Trust: A Twisted Wolf Tale (3 page)

After it seemed like I had been following his trail for an eternity, things suddenly grew eerily quiet. I think that was what unnerved me the most while making my way through the forest, waving my phone around in front of me like some sort of torch. The only sounds that were distinguishable were those of my feet crushing the fallen leaves beneath my boots.

As a child, before my mother had passed, my family went on a few camping trips out in this very forest. We always managed to go a good distance away from civilization, but not so much that a two-hour walk wouldn’t bring us back onto some sort of trail. During one of those trips, my mother had taught me a few things about the survivalist lifestyle. She always told me about how my grandpa had been a wandering nomad—although my father would always interject by explaining that he was not actually a
nomad
, but a pot-smoking hippie, and in response, my mother would threaten to take away his book allowance—and as such had passed down his knowledge of surviving out in the wild.

One of the first rules she taught me was to pay attention to your surroundings. Now, when I examined the cluster of trees around me, I heard nothing. Nada. Zilch. Diddly-squat. And, according to what my mother taught me, that could only mean one thing.

Someone or some
thing
had scared off the animals of the forest.

No squirrels, no rabbits, no deer, not even any fucking
bugs
around to indicate some sense of normalcy. They were all scared off by something, and I didn’t intend to meet whatever it was that brought death to the night.

All I wanted was to find my father and get the hell out of dodge.

Continuing to push my way through the thicket, I squinted beyond the single beam of light provided by my phone. It was hard to really see anything, as the screen did a really poor job illuminating the way, but at least it allowed me to see where I was going, even if it was only a few feet in front of me. Without my phone, I’d probably be blind as a bat walking around out here.

I cursed when a stick broke under my shoe, nearly scaring me out of my clothes. After taking a moment to calm my erratic heartbeat, I lightened my dark thoughts by thinking about how most of the girls in town would be delighted to see me scared out of my clothing. An involuntary chuckle erupted from me at the thought, my laughter echoing through the darkness.

I was ready to begin pushing through the forest once again when I heard it. A faraway rustling, as if something large was rolling around in the bushes. I hesitated, listening as it grew louder, closer. My heart drummed in my ears, nearly drowning out the noise with its intensity.

Run, you moron!
my brain shouted at me, but I couldn’t get my body to listen. Morbid curiosity held me captive, paralyzing me on the spot as I stared into the darkness, listening to the rustling as it grew louder.

As the crescendo of noise came within a few feet of me, the leaves in my immediate field of vision began to shimmer, and I finally got some sense of myself, bolting in the opposite direction.

Gripping the phone in my hand so tightly my knuckles turned white, I sprinted through the forest brush. Briars cut into my skin, the sharp points of protruding sticks clawing at my clothes as I booked it away from whatever it was that was chasing me. I could hear it closing in, gaining speed when it seemed to latch onto my trail. Pumping my legs, I pushed through the fire rising in my muscles and ran on.

“Shit, shit, shit!” were the only words I was able to mutter. Squinting through the darkness, I tried to navigate my way through the dense bodies of trees. I nearly slammed face-first into pillars of bark several times as I ran. Holding my phone out in front of me, I tried to illuminate the way, but unfortunately, I couldn’t hold it still enough for it to be of any use.

On a whim, I turned, attempting to catch a glimpse of what was chasing me. It was a foolish move, I knew, but my curiosity was too great. In that moment—the few seconds I just so happened to not be looking where I was going—my foot caught on a root sticking out of the ground and I went tumbling forward, planting my face into the damp dirt beneath me.

Landing hard, the air was knocked from my chest in a whoosh, my arms shooting out on instinct to stop my chin from slamming to the ground. Thank Christ, my reflexes were quick. Otherwise, I might’ve lost a few teeth, or—God forbid—bitten my tongue. As it was, I still managed to get a mouthful of soil, but quickly realized that was the least of my worries.

Dazed, I pushed myself off the ground and onto my hands and knees. Shaking my head, I stood and tried to salvage my composure. By the time I regained my senses, the rustling noise was already on top of me.

Spinning around, I felt the rush of adrenaline as danger approached—my need to fight or flight consuming me like a disease. In that moment, I decided that I wouldn’t go down like a coward. I’d fight for my life, even if it were futile. I wouldn’t go down like one of those characters that were killed at the beginning of a horror novel.

Balling my fists and raising them up to ground myself, I wasn’t prepared for what came crashing through the forest toward me.

It was my father.

He exploded through the thicket, his eyes wide with fright as sweat beaded on his wrinkly forehead. I was so shocked by his sudden appearance that I couldn’t move out of the way in time before he slammed into me, knocking us both to the ground.

“Dad!” I yelled as we fought to untangle ourselves. Thrashing about like a fish out of water, he was panicked beyond anything I had ever seen before. We finally managed to unravel from each other, my old man being uncharacteristically quicker than me to stand on his feet.

“Beau! What on earth are doing out here?” His breaths came out in quick, short bursts, on the verge of hyperventilation. Tinged with unadulterated fear, his voice shook as he spoke, his graying hair frazzled and his eyes wild. He cupped my cheeks as he spoke. The wedding ring that he refused to remove, even though my mother had passed years ago, dug into the side of my chin almost painfully.

“I came looking for you,” I said, forcing my voice to come out evenly and failing with style. I didn’t want to show how much he had scared me. I felt silly, having run from some fantasy monster that was only my father. What was I, a child?

“You shouldn’t have come out here!” he whispered harshly, turning and scanning the trees behind him.

