by Sarah M. Awa
Maybe . . . maybe nothing bad had happened.
But it still wasn’t good that he’d escaped from those caverns.
Erickson, you idiot, he berated himself. How did the wolf get out of there? You squeezed through spots it was too big to get through.
He had figured out that his wolfish form was bigger when, years ago, he’d awoken post-transformation to find himself stretched through a hole in a sturdy chain-link fence, his back and shoulders striped with lacerations. The wolf must have been struggling there, but as a human he could crawl through without a scratch.
From that time on, he’d used this knowledge to his advantage. If he couldn’t find a safe room with a heavy-duty and lockable door, he transformed in a location from which the monster could not escape due to its size. When he’d moved here, he’d hoped the forest cave would calm the wolf. Until now, it had seemed to be a positive change of scenery.
After climbing carefully to his feet, Erickson stumbled over to the nearest tree and grabbed it for support. Blood whooshed in his ears, and the world spun once more. He waited for the black edges to leave his vision before taking a few steps. This area of woods looked familiar, and he realized he was quite close to the clearing outside the cavern’s entrance. Sure enough, he soon reached it—and then halted abruptly.
A man with a gun loitered in front of the cave.
Dammit. Erickson retreated behind a waist-high bush. He didn’t relish the idea of confronting a stranger when he only had some mud and pine needles protecting his most vulnerable areas.
A twig snapped under his foot, and the gunman swiveled and met Erickson’s startled gaze. “Hello,” the man said calmly, as if it were the most natural thing to meet a naked stranger in the forest.
Lips tightly clamped, Erickson studied the man warily. He guessed he was in his mid-thirties. His features were plain, forgettable, his height and build average. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt—not a flak jacket or army fatigues—and didn’t strike Erickson as menacing . . . until he looked more closely at the man’s eyes. Something burned in them. Determination. Fanaticism, even. This man had a goal, and he was going to do whatever it took to achieve it.
Erickson’s first instinct was to turn tail and flee. But before he could, the stranger took a step toward him, held up an open hand, and said, “Please, I mean you no harm. I’ve been waiting for you but didn’t want to scare you when you first woke up. I want to talk to you.”
Although the man’s weapon had been lowered this whole time, Erickson asked gruffly, “What’s with the gun? Aren’t those prohibited? And who the hell are you?”
“My name is Gary Saddler,” the stranger replied. “And yes, it is illegal to carry firearms here, but they don’t search your vehicle thoroughly when you check into the campgrounds. This is only a Pneu-Dart—a tranquilizer—anyway.” Making no sudden moves, he propped the long-barreled rifle against a rock.
More questions sprang into Erickson’s mind: What’s he doing out here with a thing like that? And how did he know to wait for me here? When, where, and in what state did he first find me? How long ago was moonset? The back of his neck was prickling, but he waited in silence. He’d let this Saddler do the talking for now, and he would choose whether to answer or not.
After a moment Saddler continued, “I’m sorry to say that I had to use my weapon on you last night.” A knowing gleam flashed through the man’s eyes as he fished two bent darts from his pocket and held them up.
Erickson fought to keep his expression from altering and his knees from buckling. Shit—he knows.
Surging with nausea, Erickson struggled to choose his next words carefully. Should he act like he had no idea what Saddler was talking about, tell him he was nuts? Or should he just run away? That probably wouldn’t work, given his current state. Every joint and muscle had been raw with pain since he’d regained consciousness, and it was amazing he was still standing.
Saddler shrugged his shoulders and said, “I understand you must be surprised and probably upset right now, Mr. Erickson. Or can I call you Nicholas? I apologize for pouncing on you like this, especially when you are obviously not feeling well.”
“What do you want with me?” Erickson snarled. He resented being spied upon, especially when he was in this defenseless state. The fact that he was unclothed didn’t bother him as much as the weakness did.
“Just to talk about a few things,” said the man called Saddler in what he seemed to believe was a reassuring tone of voice. “I think you will find that I am on your side, sympathetic to your . . . condition.”
