A Howl in the Night
 

Chapter I
The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

George sat in a deer stand about fifteen feet above the forest floor.  It was placed at a bend in the dirt road, near the edge of the woods.  From here, the hunter could see down the road to his left and his right.  He sat fully dressed in camouflage, wrapped in layers of clothing, protecting his body from the icy cold.  George had hunted since he was about twelve.  He could remember before he was old enough to hunt his father would bring home doves, ducks, fish or whatever he had gone for.  He remembered how excited he had been to see his father standing in the garage wearing his camos waiting to give him a big hug.  These were some of George’s earliest and fondest memories.  Then soon he started to tag along with his father when he went hunting or fishing.  When he was thirteen, he received his own shotgun and started to hunt with his father.  From then on, anytime his father went, so did George.  When he was fifteen his father joined a hunt club where they could go hunt and fish anytime they wanted.  That’s how George got into deer hunting.  It wasn’t exactly his favorite thing in the world to do.  Sometimes he would sit in a stand all day not being able to move and he would not even see a squirrel.  After all, he was a teenager of the 90’s raised on TV, junk food and had a short attention span.  It wasn’t always easy growing up in the information age.  But still, anytime his Dad asked him to go deer hunting, he still said yes.
Now it was growing dark and the clouds on the horizon still shown a dark red.  George looked around, disgusted after another day of seeing nothing.  His breath appeared in front of him in short, smoky white puffs, only to drift for a few seconds, then dis
pate into oblivion.  He thought to himself that he still had to go home and do his calculus homework.  Which, as usual he put off doing to the very last minute on a Sunday night.  Soon he could only see halfway down the road in the darkness.  The squirrels scampered up the trees and the birds flew through the air back to their nests for the night.  One by one the crickets started to chirp and the hoot of an owl floated to him on the wind.  Gradually, light disappeared and was replaced by dark
ness.  Now, George could barely see the forest floor below him.  It was now time to go home.  He slipped the clip out of his .308 rifle with a metallic clink
, a sound as familiar to him as the sound of his own breath
ing.  He then pulled down on the lever ejecting the lone shell from the chamber.  Still he pumped the lever again, making sure the shell was out.  This was a process his father had drilled into his head.  He then set the gun down and put on an international orange vest and hat.  George stood up and lifted his hand above his head and stretched, his left knee was sore and stiff so he twisted it a little ‘till it popped.  He didn’t understand why his knee bothered him, he had never injured it but still it got sore and stiff sometimes.  He turned on a small flashlight and put it in his mouth.  He grabbed the gun, put the sling on his shoulder and backed out of the stand, climbing down the ladder.  Once on the ground, he put the lone shell and clip back into the gun.  A few months ago, signs of poachers had been discovered, so George always put a few shells back in his gun when walking alone in the woods.  He looked up to see a cloudless sky with a bright, full moon.  The moon shed enough glow that George didn’t even need his flashlight, but he used it anyway.  His dad was in a stand near by, so they were going to meet halfway and walk to the car together.  He put the rifle back on his shoulder and be
gan to walk.

It sat low in the bushes on its haunches to the left of the boy.  It had found him early and had sat mo
less for most of the evening.  One thing it had learned in its long life was patience. Besides, human meat was the most tasteful, especially a young strong boy like this one.  The human appeared to be about eighteen. It had a weapon, but that didn’t matter.  It was dressed like the usual hunter, wearing camouflage pants, shirt, hat and a pair of rubber boots.  He had long dark brown hair hanging around his shoulders with skin a light tan.  From here he could smell the boy, even its deodorant, which is probably the reason it hadn’t killed anything.  It soon grew dark and the boy stirred, it turned on a flashlight and climbed out of the stand.  Once on the ground the boy reloaded its weap
on.  The thing chuckled to itself at the sight of this.  Then, it moved as the human began to walk down the road.  It followed the boy, walking parallel to him in the dark, thick woods.  It’s mouth started to water from the ex
ment and the anticipation of the soon to come kill.  Little did the mighty hunter know that now it was the prey.  It lifted it’s muzzle to the gentle breeze, smelling the human again.  Then quickly it moved ahead of the boy to a bend in the road.  There at the edge of the woods, it sat and waited.

