What Happened to Normal?

Chapter 6

I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. As my wolf vision eyes quickly adjusted to the blackness I noticed that B.J was still there, his arm still wrapped around me as it had been when I fell asleep, his other arm resting on my head; he must’ve still been stroking me when he fell asleep. I wasn’t surprised that I’d woken up this late at night. My instincts told me it was around eleven. I was very hungry; I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. Very gently, I moved B.J’s arm off of my head and slowly sat up, trying not to wake him. I slid over to the edge of the bed and froze for a second as B.J stirred in his sleep, he mumbled something softly that I didn’t understand then I heard his heavy breathing again. I got off the bed, feeling a slight buzz of pain in my quickly healing wound. I left the tent, looking behind me to check if B.J was still fast asleep, he was. He looked peaceful when he was sleeping; happy even. Maybe he was dreaming. I wondered for a minute what he dreamed about then walked quietly outside. As usual, there were fires all around to keep us all warm in the cold autumn breeze. The only difference about tonight is that tonight the fires were all dimmed and didn’t give off as much heat as usual; on nights like these you know something isn’t right. I noticed something else that had made me feel uneasy about coming out here, there weren’t as many fires as usual, from here, near the centre of camp, you should be able to see fires blazing farther out the east and west sides of the camp, but there weren’t any there. I remembered what I had heard a lot of people talking about, the cubs and teens were all gone, me and B.J were the last ones left and everybody probably clung to the hope of us knowing where they had been taken. A grumble coming from my stomach reminded me of why I’d left the tent, I needed to hunt or find some leftovers. Hunting, at a time like this, probably wasn’t the best idea, especially alone. I wasn’t about to wake B.J up, he was my hunting partner, we all had one. I guess I’ll just have to go find someone who’s still awake at eleven pm, that’s easy, pfft, who’s awake at this time? Then a person who probably would be awake popped into my head, Josh. I made my way towards the tent, on my way a loud noise scared the living daylights out of me, I looked to my right, where the noise had come from, and saw one of the older men of the pack was sleeping, snoring his head off like a chainsaw. How did everyone sleep through this guy? But then somehow we’ve trained ourselves to wake up at the smallest of inconveniences, I guess sleeping through snoring was something the people who slept around this area would have to learn if they slept near this guy. As I suspected, there was light inside Josh’s tent, coming from a small fire he’d probably lit in there. I listened at the door before I walked in, just to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything.  When I heard nothing I stepped inside. Josh wasn’t in here. It was normal to leave a tent with a small fire inside going, to keep the place warm, but at eleven o’ clock? That was too weird, even for Josh.  After scanning the tent to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep anywhere I turned to go back to my tent, I’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow to eat. I walked outside and as soon as I stepped out I hit a wall of living flesh. I jumped back at the impact then heard the familiar voice of the sneakiest sixteen year old yelp in surprise. “What the hell B.J?” I said in an accusing voice, “What are you doing here? you scared the hell out of me!”

“You did the same to me!”

“Well you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!”

He swept a hand through his tangled bed-hair, “So, why were you going to see Josh?”

“I was hungry, I haven’t eaten since last night. He wasn’t in there anyway.” I informed him.

“Well why don’t we just go hunting then? You could’ve woken me.”

“Oh good idea genius, I don’t know why I never thought of that! Let’s go hunting in the middle of the night while there’s a bunch of creeps kidnapping all of our cubs and teens!”

“good point..” He said slowly.

I rolled my eyes, “Why are you here anyway?”

“Making sure you don’t go wondering off.”

“Wait, so it’s a good idea for the last two kids here to go hunting alone but it’s not a good idea for me to go wondering around?”

He stayed silent, then, “Let’s go look for Josh.”

“Whatever.” I said.

We put our noses in the air and tried to smell the memorable alpha-wolf smell of Josh. We followed our senses and went towards the cubs part of camp, where, we found him standing and facing with his back to us, looking at something on the ground.

I stopped a few metres away from him, under the impression that he hadn’t noticed our presence, “Josh?”

He turned around quickly, “Oh, it’s you two. What’re you doing up this late?”

“Well, I’ve been sleeping all day and I was a bit peckish… You weren’t in your tent so…”

“Oh… yeah… Well I was just trying to find some clues, I’ve been here for hours. Look, over here,: He said, going towards a spot a metre to his right, “a paw mark.”

B.J stepped forwards to investigate, “Riiight… I’m missing something here, what’s the big deal about a paw print?”

I stepped forwards to look at it, “It’s a paw print. The cubs couldn’t Change, they didn’t know how, and even if they did their paws couldn’t be that big. None of the cubs screamed because they must’ve thought their parents were picking them up, like adult wolves do to their young. There must’ve been a team of humans and wolves doing this, the wolves to take the cubs and the humans to cover the tracks.” I said, understanding perfectly fine.

Josh smiled, “I didn’t get that much, you’ve always had a good eye and brilliant logic, like your parents. When you’re old enough, if you don’t choose to leave, you should be one of our trackers.” He said.

“You serious? Wait, were my parents trackers?”

“Yes. That’s how they met, they were to be partners in their job, they didn’t have a say in who their partner would be. Everyone else had already came with someone they had intended to have as their partner.”

I nodded, that’s the first time I’d ever heard about my parents really. I never really wanted to know much about them. I wasn’t one of those people who dwell on the past and imagine about the life they could have had, I just worried about the life I did have. B.J spoke up, “Well, if the cubs were an easy target, what about the teens? Their parents didn’t carry any of them.”

I thought for a bit, then asked, “Can we go look at the teens part of camp?”

Josh nodded, “Sure, that’ll probably be a good idea, maybe you’ll find something.”