Willie froze for just an instant and then tugged at the pistol. The hammer caught in his bag and he just kept pulling, almost tugging himself around in a full comic circle like a kid who can’t get his arm out of the sleeve of his coat.
The Mormon couple panicked and turned to run but hadn’t released their bindings. They went down together in a tangle of poles.
A beefy ex-marine in a bright green ski suit fared better and silently unclipped before he tried to run in the deep snow. He pumped his knees high and gave it all he had, but in the end he only accomplished being the first one attacked by a second wolf who shot from the opposite tree line. This one was as big as the first, and the same dark gray. It faked a lunge for the neck before taking the marine down by the thigh. It hit him so hard he spun like a football tight end and the big wolf flung around with him as they fell into the snow. With one quick rip from the wolf the femoral artery in the marine’s groin opened up. From the swirling mass of wild dog and bright green colored human came an arcing spray of red that pumped in a circle around the snow like a sprinkler.
Shutterbug reached for her husband but only grabbed the granola bar as he fell backwards from the weight of the massive wild dog on his back. The wolf leapt to the side as the dying man puffed down into the deep powder, flopping his arms and legs like he was making a snow angel.
The young non-lesbians hugged each other and finally screamed together, harmonizing and inviting the first wolf to be its next logical target. It took two large steps and then leapt on both of them. They put their hands up and the cuter girl snapped one last killer selfie. The flash lit up the wolf’s black feet and fangs just before it took a chunk out of Less Cute’s face as they fell backwards together. Their skis and poles clattered wildly as the wolf pounced, and bit.
Willie started to walk backwards, away from the growling and the screams and the crunching bones and the spraying blood. He still tugged helplessly at his pistol as he backed up to the edge of the wide river.
The second wolf circled the not-so-quiet-anymore Vancouver couple as they swung at it with their poles and yelled obscenities. The big wolf pawed and snapped but held back as a pole jabbed into its snout. It decided to leave them for a mother-daughter team from Nashville with matching pink outfits. They too had unclipped from their skis and took two steps in the deep snow before becoming immobilized, mostly by fear. They had dropped their matching ski poles and balled their matching mittens into fists as the wolf approached, smacking its black tongue over blood soaked fangs.
Shutterbug had stood perfectly still and quiet after her husband fell, not making eye contact with the first wolf. It had snorted at her but swung its red smeared face towards the younger girls when they screamed.
The two girls were laying side by side together, still embraced and immobile with their skis tangled and an arm trapped under each other in the deep snow. The massive wolf moved quickly to Cuter Girl’s side, opened wide, and snapped down. It covered her entire neck with its dripping mouth.
Shutterbug backed slowly away on her skis, pushing back with her poles until she reached the end of the snow next to Willie at the flat, rocky riverbank.
Cuter Girl flailed at the wolf with her free arm as the mad animal lifted slightly and her back arched off the snow. She looked helplessly at Less Cute whose teeth were showing through her torn open cheek. Blood flowed freely down into her snow suit, turning her white thermal top red. Less Cute had also been pounding on the wolf but stopped when it fixed her with a cold stare from above her friend’s neck. She just watched from inches away as the wolf compressed its jaws. There was a snap as black goop and blood flowed into the snow below Cuter Girl’s neck. She stopped pounding, too.
Willie found solid footing on the rocks at the edge of the water and finally freed his orange pistol. At the same time he yanked the plastic cover of the emergency button attached to the lapel of his one piece. He pressed the button and felt it click, and then heard the beep from his combo phone, indicating his beacon had been activated. He aimed the pistol at the wolves and followed them as they danced around their prey.
The wolf taunting the Vancouvers had snapped away one of their poles. Willie couldn’t get a clean shot and turned his gun to the Nashville mom and daughter. They were a pink blur of yelling, growling, tearing death. One of them was below the wolf and her snowsuit had ripped open. Willie could see naked flesh and lots of blood. Intestines wrapped around the crazed wolf’s head as it went in low for another bite. The gut’s owner, Willie thought it was the mother, was still clawing wildly at the dog’s lumpy face as she watched her insides being pulled out. Her daughter was on the huge animal’s back, raking ferociously at its dripping black mouth.
