Taking Down the Alpha King

THERE WAS A hot surge of air clawing from the back of my throat, pushing itself out. Gasp! I couldn’t breathe. A fiery sensation had taken over my body. Everything hurt. I could hear that I was moaning under the pain, but I wasn’t awake. Not yet. Unable to open my eyes, I fought the urge to return to my sleep. Something wasn’t right, but try as I might to understand, I didn’t know why my body felt so rigid. This wasn’t my room; that much I knew; but where was I? The smell was off…foreign somehow. The smell was damp. Rusty. Almost like a garden after rain, where the smell of minerals that have washed up from the water table are noticeable. “He’s moving.” A voice I didn’t recognize popped off. “Hit him with this and he’ll be out ‘til it’s over. Hopefully, this one'll survive.” I could sense their bodies coming closer…and for reasons unbeknownst to me, I could tell exactly how far apart they were. I wrestled with my body, hoping that I could pry my eyes open as panic started to spike in my chest. What exactly were they going to hit me with?? I felt the cold of a needle as they pressed it into my vein. Whatever fight I had was slowly seeping out of my cells. “That’s right, fella. Go right back to sleep.” The bark of a laugh came from the first voice, his smell of tobacco and whiskey drifting further and further into my subconscious. “No,” I felt the word die on my lips. “I’m not ready.” My heart was steadily beating at a slower pace, my body shutting down. The black edge of sleep had met with my mind, and it was all I could do to not slip back into the terrible dream world. I was gone. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Two Weeks Earlier “No, Dad! Don’t leave! It’s not safe! I’m begging you.” It was the conversation we’d had a thousand times and the same one he never listened to. “Quit worrying about your old man! I’ll be back soon, you’ll see. I have to follow this lead, or I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’m so close I can taste it!” I watched the Ranger put his hat atop his head, his green padded jacket zipped to his throat. Listening to the wind howl outside of the house, I noticed the shutters rattling. “The storm is already here. What will I do if you don’t come back?” Beside me, Finn whined, his body coming to curl up on my leg. “See?! Even Finn knows this is a bad one!” I was exasperated. He grinned; his boot strings wrapped tight around his ankles. “You won’t have to worry about that because I always come back. I promise. Hustle, now, and get to bed. I don’t want you waiting up for me.” He stood from his spot off the edge of the recliner, ambling towards the door. Picking up his flashlight, binoculars, and walkie, he kicked the latch out of its place. Twisting back to look at me, he must have noticed my sullen expression. “I’m not kidding! Get to bed! I’ll be back before you know it. Love ya, son.” He tipped his head, and exited, leaving me to lock up the house tight. I had known then what we all knew now. He was never coming back. When I woke up on the couch the next morning, I knew he hadn’t been there. Pulling back the insulated curtains, I checked the outdoors. Nothing but snow for miles. No tracks or sign of his truck. Just pure, white, solitude. Patting Finn's head, I nuzzled into his fur, the beast of a dog whimpering. “I know. I’m worried too.” He followed me into the kitchen, watching as I assessed the landline before dialing out. Making a mental note to make sure the CBs were on, I flipped the button on the coffee machine. I called down to the station, wondering if he had stopped there on the way up because of the weather. “No, Logan. We haven’t seen your dad at all today. I’ve been frantically trying to reach him.” It was Kim manning the radios and phones that day, telling me that another person had gone missing from the area. Still no bodies to be found. “Have him call me once you see him, ‘kay? It’s chaos down here.” And with that she had clicked the line. It wasn’t irregular for my dad to be out of range. He did it often. People loved and trusted him, so they forgave his frequent absences. He was always going above and beyond the call of duty, which meant I was always trying to track him down. I had heard the buzz of activity in the background, knowing the station and the limited law enforcement we had in this area were working around the clock to find the perpetrator responsible for all the disappearances. Dad not being around was the last issue on their minds, because they assumed that he’d eventually turn back up with more information than when he left. I mean, we lived in Alaska for crying out loud! Why would they be worried? It was the weather that you worried about. Especially in this area… Weren’t we supposed to be the last frontier for everything...including serial killers? But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Something was definitely wrong. And Dad knew it. But who would be…taking people? We weren’t part of the tundra. We were a tourist location for campers! Nothing crazy has ever happened here. Sure, I’d heard my dad tell stories about the weird hippies coming up and trying to colonize, but the winter would normally scare them away the first year that they were here. That’s why these disappearances were so strange… There hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. No new groups of people had come to stay—that I knew of, anyways—and that’s what had tipped my dad. He could feel in his bones when something was coming, and he followed those hunches like a hound. Except now, who was going to save him? There was no one. There was just me. And I could tell I was already running out of time. