Memoirs of a Girl Wolf (5 page)

              “No one lives here,” I said again. I didn’t even know what I was saying my eyes were locked on the faded stains.

              “What is that?” Seth asked, pointing to the skeleton of the animal.

              “I’m leaving,” Sydney said, and started running through the basement toward the wedged double doors we had entered through.

              Initially paralyzed by fear, and only for a few seconds, the rest of us finally found our feet and ran also. Once we were back into the dusty open room with the table, I slowed my pace a little. I wanted to make sure everyone got out before me. I waited as each one squeezed through the doors, and then I was all alone, but before I left I wanted to take that photo with me. For some reason, I wanted it and felt that it didn’t deserve to stay in this horrid place with whatever that was.

              I peeled the photo from the frame and folded it carelessly before shoving it in my pocket. I heard a creaking above me and then a snarling, growl only a few feet away something was behind me. I was once again frozen with fear. I whimpered; hoping my friends noticed I hadn’t made it out of the house yet. After what felt like years, I made a run for the doors, but I got stuck as I was trying to escape through the jammed doors. Whatever was behind me in the room, tackled me. Knocking both me and the doors to the wet, cold ground. My face fell into damp leaves and hard soil. I groaned, but I didn’t have time to react. Something was on top of me, snapping its teeth, I beat it with my fists and called for help. Finally, it leapt from me, and thinking I had overpowered it, I pulled myself up and tried running again only to be jerked back to the ground once it bit down hard on my upper thigh. I screamed in agony as its sharp teeth cut into my thigh. The pain was searing, my eye sight went black. I rolled on the ground screaming, crying, and groaning. My leg was wet with blood and slobber. Slowly, I faded from consciousness. 

              . . . I lay on my back and opening my eyes I saw two animals fighting.

              . . . Kristen was kneeling next to me repeating, “Oh, my God; oh, my God.”

              . . . I was all alone and cold.

              A blinding white light obstructed my vision. Struggling to lift my head, I opened my eyes, squinting, and saw a woman in white robes and flaming red hair that fell down her back and over her shoulders all the way to the ground. Her bare feet hovered inches above the cold, damp ground where I lay, bleeding and groaning. Her voice sounded like a sweet, peaceful melody.

              “A choice,” she said.

              “A what?” I croaked.

              “You need to make a choice.” she said. 

              “Help me,” I whimpered.

              “Your heart will lie and loved ones will die. Your blood will set you free and allow you to be.”

              I groaned, not at all in the mood for the morbid Dr. Seuss rhyme. Why wasn’t she helping me? A high pitch whistling sound pierced my ears. The light disappeared as did the mysterious woman. My head fell back, but didn’t hit the ground, for at that moment I was lifted into the air, and cradled in someone’s tight embrace.  

              Slipping in and out of consciousness, I listened to a strong heart beating as I lay my head against a warm chest. I was floating through the woods. Someone’s arms were around me. They were breathing heavy. It was a man. I could tell from the low pitch of his voice. His face was blurry, and his speech muffled, but every now then he would look down at me and tell me to hold on, but I couldn’t.

              I was so cold and the pain in my leg so intense, I shook slightly.

My head fell back away from the warmth of his chest and soothing heartbeat. I closed my eyes. 

5

              I woke up slowly just as the sky was turning a roseate shade from the rising sun. At first, I wasn’t sure where I was. The room was dark and I was hot due to the amount of blankets on top of me. But slowly, as I blinked and rubbed my eyes, I recognized that I was in my bedroom and on the little white wooden bench with floral cushions in front of the open window, slept Kristen in a sitting up position.

              My eyes moved away from her and fell onto a large glass bowl on the floor beside my bed filled with a reddish foamy water and rags. That was weird.

              My head was killing me and my throat was so dry. I licked my lips and when I did I noticed my bottom lip not only felt twice its size, but was also incrusted in dried, cakey blood. Confused, I slowly touched my fingers to my lip and felt a small gash. Exploring the rest of my sensitive face with my fingers, I discovered that left cheek was also swollen.

              What the heck?

              Closing my eyes, I tried to remember last night. I was at the abandoned house and alone in the basement then the snarling, a bright light, and the last thing I remembered was being jumped and dragged then carried by someone and my leg hurt.

              My leg.

              I sat up in bed quickly and pulled the blankets off of me to survey my upper thigh. I wasn’t wearing pants. Someone had changed me into my dark green summer night gown. I stared down at my legs, and gently lifted the hem of the night gown; exposing my upper leg wrapped in bandages stained with blood.

              A soundless scream caught in my throat and escaped in raspy breathes. I was stunned with fear.

              Kristen rustled and opened her eyes slowly. When noticing me awake, she jumped up, clumsily, and ran over to the bed. Hugging me, and holding me tightly, Kristen cried wither her head resting on my shoulder. Her warm tears melted into my nightgown.

              “You’re okay,” she said.

              “What happened?” I asked.

              She wouldn’t let go of me, but I needed her to fill in the blanks from last night, so I pushed her away. Dragging her fingers under her eyes as she cried a little with relief and concern, she climbed on to the bed and crossed her legs.

              “It was like crazy,” she said. “I knew we shouldn’t have left the party.”

              “The party,” I said, I looked at my open bedroom door half expecting to hear the crowd from last night still downstairs.

              As if reading my thoughts, Kristen shook her head and said, “It’s okay. After we got you home, Sydney made everyone leave and some people stayed behind to clean up.”

              “Max?” I asked, thinking of the mysterious guy who carried through the woods.

