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From the Woods to the Woods

“C'mon, Jason! Race you to the lake! Ready, go!" Chris shouted over his shoulder as he strained at the pedals of his bike. Jason, riding a couple feet behind Chris on his own mountain bike, merely blasted through some bushes and launched off a small ledge putting him ahead of Chris on the dirt hiking trail.

“Hey, no fair!" Chris called after Jason, as his friend laughed at his obvious dismay.

“You wanted to race, so we're racing. Last one there has to jump in with their socks on!" Jason grinned as he pedaled his way along the trail.

The two friends sped down the trail, leaping off small ledges and weaving between the trees as they raced to the shore of the lake. When they reached the lakeside, both with burning legs and heaving lungs, they bickered over who won the race. At least until Jason spotted something peculiar sticking out of the shallows.

“Hey, wait. Why is there a sign over there?" Jason asked, confused. “There were never any danger signs at the lake before."

“Don't be ridiculous. There's nothing over there." Chris snorted.

“I'm serious! There's a sign that says danger on it."

The two boys wandered over to where Jason thought he spotted the sign. DANGER, the sign said in large black letters. It appeared to be a road sign, still with a heavy chunk of concrete around the base of the metal pole.

“Well, that's odd," Chris said. “I don't remember this sign being here before. Do you remember this being here?"

“Nope. And why do those dents in the pole look like hand prints?" Jason muttered uneasily. “You know what? Let's just head home for the evening. Maybe play some games on your console instead?"

“Yeah, the lake is super creepy right now. Let's get out of here," agreed Chris. The pair walked back to their bikes and trudged back along the trail. Nervous about the new sign and what it meant by danger, they anxiously discussed the new addition to their swimming spot.

“I don't want to find out if someone bought our swim spot, but what if it—" Jason started to say until Chris cut him off.

“Hey what's that?" he said pointing to an odd lump sticking out of a bush near the path.

As they walked closer, Jason saw it looked like a blue sneaker. Chris yanked the bush aside, revealing that the shoe was still on someone's foot. But it was just the foot and part of the leg, the stump of the limb and broken bone oozing blood.

“Oh, God, I think I'm going to—" Jason mumbled before turning and vomiting noisily over another bush. Not feeling too great himself, Chris gulped as he saw that the end of the leg seemed to have been chewed off the body.

“Wasn't Robert from Year 3 bragging about his blue velvet sneakers yesterday in class?" Chris asked Jason once his friend finished wiping his mouth. Jason's eyes bugged out at this.

“I-I think we should go home," Jason said shakily. Chris nodded in fervent agreement.

Unfortunately, at that moment there was a rumbling growl, like that of a dog but way too deep from behind them. If Chris had to describe it, he'd say it sounded like a lion sized Doberman not ten feet behind their backs.

They both froze.

With an audible swallow, Chris peeked over his shoulder to see what was there. What he saw was a massive wolf the size of an SUV. The thing's breath smelled of rotting meat, and half of its upper face seemed to be missing. When he glanced at its legs, he shivered from the sight of protruding bone and maggoty flesh. It opened its mouth to roar at them, and he saw it had no tongue or flesh under its chin. Disturbingly, he saw the monstrous wolf had no eyes, and deep in the eye socket where the flesh had been stripped away there was flicker of a purple glow.

“Run!" Jason screamed in absolute horror.

Chris was frozen in terror and could only watch as the thing's attention focused on Jason, who immediately dashed off along the trail, forgetting his bike completely in his fear. It lunged past Chris; whatever dim hunting instincts remained in the beast latching onto the sight of fleeing prey. Chris could only stand there, frozen in horrified terror as it plunged through the forest after his friend. The instant it was gone, though, Chris felt able to move again and turned in the direction of the lake. He didn't want to go after them. He knew what would happen. Robert had apparently already found out first hand.

Chris left his bike with Jason's and sprinted back along the trail. Upon reaching the lake again, he looked around the shore frantically, hoping there was another trail he could use to get away from the monster. Spotting a gap in the trees to his right along with a trail marker, he jogged over to the trail head in the hopes it led back to town. As he peered down the trail, a scream echoed over the forest and lake; all the air a person's lungs could contain expelled in a singular, soul-shuddering expression of fear, agony, and despair. The scream was cut off so sharply and suddenly, Chris struggled to suppress his surging terror.

[i]I'm next[/i]. The thought pushed him forward onto the path, regardless of where it led. He felt that being anywhere other than near the lake and the path to the beast was better than staying. Chris ran along the trail, the setting sun nearly behind the nearby hills casting everything in a rosy light. More like a bloody light, Chris thought morbidly.

All of a sudden, the trail twisted and ran up along the edge of a cliff leading up to an outlook over the forest. Despite feeling like he had a knife in his lungs, the sound of a bubbling, wet howl that fell into a low, rumbling roar echoing out of the woods behind him spurred him forward up the rocky path. As he turned the last bend in the trail before losing sight of the forest, Chris spotted the shaggy, lumbering form of the massive wolf emerging from the tree line, a coating of arterial blood coating its front half.

