by Martha Woods
Holly watched him walk off into the forest with tense shoulders, her hands curled around her mug and trying to suck every ounce of warmth out into the rest of her body. “He seems different from the rest,” She said, “Like he really doesn’t want to be doing this.”
“Doesn’t want to be doing what?” Todd asked, throwing his hands up in the air, “I listened to the two of you talking, but I don’t have the slightest goddamn idea what any of you are talking about”
“Look it’s… complicated, alright? Just know that Shane is coming for us, and we’re going to be safe soon, one way or another ok?” She smiled sympathetically, squeezing his hand with her own. “I’m sorry that you got all mixed up in this.”
“I don’t even know what the hell I got mixed up in…” He muttered, picking up his mug and continuing to speak to himself, “Fuckin’ wolves, breaking through the windows, he punched a fuckin’ wolf too, never seen that done before…”
Holly sat next to him, shuffling closer so that they could share their warmth among one another, each cupping their hot cups of coffee like they were the only thing keeping them alive. In this cold, they knew that wasn’t really much of an exaggeration at all, they had to keep warm otherwise it was going to be lights out for all of them before Shane even got here to form his rescue plan, whatever that turned out to be.
She could only hope that it involved going somewhere warm, and somewhere with him. Otherwise it wasn’t going to be much of an escape at all, it was just going to be running away and leaving someone behind. She’d been left behind enough to know that was not something that she wanted to do.
Shane stalked forward through the trees, holding his fists clenched at his sides and keeping low to the ground, knowing that the trackers were going to be out searching for him in force. He’d asked Burnie to toss everything from his cabin into the truck as well, call him sentimental but he didn’t want to leave anything behind that he’d been carrying with him for years. He had enough bad memories, he didn’t want to give up the good ones too.
With his feet leaving trails in the snow there was only so much that he could do to disguise his presence, but he hadn’t been feared by wolf and bear alike by not knowing how to appear from nowhere. He just hoped that his skills hadn’t rusted in the time that he’d been away from the battle, that would truly be an embarrassing end to this whole situation.
“Where do you think he is?” Asked a nearby wolf, stepping almost out of nowhere and making Shane freeze with his body pressed into the snow, begging not to be seen.
“I don’t know,” Said his friend, “But this cold is doing hell with my senses you know? Like breathing in is giving me a headache, it sucks.”
“You’ll get used to it, it’s just gonna take a few days to get unblocked. Hey you wanna head back to camp for a bit? I think some coffee’d probably do you some good.”
He had to admit that it was strange hearing wolves and bears actually getting along, but in some strange part of his brain he had to admit that he was happy that Orson had burned down their homes. It seemed that having a renewed purpose had really prompted them to put aside their differences, there was something intensely heartwarming about that in his opinion. Maybe a little detrimental to his current mission, but it was still something to make him smile, weird as it seemed.
He waited five minutes for them to truly move on before he started skulking forward again, keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign that there were additional patrols out looking for him, but so far he’d gotten incredibly lucky. Just the two as far as he could see, and they’d retired from patrol duty before even becoming a true threat, he had a clear line to the camp where they were keeping his friends.
The first thing that struck him was that he was surprised at how… close they’d set up to town, he’d decided to circle around and cut through the forest for pragmatic reasons, but if he’d walked through the town he would have seen their campsite from a mile down the street. They were barely even out of the city limits, it was a wonder that none of the locals had come out and complained about it.
There were dozens of them milling about the campsite, talking amongst themselves or keeping watch in some direction or another. Shane had buried himself almost completely in the thick cover of snow and was moving forward slowly, but if he got any sort of tingle in his spine that someone was turning to look at him he would freeze completely and wait until his instincts weren’t going haywire anymore. What he did not need right now as being discovered right in the middle of camp with dozens of shifters all ready to kill him with a moment’s notice, he was skilled, but he didn’t know if he was that skilled.
“How the fuck am I going to do this…” He whispered to himself, counting each of the four tents and wondering just which one would be the one that contained his friends. In a perfect world they’d vacate the site completely and give him all the time in the world to search each tent individually, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He had one shot at this, and whichever tent he picked could have either his two friends waiting inside or a few tired and angry shifters, and if that happened then he could say goodbye to the stealth approach. Or at least, he would have to kill them to keep them silent. At which point everyone else would smell the blood, and he would have to say goodbye to the stealth approach. Just a few more steps to get there.
“Maybe if I could… what the fuck is that?” Shane looked off in the direction of the town, seeing at least six pickup trucks loaded up with men driving towards the campsite, each of them clearly holding a rifle of some sort and very much in the mood to use them, if the looks of glee on their face was any indication. For a minute he wondered if he’d truly misjudged the town and they were sometimes in a lynch mob mood, but then he recognized the scent of one of the passengers, and when he did it was all he could do to not tilt his head back and cackle into the air.
“Matt… you stupid son of a bitch.”
