“That’s real funny,” Amy said.
“Jay’s goofing,” Griffin said. His eyes crinkled in a boyish way. Free of malice and not without a certain charm. “But basically that’s what we’re doing. There’s something in these woods. And we’re trying to find it.”
And like that, it clicked. She realized why Griffin looked so familiar. He was the one on that internet TV show she had seen, the paranormal something-or-other. The other two made up a skeleton film crew. Jay with his camera and the spooky woman identified as Tasha held what Amy now recognized as a boom mic. Fools chasing monsters in the woods. Wolf fodder. Amy wagged her chin at the camera. “Any luck?”
“Nothing so far. We found a deer kill back up the hill but it was inconclusive.”
“Deer kill?”
“A carcass,” Jay added. “Ripped to shit. But anything could have taken it down.”
“Where?” Amy asked.
Griffin cocked a thumb towards the way they had come. “Back that way, maybe a hundred yards or so.”
The woman in black waved the mosquitoes from her face. Her eyes bored into Amy’s. “She’s hunting it too.”
Both men gaped in surprise, then Griffin turned to Amy. “Is that what the gun is for?”
“Just being safe. Lots of nasty things out here.” Amy let go a flimsy shrug. She wished the woman named Tasha would stop staring, her eyes were oddly unnerving.
Tasha slipped a pack of Marlboro reds from a pocket, shook one out and lit it. Never once letting her gaze drift from Amy. “There’s more to it than that,” she said to Griffin.
“Like what?”
Smoke blowing from her lips, Tasha shrugged. “I can’t tell.”
Smoking disgusted Amy. “I doubt you’ll get close to anything puffing smoke like that.”
Tasha’s eyes narrowed, studying Amy. “You lost someone recently.”
“Excuse me?”
“Family, I think.” Tasha took another haul and then wagged a finger at her. “Your dad.”
Amy felt the hair on the back of her neck raise up. Who was this chick with the spooky look? And how did she know?
Cognizant of Amy’s discomfort, Griffin moved closer with another disarming smile. “Don’t get freaked out. She does that all the time.” He turned on the spooky woman. “Tash, you gotta warn people first. Not everyone’s cool with it.”
“Old habit,” Tasha said. Her demeanor softened. “Sorry for your loss.”
If she seemed spooky before, the woman seemed downright creepy now. Seeing the confusion on Amy’s face, Griffin added “Tasha’s a sensitive. She picks up on stuff like that.”
“More than a sensitive,” Jay added. “Class A psychic. Like, superhero level.”
Tasha stiffened awkwardly at the attention swung her way. She flicked the ash from her cigarette, as if embarrassed at what her colleague had said. She seemed restless and impatient, as if late for something. “Can we get out of here?”
Griffin perked up. “Is it the thing? Is it close?”
Tasha shook her head. “No. Its the others. Too many of them. Too noisy here.”
Amy wasn’t sure what to make of the woman. Aside from the trill of a few birds, there wasn’t any noise anywhere. The air was still and serene. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.
The woman nodded in the direction Amy had come, towards the ghost town. “Dead folks. From that burned out town back there. There’s a lot of them.” Her discomfort washed over her face as she looked at her companions. “They’re all yelling at me now. It’s too much.”
The two men moved closer to Tasha, as if closing ranks. Griffin waved at Amy as they trudged back towards the trees. “See ya.”
“Hold on.” Amy stomped after them, still in disbelief but wanting to know more. “Are you kidding me? Do you really see dead people?”
“Yep.” There was no boasting in the woman’s tone. If anything, it cut more towards resigned regret than anything.
“For real?” Amy moved closer, curiosity outweighing her skepticism. “Do they just pop up and say hi?”
Tasha didn’t respond, shifting impatiently on her feet. Griffin took the boom microphone from her and glanced up at Amy. “It’s not that simple. Sometimes she sees them, sometimes she just feels them come close.”
“Or they just reach out and touch her,” Jay added. He put a hand on Tasha’s arm, as if to shield her from something as they walked away.
