by Holly Hook
My stomach rumbled. My limbs trembled. The jerky had done nothing but make me even hungrier than before.
“That’s a ten point,” Macon said. He reached for his bow and stopped on the trail.
“This isn’t the time to think about stocking your trophy room,” Tate told him. “We need to keep going, right? Oh, wait. That deer is important to you.”
“Have you ever bagged a ten point?” Macon asked.
The deer stared Macon down as he drew his bow from his back and then an arrow. The wind picked up, and the trees rustled, making the smell even stronger. The hunger pangs burned. I had to eat. Something. Anything.
A craze overtook me, and I broke into a run.
“Red!” Macon shouted.
The deer stood there like it wasn’t sure what to do. I closed in. At last, the creature turned and bolted into the underbrush. Sticks broke, and grass bent over.
I kept chase. Tate and Macon shouted at me, and I knew I was going off the trail and wasting us more time, but I couldn’t stop myself. The steakhouse smell faded, but then I found it again on a shrub and followed it. The deer bounded ahead, tail pretty much flipping me off, and I quickened my run. I was catching up. The deer caught its antlers on some tree branches and stopped, thrashing against them. I had it.
“Red!” Tate shouted now.
I leaped and sank my teeth into the deer’s side.
The deer grunted in pain and thrashed. Its back leg struck my side, and I went flying off, coppery blood on my tongue. Brilliant red appeared on the deer’s fur as it struggled to free its antlers from the branches of the tree. I jumped again, this time going for its throat, but the deer got one antler free and turned away just in time. I missed and landed back on the ground.
An arrow thunked into the tree trunk, missing the deer by feet. And then another sailed into the ground at my left, missing the deer by even more. Macon was shooting at it. Tate shouted at him. We were both going after the same prey.
I made a third charge.
Jumped, and sank my teeth into the deer’s throat.
Blood gushed, and my stomach roared. The deer thrashed, going into its death throes, and fell to the ground. Its legs kicked and its black, deep eyes stared up into something I couldn’t imagine. I went in to finish it off.
And then a hoof kicked me right in the side.
Pain exploded, and a sound like a yelp escaped me. Someone shouted. Footfalls thudded. Spots blew up in my vision. I staggered back, all thoughts of food and blood and hunger vanishing. There was only the pain. I breathed in, but a rib screamed, and I toppled over, letting the darkness take me.
* * * * *
“Red. Wake up, please.”
I groaned, and the pain in my side exploded again, but not with the intensity as before. I blinked, and Tate stood over me, framed in brilliant greens and golds. My vision blurred, then snapped back into place again. Tate was here. He was even smiling as I opened my eyes.
I clutched my side. It felt bruised. Maybe even broken.
I clutched my side--with hands.
I sat up a bit and winced with the pain. I felt as if I’d been out for ages, but then the memories floated back: the thrashing deer and what I did to it...
“Red—you’re back. Look.”
Tate was right. I had arms. Legs. Not just legs. And no fur. I wore the same red hoodie I'd stashed in the shrubs and jeans, which had blood stains on the knees.
I had changed back.
“Oh,” I managed. It was all I could do. The rest seemed like a weird dream. Tate helped me stand up, and I grabbed at my side again, groaning. “I’m hurt.”
“You were knocked unconscious. I saw it.” There was unease in Tate’s voice. It was obvious.
And then I saw Macon.
Standing over a deer with an open throat, bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. Macon was busy trying to yank another out of the ground.
“Are you feeling okay?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know.”
The deer lay there, deader than dead. It had stopped thrashing. It had bled out, turning the grass and the leaves crimson. The blood wasn’t as brilliant as it was before and the smell not as intense. Now, it just smelled like copper. There was no steakhouse now.
I had killed this deer.
With my teeth.
I had killed this innocent, terrified deer and I hadn’t been able to control myself.
Macon finally got the arrow out of the ground. Dirt caked it. It was better than looking at the sight.
For a few moments, I had become a beast.
“Let’s get back to the road,” Tate said, turning me away from the scene. “Macon—you take care of this.”
I walked away from the scene. My knees trembled. I was still hungry, but now my stomach was getting upset. Upset with disgust. With horror.
This monster was inside of me, waiting to come out again.
I didn't even focus on my injured rib. I walked, ignoring the pain every time I inhaled. Maybe my bone was just bruised, and it would heal. The deer’s hoof had packed more of a punch than I thought.
“You’re back now,” Tate said. “You’re back. Just don’t stand in any more dark spots.”
I reached up and wiped my mouth. My sleeve came back, blood-free. At least that had gone away when I’d passed out. “I think my rib might be cracked,” I said.
“Those hurt,” Tate said. “My dad had one when he was younger. He said he cracked it in a wrestling match. You need to sit down once we get back on the road?”
I breathed in. I could still smell the forest well, the bark and the leaves and the grasses. Even the flowers. But it wasn’t as intense as it was before and wouldn’t be unless I transformed again. “I guess we didn’t need that sleepy wine after all. Where did you leave that basket?”
Tate stopped. We were almost back to the road. “I left it right out here by the road when you ran off,” he said. “I don’t know where it is. I swear I put it right out here. I put the knife in there, too.”
