by Tim O'Rourke
“I know enough,” he said. “I write the town’s newspaper so it’s my job to know what goes on – even the gossip.”
“There’s been gossip?” I gasped.
“Look, it’s really no one else’s business, but what, with things the way they are these days, people like a good love story – it cheers them up. It gives people hope for a better future.”
“There is no love story for me and Flint,” I said, turning and heading out of the door. “So the people of Maze are going to be very disappointed.”
Before I’d gone very far, my uncle had taken me by the arm. He turned me to face him. “Why don’t you ask Flint to go with you?”
“To be honest, Uncle, I already did.” I sighed, not wanting to show my disappointment.
“What did he say?”
“That he couldn’t leave because he was needed in Maze,” I said.
“But you need him more. Why don’t you ask him again? I’m sure he would change his mind. I could get him to change his mind,” my uncle said, rolling up his shirtsleeves.
“No, it’s okay,” I smiled, picturing my uncle marching over to Flint’s place and ordering him to come with me. “Flint’s old enough to make up his own mind about stuff, just like I am.”
“Aren’t you at least going to say goodbye to him?” my uncle asked.
“We’ve already said our goodbyes,” I told him, remembering how I had snuck away. Realising that when Flint woke and found that I had gone he might come and try to stop me, I added, “I’d better get going.”
“Hang on,” Uncle Sidney said, turning back toward the house. He was gone just a moment when he returned carrying what looked like a wooden shoebox in his hands. He opened it and I glanced down at what lay inside.
“A gun?” I whispered. “I don’t know how to use a gun.”
“It’s simple enough,” he said, taking it from the box. “You just release the safety catch, point, then pull the trigger.”
“But…” I started.
“Take it,” he said, placing the gun back into the box and thrusting it into my hands.
“What am I meant to be shooting at?” I asked.
“There are six bullets in the chamber and each is made of silver,” was his answer.
“Werewolves?” I tried to mask my smile. I’d heard the folktales that werewolves could only be killed by being shot with a silver bullet. If those rumours had ever been true, why hadn’t the humans made bucket loads of them and destroyed the werewolves? “Aren’t the werewolves all gone now?”
But instead of answering me, my uncle reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small wooden crucifix. Placing it into my free hand, he curled my fingers over it.
“Are you being serious?” I smirked. “There aren’t any vampires left.”
“Someone or something took the villagers from Shade,” My uncle said, staring at me.
“But…”
“Just take them,” he said and I couldn’t help but notice how his eyes looked suddenly watery and red-rimmed. “It will make me feel happier – it will give me hope that I will see you again.”
“I promise you will see me again,” I said, leaning forward and kissing him gently on the cheek.
With tears now threatening in my eyes, I placed the gun in my rucksack and the crucifix in my pocket and turned quickly away.
“There’s something else I need to give you,” I heard him say.
I looked back to see him toss a key through the air at me. I snatched hold of it. It was the key to his beat-up old truck. I looked at him. “Uncle… I can’t take your…”
“You won’t get far without it,” he said. “I’ve filled it up with the last of the petrol I could find. If you’re careful and keep to the route we planned, there will be enough petrol to get you to Shade and back.”
Without saying another word, he crossed the yard to his truck. He pulled open the door and I watched flakes of rust drop from the frame. “Go easy on her,” he smiled. “She’s like one of the family.”
I’d never thought of the truck as one of the family, I’d always secretly called it the bone-rattler, but I was grateful and touched by my uncle’s kind offer.
“C’mon.” He urged me toward him. “Before I change my mind.”
Placing my rucksack on the seat, I slid in behind the wheel. With the key in the ignition, I switched on the engine. It rumbled and coughed into life. The truck shook violently all about me. I pressed my foot down on the clutch. The truck lurched forward.
“Remember what I showed you,” my uncle said, taking my hand and placing it over the gearstick and sliding it into first. “Nice and easy.”
“Nice and easy,” I smiled, remembering the driving lessons my uncle had once given me.
“She can be a bit temperamental but she is very old now, so be gentle with her for me,” he said, stepping away from the truck and closing the door.
“I promise,” I said, staring at him through the open window.
We looked at each other and I guessed that both of us were thinking the very same thing. Would we ever see each other again? Turning my head and staring front, I drove out of the yard and didn’t look back.
Chapter Fourteen
Leaving the town of Maze and everything I had ever known behind me, I drove the truck along a twisting series of deserted narrow country lanes. I had my uncle’s map with me, and on the outskirts of Maze, I had taken it from my rucksack and placed it open on the seat beside me. With one eye on the road and the other on the map, I headed toward the village of Shade. My skin prickled with excitement at what might lay ahead of me. I’d be lying to myself if I wasn’t a little more than apprehensive about what I might find there. The chances are that I would find nothing. The town would be deserted – just like the rumours said it to be. But I would never know unless I went to Shade. I would never be able to rest if I didn’t try at least to find the truth about what had happened to my parents.
