was struggling to rise to its feet as the timber wolf ran past it. I’d been around wolves for most of my life, and I recognized when the wolf began to lower itself toward the ground, muscles coiling in its legs. I was almost to the crew cab when the wolf leapt toward me.
I kicked my legs out in front of me, falling to my side, sliding through the snow and under the angled truck. Ice and gravel tore at my skin. I flipped over in time to see the timber wolf smash into the side of the crew cab, the metal groaning, truck shifting after me, scraping along the broken pavement. The wolf was dazed, mouth open as it lay on its side, tongue lolling out into the snow, breathing heavily, eyes unfocused.
I stood—
here and here and here and here is another ward twist it twist it twist
—and screamed as a voice filled my head, the spindly fingers digging even deeper. The wards around Green Creek were shredding as if being pulled apart by some force greater than I’d ever felt before. It was—
strong they’re stronger than we thought than we expected twist them break them
—too much for me to take, it fucking filled me u
p, and I was sure I was burning from the inside out, and even though I hadn’t heard his voice in decades, even though I had been a child the last time I’d laid eyes upon him, I knew that voice. I knew it down to my very bones.
The red wolf was on its feet and—
I was surrounded.
On either side of me stood Alpha wolves, shifted and snarling.
Behind me, pressing his snout against my back, was a brown Beta. I could feel the low thrum of the song he was singing, but it was buried under the roar of the broken wards and the voice of my father.
Another, but he remained hidden, moving behind the buildings to the right.
And others. Our pack. All of them.
“Chris, Tanner,” I said through gritted teeth. “In the tow truck. Rico in my truck. They need help.”
Joe rumbled lowly and disappeared into the divide that split Main Street.
Mark huffed a hot breath against the back of my neck.
The red wolf shrank back against the growl of a pissed-off Alpha, a low whine in the back of its throat. Its ears were flattened, its shoulders low to the ground. Its tail was curled up behind its hind legs as it backed away slowly. For a moment its eyes flickered, the violet fading to brown before going back again.
The timber wolf had lifted itself to its feet. Its violet eyes narrowed at me, teeth gnashing as it took a step, chain dragging alongside it. Behind it, I could see Rico in the truck, peeking his head over the door.
The timber wolf coiled and—
Carter launched himself out from an alleyway. He collided with the side of the timber wolf, knocking it off his feet. Fangs and claws dug into flesh, the burst of blood shocking against the white snow. The timber wolf snarled in anger as it landed on the ground, turning its head to try and close its jaws around whatever part of Carter it could get. It was bigger than Carter, but Carter was faster. He twisted, avoiding the fangs snapping in his direction. Carter’s back left paw hit the chain, and he yelped in pain, a thin wisp of smoke curling up.