I checked to see if Macon was following, but he wasn’t yet. Maybe he had to drag the deer out and hack off its antlers. Macon had wanted to kill the deer just for a trophy. It was stupid. I’d tried to kill it to eat, at least.
But there had been a ton of blood--
“You know,” Macon said, stepping up behind us. “There is a reason wolves are pack hunters."
“Shut up,” I told him. "Your precision aim was great."
Macon stepped up next to us. He wasn’t holding the antlers. His arrows were back in his quiver. “Problem,” Tate told him. “Our basket is gone.”
Macon shrugged. “It’s just a basket. There are a lot of animals out here that might have wanted the food inside.”
Something hooted. I looked up and found nothing. My vision wasn’t as good as it had been before. I felt as if someone had put those simulated drunk goggles over all my senses. Were they always this dull?
But I knew they were still stronger than what they had been before. Stronger than Tate’s and Macon’s.
And if I ran into another trigger, I would transform again. I knew it. I didn’t even know everything that could cause it.
“Our food was in there,” Tate said. “We might need to cook that deer after all.” He knew I didn’t want to go back there. “We might as well eat that. Cooked, by the way. And next time you shoot, make sure that Red is nowhere in the area. You got that?”
Tate lunged and grabbed Macon’s sleeve. The other guy recoiled. “I was shooting nowhere near her,” he said. “You saw that.”
Tate glared at him, and I thought he was going to deck Macon. “You’re lucky you have stormtrooper aim,” he said.
Macon screwed up his face. “What?”
“It’s something from the other world,” I said. This situation was getting tenser by the minute. “We…we should go cook some meat. We don’t have our food anymore, and we don’t have anything else we can do.”
Tate let go of Macon. He calme
d down a bit. Macon kept his grip on his ax handle, but he never took it out.
Macon searched around as if looking for the basket. Nothing turned up. We hadn’t been in the woods that long. No one could have just come by and stolen it. We'd be able to see them out here in the woods. The trees weren't even that close together here.
And yet I had the most horrible feeling in my gut. Something was wrong here.
“Come on,” I said. Now that I was away from the deer, my stomach had calmed down. “I’ll get a fire going, and we’ll have lunch. But you have to do the carving.”
* * * * *
I stayed away while Tate helped Macon carve the deer and get some slabs of meat ready. Tate didn’t complain. Macon didn’t even ask me to help. Maybe he was scared that the sight of blood would make me transform again. Perhaps it could. Macon had told me there was more than one trigger. So I sat and kept feeding the fire, keeping the flames going. I was doing something, at least.
Someone might have taken our food to slow us down. To make us have to stop and do this. Macon didn’t even look happy when he hacked the antlers off the deer and stuffed them into his pack. He’d take his trophy. He hadn’t killed the deer. I almost told him that I had earned those, but the thought of mounting those made a horrible feeling rise in my gut.
At least we were eating the deer. That was something. It had died for a reason.
Tate and Macon cooked, and soon the aroma of venison rose up. It still smelled a bit like the steakhouse, but it wasn't as much as before.
And the longer I thought about the blood and the deer's throat, the scarier it got.
Grandma—why hasn’t she just told me?
I wouldn’t have gotten so irritated with her.
I might have even understood her. Told her that I could deal with it on my own, so I could go free.
We ate as fast as we could. “Why would someone take our basket?” I asked. I almost wished I could smell whoever had removed it, but that had dulled back down some, too. We couldn’t hang around to search for it.
“I don’t know,” Macon said between bites. “It might have something to do with the witch’s knife in there. Maybe she sent an animal familiar to get it back for her.”
Tate stood up. “Do they report back to her? Her animal minions?"
Macon joined him. “Maybe. That’s why we need to finish eating quickly, and then vacate this area. It might be a good idea to stay off the trail but walk along it instead. We need to stay out of sight."
For once, I agreed with him. Maybe his experience in the stove had humbled him a little bit.
I finished eating, and strength returned to my limbs. We headed back to the road, and there was still no picnic basket there. There was also no one else on the trail and worse, there was a dark spot up ahead that butted up right against the road. Dark grass and branches like fingers reached out as if they were trying to grab air. We’d have to walk past it.
We moved on, staying a little bit off the trail. The trees cleared a bit, and I could see back through to where the deer lay, dead and dejected. There was a hole in the side where Macon had scraped out the meat.
And further back in the forest, a small pack of wolves.
The russet one. The black one. And about five others, all colors ranging from gray to brown and everything in between.
They stood there, watching us go, and from here I couldn’t tell if their eyes were ordinary black or turning the bloody shade of evil. I quickened my pace and drew closer to Tate. I wasn’t sure if it was for him or me.
* * * * *
“Are all the wolves in these woods neutral?” I asked.
“Actually,” Macon said, “from what I’ve heard, they’re just as varied as people are. Some are bad. Some will leave you alone. Others will run. Those we saw yesterday might have been neutral, but they were struggling against the effects of the dark spot. Didn’t you see the growing redness in their eyes?”
“I did,” Tate said.
