Wolverton - Julie Steimle (fb2 epub reader .TXT) 📗

not the sliding kind, but set in place with a narrower awning windows up top. He cranked one open. The awing window was narrow enough that if he sucked in his breath he could probably slip out. Unfortunately, they were on the second floor. And he would have to hop onto the sill and climb out head first. Falling out that way, he probably crack his skull open.

Rick looked down below at the outside to see what he would land on. Just beneath the window was a small three-foot wide plant bed filled with flowering shrubbery. After that was sidewalk then parking lot asphalt. The shrubbery would soften the fall, but one drop to concrete as a grown man would definitely break something in him. Was it worth it? Could he limp away?

But what if he didn’t go out as a grown man?

Looking back toward the locked office door, Rick cringed. One thing was for certain. He had to get out. That stupid manager was not going to listen. And he could not explain the truth. The man would think he was a lunatic—or worse. Fact was, he had to get out before the full moon rose in the night sky. If he didn’t, the results could be disastrous—for everyone involved.

Kicking off his shoes and tossing socks (as they would be of no use where he was going), rolling up his pant cuffs and shirt sleeves, Rick shoved the desk to the window and stacked up the chair on top of it to make a stairway. Then, in one furry hop, Rick climbed up and slipped through the gap in the window. Leaping down into the bushes while his claws scraped the brick to slow him down, he tumbled through the shrubbery, avoiding the concrete. Stuck with leaves and sticks, he scrambled and out and ran on all four paws across the parking lot then out to the countryside before anyone could see that he was a wolf.

 

 

Survival

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

Dayshift was over. Workers at the Alabama Deacon Enterprises factory clocked out as others clocked in, chatting over the events of that afternoon. Already rumor had spread about the tantrum from the heir to the Deacon Empire, as they liked to call it. The little prince had been strutting around the factory like a pompous little…

No, that was not true, others bickered. The heir was looking tired and a little agitated like a teen age boy who didn’t want to work in a factory during summer break.

But the counter group protested that he was a petulant little boy with an attitude who threw a fit over working night shift. He deserved a swift kick in the pants.

They all loaded into their cars and drove away to their respective towns. Day shift was over.

Rick overheard it all, hiding in the shrubbery not far from the lot. But what could he do? He was a werewolf. And he was rich. He could not tell the truth about the first detail to anyone, and people hated him for the last one… mostly because they envied what he had. He couldn’t blame them exactly. But he thought it was extremely ignorant of people to assume things about others without knowing their circumstances. His grandfather had built up their fortune for the protection of his own life, and for the protection of his posterity. But the greed of the envious was sometimes difficult to endure. Besides, his family was giving back the community the best they could. They provided jobs and they paid well with benefits.

Trotting away from the factory on four paws, Rick-the-wolf went over what he had to do for the next three days. For the three nights of the full moon, he had to hunt. It was imperative that a werewolf make a kill on each night of the full moon. And therefore, it was imperative that he get as far away from human civilization as possible—because hunting humans was out of the question.

When he had arrived at the area for this business training, Henry (their family’s current and deeply loyal steward) informed Rick that this part of Alabama was sparsely populated and had plenty of wild lands he could roam in during the full moon. He even showed him a place not far from his lodgings on the map where he could go. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there now. So he had to find a suitable replacement.

Following his instincts, Rick-the-wolf eventually found himself in tall grass as he went further and further away from the factory. His ears open, his nose to the air and ground, he searched for that night’s dinner, hoping not to run across people as that would be disastrous. Because when he hunted, he had to let his instincts take over and let go of his human side, and he was afraid of what he might do if he encountered a human while he was ravenously hungry.

Very small and extremely quick game was all around him. Most were in their burrows, dodging him faster than he could track them. What he needed was a rabbit. He just hoped he didn’t run into a skunk. Not that he would eat one, he just didn’t want to get sprayed by one. It had happened once before on a wildlife reserve, and bathing in tomato juice to get rid of the smell afterward wasn’t the best experience.

It started to get dark. His paws had trod in a westerly direction, still in search of a kill, and as the full moon rose higher in the twilight sky, he was getting hungrier.