George shown the flashlight left and right across the road.  He listened to the sounds of the woods and crunch of the dried leaves under his feet.  He neared a place in the road where the moon shown through the trees, lighting a patch of the road.  George stepped into the eerie glow, turned off the flashlight and looked up at the moon.  His thoughts quickly drifted off to a beau
ful girl in his physics class, and then to what college he was going to go to.  He stood there, a young boy thinking unimportant thoughts in the moonlight.  Sud
ly, he became very frightened for no reason at all.  He turned on the flashlight and spun around.  In front of him, low on the ground, were a pair of glowing green eyes.  George sucked in a lung full of air with a gasp.  Then he calmed down and realized how stupid he was.  Considering the height it was probably only a raccoon or something.  But from the glare of the light, he couldn’t tell so he stepped out of the moonlight.  Then he froze, his lungs and heart paralyzed.  The light il
ed the head of a dark black and grey wolf, its head moved slightly up and down with its breathing.  Plumes of white smoke pulsed out of its nostrils and rustled the leaves on the ground.  Knowing it had been seen, it raised itself to its full height.  It’s shoulders came to above George’s waist and George was a little over six feet tall.
Then a flash of light lit the whole forest, fol
lowed by a thunderous crack that left a painful ringing in George’s ears.  This quickly snapped him back to life and he realized that he had fired his rifle.  The thought ran through his head that his instincts had saved his life.  Or had they?  Soon his eyes adjusted back to the dim light.  To fire the rifle George had to drop the flashlight, so now he could just barely see.  Behind him he heard a rustle.  He spun around and saw the wolf palely lit from the flashlight.  Franticly, George scram
bled to eject the shell and insert another.  The wolf now pointed its head down and wrinkled its lips, revealing rows of sharp pearl-like teeth.  It emitted a low, guttural growl that shook George as if he had been hit with a 2x4.  As soon as he could, George fired the rifle.  Quickly, as if knowing what George was going to do before he did, the wolf leaped into the air, its right claw outstretched going for the throat.

Mike, George’s father, sat in a deer stand at the other end of the forest on the same road.  He was likewise unhappy after an uneventful day.  After all, he was getting too old to sit in the cold all day long.  Mike was just like his son, a very tall and skinny person.  He had a light brown receding hairline and a sullen look.  Though his eyes shown with the fire and rage of a man who had fought more often then he had run.  He un
ed his rifle and climbed out of the deer stand.  He buttoned up his jacket to protect his neck against the cold.  He did not understand why he kept going deer hunting.  They never killed anything.  But George seemed to want to go, so he kept doing it.  Besides, soon his little boy would be off to college and wouldn’t have time to go hunting with his old man any more.  There he stood reminiscing about the days when he could still hold his son in his arms.  Then, a shot rang out in the peaceful woods, causing Mike to flinch.  He looked at his watch and was puzzled.  It was too dark for him to shoot a deer.  Mike could barely see his own hands in the blackness.  Then, another shot broke the s
ilence like a brick through a window.  This disturbed Mike.  In his gut he felt something was wrong and start
ed to walk, but before he took a step, he heard what no father should hear.  Through the trees came a hor
ble, demonic scream.  Not one of fright, but one of agony.
Now Mike knew his son was dead.  He im
ly tore off down the road.  Images of dead bodies flashed through his mind.  Those of car wrecks and mangled burn victims.  All this brought on pictures of his mother and father’s funerals.  How could he pos
bly live without his boy?  He ran faster and faster, as fast as his aging body would go.  He cared not that his lungs burned from the lack of air and the bitter cold.  He tripped on a root and sprained his ankle, but didn’t slow down the smallest bit.  He thought of and cared only for his boy and getting to him.  He knew he was going to see his son’s dead body.  He cried knowing that when his son had needed him the most, he wasn’t there.  Mike never heard the howl in the distance.

It sat at the edge of the forest waiting for the right moment, just as it had done many times before.  The human stopped and turned off its flashlight and stood there looking at the moon. Ironic in a way.  Then, for no reason, the boy spun around and looked at him.  The boy moved out of the moonlight.  He stopped and stood there, frozen.  His eyes wide and staring like a praying mantis.  Then the boy suddenly fired at him.  Even though it was not expecting this, the thing easily moved out of the way and behind the boy.  The boy quickly spun around and began to reload his weapon.  Who did this boy think he was?  The thing became angry.  Did that boy not know what he was up against?  He’ll do as much damage with a water gun as with that stupid rifle.  But the boy didn’t know this and took aim.  The thing leapt into the air like a gazelle and went for the kill.