The other shifters on guard duty were just as confused, all stepping forward and forming a line between the trucks and the campsite, the tents emptying out of shifters as the call went out to form a defensive barrier. It put them all on edge, that was for sure, but it had cleared up the site for a moment and given Shane exactly what he’d wanted.
“Jackpot,” He said, keeping a careful eye on the standoff and making his way towards the tents, “Let’s go to work.”
“Who the hell are you and what business do you have here?” Graham asked, stepping in front of the rest of the shifters and crossing his arms, “If you have a problem with our presence here then say it now and leave, we’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
“A problem with your presence?” Matt asked, holding his sawn off in his working hand as he looked at the rest of his men, each of them with their fingers on the trigger, “I don’t think you understand, we want him.”
“Him?” Graham asked, looking around, “We don’t know what you mean, be clear.”
“Shane, you fuckin’ idiot! We want Shane!” Matt walked forward, grinning as each of his men lifted their rifles and held them at the ready. “Are you going to tell me where he is? Or are we going to have to start killing you?”
“You’re going to have to go back to wherever the hell it is that you crawled out from,” Graham warned, stepping forward and holding his finger out in warning, “You start shooting and I guarantee you won’t make it out of this alive, just try us.”
“Hmmm… that’s a compelling argument.” Matt nodded, looking away briefly before he swung his shotgun up and levelled it at Graham’s chest. “Here’s my argument.”
The shotgun boomed in the calm winter air, making every shifter in attendance jump as Graham was thrown back into the ground, chest full of buckshot and his shirt covered in blood. Kenneth scowled at the gathering of gunmen, connecting the dots and realizing that they were the group of smugglers that he’d seen warnings about before they’d arrived in town. He hadn’t known that Shane had already run afoul of them, but seeing how they were acting to
people they’d never met before he wasn’t certain that he’d needed to do anything to offend them.
“You’ve got one warning,” Matt said, pointing his shotgun at one of the younger shifters in the line, “Don’t make me give you another.”
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Came a voice from below him, looking down in horror as Graham rose from his spot in the snow and stretched his arms above his head, blood still spilling down his front and at least three of the pellets popping out of his skin to fall into the snow. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
Matt backed away, finger squeezing the trigger and sending another flurry of buckshot into the line, bringing the young shifter to the ground in a bloody, groaning heap just in time for Graham’s eyes to light up in fury. Matt turned and started running away, screaming for the rest of his men to start shooting as Graham leapt through the air and tackled him to the ground, claws swiping across his back and tearing into the skin of his working arm, a moment of extreme pain before an aching sense of nothingness. Matt screwed up his brow in confusion, looking to the side to see his arm ten feet away from him before he realized that Graham was still on top of him, teeth growing in size and his pupils blowing wide from bloodlust as he leaned his head back into the snow and screamed.
And with one final view of a mouthful of fangs closing around his face, Matt fell silent.
Whoever had kicked off the confrontation in the first place wasn’t of any interest to Shane, what was was the amount of bullets that were ripping through the tarps of the tents, ripping covering to shreds and coming within inches of sinking into his own body. He knew that Todd and Holly were smart enough to keep themselves low to the ground, they knew what guns could do, but it wouldn’t take much for an unlucky shot to zip through and take one of them through the chest, especially since hundreds of bullets had already been fired by his count.
The bonus to the gunfire was that he now had a confirmation on which tent the two of them were being stored in, being that they couldn’t stop screaming and shouting from the barrage of gunfire that was surely causing some level of hearing damage. Before he could get there however he was tackled from the side by a large figure, a fist sinking into his cheek before he could even bring his arms up to defend himself properly, recognizing it as one of the scouts that he’d injured earlier that day. He was surprised to see him up so early, especially since he’d broken at least one of his arms and legs, but he was very much up and very much capable of delivering one hell of a punch.
It was surprising that he wasn’t part of the kill squad.
“Stop!” Shane shouted, “Your friends are in danger, you don’t think that’s a little more pressing?”
“They can handle it,” He replied, punching Shane in the ribs and kneeing him in the stomach, “But bringing you back, that’ll really mean something! It’ll make up for the humiliation that you put me through!”
“Oh I have had it up to fucking here with hearing that,” Shane said, ducking out of the way of his next hit and sending his foot crashing into the knee that had been left unprotected, crunching bone beneath his foot and stopping the resulting scream by pulling his head back and punching him directly in the throat. “Everyone needs to learn… to get over shit.”
Tossing him back into the snow, Shane stumbled backwards and kept marching towards the tent, more aware than ever of the fact that the battle between the shifters and the smugglers was starting to get closer into the campsite. It wouldn’t be long before they were right on top of him, so it was imperative that he got Holly and Todd out of there as soon as humanly possible.
“Holly! Todd!” He shouted, pushing through the ruined flap of the tent and seeing the two of them lying flat beneath a few metal bed frames, “Looks like you two were protecting yourselves pretty well.”
“Shane!” Todd yelled from under the bed, “Can you tell me… just what the fuck is going on?”
