by Abby Weeks
*
Danger
Proceed at own risk.
Road unpaved & unmaintained summer and winter.
Recommended travelers carry radio, firearm, ammunition & supplies.
Treat wild animals as hostile.
Remain in vehicle at all times.
Emergency radio channel 9.
Next service, Dead Wolf, 200 miles.
*
Chapter 53
HUNTER DIDN’T EVEN SLOW DOWN to read the sign. They continued along the dirt road at a steady pace of about thirty miles per hour.
“Why was the sign so ominous?” Aisha said. “What are they warning people of?”
“Wolves,” Hunter said plainly.
“Are they really that dangerous?”
“You tell me,” Hunter said. “You saw that specimen last night.”
“Was that a normal wolf?” she said.
“What do you mean?” Heath said.
“I mean, was it a shifter?”
“I didn’t see its eyes,” Hunter said.
Heath laughed. “If we get to Dead Wolf and you see a guy with yellow eyes and a bullet in his shoulder, then you’ll know it was a shifter.”
Hunter laughed as well. Aisha didn’t. She didn’t feel like laughing. Heath looked back at her and saw that she had her rifle on her lap.
“You keeping an eye out?” he said.
She nodded. She’d been watching the passing forest carefully since leaving Fairbanks. If there were any wild creatures out there, she was ready to spot them.
They drove on and on and Aisha began to feel as if she was entering a forest from which there could never, ever be any return. With the road this dangerous and this long, she realized that there was little chance she’d be cruising into Fairbanks every time she felt like going to the supermarket. This was going to be it for a while.
“I heard you two talking this morning,” she said.
“What about?”
“About women getting ravaged and left for dead in the forest.”
Hunter and Heath were both silent.
“Is that what shifters do?” she said.
“Some of them, yes,” Hunter said.
“Are there shifters in Dead Wolf?”
Hunter didn’t answer.
Heath cleared his throat. “If there are, they’ll be living according to some truce or pact that they’ve made with the town,” he said. “People wouldn’t stand for them raping and murdering women whenever they felt like it.”
“So how come women show up in the forest?”
“There could be wild shifters, those that don’t live in town. There are also just plain wolf attacks,” Hunter said.
Aisha was quiet, thinking about what Hunter said.
“So there are two types of shifter?” she said.
“You could say that. Friendlies and wilds. But I warn you, missy, don’t you ever trust either one of them. They’re none of them safe. As far as I’m concerned they’re all wolves. Some of them have been tamed a little, but they’re still wolves, and they’re still capable of killing a human woman through a single act of mating.”
“Mating?”
“What do you think we call it? Lovemaking? What shifters do is not lovemaking. It’s not even fucking, Aisha. It’s mating, plain and simple, and it can kill a girl.”
*
Chapter 54
AISHA WAS BEGINNING TO DRIFT off when a loud thumping sound woke her.
“What was that?”
“Shit,” Hunter said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Aisha was concerned. It was the first time she’d heard him swear.
“We hit a rock,” Heath said. “Is the wheel damaged?”
“Can’t say,” Hunter said. “We’ve just got to keep going.”
“Have we got a spare?” Heath said.
“We do.”
“The sign said don’t stop,” Aisha said.
The men didn’t respond. Aisha listened carefully to the sound of the vehicle. They drove on a few hundred yards and there was no mistaking it. There was definitely a problem with one of the wheels.
“Front and right,” Hunter said. “I reckon the rim’s damaged.”
“Will we be able to make it to Dead Wolf without stopping?”
“Fuck,” Hunter said, pounding the steering wheel with his hand. “Fuck me. This isn’t good.”
When Heath spoke again, Aisha could hear the fear in his voice.
“How far to Dead Wolf?” he said.
Hunter looked at his watch, then at the odometer on the dashboard. “About a hundred miles.”
He’d slowed their speed down to about fifteen miles an hour. Aisha quickly did the math. It would take over six hours to get to Dead Wolf at that speed. It would be long dark by then. They drove on at that slower pace for a few minutes, listening with careful scrutiny to the unmistakable rattling of the damaged wheel.
“Should I radio the emergency line?” Heath said.
“You can try,” Hunter said, “except no one ever man’s that damn channel.”
Heath pulled a big old radio that looked more like a car battery out of a compartment in the floor beneath his feet and set it to channel nine.
“Fairbanks, come in, over. Fairbanks, do you hear me, over?”
“Try Dead Wolf,” Hunter said.
Heath went through every channel on the radio, trying both Dead Wolf and Fairbanks, as well as military and aviations channels. He got nothing.
“Is that normal?” he said.
Hunter nodded.
“Why do they even have an emergency channel?” Aisha said.
“Good question,” Hunter said. “Now, listen up. We’re going to have to stop the car. I’m going to change the wheel with the spare. It will take ten to fifteen minutes. We’ll be vulnerable while I do it, so I’ll be wanting both of you to keep watch. If you see anything move, anything at all, shoot at it. There are bears, mountain lions, wolves.”
“And shifters,” Aisha said, finishing his sentence for him.
