Moonweavers (21 page)

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I’m here, ain’t I?” Scott replies.

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Oh, you are on to my little trick, aren’t you?”

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What trick is that?”

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Why I let you transform into your wolf’s body all by yourself in a way.  You could have done it on the way up the mountain with us, although it would have been hard.”  Links said.

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I don’t know if I could have,”  Scott said.  “It hurt this time really bad.”

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The fact of the matter is that you came. You can follow orders.  That’s good.”

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What would have happened if I didn’t?” Scott asked.

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You would have been held as a liability of course.  Depends on your actions too.  Lets just say that making wise decisions will be very beneficial.”

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Why does this always work?”  Scott asked Links.

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I wondered about that over the years myself.  The only conclusion I could come up with is they migrate like other animals.  Like when birds go south for the winter and fish navigate to the seas in certain patterns and a caged lion will walk the same trails like a figure eight over and over all day long making patterns in the ground.  Elephants will travel thousands of miles together going in the same direction every time.  We don’t know why, but my niche is, if I put something in this hole, they come out and I cap it up.  Humanity is better for it.”  Links chuckles.  “I have other jugs on other mountain tops and so do the other elders.  Why none of them have ever broke, I don’t know.  See how big those jugs are over there?”  Links points toward the old pottery.  “Each one is at least a foot thick.”

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But what if say an archeologist came barreling through this cave hunting for treasures and stuff or dinosaur bones and runs across one of these pots that are all over the world?  What if they crack one open and release this stuff?  I mean, Jesus, you are supposed to be all wise and shit, but don’t you have a back up plan?”

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It has happened in the past.  Not around here.  Germany and in the Swiss Alps.  The mountains altitudes though slow it down to a certain extent.  Keeps it from growing bigger, faster.  Keeping it away from food is the hard part.  It’s hard to battle something that can just make you evaporate within it to grow.  Cold climates like this help too.  If this is set off in a tropical atmosphere it could be devastating.  That’s why we do keep the jugs in colder climates as well.”

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Yea, but Links, what if the mountain caves in and cracks all these pots open?  That shit will just seep out.  Can’t you just put it back in space where it belongs?”

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It wants to eat and grow before it goes back into space, Scott.  It is part of its migration.  It just can’t break through the magnetic atmosphere unless it follows something else through.”

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Don’t people from other planets come down then?  Don’t you talk to them or something?  You used to supply them gas for Christ’s sake or magic rock power.  Whatever the hell.”

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Oh, they don’t stop here.  There is no need to.  Earth is a first class planet.  They are like cavemen to them.  They’re not interested.  Not in the slightest.  As a matter of fact, they don’t even waste their time coming out this way.  They explored this part of the universe long ago.  That’s the only reason we have set the rock station up over here.  Once they realized that we were a first class planet and there wasn’t anything around here, they went in a different direction to explore better areas with more advanced lives that could do stuff, not little ants on a hill.  Like your measly little planet here.  It’s a great big world out there.   That was a long time ago. It’s a long way to stage five.  That’s at least where we would have to be.  I don’t see how that would happen.”
“I see,”  Scott says.

The ground starts to tremble and shake a touch.  They here the rumble approaching them a little louder.  The dark matter starts to enter into the giant aspirin shaped water canister.  It swirls around and around, trying to get out.  The men quickly flip it down and throw the lid on and tighten it up.  The drum shakes and wobbles.  The men climb on top.  It jumps a little as it goes faster within the water tank.  Around and around, trying to get a momentum going.

“The canister is too light.  It’s not heavy like the pots.  We are going to have to bury it.”  Scott and Links start digging a big hole in the middle of the cave floor.  Scott makes great headway in the dig being part wolf.  His front paws move in a blur as he digs through the earth below.  The big ape’s arms work like a backhoe picking up giant piles of the earth and setting it down to the side from within the hole.  He says, “Enough”, and climbs out of the hole quickly.  The hole has to be eight feet deep.  He sets the giant canister within it, knocking the two young men completely off in one jerk.  They all come to the hole and bury the thing deep within the earth.  They all pack the earth tight.  When it gets covered up, Links walks over to a big boulder, the size of a refrigerator and moves it over to where the hole was and sets the giant rock on top gently to mark the spot.  He walks over to a dugout shelf with various smaller pots with lids and he opens the middle one, sets his hand within it.  It comes out dripping with white substance.  Scott recognizes it as whatever the marks on the cave wall were all around them.  Some type of ink or paint.  Links walks over with his white hand now covered in the substance.  In his other hand is the little pot that holds the liquid.  He starts to mark little lines all along the top and sides of the rock and a handprint on the very center of the top of the giant boulder.  He then returns the  pot to the shelf where the others were.  He smacks his hands together and they both turn white.  He wipes it on his legs, smearing white paint all over the sides of his body, trying to get it off his hands but just smearing it all over his hair.  He smacks his hands together one more time and points toward the exit of the cave.  “We are through here for now,”  Links says and they all walk out.  Covering the entrance with another giant boulder, Links closes up the secret place so no one can come in and find its treasures.  “Lets just hope that it’s the last of them for awhile,” he says as he places the last boulder over the entrance from where they jumped down into the chamber.  Links tells the two young men to take the trail back to the truck and go back to the highway to where they need to go.  The two men quickly head down the path.  Links walks to the very peak of the mountain where he stood earlier that day.  Scott comes behind him.  Links turns and says, “Follow me,” and disappears off the edge.  Scott blindly follows.  The jump down, rock to rock, ledge to ledge, until they meet at the very bottom of the mountain and take the old trail that the big man has trotted down so many times before back to the cabin. 

