Fuck my life. This is worse than a cult. Torn apart alive and then eaten? That’s number four on my list of worst ways to die.
The wolf slips from the shadows, and just when I think that’s bad enough, two more massive beasts step out of the darkness and join the first. Each of them watches me as they stalk closer, a brutal glint of anticipation flickering in their cold gazes. My knees knock painfully together as a full-body clench born of horror seizes control of my system.
A deep growl rumbles from one of the beasts, and I swear I hear the challenge to run in the menacing sound.
I have zero intention of doing that. I know better than to activate a predator’s prey drive. All my years of working with animals scream inside my head at once—a cacophony of warnings and instructions. Cautiously, I angle my body so I’m not squaring off with the wolves and drop my gaze. I keep track of the wild animals while also searching the ground for a stick or a rock. The branches of the tree behind me are too high, so climbing to get away from them is out.
Think. Breathe and think, I coach myself.
I spot a decent-sized rock a couple feet away when a high-pitched scream rips through the night. The shriek makes me jump and stumble back with fright, and the wolves’ attention snaps in the direction of the sound. Sharp teeth gleam as the wolves’ lips pull back into snarls.
As though the scream was some sort of starter pistol, the other red-cloaked people suddenly bolt into action. Each of them sprints in a different direction, their cloaks trailing behind them in billowing crimson lines.
Instinctively, I run too, unable to stop myself. I know it’s the last thing I should be doing, but it’s as though some baser nature is overriding my common sense. The need to flee surges through me and wipes away anything else.
I spin and race into the trees behind me. Pumping my arms, I work to steady my shaking breaths so that I can feed my lungs and fuel my muscles. I pick up speed faster than I thought possible—thank fuck for adrenaline—and I desperately hope that the wolves have found someone else to chase in the mayhem.
As I run, my cloak fans out behind me like some fucked-up cape of doom. The clasp presses tight against my throat, making me all too aware of the blood surging through my veins there. I want to tear the cloak off, but it’s the only thing I have that can protect my fragile flesh from the unfolding nightmare all around me.
My feet stumble and slide across dead, damp leaves, and I’m not immune to the rocks or twigs scattered about like nature’s shrapnel. I bite down on a yelp as something gouges a hole in my heel. I force my eyes to stay forward, not allowing them to stray down and check my injuries.
Move, Noah! Move! I scream at myself, my inner voice just as hoarse and raw as my actual throat.
More screams sound off in the distance, and I push myself even harder as I weave through the tree trunks. I’m somehow both numb and overwhelmingly terrified, but there’s something else underlying it all, something fucked-up that just might scare me worse than being run down by wolves.
I think I like it.
There’s a tiny thread of elation. A sliver of insanity. A miniscule broken piece of myself that’s enjoying this.
I have no fucking clue why or what it means, but it’s there, and it’s freaking me out.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I push aside a bush, grasping the branches the same way I’m grasping onto my sanity.
There’s no way this is real life.
People don’t just attack you and then drop you off in some horror-filled Little Red Riding Hood role play.
Wild wolves don’t attack humans unprovoked.
None of this makes any sense.
As I run for my life, I scan the forest floor, looking for anything I can climb or hide in. A river to jump into. A hill that might show me a road that leads to safety. But all I see are endless trees and stars, the full moon, and looming mountains that are too far away to help me.
My lungs start to scream as panic tightens my throat. A barely-there snarl sounds off somewhere behind me, and that’s when I know.
I’m being hunted.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” I chant angrily at myself.
Why did I run?
I’m smarter than this. There’s no winning in a foot race against wild animals. I let myself get spooked and, like a doomed deer, I gave these hairy bastards exactly what they crave. Unlike the deer though, I know I’m fucked.
“No. No!” I snap at myself as I skid to a stop.
I’m no defenseless doe and I’m not going down without a fight. Desperately, I look for a rock but spot a branch that’s about as thick as my arm and twice as long.
Yes, finally!
Hope surges in my chest and I blink back the tears in my eyes that threaten to cloud my line of sight. I snatch up my weapon and swing around, the branch clutched in my hands, just as a massive gray and black wolf skulks through the shadowed trunks surrounding us. It stops less than ten feet in front of me and stares.
I look for any outward indication that the fucker is rabid, but it looks entirely too calm and calculated. Eerily so.
Three other wolves stalk from the shadows to join the first. Are they stalking me because they smell the blood on my head? From where I was hit?
My heart pounds and my hands shake as I take them in. They’re massive. Their heads are almost even with my chest. And their movements are so deliberate. I’ve never seen anything like it, and my gut is screaming that this isn’t normal.
Instinct tells me to keep eye contact and try to scare them away with loud noises, but there’s something in the way they’re watching me that tells me that isn’t going to work. There’s an unnerving intelligence in their multi-colored eyes, colors that wolves don’t have in the wild.
A wolf with glowing cobalt-blue eyes, a white coat, and one slate-colored ear creeps closer. Its head is low and its gaze focused. A deep growl rumbles from the beast, and I tighten my hold on the branch and get ready to swing for all I’m worth.
“Fucking try it and I’ll bash your ugly face in!” I snarl as the huge wolf prowls confidently closer.
My head pounds and my legs shake, but I promise myself right here and now that I’m going to make it through this. It might not be all in one piece, but I will survive…no matter what.
The other three wolves move to flank me on either side, and I tighten my grip on the branch, stepping back to try and keep them all where I can see them. This elicits growls from each of the beasts, and the white one tenses and crouches like it’s about to leap for me.
This is it.
With a determined glare, I swing up into a batting position, ready for the fucker.
A thunderous crash sounds from my left, and I whip around, suddenly terrified that a wolf I didn’t notice is about to sink its teeth into my throat.
My entire nervous system pulses like a strobe light, and I yelp in shock when an even bigger wolf than these four lands less than five feet away from me. I have no idea where he leapt from, though I see the bushes surrounding him tremble when his paws hit the ground. He towers over the other beasts, which should be impossible.
Holy shit, he’s a monster.
All my gratitude toward the universe shrivels up like a raisin in the heat of the sun as the massive wolf springs forward. I flinch but brace myself.
At this point, my only hope is that my end is quick.