by T M Caruana
“We might not have twenty-five days. Anything faster?” I asked.
“I am-a not a miracle-e worker. It takes time for-a plants to-a grow. A month is-a what it takes.”
“If we had frozen all the food in the first place, we would be in a better situation now.”
“Joanne, this is no time to cast blame. We didn’t know this was a death trap or we would have been more careful. Now we will have to work with what we’ve got,” I defended, and left any aggravation towards Joanne to concentrate on planning for our survival.
“We will have to find other ways,” Tony joined in.
“Yes, but let’s start with the greenhouse and the planting so that we get it going. If we find ways to last thirty days at least we will have that then. What else can we grow Alexandre?”
“For-a harvesting in thirty days-a; green onions, cress, lettuce, baby carrots, spinach, peas, bush beans, turnips, squash and perhaps we should-a also do-a cucumber and potatoes.”
“Okay. Let’s get to work. Wallace can you disassemble the lamps and bring them to the west corner where the soft drinks used to be? We’ll set it up there.”
Wallace obeyed me instantly. His obedience felt strange, right somehow, like it empowered me.
“Tony start working on the freezers. Find where you can switch them off and how you can collect the water without any wastage.”
Again the same sensation. Power.
“Connor, carry the soil down to the greenhouse.”
I felt like a recharged battery as my orders were followed.
“Alexandre, get the seeds and plants you need for planting and growing the fastest foods.”
That time I felt nothing. Why not? Tony had stated he was a human. Was it true what Tony had said? Were they really wolves?
“Joanne and I will collect the plastic and hang it to resemble a greenhouse.”
After we had finished the make-do greenhouse we all looked at it proudly. Now the only thing we could do was to wait.
“What else can we do?” I asked in the hope that someone would have more ideas.
“We could always eat Jennie,” Tony suggested, but received dirty looks from everyone.
“Typical Reds,” Jolie growled.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I calmed everyone, although I knew the maths, water could only keep us alive for so long, and that wasn’t long enough, until the food we were growing would be ready to eat.
Besides they were wolves and probably craved meat. I just had to hope I wasn’t next on the menu.
More days passed and everyone was still impatiently staring at the soil, hoping for the vegetables to grow. There was actually nothing else to do other than wait. Everyone was stretched out over different items, trying to keep as comfortable as possible. I felt the anxiety bubbling inside. I was a nervous talker and tried to think of something to say to break the silence.
“I once almost died drinking turpentine. I suppose I have already cheated death once.”
“Were you drunk?” Tony asked and laughed at the stupidity.
“No, I was a child.”
“Okay, I know this game. Once I had my cock dipped in chocolate. Was I drunk or a child?”
“I don’t feel like playing, Tony. It wasn’t a game. I almost died.”
The silence returned. No one was speaking and all had drooping miserable faces. After a while Tony couldn’t resist giving us his answer.
“I was a child. My best friend said that it would grow and become huge when I got older. I suppose it worked,” he said with a playful smile and looked at me to gauge my reaction.
I wasn’t in the mood, but still couldn’t resist laughing and rolling my eyes at him.
“Once I walked the length of Brighton beach naked,” Joanne stated, which made Tony’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets.
Tony turned around to look at her.
“Child?”
“Nope, drunk.” she said with a smirk. “I was quite the looker and a rebel when I was younger.”
“You jackal,” Tony commented and went to lie down on his pillow to sleep for the night.
Jaden suddenly caught my attention and pointed at Alexandre and Wallace who were sitting; chatting with a glass of red wine in their hands.
“See,” he said. “They have the best deal. They have been clever and they’re now our biggest threat.”
“They aren’t a threat man. They are very peaceful,” Conner defended.
“Now yes, but when the food runs out, they are going to be the healthiest of us all and they are two strong men. They could kill us in an instant. We need to kill them before they kill us.”
“Let’s just go to bed,” I suggested, wanting to disregard his insinuations.
“You can sleep next to me if you like, cookie,” Tony bellowed and patted a space next to him.
I didn’t even get a chance to offer a sarcastic remark as his body started twitching.
“Oh, no, a midnight wolf moon,” Joanne moaned.
“What? What is that?” I asked.
“It happens every three full moons. On midnight on every third full moon, the wolf-shifters turn, unintentionally…uncontrollably,” she stuttered, as she started twitching. “You better climb up on something high,” she offered as a last warning before she sunk down to her knees and shifted into a black ribbed jackal.
What the Hell?
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony rise up tall with his round wolf eyes glaring at me, and his tongue licking his lips from one side to the other. Connor as well, metamorphosed just beside me. He looked similar to Tony, but lighter red and smaller. He had white fur cladding the end of his paws and the tip of his tail. Jolie and Sarah were the next ones to cry out in agony. Rolling around on their backs, they finally flipped onto their paws as even smaller animals – they were jackals, although Jolie seemed slightly larger and had more light grey tones to her fur. The girls looked more confused about the change than determined to hunt me as a prey. Jaden was the last one to complete his transformation. He became the largest grey wolf of them all. He had claws that visibly scratched at the floor as he walked. His jaws were large enough to grab half way over my stomach and his length was more than two metres from his nose to the end of his black tipped tail.
