Interviews, Profiles, and Reviews
July 15th 2010
3
Friday, August 4th, 2006
Chey scrambled backward on her branch. She had an urge to be closer to the trunk of the tree, with as much solid wood around her as possible. Every time the howling roar came out of the forest her skin literally crawled, ripples of goose-flesh undulating up her arms and down her back.
Then she heard it snuffling from not ten meters away. Nosing through the undergrowth like a snorting boar. Winkling out her scent, she was sure. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her cell phone for comfort. It made no sense—it didn’t need to. Her phone was hard and fist-sized. She supposed in a real emergency she could throw it like a rock.
It was the only weapon she possessed. She curled up against the side of the tree with her legs dangling down against the bark. She breathed through her nose, and tried not to panic, and didn’t make a move.
It didn’t matter, of course. The beast could smell her from kilometers away. It curled around the birch like a liquid shadow, like darkness poured out on the ground.
It took a step closer. Chey stopped breathing. It looked up.
The horror was not very much larger than the other wolves, perhaps two meters long from nose to tail, maybe a meter and a half tall at the shoulder. It possessed the same broad flat face of the wolves she’d seen before. If anything its muzzle was shorter but far more wicked-looking, full of enormous bone-grinding teeth. Its paws spread out across the snow, as broad as human hands, each digit ending in a long curved claw. Its coat was mottled silver and black.
She had trouble looking at anything but its eyes, though. Those eyes—they were not yellow, like the other wolves, but an icy green, narrow and cold. Intelligence resided in those eyes as well as something else, a dreadful anger. This animal didn’t want to eat her. It didn’t consider her prey. It wanted to kill her.
Those eyes, she thought again. They had a power over her. They had the power to make her afraid.
The monster despised her so much it wanted to tear her to pieces and scatter her remains across the forest floor. It wanted to spill her blood on the ground and grind her skull to shards with its giant teeth. All of that came across perfectly in the expression of the creature’s face, as clearly as if it were written there in indelible ink. The weight of that look, of that evil stare, made her press even harder backwards against the tree. It made her want to hide away, to do anything to escape such passionate loathing.
The beast’s hackles came up and its tail went down. Its lips pulled back from its teeth and a noise like a motorcycle revving up leaked out from between its jaws. And then it leapt at her.
Pushing hard against the ground with its hind legs it threw itself into the air. Its forepaws slashed at the space just below her dangling feet. Its mouth opened to grab her legs and crush them into paste. At the top of its leap it was only centimeters short of pulling her down out of the tree. It fell back to earth with a snarl and panted as it scratched and clawed at the yielding bark, snarling and growling its thwarted desire. Chey just had time to adjust her hold on the tree before the wolf leapt at her again.
“No,” she begged, but the beast came up at her as fast as if it were falling up at her, its teeth snapping in mid-air. She pulled back but one forepaw caught her in the ankle, a vicious claw sinking through skin and muscle to grate on the bone. Pain flashed through her like a red strobe light going off. For a second she heard and saw nothing but the blood vessels at the backs of her eyes.
The monster fell back again, its claw pulling free of her flesh.
Next time it would get a better grip. She was sure of it. She would die in the next few seconds, she realized. She would die, a victim of this enraged creature, if she didn’t do something, and right away.
She scrambled up against the trunk of the tree and lunged for a higher branch. She missed. Her leg throbbed and she gasped in pain but she knew if she didn’t get farther up the tree the beast would get her. It was just that simple. She reared up, grabbed a branch that looked like it might barely support her weight, and hauled herself up, even as stars burst in her eyes and her throat froze as she hyperventilated.
Those eyes.
The beast jumped for her a third time but she was out of its range. Hanging by her arms, she concentrated solely on not letting go. She tried not to look down but that was impossible.
At the base of the tree the monster dropped down on its haunches and stared at her. Its breath huffed in and out of its lungs in thick plumes of vapor. It was willing her to fall, to let go and fall. She could feel its desire. Its wanting.
Then the impossible happened. It turned its gaze away from her, if only for a moment. It looked out through the trees to where the moon was beginning to sink toward the horizon. When it turned to look at her again its palpable hatred was tempered with bitter resentment. It smoldered up at her for a while, then twitched its shoulder around and disappeared into the dim forest as quickly and as quietly as it had come.
It had to be a trick, she thought. But the wolf was gone.
Those eyes!
August 4th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Damn.
August 4th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Great imagery once again! May I suggest a rewording of the line: “It stepped into the shadow of the birch like a liquid shadow…”?
August 4th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
nnnngn. I cannot think of anything in the world that would be scarier than that. Gah. *shudder*
Where’s that wolf going? Does its momma need it home by midnight? Gah, i wanna know! *sits down patiently to wait for monday*
wow, you’re really throwing us in at the deep end with the tension on this one! Can’t wait for monday already!!
August 4th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH…..AGHHHHHHHHHHHH…..AGHHHHHHHH!
DON’T YOU CHANGE ANY WORDING ON NOTHIN’!!!!!
AWESOME….DAMN….DAMN…..AWESOME!!!
