Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

It chased me.  

The dark being had no face or body, but it was real and inescapable nonetheless; a tsunami of hunger and rage. I ran with all my might down the forest path, the dark trees that surrounded me full of hateful eyes. Rows of people stood beside the trail but I didn’t know who they were. As I ran, I grabbed and shook them. I begged for help, warned them to run, but they just stared off into the night with vacant eyes until they fell into the pursuing darkness one by one. A feeling of horrendous loss and sorrow weighed on my chest, and I didn’t understand why.

My vision narrowed as I ran until all I could see was the gravel of the road right in front of me while my lungs and legs burned from fear and exhaustion. I felt the thing at my heels as my feet skidded on the rocks and I looked up at the tall wrought iron gates looming in front of me. Tendrils of fog caressed the cold metal as the moon loomed full overhead, framed by their skyward reaching bars.

Just as the darkness was about to claim me, I tore open the gates and surged through them, only to stumble and fall face first onto a cold tiled floor. I picked myself up and looked around the unfamiliar classroom I’d fallen into. Windows lined one wall, and bookcases lined the other, separated by rows of blank staring students.

“Jimmy Walker…” A foreign but somehow familiar voice whispered my name behind my back, and a chill ran down my spine as I turned.  

A figure stood right behind me, its head bowed.  A figure of shadow, not the faceless demon that pursued me, but a silhouette cut from the fabric of reality, waiting to be filled. I felt the hungry darkness clawing at the door, and almost against my will, I reached out toward the figure until eyes snapped open in the shadow’s face…

Feral amber eyes stared through me.

I jolted awake and shivered. Disoriented, I looked around as I slowly remembered where I was. I stood and stretched the knot in my neck. Night had devoured the sky and moonlight sliced between the branches, illuminating the mist that filled the air, cold with the promise of autumn.

My breath steamed as I stood up and looked around. Which way had I come in? I turned around a few times, but nothing looked like it had when the sun was out. Frustrated, I picked a random direction and started walking. This place couldn’t be that big.  

My skin crawled as I crept through the midnight trees. I felt like I was being watched. The sound of a distant crow wore away at my nerves. I strained to see in the dark as my imagination conjured all sorts of phantoms to fill the darkness.

I heard a twig snap. I swallowed and looked over my shoulder as my pulse jumped. I knew there were bears in Colorado, and I very much wanted
not
to meet one. I moved away from the sound, deeper into the fog. As I wandered further and further, I realized just how lost I’d gotten in the maze of trees. Through the panic, I felt a tug in my chest, insistent, pulling to my left.  

I pushed down the anxiety that tempted me and trusted my intuition as I ran. I must have picked the right path, because more light filtered through the darkness as the fog thinned.

I slowed and stopped for air in a pool of moonlight, like a spotlight between the trees. I felt that tug in my chest again as the dream stirred in the back of my mind.
The cold blue moon framed between the claws of the iron gates
. I panted for air and the night went dead silent as awareness crawled down my spine.

Something’s not right…

A branch snapped to my right and I glanced into the darkness beneath the trees. I couldn’t see anything, but that just made it worse.

“What the fu—”

Something slammed into me, and I raised my arms to defend myself. Everything moved in a blur. Only one thing stood clear as time froze and my heart flooded with fear.  

Two eyes blazed with feral amber fire, intense and alien in a human face.
An image of white fur flashed in my mind as teeth broke through my skin and touched blood.

I might have screamed, but couldn’t hear anything past the rush of blood in my ears as the world narrowed down to those blazing eyes.

That moment stretched into an eternity. The next thing I knew, my attacker disappeared into the shadows of the trees, and I looked up into the bright sky and the full moon that loomed overhead.

My skin buzzed with electric heat as I cradled my hand to my chest and staggered to my feet. My blood felt cold as it soaked into my shirt, and I stumbled toward the edge of the trees. My vision cycled from vivid shades of gray to a looming tunnel of darkness and back again and I fell out of the tree line. I shivered as the heat faded away into tooth-rattling cold, and the darkness claimed me.

“Hey, are you okay?” A girl’s voice pierced the darkness as someone shook my shoulder. I groaned and lifted my throbbing head from the grass while my mind tried to piece together fractured memories.
I moved to sit up and hissed as searing pain lanced through my left hand when my blood-soaked shirt peeled away from it.

“Fuck…” the girl muttered when she saw my hand. I couldn’t help but agree. Blood covered most of my hand and the punctures, swollen and puffy, glistened red where the meat was exposed. “Can you stand?”

“I think so…” I muttered. I sat up and tried to bring her face into focus, “I can’t see though, shit, where are my glasses?” I glanced around too quickly and was rewarded with a wash of vertigo. She retrieved my frames from the base of a nearby tree and held them out to me.

