The Shattered

Chapter 5: Abnormally sized wolves. Great.

We plunged into the trees, and ran on until we found the stream that ran through the village. As kids, Ethan and I had discovered this spot, and we had spent hours skipping rocks here.
"What's the game plan?" he asked, looking at me. Ethan was a good hunter, but we both agreed that his planning skills were a bit off.
"I say that we follow the river up to the source, and then climb the mountain. We can follow the blue train tracks from there, and hopefully we'll catch something worth it." I said working out the details as I talked, and when I was done, Ethan and I both turned to Carter. He was new to this group, so we didn't know if he had any opinions on it.
"There isn't much game that's boisterous enough to go by the train tracks. They're scared of it the train." I narrowed my eyes, wondering how he knew anything about hunting. He didn't look like the type that would want to be a hunter, but I worked through what he was saying and it seemed to make sense.
"Fine. From the ridge we can head straight for the springs, and then we can take the game trail home." I revised my plan, hoping that Carter was right. I was making a risky move by coming back on the game trail, because the hunters used the game trail frequently. If the hunting was good, then we would have to make a few trips out to gather all of the prey, and if we were up too late, then we might cross paths with one of the hunting groups, get caught, and get in massive trouble.
Carter seemed satisfied at that, and so we took off. I thought it through in my head, and decided that it would take us three hours to follow the river up, half an hour to get up the ridge after that, two hours to get to the springs, and three hours to get home again. That left us with an hour and a half to get all of the prey, and get home. That was assuming that the night went well, and that we didn't run into any more giant snakes, or animals to that effect. There was a bend in the river ahead, and all of us slowed. It was an area that smaller animals went to drink, because of the thick foliage that covered the banks and would keep them safe from predators. One of us would flush the animal out of the brush, and the other would finish it off. I met Ethan's eyes with my own, and we advanced. He began to tromp through the underbrush, and I waited, tense, as I watched for movement. Finally, a rabbit flew from the brush at top speed, skidding across the earth. I fired an arrow at it, which buried itself in the rabbit's thigh, slowing its progress to a crawl. I strung another arrow and aimed at the animal again, only to find it gone. I whirled around, looking for anywhere that it could have gone, and lowered my bow when I found none. I heard quiet laughter coming from behind me, and turned around to find a snickering Carter holding the rabbit in his hand, and my arrow in his other. I scowled, snatched my arrow away from him, and turned back to Ethan, waiting for something else. I was irritated to find him laughing too. I narrowed my eyes at him and he swallowed it, although it seemed to put him in a good mood. He continued down the stretch of bushes, and by the time that it was all said and done, we had already caught two birds and the rabbit that did the disappearing act on me.
We took our game and took off at a run, going to the next place that we had set for hunting. Half way there, Carter stopped us, putting a finger to his lips, and signaling for us to watch him. He looked intently into the river, searching for something in the black waters. When he found what he was looking for, he crouched down and held his knife above the water, looking slightly upstream for something that seemed to be moving his way. As soon as it got to him, in one fluid motion, he brought the knife down into the river. When he pulled it up again, a fish was wriggling on the blade, obviously about to die. Carter took it off of the knife and smashed its head against a rock, and the fish immediately stilled, going limp. Carter smiled at us and held up the fish. We applauded him and added it to our game pile. When we got to the next drinking sight, we veered off to the left a ways. Under a pile of branches was a hole. It was a spot that Ethan and I had used for years to store our food in, until we finished hunting and were able to pick it up. It provided shelter from predators as well as a cool place to keep the food from rotting overnight. We headed back to the river, and this time, Carter flushed out the prey and Ethan and I acted as predators. We caught a few birds, but no rabbits or squirrels.
We dropped that prey off with the rest of it in our hole, and we continued up the river. Carter showed us how to catch a fish again, and Ethan tried first. He came up with a tiny fish, but it was a fish all the same. I borrowed Carter's knife and waited for a fish to swim my way. A dark silhouette seemed to be drifting towards me, so I watched it and when it came close enough, I struck. When I pulled the knife out, I was surprised to find a large chunk of wood clinging to the end. I sighed and watched the boys double over in laughter. I glared at them, and threw my chunk of wood back into the stream, watching as it bobbed and dove over the little ripples in the water.