             
                                         
15
   

             
Within the confines of the wolves lair, the slow changed occurred.  Zoth and all of his troops slowly change into their wolf forms.  All of the moans and bones popping, along with howls, drowned out the lonesome echo of the water drop that echoed the chamber as they slept.  They all squeeze through the corridors of the caves dwellings going in and out of water chambers until they reach the exit that is capped off with clay.  They wait.  Zoth shuffles through the crowd to get to the front and with a tackle from his shoulders, just like ramming a door, he breaks through.  They all quickly make their way down the mountain, jumping, until they get to the forest at the mountains floor.  They all seem to run in pairs, making sure that their partner wouldn’t be slowing down for anything.  They all seem to have the look of malice.   The only agenda is to please their leader.  They follow Zoth through the woods.  They all have the same mane as their maker.  Each of the three wolves were slightly different.  The one that challenged Zoth long ago was brown.  Zoth was completely black.  The other was grey and white.  You would think they would make a lot of noise on the leafy canopy of the forest floor, but they don’t.  All you hear is branches snap or pop now and again.  Any leaves that you would happen to hear were mainly from the wind as it rustled about.  They move fast through the night, keeping a good pace.  They quickly cross the highway.  The blur from the speed made it look like a small hairy train crossing the road, but there were no cars on the highway that night.  The pack is now near where the carnage happened at the suburb.    They don’t enter the suburb, but stay on the outskirts of it, while heading closer to town, ignoring the small houses on the way.  The hairy train of death moved forward in unison, like it is running on invisible rails.  They cross a gravel road and end up in a cornfield.  They are running up and down the rows of the cornfield hardly putting a dent in the impact of their speed as they roll on through on their death mission, to search, seek and destroy.  As the moonlight shines down on the death train, it seems to fuel the wolves as it shines down, pumping them with an adrenaline rush as they run wild and free towards the town of Marblehead Ridge.  Now as they appear on the other side of the cornfield, a car quickly skids to a halt in front of the wolves path.  The brown wolf stops and growls at the man in the car and jumps straight through the window and attacks the mans throat.  The  wolf rips the juggler right out of the mans throat and chews.  The blood runs down into the  mane staining it pink under its beard.  The wolf man quickly turns and jumps out the window.  The car slowly glides forward as the dead mans foot releases the brake.  The car rolls right off the embankment into the ditch in front of the cornfield.  The headlights are barely noticeable through the murky water in the ditch.  As it sets, vertical, exhausts shoots out the back end.  The wolf turns to join the pack, more invigorated than ever with the taste of blood.  An isolated truck stop was the first place hit.  The men sleeping in their trucks with the engines running, didn’t stand a chance as the wolves entered, changing some and killing others instantly.  The wave of carnage spread like a plague throughout the parking lot.  One of the wolves bash through the giant glass window of the establishment.  The others quickly swarm in.  The woman behind the counter puts her head between her knees and starts to pray, afraid to look up.  Zoth jumps on the counter and stares down at the woman.  He bares his teeth and growls.  His blood stained teeth drip with stained saliva that is pink and clear.  The woman slowly builds up the courage to peek upward.  She sees the completely black eyes of the wolf.  She stares in awe at the black pearl eyes.  She whimpers, “No, no please no!”  and hangs her head once again back down.  The wolf jumps down on her and claws through her uniform, ripping it completely off, leaving a giant scratch along her spinal cord.  Blood quickly oozes out.  The woman feints and lies motionless behind the counter on the hard tiled floor.  Zoth jumps back up on the top of the counter and over to another victim.  A big trucker runs and grabs a bottle of whiskey off the counter from a display rack.  He swings it and hits Zoth in the ribs, bolting him over on to his side, sliding a little down the counter top.  His back paw clings to the counter corner and Zoth  leaps down on to the trucker.  Zoth pins the big man down.  His nostrils flare in and out as he looks down face to face at the truck driver.  Zoth picks the whiskey bottle up off the ground, raises it above his head and jams it, nozzle first into the truck drivers eye.  He then takes his index claw of his right hand and scratches the big mans chest all the way down to his belly button.  He leaps off and runs through the broken window.  The long florescent lights flicker on and off submerging the whole station in blackness, seconds at a time.  Some of the customers head in the restrooms with the door locked.  The wolves beat at the door, ramming it with their massive shoulders.  Splinters fly in the air as the door hit’s the floor.  Blood splatters all along the tile of the bathroom wall.  The wolves rip and tear at their victims, growling and howling.  Bones snap in their canine teeth as they continue to devour.  Another batch of wolves do it to the men’s room door, leaving similar carnage.  After no one is alive or either infected, they all jump out the window, that much closer to town.  They smack their lips as they catch their breaths.  The pack grows four more stronger as the victims stagger out of the gas station window.  The pack begins to run again toward the small town.  The victims slowly change and follow later, slowly emerging out of their trucks heading in the direction the wolves went.  They all have visible paw marks on their face and hands though the clothing.  As the moonlight heals their wounds and turns them to scars, they gather in the gas station parking lot before they pair up and continue on the wolves course, to search, seek and devour.  The parking lot becomes completely empty of life.  Plastic bags fly in the air around it in the wind.  The light that was flickering is completely off leaving the old interior of the gas station bleak, dark and silent.  The only other light besides the moonlight was the light poles that didn’t get knocked down from the wolves attack. 

