The Spiked Wolf

by David Shiels

  “We need to go Sally!”

  “Oh nice doggy!”

  Angela turned around to see a wolf pounce towards her; she swiftly moved out of the way but lost her balance and fell off the curb of the pavement, landing on her buttocks.

  The wolf landed on Sally and began to chew her face. The wolf looked exactly the same as the one Winston turned into; could it be him, was he hunting down Angela, was she his bounty?

  “Oh, my god!” Angela screamed.

  “Bad doggy” Sally yelled before dying.

  The wolf finished devouring Sally’s face; she was now unrecognisable; Her eyes were hanging out of their sockets and her chin was in the mouth of the wolf, which it promptly swallowed then turned its attention to Angela.

  It leapt off of Sally and landed in front of Angela, it reared it’s back up; it’s fur shot up like a cat that been cornered by a ferocious barking dog and aimed towards Angela. Suddenly a loud revving sound then a motorbike smashed into the wolf, dragging it along the floor and ripping its body in half, its organs all flying out over the street.

  The bike reversed and returned to Angela.

  “Quick, get on! We need to get out of here” Said the man on the motorbike; He was wearing a full black and blue leather biking outfit and had a helmet on which covered his face.

  Angela would normally hesitate at getting on a motorbike with even her most trusted friend but when she noticed the horde of wolves fast approaching behind her she hopped to her feet and jumped on the back of the motorbike.

  The motorbike sped off with the wolves being left unable to catch up.

  “Thanks so much for helping me” Angela said sincerely, her heart beating dangerously fast.

  “It is okay” Said the man in a deep voice. He sounded quite old. “This is no place for a pretty woman”

  “I need to get back to my family, I have two kids at home and I am terrified the wolves will get to them. Can you please take me there?”

  “Sure, no problem, I can never turn down a damsel in distress”

  Angela beamed a smile; something she thought was long lost. She grabbed onto his hips and rested her head on his back while looking at the disaster they were passing in the street.

  As they got further into the city where people were allowed to drive their cars, the scene turned eerily familiar to the one on the dual carriageway. Cars were crashed, people were trapped. Angela’s smile soon faded as she realised this would not end here, it would be like this in every city in the country, maybe even the world very soon If something was not done.

  The motorbike was smooth and slim and made a beautiful engine sound, it was obviously treated with great care by its owner; it glided through the carnage of the wreckages with ease.

  After another minute of driving they caught up with the main pack of the wolves and witnessed first-hand the horror that they were causing.

  Wolves were jumping through shop windows attacking the unsuspecting people inside, killing people in the street and shooting spikes at the ones they felt like infecting.

  All the wolves looked extremely similar to wolf Winston; some were slightly different sizes and had different colour shades of coats, but they all had the similar strong, healthy, well-fed appearance.

  One of the wolves at the head of the pack was a large silver wolf; it looked much fiercer and larger than the other ones.

  Angela’s concentration was knocked when a short middle aged woman jumped onto Angela’s back.

  “Get off me! You’ll make us crash” Angela screamed

  The woman screamed some angry foreign language at Angela; it sounded like Chinese. She grabbed Angela’s hair and tried to loosen her grip on the man’s hips; she was trying to get her off the bike.

  As this went on the wolves shot spikes at the fast moving trio, barely missing their bodies.

  “Stop it!” Shouted the man.

  The man began to swerve as the added weight and the conflict between the two women began to make it hard to balance the motorbike.

  Angela thought of her children and swung her head backwards hard and fast right in the woman’s face. The woman’s grip did not falter so Angela repeated the same action again, and again; when she felt the woman’s grip lessen she swung her whole body backwards and the woman flung off the back of the bike. She landed smashing her head on the concrete floor. Her body was quickly devoured, like it had landed in a lake full of piranha.

  “You okay back there? That was insane” said the man in a concerned voice.

  “Yeah, I’m…okay” Panted Angela.

  A quick whooshing sound passed into her ears and before she could comprehend it a large silver spike hit the man in his back piercing through the centre of his body. He let out a large scream while keeping both of his hands on the steering of the motorbike.

  “No!” screamed Angela “No!”

  Just when she thought things were looking up.

  The man continued to drive through the pain insisting he was okay but Angela knew what would happen and starred at the silver spike, wondering what it would do to him. They passed the pack of wolves finally and managed to drive off down a quiet road; this area had not been affected yet as the people were walking around without a care in the world, just slightly concerned with the noise they have been hearing.

  The pain eventually overwhelmed the man and the bike lost its balance crushing Angela’s leg as it fell to the floor and cut her left arm peeling away the skin on the entire upper half of her arm as it slid across the rough ground. She let go of the man and him and the bike continued to slide across the floor.

