SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

When George started puking his sad guts out, Mark turned to make sure he was all right. He only saw the transformation out of the corner of his eye, but seeing the mangled, wretched animal turn into a wounded woman threw him for a loop. Okay, to be honest, he’d freaked out. It was one thing to torture a dying animal, but something else entirely to hurt another human being. He screamed, and he staggered back, horrified by what he saw. He was just as horrified when he saw Cullie grab the — and here his mind tried to make the memory a lie and show him a wolf being maimed beyond all repair: he did not allow himself that luxury — woman’s bleeding arms and rip back with all of his strength. For one brief second it looked like Cullie was peeling away a shirt, and then the blood came, spilling from the bared muscles and tendons, the lacerated underlying layer of tissue that separated skin and the body beneath.

The woman (wolf, his mind insisted) had let loose a scream that still haunted him on nights when he went to bed sober. She’d sat up, for the love of God, and the sounds she made sent fever chills through Mark’s entire body. Her face was unmarred, and her wide blue eyes stood as far open as they could get as her mouth strained against the sounds escaping her.

For one heartbeat his entire world became terrifyingly clear. He heard the poor girl screaming, and under that he heard the sounds of Cullie grunting and whining in pleasure. In the distance, almost sublimated by those overwhelming noises, he heard George crying, sobbing into his own hands and then getting ill again.

He saw Cullie’s hands holding that flesh shirt, saw his friend keep pulling, separating the skin garment from the body it belonged to, and saw the way his friend trembled. He looked into the girl’s eyes, and all but felt the pain coming from her in waves.

Worst of all, he knew that Cullie meant to keep cutting and skinning until the girl died. He knew the kid he’d all but grown up with meant to make her suffer for as long as he could.

He moved forward and knocked Cullie aside even as he was reaching for his own hunting knife. He drove the blade in with all of his weight behind the strike and felt muscles part, hot blood wash his hands and finally, the sickening crunch of bones breaking from the force of the attack. Mark held his breath as he kept sawing at the open wound he’d made, using more strength than he actually knew he had to stop the scream still echoing through his mind. She kept screaming long after he’d removed her head. The sound slowly faded, but still seemed deafening even after they’d buried her body.

As for the burial itself, he barely remembered a damned thing except panicking. All he clearly recalled was digging and then George trying to get the rental car back on the road and running into a tree and finally, Cullie calling the other guys back to haul them out of the ditch.

Mark pushed the rest of it away. He was close to where he needed to be, and he wanted to concentrate.

He was pretty sure the landmark he was looking for was almost his. All he knew for sure was that it had a cross as a symbol. Maybe it was a church or maybe it was a tree, he had no idea for sure.

As he finished scrabbling up a steep slope of jagged stone he saw what he’d been questing for. It was a church; or rather it had been a church once. Now there was little to see save the burnt remains that sat under a sheath of ice from the growing storm. The wood was old and water-soaked, but even in the darkness he could make out the shape of fallen pews through the holes in the front of the building and the slightly bent cross that still perched on the roof. A narrow dirt trail stood in front of the place but it was overgrown now and obviously no longer in use.

He almost sobbed as he staggered forward, his body shaking with cold and exhaustion.

He did sob when he saw the golden mane of the werewolf. It stepped around the side of the building, looking directly at him and grinning. The thing towered over him, close to eight feet in height on its back legs, and moved closer with slow, predatory steps.

He almost pissed himself when it spoke. “She’d have lived if you hadn’t cut off her head.” The words were clear enough to understand, but only barely.

He looked at it for several seconds and it, in turn, waited for a response. “I have no excuse for you. I was wrong.”

Instead of speaking, it merely nodded.

“Will… Are my kids going to be okay?”

It nodded again.

“Then I guess let’s get this over with.”

The werewolf didn’t tear him apart. Instead it moved forward and struck him with a backhand that sent him sailing five feet backward.

“You’ve got a knife, Loman. Use it.”

Mark crawled back to his hands and knees and looked at it for a moment, surprised.

The thing came closer, dropping to all fours. “I said use it.”

He nodded and reached for the sheathed weapon. It waited patiently until he was up and standing, ready to defend himself, and then it charged, roaring a challenge.