The Wild

by Whitley Strieber

  When she stood over him, Bob again felt the same helpless wave of submission the king had given him. Then she also touched her nose to him, most intimately and without a trace of what he had once called shame. At once his body reacted, bursting with pleasure so great he thought it might actually kill him. For a long moment she continued, extending the examination, learning him.

  When at length she was done with him, he was more in love than he had ever been or dreamed possible. The complex, equivocal coupling of his human life seemed a mutant shadow compared to this. She was so beautiful, so grand, so calm and magnificent—he could hardly believe her an earthly creature.

  He knew the secret behind the feeling of the dog for its master. Canine love is not like human love, not at all: it is all rapture.

  She stepped off him and, growling in her throat, strutted about with her tail high, as if enjoying her conquest. Her mate looked on warily. The tension coming from the other wolves was high. They whined and strutted, some of the lesser ones snapping at each other. One or two barked. Bob realized that the pack was in heat. Coming upon them, he had gone into heat, too. What a small word for the largest emotion and the greatest pleasure he had ever known. He found himself lying there on his back in the snow and thanking whatever God there was that he had been freed of the bondage of being human. Something in the air had changed. The wolves were no longer holding him captive, no longer humiliating him. He was free to rise, and he got up, to stand hangdog before the king and his queen, too much in love ever to leave them, too alien ever to be accepted.

  The queen regarded him. Her face—all soft fur and glittering, passionate eyes—seemed not unwilling. He circled her, his nose drawn to the center of her magic, the spot beneath her tail from which there flowed her nectar.

  Up close the smell was so good and so fascinating that he simply could not quit inhaling it.

  With a little growl she moved away. She had sniffed him, too, but in a perfunctory manner, an act perhaps of protocol or at best mild curiosity. He was being rejected. How was that possible? How dare she drive him to such a pitch and then turn away from him?

  With a quite involuntary snarl he leaped on her back. He felt his penis strike at her like an arrow.

  Instantly she was out from under him. So quickly that he could not tell how she had done it, she upended him in the snow, and he found himself once again with his legs in the air. His throat hurt; she had grabbed him by the neck and turned him over.

  Again she dominated him, this time licking his exposed penis and causing an explosion by doing it that actually did make him faint. For a few moments he was on another ground. The she-wolf seemed serenely regal. Far off Cindy stood, and in a thin voice called his name.

  This time when she had finished with him, he found that he could not arise, not until every one of the other wolves had had his or her way with him. They strutted about in a kind of ecstasy of domination, one after another threatening him, standing over him, then examining him.

  At the end of it there was not one of them to whom he would not roll. He would do anything to be with them, he adored them. To him they had acquired in full amount the magic he had always suspected was possessed by the nonhuman beings of the earth. They were living close to the central truth of things, their passions unencumbered by the cluttered mental hodgepodge that afflicted humankind.

  When he got to his feet and went strutting toward them, the smallest and least of them, a scruffy little female wolf with a kink in her tail— the last one to have sniffed Bob—ran at him and snapped fiercely. Even though Bob was twice the animal's size, he turned away. The wolf wanted him to roll, and she barked furiously, then went for Bob's throat. Bob rolled, but another wolf had snapped at his attacker, who disappeared back into the milling, nervous pack.

  Bob realized what had happened to him with these animals. Stunned by the unexpected intensity of the pleasure they were giving him, he had let himself be dominated by all of them. Instead of fighting for a place, he had wound up outside the pack's order altogether. He cursed himself for submitting to them. But how could he have avoided it? He would do the same thing again.

  The little wolf, who was a female not in heat, bland smelling, returned to worry him. He wondered what would happen if he fought her. Or should he fight the lowest male, or go back to the king? He really had no idea. All he did know was that they had at once seduced and rejected him.

  It was a more profound event than he at first realized. Night came on and he wound up sleeping some distance from the other wolves, outside of the inner border of their scent, the line beyond which they had to use scent marks to define their territory.