When the boys got over my failed attempt at fishing, we continued up the stream. It was about a mile until the next watering spot, so we all stepped into a steady jog. We got to the next hunting spot in half an hour, and we found a squirrel and another rabbit. We stored them in another hole that we had made right by the water, and continued on. We were finished with the watering spots, and we still had two more miles of terrain to cover. We all kept our eye out for animals that were hiding in the trees. We found a nest of eggs, and we decided to raid that. Eggs were always a good thing to have in the village. We needed them for breads and things. We made our way to our third storage hole, and placed the eggs and other prey that we had gathered into it.
The remaining mile was a run up the steep side of the hill, and half way there, Carter began to slow. I rolled my eyes at Ethan and we stopped, resting for a minute. It was apparent to me that Carter wasn't used to hard physical work. That would definitely slow us down, considering that Ethan and I usually ran the whole two miles to the watering hole, and the same for the two miles on the way home. At the pace that we were going, we were only going to have half an hour to pick up the prey along the gaming trail, and I wasn't sure that we would have time.
Ten minutes later, we were back on the move, and I was seriously starting to worry about the timing that we had going for ourselves. We ran for the rest of the way. Making it to the source of the stream ten minutes behind the original schedule, already putting us in a time crunch. I was worried about it, but I knew that Ethan probably had it covered, and if we didn't get to the prey in time for the hunters to get out, then we could probably get it by lunch time. We climbed the ridge without a hitch, and managed to get a few small animals on the way. From there, we descended the ridge, running towards the springs. A bird nearly hit Ethan in the face, and somehow, he managed to miss killing it. I had to go hunt it down and shoot it myself.
By the time that we got to the springs, we had rested four times, caught a ton of prey, and were ready for the night to end. But that's the problem with being two miles away from home with a ton of prey to deliver; the night isn't over until you and your prey gets home.
We all tromped around in the underbrush by the springs, hoping that all of the smaller animals that might be hidden there would scare and come out. We really didn't need any more prey, but it would be a nice present to give to Anna. She liked having enough food to feed the whole village, and with the variation of animals that we had caught, she would be able to put a few different options on the menu.
Carter suddenly took off through the underbrush towards the springs, and Ethan almost jumped out of his skin. I examined him more closely and found bags underneath his eyes, his shoulders a rigid line of tension. He must really have taken that snake attack seriously, because he wasn't going to relax until we got back to village, that much I knew.
Carter had loped the few yards to the waters edge, and had suddenly ducked out of sight. When he came up again, he held a writhing frog in his hand. Ethan laughed out loud, scaring a few birds out of the bushes. I shot them down quickly, and Carter took off again to fetch them. He was like a strange dog, but I didn't mind him. He was nice company to have, especially since he didn't seem to mine my company either. Ethan had barely said a word since we had set out, so I had moved to Carter for conversation. Carter didn't say much either, but he had been more intent and focused on the conversation, not drifting like Ethan was. Where Ethan was simply not interested in conversing, Carter just didn't have much to add to the conversation.
As we went to fetch our quarry, I heard a rustling in the undergrowth behind me.
"Ethan, stop." I said, and he obeyed immediately. He must have recognized the urgency in my voice, because he didn't usually take me seriously. He cocked his head and stared at me, his eyes brimming with worry.
"Something in the bushes." I answered his unsaid question as quietly as I could. He slowly began to turn around, his gaze probing the surrounding area. I did the same, following his example. My bow was already drawn, and I strung an arrow, fiercely hoping that I wouldn't have to use it. What ever this was hadn't been scared by our earlier tramp through the bushes, so it had to have been bigger than us, or at least big enough to defend itself. Smaller prey tended to be jumpy, and with three distinctly bigger animals in the bushes, there was no way that any of the small animals had stayed put.
Carter spotted Ethan and me, and he opened his mouth to call out to us. He looked back and forth from Ethan to me and seemed to reconsider. His mouth fell shut so fast that his teeth clicked together. He began to move slowly in our direction, his hand inching towards his belt, where he had stored his knifes before running off to catch the frog. Ethan had his knives in hand, and was so tense that he looked about ready to explode. His posture matched exactly to what I was feeling, and anxiety rolled off of our group in waves so thick that they almost felt tangible. The rustling was growing louder, and I could see the fronds in front of me a ways begin to tremble.