“Oh, yeah?” Erickson said. “Well, right now my condition is that I am tired, pissed off, and would very much like to retrieve my clothes from that cave before it’s crawling with campers.” He glanced pointedly toward the dark entrance.
Saddler nodded. “I can understand that. Here, take my flashlight. Go ahead, find your stuff and get dressed, and then we can talk. I’d invite you back to my camper, but the wife and kids are with me, and they can’t know what I’ve been up to. In fact”—he glanced at his watch—“I had better get back there soon before they wake up. I’ll find a way to ditch them for a while and meet you at your RV.”
“You know about my RV?” Erickson said. “How long have you been following me?”
“This is the second month I have observed your visits to the cave. We haven’t known about you for much longer than that.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’? Are there more of you gun-toting psycho wolf chasers on my trail?”
A wry grin formed on the gun toter’s face. “Not that I know of. I was referring to an organization comprising mostly werewolves—with a few exceptions, such as me. A brotherhood. A pack, you might call it.”
Erickson didn’t know how many more surprises he could handle in one morning. “Ah, so this is about recruiting new members, then, is it?”
“Correct,” said Saddler.
“Well, sorry, but I’m not interested.” Free hand assuming the fig-leaf position, Erickson emerged from behind the bush and started to head back into the cave.
Saddler blocked his path, frowning. “Wait a minute,” he said. “That was an awfully hasty dismissal. Think about this for a moment: Wouldn’t it be an asset to you, and give you a sense of belonging, to gain companions who understand what you have to deal with every full moon? Or, I’m guessing, every day of your life? The guilt, the secrecy—”
“Like I said, not interested. I’ve been dealing with things perfectly fine for the last fourteen years.”
Saddler’s eyebrows went up. “Is that how long you’ve been living like this?”
Erickson shrugged. “Something like that. But I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Just seems like a terribly long time to be cut off and alone.”
“Yeah? I’ve gotten used to it, and I’d prefer to stay a lone wolf than join your wussy Werewolves Anonymous group.” He shouldered his way past Saddler and into the cave.
A strange look crept into Saddler’s eyes as he watched Erickson’s retreating form, which was pale against the dark stone. “You’re wrong about us,” Saddler called after the other man. “I’ll be waiting at your RV to tell you more.”
A mile away, Pam Grazziano groaned in her sleep and suddenly jerked awake. “What the . . . yikes!” She looked down and then clutched at the trunk of the oak, feeling dizzy. The forest floor was still several yards below her.
Crap. We stayed up here all freakin’ night! Are the others okay? She turned her gaze upward, saw that Melanie and Timmy rested safely above her, and sighed in relief.
Pam’s limbs ached and felt as inflexible as the thick branch on which she perched. At least she’d managed not to plummet to her death!
She hadn’t meant to doze off. She’d intended to keep a watchful eye on the ground and to monitor her feverish roommate, who’d passed out soon after they’d climbed up. However, as the hours had crept along and no monsters had prowled beneath their hiding
spot, Pam had found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyelids from drooping. She couldn’t recall drifting off, but it must have been several hours ago, because the sky had been dark then and was bright now.
“Safe after sunrise” echoed in her memory. Okay. Time to get down from here and back to camp—and to get rid of Timmy. She wondered if anyone from his group had bothered to search for him. Ha, doubt they stayed out in that weather for very long.
Pam shivered. Her damp clothes clung to her, and she felt disgustingly clammy. I’m going to need about five showers when we get back to the dorm. She hoped bugs hadn’t crawled into her mouth while she’d slept. “Ugh,” she said, and squirmed upright.
Now she was almost at Melanie’s eye level. She put a gentle hand on her roommate’s shoulder, praying she wouldn’t startle her too much.
“Hey, Mel. It’s morning. Wake up. Careful—we’re in a tree, remember?”
Fortunately, Melanie didn’t jerk awake like Pam had. She gave a small grunt and muttered something incomprehensible. Her eyelids fluttered and slowly lifted.