I reached out to take them and something sparked between us when my fingers brushed her skin. Grey and chestnut mottled fur flashed in my mind, and she jerked her hand back. I pushed my glasses back into place with my good hand just in time to catch the look of surprised recognition in her green eyes.

A sick feeling of déjà vu slithered through the pit of my stomach. She seemed familiar, thought I couldn’t quite place her. She wore a baggy black hoody, and the chains on her pants jingled when she stood. Black hair flowed around her pale face, and dark liner outlined her eyes.

I stood and tried to walk, but I only made it a few steps before my knees buckled and I c
rashed to the ground, panting. “I guess I can’t walk after all…” I slurred.

“Not a problem. Geri, can you give me a hand?” she called into the dark trees, and I winced at the too-loud sound of her voice. Footsteps crunched on the grass—also way-too-loud—as a stocky form emerged from the shadows of the trees.

The boy was about a solid foot shorter than me, but built like a tank. His mouse brown hair was cropped short and spiked over his forehead, and his eyes darted around nervously, searching for something.

“Loki, where is—” he started to ask, but the girl cut him off with a sharp gesture.

“C’mon, upsy-daisy.” The girl, Loki, lifted me onto my feet with surprising strength. Geri took my other arm and they carried me on their shoulders. “Do you need us to take you to the hospital?”

“No,” something inside me reacted violently to the thought of a visit to the E.R., “My mom used to be a nurse, could you take me home?”

“Yeah, that’s no problem, where do you live?” Geri asked.

My stomach twisted and I clenched my eyes shut against the sudden nausea, “Wolf Road… near Seventh…”

“Of course you do,” Loki muttered in a deadpan tone as they carried me between them. They radiated so much heat, my body tried to soak it up as I shivered. They seemed to know exactly where I lived because they drove me home and parked right in front of my house.

I got out of the car and a wave of vertigo swept over me. The streetlight overhead flared to painful intensity before it flickered and went out. I leaned against the trunk for a moment as I breathed and waited it out.

I heard the car door open behind me, and Loki took my arm to help me to the door. Thankfully my knees decided to hold me up again. I shuffled carefully up to the porch, and heard the front door open.  

“Where the hell have you—Jesus Christ Jimmy, what happened?” John crossed the porch in two strides and grabbed me under my other arm.

“I didn’t see it happen; I think it was a dog…” Loki said for me as a whisper slithered through the back of my mind.

Tell no one…

“You got it okay?” Loki watched me, concerned.

“I should be fine, thank you again.” I forced a smile for her and let John help me up the porch steps as he thanked her for bringing me home.

“Not a problem, get some rest. I’ve got a feeling we’ll be seeing you soon.” she said and hopped back to the car. The boy pulled away from the curb and they disappeared down the road.  

“Come inside; let’s have your mother take a look at you.”

I woke up the next day, and immediately wished I hadn’t. My head pounded, and all the lights seemed too bright as I walked Jacob to school. The argument over whether or not to take me to the emergency room had lasted half an hour, but eventually I talked them out of it. Mom cleaned me up and dressed the wound, and John promised that we would discuss the repercussions of my “little escapade” later.

My new school loomed like a monster from across its front lawn. Kids streamed in through the doors like lines of ants, and I prayed my teachers wouldn’t be sadistic and introduce the new transfer student in front of the class. Ceiling-high panes of glass walled in the front lobby, and I stopped in my tracks when there wasn’t a metal detector waiting inside.

Definitely not in Chicago anymore Toto…

There was a cop though, who stood in the corner scanning faces as they passed. His eyes followed me as I walked by, and I read the name ‘Jenson’ off the patch on his chest; I assumed Mr. Spritari had set him on watch for me.

I checked in at the front office and showed them the signed papers and my class schedule. I slipped in to my first period math class just
as the bell rang and handed the counselor’s note to the math teacher, Mr. Heinen. I found a seat near the back of the room and tried to disappear as I picked at the tape on my bandaged hand. Any delusions of having a social life that I might have entertained years ago had died; all I wanted was painless invisibility. Please just let me finish my twelve-year sentence in peace…

When the bell rang, we were herded like cattle into the gymnasium for a dismal school assembly. The principal and a few of the school clubs and teams made a laughable attempt to foster team spirit under the piss-yellow glow of the buzzing gym lights. I spotted the counselor’s dour face in a row of folding chairs with the other faculty. The entire school fit into the gym with a minimum of accommodation; the full student body here was smaller than my freshman class back in Chicago.

