Chapter 3 Trouble Remembering

Gabriel stumbled forward another couple of steps, pausing to lean against a tree. It would be full dark any minute and he knew that the vampires would be back, looking for him. He was spending so much energy fighting the wolf inside of him…

Glancing down at his fist, he watched as the fur quivered on his arm and sighed. There was only one way he would be able to escape, but if he let the wolf loose, would he ever be able to find himself again?

With a howl that he couldn't contain, Gabriel let the wolf free. The vampires would surely know where he was now, but the wolf didn't care. He would tear them apart if they came. It was his turn to run now, and he would run! Feeling the wind blowing through his fur was exhilarating, but it only lasted a few moments before the pain began to make itself known once more. Hunger flared outwards from his stomach until every joint in his body ached with the need to kill something and to eat. His run became a hunt.

XxxxX

"Dr. Achak, we are ready to proceed," said Faith, checking her belt as she approached the helicopter.

"What does our fuel look like?" asked Dr. Achak as he paused next to the cage they would bring the subject back in. There were syringes laid out on a specially designed table next to it. They were both attached to the floor of the helicopter so they wouldn't slide around while in the air.

"We can only afford three hours of searching before we will need to return. The fuel we were supposed to get from Base One never arrived," said Clarence, checking the gauges carefully.

"I'll check on it when we return," said Dr. Achak, climbing into the helicopter and sitting down on the small bucket seat right behind Clarence.

Faith pulled open the hangar doors and then zipped over to climb into the helicopter as Clarence started up the engine.

"I informed Tiffany to keep an eye on the subjects in lab four to make sure they were fed on time," said Faith, settling into the other seat beside Dr. Achak.

"That's good. She's reliable enough. How's subject X?" asked Dr. Achak.

Faith glanced back at Clarence because he hadn't been filled in on subject X, and decided Dr. Achak must have decided to let him in on the secret.

"Subject X is still not responding to the therapy you prescribed. The brain waves are sporadic, as if she were sleeping and waking, and it leads me to believe that she isn't in the coma as deeply as you would want."

"I am not willing to risk making her brain dead as some of my other specimens have become. As long as there is still activity, I am satisfied with the level of unconsciousness she is under. What of her blood results?"

Faith fidgeted in her seat, glancing out the window of the door she sat next to, down at the dark trees below. "They are still abnormal."

"How so?" sighed Dr. Achak.

"It means I don't know. Her blood fluctuates between being normal human blood from before the wars and having seven or eight different viruses that we've never seen before. But when I try to isolate those viruses, they disappear. I don't understand it."

Dr. Achak was silent for several moments before turning to his own window and muttering, "How interesting."

XxxxX

Gabriel surfaced just enough to realize the wolf was flat out running faster than he ever had his whole life. Trees whipped by, barely registering in the wolf's mind other than to note that there was, or was not, any scent of interest on it.

There was a faint sound in the distance, and he recognized the sound of the helicopter. Even if he didn't understand that it was a helicopter, Gabriel still knew that it was a sound of the vampires using a machine to try and find him and conveyed that fear to the wolf.

With the wolf understanding the need to run away from that noise, Gabriel once again left the decisions of his body to the wolf and entered a dreamlike state where memories of the past floated for him to gather. Maybe if he studied them while the wolf had control, he could figure out what had happened to Xun.

With the thought of Xun foremost in his mind, Gabriel fell into a memory almost immediately.

XxxxX

"But Dad, I might fall!" exclaimed Xun looking down at the ground below them.

"It's only about twenty feet," chuckled Gabriel, moving without any hesitation to the next section of the old building they were exploring.

The town used to be much larger, but nature had taken it over long ago. Gabriel remembered scouting through this area when he was much younger and knew it like the back of his hand. There were soft spots in the floor that would break if he put too much pressure on them, and others that were still very sturdy.

"Why are we here?" asked Xun finally as they came to the end of a hall and looked out over a mountain of rubble where the other half of the building had been demolished a long time ago. Trees growing up throughout it had propped up the rest of the building, keeping it from collapsing the rest of the way.

"You are too afraid of falling," said Gabriel, turning to look at Xun. "Make sure your straps are tight on your bag because you don't want to lose it while we practice falling."

"What?" choked Xun, stepping back in shock and fear.

"Are you afraid?" asked his father innocently.

Xun knew the rule was that they should only be scared of the monsters.

"Look, if we had a werewolf about to eat us, and our only option was to jump off this ledge, what's going to happen?" asked his father, raising an eyebrow.

Xun looked down at the sloped field of debris below them and tightened his straps with a gulp.

"How do we fall without getting hurt?" he asked softly, giving up on trying to get out of this.

Gabriel was so proud he took a moment to make sure his voice didn't give anything away. Xun would live longer if he took his lessons seriously.

Patching the boy's scrapes later that night, his pride was even greater than it had been. Everything Gabriel had learned needed to be shoved into Xun's head at an accelerated speed. There was no telling when their luck would give out and Xun might find himself alone. So far, the boy had done great.

The next morning, when they woke up, snow had fallen in the night. Everything was blanketed in a soft white that seemed to swallow sounds. Gabriel knew it was time to move on. They would be easily tracked in this snow and he needed to hunt…

XxxxX

Blood!

Gabriel paused after swallowing to see blood splattered everywhere. The wolf had caught and killed something, but it was hard to tell what in the carnage. The pain that had taken over all aspects of life had receded to a faint memory as his belly was filled with meat.

Blinking a couple of times, he looked around carefully. The wolf didn't care about being careful, but Gabriel did. If he was caught by the vampires again, there was no telling if he would ever manage to escape.

There was no sound in the still forest and he strained to hear anything. He could feel his wolf ears swiveling around to catch any sound at all. That's when he heard the faint crunch of a leaf and he was gone, running on all fours as fast as he could, darting around tree after tree.

The soft tinkle of water drew his attention, and he veered for it. If he could reach it before they caught up, he might be able to evade the vampires. The wolf had let them get too close.

Darting into the small stream, his claws scrambled against the loose rocks that were scattered along the bottom and his heart dropped. This pitiful amount of water wouldn't stop the vampires. He had no choice but to keep going and hope he came across a real river.

Noises in the dark confirmed his fears as he barreled downstream. The vampires were closing in! He could catch glimpses of the female assistant on one side and the male assistant on the other. Where was the doctor?

The trees abruptly ended and Gabriel saw the doctor appear suddenly in front of him. Gritting his sharp teeth, Gabriel bunched up his legs and jumped as high as he possibly could.

The doctor watched as the werewolf sailed right over his head, and made no attempt to catch him. Faith and Clarence came to stand beside him, looking confused.

"Why did you let him get away?" asked Clarence, looking over the edge of the cliff the water spewed off of.

"If I had tried to catch him, I might have gone over the cliff myself," explained Dr. Achak. "I had hoped he would stop and try to fight, but this one seems to have retained some of his intelligence."

"How can that be?" gasped Faith, looking over the cliff herself to see the wolf resurface far below them and start swimming strongly away.

"I would love to know," answered Dr. Achak dryly, moving back towards the helicopter.

"Aren't we going to climb down and try to get him still?" asked Clarence.

"It's too close to dawn and I have a lot to do still before this night is over," said Dr. Achak, not looking back.