Chris turned and raced to the top of the lookout, desperately hoping there was another trail heading around the back of the cliff.

There was nothing. No trail, no path, just a weathered bench and a useless plaque with some words about the spot. At the sound of crunching stone, Chris turned to see the rotting beast at the edge of the trail leading down. Chris backed away from the thing, purposefully putting the worn wooden bench between them. He trembled as he noticed a length of what must have been intestine dangling from between the thing's teeth, looping out from under the fleshless jaw.

The wolf didn't even seem to notice the bench. As it advanced on the boy, each step it took mirrored by Chris' feet in the opposite direction, the wolf stepped on the bench and shattered the wood into splinters. A deep growl built in the monster's throat from that point.

Chris had backed up as far as he could. His heels were almost at the edge of the cliff. The beast crouched seemingly ready to pounce on him as the growl built even further. As the growl peaked, the wolf pounced with a gurgling, hacking howl.

Chris did the only thing that made sense when something that big flew toward his face. He ducked.

Flattening himself to the cold granite beneath his knees, the beast flew over his back, missing him by a mere foot. The thing howled as its lunge carried it too far, trying to spin in midair for the edge as if it could scramble back up. As it swung its rotting claws, it managed to slash Chris' left leg, slicing a gash through his pants and along his calf.

Chris screamed as the gash burned in pain. Gasping in agony, Chris crawled to the edge and saw the monstrous wolf had fallen into the pines below. It had been stabbed through its side by a short pointy pine, which ran up through its abdomen and chest like a massive, gore-encrusted needle. It wasn't moving. The dim glow behind its empty eye sockets was absent. With a groan of pain, Chris bound his calf with a strip off his shirt and tied it with the shredded leg of his pants. He limped down the trail and slowly struggled his way back to the edge of the town.

When he arrived home, his family was both relieved he was safe and horrified of the events. As the doctors worked on his leg, a squad of police assembled to investigate the boy's “claims". They set out the next morning for the area Chris had described. They found the leg more severely chewed, and then a little way on they found the trees and bushes in a small clearing splattered with dried blood, bone shards, and viscera. Some of the newer police members looked rather green at the gruesome scene.

As the squad of police scouted around for the “impaling pine" the boy had described, one of the men felt a wet smack hit him on the head. Removing his helmet to check, he saw a blob of rancid, rotting gristle. Calling the rest of the squad together over the radio, they carefully inspected the pines nearby. One of the pines displayed the bloody evidence they searched for.

Twenty feet above the forest floor, the branches of the pine were snapped and splintered, and the entire trunk of the tree above that point were coated in oozing, rotting gore. But there was no body of any wolf, of any size. Scouting around the base of the tree revealed tracks that led deeper into the forest. At that point the police squad decided to leave. Anything that could be impaled by a pine tree and survived wasn't something they were prepared to fight.

When they returned, confirming the injured boy's story, the town council began organizing an emergency evacuation. Everyone was in hysterics. Not everyone believed the story or the evidence, however. When most of the town left, a few stayed behind despite the town's warnings. Chris begged his friend's family to come with them, but they refused, insisting Jason wasn't dead because no one had found his body. They stayed with two other families in their houses, fortifying their doors and windows at the council's insistence.

Two weeks later, when a small military investigation team arrived, they found nobody still alive in the town. Each building, whether it had housed one of the stubborn families or not, had its rooms repainted with blood and viscera. The families were nowhere to be found.

Even more disturbingly, there were bloody, malformed pawprints throughout the town. The size of the tracks matched the hospitalized boy's description in the briefing they had reviewed before deploying.

As night began to fall, the investigation team leader ordered a retreat and re-evaluation of the dangers inside the empty town. Once the squad regrouped, he noticed they were missing a pair of soldiers from the squad. As they moved to their vehicle, each team member took turns attempting to hail the two, with no response. Although most of the team were used to combat, each could feel a frozen finger of fearful dread run down their spine. As the small convoy of armored vehicles drove slowly out of the town, one Private MacDonald spotted something large moving between the trees to their left. At the commander ordered lights to be turned on the unidentified object, it moved out nearer to the road allowing the team to see true size of the beast. It was a shapeless black form as tall as the armored hummer they drove, if not taller. When the floodlights found the thing, the commander gave one command: drive.

The monstrous wolf that had been described in the report was larger now, and it was now fully covered in dried and drying blood. The commander's heart chilled as he spotted a cracked pair of goggles caught by its strap on the monster's claws. The same pair each soldier he had brought wore with their helmets.

