Code Of The Wolf - Chapter 5

Garroth wanted to hide inside of his room away from the forest the second that he and his group arrived back at the cabin. I clearly spent too much time in the forest today. That weird house and that wolf...that must've triggered something in me. On the walk back to their cabin, Garroth felt as if he was hallucinating even more than before. He almost felt as even the trees were spying on him, that there was something else out there, watching him, stalking him...

By the time he and his friends came back home, Garroth stayed indoors for the rest of the day. At times, he did speak to Dante and Felicity about the day and about their school studies, but Garroth thought it was best to avoid spending too much time outside for today. It's clearly doing something to my paranoia. I just need to stay inside and, oh I don't know, maybe read a book or find something else to do to get my mind off of it.

"Are you okay, Garroth? You've been acting more spooked than usual," Felicity told him.

"I-I-I think I just need some time away from the woods. That house and that wolf thing, and those memories all keep coming back to me...", he told her, in a shaky tone.

"Calm down. I'm here for you. If there's anything wrong, you can always talk to me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah...yeah, I know. It's...I don't think it's anything too severe. Just need a moment away from it all," he told her, before going to his room to lie down and rest. He picked up his book and started reading to calm himself down. "Ashes", huh. I guess the plot is intriguing. The plot revolved something about a teenage girl trying to survive in the worlds while an EMP destroys most of humanity. Sounds interesting. He decided to read the first few several chapters to kill time.

A few hours go by while the others went to do their own thing. Garroth, meanwhile, is trying to fall asleep. He was having second thoughts about checking out that house in the woods. He had a sick feeling in his stomach that made him uneasy. No matter how hard he tried to forget about his paranoia and tried to go to sleep, he keeps having flashbacks to his coyote attack. The bite, the pain, all of it...it kept him up for what felt like hours of unsuccessful sleep. Garroth couldn't handle it anymore.

This shit isn't working. I need to go and clear my head for a moment. He decided to get out of bed and quietly head down to the kitchen to go get a drink of water. Tip-toeing his way there, he quietly managed to pull a glass out of the kitchen cupboard and fill his drink without making too much noise. He just needed something to get his mind off of it. That was all. He started having recurring thoughts about how the others might be feeling, especially Dante. What was exactly that thing Dante took, anyway? I don't see what a little gadget like that's going to provide for him. Hell, why do I even care about why Dante took it? I know it's someone else's property, and it's wrong, but for all he cares, it's practically nothing. So why am I worrying so damn much?

He decided to look outside the kitchen window to see if there was anything to get his mind of it. The moonlight shun dimly through the tree leaves, the dark outside creating a creepy yet interesting atmosphere. Near the front of the trees, there was a small pack of coyotes traveling together. There were around three of them, trying to find some prey they could stalk. That wasn't what made Garroth's stomach queasy, though. Garroth swore that he could see something moving through the trees.

At first, he had trouble seeing what it was. It was a large, towering silhouette in the background, the size of what looked like a black bear, but it was walking on its hind legs. He thought he could see a shining, silver streak moving through the trees that was moving at a steady pace. He got a better look at it, and he thought that the creature didn't look anything like a bear. Its fur seemed to be gray. The coyotes began to get afraid, and one of them even started barking at the creature.

That thing...it looks something like that wolf I saw, no, but this one looks real. Like the version that Dante told us about at the campfire with us...

It wasn't until the creature started getting closer to the house that he could get a good look at the werewolf creature. Its eyes were shining light blue. Its teeth looked like it could easily leave a nasty mauling, and its claws looked sharp enough to penetrate right through human tissue. It made heavy panting as it moved. "I will find it. I am the hunter of the night, hunter of prey," the creature said in a dense, deep robotic voice. At least, that's what Garroth was hearing, and he wasn't sure if his ears were playing tricks on him. It walked through the trees, getting closer to the barking coyotes.

One of the coyotes went a bit too close to the wolf, trying to intimidate it by barking louder. "Small dogs shouldn't bark so loud," the wolf growled, right before it swung its claws at the dog's face. The beast's claws dug deep and scarred the coyote's face, blood flying as he did it. As the coyote was distracted, the wolf then charged at it and pinned it down with its arms, its brute strength almost crushing the poor animal.

What happened next was something Garroth thought was only possible in a fever dream. The wolf's stomach opened up, revealing a fleshy-like sharp teeth filled mouth, as the wolf picked up the coyote, still struggling to break free of its grasp, and placed it in its stomach jaws, trapping the animal. Garroth thought he must've either been high or his sleep paralysis was kicking in, because he had no clue what in God's name was going on outside. The other two coyotes tried to run away as they saw what happened, but the beast was fast, and quickly caught up to one of the two.

Unlike with the first, the wolf pinned down the second coyote and tore apart at the coyote's body using its normal razor-tooth jaws. Garroth could see specks of the coyote's flesh being torn apart and sticking out of the wolf's jaws, its teeth hacking into the creature's flesh repeatedly, the fur around its mouth being stained blood red. The wolf howled as the coyote belched in pain. Then the wolf turned its head and glanced at Garroth. Garroth could feel the wolf's shining blue eyes staring right into his soul, like a lion finding its next impala to hunt.

NO MORE! It's all in my head, it's all in my fucking head! This is just my fear playing over my mind! It's probably just like with the flashbacks in the forest. Maybe I just need some sleep, that's all. Get a good nights sleep and in the morning, this will all be just a bad dream and some much needed therapy, Garroth thought, as he quickly drank the last of his water and headed back to his room as quickly as he could.

