The Spiked Wolf

by David Shiels

  She peered back to the other two figures and could now very clearly see them; it was one of those large freaks having sex with a woman; against her own will.

  She was crying and facing Claudia, but with her eyes tightly closed, her face soaked in tears.

  The man was being extremely rough with her, showing her no respect and not caring one bit if she was enjoying the moment. He constantly slapped his hand against her face, blood spraying after each hit.

  The woman must have been in her fifties; with long brown hair. She was completely naked.

  Claudia glanced around the room and noticed there was another woman being sexually assaulted in the far corner. The other tables in the room were full of unconscious, bruised, bleeding women.

  The door to the room swung open and small deformed man quickly approached Claudia, he licked his lips as he scanned her up and down.

  “No! Get the hell off me!” Shouted Claudia as the man grabbed at her legs.

  She tried to kick him away with all of her remaining power but he had quick hands and a strong grasp. He spread her legs apart effortlessly and put them in locks at either edge of the table; they snapped shut hard, Claudia felt that her legs would have shattered if the man had misplaced them; perhaps that is what happened to the other women. She was now stuck in a very vulnerable position and would have no way to stop the man doing whatever he wished.

  The man mounted the table on all fours, covering Claudia from view from anyone behind him. All she could do in retaliation was to spit at him until her mouth ran dry and her lips began to crack. The man didn’t wait for that and put his hand over her face. She tried to bite his hand but he had far too much force pressed onto her face.

  She could not move any part of her body.

  She closed her eyes and tears began to fall down her cheeks. Then, she felt a weird thick fluid gush onto her neck and slither down her torso.

  The man’s grip on her face loosened and he got off the table in haste. Claudia opened her eyes and saw that the man was struggling with something behind his back, something he couldn’t reach with his arms.

  She looked down at her body and noticed that she was covered in blood, then she noticed a wolf on the back of the man’s neck and it was tearing deeply into his flesh.

  Around the room were more wolves; at least 4. They must have followed her through the door in the cabin. They were attacking everything in the room, man and woman. The deaths were so quick that no one in the room had time to utter sounds of intense pain.

  The guy that was on top of Claudia had fallen to the floor, his body given up from the ferocious abuse. The wolf that had felled him stood on his body and stared at Claudia, an indifferent look in his eyes. The wolf had soft grey fur but contained the eyes of a young puppy; it looked completely innocent.

  Claudia starred back, completely dumbfounded and with no idea what to think of the situation, her mind had for the first time in her life, drawn a blank.

  Another wolf jumped on the table and began chewing and stamping at the chains that bound Claudia, two more soon joined in to help.

  They appeared to not care for their own wellbeing, despite the pain it must have been causing them, and continued to slowly grind down the chains.

  When her arms had eventually been freed Claudia just lay there, still starring back at the wolf that had conquered her ‘attacker’.

  Her legs were then also freed and Claudia’s brain finally decided to awaken from its shock. She timidly began to move and lower herself from the table.

  The room was in a complete mess, the bodies of the women had been ravaged to the point where they were unrecognisable, and in the corner near to Claudia was a massive pile of human bodies, mostly women who had given up the fight. What caught her attention the most was the body of one of the men that the wolves had attacked; it was convulsing and the man began to howl in such intense pain, a sound of pain Claudia had never come close to experiencing.

  Claudia first hand experienced the excruciatingly painful transformation from man to wolf. The newly born wolf just sat up, proudly, completely covered in blood; it seemed to not have a care in the world. She could not believe what she was seeing; she had only ever seen such things in late night horror shows on television.

  She wished that she was truly hung over from an extreme binge drinking night and she was purely hallucinating.

  Suddenly she slapped herself hard across the face; hard enough to make herself stumble backwards. “Snap out of it!” she said angrily to herself, annoyed at letting herself get overwhelmed by the predicament.

  She stopped and looked around; there was at least 10 wolves all sitting, starring at her, not moving a muscle.

  She quickly walked to the open door, the wolves’ dark black eyes following her, and walked down the bleak, quiet corridor; hoping to find some sort of exit to get off this island. She didn’t want to think about deeply about the events that had just transpired.

  The corridor was much narrower than the other corridors she had been in and there was very little light; there was one torch every 200 meters lighting up small parts of the corridor, which was slowly turning into more like a tunnel.

  She could hear the patter of many feet behind her, no doubt the horde of her wolf worshippers. She knew she was extremely alluring, so alluring that she could get any man she desired, and she has never failed in that endeavour, but not that alluring that she could even attract the affections of wild beasts.

  She no longer knew if she should feel scared or not, if she were to be attacked again by these ‘pirates’ then the wolves would no doubt protect her and disable her attackers, but was there anything else to fear or had the wolves completely wiped out the rest of the threat?

