The Christmas Wolf Read online

  He looked into her frightened eyes and held her arms firmly just below her shoulders, waiting for her to calm down. But she didn’t want to calm down. She didn’t want encouraging words spoken in a soft tone.

  It was too late to calm down.

  Her stomach cramped, her muscles tightened. She screamed again as another body cracked the door. How long would it hold?

  “Carl? Carl, tell me what to do!” She had to trust him. She broke his grip and instead grasped his body to her. “Carl, I love you.”

  His embrace was warm, passionate, loving. But brief.

  “Lynn, listen to me.” He pushed her away enough to stare into her eyes again, to grab her attention. Even though she thought she would jump out of her skin as the growling and howling intensified, his voice seemed to work on her. She looked into his eyes and saw a calmness there, a security. She wondered what color they were. She always thought she’d known. They were green, weren’t they? But now she wasn’t so sure. It was the light, barely any thrown by the fading fire. There was smoke in the air, too, and the wind over everything, which seemed to be moving dust around in the tiny cabin. His eyes were swirling like dust motes.

  Or it’s me, I’m close to a panic attack…

  She gripped him once more, then went staggering to the bedroom, where she saw the window was under attack. She stifled a scream, then lunged into the bathroom, barely a closet, and barred the door.

  Her back to the flimsy plank barrier, she listened as the wolves, or whatever they were, continued to hurl themselves at the walls.

  She wondered what Carl planned to do.

  And whether she would ever see him again.

  7

  Carl counted, in his head.

  Sounded like five of them to him.

  He tried to peer through the displaced planks at the broken window. As he did, red eyes stared into his from just a few inches away. He stumbled back, startled.

  They were about to be overrun.

  His list of choices was limited now. Alone, he might have taken more risks, but with Lynn to protect, with Lynn for whom he had brought a ring, he had to think longer. Well, he had seconds, maybe a minute at most, to make up his mind. They would breach the cabin’s weak defenses, and then the pack would tear apart the two adventurous Christmas travelers, and neither would ever be heard from again.

  Carl made up his mind.

  He wrestled the door open, most likely catching the wolves by surprise because not one of them lunged for it.

  Instead, they froze and stared at the human. It was the middle of the night, but a bright silver disk in the sky illuminated the landscape and threw everything into relief.

  They were large, but mangy brutes, four males and a female, three black and two gray, all wizened and world-weary. The tableau seemed interminable as Carl eyed each beast in turn.

  Their muzzles, gray and battle-scarred, seemed to contract as their jaws opened, their fangs exposed in the early evening snow light. Two were salivating, long tongues snaking in and out, breath puffing out.

  Hours had apparently passed. The snow had mostly ended, except for blowing and drifting sheets of icy particles lifted like magical dust by the wind’s fingers. The Clipper had deposited a hell of a lot of snow, then moved on.

  Carl stripped, stepping out of his clothes in only seconds, remembering to take the advantage of surprise.

  Then he stepped out onto the porch, his bare feet sinking in the snow, and the wolves growled. But retreated.

  As he came down the wooden steps, he stared at the nearest wolves, measuring.

  It was the one in the middle, the largest black one.

  The alpha male.

  Leader of the pack.

  Carl visualized himself running, felt the hair sprouting on his arms and legs and up along his spine, felt the molecular change as he jogged toward the alpha, his arms swinging and his mouth open to grab the cold air…

  And then he was Over, and he was amongst them, his own body now on four huge paws, his pelt as black as midnight and healthy, very healthy compared to theirs.

  Before the surprise could even register on the old leader’s eyes, Carl – or what had been Carl moments before – reached the unsteady older wolf and his jaws opened and in a lightning flash they closed on the leader’s throat.

  The growl that came from his snout was fearsome, and the snarling as he tore fur and skin, sinew and tendon, muscle and vein, asunder… that snarling truly scared the woods around him.

  The old wolf tried to defend himself, but he was too slow, too undernourished to fling enough body weight behind his attempt.

  Carl’s wolf was larger, faster, angrier. His fangs ripped chunks from the old wolf’s head and back, and then he went in for one attack on the belly, his fangs grazing the underbelly and delivering the final message.

  Then the black wolf stepped back, his jaws releasing the older wolf, who stumbled and fell to his side, panting. Blood streamed from various wounds the younger black wolf had torn into his body. The alpha’s tongue lolled from between his fangs, spent, dripping bloody strings of spittle and saliva onto the fresh snow. His eyes seemed to cross as it looked at the new alpha, the wolf who had bested him in a coordinated vicious attack that had lasted mere seconds.

