Levity Alive

1. Wrong Turns Change Lives

Levity Evans was happy with her life.  It was finally spring break and she was counting down the weeks until she was no longer student teaching and able to have her own class of rambunctious kids.  She had been missing her parents though, as she had not seen them since Christmas time.  She could hear her mother in her head saying, "Well, that's what happens when our only daughter decides to go to college three states away!"  Levity had only come home her first two years of college in the summer, then twice her third year.  She had been feeling more nostalgic recently, however, and had made an impromptu decision to come home for spring break.

So, here she was, seven hours into a fifteen hour car ride.  She had been back and forth, from singing along to music to trying out a podcast to playing car games with herself.  Levity wished she could just be reading some of her books while someone else was driving.  She had tried audiobooks before, but always found that she just enjoyed being the one reading better.  She tended to prefer to be the only one involved in most activities.  Levity wasn't a very social person.  She got along really well with young children and with older adults, she has always been called an old soul, but she had never had many friends her own age.  A classroom full of anywhere from kindergarten to fourth graders was no problem... but trying to talk in front of her peers? No way.

As she lost herself in her own thoughts, Levity simply continued to drive.  She began to feel impatient, wondering how much longer she was supposed to stay on this same road she had been on for what felt like hours.  As she glanced down to see what the GPS on her phone said, she suddenly realized that the phone had died who knows how long ago.

"Fudge monkeys!  I put you on the stupid charger all last night and you can't even stay awake for one day, you stupid thing," Levity began murmuring to her phone as she pulled over to the side of the road.  "There's no telling how far off track I am."

As Levity became more aware of her surroundings, an eerie feeling began creeping up.  Since she had not left until after lunch, it was already very dark outside.  Both sides of the road as far as she could see were lined in trees and there were no other cars on the old country road.  She tried not to let herself panic as she locked her doors and quickly reached into the glove compartment for her car charger.  Just as she was about to put the car back into drive she heard the most disturbing noise of her entire life.  A mix of loud snarling and growling.  Not one to allow curiosity to kill her, she took off, no longer intending to wait for her phone to turn on.

She reached over to turn the music up to get her mind off the sound, but found only loud static.  It made things worse.  With her anxiety high, she turned it down and began singing to herself.  Though she refused to turn her head toward the dark woods, she would have sworn that she saw something moving along beside her.  Just as she was about to speed up, something burst out from the line of trees- and right in front of her car.

Levity slammed her brakes on, her eyes wide as she took in the beast in front of her.  It was a wolf, she was sure.  It seemed really large for an animal.  She wondered to herself whether it was strong enough to break into her car and if she should try to drive around it.  The weirdest thing, though, was how it managed to be staring straight at her as it stood, unwaveringly.  Levity had been so busy looking into its eyes that when its head snapped toward the trees she nearly forgot to be worried that there may be more.

That was when she noticed the blood.

With a scream, Levity shook off whatever idiotic curiosity she had felt and began to slowly drive forward into the other lane.  She was not about to become trapped and intimidated, much less eaten, by a bunch of big wolves.  As if everything that had just happened wasn't already horrifying enough, it got even worse.

The animal became a man, fell to the ground, and stopped moving.

Levity slammed on her brakes, confused and scared.  She was hardly aware of the fact that she was completely stopped on the wrong side of the road or that there was something watching her in the woods.  All she knew was that a) the wolf turned into a man, and b) she thought whatever it was is dead.  Thoughts flooded her mind.  Was she the witness to a crime?  Should she call the police?  Is this a trap to get her to get out of the car?  And finally... what did this, and were they still around?

Even though her heart was beating so hard she thought it would surely leave her chest and her mind moving so fast she was getting a headache and her stomach turning so much that she was sure she would vomit, she was also paralyzed.  Completely lost and in need of direction.  What to do, who to talk to, and how to simply get out of this alive.

This is why she jumped, nearly peed herself, and had to slam on the brakes as the car rolled forward when she took her foot off the pedal at the sound of knocking on the drivers window.  Her eyes widened as what appeared to be a walking pile of blood and scars stood at the other side of the window.

"Your friend is dead... I'm going to leave so you don't kill me."  Levity said loudly, without rolling the window down.  As she attempted to drive off, she found herself pause when he yelled, "Please stop, there's more out there."  His voice was shaky with exhaustion and desperation.  Levity was beyond conflicted.  She couldn't leave what she hoped was an innocent man to die, but she also couldn't ignore the fact that the wolf had turned into a man.  And that was some malarkey she wasn't interested in being part of.

"Not my problem, and you two are absolutely terrifying," Levity barely got the words out, as she had suddenly lost all of her bravado when she realized that the man was barely able to stand, and was leaning against her car for support.

"I will die soon if I am not able to rest.  They are getting closer and I am the only one of the two of us who knows how to get out of this territory.  We aren't on a human road."  He said, face pressing against the window.  Probably getting blood everywhere.

Levity couldn't stop herself as she glanced down at her phone, which somehow still hadn't turned back on.  "Why are you doing this to me?," she whispered angrily to it.

"Your phone won't work here.  I don't even understand how you got here in the first place.  Now let me in the car before we are both killed," the man said, clearly angry and losing the polite tone he had earlier.

Levity couldn't help herself as she retorted, "Try that again, this time using your manners."

Before he could reply, she heard the howling noise again.  And this time, she knew exactly what to do.  "Get in the car.  Get in the car.  Get me out of here!"

Clearly in pain, and still with blood, she wasn't sure whose, all over his body, the man pushed himself off the car and tried, but failed, to move quickly around to the other side.  She noticed him glance over to the forgotten dead man-wolf on the right side of the road.

As he tried to get in, she realized the door was still locked.  "What's the password?" she tried to joke to herself as she unlocked the door.  Getting in, the man locked his eyes on the road ahead of them and in a domineering, business-like voice said, "Make a U-turn, please don't hit my friend, and drive as fast as this car can go."

Levity didn't have to be told twice.  She followed his instructions.  She had so many questions at the tip of her tongue, but couldn't find herself able to vocalize any of them.  She decided she would wait a few minutes.  So far, this man seemed completely untrustworthy, and yet part of her believed that she would not be harmed by him.  That he was in some way saving her.  Then she shook off that feeling.  She was the one saving him.  Somehow, even with all the things she didn't think she wanted to know about him or his wolf-man friend, she had to believe that she was meant to be there in that moment so that she could save this man.

This attractive man whom she was suddenly aware was bleeding all over her cloth seats.