As the convoy fled the town, the monster accelerated from a lumbering trot to a full-out, hunting dash, harrying the rear-most vehicle even as they fled. When the beast collided with the vehicle during a turn, it began to tip, the occupants inside screaming for help over the radio. All the commander could do was swear as he saw the thing begin to tear into the reinforced hummer with newfound savagery, as if it could hear the screams.

Shakily, the commander ordered his team to leave those in the vehicle as a diversion so the rest could escape. When the team leader gave his report, not many of his superiors believed the man at first, but coupled with the testimony of the town, and the gory pictures the team used to document the remains of the town, all population centers around the town within a twenty mile radius were decisively evacuated and a chain fence with surveillance cameras was constructed to watch for advance warning of the monster.

* * *

In a hospital room a hundred miles away from the town where the beast appeared, Christopher Anderson was surrounded by every doctor in the hospital, some even taking the positions of nurses in order to attempt to save the boy from the strange illness that afflicted him. As the one part of the operating team worked frantically to identify what was plaguing the teenager, another group cleaned the ragged gash in the boy's calf. It was from this gash, they assumed, that this infection had occurred, but it was unlike any infection they had seen before.

Chris' temperature fluctuated excessively, peaking into a dangerous fever then dipping into concerning lows that seemed to be spreading in waves across his body. His unconscious features twisted in pain then relaxed in relief repeatedly as the waves spread. Though the team kept him sedated in an attempt to relax his muscles, every once in a while, Chris could be heard mumbling incoherently despite the induced deep sleep. After a full day under sedation, they were forced to taper off the medication, or risk being unable to wake their patient.

As Chris slowly surfaced from the fuzzy darkness that enveloped him, he let out a groan at the bone-deep ache that seemed to permeate every muscle in his body, including ones he didn't know he had. Well, the pain means I'm alive, he thought bitterly, tears coming as he remembered what had happened to his best friend.

Attempting to open his eyes gave him the impression his eyes were glued shut with super glue. His mouth was dry to the point his tongue felt swollen and fuzzy. Letting out another long moan of pain, he was able to lift his arm enough to let it flop onto his face, around where his eyes were. Concerningly, he couldn't feel anything from his arm at all. After yanking his floppy arm back and forth over his gummed-up eyelids a bit, Chris dislodged enough of the gunk sealing his eyes to crack them open a touch.

Only to yelp as the harsh, sterile white lights of the hospital room took the chance to burn bars into his retinas. Jesus that's bright! He cursed as he slammed his eyes closed again. Attempting to move his arms again felt like moving somewhat warm, solid pool noodles, but they didn't feel like his arms. As he lay there, wondering if there was someone, anyone, who would help him sit up, he heard a group of people moving in what he assumed was the hall. The footsteps were coming toward his room, and then he heard the rattle and thunk of the door bolt being unlocked. When the door swished open, Chris heard a gasp, as if they hadn't expected him to be awake. He just groaned in response.

“Rachel, get him some water, he is probably severely dehydrated. Dr. Fendors, if you could help me sit him up?" came a feminine voice that sounded comfortable in its authority.

Mumbling nonsensical words of comfort, two people moved to either side of his bed and helped steady him as they helped him sit up and rearrange his pillows to stay sitting. Then, Chris felt the rim of a paper cup touch his parched lips. Struggling not to gulp the offered drink like it was the last water in the world, Chris sipped at the room temperature tap water, but still drained the cup in a few moments.

“Chris, while we do have questions for you, your family is here to, ah, see you. Would you like us to let them in?" the same feminine voice asked, much gentler talking to Chris than it was toward the other two.

With yet another pained groan, Chris was able to mumble out something resembling “Sure, go ahead," or at least that was what he hoped they thought it was. Hearing people moving around him as he kept his eyes shut tight against the lights of the hospital, he relaxed a bit into his pillows. Unfortunately, the fluorescent lights felt so bright he could almost pick out their outline in his eyelids.

“Chris! You're alive!" he heard his mom sobbing gently from his left as she hugged gently him.

“At least he's alive, better than those who stayed in town…" he heard his dad grumble under his breath, sighing in exhausted sadness. Chris felt the words weren't actually meant for him to hear, so he just filed it away for later reference.

Chris felt what he thought might be his older sister give his right hand a squeeze. “There's not much in the world that can keep our Chris down for long," she said, voice thick with emotion.

“How are you feeling, bud?" his dad asked with worry.

This time Chris was able to manage a more coherent sentence. “M'good. Just lights hurt." He said shifting his head slightly to the side to reduce the brightness. There was brief pause as if his family was taken aback slightly by his comment. As he felt his mother move from his bedside, to turn down or turn off the lights he assumed, his dad shifted forward, taking his mom's seat. There was a click and the room dimmed significantly, making Chris sigh in relief.

“The lights were as dim as they could make them, so they're now off if that helps." His dad near whispered in his ear in concern. Chris couldn't see the worried look his parents exchanged or the nod his dad gave his sister, but he felt his sister give his hand a sharp squeeze and let go.