“Fucking shoot!” Shutterbug screamed at Willie.
“I can’t get a clean fucking shot!” Willie screamed back at her. His scream was much higher pitched than hers.
“Fucking shoot!” she screamed again.
Willie shot.
A hole appeared on the daughter’s forehead and Willie saw a red mist spray out from the back of her head. She slumped on the back of the wolf and slid off. The mother grabbed for her daughter’s hand but missed. Her clutching hand followed her daughter down into the snow, and then she stopped fighting and just lay back with her arms around the massive wolf’s tugging head. She turned to look at Willie as the wolf nosed in deeper and her whole body shook. The growling animal grabbed something important inside her and she went slack.
“Shoot again, you fucking idiot,” Shutterbug said as she tried to unclip her skis.
Willie just stared down the sights of his gun at the wolf as it raised its head and looked at him. Black gore and red smeared its front. It dripped red slobber and pink intestine as it trotted over to the Vancouvers who had lost another pole. The husband was kneeling over his wife while she held a badly bleeding hand.
Shutterbug threw her pole at Willie, catching him hard across the face before she tripped over her remaining attached ski. “Shoot!” she yelled.
Willie pulled the trigger and the revolver’s tumbler spun the next shell into the barrel and spit flame as it kicked in his hand. He couldn’t tell if he had hit anything. He capped off two more rounds and was pretty sure he caught one of the wolves broadside but it didn’t seem to slow down any. If anything it just became more enraged and pounced on the Vancouver husband. The man was able to jam the tip of the ski pole under the wolf and sink it in. The problem was the little round plastic basket at the tip stopped the pole from going in more than a few inches. The wolf crashed down on him as the other wolf grabbed his wife’s leg and pulled her away.
Vancouver wife screamed and kicked wildly at the beast’s face with her free leg. The huge attacker twisted its head and flipped her face down in the deep snow. Her arms pin-wheeled in the powder as it came up over her back. Just as she started to push herself up the wolf reared its head and clamped down on her shoulder with such force Willie and Shutterbug heard a loud snap.
The husband was on his back and they could only see his arms sticking up from the snow. He was holding up a pole that the wolf had its jaws around. They both twisted and pulled on the pole, playing a very serious game of tug of war.
Willie raised his pistol again to shoot, and then he and Shutterbug heard a scream.
Valerie had been frozen with fear. She was a little further up the trail watching the horror unfold with her hands clasped over her face. The wolf that had been dispatching the Vancouver wife finally noticed her. It dragged the woman’s still struggling body along with it for a few meters before letting it go and walking slowly towards Valerie.
Willie noticed the third wolf, the lighter one they first saw at the top of the glade, was now making its way slowly down their rutted ski trail towards Valerie as well.
The sun had disappeared behind the thick clouds and the snow had started to fall heavily again. A stiff cold breeze rolled down the river from higher up the valley. Willie shook with a chill. He was standing shin deep in fre
ezing water and even though his boots were waterproof the water flowing over them was numbingly cold.
Shutterbug had watched what happened to the Vancouvers and quickly stomped the plastic basket from the end of her remaining pole. She held it like a sword as she unclipped her ski and stood a few feet away from Willie on the riverbank.
“Shoot it,” she said calmly. She was tempted to take the gun but she’d never fired one and she was pretty sure Willie had hit the wolves at least once.
Willie tried to aim. He tried to hold the gun steady but Valerie’s wail, Vancouver husband’s desperate profanity, and the sickening growls from the wild dogs were making his vision spin. The cold of the river crawled up his back. As it sucked the heat from his body it took his will to fight with it. His chill turned into a constant shiver. He couldn’t find both sights on the orange barrel and the nose of the gun seemed to sway away just when he had it true. He shook his head and muttered. “I don’t…no…no shot.”
