ONE AGAINST THE PACK

CHAPTER THREE : The Last Day Of The News Reporter

Damian moved the black queen to the A5 square and mumbled, ‘Check.’ He knew he was now wining but didn’t want to show. Leo’s white knight was sitting fearfully on the E5 square, waiting to be chopped off for free by the savage black queen. Leo always fell for this Sicilian trap.

‘s**t,’ Leo groaned when he saw this. He immersed his hands into his red hair and said again, ‘Deep s**t!’

He was losing but he wasn’t going to resign yet. Damian always made fun of Leo’s resilience. Though being three years younger, Damian was the better chess player, while Leo dominated him in checkers.

Half an hour later, after about twenty more moves into the game. Leo was surprisingly equalizing. Despite being an official down, his pawns were now terrorizing the queen side.

Damian was dishevelled but wore a false mask of confidence. He laughed when Leo abruptly jumped up and began to pace around the oak tree, thinking of a move. ‘There’s a winning move,’ he declared, carrying his hands on his head. ‘I just don’t know what it is.’

‘Think all you can,’ Damian mocked, leaning back in his wooden chair and looking jollily at their house which sat in its brown aura some feet away. He was the Under 18 champion in their school and it was always heavenly watching the terrified creases of worry in your opponent’s face.

Then they heard the distant sound of their mother’s car. Their eyes lit up with mischief. They had planned to trick her into a Hide and Seek game. They were only but thrilled that she returned earlier than they thought. Damian sprang to his feet, almost knocking the circular table over.

‘Where do we hide?’ he gasped. ‘In the house?’

‘No, that’ll be too easy. Let’s hide in the forest.’

‘What? How’d she ever find us?’

But Leo was already sprinting towards the thick forest that lay directly opposite their house.

Damian hesitated for a while, and then gathered the chess mat, and as he ran along, he dropped the chess pieces on the ground as a trail. Their mother’s Beatles rolled into view and Leo pulled Damian down behind a shrub.

‘Keep your head low, you pimp!’ he whispered.

From the curtain of the leaves and twigs, the two brothers observed their mother. She got out of the car and ran into the house.

‘Leonard! Damian!

Damian giggled. ‘Why’s she running that fast?’

‘Don’t know, seems she has some news for us.’

‘Another huge money from her numerous admirers?’

Leo nudged him and they fell silent. They lay there, uncaring about the thorns and jagged twigs that prickled their skins. They hardly felt it; there were a lot of little pains they did not feel.

The sun had begun its westward journey across the azure sky. About a mile away, somewhere in the forest behind the house, near the Trocian stream, three men gathered. One of them stood in front of the three. He had a moustache that hung so long and low it touched his shoulders. He was beardless. His eyes were set deep under his forehead and his chin was shrunken, so that you thought of a skull when you looked at him.

Another man stood out from the other. He had a little well- trimmed beard, and a well cut hair. He was regaled in an expensive three- piece suit and a pair of shiny leathers shoes which weren’t the typical attire of a forest person. He looked like he had been plucked by a portal from an exquisite office.

The other man was called Slick. Elon was not yet there.

‘He’s taken so long,’ the long moustache man said. He spoke with air of authority. He was the leader, the alpha male of the pack, and his name was Parco.

‘Has he lost his sense of purpose?’ the man in the suit said. He had a quiet voice which did not stop him from being the loudest in a hit- headed argument. His name was Diego.

Slick’s lips were turned down in contempt. ‘Should I go after the slothful wimp?’

‘No,’ Parco said. ‘We cannot afford to be outnumbered. She might have armed bodyguards.’ He began to undress. ‘Since Elon isn’t here to ensure us, we shall take the risk. He misses it. In form, night howlers!’

The other men began to undress too. Diego laid his suit in a careful fold on one of the large stones that sat on the bank. Slick, having since fed himself with ravenous imaginations, was less meticulous. He flung his coat and trousers aside and got ready. All of this happened in the space of some seconds.

Following Parco’s cue, they took off in a progressively accelerating run. At first, each man ran on two legs. After some time, they began to assume a stooping position. Their backs humped out and their shoulders became broader, their waists thinner. Thick dark—or grey—hair began to sprout off their bodies and spread on their skin. They were rapidly being covered by fur. Their ears grew longer, just as a bushy tail the breadth of a python emerged from the end of their spine. The last feature to change was their heads. As the fur continues to spread up to cover their eyelids, their jawbones began to enlarge and protrude. Cracking sounds could be heard as their bones took on the new shape.

Each werewolf had his own peculiarity. Parco, the alpha male, was significantly larger and darker, and a long sheath of fur hung down from his nose. Diego transformed into a cleanly cut beast with white teeth and clean tongue which soon filled up with spit. Slick was the thinnest of them all, with the uncanny ability to slip between very narrow passages.

Their limbs settled on the ground and they picked up speed towards the wooden house seated on the grassland, with Parco still on their lead.

* * *

‘She’s following the trail now!’ Damian shrieked. ‘It’s working.’

Leo, too, was having the fun of his life. ‘Let’s go deeper. C’mon.’

‘Okay.’

Moving behind trees and crouching behind shrubs, the boys crept deeper into the forest.

‘Damian!’ Stella called again, glancing at the last of the chess pieces in her hand. It was a black knight. ‘I know you guys are in there, but this isn’t funny anymore.’

Damian sniggered. ‘I know mom well, she’s laughing inside.’

Leo was a bit concerned. ‘Do we just stop now? We’re deep in this forest. I can’t even see our house any longer.’