“Where you going, sis?" he asked.

“I think mom and dad have something to talk to you about. Maybe they're going to lecture you about going to that lake again and then ground you for life." Rebecca said, attempting to lighten the mood with a joke but it fell flat as her voice shook. She left the room hurriedly, like she couldn't wait to be elsewhere. Chris wondered about that. The two had always disliked each other in a kind of classic sibling rivalry fashion, but leaving like that after what had happened to him was stranger than normal.

“Mom? Dad? What's going on?" Chris asked, nerves tingling with a touch of fear.

“Your injury…" His dad hesitated. “We were told you had a very bad infection and a coma, and you probably wouldn't make it. Then the doctors asked us to give our respects but not to expect you to be awake enough to hear anything. We really don't know what happened…" he trailed off into uncomfortable silence.

“But I feel almost fine!" Chris protested uneasily.

His mom quickly attempted to reassure him “It's just what we were told, honey."

Chris certainly wasn't reassured by this. If the licensed doctors thought he wouldn't be able to even wake up and that he would die, why did he feel like he was getting better with every passing minute?

“Honey, do you think you could open your eyes…?" his mother asked tentatively as though afraid he might refuse.

Chris felt that the light was certainly dimmer than the first time so he squinted his eyes open a crack. With a sigh of relief, Chris found the dim lighting didn't burn his retinas like before, and opened his eyes all the way.

Instantly, there was a gasp from his right, and he turned to see his mother looking at his eyes, hand over her mouth, horrified. Not looking at him, but looking at his eyes. His dad had a similar response but didn't gasp or say anything. His expression only seemed to stiffen as he attempted to keep his reaction from showing.

“Mom? Dad? Why are you looking at me like that?" Chris asked them.

“Y-your eyes… let me just…" his mother said in a small voice, then got up and grabbed a hand mirror from the top of a cabinet nearby. She sat down, then handed him the mirror.

Taking a deep breath, Chris turned the mirror so he could see his eyes.

Bright, amber-gold eyes looked back at him from his face. The eyes almost seemed to glow with some inner light as his mouth fell open in shock. Taking a big gulp of air, Chris set the mirror face down on his bed sheets.

“What… what's going to happen now? What should I do?" he asked, terrified of what the response might be.

“We don't know." His dad answered unhappily.

“At least you were able to warn the rest of the town." his mother whispered, cradling his hand like it was made of glass. “At least most of the town left thanks to your warning."

A knock at the door startled all three of them. His dad got up to answer it, giving Chris a last squeeze on the shoulder. After stepping outside and discussing something with whoever was outside in low voices, his father poked his head in the door to tell his mom they had to leave. He looked pale and attempted to give Chris a smile, but the wan grimace didn't quite make it past the nervous fear in his eyes. His mother gave Chris one last teary-eyed hug before she left him with a kiss on his forehead. The door to the hallway closed again, snapping the blindingly bright bar of light off and plunging the room back into the comfortable dimness.

Chris laid back in his pillows and wondered how his eyes could have changed so dramatically, so quickly. As he thought it through, a shiver ran down his back at one of the possible sources. Ah shit, if that's how my eyes… he couldn't finish the horrifying thought as his shivers began shaking his whole body. I don't want to be like that thing that attacked me.

As he lay in bed, Chris noticed the light streaming under the door from the hallway was dimming with sharp clicks as the orderlies turned off the lights for each room. One set of footsteps halted outside his room before moving on, presumably because the lights of Chris' room were already off. After a time, the only sounds Chris could hear were the beeping of his heart monitor and the hum of dormant medical devices. Turning his head, Chris looked out his window. He knew he needed sleep to recover properly from whatever the doctors and his family had said was ailing him, but he couldn't help feeling more awake, more… alive than he ever had before at this time of night. Staring out the window, he spotted something reflected in the glass. Narrowing his eyes, Chris attempted to focus on it. Them. Those reflections were his eyes, glowing like miniature lamps. Biting his lip to prevent another bout of shivers, he looked up through the window at the sky. The stars were covered by clouds, but he could tell there was a stiff breeze moving the obstructing clouds along.

As he watched, the low cloud cover was blown away from his view of the night sky. Chris spotted the waxing gibbous moon in the corner of the window. He couldn't tell if it was waxing or full, but he had the strangest urge to just stare at it like he was starving and the moon was an endless buffet of food just out of reach. His arms felt like they were tingling with pins and needles, which Chris felt was normal, considering how they had felt dead and limp earlier in the evening. When he began feeling the itchy tingling feeling spreading from his injured leg, however, he looked away from the hypnotizing sight of the moon. Chris didn't understand what he was seeing at first.