  Either way, Claudia had no sense of direction, she did not know where the men had taken her after she blacked out, but the way was going was a one way street; she had no choice but to keep on going ahead.

  After getting further through the gradually darkening tunnel, with her hope also gradually darkening, she emerged in a large cave; it appeared to be a small dock. It was full of small boxes stacked on top of each other and in the water were a large collection of boats; both old and new. She also noticed a very familiar site which began this whole nightmare; the large pirate ship.

  This was her perfect chance to escape, she had to get on one of these boats and ride it out of here, but finding one that works and she could start was another task.

  All of her life she has been used to other people doing these things, at first it was her father, and then after he passed it was her butlers and maids, aided by the addition all the men she had seduced later in her life. But for the first time in her life she was going to have to do something by herself.

  She exited the tunnel and walked through the maze of stacked boxes; she would need to take but one guess to know the contents.

  There was no sign of any life around the docks nor was there any blood stains, Claudia pondered where the remaining people could have been.

  She approached the edge of the docks and at all of the boats that were scattered carelessly around in the water, her only chance of using one was if they had left the keys somewhere on the boat, preferably in the ignition.

  She started by climbing down into the boat that was nearest to her which was a small white speed boat. The climb down was uneventful; Claudia was expecting the frail rope ladder to snap at any moment.

  She jumped from the rope into the speedboat, landing in a squatted position, and euphoria built immediately inside of her when she noticed that that the boat still had the key in its ignition.

  She hastily jumped into the seat and grabbed onto the small circular key, its edges slightly rusted and age worn, and attempted to turn it. It moved around slowly in a dramatic fashion but eventually caused the boats engine to splutter to life.

  Claudia slammed one hand on the steering wheel and performed a fist pump with the other hand after releasing it from the key. She put her foot on the pedal and the
boat began to slide across the smooth, brown water. She looked back towards the cave entrance and was relieved to see that nothing was following her.

  It was a challenge navigating the boat through the maze of other abandoned vessels, causing the journey to take an excruciating amount of time. With one hand still on the wheel she grabbed a long stick from the back of the boat and used it to edge the other vehicles out of her path.

  As she was nearing the exit she heard a door swing open. She looked towards the left of the docks and witnessed three of the cannibals burst through the now open door. Panic welled up in her body, starting from her feet and ending in her fingers and the surge of energy caused her to shove the stick too hard into the next boat causing it to shatter. “Fuck, fuck!” she shouted as the cannibals jumped with agile movements from boat to boat. Moving through the field of boats was now a time consuming endeavour.

  She acted quick and spun her boat into the one next to her that a cannibal had just landed on, causing him to lose his balance and fall into the water; the splash he made was a big one as the amount of water that flew over Claudia was no small quantity. The water tasted filthy and made Claudia gag hard. The other two cannibals halted their advance as they thought of a different way to approach. She placed the boat back on its previous course and continued her frantic journey past the final few boats to the tunnel leading to salvation.

  Just as she made it past the final boat she felt something land in the boat behind her; it was one of the wolves, she recognised this one as the one that saved her from cannibal on the table. Woman and beast both stared into the eyes of each other, one waiting for the other to make some sort of move “They don’t want me to leave this island…” thought Claudia in a defeated, deflated tone…and she knew at this point she was truly trapped so she turned back around and continued ahead until someone tried to stop her.

  And someone did. A huge hand came out of the water and grabbed Claudia’s head attempting to drag her into the depths. Luckily she had her hands firmly on the steering wheel but the rest of her body was half way over the side of the boat. She tried biting but the hand was too far above her mouth. The other hand then rose out of the water and grabbed at her torso and she felt as if her arms were going to be ripped off of her body due to the extreme sheer strength the arms possessed.

  The wolf on the boat reacted to this event, charging towards Claudia, and tore at the large hulking hands straddling her. The hands released just as Claudia’s grip waned on the wheel and they sank back down into the water.

  She regained her composter and looked around to see that there were no cannibals left in sight. The other two had vanished. She switched her view to the wolf, now sitting on the passenger seat next to her, blood dripping from its mouth as it stared out towards the tunnel leading to daylight. Claudia beamed a smile and stroked its soft fur with one hand. She didn’t understand why, but she finally realised these wolves wanted her alive but they weren’t restricting her to the island.

  Two fresh wolves watched from dry land as the woman and the wolf exited through the mouth of the tunnel and inside the early morning daylight.

  A Hope For Redemption

  Moo, broken, battered and barely conscious, crawled across the sharp wet grass. It had been gently raining since their time in the house had begun.

  She could hear the sound of agile feet running and jumping all around her, shaking the wet grass with each step.

  Moo’s head banged, not only from the fall but from also the forced sacrifice she made Ming perform.