Pam gasped. She wobbled and nearly lost her footing.
For a brief moment, Melanie Caldwell’s dark brown eyes had shone with an eerie golden light.
Nick Erickson had plenty of time to mull over Saddler’s words while trekking back for his clothing: “You’re wrong about us.”
This Organization is not some stupid support group?
He shuffled along wearily through room after room and passageway after passageway, grabbing on to the rock formations and walls for support. He was in no hurry. Each minute he spent in here was one minute longer that Saddler had to wait for him. Erickson figured he had no chance of getting out of Pine Groves without the gunman bothering him again. Saddler would surely be at the RV. That meddling son of a—
How did he catch me off guard? How does he know about me? How on earth did I end up outside this cave?
He clenched his teeth. I’ll wring some answers out of him. Before I listen to any more crap about the Organization, I’ll make him tell me what happened last night, whether I hurt anyone. Then Saddler could take his turn and blather on about his werewolf club.
What exactly is the group’s purpose? Couldn’t be as innocent as Friday night bowling and pizza, could it?
Despite Erickson’s determination to remain self-reliant, he felt a pull toward this group. He’d never thought too much about the fact that there could be many other werewolves out there, scattered across the country—maybe even living nearby.
Why hadn’t he given it more thought? Next June would mark a decade and a half since the cursed event that had destroyed his normal human life.
He’d been bitten (had almost lost his right foot) back in 2002 during a hunting trip to Eastern Europe with a couple of his best friends. Actually, the trip was half business—they’d spent the first several days hammering out contracts with their company’s new Romanian clients. Afterward, the three American businessmen had rented a cabin in the rugged Southern Carpathians and donned their wilderness gear, crossbows and all, for a week of pleasure.
How quickly that pleasure had turned into pain, peril, and pernicious problems. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t been able to escape that damned creature. It would have saved other lives, later on, if he’d lost his own then.
Erickson’s melancholic musings faded as he stepped into a huge, open cavern that was crisscrossed by many other passageways. This was the room he had come to think of as Grand Central Station. It wouldn’t be long before he reached his sartorial stash and regained a bit of his humanity by covering up certain important parts of it.
Crossing to the narrowest of the passages, Erickson ducked his head and entered the roughly formed, low-ceilinged conduit. After staggering a hundred more yards, he reached the room with the tight crawl space from which his wolf form shouldn’t have been able to escape.
His outfit from the night before was tucked in the niche where he’d left it. He grabbed the clothes and stuck Saddler’s flashlight in the nook. The beam bisected the room and illuminated the crawl space.
Erickson drew in a sharp breath when he noticed a dark reddish-brown substance crusted along the lower edge of its opening. As soon as he was fully dressed, he grabbed the light and went over to examine the stains.
Their taste and smell confirmed what he’d feared: blood. Streaks of it stretched farther back along the floor of the crawl space, nearly to its other end.
Erickson’s gut lurched, and his heart pounded. That blood hadn’t been here last night. Is it mine? Please let it be mine.
It could be his. The wolf had managed to squeeze through here, and most likely it had scraped itself up in the process. There was no evidence of abrasions left on Erickson’s body—but there wouldn’t be, given the rate at which he healed around full moons. Running through rain-soaked underbrush would have washed away the bloodstains.
You didn’t find any corpses, remember? Or blood anywhere else. Relax.
His thoughts returned to Saddler. He’ll know something about what happened. He can tell me if any other people were involved. This can’t be his blood, and he might not have even entered the cave. But he could’ve seen others coming out of it.
With a sigh, Erickson turned and headed back toward the mouth of the cave. It was time to face his stalker. And Saddler had better give Erickson some concrete, truthful answers.
4
Return
September 18–19, Waning Gibbous Moon
Is this what it’s like to be plastered? wondered Melanie Caldwell, who had never been under the influence of anything except a Catholic upbringing and a loving family.