George saw it coming, but all he could do was put up his rifle to try and block the attack.  He saw the thing up close; he could see the look of death in its dead eyes.  The coat was a mix of black and white, like the hair of a middle-aged man who goes out and buys a motorcycle in a vain attempt to reclaim his youth.  George could smell it.  It’s breath smelled like that of any dog, but the wolf itself smelled of the woods.  It smelled of earth, the trees and the wind blowing through them.  Then the air was knocked out of him and he was sent sprawling to the forest floor.  The rifle flew from his hand, the wood splintered and the metal gnarled.  George looked at the rifle and a thought floated to him that his father would be pissed.  But the thought was then quickly blown away like an old yellowed news
per tumbling down a deserted street on a hot Sunday afternoon.  His chest felt heavy, like it was going to collapse.  He briefly forgot about the wolf and con
ed on breathing.  He put a shaky hand to his chest and felt something wet and sticky.  He looked down to see four gaping wounds torn in his chest with white steam coming from them, as if his very soul was slow
ly leaking out of him and disappearing into the darkness.  His shirt was torn almost off and what was left was already a dark garnet color.  George thought he could see the bone of his sternum and was quickly overcome by the thought of death.  He lay there for a long time trying to breath and thinking about dying.  He wasn’t wondering why the wolf hadn’t finished him off yet.  Then the wound began to burn; it slowly spread through his veins to his whole body, slowly, crawling.  The pain grew and grew, George screamed out in agony.  He wrapped his arms around his body and curled up into the fetal position.  He twisted his body left and right, wiggling like a measly worm impaled on a hook.  His arms were wrapped tightly around his body, but still the pain would not go away, it just burned and burned. George rolled to one side.  Screaming, he looked up to see the wolf staring at him.  It stood sideways, lit dimly by the moon.  It no longer had a snarling look with its teeth shown; instead it stood calmly and quietly.  It’s legs stiff, chest-jutting forward and it’s head cocked to the side.  It stood there looking at George.  Its eyes were no longer dead they were alive and had feeling behind them.  The wolf had an expression of far away thoughts.  It was staring at George but it wasn’t seeing him.  The wolf turned slowly and calmly with the ease of a ballerina and walked away towards the edge of the woods, not making a sound.  It stopped and looked at George, this time seeing him.  It made a sound, not a growl, just a sound.  George couldn’t tell what it was, the world was starting to fade.  Then it was gone.  Fi
ly the pain stopped and George relaxed, his muscles untensed, his pulse slowed, then, blackness.

The boy raised the rifle in a vain attempt to save his miserable life.  In mid-air the wolf decided it couldn’t make a clean kill, so it would just knick him then, finish him off.  He struck the boy, who fell to the ground, dazed and confused.  Quickly the boy realized his injuries, a panic flooded his eyes.  The wolf moved closer to finish him off, but could not.  The boy looked too familiar this way.  It brought back memories of a time many years past.  The wolf remembered things that it had long thought were forgotten.  So instead of killing him, it stood there and remembered for several minutes.  Then the boy screamed, twisted, and rolled in agony.  The wolf realized it had waited to long.  It cursed itself for going soft and not killing him.  He could still kill the boy but decided to let him live.  The wolf walked to the edge of the woods, turned and looked, uttered a sound then left.  He left the boy lying there in a pool of blood, with steam coming out of his wounds.  The wolf hoped it had made the right de
sion.  It ran through the woods, dodging trees, jumping over logs and going under brush, all without making a sound.  It then let out a long howl for itself and the boy.  The wolf disappeared into the night from which it came, was born, and now lives…forever.

Mike quickly arrived at the scene and stood there horrified, thinking his son was dead.  George lay there sprawled out on the dirt, with his chest torn open.  He knelt beside his son and cried, and then Mike re
ized George was breathing, barely.  Mike realized he had time and gathered his composure.  He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his little boy, pleading to God to stop the bleeding.  He debated getting the car and coming back so as not to agitate the wounds any more.  But Mike rejected that thought, knowing that an animal had done this and he knew it might still be around.  Mike cautiously lifted his boy’s limp body into his arms and ran for the car.  His boy was not exactly light, but Mike did not notice the pain in his arms or his chest, but he would feel it the next morning.  He laid George down in the back seat of the car and sped off to the nearest hospital.  He used his cell phone to call ahead and tell them of the situation, so that they would be ready and waiting.  The whole time he prayed to God to save his boy.  What Mike did not know was that George was not his little boy any more and would not die so easily, with or without God’s help.

Jim Looby