As he started to sneak up on me with hungry eyes and drool hanging from his jaws, I run for the butcher’s to take cover behind Alexandre and Wallace. Seeking their protection, I saw Wallace started to jerk his body down towards the floor, the motions appearing to hurt his back.
“Madre Mia!” Alexandre shouted and climbed up on the butcher’s reception counter.
Alexandre didn’t turn. He was also a human.
Thank goodness that I wasn’t the only human in here.
He reached his arms down, as I came running over to him, and pulled me up at the last minute before Jaden’s jaws snapped at my feet. Looking out over the supermarket and the terrible sight of two red wolves, three jackals, one coyote and a very merciless huge grey wolf, I spotted Nagu peering out at us from one of the aisles. He was still human, but would become food soon if he didn’t get to somewhere safe.
Jaden angled his nose up in the air and started sniffing. He had caught Nagu’s scent. He started walking across the floor when Wallace placed his body in the way. It appeared that the wolves weren’t beasts at all but had all their wits intact. A ferocious fight broke out between them. I heard how both of the wolves cried and growled as my vision started to blur. I was dizzy from all the commotion, I felt tired and I was starved. As I felt myself losing control over my body and knew I was seconds from passing out, I shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Stop it! Stop fighting!”
<><><>
I woke up in the morning with a terrible headache. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the action of the previous night or the lack of food.
They really were wolves.
They were fucking wolves. Yet, I was alive.
I couldn’t believe it eve
n though I had seen it with my own eyes.
I heard a low voice. I listened carefully and could hear Joanne mumble to the woman outside the door again.
She was human again. What had happened?
I sneaked up closer to witness her having a conversation with someone from the outside yet again. My blood started to boil as soon as I saw Joanne being handed chicken drumsticks and potatoes through the grills.
She has cheating all this time. That’s why she is still so strong. What is going on?
Before I had the chance to challenge her and catch her in the action I heard a high-pitched scream. It was Jolie. I ran towards the scream and when I got to her side, I saw the horror and tears in her eyes, as she stood looking at Nagu hanging from his neck from a metal beam by a brown rope.
Shit. He has hung himself.
Sarah quickly hugged Jolie. She was weeping hard as well. Before we had the chance to collect ourselves and get Nagu down we all heard another high-pitched scream.
This time the screams were coming from my own lungs. I had walked back to the butcher’s to get away from the awful sight and now stood paralysed. Tony appeared by my side in an instant and followed my gaze. We were faced with the sight of Alexandre and Wallace lying on the floor in a pool of blood with their flesh having been torn into deep wounds over their torsos.
“What have you done Tasha?” Tony queried, as soon as he had caught up.
“What! It wasn’t me. I’m not a wolf,” I said angrily to punch back at him.
Tony pulled out the knife that he had stored in his belt.
What was he intending to do with that?
He walked up closer to me, but then he turned and pointed with his knife towards Jaden.
“You might not have done this, Tasha, but someone has and I bet all my money on the grey wolf.”
Tony was looking around at the remaining competitors; his gaze shifting from one to the other: Jaden, Sarah, Connor, Jolie and Joanne. Joanne sighed at Tony as he caught her eye.
“Perhaps they killed each other?” she suggested.
“If there hadn’t been so many scratches on both of them, maybe that would have seemed plausible. But they both have multiple wounds and Alex wasn’t even a wolf,” Tony carried on accusing everyone apart from me, or himself.
“What about you, Joanne?” I queried, and saw this as the perfect opportunity for her to inform them of her treacheries and who she has been liaising with behind the back door.
“What about me? You think I could have done this?”
“Jackals, are sly,” Jaden growled.
“Yes, but to accuse her of murder is a bit much, don’t you think?” Jolie defended her fellow jackal.
“I have seen you talk to someone on the outside through the grills and I saw you this morning being handed food. How do you explain that?” I asked, jumping back into the conversation.
Everyone stared at Joanne as she gasped for words, obviously trying to lie herself out of my accusation.
“Is this true, Joanne?” Jolie asked, and dug her angry stare into her.
“Of course not. Tasha is lying,” she defended, obviously untruthfully, as she must have understood that her life would be in danger, with a murderer on the loose, if they found out she was a part of the game-makers’ scheme.
“I say we tie her to a chair until either she or someone from the outside talks,” Jaden threatened, and crossed his arms.
Tony scratched his chin, seeming to contemplate our options.
“No, Jaden. If one of us truly is a murderer, than she will be exposed, being tied to a chair, if the murderer visits again. And like that she definitely couldn’t help protect us. She stays with us.”
“Unless she is the murderer,” Jaden suggested. “If she is, would you like to sleep with her next to you?”
I had to think about that reality. Jaden had a good point. I had assumed that Jaden was the murderer, as he had been the one suggesting to kill Alexandre and Wallace before the full moon occurred.
That didn’t mean he actually murdered anyone.
