Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-56-

The moon is waning. Each night is darker than the night before. Tonight I undo the latch on the stall and quietly as I can, slip out into the aisle.

My leg feels stronger. My muscles are aching for movement, more so than I can do pacing in that stall. I hobble down the aisle. The animals move restlessly, backing into the corners of their pens. I use the walls for support, but only when I absolutely need it. At the end of the aisle I push open the barn door.

I can smell the outhouse, and there it is, a mere fifty feet away. Fifty feet with nothing to hold onto.

There's nothing at this end of the barn, no shovel to use as a crutch, no wheelbarrow to use as a walker. Just me, and a burning desire to take a shit like a human being instead of a dog.

I stagger out, my leg finally starting to feel the strain of walking after being torn apart and sewn together and torn apart again. I'm practically hopping along on my good leg, which only makes the gash in my side start to burn.

Crawling. I'm crawling in the darkness now.

Who knew an outhouse could smell so good. I don't care that it reeks and I have to breathe through my mouth. Finally there's something to hang onto, a seat to sit on.

Glorious relief.

I'm zipping my pants back up when I feel it. I can't say as I smell it – the odor of the outhouse is too strong to allow that – and there isn't a noise. But I feel the presence just as sure as the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.

For long moments I hesitate to open the outhouse door. I wait, listening, until I'm absolutely certain that there is no pack of wolves waiting to attack me when I do open the door.

The return journey across the yard is made longer and more painful as I am unwilling to crawl along like I did before. I take each step carefully, stopping to listen and smell the air. Now that I'm out of the enclosed space I can smell more things, the wood smoke from the Whittemores' stove, the pines, the heavy manure in the barn, the chicken coop on the other side.

I don't smell those other wolves, nor hear them, but I know they are nearby, perhaps watching me stagger along, although I think if they were that close I'd have more than just a shiver of a feeling.

Why wouldn't they attack now, while I'm weak? It makes sense to me.

And then I think of Kayla.

If they were able to track me here, in the middle of nowhere, after my scent would have been erased by a snowstorm, hidden by the odors of two humans, three cows, five goats, ten pigs, a bunch of chickens, and all the subsequent piles of manure, what chance does Kayla have? I left her alone.

Alone and unprotected.

All the way back to the barn. Staggering step by painful step. Senses on high alert, sensitive to every small sound, every new scent that wafts in, every slight breeze that rustles the trees. I get back to my stall. Get inside. Slide the lock into place. Sink into the straw.

Wonder if she is okay.

* * *

I dream of Kayla, lying beside me. Her skin is cold and it's dark but I imagine she isn't wearing any clothes. The night frost has left its mark on the hay, ice coating each straw. I pull her tight to me, not that I am much warmer. She isn't shivering.

One hand under her chin, I lift her face to see her eyes.

Two black holes stare back at me.

I jerk away, and awake.

The frost tonight is not so bad as in my dream – no arctic ice covering everything with white – but I've nestled myself under the hay for warmth. Even through the stink of the dirty stall, I can smell them. They are everywhere around me.

I'm on my feet faster than you'd imagine, considering my injuries. Those don't matter now. I need to get out of here. I can feel the wolf pulsing under my skin

(not yet not yet)

As quietly as possible I open the door. The scrape of metal rubbing against itself sounds colossally loud to my ears. The rumble of the door sliding open is even louder.

At the barn door I poke my face out, close my eyes, and inhale.

I can smell their stink, that predatory musk. It's close. I breathe in again, and again, until I get a clearer picture: they were here. They were sniffing for me, around the house and the barn. They are outside of the cleared area which is the Whittemore farm, but they are still nearby. The trail, the trapping trail. The one I used to run through back when I was welcome in the Whittemores' house, free to come and go, free from pain.

This must be how they found me.

I slip out of the barn, keeping to the shadows – the moon is bright tonight. I can smell where they've been. I catch at least four or five different scents, one female, the rest male. My ears don't pick up any noise, and I don't have that uncomfortable feeling I did when I went to the bathroom. They aren't watching me. Nearby, but not watching me. I wonder if they are still inspecting the area.

When I reach the house I creep around to the bedrooms and peek inside. Mr. Whittemore and Zeke are asleep in their beds, none the wiser. Good.

In the narrow space between the house and the barn, I remove my clothes and change.

The pull on the stitches as my ribcage expands make me feel like I'm going to split open. I guess my leg didn't hurt as much before because wolf legs are narrower than a human's. I spend my first moments as a wolf trying to breathe, since breathing pulls on the stitches even more. The wound had begun to heal over the past few days, but the scar tissue isn't strong enough to stretch so much yet.

When I can focus through the pain, I get down to business. I have to find these wolves and kill them all before they can rally the rest of their pack against me. Why wouldn't I be able to kill all of them, when I so easily took care of those wolves who attacked me and Kayla? I'm a little weaker, more vulnerable, and I don't have Kayla to watch my back, but I know what I did when I was thirteen. What I've been doing for the past three years. Killing. I'm a killing machine.

I put one paw outside of the alley, and they come.