As I skirted around the town of Thunder Bay, just like my uncle had told me to, I couldn’t help but remind myself that this was my first chance at going in search of my first story for my uncle’s newspaper. If I told myself that, what I was about to do didn’t seem so daunting. It was more like a job than some kind of quest to find out the truth of what happened to my parents. Glancing through the cracked windscreen, I peered over the tops of the trees that lined the road ahead. I could make out the faint outline of Thunder Bay on a hill in the distance. The tallest buildings I could see looked as derelict and disused as the buildings in Maze. The road I travelled on was cracked. I tried to steer the truck around the many potholes, but one of them I hit, and the truck jerked and shuddered, jolting me forward in my seat.
As I left Thunder Bay behind me, I headed toward The Twisted Den, the second town my uncle had told me to steer clear of. At least three hours had passed since leaving Maze and the sky had now clouded over and it had grown dark. I switched on the headlights, but they were so weak they did little to light the road ahead. The clouds that had darkened the sky soon released a torrent of rain. It lashed across the windscreen. I turned on the wipers and they scudded slowly over the cracked glass. The squeaking sound they made was nail-biting. If I had to listen to that noise for the rest of my journey to Shade I would lose my mind. If only I had someone to talk to. Conversation would have helped drown out the irritating noise of the wipers and pass the time. But I had no one. My uncle had offered to come with me, but it had been Flint I had wanted to make the journey with. It had been him I’d asked. Perhaps my uncle had been right – perhaps I should have let him march over to Flint’s place and force him to come with me. But what would’ve been the point? However nice it would’ve been to have Flint sitting right up front in the truck with me, it would have only meant anything if he had decided to come of his own free will – not because he had been intimidated or threatened. Although after what I had witnessed last night, I doubted Flint could be intimidated or threatened by anyone. Even more reason that
he should have come with me. He would have kept me safe.
What was I thinking! I didn’t need Flint to keep me safe. I could take care of myself. I glanced sideways at the gun that was in my rucksack. Part of me was glad I had it with me, now that the sky had turned dark and the road ahead had begun to narrow as I drove around the outskirts of The Twisted Den.
Unlike Thunder Bay, I could see very little of what the town of The Twisted Den was like from the road. There was a mountainous range ahead, and I wondered if the town was perhaps hidden behind that. The mountaintops were flecked white with snow. But it didn’t look pretty or inviting. Apart from the spattering of snow, the mountains were charcoal grey and menacing. They loomed on the horizon like some sluggish beast. I couldn’t help but sigh with relief as I watched The Twisted Den disappear behind me in the rear-view mirror.
I pushed on as the rain and wind grew stronger. The truck rattled all around me as I bounced up and down in my seat. The trees lining each side of the road were black and leafless. Their trunks and branches were twisted and knotted looking, like a mass of deformed limbs. As the wind gusted against them, it was as if they were reaching out, trying to grab at the truck. The ends of the twisted branches scraped down the sides of the truck. I peered ahead, left and right, the headlamps doing little to light the road. I glanced down at the map, but it was too dark in the cab to see if I had perhaps taken a wrong turn someplace. I steered the truck over the uneven road, hoping that perhaps it might widen ahead and I could find a place to stop, pull over and check the map. But I found no such place. For how long I drove along those suffocating roads, I had no idea. Just as I had convinced myself that I had in fact taken a wrong turn someplace, I saw the road widen out ahead. I eased my foot down on the accelerator and raced as fast as I dared to push the truck toward it.
Free of the treeline road, I hoped that my spirits might have risen a little and the sense of dread that had started to consume me fade. But what I saw ahead did neither.
Chapter Fifteen
The sign jutted from the side of the road like a limb that had been torn free and shoved at an awkward angle into the ground. The sign was made of wood and across it, scrawled in faded writing, were the words Welcome to Shade. But it wasn’t the wooden sign that heightened the sense of dread I already felt, it was what lay beyond the sign – at the end of the road I’d been traveling. The village of Shade was hidden by a giant wooden wall that stretched up into the evening sky. It looked as if someone or something had wanted to keep its secrets hidden from the rest of the world. Easing my foot down on the pedal, I coasted the truck slowly forward, past the sign and toward the wooden wall surrounding Shade.
I stopped about twenty feet from the wall that blocked the road and barred my entry into the village. I peered up through the windscreen at the wall. There was no door anywhere into Shade that I could see. The rain eased and I switched off the wipers. Now that they had stopped, all I could hear was a deadly silence. Yanking on the wheel, I drove off the road, following the wall that surrounded the village. There didn’t appear to be any way in or out. What secrets were being kept behind the wall? I couldn’t help but wonder.