It could equally had been Joanne. Or maybe she, acted with an accomplice. If Alexandre and Wallace weren’t prepared for the attack, even two of the women could have done it. I took a deep breath and realised, more so now than before, that the air had started becoming stuffier. My mouth felt dry.
“Please could you share some of your water?” I asked Jolie.”
“No way. That is ours.”
“We are five people in our group and you are only two,” Jaden reminded her. “You might find yourself dead if you don’t cooperate.”
“No! No more murders!” I screamed and crossed my arms to rub my cool skin. “I can’t believe you are all fucking wolf-shifters. You…you..”
“Okay, okay, don’t panic, and you, don’t bite my hand off okay,” Jolie scolded Jaden. “I’ll give you one bottle each to buy some peace for tonight. We still want to stay in our camp. Will you agree to that?” Jolie asked Jaden, who accepted with a questionable nod.
“I wasn’t panicking,” I murmured.
“You reek of it,” Jolie sneered, standing with one hand on her hip.
Perhaps I had panicked a little. I didn’t close my eyes for one second during that night. I was terrified of being attacked and sat leaning against the milk fridge with a knife in both hands. As I started to feel my head nodding, I stood up to walk around the butcher’s area and the back door. Suddenly I heard some unidentified noises at the back door. I halted and stared through the grills as I could make out some black hair bouncing about on the other side.
19
GROWING CONSCIENCE
Alfred was watching Tasha becoming all the more weak as the days went by and his heart actually ached for her. He had been watching the game’s every move without attending to any work at the office. He knew he was the one pushing for the a horrific result and to call it quits now would give consequences as he couldn’t shut up the surviving contestants and prevent them highlighting it to the media. The plan had always been to bury the silence together with the bodies. Not to mention the strain it would add to the rivalry between the grey and the red wolf packs if he were to go back on his word.
Was Tasha the reason he wanted to stop it? Two million pounds was a lot of money to lose for one girl. But he had really taken a liking to her. Seeing her twenty-four hours a day around Tony had made him feel extremely jealous. It bugged him that he couldn’t figure out what she was. He had one suspicion, but it was outrageous and couldn’t be true. They didn’t exist anymore. He pushed the thought aside and instead faced his worries. Recent events had scared him into believing someone would kill her soon. If no one did, the starvation would. If he didn’t get her out he would lose her.
This is when he realised his mistake. By trying to show that there wasn’t any humanity in the world, he himself had stooped to the same low moral level. He couldn’t stop the games as it would completely obliterate his life, but perhaps he could save Tasha. Anne had mentioned something about the Green Skyway project in their meeting before.
Alfred threw on his black leather jacket and rushed down the fire escape, to race his black Mercedes back to the office, where his computer had access to the government network. He started searching in the folders for the keyword ‘skyway’. An exact match immediately showed the folder, Green Skyway. He clicked on the folder and got a pop-up window with a warning message. No admin rights. Damn.
He angrily pushed himself away from his desk and looking up, noticed that one of his colleagues was walking down the corridor, ready to leave the office. The elderly man had worked in his position far longer than Alfred, and perhaps had other admin rights – higher level access rights.
Alfred sneaked into his office and hunched down behind the screen. He moved the mouse so the screensaver wouldn’t lock the profile. He typed in the keyword on the intranet again to search the folders and found the one named ‘Green Skyway’. He clicked on it in excitement, yet still received the same
warning message. The project was clearly approved and valid. It was there. He could see the folder. Why was it so restricted? Who would have access to it? Would he have time to find out how to get access to it when Tasha was on a timer counting down to death?
Alfred walked back to his office, closed his door and sat down behind his screen, tugging at his hair. Think Alfred! His office was on the thirteenth floor and had windows from floor to ceiling, providing a decent view of city life. Sitting at his desk his screen was hidden from any intruders entering from the door opposite him. He placed his hand on the phone, but hesitated to make the intended call. If he hacked the system it wouldn’t take long before security knew it was him, and what he had been looking at. It would be hard to justify in a way that would save him from disciplinary action. His life wouldn’t be the same if he made that call. His reputation in the human world would suffer and he would be faced with years of hard work to build it back up. Depending on what he found in the files, it was likely he would have to hide for the rest of his life. Was Tasha really worth it? He had spent numerous years studying for his profession and even more hours working his way up to the top. He had had beautiful women on his arm before. What was so special about this one? He was crazy for even considering it.
Yet it felt like it was the right thing to do. His gut instinct, his wolf instinct, spoke its will clearly. She was everything. His world. Nothing else mattered. Why it told him this, he didn’t know. He lifted the phone, dialled the combination that would mask the caller id and punched in the number of a friend he had in the United States.
“Hello?”
He had met his friend Burt at University. He was the best hacker Alfred had ever come across. Startled by Burt’s dark voice Alfred realised it had been some time since they had last spoken and he wasn’t sure how he would react.
“Good afterno…well, morning to you, Burt. It’s Alfred. How are you mate?”
“Alfred! Mate! Long time, yeah sure I’m good. How’re you?”
“Not too bad mate. Not too bad. Well, actually, I’m in a bit of trouble.”