‘No, no, please,’ Damian pleaded. ‘She’s enjoying it. See?’

‘Let me see...’

Leo looked out from his hiding and saw their mother’s face and the smile that was plastered thereon. She loved the prank, yes. Leo was about to turn away when there was the sound of a crash, like a tractor had crashed into a wooden shack. It came from behind her mother. Suddenly the smile on Leo’s face darkened. He had seen them. Three gigantic wolves running from the direction of the house towards their mother. The curtain of leaves would have obstructed his view, but the miracle of seeing through this curtain was something Leo didn’t notice. The wolves flew on, their teeth bared, drooling, the blood and longing in their eyes.

The news reporter twirled around for a second to see her death approaching and a shout escaped her mouth. She turned back in the direction of Leo and their eyes met—she had seen them already, the moment she picked up the black knight, but had decided to play along—and she raised her finger to her lips. In that split second, a message was passed: Stay quiet. When she tried to run, away from the direction her children hid, a heavy paw fell upon the back of her neck. She went down. The other wolves fell upon her.

She disappeared beneath their weight. Her mouth was pushed into the ground and filled up quickly with sand and twigs. She heard herself scream as a thousand finger- long teeth sank into the skin of her neck. Another set clamped the back of her knee and, holding on to flesh, pulled her skin down to her ankle in a long, agonizing strip. Her clothes were shredded off. Her ear was attacked and gone in one bite. They turned her over to lie on her back and went for her neck again, her breasts and her belly. She was split open. Her innards gushed out.Her eyes became still, in death.

The sound of ravenous biting, pulling and gobbling filled the boys’ ears. They were still behind the tree, frozen. Horrified beads of cold sweat broke out from their skins. Their eyes darted in their sockets, from one werewolf to the other, watching as they pulled their mother apart. Leo discovered he was holding his palm over Damian’s mouth, begging him in the barest whisper not to make any sound, to keep still and stay hidden. There was nothing they could do to save their mother. And they were no match for even one of the wolves, if they were discovered. He thought these things, not said them, but he knew Damian understood. Damian vibrated beneath his palm, sobbing in heavy bouts. It wasn’t easier for Leo, either, but he was the elder, and the need to stay alive and hidden and to protect his brother at all cost now pulsed through him like a second heart.

If we are quiet, they won’t find us, they’ll just leave, he thought to Damian, and somewhere in his mind he felt Damian nodding.

But how wrong he was; they could be sniffed out. Werewolves were notorious for picking out the barest human scent. They were half humans themselves, so it was quite relatable. But at that moment, all that filled the beasts’ nostrils were the intoxicating odour of the woman’s insides. They avoided her stomach and intestines as they deemed it ‘too lowly’ for them. It was meant for actual animals.

None of them, not even Slick, gave consideration to the fact that Elon was absent and that there would be a big tension thereafter. It was an act of betrayal, and even though it wouldn’t be a challenge for them to fight against him if he did get wild with anger, it would be a heavy setback to have a displeased wolf in the pack. He could be a saboteur and could, in revenge, choose to betray the pack at the most precarious moment. But to hell with all those precautions and consequences. Life itself is a risk. Parco knew how to control Elon; like the course of a river, he could redirect his mind. And in this case, there was a perfect subject of redirection ~ Stella’s kids.

Where were they? Parco looked up from the meal and grunted at his subjects for attention. They looked up reluctantly.

‘The kids. Where are they?’ Parco said.

‘There are kids?’ Slick’s eyes blazed with renewed interest.

As Parco set to respond, they all turned their heads sharply at a sound. Elon was standing with his forelegs on a dead log, glowering down at them and at the treachery they have done against him. His eyes were very dark and centred on Slick; the latter made an ashamed whine and turned his eyes away.

‘What have you done?’ Elon spoke in a voice that harboured unhidden wrath. No one answered him for a while. ‘You send me to check if she had any bodyguards and yet you do her in on my absence?’

‘You took a lot of time,’ Slick whispered. He knew how formidable Elon was. Even Parco their leader had some fear for him. Elon was the pack’s loose cannon, the strongest Beta in the whole pack.

Elon fixed his eyes on Slick and began to make a low vibrating growl. They all knew what was coming. Parco stepped in front of Elon.

‘Be still, Elon!’ he barked. ‘There was a mission at hand, and time was not on our side. What do you have us do? Let it slip out of our hands because of your slothfulness?’

Elon’s eyes burned. He was filling up with the larvae of rage as he glared into his leader’s eyes. He was afraid of his own temper. His right paw twitched.

‘You sent me away,’ he said through clamped teeth.

‘To do what?’

Elon’s rage didn’t let him answer.

‘The object of your mission returned before you,’ Parco continued, throwing a glance at the carcass. ‘Is her little car faster than your legs? Or did you go off to pursue your own interest?’

Diego, the calm beta wolf, nudged Parco, trying to beseech him to keep his anger in check. But Parco was not done.

‘You should be honoured that I counted you worthy to join the hierarchy,’ he barked. ‘The hundreds of others would kill to be in your position!’

Elon had lost all interest in the conversation. There was a strange scent drifting from the right. He walked away from Parco’s presence and turned once to look at the bloody remains of the meal he had so dreamed of. His stomach growled and he turned to face the forest, in the direction where the kids crouched, hiding and whimpering. He hadn’t seen them but the scent was overwhelming. His nose twitched and his head c****d to one side.

A particular tree caught his interest and he started walking towards it.