Tasha stopped. “They’re gone now.”
“They backed off?” Jay said, looking around for something he couldn’t see.
“Not exactly. They ran. Something spooked them.”
Amy’s skepticism roared back. The idea of ghosts being spooked seemed ridiculous. “What would scare a ghost?”
“I don’t know. But it’s coming this way.”
Griffin bristled. “What is it?”
“The thing.” Tasha dropped the cigarette and crushed it into the dirt. “Bigfoot.”
“Shit.” Jay swung the camera back onto his shoulder. “Which way?”
Amy strained her ears but there was no sound beyond the birds in the branches. Then a noise broke but not the kind she expected. The boom of a shotgun blast cracked through the pines around them.
~
Lara lost her bearings. Kneeling over a mossy slope of rock, she cleared her mind to focus. The rich smells of the forest were overwhelming and confusing. The tracks of so many different animals crisscrossed all over the loamy forest floor and overtop it all lingered the smoky stench of the burnt town behind her. It was as if the stink of ash had sunk into the skein of everything, poisoning the ecosystem itself and tainting the green shoots of spring with death and horror.
The stench of the monsters lingered too. Although months had passed since they had skulked these grounds, she could still pick out their musk among the sour tang of rotting leaves. And over it all was the bright nosing of another lobo, its scent powerful and pulsing. She followed its trail over the deadfall of timbered trees and mossy rock. Then it vanished as if the wolf had been swallowed by the earth. There was no trace of it anywhere.
Had the wolf shifted back into human on this spot, thus vaporizing its wolf musk? Even so, it would leave a mark. The change was never easy and it always brought out sweat and spit. Sometimes blood.
Narrowing her concentration down to her acute sense of smell, Lara almost missed the sound when it echoed around her. The unmistakable and unearthly growl of a werewolf, rumbling through the black spruce on her port side.
Clever trick.
The wolf hadn’t changed back, it simply knew how to mask its scent. That’s when she noticed the muddy ditch ahead. Brown leaves floating in standing water. It reeked of decay and rot and she could see now where the lobo had rolled through it like a swine in the mud.
Clever lobo.
The muddy coating would only mask its hide for so long but it might be long enough for the wolf to slip away. She held her breath to listen and when her ears picked up the sound, she bolted after it.
~
“The hell was that?” Jay let the camera dip off his shoulder as he scanned the treeline.
“Gunshots,” Griffin said.
The three of them turned to look at Amy as if she was responsible for the racket.
“I’m so not in the mood to get blown away by some redneck Charlie,” Jay huffed.
The gun sounded again and everyone dropped. Amy felt the terror flood back with a vengeance. Gunshots meant Lara had found it and taken a shot. Had she hit it? She looked at the three newcomers, darting their eyes all around them in fear. They were vulnerable out here in the trees but there was no shelter to gain. Getting strafed with twelve gauge buckshot was a very real possibility, to say nothing of the monster that Lara was firing at.
“You need to get out of these trees,” Amy hollered at Griffin. “This way, back to the clearing.”
Jay scowled at her, suspicion writ plain across his face. “What do you know about it?”
&nbs
p; “That’s a shotgun blast. Not exactly accurate. Do you want to get strafed?”
“She’s right. Move.” Griffin waved his crew back towards the clearing. “Tasha, is that thing still coming?”
“It’s close.” Tasha needed no convincing, already running for the break in the trees in boots not meant for hiking.
The Paranormal Trackers looked up warily when Amy brought the gun out again. She kept the barrel trained at the ground and barked at them to move faster. They were dawdling and Amy could already hear something pounding through the brush.
Then a large mass broke from the trees and the wolf charged in at a dead run.
17
THE FILM CREW BOLTED. One of them was screaming but Amy couldn’t tell which from the shrill terror in their voice. Every muscle in her body wanted to join them and run like hell, the instinct primal. But she hadn’t come all this way to turn tail and rabbit. She pushed the panic down and brought the barrel up.