Garroth closed the curtains on the window frames, and turned off the lights of the steel chandelier. He immediately hopped into bed, grabbed the blankets, and lied down, trying to get some shut eye. Even though the bed felt very warm and soft, Garroth still felt cold from his goosebumps on his neck. Come on, forget about what you saw and try to go to sleep. Think about something that will calm you down. Like...Felicity...

Yes...that seemed to calm him down slightly. Thinking about her. She was one of the few things that could get his mind off of that horrible wolf, and the delusions he was seeing. That smile, her warm, welcoming and caring attitude of hers was something he could feel relaxed about. I should just tell her how I feel... not now, though, definitely not now. Not with all of this shit happening.

The night terrors, of course, continued throughout his sleep, but he was able to at least sleep partially peacefully thanks to Felicity. Regardless, Garroth had trouble falling asleep throughout the night, moving around back and forth in bed, trying to get those horrible flashbacks out of his head. Now he was picturing that day of the coyote bite, but a wolf replaced the coyote. Not the vicious monster he thought he saw, no, a normal gray wolf. A lone wolf, at that. Of course, wolves were much larger than coyotes, and much more intimidating.

Suddenly, he heard a loud, ringing sound that pierced his eyes. At first he thought it was the cries of the wolf, but as he slowly woke up, he saw that it was only the annoying tone of his alarm clock. 10 AM. Damn, I must've slept in heavily. No one even woke me up? Weird. I figured at least Dante would be here poking fun at me for sleeping me. Maybe they just figured I needed some extra shut eye. Garroth tried not to think about it too much, since he was still trying to wake up. His eyes were feeling a little sore, and his mind was all over the place.

He went into the restroom, changed into his normal clothes, brushed his teeth, and headed downstairs to get his breakfast. Weirdly enough, it was quiet. No shenanigans from Dante, no singing practice from Kylie, not even Felicity waiting for him to save good morning. No one was in the kitchen at the moment. Either they're still asleep or they went to go get some supplies themselves, Garroth thought. He went into the cabinet and pulled out a box of cereal, and buttered a piece of toast. He wanted to focus on eating his breakfast and enjoying himself. He also made himself a large cup of coffee and drank up. I'm gonna need some caffeine to keep me awake today.

After he was finished with breakfast, he went out and searched for where the others were. He went to check Dante's bedroom, but he wasn't in there. He went to check in with the others. Felicity's not here, Kylie's not here, hell, Hank's not even here. Where the hell is everyone? He thought about where they could all be at the moment. Calm down. Perhaps they're just outside, or maybe this is all some kind of prank Dante's trying to pull on me. Outside, yes. That's probably a good place to check first. He was hesitant, of course, with the night terrors still lingering in his mind.

Pull yourself together and get out there, he told himself. What you saw last night wasn't real, just like those nightmares. Get ahold on reality. Before he put on his shoes to go outside, he made sure to grab a small kitchen knife, you know, just in case something tries to sneak up on him...

"Hey, you guys out here? The hell have you all been this morning?", Garroth called out in the front yard. He didn't see anyone in the front yard, but he could hear some voices coming from the backyard of the house. Very paranoid voices, too. He could instantly tell that one of the voices was Felicity's. Without thinking, Garroth ran behind the house to the backyard. Is she hurt?! Is she in trouble?!

In the backyard, he saw everyone else together. Okay, so false alarm, this isn't some kind of prank, I guess. He calmed down as he saw that Felicity wasn't in any pain, but she definitely was shocked. There were also a series of deep claws marks on the back of the log cabin. It looked as if something had scratched it. "Well, look who finally got their ass out of bed," Dante teased to Garroth. "Gotta admit, thought you weren't going to wake up for a while now, Gar-Gar!"

"It's not funny, Dante! I was worried about you guys! I didn't know where you were or what you were even doing! And what's going on back here, anyway?"

"Maybe if you woke up earlier, you would have gotten the memo," Kylie told him. "So as a quick recap, I got outside first, and when I was going to refill the bird feeders, I saw...I saw this." Kylie took Garroth over to where Hank was standing. In front of him was a repulsive sight.

A swarm of buzzing flies were over a dead coyote's corpse. The animal's blood was stained all over its fur. The corpse was covered in sharp, vicious claw marks, and teeth marks that left nasty bite marks and tissue torn from the coyote. But the most revolting part was that the coyote's head was missing from the rest of its body. The rough, fleshy area around the neck showed that it must've been removed from the corpse. It didn't even look like much of the corpse had been eaten, either, aside from a few ravens who were arguing with each other, cawing at one another as they tore small pieces of flesh from the corpse as a snack.

Garroth threw up in his mouth. The combination of the horrible stench and the disturbing scene was enough to make him hurl up his breakfast. He used all of his willpower not to throw it all up. I'm not wasting my perfectly good breakfast.

"I just ate my fucking breakfast! You could've given me a warning before showing me this!"

"I think I've lost my appetite after seeing something so...so severe," Felicity said, in a queasy voice. "What the hell even did this, anyway? And a better question, why?"

"Obviously, it must've been looking for food, Felicity," Dante told her. "Isn't that, like, the basic concept of carnivores? Eating other creatures to survive?"

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Hank told him, shaking his head. "But it's mostly the ravens and scavengers that have been eating this poor coyote's body. And I'm sure those birds couldn't have torn off this thing's head. So what other large predators are out there that could've done this?"

"Well, the only things that I can think of that would eat coyotes would be a cougar, a wolf, a bear, a dog, or even another coyote," Felicity said. "I'm not exactly an animal expert, but those creatures come to mind."

"We should try to look at the scratch and bite marks more closely," Kylie told the others. "If we can see how large the marks are, or how they're shaped, we might have a better clue of finding out."

To be continued...