"Backup." Ethan whispered in my ear, but I had already begun to back away from whatever seemed to be lazily pursuing us. Suddenly, I wished that the nurses had insisted upon keeping me for a few more nights, because if I hadn't been out of the hospital, there was no way that Ethan would have gone night hunting on his own.
My back hit something hard, and I almost screamed, but a hand clamped over my mouth.
"It's just me. You weren't watching where you were going and you ran into me." Carter mumbled. I was momentarily relieved and then I remember that some unknown something was stalking us, and that we needed to find a way to get away from it. The rustling picked up its pace, and began moving in our direction. What ever it was must have picked up our scent and was now following it. I cursed in my head, chastising myself for not being smarter. This thing obviously wasn't going to give up, and I needed to figure something out before it caught up to us and had time to do something.
"Here's the plan." I breathed to Ethan and Carter, hoping that they were listening. Ethan grunted, and Carter narrowed his eyes. I took that as a sign that they were listening, and continued on.
"We're going to continue backing away, and as soon as we hit the clearing behind us, we're going to run." Carter glanced backwards, looking for the clearing. It was behind us about a hundred yards, and it was right off of the game trail. As soon as we hit the game trail we were going to take off at a full sprint, and hope that whatever was pursuing us would give up and find something easier to hunt. The tough thing was that we had no idea what we were up against. It could be another one of the giant snakes, but I seriously doubted it, considering that we had killed two in just this week alone. The giant snake population was pretty small. Other than giant snakes, we had all of the regular forest creatures; bears, mountain lions, panthers, bears, wolves, and all of the other carnivorous animals who reside in forests. Running from one of the normal animals was basically suicide, because they could catch up to us without even trying. I was hoping that it would be one of the more irregular animals that our island housed, such as giant reptiles, deformed animals, and the occasional fairy tale creature, such as witches, demons, fairies, etc. Most of those tended to be less stealthy.
The way that this thing was stalking us, I was beginning to think that this wasn't anything that could be dealt with by running away from it. I felt the ground underneath my feet level out, and I found myself at the edge of the clearing.
"Three, two, one, go." I breathed to Ethan and Carter, and we took off. I hared through the low brush of the clearing, and before long, I found myself on the hunting path. I skidded into the turn and took off at a full sprint, hoping that the boys could keep up. I turned my head slightly to the left and found Ethan sprinting along besides me. Carter wasn't by him, but I heard his labored breathing right behind me, so I knew that he was keeping up okay.
I turned my head backwards, hoping to see the thing that was pursuing us. I didn't see anything, which was a relief.
"Rinnie, it's on our right." Ethan said glancing at me. I looked to the right and my spirits immediately fell again. The thing was on our right, slightly off of the clear path, making the bushes rustle. I still couldn't tell what it was, but it seemed to be keeping pace with us easily. Suddenly, the rustling stopped, and the movement of the bushes had stopped too.
"Thank god." I whispered in between breaths. We pulled up short, giving ourselves some time to catch our breath. I sat down and put my head in between my knees, hoping that it would give me some relief from the nauseous feeling that the sudden sprint had caused.
"I wonder what that thing was." Ethan commented, coming over to sit by me.
"Not something normal. A normal animal would have attacked us instead of giving up like that. It didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up with us. It's weird that it just gave up like that." Ethan gave me a funny look, and I realized that I was ranting.
"It might not have wanted to eat us. Maybe it just wanted a game of chase, so as soon as it got its game, it went away." Carter suggested, looking at Ethan and I with a critical eye.
"Animals aren't smart enough to do that. They don't play with their food, and then give it up. Sure, cats play with their food, but then they end up killing it. They don't just let it go." I wondered if maybe I was looking at this too critically. Maybe it was just an animal that didn't care about us. After all, we had some pretty strange animals on this island, and how could I know if there were any who liked to play?