  His eyes were very tired.

  In a few moments, his human body dragged itself to its feet after resting on bloody knees.

  The others did the same, until they all stood, nude, the cold snow barely registering on their skin. Their ribs showed, their bones all angles and edges. The woman’s breasts sagged, and her back was bent as if she’d broken it in the distant past.

  “This is the pack I inherit?” Carl said in a whisper. He now also stood naked in the snow, bathed in white moonlight.

  The alpha tried, but couldn’t speak. His beard was grizzled. Blood was beginning to coagulate all over his ruined body. Yet he still managed to stand with dignity. He nodded at a younger man, who responded.

  “We’ve been hounded by them,” the younger one said, nearly spitting. His voice was gravelly. “We’ve lost the jobs we had, those of us who had them. We lost our houses. The deer population is small, and the hunters took their fill this year. The farmers hunt us again, and their coops are protected by electric fences. We’re starving, and we have no place of our own.”

  “Why toy with us? Why the sport?”

  The older man held up a hand. He would speak, after all. “My idea. To restore some aspect of our pride. To give the pack something to look forward to. To… to relive some past glory. I—I guess. It was my idea. I take responsibility.” He lowered his head. “You may end my life.”

  Carl growled, almost forgetting he was now a naked man. “Sport has always been the bane of our kind!”

  “Aye,” the old man agreed. “You are right.”

  “I release my responsibility back to you.” Carl looked at each human face, in turn. “I will remember you. If I ever see you in my woods again, I won’t be so charitable.” Then he leaned forward and whispered something to the older man, a name and number. “Tell him who answers that Carl referred you. He will provide some labor, some food. He may direct you to migrate elsewhere. I suggest you take his advice.”

  The old man nodded his thanks, his eyes avoiding Carl’s.

  Carl turned his back on them and went back up the porch steps, retrieving his clothing. He felt their stares on his back as he dressed, but he knew the attack was over. He was their leader now, nominally, at least until he left, and he had spared them – and given them a contact that would see them through the winter. He stepped into the house. The fire had died down, and glass and debris littered the floor. He shook his head. He’d have to make amends, somehow.

  A few minutes later, he was at the door again, leading Lynn. She shivered in her coat, and her voice tripped over its own words, its questions, while Carl maneuvered her down the steps. Suddenly she saw the men and the woman, and stopped, her eyes never leaving them, but her voice full of breath an
d fear fueled by adrenaline, she leaned into Carl as if she could hide behind him.

  “Carl, what—? Who are these people? And why… why the hell are they naked? In the snow?”

  “They’re neighbors, Lynn.” Carl spoke in a serious tone. “Scandinavians, I believe, by their accents. You know, with the… whole sauna thing almost as a religion. They live nearby and… they heard what happened and came to chase the wolves away.” He pointed to the destroyed snow blanket. It was impossible to see where the tracks went, where the wolf tracks ended and the human tracks began. He didn’t bother to mention the mythical rabbits.

  “Aye, miss,” said the old man. “They’ve gone now.”

  Lynn whispered: “He doesn’t sound Scandinavian.”

  “Hm,” he grunted. “Still, I think that’s their heritage. From what they were telling me.”

  He walked her past the five, who stood back, staring, letting them pass without incident and without a word.

  At the Xterra, Carl cracked the icy mantle and opened the doors, then scraped as much as he could off the windows. He helped her into the car and closed the door on her next question. He stepped around, then started the car. Thankfully, the cold engine responded as well as he had hoped, and soon he had some heat trickling from the vents.

  He closed his door and began the laborious process of turning the car around, but the snow cover was deep, over eight inches in places. Drifts were higher. They looked out and saw that the five people were now pushing the car and helping him maneuver over the crunching snow, until it pointed down the driveway.

  Lynn was thunderstruck. How often had people helped push her car from a parking space? Fairly often, Carl guessed. But naked, bloody people?

  She hugged herself as the heat began to roll over them both.

  Carl was in good spirits again.

  “Well, it’s Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, Lynn.” She stared at him, mouth slightly open. He wanted to plant a kiss there, but there would be time for that when they finally made the lodge.

  Soon they reached the main road, grateful to see that plowing had begun sometime earlier.

  The ring seemed to sing out from its hiding place. Patience, he reminded himself.