Authors: Rebecca Brochu
It’s directly on top of him then, so close he can feel its breath on his face, the warm wisps of air it releases moving over his skin. He stares it in the eyes and his fear melts into a strange sort of calm, an almost unbelievable certainty that he’s safe, that for some reason this monster-sized animal isn’t going to hurt him. His shoulders relax and he breathes out a sigh as he slowly, still cautious even though he’s strangely unafraid now, raises a hand up towards the wolf’s large nose. The wolf stands still, and Darin lets out a low breathless laugh when his hand lands on the animal’s damp nose. Bright amber eyes stare at him patiently, and he can’t resist the urge to run his fingers upwards across the creature’s muzzle until he can scratch lightly behind one large ear.
The wolf yips at him, startling him enough to flail backwards, arms pin wheeling wildly, but he’s stopped from falling when the wolf clamps down on the loose side of his hoodie with surprisingly gentle teeth. He manages to steady himself and when he does the wolf slowly lets his hoodie go and instead leans forward to snuffle lightly at the crook of his neck. Darin laughs again, unable to resist the way the animal’s breath tickles the sensitive skin of his neck.
“You know, I should be terrified of you, especially of you being this close to my throat, but I’m really not. Besides, you saved me from falling, which really seems to be something of a new trend on this particular path since it’s the second time this week it’s happened to me. Both times by ridiculously handsome men, too, so I suppose it’s not a total loss. Wait, you are a boy, right?” Darin feels slightly less ridiculous talking to the wolf than he probably should, but there’s an intelligence in the creature’s eyes that has him half convinced it understands him completely.
It huffs at him in what seems like amusement and then steps back and lopes over to a tree where it cocks a leg in the air and stares back over its shoulder at Darin as if to answer his question.
“A-Alright, so either you understand me, and that’s something that I’m not sure my brain can handle at the moment, or that was one hell of a case of coincidental timing.” Darin’s a bit freaked out, but he’s actually surprised at himself over how well he’s holding it all together.
The wolf trots back over to him, tongue lolling out of its mouth, and Darin goes to say something else, but he’s interrupted by the way his companion is suddenly tense and alert. The wolf is growling, his fur standing on end and teeth bared as he looks back towards the mess of underbrush he had busted out of earlier. The wolf turns back towards Darin, noticeably softening, and uses his nose to nudge Darin backwards a few steps. Darin stumbles back and looks at the wolf in confusion, but the animal keeps pushing him, keeps urging him back the way he’d come, and he finally gets the hint.
“I’ll go, I’ll go! Just stop with all the pushing!” Darin throws his hands up in the air in surrender and then takes the next few steps backwards on his own just to show the thing he’s serious.
The wolf grins at him again, all dangling tongue and large teeth, but there’s a tension to it that wasn’t there before. Darin can’t help the way anxiety curls lightly in his stomach and he’s blurting out his question before he can tell himself how ridiculous it is.
“Are you … are you going to be alright? Is there something out there that’s dangerous? Do you need help or something? Cause that would be something I could try to do or whatever.” He feels stupid, but at the same time he’s compelled to ask because something inside of him is telling him that this wolf being hurt is the last thing he wants to happen.
The wolf cocks his head at Darin for a moment and just stares at him silently. Then it moves, covers the few feet between them with a single step, and leans forward into Darin’s personal space again. The wolf hooks its massive head over Darin’s shoulder and uses it to pull him closer until Darin’s face is buried in the thick fur of its chest. He sits there for a moment and breathes in the scent of wilderness and rain that comes from the surprisingly clean feeling fur before he steps back. He raises his hands and runs them both up the sides of the wolf’s face and then lightly bumps their foreheads together.
“Be careful.” He whispers the command at the massive animal and gets a low sort of chuffing growl as a reward.
