Part 2 continued… read part 1 here
Though it was almost full daylight it was still quite dark in the forest. The whiskey strummed me up a bit but it was still too damn quiet. All I could hear was the crunching of my own footsteps, dead leaves, twigs, and pine needles. I kept stopping and listening because it felt like the footsteps were following me. I would walk in perfect rhythm and then stop, but there was nothing, only total silence. It must’ve been some kind of echo or my mind playing tricks on me. Another tug of whiskey and I trudged on. I’d probably only walked about a mile when a crow screamed from the tree. I nearly pissed myself. I took a deep breathe and heard another crow a ways down answer. A hundred yards further there was a clearing and then I saw it, it was the house. I couldn’t breathe. It looked exactly like our old house before it burned down. All the windows where missing and the paint was faded down to the bare wood, but it was almost identical. Probably built by the same company. Lots of houses around the lake had a similar layout, but only ours and this one had the large porch and bay windows that looked out at you with giant black empty eyes.
It had been more than ten years since the fire. I don’t remember much about it. I was only a kid. All I remember is being in the hospital, eating ice cream, and a lady telling me that the smoke had put Mom, Dad, and Travis to sleep and they didn’t wake up.
Back in the woods I heard a loud crack and saw a flashing grey black bolt round the corner of the house and come straight for me. I froze. I felt myself tilting sideways and tumbling out of my head. I saw myself raise the shotgun and blast as the dark grey lunged for me. I don’t know if the thing knocked me over or what but it felt like it ran right through me. Suddenly I was fully back in my body. I’d dropped the shotgun and quickly drew the .357, scrambling to my feet. There laying next to my head was a massive pile of grey fur. It was a wolf, and it was huge. I watched closely, to see if it was still breathing, but it lay as still as a stone. I couldn’t see were I’d hit it. I didn’t see any blood. I wasn’t about turn it over, so I found the shotgun and blasted it again. Once I was certain it was dead I dug out the machete. I wasn’t going to be able to drag it back but I could cut off its head and bring it into town. I’d never heard of a wolf attacking a human, but this one had attacked me. So it was probably rabid and the same one that mauled Renee at the store which was only a couple of miles from here.
Once I had the head wrapped in my pack I slowly backed away from the house and once I turned around I ran as fast as I could straight back to the truck. It felt like the devil and god knows what else was chasing me. I probably would’ve set some cross country record that day and I was never more relieved in my whole life to start that truck and get the hell out of there. Little did I know that I’d be back several hours later in the middle of the night.
(to be continued part 2 of 4)
