HYBRID KILLERS Page 9

  With terrific force, something clamped down on my right foot, yanking me backwards through the snow, the force whipping my head back and ripping my boot off. Without thinking, I jerked my foot away and leaned up into a sitting position as my head and shoulders broke through the snow. Standing directly in front of me, shaking my lifeless boot like a dead rodent, stood the ugliest, largest, most intimidating beast that I’d ever laid eyes on. I was looking into the face of a wolf with my right boot grasped firmly in its teeth, trying hard to shake the life out of it. It stopped only long enough for my boot to fall from its mouth before comprehending that it didn’t have its prey after all. It was just this fraction of a second that I needed to level the gun at its head, and at point blank range, I squeezed the trigger.

  But nothing happened! Not even a click, as the hammer should have fallen against the firing pin. Even if I didn’t know what had happened, there wasn’t any time to readjust and determine what was wrong; my hand was frozen solid!

  I could see white foam and drool slavering from the creature’s mouth as it met my gaze, almost as if it were pausing to ask what was wrong. Then it came forward, its teeth bared and snarling as it lunged toward my exposed throat. Without warning, the gun roared to life, the thunder of the round momentarily stunning me. The bullet caught the charging beast in the forehead, killing it instantly. There was no yelp or howl of pain as it fell over on its side like a discarded hobbyhorse with a runner missing.

  Frantically, unsure of what had just happened, I clambered to my feet and spun in the direction of the trees that I’d just circled, expecting to see the rest of the pack charging towards me. The gun lay where it had fallen on top of the snow at my feet. But there were no wolves!

  On the verge of panicking, I spun around, suddenly sure that the beasts had gotten behind me. But there was nothing, no wolves, and no tracks in the snow. Surprised and confused, I stood a moment longer, studying the terrain surrounding me before my eyes went to the dead carcass at my feet.

  There was very little blood. I expected much more. I expected the sight of the dead creature to affect me harder than it did. But instead of bringing a vile expulsion of bile to the surface, it had quite the contrary effect on me. Gazing into its dead eyes, I felt a calming come over me, a clearing of my mind, and a sharpening of my mental focus.

  With renewed mental acuity, I knew better than to think that it had been my imagination regarding the number of wolves that I had heard or seen. It would have been impossible to imagine the sounds of so many wolves barking and snarling. They were still out there, somewhere, and they were hunting me. They had to be! I hadn’t imagined them. All I had to do was look down at the dead one at me feet and know that I hadn’t imagined them.

  Looking down at me feet, I suddenly realized that I was standing in the snow with only one boot on. Bending over to retrieve the boot, my eyes came to rest on the magnum. Twisting slightly, I scooped it up in my left hand, testing the flexibility of my fingers before tucking it back into a pocket. If I had to, I could shoot with my left hand; my right was numb, feeling like an overweight sausage, and just as useless.

  Using my left hand and keeping my right tucked into a lined pocket in the suit, I bent over again and retrieved my boot. To my instant dismay, I noticed that it had been torn through by the tremendous jaw strength and sharpness of the wolf’s fangs. Yet, as my bare foot was attesting, it was better than going without.

  Glancing around as I slid the damaged boot back on my snow-covered foot, I noticed for the first time that there were indeed many more sets of tracks, and they were all heading in the same general direction.

  With my boot on and my hands warming in my pockets, I moved back to my original scent trail, all the while studying the tracks left by the wolf pack. Judging from their sign, it was evident that they hadn’t stopped to inspect the trees that I had so painstakingly circled. My efforts had been wasted energy. Yet, I was thankful for my good fortune. Although I had no idea where they’d gone and why, it made me nervous, not knowing when they might return?

  Furthermore, why had the one I killed been separate from its pack? It didn’t make any sense to me that this one wasn’t with the others when he found me. Was he trailing along behind, or was he accidentally separated from the rest?

