by Sage Arroway
“What was the question again--?” Tyler asked sarcastically, sliding his right hand from the poorly-tied knots behind his back as he eyed the ladder on the far wall.
He was cut off – this time by the questioner – by a strike across the face with the back of his fist.
“Who are you allied to?” The man asked again, less pleasantly.
“No one! I’m not--!” Tyler tried to say, before the other man struck him again, on the side of the head. The punch was powerful enough to knock Tyler over and onto the floor, chair and all. His left arm was caught between the back of the chair and the floor, adding another layer of pain.
“Stop!” she yelled, her voice echoing across the warehouse. “Looks like he’s got quite the fight in him. Perhaps, we could claim him after all.” Her posture softened as she leaned down, tilting her head to look him in the eye.
Tyler flexed the fingers of his left hand, tenderly moving his arm so he could be certain it wasn’t broken. So far, this was the only window he had foreseen to attempt an escape. If he could just pull his arm free, he could take her. The two goons were easy, he reasoned. They were built more like fire hydrants than athletes. He was certain he could out-run them if given the chance.
“Tyler,” she addressed, matter-of-factly. “I know you’re new to Apollo City. But you’ll soon understand our politics. There’s no such thing as a lone wolf here. You’re either with us, or against us. Now,” she continued, cracking her knuckles, “which one’s it going to be?”
Neither, he decided. He was up in a flash, blocking her quick reflexes as she tried to attack. She was stronger than he anticipated—stronger than any woman he had ever encountered—but she went down fast when he tripped up one if her heels.
“Kill him!” she demanded.
His eyes took in the room as quickly as he could, running full speed for the ladder. Above it, a catwalk ran the length of the building, twenty feet up. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do; the only other way out seemed to be the door on the other side of the brut squad, both of whom were already responding to his attempt to escape.
He took the ladder rungs to the catwalk three at a time, silently praying his feet didn’t miss any of them. A loud snap filled his ears, sounding like fireworks as something punched into his thigh, nearly knocking him from the ladder before his brain could make sense of it. They were shooting at him.
“Fuck!” He pushed past the wave of pain and pulled himself up to the catwalk.
He had to keep moving. The catwalk ran the length of the longer side of the warehouse, and ended at the windows on the west side. Without looking back, he pushed himself faster toward the sun, covering the length of the catwalk in seconds. When he reached the window at the end of the walkway, he covered his face with his hands and threw himself through. It exploded outwards with a bang. There was no denying every cut from the shards of glass that carved into his skin.
He landed in a roll, and lifted himself back up onto his feet and took off running. His pursuers cleared the door and tried to intercept him before he turned the corner. He hoped the exposure of a busy street would keep them from continuing to shoot. Still, he never let up on his pace.
His right foot was hurting badly with each step, but he knew there was no way he would have time to try and tend to the glass lodged in his heel while they were on him. So he ran, and ran, all the while in excruciating pain, leaving a trail of bloody footprints in his wake until he reached the edge of town.
Finally, he paused to catch his breath. At the next corner, he spotted a gas station. Sitting at the pump, was an old rust-colored pickup with a tarp over the bed and a gun rack in the back, If he had his wallet, he would bet money it was headed out of town. He waited, hiding behind an old dumpster, for an opportunity to hitch a ride. As soon the driver started the engine, Tyler made a beeline for the bed of the truck. It was overfilled with firewood, leaving just enough room for him to crawl underneath the tarp and pray he was hidden enough to make a clean getaway.
Chapter 4
Hours passed by like minutes, and snow had already started to gather by Tyler’s feet, which were just barely exposed beneath the flapping edge of the tarp. The temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees and he couldn’t stop shivering. Between the loud rumble of the old engine and the shock from his wounds, Tyler had managed to pass out. Again.
Man, I need to stop waking up like this.
He peeked outside. The truck was climbing the mountain pass already. The smell of trees made it to his senses, bringing him back to reality as he shook off the sleep and assessed his situation.
He felt around in the dark, and as soon as his fingers reached his lower body, he wished he hadn’t. His clothes were soaked from the bottom of his t-shirt to his knees. It was wet and sticky, and by the wincing pain in his thigh he knew he needed to tend to his wounds immediately. Between them and the weather, he could practically feel the warmth leaving his body. And if he didn’t get warm soon, it wouldn’t matter how quickly he could take care of the bullet hole in his leg, the cold would get to him first.
Either way, he figured he needed to get out of his jeans. Only then could he gauge the real damage. He peeled his pants off in one single tug, ripping the fabric from his wound and causing it to seep again. Shit! This isn’t good. Isn’t good at all, he panicked. He removed his shirt quicker than he had his jeans and tied it around his upper thigh; yanking it taut, hoping to stop the bleeding until he could plan his next move.
He moved back the tarp again, hoping to shine some light on his condition.
And then it happened. All too quickly and unexpectedly. At first, he shook it off as a reaction to the pain; an instinctive response from his body as it tried to heal itself. Shock, maybe. Unnerved, he thought he was hallucinating just before passing out once again. But then, as the wind kicked up under the tarp and revealed a sliver of sky between the crests of pines, he saw it and he knew.