His recently injured leg was almost twice the size of the other and, from what little he could see under the sheets, was oddly shaped. As Chris sat there, the feeling spread from his arms to his torso, and from his left leg to his right. Gasping as the pins and needles feeling moved from his skin down into his organs, Chris had to lay back and close his eyes as the odd sensation concentrated from his limbs and torso into his chest. Then, suddenly, the distilled impression of pin-pricks surged upward from his chest to envelop his head, making it numb.

Unable to feel his entire head, Chris panted open-mouthed, feeling like his mouth would get sealed shut otherwise. As the sensation faded, he became aware of something wet on his cheek. Was I just drooling like a vegetable? Chris thought, slightly disturbed as he sucked his tongue back into his… Wait, what? He realized in mild panic. When was my tongue that long?!

Opening his eyes, he absent-mindedly licked his chops to get rid of a distinct cotton mouth dryness, and froze. He had a muzzle. Raising his arms, he saw they were larger and furrier, with vicious looking claws capping each finger on his hands. His hands had pads on the palms, and russet brown fur matching his hair covered what he could see of himself.

As he heard the heart monitor going crazy, he felt a twitch on top of his head. Instantly, the beeping increased in volume. Reaching up, he felt along the sides of his head and then, not finding his ears where they normally were, hesitantly touched the sensitive pointed ears on top of his head. Chris felt them twitch away from the hesitant touch, feeling it both from his head and with his hands. Running his hands — or paws, he thought miserably—down from his ears to his chest, he found himself forced to tip his head forward in order to look down at himself due to his new muzzle. When he shifted a bit in an attempt to look under his covers, he yelped in pain.

Shit, really? A tail now? Chris winced as he leapt out of his bed in reaction. His pinched new appendage seemed none the worse for being pinned under his legs, but as he looked himself over, his tail started wagging on its own. He was significantly taller than before, barely under seven feet tall in his estimates compared to his height of five foot ten before. Checking his legs, Chris only now noticed his odd stance, and when he attempted to stand with his heels on the floor, it felt uncomfortable and unnatural. Finishing up his examination, he saw he had a blaze of lighter colored dirty blonde fur on his chest that continued up his neck to under his chin.

Abruptly, Chris heard a ding of an elevator and then footsteps in the corridor. The nurses or orderlies must have gotten a warning from the heart monitor being detached, Chris thought with a grimace which turned into an audible growl that startled himself. As he listened, the footsteps seemed to hesitate, as if they heard the growl.

I can't stay here like this. Chris thought quickly. Going out the door was out of the question, and though he wasn't sure how high up he was, the window seemed the only choice. Opening the window was out of the question, though, now that he was larger than the opening it would provide. Taking a quick glance out the window at the various obstacles and hiding spots outside, Chris took a deep breath and charged, aiming to use his furred shoulder.

Chris exploded out the window in a hail of glass, plaster, and metal window framing. Scrambling to catch himself, he found he was only on the second floor of the hospital, and thankfully landed on a pruned bush below his window. Muttering a brief apology to whoever's gardening work he had flattened, Chris took off into the night, not wanting to be caught by anyone before he figured out what was happening to him.

* * *

“What do you mean he's disappeared? He was in a coma when we left!" Sergeant Ronald Garret demanded. He had just returned from the recon expedition, and written up his situation analysis report for the upper brass. When he was dismissed, Garret was ordered were to keep the only surviving victim under close observation, report any changes. When Sgt. Garret arrived at the hospital, however, he discovered bedlam.

The parking lot was jammed with police cruisers, a SWAT van was parked near a broken second floor window in the long-term recovery ward, and doctors and nurses were running every which way like headless chickens. They were about as hysterical, too. When Garret was able to grab the arm of one nurse, she screamed in surprise.

“Dear god woman, calm down!" Garret said, flinching away at the volume. “You'll pop people's eardrums doing that. Not to mention breaking windows."

The nurse was stammering so much Garret had to ask for her supervisor in the hopes of getting a more coherent response. When he found her supervisor, the doctor was in the security room peering intently at one of the screens, his nose almost close enough to leave smudges on the glass. Garret coughed, attempting to get the doctor's attention. When the supervisor didn't react, Garret raised his eyebrow expectantly at one of the security officers who looked between the doctor and the sergeant.

“Doctor, there's someone here from the military to see you," the officer said, leaning over to tap gently on the man's shoulder. The doctor jumped, but recovered quickly, turning to scowl at the standing sergeant.

“Why didn't you tell us anything about what happened to that boy? He may have been injured by a 'dog' is what we were told, but that is certainly not what happened is it?" the doctor fumed, glaring poisoned daggers at the innocent military man.

“And what exactly do you mean by 'everything'? We told you what we thought we knew at the time," Garret responded with a shrug.

“Then how exactly can you explain this?" the doctor exclaimed shrilly, slowly turning red as if being filled with boiling water. Garret half-expected him to start whistling like a teakettle at any moment.

