Not so smart after all. This time I won’t be messing around with the knife.
Rook raised the weapon, his finger ready to unleash a fully automatic storm, when suddenly the lead wolf stopped again. Rook held his fire, then became aware of two things.
One: The wolves were cowering, a couple of them even whimpering.
Two: A horrible rotting smell filled his nostrils.
Oh shit, this is not good. Rook put the pieces together in his mind. The wolves had begun to run away, and Rook whirled, leading with the AR-15.
The barrel of the gun smashed into something, and one of Rook’s feet slipped as he tried to catch his balance. He inhaled the fetid stench, heard a massive roar, and felt the AR-15 pulled from his grip. Then giant fingers wrapped themselves around his rib cage and he flew through the air, landing in the frozen thorns of the undergrowth.
He got to his feet and saw the monster running, the weapon looking like a toy in its right hand. The wolves had reached the end of the range of his headlamp, but the giant creature looked to be making up ground. Rook almost felt sorry for the wolves.
He thought, How the hell did it sneak up on me? Ah, that’s right, I was downwind of the wolves, so upwind of him, it makes sense.
He tapped the headset button. “Hey Fossen, I lost ‘em.”
“I can see that, Stanislav. What happened?”
“I got caught, couldn’t smell the creature until it was too late. And he took my gun.”
Silence greeted the observation, before Fossen said, “That is unfortunate. Perhaps we had better rethink this.”
Rook began to run while he talked. “Fuck that, I’m going after ‘em. Tell me where they’re headed, just like before.”
“What about the gun?”
“I’ll just have to get it back, won’t I?”
“Stanislav, how do you expect to manage that?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. First I have to catch ‘em. Am I going the right direction?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Tell me when I need to turn or slow down, Okay?”
“I cannot let you do this.”
“I’m doing it with or without you. If I don’t need the tracking chip any more, I’ll put it down and we can come back and get it later. Otherwise, tell me where to go next. I can still smell it, so that tells me I’m going the right way.”
“Fine, Stanislav, do not blame me if you get yourself killed.”
“If I get killed, I promise you won’t hear a word from me.”
“The wolves are slowing. I am not sure what it means.”
“How far away are they?”
“About half a mile.”
“I’m on it.”
Rook picked up his pace. Running wasn’t his favorite activity, but with his training he could go quite a way if he paid careful attention to his effort. Right now, he needed to close the gap.
A few minutes later, Fossen announced that Rook was back to four hundred yards away. The wolves were once again ambling around at low speed. Rook could still smell the creature, and he wondered where it had gone.
He turned off his light. He had no idea what kind of senses the creature had, but he figured no reason to make it any easier. The moon provided enough light for him to make his way over the rough ground safely. Three minutes later, he stopped, surprised. The wolves were right in front of him.
He tapped the headset and whispered. “Hey Fossen, why didn’t you warn me to stop? They’re right here!”
He received no response. After a minute, he swore to himself. Goddamned Fossen, what’s he up to now?
Rook figured that after initially winding his way uphill away from both the town and the ocean, he was now descending toward town again. This time, he was coming from the other side of the small ridge at the end of the narrow peninsula where the town lay, and he had not yet seen this area.
The wolves still didn’t move. They sat in a circle, snouts pointed to the sky, making no sounds that Rook could hear. The stench of the creature remained, but Rook couldn’t tell if it indicated a current presence or a prior one. His nostrils had developed a certain amount of tolerance for the horrific odor, which made it more difficult to determine the proximity of the source. He felt exposed, cut off from Fossen’s input, unsure if a huge and now armed hominid waited in the surrounding darkness. He had to do something to get back the initiative.
He considered what had happened earlier. The giant hands had tossed him aside, but hadn’t done much damage. If the monster had wanted him dead, he’d be dead. Also, it had taken the gun, a deliberate action that showed some of the intelligence Rook had suspected in his first encounter with it the previous evening.
So what the hell is it up to? Maybe…something with the wolves?