  He was demolished by the motorbike.

  She lay on the floor dazed by what had happened, but she had to push herself; she couldn’t afford to fall unconscious, not now.

  Some people ran up to Angela to help her. She brushed off their advances and muttered to them to run far away but they thought it was delirious talk of an injured woman. They ignored her warnings. Some of them got out their phones to ring for an ambulance, but they found all of the lines were busy.

  Angela noticed a sewer entrance under one of the curbs near to her; she was currently unable to walk so she had to hide, and the sewer was the only place possible.

  Her face was red with determination as she used all of her strength to crawl through the pain to the sewer entrance.

  “What are you doing lady? Stop! You don’t want to go down there!” Said a man’s voice.

  Angela took no notice.

  Everyone watched stunned as she crawled to the sewer and rolled down the edge and landed inside.

  The floor was about 15ft drop and Angela landed on her badly injured arm; causing even more pain. She let out a scream as the agony overwhelmed her.

  The sewer was like a small street but instead of a road in the middle it was a river of muck. It stretched into darkness on both sides.

  She heard the people talking about her from above when the screams began…the wolves had caught up to them. She was no longer the hot topic.

  Angela noticed a man approach her in the sewer. He was middle aged with a long scraggy beard. He was wearing dirty clothes and had a serious, cold look on his face. Angela couldn’t move to get away as he walked towards her.

  ‘What is he going to do to me?’

  Angela’s mind thought of all the possibilities. They probably don’t get many women down here, Angela thought, the man probably thinks this is a treat for him to enjoy.

  The man bent down and picked her up causing great distress all over her body and placed her over his shoulder and began to walk away.

  The torment was extreme and Angela wished the man would just put her out of her misery or that a wolf would come down to the sewer and tear out her throat giving her a quick, painless death.

  She had no energy to scream or fight back. Not that screaming would cause any help to arrive.

  The pain was too much. She had failed her children.

  She fell unconscious to the buzzing sound of helicopt
ers above ground.

  Ming and Moo

  There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the bright humid airport. The sun glared down through the large window ceiling, the heat making the gigantic room that much more of an oven than what it already was, people were everywhere, coming and going, all on a journey either just starting, just finishing, or continuing. From the ‘arrivals’ section came two young Japanese girls, jumping around excitedly as they entered the buzzing central part of the airport.

  “I’m so excited! This is my first timey in China!” Squealed Ming. She had a strong Japanese appearance; she had her hair in long pigtails which reached down to her shoulders, she wore a traditional school girl outfit, black and red in colour.

  “Mine too! I cannot wait to get started on our television show!” Oozed Moo, she was a little bit shorter than Ming and had more of a western look to her, due mostly to her mother being from England, although she still very much looked Japanese. She had long dark hair, it’s silky appearance stretching all the way down her back. She was wearing the same outfit as Ming but coloured blue and white.

  Both girls clasped hands and skipped through the airport without a care in the world. They had come to San Paolo from Tokyo to film their new television programme. They were massive lovers of anything horror and heard of a legendary haunted house in the wilderness near the outskirts of the city and felt the urge to go there and film the location.

  “Our cameraman should be somewhere nearby! Why did he have to come on an earlier flighty?!” Sighed Ming.

  “It was something about not wanting to be stuck on a flight with the both of us! The nerve, am I right?” Replied Moo while giving a massive grin.

  “Right! indeedy” Agreed Ming.

  The girls excited skipping was cut short when they reached a huge crowd looking at a large television monitor.

  “Do you thinky they are watching our television show?!” Giggled Ming.

  “Oh I wish-oh look there’s Trimple!”

  The girls ignored the murmuring crowd and instead ran off to a very short bald young Asian man who was carrying a large black camera bag.

  He placed his hand on his hip and walked lavishly towards the girls.

  “You two finally made it” He had a very high pitched voice that rivalled that of the two girls.

  “Our flighty was slightly delayed! No needy to worry!” chuckled Ming.

  “Yes some silly person had tried to kill themselves in the toilet on our flight” Laughed Moo.

  Trimple looked at both of the girls, said nothing and gestured for them to follow him; both girls obliged, their excitement building that they will get to see more of the city.

  They collected their luggage from the carousel. Both girls travelled with big suitcases which were almost the same size as them.

  A smooth woman's voice came on the tannoy:

  “Attention, attention, did any passengers leave a young brown spiked puppy on flight AT782 from St. Petersburg? Please come to customer services as soon as possible.”

  Ming and Moo looked at each other, placed their fingers on the corners of their mouths and pulled exaggerated upset faces to each other, then both together they announced, loudly, “Let’s go see it!” and ran off before trimple could even turn around.

