For some reason, the wolf released its grip, took a step back, and snarled, seemingly unsure of its next move. Something from back in Erin’s childhood flashed into her mind—a memory of sitting on the couch with her dad, watching one of his much-loved nature programmes—and it came to her that this wolf was displaying a lack of killing experience, maybe because it was young. The fucker was probably a renegade, out on its own.
Then it made a clumsy lunge, but she rolled to her left, onto her bump, and crawling forward as fast as she could towards the passenger door. But she wasn’t fast enough and the wolf bit down again, this time on her ankle, its jaws locking tight. To her horror, it pulled at her, again and again, dragging her away from the car with powerful bursts of strength.
As it pulled and jerked, she got turned onto her back, then onto her front, then onto her back again. Her vision blurred as it shifted from white snow to pine trees to blue sky, like she was stuck in some sort of tumble dryer. The beast’s strength was overwhelming, and, as it was, she felt powerless to combat it.
But something sparked inside—something silent and strong—and in an act of desperate defiance, she lashed out with her free foot and kicked the beast hard in the face, stunning it enough to release its hold on her. But for only a second. It snarled and snotted at her before lunging in again with its jaws wide open.
She thought it would go for her leg again, but this time it aimed for a fatal blow at her neck, and she just managed to avoid its teeth with an instinctive jerk, its hot breath and saliva hitting her skin as she moved, rolling onto her baby bump. Then she spotted the apron laid out where she first fell in front of the car. Her survival instincts kicked in again and she grabbed it and turned to face the oncoming wolf.
The beast, its eyes full of mad aggression, stamped and growled as it angled itself towards her neck again, it’s deathly intention unmistakeable.
Erin put all her energy behind her next action and flung the apron out, somehow managing to wrap it around the wolf’s head, evoking crazed kicks and bucks, snarls and roars in its attempts to pull free. It was all she needed—valuable seconds to allow her scramble to her feet.
The wolf fought to remove the smock, its growls turning into frustrated yelps. This hadn’t been part of its plan. Erin limped around to the side of the car and pulled the door open, and in that moment when she paused for breath, the wolf got loose.
It looked around, spotted her, and wasted no time in charging towards its prey, but she scrambled into the car and pulled the door shut, locking herself into what she hoped was a safe space.
The wolf growled and snarled at her through the passenger window, slamming against the glass in an attempt to get at her, even ramming its head against it to break it, but without success.
Erin, overwhelmed with terror, screamed with every move the beast made. The golden eyes glared in at her with a determined focus, its breath fogging up the glass. She shook and cried, in an equal mixture of horror and relief. The fucker hadn’t got her. She’d survived, with her baby. The beast had failed. That knowledge brought more tears, because she knew it wasn’t over—not by a longshot.
She leaned over and pressed down hard on the car horn to scare the animal off, but with every beep, the wolf just howled—the sound only fuelling its anger.
It started walking around the front of the car, from left to right and back again, always staring in at her, its focus never wavering—and that low growl, a constant sound from behind its bloodied jaws. Erin held onto the steering wheel and watched it, horrified, but also fascinated. The beast was making a point—it was the hunter and she was the prey, and all that kept them apart was a thin sheet of glass. The more she looked at it, the more convinced she was that this wolf wouldn’t stop until it got what it wanted. Her.
NINE
With darkness pushing in from the back of her mind, she just about managed to compose herself. Shaking, terrified, and alone, she pulled the one bit of brightness out of the horror: the beast outside could do nothing to her now, and this allowed her time to gather her thoughts. Why was it on its own? Solo. Most unusual for an animal that normally hunted in packs. She didn’t know a whole lot but that much was for sure. And she could thank her father for that as well. As she watched it, pacing to and fro, she noted that it looked underweight, but then again, she’d never seen a wolf in the flesh before, apart from the ones in Dublin Zoo, so her basis for comparison was grounded purely on guesswork.
Getting over onto the backseat was a struggle, but she needed to stretch out her leg and assess the damage. Again, she let the back of her seat down, then up again once she was over. Her heart was still pounding from all the adrenaline, and she noticed that Phil’s chef jacket was soaked through, most likely from all the snow, but also from the cold sweat that covered her. She trembled as she removed the blood-drenched trousers, slowly revealing her wounded leg—the skin, pale like snow where it wasn’t smeared in blood. Horrific. She couldn’t help gasping at the sight, hot tears running down her cheeks. What a mess. And surreal to look at—she’d never seen anything like it, and found it difficult to believe she was looking at her own leg. It reminded her of a scene from one of her dad’s World War Two movies where the allies got blasted out of it on a French beach. Daddy loved to watch them at Christmas time, which is why the images stuck so firmly in her memory.
Her crotch was soaking wet. Piss? Sweat? Not blood, anyway, which was such a relief. She stripped down to her underwear and hung the garments on the back of the front seats to air out. Shivers and shakes ran ragged through her and she did her best to combat the convulsions by wrapping her arms around herself and squeezing.