  He would have thought they would huddle together in the snow, but each wolf slept alone, tightly curled in on himself, nose beneath tail.

  Bob was not like them; he had neither their peace nor their confidence. Again and again in the night he remembered the extraordinary ecstasy they had granted him. If they could all evoke such powerful sensations in one another, how did they survive, how did they bear one another's presence? He was mad with lust and love, a trembling little creature beneath the cold stars, ignored by those whose touch he craved.

  He raised his head in the middle of the night, alert with an idea that made him weak all over again. Perhaps, if he challenged the alpha female, she would once more carry out the ritual with him.

  He had no trouble finding her: her heated scent made her a constant beacon to any wolf. None of the other females were like her. Bob got up and walked across the creaking snow. He bent over her motionless form and sniffed, smelling the sweet beneath the unwashed dogginess. Her muzzle was soft, her fur glowing in the starlight.

  Then, with a snort, she leaped to her feet. Not an instant was wasted: she attacked Bob with snarling, barking fury. The whole pack awoke and jumped up, but he was already lying on his back. He was rewarded once again by the whole strutting, delightful ritual, and was again passed down the pack and out to the rear, being finally dominated by the scruffy little female.

  He crawled away, besotted, crazed with a hunger for more. Some of them had been a little perfunctory this time, though. He suspected that he would bore them if he challenged too often. A wolf pack was a psychosexual Gethsemane for the rejects, a bed of love and torment. For its members, though, it was Eden.

  God curse the serpent and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Compared with the animals, man is numb, and it is knowledge that has made him that way. Bob looked up at the sky, and learned in that instant more about the whole wheeling of the universe than all science knew. Without words, he understood the subtle indeterminancies of the laws and saw the endless frame upon which time is woven. He knew the true purpose of thought: It is not to process information, but to seek the law. Modem science is the burned stubble of ancient magic. Once we flew: now we struggle sadly along.

  Curled up tight, he slept fitfully in the snow. When he woke up, it was with a lingering impression that some sort of kindness had soothed him in the night. Then he saw the wolves moving. They were cast in golden light. They were deities. Highest among them was the heated goddess, who undulated, wagged her tail, and gobbled snow.

  The wolves were excited, yapping and running about, dashing off into the snow with their noses to the ground, then coming back, tails high, eyes agleam.

  When Bob smelled a clear, clean odor of deer, he knew the reason for the excitement: a hunt was on. The pack was like a perfect machine. Led by the alphas, it moved off into the woods. Fifteen wolves disappeared as if they had been shadows. But Bob was not lost. His nose and ears worked, too. He could follow them, which he did at once. They ran along beneath the snow-heavy hemlocks, ducking under low-hanging boughs of pine. He wished that he was part of the pack, but that was not to be. By light of morning he cringed to remember the liberties he had allowed them. Every one of them knew him intimately, while he knew none of them. Such knowledge was an important part of their ritual life. Unless he could make them roll before him, they would ne
ver consider him one of them. Even then, he wondered if he would ever acquire that almost indefinable odor of belonging that they had, the special undersmell they all shared.

  As they moved along, Bob began to smell the deer more and more clearly. He could identify the odor of the breath: the deer had been gnawing a sassafras plant.

  The wolves proceeded quickly and efficiently. As far as they were concerned, Bob simply didn't exist. He was there, though, running along behind as fast as he could, his mind swarming with thoughts and speculations, his heart brimming over with love.

  They came upon the deer suddenly. The wolves were quick and efficient. They burst out of the woods into the tight clearing where the deer were tearing bark. There was a whistle of alarm, then the flash of a tail. Deer screams, as soft as the blowing of clouds, filled the air. There were three animals: a buck and two does.

  The buck bounded off into the forest, followed a moment later by one of the does, who had a red streak on her left leg. Wolves were barking, leaping, snapping. The one remaining deer broke wildly for the woods. Her body twisting in the air, the alpha female leaped for the throat. She missed, falling back into the snow with a thud and a spray of white.