He steps back and turns around to head back down the path like he’d promised, and when he looks back right before he goes to turn around, the bend the wolf is gone. Darin doubles his pace, runs faster than he normally does all the way back to his house. It’s not until he’s inside and standing underneath the hot spray of his shower that what just happened actually hits him. He’d stood toe to toe with a wolf the size of a bear, had touched the thing, had let it touch him, and beyond the initial shock hadn’t really been afraid. He could’ve
died
, could’ve been mauled, and no one would have known it. He’s shaking with repressed adrenaline as he slides down the shower wall until he’s sitting naked on the tiles as the water beats down on his back. All the while the thought, the inborn knowledge that the wolf wouldn’t have actually hurt him circles around the back of his mind and it eats at him that he doesn’t know why he’s so convinced it’s the truth.
Chapter Three
Things get even stranger after that, and Darin is hard-pressed to accept that because there was a time in his life when being confronted by a bear-sized wolf in the woods would have been the last thing he ever expected to happen to him. It must be because he pissed off someone really powerful in a past life that suddenly giant wolves are the least of his worries. A week after meeting the animal, the
gifts
start showing up. There’s no other word to describe them because they don’t seem threatening or ill-intentioned in the least, and they’re all sort of displayed in a manner that he’s pretty sure is supposed to be pleasing.
At first, there are small things like a bouquet of wildflowers, the lower ends of the stems slightly mangled, but they’re still fresh and relatively whole. Darin can’t help but bring them inside and dig out a dusty vase his mother had given to him years before. By the time the gifts manage to work their way up to a full-sized deer waiting for him one morning on his back patio, Darin’s more than curious and more than a bit frazzled. He’s been forced to call the police and animal control a few times to deal with things, and it’s through them that he finally gets at least half an answer.
They manage to rule out human involvement through hair samples left on the bodies and they tell him, solemn faced and serious, that it’s a wolf. The game experts tell him to be careful, that they’ll set traps, but he still needs to try to avoid going outside at night if he can help it. Darin’s still beginning to hate the way the collection guys snicker at him every time they come by. They seem to enjoy laughing at him about his ‘furry boyfriend’, like waking up to dead animals in his backyard is really the way he wants to start his day. Although everyone else is a bit stumped about the flowers since that’s not typical predator behavior, especially not for a wolf.
If he’s honest with himself, it is actually kind of sweet in a sort of morbid way now that he’s not worried about whether or not he’s the target for some sadistic freak with an animal fetish. Every time he gets a new gift, his mind flashes back to
the
wolf, that gargantuan creature from the woods, and he smiles a bit before he can stop himself because he’s pretty sure that he knows who it is. He doesn’t say anything about that, decides to keep it a secret and not test just how much people might be interested in collecting a giant wolf. He also tries to ignore the swooping feeling he gets in his gut every time he thinks of the wolf and then Raylan’s face, his flashing eyes and sculpted jaw, slinks across his mind as well.
“I really wish you’d stick to the flowers, no matter how strange that is on its own. The dead things are beginning to get me funny looks in town, and I really don’t need any help with that.” Darin stares out across his backyard, coffee cup in hand as he tries to ignore the rabbit at his feet. He feels a bit ridiculous talking to nothing, but it seems to be par for the course by now with how his life seems to be going.
Darin can’t help the shiver that works its way down his spine when there are only flowers waiting for him the next morning and then again the morning after that. He does his best to push it to the back of his mind and go about his day as if there isn’t some animal leaving him love tokens every morning. If he makes a stop at the local library and checks out most of their wildlife section that has to do with wolves, or if he spends more time online than usual looking up animal courtships, it’s his business. He still runs every evening, but he doesn’t run into anyone again, not Raylan, not the wolf. The trails are as silent and empty as they’ve always been for him.
Then, unexpectedly, the gifts stop.
A week goes by, a week of no flowers or deer or anything at all, and while Darin knows he should be relieved he’s almost disappointed and strangely worried. He can’t help but wonder what exactly had stopped the tokens, what had happened to end the presents he’s been getting for over a month now. No answers present themselves and the gifts don’t magically start appearing again, so Darin has no other choice but to bury his sense of disappointment and move on. He returns the books to the library and stops digging for new information. He’s read everything he can get his hands on by now, and if the gifts are over with there’s no reason to keep pushing to find new material.