Her left leg had been mangled pretty badly, with blood oozing from the deeper wounds. Sizable gashes and lacerations ran from the ankle to her knee, but the shock was still keeping the worst of the pain at bay, for now. She reached for the chef trousers and tore small stripes up the frittered leg. At least the wolf had made it easier to rip. She wrapped the makeshift bandages around the wounds, and while her hands shook with every movement and her grip was weak, she managed to finish, and it seemed to do the trick, though blood still seeped through in places.
The pain was beginning to register now. The wolf growled again at the window behind her head—the smell of blood sending it into rapture.
She turned to look out at the beast but was halted by a sharp stabbing pain that shot up her back.
“What the fuck? No! No, no, no.” Blood and mucus were leaking through her underwear and onto the car seat. That was the smell the wolf had caught, and now it slammed against the door, its howling beyond frenzy.
The animal’s instincts knew before she did.
“Fuck, no, this can’t be happening. Seriously? Not now. Please, not now!” she screamed in a blind panic, and with that the cramps intensified, the pain crippling her lower back.
The pathway that led to isolation, now revealed a portal where a void might soon be filled with light.
TEN
Two hours into the labour and Erin was almost wishing for death to take the pain away, or at the very least, an epidural to free her from the agony and allow her to control her breathing, which had become a mix of choking gawps and deep lifesaving breaths.
Her injured leg had grown numb—almost void of feeling compared to the intense cramping that twisted and stirred within her belly. She tried her hardest to remain focused and count the contractions, but the whole ordeal was so overwhelming, and at times she found herself screaming for a midwife, Phil, or anyone at all to come help her. Each time she screamed, the wolf howled behind her, bringing her back to the realisation that she was alone and had pretty much been induced by the beast.
The pain and trauma fought to override her rational thinking, but she pushed against it with all her might. This was happening and she had to deal with it, here and now, because if she were to take the luxury of focusing on the black dots dancing in
front of her eyes and ended up passing out, then she could wake up to find her baby had been lost. She knew this. It wasn’t about her anymore—simple as that. Her mothering instinct had kicked in, and the situation and the leg injury no longer mattered. The wolf outside didn’t matter. Phil’s absence didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. All that counted now was getting this situation under control and birthing this baby as safely as she could.
She began by controlling her breathing, or at least trying her best to. Deep cold breaths in through her nose, hold, then out through her mouth. She cast back to the antenatal classes she and Phil took, remembering the doula’s advice on how she should enjoy the birthing experience. Jesus Christ, never in a million years did she think she’d be having a baby in the back of Phil’s banger of a car. Phil, where was he now? It was hard to forget his lack of interest and mockery of the whole process, showing up late to appointments and complaining that he had to put his hand in his pocket to attend classes led by a woman he described as a fucking hippy.
His attitude infuriated her, especially now, but she refused to get hung up on him. He hadn’t bothered then so it didn’t matter if he was here now or not, despite his overwhelming desire to have a son.
She sat up as best she could on the backseat and prepared herself. The wolf howled and she slapped the window and roared out at him. She grabbed the chef jacket and flattened it out across the seat, then tossed what remained of the trousers onto the front passenger seat and cleared space to make room for her to lie in the most comfortable way possible.
Sweat covered her, stinging her eyes and rolling down the sides of her face as the pressure increased and her baby came closer and closer to entering the world. She reached down and felt around the entrance to her vagina, admitting to herself that it would have to be guesswork to determine when to start pushing, focusing on the pressure because she had no way of knowing how far her cervix was dilated.
The pain shooting up her back made it difficult to move, the strain spreading across her shoulders. With every scream she released, she sensed her body preparing for the ordeal. It was then she realised that after the baby was out, there would still be work to do. She remembered the doula talk about the afterbirth and the cutting of the chord. That was the only part of the course Phil expressed interest in and it was supposed to be his job on the day. Today. But without him around, she would have to do it herself.
Then the realisation hit her that she’d left Phil’s knives in the boot. She screamed out in frustration. Why in the hell hadn’t she taken them in with the boots and uniform? No way in the world could she get out again, not with that monster waiting on her. Young or not, he’d have her before she got the boot open.
“Fuck.” She kicked the door. “Come on!” She grabbed the back of the seat and kicked the door again. “Why didn’t you think, you stupid woman?”
She was about to kick out again when she felt something hard just behind the top of the seat. What the…? Then it came to her, and she actually let out a joyous whoop that had the wolf howling again.
“Are you fucking serious, Erin?”
She sat up, fully focused, the panic of the situation banished to the background as she kicked into auto pilot, allowed her mind to detach from her horrific reality.
Not sure how the seat released, she sat up a bit more and took a look, the wolf jumping up at the window when it seen her. It could jump all it liked at this stage—she had her mission, and nothing was going to get in her way. Once she shifted back, the seat dropped down easy enough, the stink coming through from Phil’s rotten leftovers. All she could do was breath through her mouth—otherwise she’d be puking up again.