The doctor turned the screen so Garret could see the video the doctor had been studying. The view was from one of the parking lot security cameras, partially overlooking the area where Garret noticed the broken window earlier. In the video, everything appeared quiet and normal. Then, there was a rain of glass, wood and plaster, along with some huge hairy thing that fell onto one of the bushes surrounding the lot. When it stood up, Garret had to suppress a gasp. The werewolf, he had no other way to describe it, was wearing the shredded remains of a hospital gown. It stood an easy seven feet tall, even hunched over as it was. Covered in brown fur with a lighter section on its chest that extended upward under its chin, it walked on the balls of its feet; its oddly shaped legs supporting the disturbing gait. As it paused to glance around, Garret noticed a tail extending behind the werewolf. The tail twitched at the same time as the ears. Then the werewolf dropped to all fours and ran from the view of the camera.

“What the hell just happened?" Sgt. Garret asked, staring dumbfounded at the video.

“We would like to ask you the same question," the doctor said with a sneer. “He's caused thousands of dollars in damages, and that's not including the—"

“He? You know who did this?" Garret interrupted.

“Yes, it's that boy you people brought in. At least, we assume it's him. That was his room that exploded," the doctor rolled his eyes meaningfully.

“We had nothing to do with this, nor did we know of anything like this," Sgt. Garret said heatedly. “What we need to do now is track down whatever, or whoever, jumped out of that window."

* * *

Chris ran. He originally fled to avoid being spotted; but now, after feeling the way the wind caressed the new fur on his muzzle and body, he couldn't help but keep running. Leaping over fences both wooden and metal, weaving between the bushes and trees along the roadside, dodging the lights of people and cars, Chris felt exhilarated and unbound by what he previously had been. Previously had been. That thought made him come to a screeching halt, only for his momentum to flip him muzzle-first into a creek he had been about to jump. Chris popped up and lunged for the shore, sputtering and snorting water out his nose.

“When did I stop thinking of… of anything," Chris wondered, teeth chattering as he slogged his way up onto the sandy creek bank. As he clambered out, he shivered, then shook himself violently, sending water everywhere. Despite this, his coat was still damp and the cool breeze was suddenly more chilly than refreshing. Thankfully, Chris knew he wasn't too far from an REI store he had visited with his parents before for snow gear. Mentally focusing on his destination helped keep him from becoming distracted with running again, as he ran through the brush near the roadways. As he wandered around the edges of the town, searching for the fastest path to the rear of the REI store, the town felt quieter than it should have been.

That's odd, Chris thought. There's no lights in any of the buildings even though it's not that late in the evening. Spotting the street that wound around behind all the stores, he sprinted on all fours to the nearest patch of darkness. Once he reached it, he turned, searching again for any signs of people.

Nothing.

Starting to be unnerved by the silence, Chris abandoned his attempts at stealth and dashed to the rear door of the REI store. There were no lights on here, too. Testing the handle, Chris heard a sharp snap, then the door eased open. Oops, Chris thought with a wince, tossing the door handle to the side of the door way. Pushing the door open just wide enough to slip through, Chris attempted to ease his way into the store. Only to bang his head, hard, on the top of the door frame.

“Ow! Shit! Fricking! Height!" Chris cursed rolling on the floor, clutching his ears and forehead. He somehow managed to smash his ears between his head and the doorframe, making his ears ring. Still wincing at the pain, Chris stood up, still hunched over a bit to avoid hitting anything else. He crept forward and peered out of the darkened back room.

“Weird. There's nobody here." Chris said aloud, more confident there was nobody in the building. In the silence of the empty store, he realized his voice was deeper and rougher, with a faint growling undertone. Shaking his head at yet another change, he wandered through the store toward the front registers, aiming to get a cart or something in which to pile his loot. A stack of posters on the counter next to one of the registers caught his eye. It didn't seem like a normal REI poster, so Chris picked one up to read what the details said.

The poster was an evacuation warning. It detailed some of what had happened in his town, including bits he hadn't heard about. It also included pictures that almost seemed ludicrously overblown, maybe even photoshopped, but on each poster was one picture he knew wasn't altered in anyway.

Rest in peace Jason, Chris prayed silently, staring at the image of where his friend had been torn to pieces in the forest. Setting the poster down, Chris looked at the store with different eyes. Now he knew why the town felt empty. Everyone had evacuated. And if the poster was correct, it was every town within a twenty-mile radius from his that had received these notices.

Taking a cart, Chris found he couldn't handle the cart well with his new size and shape. Exasperated, he left the cart in the aisle and wandered the store, grabbing whatever had been left behind that he might be able to use.

* * *

“Sir, you need to see this," Sgt. Garret heard over his radio. “Something went over the fence at high speed, and it might be what you're searching for."

“I'm on my way now. Do not let any of this leak. We don't need the god damned paparazzi storming the quarantine," Garret ordered into his radio. “Well doctor, I believe you can send your bill to the government if you want. But there's no guarantee you will get anything." Sgt. Garret called over his shoulder as he left, relieved to get away from the irate director.