“It’s the full moon tonight?! When the hell--?”
He must’ve been in that warehouse longer than he thought. But before he could do the math in his head, the mostly-full moon found him and awakened the blood that still filled his veins. His vision blurred, his breath caught in his throat. That feeling crept over his skin like the touch of a long lost lover, calling to his body to return to it.
“No, not now,” he begged. “Not here.” But it was too late.
The unwelcome change fell upon him with force; powerful, irresistible, and undeniable. His muscles clenched, throbbed; his heart raced. In moments, Tyler’s human form had vanished, torn and broken, replaced by a larger, monstrous form. The wounded and damaged body was replaced by a creature of tooth and claw and fur and rage. Seething rage, demonic and unending.
Tyler was gone, replaced by a creature of myth and fearsome legend. The wolf had taken over.
Suddenly, the truck’s tires crunched over the fresh snow, slowing to an abrupt stop. He heard the driver’s door slam and the sound of footsteps in the snow. It was time to get out. He drew the tarp back to make his escape; the darkness, the wilderness already calling his name.
“Alright you son-of-a-bitch, git up outta my truck nice and slow. Try anything funny and I’ll shoot your head off!” He had been found out. Tyler stood up slowly, his posture hunched to adjust for the pain in his thigh.
The driver’s voice riddled with fear—unwavering fear—as he stood at the foot of the truck bed and shouted from the business end of a double-barrel shotgun.
“My Gawd! What are you?!” The man’s hands were shaking erratically, his eyes bulging from their sockets, his trigger finger twitching.
Tyler-the-wolf wasted no time. He had been shot at once already today. With a ferocious snarl, he leapt off into the snow-filled darkness, near death and racing for his life for the second time in only a few hours. Shots rang through the trees behind him as he struggled to make ground; tired, injured and out of breath. Moments later, once he gained some distance between himself and the hunter,
two headlights came around the bend, blinding and startling him just before they knocked him back into unconsciousness.
Chapter 5
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” she repeated, still clutching the steering wheel. She quickly turned off the radio; the static between stations was a stark reminder that if she hadn’t been surfing stations in search of weather updates, she may have kept her eyes on the road.
Allie shut down the engine and peered out into the darkness between wiper blade rotations. The light ahead of her looked wrong, the falling snow was lit only on left side of the jeep.
“Shit, I definitely hit something.”
Zipping up her flannel, she took one last calming breath before opening the door to hop out. She walked around the front of the vehicle to take a quick look at the damage. The grill was pushed in on the right side, where she had made contact. Her initial hope was that she had struck a fallen tree, but her optimism quickly diminished after further inspection. A smudge of blood followed the path of damage across the shattered headlight and rolled down the front of the fender. It was safe to assume whatever she hit had been alive seconds ago, but probably didn’t survive the impact.
She surveyed the road looking for the dead animal, and even peeked beneath her jeep, hoping whatever it was wasn’t too big to remove. But she found nothing. Looking around frantically, it took a few moments to find the source of her collision. It required another few moments for the truth to register in her brain. But even after she rubbed her eyes to be sure she wasn’t going mad, it was still there in front of her. Only feet from where she stood, laying face down in the small drift of snow at the edge of the road, was a naked man.
“Oh my god, are you okay?!” she panicked, running closer to him.
Instinctively, she knelt down, checking his pulse and other vitals. She found him practically lifeless, severely battered and bleeding and unresponsive to her touch, but otherwise, breathing.
“Oh god, please be okay. Please, be okay,” she prayed, digging the snow away from his face. She knew better than to move him before calling for help.
She reached inside her jacket pocket for her phone, but gritted her teeth in frustration. In her mind’s eye, she could perfectly picture her cell phone, still where she had left it, back at the apartment. She looked from the unconscious man to her jeep and briefly back down the road she had come up. She had almost lost control twice on the way up, and the snow was getting worse. The nearest hospital was at least five hours’ drive under normal conditions, and there was no certainty that he would survive even that long without aid.
“Shit,” she groaned. This was not the kind of adventure she’d had in mind when she left Apollo. What the hell was she going to do with a half-dead naked man? The steps played through her head like a reel of Red Cross training footage – no phone, no ambulance, no hospital. Allie hadn’t seen another car in hours and there were no other homes for miles—the main reason her ancestors had chosen the secluded switchbacks of these mountains for their second home. This man’s only chance of survival rested solely on her.
“Oh, no, no. There’s no way I’m taking him to the cabin with me,” she griped, pacing back and forth in the road. “Think, think, think. There’s gotta be someone, somewhere that can take him.” She tapped her foot in the snow, desperately racking her brain for an answer. But after only a few brief moments, she finally resolved on the only choice she felt was left to her. She hoped he wasn’t too heavy.
“This is really going to put a damper on my weekend,” she whined, heading back to the jeep to grab a blanket.
She laid the blanket in the snow beside him. And making the decision to go against everything she had been taught in her first aid training, she rolled him over on it.
“Oh my god,” she gasped, taking a closer look at his injuries. The damage was worse than she imagined. There was a lot of bruising along his right side and across his face. The marks on his jaw and his nose looked fresh, but not fresh enough to have come from her jeep. The blood was already dry.