When I thought that I should’ve perhaps taken my uncle’s advice after all and stayed at home, I saw what looked like a gap in the wall ahead. Killing the engine, I pushed open the door and climbed out. I made my way toward the wall. Standing before it and in the faint light coming from the truck’s headlamps, I could see that one of the planks of wood that made up the wall had been loosened and eased to one side. Reaching out, I yanked on it, making it a fraction wider. The gap in the was just big enough for me to squeeze through, but definitely not the truck. Knowing that I would have to make the rest of my journey on foot, I headed back to the vehicle. Folding up the map, I placed it into my rucksack covering the gun that my uncle had given me. Fastening the top of the bag, I swung it onto my back, took the key from the ignition, and closed the truck door. As I shoved the key into the pocket of my jeans, my fingers brushed over the wooden crucifix. I glanced up at the wall that towered above me and couldn’t help but wonder if I would need either the gun with its silver bullets or the crucifix once I was on the other side of it.
Ignoring every one of my senses screaming at me to turn back, climb into the truck and drive away, I headed toward the gap in the wall. Bent at the waist, I climbed through the narrow gap and into the village of Shade. I found myself in a wooded area. It was so dark that I could see little more than a few feet ahead of me. Slowly, I made my way between the trees. There was a sudden sound to my right and I froze. It sounded like some large creature had stirred close by. Trying to keep my breath as shallow as possible, I looked in the direction that the noise had come from. My heart beat so fast, I thought it might just burst. For how long I stood as still as a statue I had no idea, but when the sound didn’t come again, I took one last look at the hole in the wall, then moved off deeper into the wood.
The wind made the tree branches creak overhead and twigs snapped beneath my boots as I moved carefully forward. I looked curiously left and right and over my shoulder. I hadn’t been in the wood very long and I already had the sense that I was being watched – perhaps even followed. But I was just spooking myself, right? That’s what I tried to tell myself at least as I walked deeper and deeper into the woods. The further I went, the darker it became. That noise came again and I spun around. A shower of dead leaves sprayed up from beneath my boots. I scanned the gaps between the nearest trees. But it was just too dark for me to see clearly enough. The sound came again, this time from behind me. I turned quickly on my heels. I thought I saw something huge and hulking moving between the dark shades between the knotted tree trunks. I wanted to call out – to ask if anyone was there. Just to hear my own voice would be comforting in the darkness. But what would be the point in calling out? The village of Shade was deserted – everyone had vanished. I stood as still as I could – heart thumping in my ears. No further sounds or movement came again, so I moved off once more.
As my eyes slowly became accustomed to the gloom, I could see that the trees ahead of me had begun to thin out. I headed in that direction, just wanting now to be free of the woods. Stepping beyond the treeline, I found myself on the brow of a small hill. At the bottom of it was the village. It was bigger than I had expected it to be. But what I hadn’t expected to see was the warm glow of light coming from beyond the windows of a building in the centre of the village. A thin stream of smoke coiled up from the chimney jutting from the building’s roof. There was at least one person still living in Shade, or who else had lit the lights and fire?
Leaving the wood behind me, I crept slowly down the hill and into the village. The streets were narrow, cobbled, and winding. The houses and shop fronts looked desolate and empty. Some of the windows were smashed or boarded over. Litter blew aimlessly along the gutters in the wind. I made my way through the village and toward the direction of the building with the lights and smoking chimney. Apart from the distant howl of the wind and the sound of my boots on the cobbled streets, the village was eerily silent. I turned into a side street and could see the building I had spied from the hillside. Keeping close to the deserted buildings, I made my way toward it, careful not to step clear of the shade offered by the shop fronts and empty doorways. I didn’t want to be seen by whoever was in the building.
As I drew close to it, I could see that it was the village pub. A sign above the door wailed on a set of rusty chains as it swung back and forth in the wind. The Weeping Wolf, the sign read. Crouching low, I covered the short distance between my hiding place and the pub. I approached the window with the light glowing from the other side of it. As I got near, I heard the sudden sound of voices coming from within. Fearing that I might be seen, I spied an alleyway down the side of the pub. I darted into it. In the darkness and with my back pressed against the wall, I listened to the sound of the voices, desperate to make sense of what they were saying. The voices sounded male; they were way too deep
to belong to any woman. But how many voices were there? Two? Three? I couldn’t be sure. And who did they belong to? There wasn’t meant to be anyone living in Shade. All the people had vanished.
Taking a deep breath, I dared to edge nearer to the end of the alley, hoping I might hear the voices more clearly. But as I did, I heard another sound. At first I thought it was perhaps the sound of approaching thunder. But it was too close – too loud. The noise came again, like a deep, booming rumble. It was coming from behind me. With my legs going weak at the knees, I turned slowly around and stared back into the alleyway.
A giant wolf, with thick grey fur, made a howling sound in the back of its throat as it stared out of the darkness at me, eyes burning bright and jagged jaws wide open.
To be continued…
‘Werewolves of Shade’ (Part Two)
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More books by Tim O’Rourke
Kiera Hudson Series One
Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1
Vampire Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2
Vampire Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3
Vampire Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4
Wolf House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5
Vampire Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 6
Kiera Hudson Series Two
Dead Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1
Dead Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2
Dead Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3
Dead Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4
Dead Seth (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5
Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6
Dead Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 7
Dead Push (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 8