             
At the very corner of the parking lot, the semi lights turn on and the engine roars a pulsating hum as it idles.  In the sleeper of the cab of the semi lies a mangled dead trucker.  The wolf that executed his demise was the wolf man that drove the truck in his previous life.  With a plan to raid the bases, the truck slowly pulls out to the end of the parking lot and down the highway toward Marblehead Ridge, gathering speed as it turned right.  Then a honk from a red blazer sirens around the truck and quickly passes it.  The wolf completely ignores the truck as it drives by rapidly.  He turns the CB on and listens as the other humans communicate on it.  He picks up the mic, holds down the button on the small radio through his long clawed paw fingers.  He growls and howls into the microphone.  Then growls and howls into the microphone again.  When he releases the button, the people start speaking angrily at him, telling the kids to go to bed already, thinking it was some kind of practical joke that the local kids would play on the CB’s of their parents and cars and houses.  One makes a joke saying it sounds like that kid they call Superman, that kept yelling ‘Superman’ all the time into the mic, henceforth giving him the name Superman.  Another one says, “No, no, that ain’t Superman.  He don’t sound that scary.  If you ask me, someone is torturing a dog or something.”  Another man interupts and says, “When I drive through Wisconsin, they got a guy around them parts they call the Crazy Peanut.  He keeps yelling stuff like that.  That’s the first time I ever heard some crap like that, over.”  The werewolf quickly changes the band on the radio to the police emergency station, one strictly meant for emergencies.  Then he gives an eerie laugh, almost growl like as he picks up the mic once more.  An exaggerated long, thumb like paw, grips the button down.  He holds it up to his snout and starts to talk into it.  “Little pig, little pig.”  Then howls into the mic.  A white car comes toward the truck.  Its headlights flash and then it honks as it drives around the massive truck driving straight down the middle of the road, taking up both lanes as it flies toward town once more.  He yells into the mic, “Little pig, little pig!”  He hears some squeaks and beeps come out of the speaker and a woman’s voice appears.  “This channel is meant for emergencies only,” says the voice on the other end of the radio.  “Please, do not use it again.”  The wolf repeats into the microphone, “Little pig, little pig.”  The curly cord snaps as it breaks off the unit of the radio and pops the wolf as it coils back to its original form.  The wolf sees what happens and throws it quickly out the broken window of the passenger side of the truck.  The voice on the radio says, “Thank you.”  The wolf shuts it off and turns on the radio.  Some country twang comes through the speakers of the radio.  The wolf changes gears and speeds up a little more as he heads straight down the highway literally on the lines.  More cars honk and pass as they drive by.  The big semi never leaves the middle lane.  The giant claw of his index finger hits another button on the radio and some rock and roll comes out of the radio from this preset button.  He quickly howls to the sounds of death metal drums and heavy guitar riffs and an ever so often cowbell.  A deer runs frantically into the road, startled from something in the woods.  The semi quickly disposes of it as it explodes from the impact of the grill leaving only small remnants, bits and pieces and a giant red stain in the road.  Barely slowing the semi down, the wolf licks his long fangs as the windshield wiper he just turned on cleans off the bloody mess from the windshield.  The wolf switches yet to a higher gear as he drives down the highway, laughing and howling all the way.  He then pounds the steering wheel with the back of a furry gripped fist, keeping the rhythm of a more pronounced cowbell sound on the radio.  He sees the red bronco disappear over the top of the hill up ahead.  He puts the truck into one more gear as he floors it.  He grips the steering wheel harder, giving the big semi all it has.  He turns the thrash metal up higher, bangs his head up and down, as the truck speeds over the hill.  He almost jackknives the semi but quickly corrects the positioning of the back trailer so that it doesn’t come back on him, with a reaction time much quicker as a wolf than  a man driving a semi.  Somehow he manages to get all the wheels to land straight enough on his descent down.  He howls with glee.  The red bronco is no where to be found.  He thinks they must have turned off somewhere.  He then goes back to thrashing his head up and down again, forgetting about the red bronco entirely heading down the strip of highway to town.