by Jill Nolan
Sam charges forward this time lowering his head at the last second and slams his shoulders into Mason's chest. Mason grunts but is able to roll off him before Sam can strike out with his claws. With Mason's back momentarily to him, Sam pulls two knives from his beltline. He hurls them both at Mason just as he's turning around. The first knife scrapes by his shoulder, but the second imbeds itself into his chest. Mason cries out in pain as my heart stops, wondering if it could have hit his heart. Please, don't let him die.
But no, it must have missed by a few inches to the right. Mason grabs the knife, keeping it in his hand defensively.
Next to me, Cody starts removing his clothes. Naked, he gets down on his hands and knees. He grunts in pain as his body convulses, changing shape. His bones audibly shift, and hair sprouts out of every pore. The process is painful to watch, but it doesn’t take long until he's covered in dark fur.
I begin to take a few steps back as I realize he's not just a large wolf. When his gaze locks on me, I stop moving, not wanting to provoke him in any way. He slowly gets up, standing on his hind legs. Facing me now is a fully-formed werewolf, bigger than Cody was with huge claws and long, sharp teeth. His face is wolf-like but still looks half human and is the only part of him without hair.
As I look into those black eyes, I don't see Cody in there; I see a blood-thirsty werewolf that looks even more terrifying and powerful than all the werewolf horror movies I've watched.
I breathe a sigh of relief when he turns and runs toward the fight, now a blur of wings and limbs, razor teeth biting and claws slashing. Their cries and sounds are ferocious and terrifying. In what seems like the blink of an eye, Sam's clawed hand slashes upwards, leaving trails of blood as they pass through Mason’s side. Mason freezes, his arms drop out of their defensive posture and his wings go limp behind him.
“Don’t worry, Mason. I’m not going to hurt your girlfriend; you are.”
My stomach drops at his words, and I hold my breath as he just stands there. Why isn’t he moving? He’ll kill him! Luckily Cody attacks Sam then with everything he has. My eyes are glued to Mason, though, as I yell at him in my head to be okay, to help Cody, to finish Sam.
As if hearing my silent screams, he turns towards me, and hate-filled eyes find mine. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but dread hits me when he starts running towards me and away from the monster who currently has an evil smirk on his face. I back up, not sure what to do, and not having enough time to do it.
Mason reaches me, grabbing my throat, staring at me with murder in his eyes. His grip on me tightens painfully, and he pulls me toward him as his head dips to meet my neck. There is no beauty left in his face, and I don’t recognize the man behind it.
No! I cry out when I feel an excruciating pain at the base of my neck. I can barely move with his body crushing mine against the wall of the cabin, but still I struggle to get free of his grip, screaming as each movement creates more pain at my neck. I can feel his mouth pulling the blood from the wound he’s made.
I am going to die here at twenty-one, in the grip of the monster that I fell for. How did this happen?
All of a sudden, Mason is thrown off of me, resulting in an agonizing pain that feels like he took a piece of my neck with him. I lose my balance and fall to the ground.
Standing in front of me now is Cody with his back to me, growling at Mason, whose mouth is covered in my blood. Cody’s pointed ears are pinned back and his half-human snout is curled into a ferocious snarl exposing even more razor-sharp teeth.
I lift my hand to my neck, trying not to panic with the amount of blood now on my hand. I clumsily take off my pajama pants, leaving me in briefs. I wrap and then tie the legs of the pants around my neck, wincing at the pressure it puts on the wound.
As Mason gets up, Cody lunges at him, pushing him back with his powerful clawed paw-hands. Cody positions himself between Mason and I, continuously pushing Mason back and using his agility to avoid blows from Mason. Mason’s black eyes are focused on me, even as he fights his friend, who is just a road block standing in the way of his kill.
“Get out of my way, Cody. She is not who she seems; she is evil. She killed my people, and I will have my revenge.”
He thinks I killed his people? I look at Sam, a twisted smile on his face as he watches Mason and Cody fight. He turned Mason against us.
I have to get out of here.
Cody dives and bites down hard on Mason’s calf. This got his attention. Now fully-engaged, he slashes out and slams one wing down into the wolf’s side, knocking him off-balance before a powerful knee crashes into Cody’s jaw. Blood starts to trickle from his nose, but the rabid snarl on his face does not lessen at all.
I need car keys. Cody’s pants are lying just out of reach. I keep one hand putting pressure on my neck as I slowly crawl towards his pants. In addition to the pain, I don’t feel well at all; I shouldn’t be this weak.
I’m going to bleed out, aren’t I?
I don't want to die.
Cody runs back towards Mason but before he reaches him, he plants his paws in the ground and sliding on the earth until he ends up behind Mason. Cody is in a perfect position to land a devastating blow, but he doesn’t. It seems like he’s trying not to hurt his friend, but when Mason turns, he immediately throws a powerful kick into the wolf, sending him sliding toward Sam.
I find the keys, and I use the wall to stand up.
I hear a blood-curdling cry and look over to see Cody has latched on to the Sam's wrist. Dark red blood oozes out, the sound of the bones crushing is unmistakable. A second later, Sam's left hand lays on the ground by his side. Sam cries in pain and grips the bloody stump with his remaining hand.