  My interest was piqued, and I went back to take a closer look at the corpse, sure that I would find a deformity or prior wound, something that would explain its strange behavior. Upon a closer inspection, however, I found nothing obvious. It didn’t seem to have any physical impairment that would slow it down and explain why it was lagging behind the others. Whatever the reason for the abnormal behavior, it was not to his advantage to have been the one to find me.

  After rolling the carcass over and checking its limbs for breaks or deformities, I contemplated taking it with me. But I quickly banished the thought as impractical, because the carcass weighed over one hundred pounds, and I had no way of butchering it or cutting off a manageable-sized piece. Furthermore, I hadn’t deteriorated to the point where I could eat raw wolf meat. The thought still turned my stomach.

  I suddenly felt as though I’d been here too long. The smell of death was permeating the air and filling my nostrils with its dire odor. It was time to get moving. Though it screamed against my instincts, my rational thoughts dictated that I continue in the same direction that I’d been traveling previously, even though it was the same direction the wolves had gone. Yet, my knowledge of the creatures suggested that they would circle back to this place after they got where they were going. Unlike humans, they wouldn’t backtrack on the same trail; they would make a wide circle while searching for fresh scents. Besides, going in another direction now would only increase the time it was going to take to find help, and greatly increase my chances at becoming hopelessly lost. My best bet is to continue on in what I hope is the most direct route to Sandy, even if it seems like the most dangerous.

  Following the trail the wolf pack made through the snow made for easy going. The pack had formed a line of follow the leader, and by the time I came along behind, the path had been well compacted by the number of paws that had tread on it. It still bothered me that they were heading in the same direction as me. However, I was delighted to be behind them for a change, and not the other way around.

  Yet, that didn’t explain their strange behavior, nor did it tell me what they were following? The only tracks that I could discern in the snow before me looked to be made by wolves. But since I wasn’t a zoologist, or a tracker, I couldn’t swear to it. If they were following an elephant through the snow, I probably wouldn’t see the poor creature’s track beneath the wolf tracks.

  A strange thought suddenly dawned on me, and I felt a brief moment of panic as it unfolded before my conscious mind. It seemed almost too ludicrous to be real, though, and I tried putting it out of my mind with the same speed that it had entered. But it refused to go, it demanded to be heard, and before I knew what I was doing, I was speaking it, voicing the question aloud, “What if this wolf pack is heading to Sandy’s cabin?”

  As soon as the question was out in the air, several possible explanations made themselves known. The first was the easiest to accept, and my mind desperately clung to it: When the avalanche wiped out all traces of my cabin, it also obliterated any source of food that the wolves had come to expect there. Now, out of desperation, they were expanding their territory, and they were going toward Sandy’s cabin in search of food! And though it seemed almost too crazy to comprehend, it was the easiest reason to accept for their bizarre behavior.

  The other thought that I was toying with was much harder to believe, and had many more dire consequences. But I had to give it equal consideration. Even though it would have been much easier to just ignore the possibility, for Sandy’s sake and all the others that were renting cabins from Fred and his wife, I couldn’t.

  Moreover, when I thought back to the morning that Fred had brought me up here, and the way he’d behaved just before setting out,
it only seemed to confirm more strongly what I didn’t want to acknowledge. That morning, when he pretended to be in a hurry, and I truly believed now that he was only pretending, and that it was actually nervous energy driving him, he had carried a package that obviously contained raw meat to a locked building. And when he noticed me nonchalantly watching him, his attitude openly portrayed his discomfort.

  When I thought back on it, more pieces fell into place. He hadn’t kept it secret that he had many stops to make that day, or that he didn’t want me tagging along on them. In fact, he acted as if he was doing me a favor by getting me up to my cabin and unloaded as quickly as he had, literally putting off the rest of his deliveries until afterward. My stomach was tied in a knot, but my mind insisted on pushing further. It was determined to follow this train of thought to the end.