Macon was happy to continue, and I sighed an apology at Tate. “A lot of the wolves in these parts are ordinary wolves. Only some are shifters. But all of the wolves in the dark region are evil.”
I thought of the one Alric had turned. I shuddered.
That could be me tomorrow.
And grandma.
And every other thing in these woods the day after that.
The light grew long and tired, and I kept searching the woods, but the pack of wolves did not return. I imagined they were feasting on what was left of the deer, enjoying the free meal. They weren’t following us, either. We spotted another fox, this one with a gray head and an orange tail, but nothing else. Why did no one ever travel on this road?
But at least I was walking on two legs again. That was a plus.
“How much longer?” Tate asked.
We passed through another small dark spot, and I walked as fast as I could as the itch raced over my skin. It had worsened. I broke into a run and made it to the other side right when a migraine started. The ache faded as soon as I crossed the border and Tate appeared next to me, panting. “You should try out for track and field,” he told me. “Really. You’re a good runner.”
“Grandma always said no to sports. Now I know why, at least,” I said. I scanned the road up ahead. There was a second dark spot, one that was even farther across than this one. They were getting more common, and were the woods in general just getting darker? I checked the trees. Yes. The leaves weren’t as bright as they were before. Some of the trees were thicker and darker. Others had gone entirely bare. The woods, in general, were just transitioning.
And the night was falling again. We'd traveled miles, leaving the witch's hut way behind us.
Dread crept up into my gut. We were getting closer to the dark region, where everything would be like the dark spots.
There, I would have to face the monster inside.
Macon searched around. “I see a cave over there,” he said at last. “We can spend the night in there.”
“On the ground?” Tate asked.
“Yes. We can sleep in shifts. No worry. I have weapons.”
Macon sounded so sure that I had to roll my eyes. The guy hadn’t even been able to hit the deer. He’d done an excellent job trying to kill the ground.
Macon led us off the trail a bit, and we got to the cave. It was a low one with roots hanging in its entrance. Macon took off his pack and kept his ax close to him. I climbed in. It wasn’t a vast cave—it only went in about twenty feet, and at least it seemed made of rock instead of all dirt. There was enough room to sit up, but nothing else.
“Should I sleep?” I asked. “Will sleep make me—change again?”
“No,” Macon said. “That isn’t one of the things. There might be—other factors.”
“I need to know what those factors are. So it doesn’t happen again. Ever again.” I breathed out. The entire morning was fading like a strange dream. I wanted to get back to the other world where I could suppress this and forget about it and never think about it again. I wanted to be normal. Grandma had never let me be normal, and now even without her, I could never be normal.
Tate and I settled in the back of the cave while Macon remained at the entrance, ax on his lap.
I closed my eyes, and strange images flashed before me. Rabbits, all running for their lives. The deer, thrashing against the branches. Blood. Lots and lots of blood. I groaned, and Tate wrapped his arm around me from behind. I leaned against him and chased the images away. They would never go. Not as long as I lived.
"I love you," Tate said. "Try not to think about today. It'll be gone soon."
I wished he was right.
I wanted to be normal. I wanted Grandma to be ordinary.
I would find her and take her back home, somehow, and now that the truth was out, maybe things would be better for us.
A big part of me almost felt relieved.
The images faded and darkness took their place, and I drifted off to sleep.
&
nbsp; * * * * *
Something cold brushed against my arm.
I roused and jumped. Tate’s arm flopped down and cold air wrapped around me as I checked out every corner of the cave. It was dark. Macon still lay at the entrance, but he was leaning against the wall and snoring. So much for staying awake to keep watch.
Then I saw the source of the coldness.
The large russet wolf stood next to me, staring at me with black eyes. Its nose was very close to my arm, and its breath blew against me.
I jumped and held my breath. The wolf waited as if expecting me to do something. We stared each other in the eye for a long time, but the wolf didn’t make a move.
I let out that breath. If this wolf had wanted to kill us, it would have done so while we were asleep. Macon let out another snore and then the voice of the wolf echoed in my head. It was the same young male's voice I had heard yesterday.
Come on. That man is annoying.
I shook my head. I wasn’t used to this.
“Where?” I asked. “Who are you?”
A friend. The voice echoing through my head was barely older than Tate and Macon.
"I need more than that." I wanted this wolf to go away. I didn't want to think about wolves anymore. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I would wake in the morning, and this would be gone.
And I also had a bit of a headache. A migraine. Not good. Here in Fable, they seemed to signal a coming transformation. Some trigger was around. Maybe it was this wolf's proximity to me.
I closed my eyes, but the wolf nudged me again.
You have to come. Your story is in great danger of falling.
"Huh?" I asked. I sat up all the way, leaving Tate sleeping soundly next to me. Behind the wolf, pale light flooded the night. I could make out the road from here, where there wasn't much tree cover.
We have a mission tonight. Fail, and we all fall.
I saw no trace of scarlet in this wolf's eyes. He wasn't evil. Not like the wolf who had gone under Alric's spell. "Okay," I whispered. My heart pounded, and I thought of that deer again, grunting in pain and going into death throes. Of the blood.