I make my way towards Cody’s car, using the wall for support while trying to move as fast as I can.
When I look back to the fight, I see Sam kick a giant foot into Cody's furry chest, knocking him up and away. Cody just shakes himself off and charges again, dodging one blow and running straight past Sam. He jumps to a tree, propelling himself off the trunk and onto the Sam's back, biting into his neck. Blood spurts out of the wound in between Cody's jaws.
Then I notice Mason, and I realize in horror that he is running towards me, coming to kill me now that Cody is preoccupied.
I run towards the car, now only ten feet away, but I only get a few feet before I feel him slam into me like a sledge hammer, sending me crashing into the wall of the cabin. All the breath has left my body, and I furiously gasp for air. His hand holds me in place, and I wonder if my sternum can hold out against this pressure. He pulls at the pants wrapped around my neck, causing me to scream out in pain.
His head dips down to my neck. I scream more, in terror and denial. This can't happen!
Another bite. The same searing pain. That horrible feeling of blood being pulled out of my body.
I’m aware of pain, everything is pain and helplessness.
Blackness edges in, reducing my vision to dark blurs.
I try to fight the dizziness pulling me down.
My vision fades completely, everything is black, and then there’s a vague feeling of falling.
Chapter 39
My first feeling is anxiety.
Something was happening. I was afraid.
What’s happening now? Where am I?
Something hurts.
No, everything hurts.
What are these tubes?
I struggle to move my head – it’s so heavy – to see the rest of this place I’m in. The pain gets infinitely worse with the movement, but now I recognize the room, even though there's no window.
I’m in the hospital. A hospital. What hospital? Where? And why?
Then I feel those teeth again, sinking into my flesh, ripping my neck wide open. I automatically bring my hand up to my neck, expecting to hit an open wound. Instead, I feel a bandage.
I survived. They fixed me.
My momentary comprehension of life is dulled by more memories. I see those black eyes, filled with
violence and hatred. I feel that pull that was his mouth sucking the blood from my body, stealing my life from me.
I can’t help the sob that escapes.
My mind goes back even further, and I see Mason as he kills my friends one by one. I watch him hunt them down, I watch him kill Allison right in front of me, snapping her delicate neck. I see her as she lies lifeless, the decay of her body burning my nostrils.
Before I know it, I’m past crying, I’m dry heaving, screaming, mourning.
Someone comes in. She’s asking me questions. But I can’t focus on her. The images in my head won’t stop. I feel everything that’s been done to me, I feel everything that’s been done to my friends in front of me, and I can’t stop feeling.
She gives up with her words. When she puts her arms around me, I lean into her. She holds me as I sob, as I struggle to breathe.
And after, the numbness comes again. I grab for it, hold onto it. I listen distantly to the woman.
“What’s your name sweetheart?” She asks as she continues to hold me, stroking my head. She's soft and kind, and I try to focus on her touch and on the floor with its speckled patterns. That’s all I allow myself to see. No more memories, just this speckled floor and the way her hands feel on my skin.
“Keegan Alkorn.”
“Okay, Keegan, do you have anyone I can call for you?”
“My parents.”
“What’s their number, honey?” I wonder how she’ll get the number while her hands are busy trying to keep me calm. I raise my gaze slightly and notice feet in the doorway. Has that person been standing there the whole time?
I robotically give my mom’s cell number.
“Can you tell me what happened to you?” she asks gently.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. “I don’t remember…”
Chapter 40
“Here, honey,” Mom says, leaving my breakfast tray by my bed like she has for the past week I’ve been home. “I thought you might want to know, they caught the bear that… Well, it’s dead now.”
What is she even talking about?
She leans over me, stroking my hair back. I resist the urge to bat her hand away. “It can’t hurt anyone else,” she says, blinking back tears as her eyes drift to the bandage on my neck. With that, she leaves my room.
I grab my laptop, an uneasiness making me forget all about my food. I search the news in the Dells, and all of the recent stories that involve a bear. I click on the first one, playing the video so I don’t have to read the article.
A little over a week ago, nine young men and women were brutally killed. The grizzly bear responsible for this gruesome attack was shot and killed a few hours ago, just miles from the scene of the attack.
The picture on the screen turns into a picture of a giant bear with multiple gunshot wounds dripping with blood with a forested backdrop.
The lone survivor is a twenty-one-year-old college student named Keegan Alkorn, whose parents own the cabin where this tragic event occurred. She was hospitalized after the attack and treated for life-threatening injuries. Reports have come in that she is home now and in good condition. It has been theorized that this killer bear may also be responsible for the recent missing persons. More investigation to follow. For now, citizens and visitors of the Wisconsin Dells area can rest easy knowing that the animal responsible for the tragic loss of young life has been put down.
I slam my computer closed, unsure how I feel. They framed a grizzly bear. There’s no way that a frickin’ grizzly bear just happened to be in the area. If they’d blamed it on a black bear, I might have thought they were looking for something to blame the massacre on. But somebody would have had to bring in this giant grizzly bear just to kill it. Somebody covered up what really happened.