  She clawed herself across the ground until she reached the black forest from which three souls entered; only one re-entered.

  She sat up against the side of a tree; her body obscured by dark shadows.

  Through her head were thoughts of how she wanted this to end. She wouldn’t die a coward. She would go out taking down some of the beasts with her. However, in her head the story never played out with her being so badly damaged.

  She lost consciousness before she could perform her final act.

  She woke some hours later, the sky even darker than it was before; the rain had stopped its descent.

  The guilt raged within her body like a knife cutting through her from the inside out. The rush of the chase had made her do something she thought never possible.

  Moo slowly stood up, using the tree for leverage, and walked through the pitch black forest aimlessly, wishing only to hear whiny words of complaint from Ming.

  The forest was quiet. The wolves had quickly arrived and finished their job. Part of Moo wanted to encounter one of the beasts. To fight it, to die by it. To avenge, to be punished.

  Just before she could see it, she heard the faint sound of burning; she was back at the village.

  She emerged from the bushy jungle to a place that looked like time had stopped still there.

  The village looked no different. There was no blood to be seen and the fire staffs were all still burning brightly; setting a patchy glow across the silent village, pieces of darkness evading the light.

  Moo stumbled towards the centre of the village, looking all around her as she went. As she reached the central point of the city she heard a low rumbling sound come from the side of her.

  She turned to the see a silhouette of a wolf approaching her from the shadows of one of the torches. Its body turning brown to black as it walked in and out of the light.

  Moo was shocked to see the wolf was covered in blood from its face all the way down to the tip of its tail. She was even more shocked to see that it had a large piece of fabric wrapped around its torso. It was bright blue; Mings.

  She couldn’t fathom how this wolf had managed to get Ming’s kimono around its waist.

  “Ming?” The word quivered from her lips as she began taking steps towards the wolf.

  The wolf raised its fur in defence of this.

  A shot. The wolf fell down. Brains departed it’s skull as it fell to the ground.

  “You stupid girl! Get over here!” It was a deep womanly voice. Moo looked with crystallized eyes towards the sound; it was the strange woman who had told them to leave the village, she had a smoking gun held up to her face.

  More growls from behind. The shot had alerted the other wolves.

  Moo, much like a penguin, wobbled her way to the woman's house. Small brown pieces of hard fur rocketed past her body.

  She ran up to a small flight of weak red stairs. Moo noticed that each step had brown spikes aggressively rammed into each of the steps. She was not the first one to be chased up these steps.

  The woman took shots, quickly and professionally reloading her gun when necessary as Moo ascended.

  “I told you to leave you silly girl!” She shouted, giving Moo a slap around her head as she entered the door behind her. Moo would not forget that.

  The woman slammed the door behind her. The house was one medium sized room; it had a small kitchen area with a sink and one cupboard, a living room area with a sad looking sofa and an area with a small bed with a table next to it displaying a brown stained white lamp.

  It stank.

  “What’s going on!?” Moo demanded, she put her hands on both of her hips.

  “They are aliens! They are body snatchers! The woman spat with each word, the liquid escaping through the gaps of all her missing teeth.

  “You mean, that wolf outside really was my friend?”

  “If she was infected by one of the wolves then yes, most likely, everyone in the village is either dead or turned.”

  Moo paced around the room, finding it hard to believe.

  “What about the crazy cultists in the old house?” Moo was genuinely interested in what they were up to.

  “They offer sacrifices to the god of the wolf planet, hoping one day to receive his blessing. It’s a legend that has been passed down to ours and the surrounding villages.” The woman’s face was intense and focused. She was being entirely honest.

  “Well he blessed them all with death and they deser
ved it!” Moo felt anger building within.

  “Perhaps” The woman lowered her head; her long tatty grey hair fell around her shoulders.

  “But there is a way to stop and reverse what has happened” The woman raised her head to Moo.

  “If you are willing to risk your life”

  Moo wanted to believe that it was all nonsense. But she had seen the woman beheaded followed by a horde of wolves jumping down around it. She had seen a wolf wearing Ming’s kimono, but it didn’t confirm that it was her.

  Moo was one to never turn down an adventure and if this could reverse everything that has happened, reverse this terrible night, then she would have her friend back. The friend she didn’t know she cherished so much until she ended her life.

  “I’ll do it, whatever it is” Moo stood up straight, showing her confidence despite the pain still coursing through her body.

  “I can cast an incantation that will unlock a portal within this very room that can transport you to the planet of the wolves. There you must kill the person who started all of this” The woman began making a lot of shapes and signs using her hands. Moo was bewildered.

  The lady walked to a cupboard under the kitchen sink, gathered some items then immediately began chanting.

  A loud thump at the door, followed by scratching then more thumping.

  “They are trying to get in” Moo protested.