  Pushing forward, I suddenly wondered if it might be fear of coming across a gruesome scene that he was afraid to have me along with him on his other deliveries. Was he afraid that I might be a witness to a scene where wolves had killed and eaten a tenant?

  Up until Amy’s accidental demise, I had been a good writer. Because of my artistic mind having sat idle for so long, I had to wonder if these bizarre thoughts weren’t anything more than just the simple release of a fertile mind breaking loose. If my shrink could hear these irrational thoughts, he would tell me that they were stress-induced, brought on by my current situation. But no matter how I tried to write them off as completely illogical, I couldn’t!

  Neither could I make myself believe that anyone could actually be so cruel that they could lease out cabins on a yearly basis, only to get the money up front, and then have the cabins vacated by killer wolves, hybrid killers. If ever there was a way to commit murder and get away with it, Fred had discovered it. The scheme was so absurd that even if the authorities should get wind of it, they’ll have a difficult time tying it to the owners of the cabins. Just coming to the conclusion that it was more than mere coincidence that so many people were being killed up here in the wilderness meant nothing. In fact, even if suspicions were raised, they would find it easier to blame the deaths on a wolf pack that had gone rogue. Eventually, they would come to the most obvious and expedient solution; they would call in the state Game and Wildlife Department, which would simply hire bounty hunters to exterminate the rogue pack.

  But I strongly suspect that such measures will only offer temporary relief from the problem. When the authorities leave, a new pack of wolves will arrive, and the killing will start all over.

  The only thing that the owners of the cabins could be found guilty of was lack of morals. They knew the danger from the wolves, and yet they continued leasing the cabins to unsuspecting tenants. They kept the yearly lease money that was always paid up front, and then act as though the next prospective tenant was getting a discount because the former tenant had to leave unexpectedly, thereby relinquishing the balance of their lease. And as I knew first hand, the discount was never close to the proclaimed remaining balance of the lease.

  Unless, and this is where my thoughts really get bizarre, Fred and his missus are raising and training the killer wolves for their own devious end. Although I found this hard to believe, if it turned out to be the case, then they were guilty of more than just a lack of morals, they were guilty of murder!

  As bizarre and disturbing as this last thought was to me, I couldn’t shake it, it felt too true to be anything but. When I added up all the little inconsistencies of the wolf pack’s behavior, they fit into this theory better than anything else I could come up with did. For instance, it neatly explained why they ran past me at our last encounter, instead of stopping to investigate the fresh scent that I’d left on the stand of trees. And why one of the wolves separated from the pack to investigate me on its own. By doing so, it had displayed very abnormal behavior for a pack animal, but very normal for a domesticated beast.

  While these thoughts were racing through my mind, I was racing through the snow, following the trail left by the pack. With each conclusion that I drew, my footsteps took on greater anxiety, spurring my weary legs to pump harder, to go faster. The conclusions were all pointing in one direction, the same direction that the wolf pack was going, and that was toward Sandy’s cabin. It meant beyond a doubt that they were heading toward their next victim. I was beyond convincing that it was just coincidence that the wolf pack and I were heading in the same direction. It was too late for that. I had however, convinced myself that I was thinking clearly, and logic had dictated the outcome of my quandary, forming its dreadful conclusion.

  The old familiar feeling of despair was creeping up my backside. It was an intimate feeling that I had come to know well since the tragedy. But it didn’t mean that I had grown to like it. I liked it even less now. In the past, when I had let it wash over me and take charge of my life, it had served a function. This time, I couldn’t let it take over; I no longer had that luxury. There was more than just my miserable life at stake this time, there was also Sandy’s, and I had to live long enough to make it to her cabin before the wolves got to her.

  After the tragically horrible death that my beautiful daughter Amy had suffered, it would be more than I could bear to discover Sandy’s remains after the wolves were finished with her. It was bad enough reliving Amy’s tragedy night after night in my dreams. Having to envision her tender body so badly damaged and mutilated, I couldn’t go on living if I found Sandy in anything but good health.