A strange noise interrupted my thoughts. Ethan was having a relaxed conversation with Carter, and I immediately shushed both of them. Ethan gave me an annoyed glance, and then shut up. Carter was silent by nature, so he took my shush as an excuse to get out of having to talk to Ethan. I stared into the bushes, in the direction that the noise had come. I saw a movement in the trees above our head, but it was just a chickadee, not even big enough to eat. I heard the noise again, but this time from the other side of the path. It seemed to be responding to the first one. It was a kind of hoarse howling, like a wolf with a cold. The weird thing was that I had never heard it before. I had been living on this island for ten years and I was an expert on the animals. I needed to be if I wanted to be a hunter. I needed to know what was edible and what wasn't, and I needed to be able to tell whether or not it was in the dark. I had been studying animals for ten years, and I didn't know what this one was. That scared me, and Ethan could see it in my eyes. He could see that I had been shaken, and he backed up and put his back to mine. I pulled Carter into our circle, and we made an awkward triangle, all of us facing out towards whatever was out there.
"What is it?" Carter asked me. He obviously hadn't spotted how shaken I had been.
"I- I don't know." I replied, and Ethan's face twitched. I had just confirmed what he had guessed; I had no idea what this thing was.
"Oh." Was all that Carter said. I could see the realization wash over his face. He knew how much I knew about animals, and I could tell that he was almost as worried as I was about this new animal. We all fell silent as another one of the things howled, and I watched sweat break out across Ethan's brow. This was why he had brought Carter, but now that it was really happening, I could see that he had no hope that Carter could help us now. I didn't know what this thing was, I didn't know how to kill it; I didn't even know whether or not it was dangerous. From Ethan's viewpoint, we were in a hopeless situation. Potentially harmful animals surrounded us, there were only three of us, and none of us were even old enough to have real jobs yet.
A sudden howl made all three of us jump out of our skin, and I turned my head to Carter. I was suddenly sorry that Ethan had brought him. If this pack of animals was big enough, or if we couldn't defeat them, they would get to us. If they got to us, all three of us would die, Carter included. He didn't deserve to die, and if we had left him back at the village, he wouldn't have to die with us.
The howls were getting more frequent, and that almost always meant that they were getting closer to their quarry. In this situation, that quarry was us, and we were going to die. No one knew that we were out here, it was a few hours until sunrise, and we were about to be turned into dinner. Fabulous.
A howl sounded just off of the path, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The howl resounded around us, more were added in, and suddenly, the forest around us exploded. Grey fur flew at us from all sides, but we weren't touched. The huge grey animals clashed, the ones from my right snapping at the ones on my left. It looked like there were two clans of these animals, and it looked like they were fighting over territory. A couple of them stood a few yards away from us, snarling at each other, and I got a better look at them. They seemed to be built exactly like wolves, except probably about the size of a small bear. I was surprised that they had managed to stay hidden underneath the brush when they were by us at the springs. They were different from normal wolves, though, but I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what was different.
I watched their desperate power struggle, entranced by their fierce scramble.
"Rin, snap out of it!" Ethan yelled at me over the rising chaos. He grabbed my arm in one hand and Carter's in the other and yanked us away from the heart of the fight, pulling us towards the village. A few of the animals lay on the side of the road, their eyes lolling back in their heads, their fur matted with blood. They were obviously dead or close, and I felt bile rising in my throat.
"Close your eyes!" Carter yelled at me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I stumbled along behind Ethan, barely keeping up with him. I tripped over a branch and my eyes jolted open. Ethan yanked my arm, and I looked up, from the ground, finally regaining my balance. We continue running, Ethan shouting orders at us. We got close to the end of the chaos, and suddenly a giant grey ball hurled itself into our path. The creature pulled back its lips and showed us its teeth. Ethan drew one of his knives from where he had put them in his belt and held it out towards the animal. Suddenly, the huge animal went flying, and another one stood in its place. It looked at me, its eyes seeming to see right through me.
"Go." The word was so quiet that I wasn't sure that I'd heard it.
"W-w-who?" I stammered. No one in our trio had said anything, I was sure of that. I would have recognized Ethan's voice, and if Carter ever said anything, he made sure that everyone heard it.
"Go." The wolf repeated. I scrambled to think of any other animals that I had encountered that could talk. I came up with out any trace of an answer.
"You just talked." I managed, staring at the wolf, and hoping that I was hearing things, but one glance at Ethan confirmed my fears. These wolves could talk.
"Yes I can talk." The wolf growled impatiently, "Get out of here now! I don't want to have to force you! Go!"