  The girls got to the counter in a short amount of time but already there was a crowd of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the fragile puppy. A woman who looked like a vet appeared from a door behind the counter and carried the dog in her hand, it was extremely small and looked like it was only just a few days old, the sight of it fitting in one hand of the woman was enough to make Ming and Moo both melt on the inside, and they expressed this feeling very much on the outside for all to see, but all eyes were on the puppy.

  “Is the owner present? The vet lady asked in a stern manner, her blue piercing eyes scanning over the crowd of people.

  No reply came but there were a lot of requests to hold the puppy. Many people had their camera out ready to snap pictures of themselves with the small hound.

  “You would think no one has ever seen a puppy before!” complained Trimple, who had now joined the girls at the back of the small crowd.

  The vet carefully passed the dog to people in the crowd, while giving strict instructions on what to do and what not to do, she repeated it to each people even enough everyone was in earshot every time she had said it. They all enjoyed stroking and petting it. She passed the dog to a male bodybuilder who appeared to be in his late 30s; he cupped the dog in his large hand and used his other hand to give the puppy a vigorous rubbing on his back, moving his hand up and down through its fur.

  The man let out a small scream and swiftly moved his hand from the dog's fur, noticing that blood was now smothered on the back of the dog. The crowd gasped and all backed away, Moo moved in closer to inspect the blood stained coat of the dog, finding it both amusing and fascinating.

  The man looked at his hand and noticed it was covered in blood with tiny dark needles stuck firmly in his hand; the vet removed the dog from his hand and ushered him into the room from where she had first appeared from, the crowd muttered talk of concern, more for the dog than the man, and quickly dispersed, leaving just Ming, Moo and Trimple standing at the desk.

  “Well that was surely disappointedly disappointing!” Sighed Ming while swaying her head around in an annoyed motion.

  “Did you see that man’s hand? How did that happen? It was so cool!” Mused Moo as she stared at the door that they had gone through, looking at it so strongly one could easily come to the conclusion that she fully expected to will herself to look right through it.

  “Guys, guys, guys! Totally had enough now! I’ve waited here for five hours and I am totally sweating everywhere” Trimple placed his hands on his crotch and his buttocks and walked off.

  The girls faked gagging, but followed him; their vigour had slightly departed as they had not gotten the chance to hold the puppy.

  The trio moved outside of the steaming, sweat filled airport and into the greater heat of the outdoors, into the courtyard. It was still just as busy was it was inside and the ramped up temperature did not help; but the humidity had dropped quite a few degrees making everyone look and feel less like they are slowly being suffocated. Trimple quickly hailed down a cab by jumping up and down waving his arms around. They took a drive to the heart of Sao paolo.

  It felt like a long hot drive to their destination. Along the way the girls sang a lot of songs to pass the time. Trimple despised being in small confines with these girls but he desperately needed the work and these girls were going to make it big as their unique blend of extravert personalities currently had a huge following in Japan and would soon spread even to the western world.

  Trimple was a fellow student at a drama school with both of the girls and they had been placed in many classes together. Unfortunately he had to leave the school after one year because of his sister being taken extremely ill and the medication needed to enable her to live a good standard of living required high amounts of money and his parents were both disabled from a nuclear reactor exploding at the power plant where they had worked and they had spent their entire compensation on Trimple obtaining a place in drama school.

  He was their hope; he had to make it big to give them a better life. He noticed Ming and Moo had very eccentric personalities and had listened in to their, often very dark, conversations many times. Their results at school were poor and they were wasting their time there so he offered them the idea of them doing a show where they go around obscure, hopefully real, haunted locations.

  The girls did not hesitate with the idea and so far they have created three episodes which were hosted online and all have received upwards of 100 million views which had generated huge amounts of wealth for them.

  It was Trimples job to find the locations to film the girls in action; he had heard of a grand, abandoned mansion in the wilderness of Brazil which had seen a lot of mysterious deaths over the years. The local villagers ha
d deemed the house cursed by Satan.

  They eventually arrived at the gleaming hot epicentre of San Paolo. The girls enjoyed the day frolicking around the centre taking in all of the beautiful sights, eating gourmet foods and asking many questions about the Mansion. A lot of people had no idea what the girls were speaking of while some gave cryptic warnings to leave the place alone, urging the girls to return from where they had come from.

  Ming had quickly gathered that talking about the place was taboo and disrespectful, but Moo had been very insistent on asking as many people possible, sometimes even going as far as ordering Trimple to film the negative reactions.

  After their enjoyable time in the city had come to an end they ventured off to a small airfield on the outskirts of the city. The small private jet had been arranged for by Trimple. The village they were visiting deep in the wilderness of Brazil near to no airports or links to public transportation and because of this the place was not used to receiving visitors.