Sgt. Garret strode over to the communications vehicle the recon team was using to keep eyes on the perimeter of the quarantine. As he approached, the soldier standing outside straightened and saluted him.

“At ease," Garret saluted back with a nod. The soldier opened the door for him after checking the sergeant's credentials, allowing the man inside. Inside rear of the vehicle, both walls were covered with screens showing feeds from all the cameras they had set up around the quarantine fence.

“Report," Garret said crisply.

“Sir!" the three men inside jumped a bit. Garret noticed with raised eyebrow that all three were crowded around one screen instead of watching their respective feeds. Two of them immediately turned back to their posts, an obvious red flush on the backs of their necks. The third swallowed, “Sir, here is the screen that shows the camera feed at oh two thirty-seven."

As the video played, Garret narrowed his eyes. “What exactly—" he began to say, then spotted it. It approached the fence from the outside, moving at high speed, then leapt the top of the ten-foot chain link fence, clearing the barbed wire with more than a foot to spare. The video cut to a different camera; this one looking along a creek that ran under the fence. In the middle distance, there was movement, and the camera feed zoomed in slightly.

The figure of a werewolf was running through the bushes on the side of the creek, then turned toward the water and built up speed, as if it were going to jump it. Then it tripped. The sergeant had no other way to describe it. Garret stared, bemused, as the werewolf's momentum sent it flying head over heels straight into the frigid creek water. It popped up out of the water and surged over to shore, where it shook itself like a wet dog. The beast's mouth moved, and if Sgt. Garret didn't know better, he'd have said it said something. Then it trotted into the bushes.

“So, the thing went back? Is that it? That's what you saw?" Sgt. Garret asked slowly.

“Sir, we attempted to see if it said anything at the end using lip reading software, and we came up with this," the operator said, pressing a button.

The video rewound to the point where the werewolf was getting out of the water. As the video played again, subtitles popped up at the bottom of the screen. When did I stop thinking of… of anything? played across the bottom of the screen as the beast's muzzle moved. Then the werewolf vanished again into the bushes along the stream.

“So, he's not like that other thing then," Sgt. Garret said thoughtfully.

“Sir?"

“Keep watching that perimeter and give me that recording. I'm going to need it in the report to the brass." Garret ordered, already thinking of where the boy — no, werewolf, he reminded himself — may have gone.

* * *

Having tossed things into the cart until it was overflowing, Chris had to admit he may have grabbed too much. Packing everything away into two spacious camping backpacks, he discarded what he wasn't sure he truly needed. Hefting the two packs, Chris put one pack on his front and the other on his back. It's odd how much stronger this change made me, Chris thought absently, checking all the straps circling around his torso and shoulders. Looking at the clock on the wall above the cash registers, Chris realized it was only hitting six o'clock now. As he looked at the wall clock, he felt himself getting weaker. And the packs in turn began getting much, much heavier. As they began to drag on him, Chris frantically undid all the buckles, letting the packs drop to the floor.

Just as the sun crested the horizon, sending morning light lancing through the windows on the front of the store. As the light illuminated the building, Chris realized he was back to being short and furless and human. Well, almost human, he thought with a glance at one of the mirrors in the clothing section. Chris' eyes still glowed with amber-gold light, though much dimmer now in the morning sunlight.

Deciding rummaging through his packs for clothes would be more work than he needed at the moment, Chris grabbed a pile of clothes he had discarded and pulled them on. As Chris finished dressing, he felt a gnawing emptiness rumble through his gut. As the feeling grew even stronger, he almost dived at some of the hiking bars he had discarded due to numbers. Grabbing one and ripping the wrapper off, Chris took a massive bite of the slightly chewy energy bar.

And gagged. The taste wasn't what he remembered at all. While he was able to choke down the one bite, Chris just couldn't continue eating the bar, even though his stomach continued to roar. Spinning around in desperation, he spotted an Albertsons supermarket across the road. Shoving the front doors open, Chris sprinted across the street and into the Albertsons.

As he entered, Chris sniffed and had to wipe his mouth of drool. Whatever meat had been left behind, still cooking, smelled absolutely amazing. The instant Chris registered what it was that smelled so good, his mind just blanked. Chris came to halfway through a roast chicken, the meat having sat under the heating lamp so long it had dried out. Even so it tasted delicious.

Looking around, he noticed four empty roast chicken containers, and gnawed bones in all except one box. Chris threw the remains of the current chicken into the empty container. Well, now I know I prefer meat, Chris thought. Wandering around the store, Chris saw that parts of the store had been cleaned out, namely the produce and other foods that would spoil quickly. After some sniffing around, he filled a soft ice chest with various foods that had been left behind. Chris tossed in a variety of the frozen and canned items that had meat, and added some ice to keep it cool. Testing the weight, he nodded to himself. It's not too heavy to move right now as a human, Chris thought, planning as he went. He took a large canvas shopping bag and filled it with other foods he remembered taking camping with his family.