She wasn’t able to bend enough to look inside, so she reached in instead and felt around until she caught hold of the shoulder strap of Phil’s gym bag. With a deep breath, she pulled it through. Okay, let’s do this. She rummaged around inside but couldn’t find the knives. What the hell had she done with them? She found deodorant, aftershave, shower gel, clean socks, boxer shorts—the usual stuff Phil brought to work with him. But no fucking knives.
Then she saw it…
It was like all her Christmas’s had come early. She lifted the medium-sized bottle of whiskey from the inside pocket. A shoulder her father would say. Unopened and still in a brown-paper bag, it was an unusual item to have with his work things, but Phil was drinking a lot more lately so she supposed it made some sort of sense.
Without hesitation, she uncapped the bottle, the plastic twisting free with a satisfying click. Jameson. Two large mouthfuls burned into her chest, warmed her tummy, and sent an almost euphoric glow through her. When she inhaled the smoky smell of hops, a delicious shiver raced from the tips of her toes all the way up to her head. This was brilliant, and just what she needed.
She took one more gulp, let it settle, capped the bottle, then reached back into the stinking boot. The knives had to be in there somewhere. It didn’t take long to find them, and she pulled them out onto her lap for inspection. She had what she needed now, so wasted no time in lifting the back of the seat back into place. So good not to have that stench in her face.
Over the next minute or so, she gathered her thoughts and placed everything she was going to need around her. The edge of the blades gleamed brightly after a wipe from an alcohol-soaked sock – Sterilisation and being drunk – the first item in every medic’s pack when at war, her father used to say. Next, she stretched her legs out, then went back inside her mind and focused on the task at hand.
She would let it happen at its own pace, but as she waited, time seemed to pass so slow every minute felt like an eternity.
As the pressure mounted, she felt sure it was time to start pushing. She positioned herself along the back seat, placed one ankle up on the back of the driver’s seat, bracing it as best she could under the headrest—the pain from her wounds barely registering among the pain between her legs. Then she wrapped the seatbelt around her other ankle, hoisted it up, and secured it around the rear headrest.
With her legs elevated and secured into place, she took another mouthful of whiskey. She checked her position one last time and placed the small, blue-handled fillet knife up on the canvas boot cover behind the rear headrests.
It was time. Fuck, it was time. With all her might, she pushed. Her screams reverberated off the windows, sending the wolf into another howling frenzy. With every push, her body drained of energy, but she willed herself on and it wasn’t too long before she felt the baby crowning.
Even so, an age passed and the baby didn’t move any further, which brought on another flush of panic. She felt around, flinching when she touched the child’s head, and groaned when she realised the poor thing was stuck. This was where she needed her midwife to confirm her suspicions. But with no one around to assist, she was left with no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She took hold of the knife. Her hands shook so much she thought she wouldn’t be able to do it, but she took a couple of deep breaths, and then, as if in slow motion, she reached down, using her fingertips to guide the point of the blade to the spot between the baby’s head and the rim of her vulva.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and, with a quick downward flick, cut against herself.
The rough episiotomy created an instant release. Her autopilot reactivated and, with the deepest breath she ever took in her life, she pushed with every ounce of strength she had left in her exhausted body, screaming like a banshee out of hell as she did so.
Then it happened—the baby’s head and torso burst through. She grabbed the infant by the skull, gasped, then pulled and pushed at the same time.
Within seconds, the baby was out. Born.
Silence, not even the wolf making a sound.
Between her sobs, she pulled the child up to her chest and gave it an open-handed tap on the back. The impact had immediate effect, causing the baby to gasp and then cry—little squea
ls that lifted Erin’s heart as high as it could get.
Overcome with joy, she grabbed the chef jacket and wrapped the child in it as best she could. Then she used one of Phil’s clean socks to wipe blood and fluids from its mouth and nose, before cradling the baby to her—an instant rush of love bringing more tears. Mother and child rested back and cuddled, but she knew there was still work to do.
She eased open the chef jacket, lifted the knife, and cut the umbilical cord, leaving enough to be able to tie off. Shattered, she wrapped the child again and placed it on the passenger seat. The wolf was still moving about outside, growling now and again, but it hadn’t howled in a good while. Maybe it sensed what was happening. Fuck it, she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She lay back and started pushing again, running her hands over her belly in slow arcs to assist. The afterbirth didn’t take long to come, and she found the ordeal easier than expected. She cut it free and dumped it onto the driver’s seat. Then she took a moment to process what she’d just been through.
All she wanted to do was sleep, but even through her exhaustion, she couldn’t help but feel proud of what she’d just accomplished. She took another large mouthful of whiskey in celebration, relishing its internal heat, then proceeded to tend her birth wounds, using a pair of Phil’s socks as a seal. She pulled on his boxer shorts, which were tight, and would hopefully hold the makeshift dressing in place.
The baby was quiet but seemed fine. She placed it on the back seat and released it from the chef coat, which she put on herself, taking the time also to get back into the tattered uniform trousers—her jeans were not an option, too tight to consider.
The Mongrel Page 5