Eyes of the Wolf

32

Roger and I got to my house quickly. Upon reaching the short, concrete driveway, Roger’s nostrils flared, and his breath was audible. Once glance at him was all it took for me to charge forward into my house.

Blood was thick on the ground. I had never associated the stuff with any smell, but suddenly, between the porch and the doorway, the air became thick with a tang that coated the back of my throat. And it wasn’t just the smell that made my stomach feel like it was going to take a vertical escape route.

“Dad?” I called. There was no answer. I knew he was supposed to be home. Panic tried to strangle me with thick fingers, cutting off my air.

Roger brushed past me, thick bronze hair growing visibly on his arms, face and legs, his eyes dilating until no white was visible among the blue and black. Somehow, his carelessly prowling through the crimson puddle on my floor snapped me out of my panic, making business take over.

“Roger? Is my father h—” I froze as an unfamiliar woman emerged from the kitchen. I immediately registered the bright blue eyes, visible from here, almost before I recognized the blood on her front. She seemed to evaluate me too, until her nostrils flared and her face changed, lengthening and growing red fur.

Roger was farther in his change than she, and he got to her before she had finished hunching over. There was a horrible sound, between a canine yelp and a human cry, as he tackled her, teeth bared and snarling, before they began trying to tear each other apart. I watched, horrified as they fought, the woman still trying to complete her transformation. It wasn’t until Roger’s white front feet had gained a pinkish tinge that I remembered the blood still at my feet. Since my bronze wolf still had the reddish one pinned, it was easy to maneuver around them to enter my kitchen. There, I stopped.

My father—the remains of my father—was lying at an odd angle, sprawled with his feet on the side of the kitchen island and his head and shoulders against the cupboards under the sink. His right arm had been torn nearly off at the shoulder, and small spatterings of blood scattered the floor beneath it. The biggest stain on the ground, though, seemed to be the one beneath his torso; his whole abdominal structure lay gaping and ruined, some of it hanging in tatters to his lap and the linoleum beneath. He still trembled. It took a full two seconds to induce vomit.

As I looked back to him in horror after I had regained marginal control over myself again, his eyelids fluttered. There was no life in his eyes, and no recognition—just shock, and doubtlessly pain. I panicked, despairing. There was nothing I could do. He was dying in front of me, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t even make myself walk to him; somehow, touching him would make the vision real.

Somebody swore from the other room, and then high pitched yelping got my attention. That wasn’t right. Roger had been beating the reddish wolf. I stood, torn, between my father and my friend. My father’s trembling had stopped. Wondering whether that was, in truth, a good or a bad thing, I ran out of the kitchen before I could turn back.

A man, half changed, had his arms around Roger’s neck, and seemed to be biting him with teeth that grew longer by the second, right along with the dark fur on his blackening skin. Roger seemed to be trying to twist and bite him off, but the now fully-changed red wolf had a good hold of his throat, and didn’t seem to be releasing anytime soon.

Rage filled my body, and I felt my legs push me forward until I leapt to the back of the new intruder. He snarled, and I dug my fingernails into flesh with one hand, grabbing a fistful of hair and ear with the other and yanking hard. I felt the balance beneath me change, and I knew he had released my ally. Then four stripes of pain tore through cotton fabric and into my shoulder. I renewed my efforts at tearing him apart.

Balance changed again, and then my back and head hit something flat and solid—the wall or the floor, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care, except that the intruder—murderer—pulled free. I backpedaled, my tennis shoes fighting for traction on a blood-slicked surface, with little success. My eyes opened just in time to see a human-ish shape descend, and then there was pain as my body flew into the bar between my living room and kitchen. I felt something crack wetly, and I was pretty certain it wasn’t the wood of a barstool. The linoleum under my palms slid out from under me as I tried returning to my feet, and my chest hit the floor quickly and with a rush of pain that made my vision go black momentarily. By the time I had regained my eyesight, I was in the air again, but this time with a fist and my shirt as an anchor. The moment this registered I kicked, and I connected with something solid. At a glance, I realized it was his jaw. The fighting with me had reduced him to his human form again, but he was pissed.

Well, I was pissed too. I readied myself for another kick, but he ran forward and slammed me into the wall. Again, I saw large black spots. When I was together again, I was on the floor again, and there was a human-wolf hybrid above me. His head ducked and clamped down on my belly, and tore. I screamed. There were front paw-hands on my shoulders as he completed his change, hunched over my body as my blood soaked the floor and the back of my shirt. I struggled for breath, no longer really seeing the form above me due to pain. Oh, the pain. It hurt. I hurt. It was unbearable Seconds later teeth closed over me again, and shook. The tearing in my throat from the force of my voice was no match for what I felt with a wolf ripping my body asunder. Seconds lengthened into ages as I laid there, teeth closing into me, disemboweling me alive. Something in me tore completely away, and the pain flared to an agony beyond breath. My lungs struggled, but the overwhelming feeling below them rendered them next to useless.

The tearing stopped, which made the pain fade from unbearable agony to plain agony. I found the capability to draw air again, but every breath moved all of me, and it gusted out in whimpers. It was too much to scream anymore.

From nowhere that I cared to think about, I got a mental image of my father, lying broken and shredded in my kitchen, and rage filled me again, though the agony was still there. I would not die. They had killed him, but they wouldn’t kill me. I would live. I would live.

My world faded to the sound of snarling wolves and the copper scent of blood.