“Yes.”
“If we see a wolf, how do we know if it’s a shifter or not?” Aisha said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Hunter said. “The rule is that if you shoot anything in wolf shape, it’s an animal kill. If it’s in human form, don’t shoot it.”
“Why not?”
“First of all, it might be treated as murder, although I wouldn’t be too worried about that out here. But secondly, if it’s in human form, chances are it doesn’t mean us any harm.”
Aisha wasn’t sure whether they were overreacting. She’d had her eyes peeled on the forest for hours. She hadn’t seen a single thing. Also, at the back of her mind, she still half-believed that the wolf from the night before had meant only to protect her. Even after everything Hunter and River had said, she had a feeling, a belief that the shifters weren’t as predatory and evil as everyone kept making them out to be.
“Rifles ready?” Hunter said.
“Ready,” she said.
Heath reached back and grabbed his and double checked that it was loaded.
“Ready,” he said.
Hunter stopped the cruiser with a jolt. He opened his window and listened. The forest was completely silent.
“Stay inside,” he said. “And if you see anything, anything, shoot it. You hear me?”
They nodded.
He opened his door and climbed up onto the roof of the cruiser where the spare wheel was kept. Aisha diligently watched the forest, which seemed to be closing in on them. The tree line was so close.
She heard the clanking of Hunter releasing the spare. Heath got out and helped him get it down to the ground. Then Aisha got out too while they jacked up the front of the vehicle. She estimated that they’d been in the position for about five minutes. She was beginning to get nervous. She realized just how utterly vulnerable they were while stopped. Anything could come out of the trees and get them.
She watched the men work out of the corner of her e
ye while trying to pay attention to the forest. She had her rifle up at her shoulder. She found herself praying that if a wolf did come, that it was the same one she’d seen last night. She still believed that wolf had meant her no harm.
The men got the wheel off and rolled it out of the way. They weren’t going to try and salvage it. They didn’t have time. They weren’t even going to put it back on top of the vehicle. They left it where it lay and rolled the spare up to its place on the axle.
“On three,” Hunter said.
He counted to three and they lifted the wheel up onto the axle. It slipped on their first attempt and they had to lift it a second time, amidst a flurry of curses.
“Okay, time to tighten the nuts,” Hunter said as he began spinning the lug wrench.
“This is taking too long,” Heath said.
He picked up his rifle and stood guard as Hunter tightened the wheel.
Aisha didn’t even hear it coming. She didn’t hear it and she didn’t see it, not until Heath started screaming. She turned and saw a vicious wolf mauling him. He was on the ground, his arms raised up in front of his face, holding back the teeth of a wolf that was intent on reaching his throat.
Aisha didn’t think. She didn’t have time. She rose her rifle to her shoulder, pointed it at the wolf, and pulled the trigger.
There was a yelp that sounded almost like a child’s cry, and then the wolf slumped to the ground. She was stunned. The dead wolf was lying on Heath and he struggled to push it off. Blood was gushing from his arms and face. His coat sleeves were in tatters.
Aisha looked down at the wolf. It wasn’t like the wolf from the night before. It was smaller with brown fur. It looked to her like a normal wolf.
Hunter was standing over Heath. His body was a bloody mess. Aisha almost fainted when she looked at him. Was he even alive?
Hunter looked up at Aisha. She was still in shock.
“Good shot,” he said.
Then he picked up Heath’s rifle and swung around, holding it at his shoulder, scanning in all directions for more wolves.
“They hunt in packs, don’t they?” Aisha said.
“Get him back in the car,” Hunter said.
Aisha bent down to help Heath, but as she got closer to him, she found she could barely look at him. She didn’t know if she’d be able to save him. She’d seen her share of injured animals, and when you got right down to it, that’s all a human was. The same flesh and bone as any other animal. She wasn’t sure Heath would survive this. It didn’t look good. He was bleeding terribly, and he was in shock. His eyes were wild and crazy, his pupils dilated.
Hunter was still tightening the bolts on the wheel. As if out of a nightmare, Aisha saw another wolf appear in the air, six feet in front of her. The wolf had leapt out of the trees and was going to land right on Hunter. She swung her rifle upward and pulled the trigger at the same time. The wolf landed on Hunter, striking him hard, but it was already dead. Even still, the force of the impact knocked him over.
Two more wolves appeared at the edge of the road, moving stealthily from the trees. Aisha realized what it was like to be prey facing up to the predator. She heard a growl behind her and turned to look. Another two wolves were approaching from that side of the clearing. There were too many of them. She wouldn’t be able to shoot them all. She’d get one when they pounced, but the other three would get her. Hunter was climbing out from beneath the dead wolf that had landed on him, but Aisha could already see it was too late.
And then she heard a loud wolf howl from somewhere back in the trees. All four wolves turned to face the direction the howl had come from. They growled even more ferociously.
Aisha was stunned. The wolves seemed to suddenly have lost interest in them.
“What was that?” she said to Hunter.
Hunter looked up at her, and she could see the terror in his eyes give way to hope.