“Shoot it Willie,” Shutterbug said again calmly, “Just pull the trigger. You can do it, you have to.”
He fired and the bullet slammed into the wolf stalking Valerie. It went down. The snow was a churning sea of grey fur and flying powder for a moment, and then the animal lay still.
The other wolf was still biting down on Vancouver’s ski pole. Willie tried to get it lined up but it danced and leapt around too much. As he watched it closely he realized three horrible things; the animal was grotesquely disfigured, it was not right in the head, and it was toying with its victim.
Willie suddenly wished he had spent a little less time getting baked and more time with Hamish and his band of zealots learning how to shoot, and learning more about wolves. He’d only seen them in the wild a handful of times but he knew enough to recognize this was very fucking abnormal behavior. These huge wolves had been drooling and spitting black crap and yapping and snapping crazily. This one was also purposely biting and yanking on Vancouver’s pole when it could easily shove it out of the way and go for a kill bite.
He looked at Shutterbug who had noticed the same thing.
“Fuck me. Willie, you have to kill it. Kill it now!” Shutterbug screamed.
Vancouver agreed.
“Fucking kill it!” he screamed from the snow under the pouncing wolf.
Willie nodded. He took aim as the huge wild dog lunged and clamped down on the pole again. The insane animal paused and looked up at Willie. It raised its lips at him with the pole in its huge teeth.
Willie had him, and pulled the trigger.
As the trigger released and the hammer came forward, Valerie screamed louder and Willie jerked the gun at the last instant. The bullet left the gun, and blew a chunk from the back of Vancouver’s wolf’s thick neck.
Willie heard another scream from Valerie. She had been knocked from her skis and gone down hard in the deep snow. The wolf Willie had shot was up and walking, and it was now behind Valerie after having pounced and raked her front with its claws.
Valerie got to her feet. She had her arms crossed in front of her. There was blood on her face and it was running down her legs. She slowly opened her arms and they saw her tight ski outfit was ripped open down to her thigh. She had several jagged wounds that started at her shoulder and crisscrossed down her front to her navel. Willie and Shutterbug could clearly see the white of her sternum and several ribs showing through, and the edge of one of her implants.
“Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” Shutterbug stammered.
Valerie opened her arms wide and started to high step slowly through the snow towards Willie. She was saying something but they couldn’t hear what it was.
Willie and Shutterbug watched as the wolf attacking Vancouver had tired of the game after having been shot. He looked at Willie again and then pawed the pole away with one swat. The pole flipped end over end and stuck in the snow next to Vancouver’s still moving wife.
Willie staggered further into the river. He walked backwards with his boots slipping on the slick boulders, wading deeper until the current started to knock him over. As the freezing water passed his waist he held the pistol above the churning river and steadied his footing. The shiver turned into shaking, and his teeth chattered loudly. He heard the pinging of the emergency beacon slowly muffle as his pack took on water and dipped into the swirling river behind him.
Valerie continued to walk towards him, talking to herself.
The other wolf had come all the way down the slope from the top of the ridge and stopped a few meters away from the tall blonde. The light gray wolf looked from Valerie, to Willie, and back again.
The darker, deranged wolf that split her open strolled up behind Valerie, walked around her, and continued on. Willie could see the bullet wound and the blood matting the wolf’s side but it seemed unaffected. It walked to Vancouver’s wife who was now kneeling in the deep snow. Her neck was cocked at a strange angle and she had a puzzled look on her face. She seemed curious about the protruding end of her broken collar bone. The wolf stopped next to her and she looked it in the eye. She reached out and gently touched its snout before falling forward into the snow.
An exhausted Vancouver was pinned down by a huge black paw in his chest. He was deep in the snow and could only see the red stained neck and chin of the drooling wolf above him. He called out, “Sarah, can you hear me? Can anyone hear me? Help me.”
Shutterbug gripped her pole and answered Vancouver, “I can hear you, but no one can help us.”
The wolf holding down Vancouver head-butted its fellow killer as it walked past and continued towards the river.