              “I don’t know what happened to him. It was kind of chaotic for a little while,” Kristen said, suddenly overcome with emotion again as she cried into her hands. “I thought you died and then I thought—I thought it had ruined your face and wouldn’t that have been awful. To have a scar right down your face for everyone to see, but then I saw that it was just your leg so—”

              “Just my leg?” I threw back the blankets to show her the bloody bandages on my upper thigh.

              “Yeah, it was really gross. Your skin was . . . and the blood . . . and,” Kristen shuddered, “I passed out. I couldn’t handle it and then when I unpassed out . . .”

              “Unpassed out?” I interrupted.

              “Regained conscious, whatever. I’m distraught, Mickey.”

              “You’re distraught? Hello? You’re talking to a girl who was attacked by a Cujo wanna be last night.” I pointed to my leg.

              “That movie is so scary.”

“Actually it’s based off of a book by Stephen—wait, Kristen focus: When you unpassed out . . .”

“You were all bandaged up, so I cut off your jeans—I feel terrible about that they were adorable and I know your favorite pair,” Kristen said, frowning.

              “Wait, stop. Start from the beginning. What happened?”

              Kristen sighed. Her face was a blotchy red from crying and her eyes were puffy. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and began.

              “So we were all really freaked out after being in that house. We didn’t stop running until we hit the clearing in the middle of the trail. That’s when we noticed you weren’t with us. Max wanted to go back, and then we heard you screaming. That’s when things got chaotic. Everyone ran in different directions. The guys ran away, Sydney ran back to the house, I ran toward you. When I got to you,” she paused and cried a little before continuing, “You were on your back in the front yard and your leg was a mess. It looked like ground beef, ew—great now I can never eat a hamburger again—I tried moving you, but you were out of it and I knew I couldn’t carry you on my own so I left to get help.”

              “You left me all by myself?” I couldn’t hide my shock and disapproval.

              “I said, I couldn’t carry you. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran back to the house. The party was pretty much cleared out. I finally got a few people to agree to come back with me, but as soon as we left, some guy was running up to the house, carrying you.”

              I sat up a little more. “Max?” I asked again.

              “No, I told you, I don’t know what happened to him and I don’t know who the guy was, but he carried you right into the house and set you on the table, and that’s when it was just too much for me and I fainted.”

              “Did you see a woman?” I asked, thinking back to the glowing woman with red hair and white robes.

              “No, there wasn’t anyone else around for miles,” she said. “If I had seen a woman, I would’ve asked her to help me move you.”

              “But I saw her,” I said. She was so real.

              “You lost a lot of blood, Mickey. You were in shock and probably hallucinating,” Kristen said as tears filled her eyes again.

              “Why didn’t you take me to the emergency room?”

              “I swear wanted to. I did, but Sydney said we’d get in trouble for breaking into the house and she had been drinking. We could’ve got into a lot of trouble, and you live so far from the hospital anyway—who ever bandaged you up seemed to know what he was doing, right? He cleaned the wound and everything.” She pointed to the bowl of soapy water next to the bed.

              I looked down at my upper thigh, which pained me only a little. For how bad of a wound I thought it was, I expected to be in gut-wrenching pain like I was the night before.  “I should probably have it looked as though. I mean, I don’t even know what bit me.”

              Kristen agreed and said she would drive me, but our conversation was soon interrupted by my little brothers who stood in the doorway rubbing their eyes and asking for pancakes. They were completely oblivious of the night before having been safely shut up in the sound proof attic.

              I looked at Kristen for help. I felt okay except for my swollen face and the dull pain in my leg, but I knew I probably couldn’t walk around on my leg and should keep it elevated in bed instead.

              Kristen stood and ushered my brothers out of my room. Turning her head on her way through the doorway she said, “I’ll bring you breakfast in bed and then we can go to the hospital. Unless, you think we should go now?”

              “No, feed my brothers. They are unmanageable hungry,” I replied.

              Once I was alone in my room, I propped my head up with my three pillows and watched the fan slowly rotate above me. Feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, I turned my head to see out of the window, the sun was higher and brighter in the sky and highlighted the patch of woods I could see from where I lay. My eyes opened and closed slowly as my eye lids became heavy, and right before I could fight them no longer, I saw staring up at me and sitting at the base of a sparse spruce tree, a massive black animal with a white face. It sat, fixated on me, with its white nose in the air, and a tail softly beating the soil up and down, and then I was asleep.

A warm breeze blew through the screen of the open window and the high pitch sound of chirping birds drew me out of my dreams. I woke to find myself in a cool sweat. Feeling my forehead, I worried that I had a little fever which probably wasn’t good considering my wounded leg. I slowly drew my hand down my face and was shocked to find my cheek no longer swollen, I pressed my fingers to my lip and not only could I feel no gash but my bottom lip was back to its normal size. I sat up in bed. Maybe I had dreamed my injuries.

I felt a lot better than when I first woke up that morning. I was energized and no longer felt any pain in my leg. I lifted my nightgown again to survey my thigh. The bandages were still in place, but my leg itched and felt sweaty under the warm cloth. Mostly, however, I was curious. Kristen said my leg looked like ground beef. That’s disgusting, but there was a part of me that still wanted to see the damage for myself.

I slowly began to unravel the bandage and I kept my eyes tightly shut as I did until there was no more bandage to unwrap. Squinting, I took a deep breath, held it, and looked down at smooth, normal skin.

What?

No blood, or gashes, or flaps of flesh. Just my upper leg that I noticed I needed to shave actually, but looking closer I saw what resembled a four inch scar, faded, and sensitive to the touch, but there was no wound or any indication that there ever was one that looked like raw meat.