I gave a confused frown. “Why not? You weren’t answering your phone, and I found your car on the side of the road,” I explained, fumbling with my words as I crooked my thumb in the direction I came from.

“I had to leave it,” Pop said. “
It
was going to get me.”

“
It
?” I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking—?”

“No time to explain!” he interrupted me with a sudden urgency, spinning back around to face me. “We have to move, now!”

Before I could protest, he took me by the hand and pulled me along as he sprinted away from whatever it was he was so afraid of, the sudden speed catching me off guard.

I couldn’t get a single word out as we hauled ass through the forest, my dad obviously having straight up lost his mind. He jerked me along by the arm, dodging around the trees and jumping over fallen branches with surprisingly nimble movements. My father was unexpectedly spry for a man his age.

I tried a few times to pull us to a stop, wanting to demand some sort of explanation, but he refused to slow, tugging me along harder. It didn’t take me long to resign to fate and just continue following him through the woods.

We ran at least a mile before exhaustion started to kick in. My father was hit with it hard, his round body keeling over to vomit all over a bundle of leaves. I nearly joined him on the ground, but thankfully, I was quite a bit more in shape than I originally thought I was. Leaning against a tree for support, I tried to slow my pants, listening to the surrounding forest for any sign of this imaginary
it
.

“What the…?” I coughed, fighting to force out the words. “What the
hell
is going on?”

“Something…” Pop heaved, wiping his mouth before rolling onto his back, a good foot away from the sick-covered leaves. “Something was… chasing me…”

“Some
thing
?” Incredulousness stained my tone. “What are you talking about?”

“I nearly ran
it
over,” he explained, catching his second wind, but still not sitting up. “It just… jumped in front of me. I got out of my car to see what it was and… it lashed out at me. Scratched the hood of my car with its…
claws
… and snarled at me. I ran as fast as I could to get away, but it kept on my tail… I couldn’t escape it…”

“But what was it?” I asked, my breath finally under control. That was more than I could say for my heart as it continued to hammer away in my ribcage. “What was chasing you?”

“It was…” He paused, searching for the right word to use. “…a
beast.
”

I frowned, ready to press further, thinking maybe he saw a bear or something common, when a sudden noise caught my attention. Straining my ears to listen, I glanced around to try and pinpoint where the noise was coming from.

“Did you hear—?”

I didn’t get to finish my question before something large crashed to the ground a few feet away. Pop lurched upward, gasping in horror as he tried to stand, instead doing a backwards crab walk to avoid contact.

“It found us!” he yelled. “It was in the trees!”

I stared at the thing that had flown down from the heavens. Crouched low so that I couldn’t see its features, the thing seemed to be covered in brown fur and was smaller than a bear, but larger than any wolf I had seen. A rumbling growl resonated from it, and my heart shot straight into my throat as it met my gaze.

Its eyes were a piercing, glowing gold, shining with feral rage. But within those swirling golden orbs was a hint of… something more. An intelligent awareness. It glared at me, but with an added affect of a glower, as if it weren’t just a predator seeking out its prey, but a hunter pursuing its game.

“Beau, run!” my father’s voice screeched, reaching to the depths of my consciousness and pulling me out of my reverie.

I didn’t need to be told twice. Turning, I sprinted away from the creature, my father only a few strides ahead of me. He didn’t need to tug me along this time, because I was just as terrified as he was.

We pushed our way through the thicket, the sound of the beast close behind. I didn’t dare glance back at it, remembering my mistake from earlier. Instead, I made the extra effort to check for any protruding roots in the ground, ensuring history didn’t repeat itself.

But it didn’t need to, because the beast was much, much quicker than I was. It didn’t take long before I felt something large slam into my back, propelling me forward and onto my stomach. For the second time in one night, I enjoyed the not-so-pleasant taste of dirt between my teeth.

“Beau!”

Lifting my face, I noticed Pop looking back at me with wide, horrified eyes. I was about to push myself up and run to him, but the thing that had knocked me down grabbed me by the back of my shirt and twisted me around. I was once again slammed to the ground, my head making impact with something hard, but this time, I was facing up so I could see the creature that had been terrorizing us.

Female
, was my first thought. Her face was covered in fur, the hair on top of her head long and reaching down to join her mane, but her features were slim and delicate like a woman’s. Her hair—and by extension, her fur—was a deep brown, silky, and straight. This was not the mangled fur of a wild wolf, but the slightly mussed hair of a woman who regularly brushed it. Her ears were pointed like an elf’s, long and sharp on each side of her head, poking out through her long, flowing hair. I felt her hands push down on my shoulders, and I looked to see that the fur extended down her forearms all the way to her fingers—which were all adorned with neatly clipped claws that threatened to tear through my shirt and into my skin. Looking back up at her, I noticed the thing that shocked me the most.

She was wearing clothes.

A slightly tattered plain black tee covered her torso, gray sweat pants hiding her, most likely, fur-covered legs from view. My mouth hung open as I took in the sight of a monster with a sense of decency.

Her ferocious snarl brought me back to reality. I stared up into her mouth, taking in with picture-perfect clarity the twin sets of fangs that replaced her canines. She brought them closer to my face, her hot breath wafting over my cheeks to light little fires along my skin. Then, she did something that brought my brain process to a complete standstill.

She spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

I gasped, staring up at her with wide eyes as something akin to regret shined in her expression. She opened her mouth again, brandishing her fangs and leaning down toward me.

“Get off him!”

With a flash of action, she was torn away before she could clamp down on my throat, which I could tell was her objective. I turned to see that my father had tackled her and was now wrestling with her, warring for dominance on the soiled surface of the forest floor.