I wonder if it was the FBI. Or maybe just the FBI agents who questioned me at the hospital, asking me about what happened. I told them repeatedly that I remembered nothing, even when they countered that there was a gap of a full day between the attack and when I ended up in a hospital three hours north of the Dells. They said they suspected something “unusual” happened, but I just insisted that I didn’t remember.
That’s what I told everyone else who asked, that I don’t remember anything.
There’s a knock on my door, followed by Mom poking her head in. “You have a visitor. A boy named Cody.” Her voice is still heavy with emotion, but the tears are gone from her eyes. “Do you want me to let him up or do you want to come down?”
“Let him up.”
What is Cody doing here? Better question, why didn’t he visit me in the hospital? I had to text him while I was there just to find out if I had to worry about Sam coming after me…and to see if Mason was okay. He told me that Sam was gone, which I hoped meant he was dead, and that Mason was fine. I still don’t know exactly what happened after I passed out.
I think of Mason, wondering why he hasn't visited or called while simultaneously wanting nothing to do with him. He came very close to killing me that night. According to the doctor, I’m lucky only one branch of my carotid artery was cut. Still, I had lost a lot of blood, and I required surgery and a blood transfusion.
I grab my plate and dig in to my breakfast. No reason to wait until it gets cold.
Cody comes in and does a quick scan of my room before his eyes settle on me. I wonder what exactly he’s seeing. My room is inordinately clean, probably because I’m too hurt to make too much of a mess and Mom's been working on overdrive taking care of me. As for what he sees when he looks at me, well, I haven't showered in three days nor have I changed my clothes, except for my underwear… I'm not a complete barbarian. And currently I'm eating in bed, which maybe is weird, but I've barely moved from this spot in the last week, and I don’t plan to now.
“It’s good to see you. How are you?” he asks in a friendly tone.
“Alive, I guess. Good of you to visit. Maybe you can tell me what happened.” My voice is flat, monotone. I’m angry, angry at Cody for not coming sooner, angry at not knowing what happened. Admittedly, I'm also relieved to see him. And glad he's okay.
“I’m sorry. Really. But I couldn’t risk drawing attention to myself. After you…passed out, Mason snapped out of it, saw you dying in his arms. He brought you straight to the hospital. He wanted to visit you, but I made him promise not to. It would have drawn too much attention to him.”
“Is that why he isn’t here with you?”
“He didn't want to upset you. He wasn’t sure you’d want to see him. He isn’t far…if you want him to come over.”
“I don’t,” I respond harshly, untruthfully, but my heart beats harder with a mixture of excitement and anxiety and fear about him being close by.
“He feels terrible about—“
“I don't care. Can we not talk about him?”
“Okay. Anything else you want to know?”
“Sam...is he dead?”
“Yeah, I killed him just before Mason left with you.”
“You said Mason snapped out of it. How?”
“He said he broke through the false memory and remembered that his brother had slashed him. Something like that.”
“So…if Sam screwed with my head, it’s possible for me to remember what actually happened that night?”
“Yeah, it is. He was able to do the same for the night his family and friends were killed. He remembers what really happened now.”
“It was his brother then? Not the other tribe?”
“Yeah, it was all his brother.”
I don’t respond right away. I’m still processing everything while trying to not think about any of it because it hurts.
“Did you…did you go to Allison’s wake?” A few tears trail down my cheeks.
“No, I, uh, had Tom’s to go to. Did you?”
“No. I was still in the hospital.” I shake my head, another tear falling from shame. “That's not really true; I was released that day. It was a long drive back...but I could have gone, coul
d have been there… I just couldn’t face them, any of them. And I didn’t know…I didn’t know if they’d have her body out, and I just couldn’t,” I swallow the sob threatening to escape, as more and more tears flow down, falling on my bed cover. “I couldn’t see her like that again. I couldn’t.”
“It’s okay.” He sits on the bed, pulling me into a hug. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. Nothing is okay. I should have been there, for her, for her family. I took the easy way out, the coward’s way.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve got to think about your health, physically and mentally. Maybe you weren’t in the right place to go to the wake; that’s okay. You need time to recover, but at some point, you will have to face what happened. You have to accept it and move on. Don’t let it destroy you. You’re stronger than that; I know you are.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough. Take it one day at a time; you’ll get through this.”
I don’t know about this strength he says I have, but his words help; they give me a determination to overcome this tragedy. I feel closer to Cody than I do to anyone else right now. He’s the only one who knows the truth about the worst days of my life, who hasn’t hurt me, who is here for me now as a friend, who I can confide in about how I’m really doing. He listens as I spill my broken heart, needing to release what I’ve got bottled up inside of me. I even tell him about my feelings for Mason, how much he hurt me, how conflicted I am, how fucked up it all is.
“Don’t tell Mason what I told you?”
“I won’t, but you should talk to him. One word from you, and he’d be here in a second.”
Chapter 41
I take a sip of my vodka tonic and turn my attention back to Two Weeks Notice, my second movie tonight. My parents are out for the night, which shouldn't be a big deal. I mean, it's not a big deal. It's just my first night alone since what happened over a month ago. Not that I hang out with my parents every night, but they're at least home, within reach.