After the assembly, I carefully navigated the crowded cafeteria and escaped outside to eat on the front lawn. I watched the smokers across the street with little interest while I picked at my baked pepperoni… pizza… stick… things… and scratched absently at the bandage on my hand

A cool breeze blew across the field and a chill crawled down my spine as I felt someone watching me. I turned and looked over my shoulder but there was no one there. A crow cawed nearby and I frowned, remembering last night, but I pulled a paperback out of my book bag. The harder I tried to distract myself, the more memories flitted around as a stubborn part of my brain strained to remember something, anything, about whatever bit me. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was
not
a dog…

I jumped when the bell rang and jolted me out of my reverie. The clanging metallic sound cut across the field, and I joined the rest of the students who filed back inside like they were headed for the gallows. I was no exception.

Some jackass junior gave me bad directions, but I found the art room halfway down Sophomore Hall
.
The teacher breezed through the door as the bell rang, and pulled it closed behind her.

“Hello class, for those of you who don’t already know, I am Mrs. Ashcroft,” she said as she pulled her long straw-colored hair back into a ponytail and then wrote her name on the board, “I recognize most of you, but to those new faces, welcome! Now, I don’t know what kind of art teachers you’ve had before; but I can assure you my class is different. I’m not just some hippie teaching to make ends meet. You will have expectations in this class, and if you do not meet them; I will fail you. Understood?”

Someone knocked on the door as she passed out the syllabus. She pushed the door open and a blond boy stepped into the room with a note in his hand. “Sorry I’m late Mrs. Ashcroft, there was a mix-up with my schedule…” His sentence drifted off and his back stiffened. He frowned, and it almost looked like he sniffed the air.  

She looked over the note and nodded, “Not a problem Fen, just take a seat.”

He glanced over the room, and then stopped and stared directly at me as his golden amber eyes widened like he recognized me. I glanced away as my stomach tightened and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead.  

Just like the dream…

He headed for the open seat across the table from me as Mrs. Ashcroft resumed the obligatory orientation routine. I heard a couple kids mutter to each other as he shuffled between the desks and threw dark glances at him. If he heard anything they said it never showed, and he dropped his bag next to the chair and sat down.

My pulse throbbed in my temples and I winced and rubbed them. Ringing filled my ears; I couldn’t focus on anything Mrs. Ashcroft said.

“What happened to your hand?” Fen asked when he saw the gauze. I glanced at him and noticed how exhausted he looked; his eyes bloodshot with dark circles underneath them, like he hadn’t slept in days. Or he was coming down off a drug binge, both were possible.

“I was mauled by a rabid squirrel.” I muttered.

Something felt wrong. My stomach twisted again, and I asked to be excused to the restroom. I only made it halfway to the door before my knees buckled and I crashed to the ground, panting. Everyone crowded around me as I rolled onto my back and willed the world to stop spinning.

“Are you okay?” Mrs. Ashcroft knelt over me, her face creased with concern.

“I don’t feel so good.” I mumbled as she felt my forehead.

“Geez, you’re burning up. We need to get you to the nurse.”

“I’ll take him.” Fen volunteered and reached down to help me up.

I took his hand, but as soon as I touched his skin I jerked my hand back. Something electric sparked from his hand to mine and an image flashed in the back of my mind of gray and black fur. It disappeared in a fraction of a moment, but my skin crawled like I’d just touched a live wire.  

Fen’s eyes met mine for a moment, and reflected that same look of recognition Loki’s had last night. His eyes reminded me of something, but the connection slipped out of reach as he took my hand again and hoisted me to my feet like I didn’t weigh twice as much as him. Fen took most of my weight and we shuffled out of the room. I took a breath to thank him, and a violent spasm wracked my body.

His scent
, whispered through the back of my mind. Hair stood up all over my body, and my muscles twitched. Sweat covered me and my whole body ached.

“Shh, it’ll pass soon,” Fen whispered as he pulled something over his head and slipped it into my pocket. “Put this on later, it should help. He recognizes me.”

“Who?” I croaked, and winced at the coarse grind of my voice. My head was too foggy to understand his words though; I almost thought he said “your wolf” while splinters of dreams flashed through my mind.

Whatever he put in my pocket radiated a cool exhaustion. My eyes started to close as I struggled to say something intelligent. “Huh?”

Fen sighed, “Let’s see if the change even sticks; sometimes the body rejects it. You should rest though, the first few days are the worst, and you’re changing very fast. The silver should help…” He carried me as I phased in and out of waking dreams, while my body burned.

My journey home was patchy and difficult to recall, as if I’d fallen asleep at impossible times—like walking out to the car—but the important parts were A: I was home, and B: I felt like absolute shit…