Her eyes wandered to his legs where she noticed something unusual. There was an open gash—what appeared to be a gunshot wound—in his right thigh.
“Holy shit,” she whispered, shaking her head. “What the hell happened to you?”
She took the blanket by the corners and dragged it back to the jeep, managing to keep him mostly motionless. By the time she arranged him in the passenger seat and tucked the blanket over the top of him, she was sweating, and tremendously thirsty. She climbed back into the driver’s seat, took a final moment to try and convince herself that she wasn’t completely crazy for bringing him with her, and began the slow, treacherous drive up to the cabin.
Chap ter 6
She took the last half mile in first gear, nearly stalling out more than once during the winding ascent. The snow was falling so heavily by the time she pulled up that she nearly drove onto the raised porch, knocking over an old tree stump in the process. The tires finally crunched to an abrupt halt, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’re here,” she announced under her breath, grateful to have made it.
A flood of emotions crashed over her at first sight of the cabin, bringing with it memories of her childhood, summers spent vacationing with her parents and, especially, the last few years she had lived here with her grandmother. It had always been her happy place—full of family and freedom—and despite appearing relatively untouched since her last visit, a sense of ruin now lingered. The whole property was still, quiet and visibly void of life.
Allie paused, mustering up the courage to finally bring some energy back into the old place. It needed it, she needed it, she reasoned, even as the menacing concern of another imminent death grew in the back of her mind, and the back of her jeep.
Getting the man out was much easier than getting him in; gravity lent a hand, though she thought she may have caused him a few new bruises. She dragged his lifeless body, up the wooden planks and across the porch, finally coming to a rest just inside the front door. It would have to do for now, she decided, focusing on the more immediate tasks at hand.
Standing in the doorway, she rubbed her hands together and blew into them as she quickly surveyed the darkened room. She had shut the place down pretty well when she left last year, yet all the nostalgia of her earliest memories remained. Beyond the beaten up old couch, which had been in the cabin since before she was born, was a large fireplace; a space where, on so many occasions, a fire often roared. But now it sat empty and cold. She took in a deep breath of crisp air, noting that the conveniences of modern comfort—heat, light, water—needed to be established. And fast.
She hurried back outside and brought in some of the old firewood, stacked it by the fireplace and cleared out the last of the kindling that they kept in a wooden box by the fireplace. In a few minutes, a small fire crackled and grew in the hearth. Allie warmed her hands for a moment, then dragged her injured guest closer to the fire. She left him, returning a short time later with a few creature comforts from the bedroom, gently placing a pillow under his head and some extra blankets over his body to keep him warm.
“Stay,” Allie told him; inspired more by instinct than concern, hoping he would be okay while she unloaded the car.
She made her way back to the jeep, grabbing a couple of her bags and one of the gas tanks.
She hurried to the kitchen and placed the bags on the small table nearest the kitchen, then stepped out the back door to the pump shed, the gas tank still in hand. With the tiny flashlight she kept on her keychain, she looked over the generator. She topped off the tank and primed it twice before pulling the cord. It rolled twice but didn’t start. Allie sighed in frustration.
“C’mon,” she begged. “Please.” She tried it a second time and a third, with the same results, before throwing up her hands. “Well,” she resolved, “I guess we do this the old fashioned way.”
She grabbed a bucket and sat it beneath the manual pump, working the hand
le impatiently until she could get past the stale water. Once it was clear, she didn’t hesitate to quench her thirst and wash away the sweat from her brow. She took a brief pause, allowing the chill to wake her senses and then kept pumping until the buck was full.
Back in the kitchen, she placed the bucket in the sink, nestled her perishables in an old makeshift icebox and then went out for the rest of her things. She set them inside the door and returned to the stinging cold once more to right the stump she had knocked over—it was a family keepsake. Kneeling down in front of her jeep, she brushed the snow from its face, revealing the name of her family’s property carved into the wood. Tranquility, it read.
“How ironic,” she said dryly, standing to take in the entire essence of the place she had come to love so much as a child. She would do almost anything to have those moments back – Mom, Dad, Grand Moll – she could imagine them there with her, in that moment, calling for her to come in from the storm. A tear formed in her right eye, swelled and overflowed, then fell down her cold cheek and practically froze by the time it reached her chin. She pursed her lips and wiped it away, along with the hollowness it evoked, and headed back inside.
This time, when she entered the cabin, it seemed just as she remembered it; a bit of dust on the floors and evidence of her arrival, but otherwise the same. The glow from the fire called to her, as she stomped the snow from her boots and closed the front door.
But the sense of sweet nostalgia faded away instantly as the man shifted in his sleep, a faint sound of discomfort slipping from his mouth, reminding her that this trip wasn’t going to be as therapeutic as she had hoped. At this point, it was obvious he was going to need more help than she did.
“Well, it was almost perfect,” she joked, rubbing her hands together as she mapped out her next move.
Allie filled a cast iron kettle with some of the water she had brought in, and hung it on a hook that stood above the fire. While it warmed, she retrieved some medical supplies from the first aid kit in the pantry and began to take a closer look at his injuries.