It has been way worth the wait.
You go man!!!!!!!!!! You Rock!!!!!!!!
August 4th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
The ‘horror’ already seems to be one of the scariest beasts you’ve ever created, and that’s a great thing.
August 4th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
so, it changes back when the moon goes down!! Hmmm wonder if getting a werewolf claw stuck in your foot is enough to infect you (I assume you can get infected) or if you’ve gotta be bitten.
Maybe the whole story will be the inner turmoil of someone coming to terms with the fact that every time the full moon rises they become a murderous killing machine.
Great chapter.
August 4th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Awsome chapeter as always…can’t wait till monday!!! So now, I will, proceed to hack your computer to find the remaining chapters…Hey, Bannerman, what does “ctrl/alt/delete” do?
August 4th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Holy crap. The tension is palpable. I like how you didn’t go the half man/half wolf route with the werewolf. It ought to look like a wolf, although a demonic wolf. Looks like someone just inherited the curse. I can’t wait for Monday.
P.S. Good to see a lot of new people here. Welcome aboard.
August 4th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Unlike some of the other rabid fans I have no feelings for Chey whatsoever. That’s reasonable though because the only thing we’ve really seen of her so far is her fighting to stay alive.
On that note….kill her. I like the wolf. Let’s go back to the MI style and see the world through the Monster’s eyes.
August 4th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Dave – as always, another great chapter. I feel for this woman, stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Just to kill, no meal on it’s mind at all. Not like the Werewolves of myth or movies.
Keep up the great work
August 4th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Great chapter. Still curious as to what she’s doing out in the wild anyway. Future chapters will tell, I’m sure.
August 4th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
I’m beginning to become very insulted and increasingly alarmed at the anti-werewolf sentiment you’re stirring up, David. Its almost like you’re trying to bring back the burning times, dark days where innocent moon-shifters were burned at the stake.
You paint such a dreary and untrue picture of a hate-filled killing machine, which is nothing like the real thing. Real werewolves just get a bit hairy and irritable during the full moon, but not nearly enough to kill anyone! We might dig up Mrs. Johnson’s new tulip bulbs, perhaps, or get into some chickens, but rip a small child from his bed and crush him to bloody paste? Never!
The mere thought of such wicked things makes me sick. I’ll go and brew myself a quick cup of lavender tea, to settle my stomach.
Alright, I’ve returned. Now David, your potrayal of the undead, of the brain and blood-eating varieties were both spot on. Terrible critters, and they play that damn rock n’ roll at all hours. But you really should have met some nice werewolves before you started this little racist diatribe.
Utterly deplorable. Unless of course, this is just some mutant wolf, and some kind-hearted were will be saving our poor heroine. Well, I must go, I hear the dryer-thats my slippers and day robe.
August 4th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Crazy man, CRAZY.
August 4th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
I love that it was a birch tree. That’s probably the weakest, worst type of tree she could’ve picked and really fits the whole helpless thing well.
I’m just wondering what her ‘weapon’ was she dropped in the flood…
Also, Kudo’s on wolf imagery. Bipedal werewolves never sat right with me!
(For the reword, “It stepped into the shade of the birch like a liquid shadow.” or something similar, I noticed the double shadow in that sentence as well.)
August 4th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Awesome. I love pissed off things, and he seems to be quite pissed off! To DayvidKaye: It is the first step in the complex ritual of summoning a mystical creature, known only as “Task Manager”. He manages all tasks in the universe, and should not be tampered with. As the royal priest of the Task Manager Order, do not anger him, or he will smite thee with great fury.
I can’t wait for more chapters, this story is rockin. It’d be pretty cool just as a survival story, running around, trying to live.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
I love that you’ve left us with so many questions and the anticipation to see how they will be answered. That’s one of the main reasons I hang on every posting. I know that you have a fully developed mythology or at least the drive to fully explore a mythology. Just by “Those eyes!” I know that you have more to tell us and that the story is much deeper than a thrill fest.
August 4th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
nice
very very nice
August 4th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
I agree the phrase about the liquid shadow needed to be changed, so I’ve gone ahead and fixed it here. Normally I don’t fix things like that on the website–part of the serial thing is writing without a safety net–but after people noticed it, it just started to bug me.
Thanks, everyone, and welcome to all the new people–I’m very glad you dropped by. Please be sure to check out the forum (there’s a link on the right-hand sidebar) while you’re here!
August 5th, 2006 at 2:22 am
Killing Chey wouldn’t bother me either. I suppose that’s because it’s chapter 3 and I’m not invested in her yet.
August 5th, 2006 at 6:04 am
I really like the fact that the eyes are green and not yellow or red or any other generic color. I wonder what Chey is going to try to do with her phone…
August 5th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Number of new people continues to surprise me in a good way.
I live how Dave never makes us wait to see the monster very long in his stories, I guess it makes up for the constant cliffhangers to see what happens to anything else.
Great contrast to Caxton – in 13B a lot of us thought she was going to turn. In Frostbite you’ve pretty much gaurenteed she will by chapter three. Maybe Chey is the new Gary.