  Amy’s death had been the result of fans going nuts at a concert and creating a tsunami of human bodies. Although I wasn’t there that horrible night, the subconscious had its own way of showing me what I missed. Almost every night since that night, I’ve seen her as the thousands of panicked fans pressed her fragile body against the chain link fence surrounding the stadium. Her face is always turned toward mine, her eyes pleading with me as she screams for help. Unfailingly, her voice is always choked off by her internal organs, as they’re forced into her throat by the immense pressure against her chest and abdomen. But she keeps looking at me, even as she ruptures and hemorrhages, her eyeballs extruding from her skull while her blood runs uninhibited through the individual links of the fence like so much tomato puree.

  The visions that I’ve lived with for more than six months now are more than enough to drive the average man over the edge. I couldn’t begin to envision what a human’s remains would look like after being attacked by a pack of hungry wolves. Or how frail the limbs, compared to the malice inflicted by the fang-lined jaws of several wolves during a feeding frenzy.

  I swung to the side of the trail and heaved, the acids from too much coffee and not enough food leaving a burning sensation in my mouth. Taking a handful of snow, I packed it against my sweat-covered face, using the cold to force the gruesome image from my mind. But before it was gone, I carefully fed my loathing of the wolves from it, and fueled the fire within me to succeed. If I have to, I will die trying to reach Sandy in time, before I will face that vision in reality.

  I never saw Amy’s body after the tragedy. There was no viewing, just a short memorial followed by the cremation. From reading newspaper accounts, going to the scene after the fact, and listening to the whispering of the police officers around me, I knew that the vision I’d developed in my mind’s eye of the scene shortly after the fact, was probably as accurate as any police photograph or actual survivor’s eye-witness account. In the weeks, and then months that followed, I tormented myself with that gruesome account. The vision of her dying took on a life of its own. Night after night, it kept coming to me in my dreams, the details growing more distinct with each loathsome visit to my mind. Night after night, the days and nights eventually running and blurring together until it became just one long continuous nightmare.

  The shrinks were no help. They all believed that it was just a simple matter of confronting the demons that were tormenting me. They said that if I confronted them, I could lay them to rest and be done with them. They didn’t know! None of them
did!

  I can’t tell you how hard I tried to do just that, but the demons kept coming back. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I decided that I needed to get away to a place where I couldn’t run to a shrink every time I had a bad day, which was pretty much every day. The ideal place would allow me to confront my demons on my own, and eventually come to terms with them, or go completely insane trying. When I heard about the wilderness cabins, I knew they were exactly what I needed. It seemed important at the time to be an all or nothing ordeal.

  Even before I met Sandy, I must have been feeling optimistic, even if it was at some deep, subconscious level. If I hadn’t been, I never would have packed my typewriter and a box of twenty-pound paper.

  Well, the typewriter was gone. It had performed well, but it wouldn’t be writing any more mid-list novels. What was more dramatic than the loss of the typewriter though was the loss of my life. Essentially, it too, was gone. Unforeseen events have changed my life’s course forever. No matter what happens next, I’m going to come out a better, a stronger person, because of this adventure. Sure, there’s a strong possibility that I will die, but I’m not afraid of dying any more. And though there are many ways to die, there aren’t any worse than the way Amy had. She knew that she was going to die before the life force left her body. I have no doubt that she suffered at the end. “So why shouldn’t I also suffer?” I suddenly screamed at the sky, shattering my reverie.

  It was growing colder as I plodded along through the snow, diligently following in the path that the marauding wolves had left behind. Even as storm clouds rolled in, bringing a harsh, biting wind with them that kicked flurries of snow into my eyes, I plodded mindlessly forward, my hands pushed deep into the pockets of the snowsuit. My face was covered with ice as the snow crystals stuck in my beard stubble and melted on my exposed skin, only to refreeze before forming a frozen whiteness around my mouth.