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Present Day I was hot. So hot. I felt sick. Launching from the bed, I felt the pain in my stomach first. I tried to heave, but nothing was coming up. Wearily, I stood to my feet, willing my knees to support me. Water, I thought. I needed it. Pushing my feet, one foot in front of the other, I felt along the wall, liquid beneath my fingers. My eyes were burning, the slightest amount of light piercing my skull with agonizing pain. Water. I had to be dehydrated. Why would my eyes burn like this? It felt like shards of glass were under my eyelids, each blink more painful than the last. I could feel my lungs expanding, the breath they took into them hard and long. Was I laboring to breathe? No. It didn’t feel hard to inhale, but my chest… I was gulping air down like a vacuum. Every inhale brought a surge of energy combusting through every muscle in my body. I reached what I thought was the exit to the woven plastic, feeling with my nails the ends of the material. Gripping it, I ripped until I could see the outside. It was dark, but there were people moving in every direction like ants on a mission. Some were carrying buckets; others were carrying people. They were talking all at once. It was like a beehive, buzzing commands back and forth. And it was loud! So loud… I had to cover my ears. Clapping my hands over them the ringing was overpowering the rest of my body. Falling to my knees, I felt myself cry out, my throat still dry. The ringing wasn’t just in my head anymore. It had traveled down through my body, cracking every bone along the way. I could feel it in my veins with every movement that I made. I cranked my eyelids back open, feeling the sandpaper of my lids scratching against my eyes as I searched for something familiar. I fell forward, my hands catching me as I landed. What I saw caused me to forget every sensation coursing through my nervous system. Hair. Hair that covered me like a shag carpet crawling up my arms and onto my chest. I lifted my hand to inspect it, now noticing the talon-like nails that were sticking straight out of my hands. “This can’t be me,” I was wailing, trying to pull the hair off myself. “This can’t be me!” A foreign voice was roaring. What kind of nightmare was this? “We got one trying to run!” I heard a voice shout. With a snap of my head, I traced his location. It was like a map spreading before my mind's eyes and I could see exactly where he stood. Freaking out, I whipped around to stare him down as he made his way from around the back of the tent. "Watch him; he'll be too strong for you in this state." “OK, fella, you gotta come back with me,” he was laughing, the taunt of his voice raking through my brain. "Stupid mutt," I heard him mutter. My teeth gnashed in response. “What did you call me?” “I got him, Harry. One liquid vial of Fairy Dust comin' right up.” There was a smell as soon as he said the words that hit my nose. It was like diving into a honeysuckle bush in the middle of summer when the pollen would saturate your clothes. I was turning, looking for the smell and trying to find the voice when I was pummeled to the ground. That sweet essence was against my face, and once again the world went black. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t win. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Two Weeks Earlier I threw my backpack onto my bed, knowing exactly what I was going to stuff into it. “Gloves, flashlight, first aid kit…” I was mumbling, cursing that I hadn’t left my bag packed. “You’re always supposed to be prepared for emergencies, especially in storms,” I mimicked my father’s voice, knowing that he would have had this done last night. Mentally kicking myself, I hurried, knowing I had already lost too much time to save him from exposure. I clenched the hunting knife that I kept on my table in my teeth, checking off my mental list. The only thing that I didn’t have yet was the rifle dad kept in his closet. I hadn’t cleaned the thing in months and that made me nervous. “Hopefully, I won’t have to use it.” Walking across the wooden floor into my dad’s room, I reached for the strap of the gun that was wedged between his flannels and furs. Dumping a box of ammo into my duffel, I headed to the door. Finn scampered around my feet, the anxious boulder of fluff needing physical reassurance every two seconds. “Not now, boy! I’m trying to pack up! Go sit down!” The defeated look in his blue eyes brought a tinge of remorse, but I couldn’t stop to think about how I sounded right now. I had to get this done. My Jeep that I used primarily in the summer was under the shed by the side of the yard. I grabbed a shovel and sighed. The snow was up to the top of its wheels. “Great,” I grunted. Finn was dancing around me in the snow, wanting to play. “Back up, dude. Quit licking me.” He bowed his head. “I mean it. Help me or get back.” Dutifully standing to the side, he watched as I raked snow back from each of the tires. “There,” I huffed, scooping the last of the heavy powder back. Popping the door open, I dumped everything from the house between the seats. “Who knows how we’re going to find him,” I explained to my dog, patting the spot where he could jump. “Now, we look.” It took some skill getting onto the path that led to our town. Paved roads were a luxury this far out, most of us having packed the roads ourselves with gravel and wood to keep the land from washing out. I had a vague idea where Dad was headed, since I had watched him pour over the maps in his office for weeks now, since the bodies started vanishing. He had circled a few spots, namely three locations that he said held clues that he just hadn’t found yet. Last night, before he had left, he was talking about one of those spots… and I’d be darned if I couldn’t remember which one. But it was close to the park, Kenai Fjords. “All right, Finn. Let’s find Dad.”