Things change when he’s eating lunch one day at a café down the street from the hospital. He’s sitting at a little round table with Karen, a fellow nurse and someone he actually counts as a friend, and she’s interrogating him about the gifts again. It’s been the best piece of gossip the nurses’ station has heard in a while, and they’re all loath to let it go without something to replace it.
“Oh come on, Darin, aren’t you curious at all? I mean they said it was a wolf doing it, but still, isn’t that spooky? What if it gets in your house at night or something like that?” Karen’s all red hair and enthusiasm, wildly flailing hands and slightly loud voice drawing stares from some of the other customers. Darin’s known her for over a year now, and she’s good company both in and out of the hospital.
“Of course I’m curious, Karen, but it’s stopped. It was weird as all hell, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It’s been two weeks, and there’s been nothing. I guess the thing finally got bored or something.” Darin tries to keep his disappointment out of his voice, but he can see from the arch of Karen’s brow that he’s not completely successful.
“You sound like you miss it.”
“It was … sweet. Well, the flowers were. I wasn’t so hot on the animals, but yeah, I guess I kind of do miss it. I just hope it didn’t get shot by a hunter or something.”
Karen laughs, a surprisingly loud bark of sound that has Darin arching a brow at her in return.
“You’re so sweet being worried about the thing. Just remember that animals like that are dangerous and this might just be for the best.” She’s suddenly serious, blue eyes boring into Darin’s brown with shocking intensity as she reaches out and grips Darin’s wrist in one hand, the tattoo on her wrist peeking out from beneath her scrub top.
Darin scrubs his free hand through his short brown hair and sighs heavily.
“I know, Karen, I know.” He agrees with her but deep in his heart something rebels against the thought of the wolf, that magnificent beast, being gone for good. Darin isn’t sure what it is that draws him to the creature, what makes him just as intrigued with it as he was with Raylan, what makes him draw parallels between the two in his mind, but he can’t ignore it.
Chapter Four
He does his best to not dwell on it, but when he finally reaches the end of his shift at the hospital and is driving home it’s all he can think about, has been all he could think about the entire afternoon. He’s restless and even his run doesn’t relax him. When he finally pours himself into bed he’s unable to get comfortable and only manages to fall asleep after what seems like hours of tossing and turning.
Darin is jerked out of his sleep a few hours later by a loud crash. He fumbles his way out of bed, tripping over his tangled sheets, as he rushes towards his backdoor to see what’s going on. He flips on the outside light and jerks back the blind on the sliding glass door only to find himself frozen in place. On his back patio, illuminated by the weak glow, is the massive form of the wolf lying motionless, a bunch of wildflowers haloed around his body.
Darin stares for a moment, struck dumb by the actual confirmation of who’s been leaving him gifts even if he’s known it on one level or another the entire time. The wolf twitches, a pained almost whimper escaping it, and Darin is jolted out of his haze when he sees the slowly growing pool of blood beneath the massive creature. Without a thought he’s turning and running for the bathroom, grabbing his well-stocked first aid kit and barreling back down the hall to skid to a stop at the door. Hands steady, he pulls the door open gently so as not to startle the wolf as he slips outside and moves so that he can crouch beside the large animal’s head.
“Come on, buddy, where’s the blood coming from?” Darin sets his kit down beside him, flips it open, and pulls out a pair of gloves that he slips into quickly. He glances up and finds that the wolf’s eyes are open and watching him, the gaze pained but calm for the moment as if the animal knows Darin only wants to help. He sends it a shaky smile and then turns back to the problem at hand.
The wolf is losing too much blood for him to hesitate for too long, so with a quick prayer that the animal not choose now as the time to get all fanged out Darin buries his hands in its thick pelt. He searches through the dense fur with his fingertips, brow furrowed and lips pursed, as he tries to follow the blood back to the source. The search is useless, his questing fingers turning up only more blood and matted hair. The wolf’s breathing is labored and shuddering, and Darin knows if he doesn’t do something soon he’s going to lose him. Darin pushes his way back to his feet, strips off the blood-soaked gloves and tosses them on the ground beside his kit as he walks back around the wolf’s prone form.