  Bob found himself face-to-face with the doe. He didn't hesitate a moment—he leaped right at the throat of the beautiful little animal. He was a big wolf. The doe struggled, dashing him with her front hooves, but it was no use. He had the flap of skin on the underside of her neck. When he worried it she shrieked, a gentle and lovely sound. This was like killing Bambi. But something drove him on. He would not stop for Bambi, not even when her heart rending whistles changed to bubbling sighs, and then stopped altogether.

  She stood, her head hanging down. The nearest of the pack wolves, which was the one farthest to the rear, had reached her. It was the shabby little female with the broken tail. She clambered up the doe's side, trying to get on her back and bring her down.

  This seemed to break the doe's trance. She proved to have more fight in her than Bob had imagined possible. Despite her torn throat and the little wolf clinging to her she began to run. Soon the wolf fell off. The doe plunged through the woods in plumes of snow. She was swift. Bob could also run, though. He was big and his thigh was healed; he could run like the wind.

  The deer plunged on through the drifts, Bob just behind. He was hungry now, and the smell of the blood sent mad thrills of excitement through him. The deer reached a long meadow and picked up speed. Bob ran as hard as he could, stretching his whole body, nipping at the flying hooves.

  Then someone was beside him—the alpha female. He was fast but she was much faster, a wolf of lightning, her muzzle stretched tight, spittle flying from her mouth, the whites of her eyes showing as she sped forward.

  She shouldered Bob aside, ducked her head under the side of the leaping deer, and with a toss of her muzzle opened a huge hole in the creature's abdomen. Guts spewed out as the deer tumbled over and over. By the time it stopped falling it was dead. The alpha female strutted, her lovely face drenched in blood, and then she plunged her mouth into the still-heaving entrails and began gobbling huge gulps of the steaming organs.

  Bob took a bite. A raw flash blinded him. Both she and her mate were on him, biting savagely. He screamed, scrambled away, felt her jaws tear his flanks as he ran.

  He was forced to watch, drooling, in an anguish of hunger, while all of the other wolves ate their fill. They did it in strict rank order. To the little female was left the brain and some skin. To Bob was left gnawed bone.

  While the others trotted off into the woods, full and happy, Bob bit at the bones, trying without success to crack them for the marrow. It was useless—all he succeeded in doing was cutting his tongue on a bone splinter.

  Finally he went hunting alone. He was surprised to find such a lack of game. Then he understood why these wolves had come so far south. They, also, were suffering from the shortage of game. This was an exceptionally snowy winter. They had moved south with the deer.

  As he sniffed about for sign of raccoon or opossum, he reflected on his passion and their seeming injustice. He shuddered, remembering the pleasure they had accorded him. Nobody but Cindy knew him that way, Cindy and now these wolves, who were so beautiful that he could not help but let them do their bidding with him. He knew the truth—that they had humiliated and rejected him. But they had done it so sweetly. Did they make their pack important by creating in others a desire to join it? Or would what they had done to him have felt different to a real wolf? He suspected that a real wolf would have found their nosing about an intolerable humiliation and put a stop to it as soon as a beast weaker than himself tried.

  He mounted a ridge. From here there was a view for miles. The St. Lawrence glimmered on the northern distance, a jagged tumble of ice. Far to the south rose the Adirondacks. For a moment Bob thought he heard music—a harpsichord, perhaps Scarlatti or Bach. The sound made him cock his ears, but then he lost it, gone in the immensity of the view.

  He was hungry. In fact he was damned hungry. Sooner or later, he had to find a kill of his own. He sniffed the air in the careful, searching way he had learned from experiment. It was possible to sort out the different smells not only by odor but by an elusive texture. The ubiquitous smell of snow was crisp except where there was melt, which had a much smoother feel.

