Werewolf Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Heavy footsteps beat on the ground and I hear her ragged breathing. I crouch lower and keep myself positioned behind the truck. My breath is shaky and comes in small spurts; I wrap my hand around my mouth, silencing my breathing.

I turn to look around the side of the truck and see her blue eyes glowing from the treeline. I know she’s there. She’s just waiting for me to move so she can attack. I lean against the back of the truck and close my eyes tightly out of frustration. I’m completely stuck in this situation; there’s no way out that doesn't end with a fight or with me being attacked.

Quickly, I pull my phone out of my pocket, silence it, and text Jayden. ‘SOS, trapped by Kris by trucks, help.’

Hopefully he checks his phone before he heads back down to the river.

Blake’s words from the council meeting bounce around my mind.  She is a danger to each and every one of us. Be careful if you ever find yourself in her presence. Of course I’d be the one to run into her and stumble on her whole operation she has going on out here. I think back to the person in the thicket with their wild, glowing amber eyes. That person recognized me and tried to protect me, but I don’t even know who they were. I couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl for that matter. All I could see in the darkness was their eyes when they caught bits of the moonlight. I couldn’t tell from their voice either; it was just soft and harshly whispered.

Twigs snap and the bushes rustle as she makes her way closer to the truck. I crouch even lower and get myself in a position to attack when she comes around the corner. The hair on my arms stands up and a huge shiver runs from my neck all the way down to my toes. The footsteps get closer and I growl lowly to warn her that I’m here and not going to give up easily. I glance toward the back tire and see a pair of feet coming around the back side of the truck.

I pounce from my hiding place and tackle the person to the ground. I push all my weight on top of the person so they’re pinned down in the grass. I struggle to see the person’s face in the darkness and only catch glimpses of pale skin under the moonlight. Suddenly the person bucks their hips under me and sends my body tumbling off of them. Now I’m laying with my back in the mud as the person grabs my shoulders and presses me further into the cold ground. I try to claw and kick at the person to get free but they use one of their legs to hold mine down and dig their hands harder into my shoulders.

“Charlie, calm down, it’s just me.” I hear Jayden’s voice say. “Stop trying to attack me, god damn it.”

“Jayden?”

“Yes. It’s just me.”

“Get off me.” I shove his arms and leg off me. “You damn near gave me a heart attack. I thought you were Kris and that I was being attacked.”

“I’m sorry. I saw your text and came over here as fast as I could.”

I stand up and look over toward the trees, searching for the pair of electric blue eyes. They’re nowhere to be found though. “She was here, Jayden. I swear, she was out there with us tonight and she came after me.”

“I believe you. I remember what Blake said earlier this week and it doesn’t surprise me that she’s hiding out in these woods somewhere.”

“It was in that thicket of trees back in the clearing. After you left, I went in there cause I heard someone calling for help. There was a human there, Jay, but I think she killed them now. They tried to help and protect me.”

“How would they have known you?”

“I’m not sure. They called me by name though and they said that Kris had been looking for me.” I stare out into the darkness for a few moments. “What do you think she wants with me?”

“I don’t know, kid, but we better get back and meet up with the rest of the pack. There’s a reason we never walk alone.” Jayden wraps an arm around my shoulders and we head off into the woods.

*******

We get back to the river about 10 minutes later and find that the rest of our group is waiting for us.

“God, where were you two? We were getting so worried.” Margaret pulls me in for hug and holds me tightly against her. She lets go a moment later and pulls Jayden in too.

“What happened out here tonight?” Jonathan steps forward.

“Well Jayden and I took off into the woods after my whole failing embarrassment with the river. And we got to that clearing up closer to where we parked the trucks and there was this thicket of trees over there. Someone was inside calling for help so I went over there to see what was going on and the person knew me even though I didn’t know them. They said that Kris has been looking for me and that I needed to run so I took off and hid over by the trucks. And I know she followed me and was waiting for me to get up and leave, but them Jayden got there and she was gone.”

“Wait, are you saying that Kris is hiding out in these woods?” Alex asks.

“Yes. And I think she killed someone tonight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Charlie. She wouldn’t kill anyone.” Jonathan says.

“Jonathan, she’s done it before. I could hear it happen tonight as I was running; she definitely killed that person who tried to help me.”

Jonathan paces back and forth and runs a hand through his brown wavy locks of hair. “Alright. Let’s just get out of here and we’ll talk about this at home.”

“Okay. Come on guys, grab all the stuff and let’s walk back to the trucks.” Margaret bends down and pulls one of the dead deer over her shoulders and grabs her bag. She starts walking into the woods and turns to make sure we’re following her.

I grab the deer I’d hunted down earlier and wince slightly at the memory of nearly dying in the river. God, how could I have been so stupid? I should’ve just let the deer get away instead of launching myself right into harm’s way. I shake my head and try to push the thought away. It doesn’t matter anymore, what matters is that I got the deer and now we’re heading home.

As our group walks through the woods, talking and laughing entirely too much, my mind keeps wandering back to that thicket of trees and what I may have discovered there. I think about why that person was our here in the middle of nowhere and whether it was my fault that they were killed.

“Charlie! Come on, kid, you gotta keep up with us.” Alex turns around and yells to me from the front of the group. Suddenly I realize that I’m about 50 feet behind the others and I jog slightly to catch up. I fall into step between Margaret and Jonathan and keep myself there until we reach the trucks.

Everyone loads the deer into the truck beds then Alex and Jonathan cover them with tarps to make sure no one will see what we have. Once the tarps are secured down, we all pile back into the trucks and start the 45 minute drive home from here.

As Alex backs onto the road and starts heading for the highway, I stare out the back seat window at the woods surrounding us and wonder where Kris is now. I try to imagine her sitting around in the thicket, angry and plotting against me. I continue to watch out the window. I set two electric blue dots continuing in pace with our truck and start to get an uneasy feeling. I swallow hard and close my eyes for a moment before opening them again. The blue eyes are nowhere to been seen and I vaguely wonder if they had even been there in the first place or if my paranoid brain was imagining things. I think back to how desperate that person was to get me out of danger tonight and how terrified they’d seemed when Kris came back. It suddenly seems entirely too real to me that she was banished for feeding on a human and that she most likely killed and ate the person from tonight. And the fact that now she’s searching for and hunting me down makes my skin crawl and sends shivers down my back. What have I gotten myself into now?

Reviews

[wordman]

lol,looking at all my doors and windows,waiting on the werewolf