Leaning heavily on Pam’s arm, Mel stumbled along the trail that led back to camp. The air oozed around her, and the scenery reeled by in slow motion: Trees bent at odd angles, convex and concave, like in funhouse mirrors.
She closed her eyes for a moment, nauseated. Please let my head clear up.
She longed to go back to sleep, but she feared the nightmares. All night, hungry, hypnotic golden eyes had stalked her through shadowy worlds. She’d tried to escape, to wake up, but the nightmares had held her in their grip.
She whimpered at the memory of the eyes—and of the gleaming fangs.
“Are you okay?” asked Pam, halting on the trail. In Melanie’s vision, sparks of light flowed around Pam, pulsating and over-focused—but then she blinked, and there was only ordinary sunshine limning her friend.
“Yeah,” said Melanie. “Don’ worry, ’m fine. Jus’ wanna get back.”
“What the heck is wrong with her?” whined a voice from behind the girls. “Sounds like my old man getting home late from a bar.”
“Shut up!” Pam snapped. “Mind your own business, Timmy.”
Timmy? Oh, yeah. Crap, thought Mel. This weekend sucked, big time.
Sucked? No. Getting a bad grade sucked. Tripping and skinning your knee sucked. This weekend had turned into a full-blown carnival of creepy clowns juggling butcher’s knives.
At last, the trio reached the edge of the woods and emerged into the grassy outskirts of a cul-de-sac. Most of its campsites were empty. A weathered black-and-tan RV loomed just to the left of the trailhead. Three spaces in the other direction, Mel’s rusty Honda waited patiently next to the tent she and Pam should have slept in last night.
“A bit farther,” Pam said as she guided Melanie over to the car and propped her against the hood. It felt like a rocking boat. “Can I have your keys?”
Melanie furrowed her brow.
“In your pocket?” her best friend prompted.
“Oh, yeah.”
Pam opened the passenger side door and eased Melanie down onto the seat, legs dangling out the side. “I think I’m going to drive today, since you’re not in much of a state to—” Pam gasped. “Melanie . . . didn’t you have some pretty big scrapes on your knees last night? There’s blood there, but it looks like the skin . . . it looks like you never even got hurt!” She knelt for a cl
oser look.
Before Melanie could reply, Timmy came over and said, “Are you two planning on driving me back to my campsite now or what?”
“Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on.” Pam huffed. “You haven’t told us what site you guys are staying at.”
“Uhh, number 78—one of the large group ones.”
Reaching over Melanie, Pam pulled their Pine Groves map out of the glove box. She spread the map open on the side of the car, running her finger across the paper. “Here we go. It’s on the other side of the park, maybe a five-minute drive away. Go on and get in the car, Timmy.”
While he climbed in the back seat, Pam helped Melanie swing her legs inside the Honda. “We going home soon?” Mel asked, flopping back. She struggled to keep her eyes open and focused.
“Right after we drop Timmy off.” With a frown, Pam placed a hand on Melanie’s forehead. “You’re burning up, sweetie. I should take you to the nurse’s office when we get back to campus. You know what? I’m going to tear down the tent and pack up the car so we can leave straight from the guys’ campsite.”
“Oh, great. How long is that going to take?” Timmy griped.
“It’ll go quicker if you help me.”
He climbed back out of the car, grumbling.
Melanie started to drift off while she waited for Pam and Timmy to disassemble the camp. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes to see if they were almost finished. That was when she noticed that two other people had joined them.
Mel immediately recognized one of the newcomers, a young man with short-cropped dark hair and a build like a basketball player’s—tall and lanky, yet muscled. Luis is here. Wait—why is he so wet and muddy?
She squinted at the man standing next to Luis and realized he was the gunman from last night (now sans weapon). Strange, she thought, but fell back into a doze before she could think much more.
A knock on her window startled her awake. “Hey, Melanie. How are you feeling?”
Hmm? Oh. She gave Luis as much of a smile as she could muster. He pulled her door open and knelt in the gravel beside the car. “Been better,” she answered, finding it strange to be looking down into his eyes instead of up.