It began shoving us towards a break in the fighting. Ethan snapped out of his daze and began to drag Carter and me towards the opening. We broke into a run, and I felt the wolf stop. I strained against Ethan's grip, trying to look back at it, but unable to see anything. I wrenched my arm out of his grip and turned around, running back to where the wolf was still standing. I knelt on the ground and wrapped my arms around its massive neck. I felt its muscles tense underneath its shaggy fur, and then it bowed its head towards me. Finally, it pulled from my embrace, and gently nudged me towards where Ethan and Carter were standing, watching.
"Go." The wolf said, turning and running back into the midst of the fighting. I caught one last glimpse of the grey fur as the animal clashed with another, and then both of them were swallowed by the battle.
I sprinted to Ethan, barely pausing to grab his wrist. Carter followed us, bringing up the rear. We charged down the path until the sounds of the fight faded away.
"What was that thing?" Ethan panted.
"Nothing that I know of." I replied, finally regaining control of my limbs. Carter was flopped in the middle of the path, gasping for air. Ethan looked at me with a puzzled stare, already calculating my answer. I looked up at the sky, which was now streaked with gold and red, and Ethan followed my gaze. Ethan flopped down next to Carter, still staring at the sky.
"Ethan, Carter, let's get going. The hunters should be awake and leaving the village just about now, so we have about three minutes to get off of this path far enough that they won't mistake us for an animal and shoot us." I announced as I pulled Ethan off of the ground. Carter stayed put.
"Carter! Move, now!" I yelled, hoping that he might respond this time. He didn't. He was still breathing, and his eyes were open, so I knew that he could hear me. I had also known that he was out of shape, but I had no idea just how bad it was. Ethan grabbed onto one of his arms, and I grabbed the other, and together, we dragged him off of the path and into the bushes, where we dropped his arms again. They fell like his sleeves were filled with lead balls.
"Carter, let's go." I said, staring at his limp form. Annoyed, I knelt next to him and screamed into his ear. He sat up so fast that his head collided with mine. I sat back and rubbed my forehead. He sat on the ground with his back absolutely straight, his eyes staring straight ahead.
"Carter?" Ethan asked, looking a little bit worried. With anyone else, I would have assumed that this was a joke that they were trying to play on us, but Carter didn't do that kind of thing. He was usually the butt of the joke, not the instigator. Carter stood up, and shook his head, as though he were shaking water out of his hair. He looked around, and then down at me. A puzzled look flashed across his face.
"Why are you down there?" He asked me, furrowing his brow. Ethan looked at him as though he were hoping that this was all a dream. A really weird dream. With giant wolves. I rolled my eyes and told him what I was doing there. He looked up at the sky and let out a long stream of profanities.
"Let's go." He grumbled, taking off into the woods, away from the path. When we encountered a stream, we all took a drink, and then turned towards home, following the stream. We were almost there when Ethan skidded to a stop. I had been running behind him, and I almost ran into his back. Carter actually ran into me, and that sent me flying into Ethan, who was pitched forward, causing him to land in an ungraceful heap on the ground.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" I asked, bending down to get a better look at him. In a lightning-quick movement, he reached up and slapped one of his colossal hands over my mouth. I jerked back, ending up on the ground next to Ethan, tangled in a bush. I tried to quietly untangle myself, but only managed to burrow further into the bush. Ethan quietly picked himself up off of the ground and paused to listen to the forest around us. His body stiffened and he flicked his knife out of its sheath. He began to fervently cut the vines away from me.
"What? What is it?" I asked. His hearing was sharper than mine, so whatever it was must have been far enough away that I couldn't hear it. By the way that Ethan's face was creased, it was very much dangerous, and coming our way.
"Something big, coming from where we just were." He said, cutting the final vine away from my arm, and pulling me to my feet.
"Oh god, it's not one of those things that we saw, is it?" I asked, feeling like I was going to throw up. If what we saw wasn't a fight over territory, there was only one other thing that it could be. They were fighting over us.

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Oh my god, first off, is it annoying to anyone but me how long it takes to make one of those lines out of dashes? sorry, that was really off topic. Anyways, I wanted to just make a little more here for readers. I posted the first four chapters of this story at noon today, and by right now, I have six views on the cover and I want to say two reads? Anyways, I'm ecstatic right now. I had no idea that that would happen. Thank you so much for reading!!! Hope you enjoy!!