SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

He started moving again, and as he did, he replayed the most powerful memory of his life. It had been cold that night and the wolf had steamed as the blood flowed from multiple lacerations. The animal was beyond being helped, but she had a beautiful pelt, at least the parts that weren’t soaked in blood. For the first time ever, he couldn’t resist the temptation.

As soon as they were out of the car and assessing the damage — the good news was that the dent on the front end was minor — George had pulled out his cell phone and started looking to see if he had good enough reception. Cullie’d snatched the phone out of his hands before he could do more than blink, and started on the browbeating.

The good thing about George was he was wishy-washy. Five minutes was all it took in most cases to convince him to change his tune, and with Mark helping it hadn’t even taken that long.

But he’d still wussed out and refused to take part in the fun.

There was a part of Cullie that had always wanted to be in a situation that allowed him to try torture. He was just drunk enough that night and as an added bonus, so was Mark. Okay, so he had to give Mark the head, but it didn’t matter.

Cullie took his time making the right cuts, not because he wasn’t in a hurry, but because the sensations he got as he started skinning the wolf alive were downright erotic. He’d never had a problem with getting laid, but this? Cutting the wolf made sex seem like a pale imitation.

Was it sick? Yes, but he didn’t care. He liked it.

He kept liking it, too, up until the moment the wounded animal became a woman. He was watching when it happened, amazed by the sudden transformation. One second he was peeling the fur from the broken right forepaw of a bloodied, oversized dog and the next his hands were gripping the soft, almost velvety flesh of a girl in her prime.

Mark had staggered back, shocked by the change. Cullie would have probably backed off, too, but at that moment he experienced the most shattering orgasm of his entire life. While his friend was screaming in shock it covered Cullie’s own yelp of pleasure.

Either the girl was beyond the ability to speak, or he didn’t want to remember her words. Either way, he sped up the cutting, not giving himself a chance to change his mind. There was no way the girl would live through what they had done and no way he wanted to stop now that he’d started. Without a second thought, he ran the skinning knife down her belly all the way to the edge of her sex and before Mark had even begun recovering from the shock, he gave a savage pull. Flesh peeled away just as easily on a human as it did on a deer. The difference was the deer would have been dead already and he would have missed the sounds of the girl screaming in pain.

The best part, the thing he would never admit to anyone, was how pleasantly surprised he was to realize she was still alive, even after he’d finished skinning her. Even thinking back on it, even in his current situation, he felt himself get aroused.

The thoughts were pushed out of his head when he heard the sound of a branch snapping in the distance. It wasn’t close by, but it was definitely closer than he wanted to think about.

Cullie cursed under his breath and started moving faster, his eyes keeping careful track of the land in front of him.

After the incident was finished, Cullie thought long and hard about whether or not he’d ever be able to kill another person and enjoy it the same way. He thought he would, and he’d been preparing for that possibility. Medical books can show you the most amazing things, like which clusters of nerves are most vulnerable to blunt force, and which tendons would cause crippling. He didn’t know if he’d ever get a chance to use his new skills, but he surely did hope so.

He also didn’t know if the same spots would be vulnerable on the monster he thought was tracking him, but he prayed so with all of his heart.

The rain started coming down even harder, the cold drops hitting like pebbles now instead of just splashing against his skin. It didn’t take much to let him see that the centers of the drops were turning into ice.

If he was lucky, really, lucky, the rain would wash away his scent and make it harder for the things in the woods to find him. He wasn’t counting on it, but he could hope.

His left foot slipped in the slush that was falling and Cullie took a spill into the ravine to his right. He tried to catch his balance and failed, rolling down in an uneven bounce that seemed exactly rough enough to keep him from grabbing hold of anything to slow his descent. Despite the thick layer of dead plants that coated the ground, rocks and branches still beat into him to the point where he finally gave up and pulled himself into a rough fetal position with his hands covering his face to avoid any more grievous injury.