“Kind of a long story,” He said, walking closer into the tent, “But the gist of it is-”
A stray rifle round zipped through the air and sank into Shane’s shoulder, stumbling him and making him curse out loud, holding his hand up to the bloody wound in his shoulder with no shortage of irritation. “It’s been a long time since that happened, forgot how much it sucks.”
“Oh my God! Oh my fucking God! You just got shot man!” Todd started to crawl out from under the bed, before Holly grabbed him and dragged him back under. “He’s hurt! We need to help him!”
“You need to stay low and keep yourself from getting shot,” Shane said, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. Let’s just get both of you out of here, ok?”
Still low to the ground, the three of them crawled out into the snow and started heading west, aiming to circle around the battle to push through to their getaway. Not a small order considering that there were shifters and smugglers both fighting for their lives in the way of that goal, but they were going to get through, one way or another. Seeing that there were a number of shifters that had turned into wolves and bears and were busying themselves with tearing the smugglers apart, he figured that might be the perfect cover.
“Alright, you two start sprinting for the trees, there should be enough cover there to stop you from getting tagged by any of those bullets, I’ll make sure that they’re distracted enough that they won’t come after you.”
“How are you going to do that?” Todd asked, before freezing as Shane dropped to his knees and began changing right in front of his eyes, “Oh… what the fuck is going on.”
“Forget about it, I’ll explain later,” Holly said, shoving him off towards the trees, “And you… you just be careful, ok? We’ll be waiting for you.”
Shane nodded, before turning and bounding towards the battle with as much strength as he could muster, the pain of the bullet wound already gone and his muscles bulging with anticipation. The smugglers were slowly losing ground, but at least a few of the shifters had fallen and were not moving, whether that meant they were just injured or had no life left in them at all he didn’t know, but his heart ached at the sight nonetheless.
Smashing his massive form into two smugglers who were drawing a bead on an already injured shifter, he trampled one of their arms under his foot and swiped at the other’s chest with his claws, feeling skin split and ribs cracking underneath the blow as he sent him sailing back. The other smugglers saw him and started aiming, but whether they knew it or not the shifters saved him from a barrage of pain by leaping onto the smugglers and tearing them down with tooth and claw, screams echoing through the empty field as it was slowly stained with red.
Shane turned to find another part of the battle to get involved in when a wolf sank its teeth into his neck, climbing up onto his back and swiping at whatever it could, claws digging deep channels into his skin and forcing him to roll to try and shake it off.
“You thought I would just let you be?” Kenneth growled, sinking his teeth in even deeper, “I’m not going to let you go Shane, you’re my prey, you’re my target, and you don’t get to change that!”
Shane’s path took him rapidly away from the battle, sprinting away with a wolf clinging to his back wasn’t exactly the most subtle of escapes, but he figured that it would do for now. None of the other shifters or smugglers noticed him going, too focused on their own survival to take notice of two people leaving the battle.
“Give up!” Kenneth shouted, finally being shaken off as Shane slammed himself against a tree, jolting him free and rounding on him once more, “It’s nothing personal!”
“It’s pretty goddamn personal to me,” Shane said, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, seeing the blood dripping down into the snow, “Just let this go, I don’t want to hurt you. Trust me.”
“Well too bad,” He said, leaping forward with teeth bared and with murder in his eyes, grunting as Shane shouldered him in the stomach, carrying him forward with enough force to bend him around the trunk of a nearby tree, two swipes from that mighty pair of bear
claws almost taking off his jaw before Shane relented, stomping once more down on his back before he stepped away, shaking his head.
“If you’re lucky you’ll walk again, but if not... I’m sorry Kenneth, I… I didn’t want to do that.”
“I’m not… going to stop hunting you,” Kenneth gasped, staring up at him from his spot down at the base of the tree, “You can run… as far as you want… I’ll find you.”
“I know,” Shane said, shifting back into a man and placing his hand gently on Kenneth’s cheek, “I know.”
And before any of them could smell his presence and make chase, Shane turned and ran off in the direction of his freedom, hoping against hope that the two of them could make it there before things got even worse.
When Shane made it to the truck after a period of sprinting that had left him gasping for air in his bloodied state, he was beyond happy to see that Todd and Holly were standing right there waiting for him. But when he looked closer, saw the person who was standing with them, he felt his heart drop into his stomach, and he wondered if he was really going to be able to talk his way through this.
“Leo, right?” He asked, walking forward with his hands up, trying to look as non-threatening as he possibly could, “What are you doing here?”
“I saw the truck up by your cabin when I went there to think, figured that I’d follow it down here.” Leo shrugged, stepping away from Todd and Holly and moving towards him. “You’re just… trying to live huh?”
“That’s right… I just, I’m not involved in any of this, ok? I just want to get on out of here, and go and live the life that I’ve been trying to live for years now.” Shane held his hand out, daring to place one on Leo’s shoulder. “Can you understand that?”