She had seen these monsters before but still the sight of the thing was too much to comprehend. It was enormous, more like a Kodiak bear in size than that of a timberwolf. Its hackles raised the fur into razor points along the dorsal and the beast’s maw gaped open to reveal rows of destructive teeth. A nightmare in scope and power.
Amy leveled the barrel as it charged her and tapped off three quick rounds, each one on target. Blood spattered across the wolf’s snout and chest but it didn’t slow. The nine millimeter rounds no match for its tough hide and mindless rage. She kept firing, aiming for the snout. Something connected, a tooth exploded in its maw but the monster’s momentum carried it on and Amy felt her lights punched out as the thing trampled over her.
She could hear the others screaming but the pain in her gut was so deep she feared she would vomit. Her eyes wheeled up, trying to find the monster in the dizzy chaos.
The lobo thundered over the ground at the three people running for their lives. Griffin ducked behind a cedar and barked at his cameraman. “Jay, get the shot! Get the shot!”
Jay crashed through the weeds with his cheeks blowing red. Without breaking stride, he swung the camera backwards on his shoulder, punched the record button and just kept running.
Despite Griffin’s hollering and waving his arms over his head to distract the monster, it was Tasha who was in real trouble. Never much of an athlete at any age, the pack-a-day smoker had neither the lungs nor the legs to run much further. She could almost feel its breath hot on her neck and in that moment she knew she was going to die.
The boom of the shotgun rattled the valley and sent birds flushing from trees. The impact punched the wolf’s flank and toppled it over, sending it crashing through the brambles. Tasha went down too at the report of the gun, convinced it was the sound of her own skull popping in the teeth of that awful thing.
The lobo rolled to its heavy paws and pounded for the darkness of the brush. By the time Amy got to her feet the beast was gone, leaving a trail of dark blood in the dry leaves. Lara was at her side in a heartbeat, smoke whispering from the shotgun barrel.
“Are you hurt?” Lara said, looking the girl over for any sign of injury.
“I’m okay.” Amy said, unsure if that was really the case. Her clothes were muddied from the impact of the wolf but nothing looked torn or clawed or bit. She could smell the heavy musk of the creature on her, smeared into her clothes from the collision. The stench curdled her stomach. “Where did it go?”
“It bolted. Can you run? I need to follow it.” Lara looked off in the direction the thing had fled. Every second wasted put more distance between them and the lobo.
Griffin stumbled out from behind the tree, his eyes bugged wide in fear and disbelief. “Did you see that thing? Holy shit!”
Lara stiffened at the sight of the young man. She spoke low to Amy. “Who is this?”
“You’re not gonna believe it,” Amy said. “Remember the UFO chasers? This is them.”
“You got to be kidding me,” Lara spat.
Griffin hollered for his crew. Jay rose up from where he’d dropped to his knees. His face was red and his chest heaved. Unable to speak, he waved his hand to indicate he was okay. “Tasha!” Griffin yelled over the clearing.
The girl lay still on the ground, face down in the loam.
They all ran to her. Jay got there first and rolled the woman over. Tasha looked up at the faces hovering over her. She coughed. “I really need to get in shape.”
The men took the woman by the hands and hauled her up. Griffin snatched Jay’s arm. “Tell me you got the shot.”
“I have no fucking idea, man. I was too busy trying not to die.”
“Check the camera.”
“I think it’s broken,” Jay said, turning the camera over in his hands.
“We don’t have time for this.” Lara’s contempt for the trio was plain to see. She pulled Amy aside. “How many shots did you sink into it?”
“All of them. Six or seven rounds. Didn’t slow it down.”
“But it’s wounded. Maybe we can catch it. Can you keep up?”
Amy’s face set into a grim mask. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They ran off, loping through the weeds into the treeline, following the trail of blood on the ground.
Jay straightened up, watching the two women vanish into the dark of the forest. “Where the hell are they going?”
Griffin spat onto the ground and wiped his chin. “They’ve gone after it. Come on, we gotta follow them.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” Jay shook his head. “We almost got eaten by that thing.”