Shutterbug exchanged a long look with Willie who was standing chest deep in the freezing river and holding up the pistol in his trembling hand. The guide’s normally smiling, pink face was ashen and slack, and she could hear his teeth rattling over the soft gurgling of the water flowing around him. She turned back to watch the huge, maniacal wolf walking towards her. Its powerful shoulders rolled with each step and its big head and dripping fangs swung back and forth…but it never looked away.
She looked down at the blood smeared camera hanging from her neck.
Shutterbug slowly slipped the strap off her neck and switched it from photo to video mode. She put the lens cap on, and pressed the record button.
She locked eyes with the approaching wolf and said calmly, “Colleen, your father and I love you more than anything in this world. You’ve been the best daughter a mother could ever want. Don’t cry for us. We’ve had a long happy life and have done and seen wondrous things. You are a bright, special girl and I am so very proud of you dear. Go find what makes you happy and don’t hold back, don’t ever hold back baby. Momma’s loved you since the first second I held you in my arms, and I always will sweetheart.” She switched the camera off and tried to wipe some of her husband’s blood from it. She let the strap slip through her fingers and set the camera down softly on the rocks just before the wolf leapt.
Willie watched Shutterbug go down under the wolf as she stabbed at it wildly with her pole.
From under the other rogue, Vancouver husband’s desperately searching hand reached up and grabbed for its muzzle but only got a handful of bloody, slimy neck fur. The wolf lowered its head and he let out one quick, chopped scream.
Willie looked up the slope at Valerie. She had stopped walking and was just staring at him. She wasn’t talking to herself anymore.
She smiled at Willie.
The wolf finished with Vancouver and looked at Willie before it turned back towards Valerie. It approached her at a trot and she waved goodbye to Willie, rotating her arm and wrist like she was on a parade float.
Willie looked away from her, and he looked away from the wolf removing Shutterbug’s head. He turned around in the water to face the far side of the wide, fast flowing river. He looked at the snowy, waving tree tops and the mountains beyond.
As Valerie screamed he put the pistol’s muzzle between his chattering teeth.
Chapter 57
> When Bill started his signature move of leaning out into the West Wing’s hallway and looking both ways to make sure it was clear, Kim was already starting to smile. He leaned back into her office and said quietly, “I just don’t know what to tell you, Kimmy. Us old Seabees pride ourselves on being able to bridge any chasm, but this unscalable thundercunt’s colder than a well digger’s scrotum in Anchorage. Come to think of it, she’s also about as blue-blooded, and about as much fun to play with.”
The president’s press secretary laughed out loud despite herself. When she first met the National Security Advisor she thought him to be a boorish, sexist, homophobic, single celled jar head, or whatever they called ex-navy anachronisms. Over the next eighteen months he proved her to have been totally right. He was also an unapologetic republican, had wandering eyes, and was a four-finger drinker like her dad had been. He was everything she despised, and yet Bill made her laugh harder and more often than anyone else in the White House. She included on that list the constant flow of ass-kissing posers who practiced their witty committee speeches on her, and fancied themselves a mix between Jay Leno and Walt Whitman.
In their year and a half in the trenches together Kim had also come to understand Bill was actually the most genuine and least judgmental person on the senior staff. He honestly had no agenda other than expecting results. He would go to the wall for whomever performed best, even if that person was a green-skinned illegal alien with a short skirt and an Adam’s apple. Those were his words, but she’d seen him back them up more than a few times, and he’d certainly protected her ass more than once.
“Well you’ll just have to find a way to charm her,” Kim said. She wanted to add that she completely agreed that Bill’s new Deputy National Security Advisor was exactly as he described, but her job was to avoid tossing logs on Bill’s perpetually burning, non-PC fire. The big guy knew she and Bill were chummy and had asked her to try to steer him to the middle of the river whenever she could. “She’s not that bad,” Kim lied, “Go and have that beer with her, maybe you can compare war wounds.”
The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2 Page 28