“A shifter,” he said, scarcely able to believe the words as he was saying them.
He got up and grabbed the wrench.
“That will do,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Together they lifted Heath into the passenger seat.
“He doesn’t look good,” Hunter said.
Once back in the car, Hunter turned the ignition and put the pedal to the metal. The tires screeched back into motion just in time. A wolf leapt out of the trees and landed right on the hood of the cruiser. They were moving at maybe forty miles an hour and Hunter couldn’t see around the wolf. Aisha pointed her rifle right at the windshield but before she could pull the trigger the wolf was gone, blown over the roof and off the back of the vehicle. Hunter was closing his window with one hand while trying to steer with the other. Behind them, four more wolves came out of the trees and began to howl over the bodies of their two dead brethren.
“That was close,” Hunter said.
“Did you get the wheel tightened?”
“I think so.”
Aisha climbed into the front and began tending to Heath’s wounds. The wolf had torn deep gashes in his arms and face. She could already tell that if he survived at all, he’d be scarred for life.
She took a canteen of water and began pouring it on his wounds. He was too shocked to realize what was happening.
“Do we have alcohol?” she said to Hunter, who was driving them forward at a rapid pace.
“First aid kit’s in the glovebox.”
She found alcohol, a needle, and surgical thread for stitches, and all the bandages she could use. There was no pain killer, but the way Heath was breathing, she doubted he’d even feel the pain of the needle. She stitched the gashes on his face before seeing to his arms.
“He’s going to look frightful,” she said, half to herself.
“The wolf get him bad?”
“Yes, and these are hardly the best conditions for tending to the wounds.”
“We’ll be in Dead Wolf in a couple of hours,” Hunter said.
She was beginning to see why the people had named the town Dead Wolf.
Hunter put his hand on her arm while she worked on Heath. “You saved us back there.”
She looked at him. “The shifter saved us,” she said, thinking back to that horrible moment just before the wolves turned their attentions away from them.
“You killed the first two,” Hunter said. “You saved both of us, him and me. If it wasn’t for you, we’d be finished now.”
She nodded at him and looked away. He was making her feel uncomfortable.
“That howl was a shifter?” she said.
“Yes it was.”
“Was it the same one from last night?”
Hunter looked thoughtful. “Shifters are rare,” he said. “We have a few up in Dead Wolf. Four brothers. They’re the only shifters I know of. It doesn’t make sense that we’ve run into so many since leaving the boat.”
“Do shifters fight the wolves?” she said.
“Yes, they do.”
“They’re bigger than wolves.”
Hunter nodded.
“And they have white fur,” Aisha added.
He looked at her. “The one last night did, yes.”
“Do they all?”
“I’ve only seen a handful in my life that were in their wolf form.”
“And were they all white?”
“Yes, they were.”
Aisha looked at Heath. She had finished stitching up the wounds. He was beginning to calm down and come out of shock but it would be a while before he’d be able to concentrate or talk in a calm and logical manner.
“You’re all right now, honey,” she said to him, stroking the hair on his head. “You’re all right now.”
The way he looked at her, she could tell he was grateful. He knew what she’d done.
It felt very strange to her, but all Aisha could think of at that moment was the wolf from the night before. She could see its eyes, its face, and she wished more than anything in the world that she could tend to the gunshot wound on its shoulder.
In fact, she wished she could tend to that wound even more than she cared to help Heath right now, and he was right in front of her, looking into her eyes, almost in tears.
She heard a howl far behind them.
“Was that him?” she said.
“That was the shifter,” Hunter said.
Aisha felt a sudden flood of relief. The shifter had survived the fight. She was sitting there nursing Heath, who might not even live from his wounds, and all she felt was happiness that the shifter had won its fight back in the depths of the forest.
She listened. The howl was followed by dozens of others from every direction.
“That’s the wolves,” she said. “They’re mourning the dead.” She didn’t know how she knew it, but somehow she could sense the meaning of those mournful howls.
Hunter said nothing.
*
Chapter 55
THEIR ARRIVAL AT THE LITTLE village of Dead Wolf was somewhat subdued on account of the wolf attack. They needed to get Heath to a doctor right away. He needed a tetanus and rabies shot and his bandages had to be changed.
Aisha looked out the window with intense interest as they drove in along the dirt road they’d been on for the past six hours.
“What do you think?” Hunter said.
“It’s pretty,” she said.
That much was true. It certainly was a scenic place. The village was nestled in a deep valley, gray granite mountains stretching up on either side toward the sky. The valley opened out to the south to allow the maximum amount of sunlight into the town. An icy stream full of salmon rushed through the center of the village. The buildings were built of thick pine logs, nestled into the valley slopes overlooking the river. It was like something out of a children’s storybook, one of those villages from a fairytale that was surrounded by witches and wolves.
The central street of the town was paved with flagstones rather than concrete, and it gave the place a rustic feel. If Aisha didn’t know better, she might have thought she’d arrived at a little ski resort in the Alps.
They passed a high wooden guard tower with a ladder leading up to the platform.
“What’s that?” she said.