Griffin ignored him and turned to Tasha. “Can you run?”
She already had a cigarette in her teeth but her hands were to shaky to light it. “Go. I’ll be right here when you get back. Don’t get eaten.”
The two men ran off, following the two women. The lighter flicked and flicked in Tasha’s hand until the flame stayed and set the tobacco glowing. She exhaled smoke in a long sigh and then said, to absolutely no one, “I gotta get a real job.”
~
Despite Amy’s promise, she could not keep with Lara. Lungs blowing hard and barreling through the brush, the woman kept pulling ahead and leaving Amy in the dust. It was crazy. She was eighteen, in shape and a damn good forward in basketball and she couldn’t keep up with a woman twice her age. Of course, she was no ordinary woman and when Lara stopped to let Amy catch up, there was a fierce look in her eyes that troubled Amy. She knew that Lara could draw on the wolf when she needed to but that ran a risk for Lara. The slippery slope of a Faustian bargain. Draw too much and she risked letting slip the wolf too far off the leash and, like any wild animal, it would turn on her. It would demand its pound of flesh and take her over. Adios Lara Mendes.
“Hustle!” Lara hoarsed at Amy, waving her onward in frustration. “We’re losing it.”
“Don’t wait for me!” Amy shouted back, pushing herself harder. She watched in dismay as Lara bolted headlong under the forest canopy, bounding over fallen trees and rocks with an almost unearthly grace. Maybe, Amy mused as she stumbled to one knee and pushed herself back up, being half-wolf wasn’t so bad.
It didn’t take long before she had lost sight of the woman completely. Amy huffed along heedless, guessing at the direction Lara had fled. Sunlight broke through the trunks as the forest thinned and she staggered out of the trees into a clearing.
The ground sloped away into a cleared field of a farmland, the soil recently turned and tilled into neat rows. The vista below fell gently, past the field to what appeared to be a settlement in the distance. A hamlet of small houses, chimneys smoking.
Bounding the perimeter of the tilled field was an archaic fence of gray pickets and tilting posts. Quaint and old but odd in its construction, with every third post sporting a large iron cross fixed to the top. And beyond the fence stood Lara, feet planted between rows of the wet tilled earth. “Lara? Which way did it go?”
Lara didn’t respond. Amy leaned against the timbers of the fe
nce. “Lara? Are you okay?”
Lara glanced back quickly over her shoulder before turning her gaze back to the vista below. “I lost it,” she said.
“Can’t you pick up the trail?” Amy scissored her legs over the fence and dropped to the other side.
“It vanished. The wolf, the scent, the trail. It’s just gone.”
“I don’t understand.” Amy drew alongside the woman. “How could it just disappear?”
“I don’t know.” Lara brandished a hand at the pickets behind them. “Its scent was strong and easy to follow until then. Here, it just vanishes.”
“Maybe it deked you out.” Amy cocked a thumb back at the fence. “Maybe it wanted you to think it continued past the fence when it ran a different way.”
“No. I can still smell its scent on the other side. It leapt the fence but the scent’s gone. Like it was never here.” Lara snapped her head between the fence to the field before them, fuming through a clenched jaw.
Noise broke and they saw the Jay and Griffin clambering over the fence.
“I thought we lost these idiots,” Lara said.
“They’re persistent.”
Griffin scanned the landscape. “Where did it go?”
“It’s gone,” Amy replied. She startled when Lara snapped a harsh look at her, as if she’d said something wrong.
“That was some insane shit back there,” Jay sputtered. “Did you guys get a good look at that thing? What was it?”
Lara turned on him. “What do you want?”
“Same as you,” Griffin said, nodding at the path they had all taken. “The find of the century. Certifiable proof of the supernatural. An honest-to-God real life werewolf.”
Lara walked away. “Go home, boys. Before you get yourselves hurt.”
“Come on,” Griffin said. “You guys are after that thing too. The real question is why. What do you know about it?”
“I gotta go,” Amy said, following after Lara.
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 65