  Besides the snow, he detected ice, frozen plants, a wisp of smoke, cold stone. No smell of game, not a trace. He was disconcerted. In all of his travels he had never encountered a day when he smelled no animals at all. The image of the winter wolf, its ribs like bars, came to him, and the image of the starved wolf, curled in death agony.

  He paced the ridge, taking deep breaths, analyzing the air for any trace of food, any carrion even, any garbage. He wasn't revolted by these things anymore, at least not so much that he wouldn't eat them if necessary. He let his body decide what to eat and what to pass up.

  Then he stopped, cocking his ears. This time it wasn't music he heard, but the grinding of gears. The sound came from behind the line of ridges to the south. His estimate was ten miles. He turned, cocking his ears, and listened carefully. When he did so, a welter of tiny sounds came into focus: cars moving on snow, voices, various snatches of music, doors slamming, children shouting. So there was a town over there.

  A town meant garbage and it meant the chance of stealing some animal, a chicken or a goat, perhaps, from a farm. The other wolves would I shun the town, but they did not possess the human lore that Bob did. He felt that he could sneak in and out quickly, and get himself fed. A guerrilla attack.

  Without further ado he set off down the ridge, going straight toward the source of the human clatter. As he dropped lower the sounds faded, but he knew they would be there when he mounted the next rise.

  He was halfway up it when he heard a sharp bark behind him. He turned and saw the alpha female standing in a clearing. Her tail was high, her face was stern. She was commanding him to turn back. She trotted up, whining. He was surprised, he thought the pack had rejected him. Apparently not, because she was treating him just like one of her other wolves. Whining, she rubbed her cheek against his. She began wagging her tail. At that, his interest in the town evaporated. She was far more important to him than food. Hunger could wait, journeys could wait. To have her come near him, to notice him, even touch him, drove him to a joyous pitch of excitement. He practically danced around her.

  She played. She barked and tussled with him, growling in mock challenge. To say that he was delighted was to understate the feelings that washed over him, the rich, mysterious, enormous feelings. It was as if the basic creative energy of the earth was flowing right through him. When they tussled, he smelled and tasted her. Beneath the odor of her fur there was a sweetness so pure that it was shocking, and then the powerful female musk.

  When it grew suddenly much stronger, he felt his loins contract. There was a sensation as if of a tickling, delightful fire between his legs. He found himself mounting her, felt himself thrusting
at her, saw her eye shimmering with amusement when she glanced over her shoulder, felt her expertly pull herself away. He tried again, whining for her to stay still, pushing, trying in his clumsy way to make this new practice of sexual union work. Never before in his life had he mounted like an animal.

  He was hurled off her into the snow by a snarling, biting streak of enraged alpha male.

  Where the devil had he come from? And with him the rest of the pack, all barking, all threatening, their anger wild.

  The next moment, though, he thought the alpha male was going to forget him, so intense were the odors coming from his mate. But he didn't. The alpha male attacked, leaping onto Bob with savage fury.

  Even as they fought, both of them made involuntary sexual thrusts. One of the younger wolves mounted the female. The alpha male stopped beating Bob up long enough to turn and bark him away. This alpha was not enormous, but he was a devil of a fighter. His pack mate knew it, and the barking was quite enough to make him rush away.

  Bob realized something in that instant of respite. He had to beat this wolf if he was going to have a place in the pack. Now was the time. The alpha female's heat had precipitated the confrontation.

  If he won the battle, he was going to be able to make love to her. The male grabbed for his throat and sank his teeth into the much-scarred skin. Bob yanked away, managing to bite the other wolf's ear hard enough to draw blood and a high scream of pain.

  His eyes gleaming, the alpha took Bob by the scruff of the neck and shook him. Bob skittered away, feet digging the hard, old snow. So far he had always lost fights with the wolves, but he did not want to lose this fight. He had to find a way to succeed. The wolf was so fast, such an expert at this, so relentless and wild and passionate. Bob had never encountered such powerful will before: it mattered to this wolf, it mattered terribly.