Then he smelled it. Not a skunk, thank heaven, but a jackrabbit. Perfect. Hares were good eating, though fast. And though they did not dig holes or gather in groups (making them much more difficult to catch), he actually preferred them to regular rabbits. Less fatty. It was also more satisfying to hunt an animal that was able to fight hard for its own survival.

And the jackrabbit smelled him.

It darted into some dense shrubbery.

Rick-the-wolf went after it.

The chase went all over through the grasses, thorns, and plants. Rick was on its heels a number of times. He almost had a bite twice. And though winded, he was starving and would not give up. He was going to have that hare no matter what.

That’s when he heard the wolf cry.

It was distant, to the south. And though normally such a cry urged him to respond, his desire to beat the competition to his dinner was stronger. He ran down that jackrabbit, biting hard around its neck to kill it in one bite.

Actually two. The hare struggled to break free in the first bite, though wounded. And pitying it, as it was dinner, Rick-the-wolf put it quickly out of its misery.

The wolf cries came again, a little closer.

Grabbing his rabbit in his teeth and carrying it off, Rick-the-wolf ran from where the wolves were coming. He could smell them. There was more than one. And he didn’t want to share.

Besides, he had the feeling that he was hunting in their territory.

Wolves were definitely territorial—though Rick was certain he had read the native red wolves of Alabama had gone extinct in the 1930’s. Or maybe it was the 1920’s. He couldn’t remember. Yet somehow, here were wolves. A pack of them. And they were coming closer.

They had to have smelled him. The air was muggy and hot. It was full of odors, including their wolf scent which marked the trees and rocks. He was the intruder.

Avoiding being hunted was not a new thing for Rick Deacon, but usually he avoided human hunters and not other predators. Nearly every full moon a hunter from the Supernatural Regulator’s Association searched him out—often failing to find him, though frequently they had the luck and preparation to be ahead of him and cause him a great deal of grief. Most of his scrapes with the SRA usually left him with scars. He had two bullet wounds from two separate encounters, besides other scratches and nicks from other hunts. War wounds, Henry once joked. Rick didn’t think it was funny. He had too many scars—the worst actually from an encounter with a demon who was hunting a friend of his back in New York. He didn’t like hunts.

From the wolf cries, he could tell they were getting nearer. Wolves didn’t have language, not in the human sense at least. Their howls and noises were pure expressions of emotion. And they drew out an emotional response in him. Currently, it was a ripple of fear. There were many of them.

Luckily, he knew how to throw off a wolf scent, being a wolf himself. The first rule was to find a batch of smelly plants with oily saps and to roll in it. It would ruin his sense of smell as well, but it was a risk he had to take. He wasn’t tracking them so he didn’t need it so much. The second would have been to find a skunk and get sprayed—which he didn’t recommend, no matter how effective it was. The third forced him to take a dive in a river and swim down it to a safe place to get out. He had seen a creek not far away when he had chased the hare, which would do. Carrying his dinner quickly to the small river, going through what smelly plants he could, he set the dead jackrabbit down and stripped off his pants and shirt, dropping them on the shore. Taking up his dinner again, he dived into the water and dog paddled down with current. It eventually dragged him into a pond where the water swelled and let out on the other side over smooth rocks. From there, Rick-the-wolf climbed out near the outlet on the shore and devoured his sopping bloody hare.

In the distance, he could hear the wolves cry. It sent shivers down his spine, and it took everything within him not to respond with a cry of his own. It was not how he liked to spend his evenings, gnawing through wet raw meat and bones. But as he finished off the animal until his stomach was satisfied (as well as part of the curse of being a werewolf was satisfied), he was able to regain a sense of humanity again—that sense of self-control that animals only gained after human training. He pulled back into human shape for a bit, breathing hard. With revulsion, he stepped away from the remains of the poor animal he had devoured. The blood was on his face and hands. The fur was everywhere, including still in parts of his mouth. The wolf in him had enjoyed it. But the human in him would have much preferred his meat cooked with a little sauce. And as he thought this, he thought he smelled barbecue.

Sniffing the air, Rick lifted his head. The odor smelled like molasses, worchestershire sauce, mustard, pepper, paprika… no garlic, though. Most barbecue sauces had garlic and honey in them. They usually made him sneeze. In the distance he could see the light of a bonfire. It was bright against the trees. He could smell the smoke and the odor of roasting… It wasn’t beef. It didn’t smell like chicken either. He