After hauling his stash back over to the REI store, he set about organizing the packs. Chris felt he would probably have to travel by night if he wanted to be able to move everything. Looking around one more time to make sure he hadn't left anything out, Chris spotted a selection of sport sunglasses. Those might come in handy, he thought trying a pair on and looking in the mirror. The sunglasses muted the glow of his irises even more than the sunlight. Stashing another pair of sunglasses in a side pouch on one of the bags, he put the pair he was wearing and set up his new sleeping bag. Rolling over, Chris set an alarm on a diving watch he found in a store display to wake him at six pm that evening. I hope they don't mind me needing this stuff, Chris thought before he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Chris was startled awake by a siren blaring right in his ear. Flinching away, he reached for the watch he had set as an alarm, only to realize his sleeping bag had gotten shredded. Chris sighed, and turned his attention to attempting to turn off the alarm with his werewolf hands. It took longer than he wanted, especially with the alarm driving nails into his sensitive ears.

Having silenced the painful alarm, Chris searched for the largest sleeping bag he could find, as the one he had previously planned on using now lay in piles of shredded fluff. After rolling one up and strapping it to one of his packs, Chris pulled on some extra-large, baggy clothing in an attempt to disguise himself a bit. He couldn't use any of the pants due to the change in his leg structure, but shorts seemed acceptable. Shirts also had to be short sleeved, due to change in posture he had noticed while sprinting. Putting his packs back on with the full ice chest attached to the opposite side to his sleeping bag, Chris stood up and tested their weight.

Though slightly heavy to him as a werewolf, the weight of the backpacks was distributed evenly enough he could run on two legs or four, as the need required. As he thought about where he would go, Chris remembered how the zombified wolf had a purple glow in its skull. He also thought about how his eyes glowed now; his eyes were similar to how the wolf's might have been while it was alive, but with a different color.

“Maybe there'll be some kind of answer in that forest," Chris muttered to himself, hitching the bags up a little. “It's worth a shot, in any case."

* * *

The team Sgt. Garret had received leave to assemble were all experienced in nighttime operations. A four-man advance squad, which included a pair of K-9 handlers, were tracking the werewolf with their dogs, while the other pair of handlers marched with the rest of the team. Every one of the men were quiet. Sgt. Garret wasn't sure if it was just normal pre-combat tension and nerves, or if some might get frozen with fear if there was fighting. He also had to admit he felt some primitive, unknowable fear at knowing what he was hunting could easily turn and start hunting the soldiers at any point.

“The hunters may become the hunted," Garret muttered under his breath.

“What was that sir?" one of the men looked over at him.

“Nothing, just thinking," he replied hastily, having not meant for his words to be heard by anyone else in the team.

“Sir, we think the dogs have found something," the radio crackled into the silence.

“Report."

“Sir, the trail goes into the rear of a store, and the store appears to be ransacked," came the reply. “We believe the beast may have been here recently."

“Copy that, hold your position until we rendezvous at your location," Sergeant Garret ordered. “Let's move. Meet up at K team's location. B team move to overwatch on top of that grocery store across the way."

With various affirmatives, the teams split, one squad heading toward the Albertsons, the others jogging toward K team's coordinates. When they arrived, Garret had to raise a brow at the double doors. They were hanging open, the lock bars on the bottom busted right off the door. Peering inside, the sergeant squinted through the darkness at the innards of the building. Even without a flashlight, he could tell the place had been tossed.

“Lights," Sgt. Garret ordered, pulling his own mag light out and attaching it to his rifle. The team went in silently, aiming their gun lights everywhere.

“Sir! I think it slept over here," one of the men said pointing to the sad remains of a sleeping bag. Garret knelt, examining the remnants of stuffing and synthetic fabric. Spotting a tag, he grabbed it, intent on examining it in more detail.

“If the estimates were correct, this sleeping bag couldn't have been large enough for the beast," he said aloud, musing over the implications.

Did it turn back? Or is it trying to remember what it was? Garret contemplated the tag thoughtfully. Turning back to the door, he noticed the sun was just rising, sending rays of sunlight right into the building to illuminate the shredded pile of sleeping bag parts.

“Alright, let's regroup and continue tracking it," Garret ordered, feeling the urge to keep moving. “The beast won't stop for us because we're watching the sunrise."

There was a brief round of laughter, then the team's dogs found the trail. As they set out once again, Garret wondered what could make a kid willing to go back toward the forest where his friend had been torn apart and he had been almost killed by the same monster.

* * *

As Sergeant Garret joked about the sunrise to his men, farther away the sunlight fell upon a hastily erected camping tent with an ice chest and portable camp stove sitting right outside the zippered door. Chris groaned as he stretched a bit.

“Don't think I'll be able to get used to that while I'm awake," he muttered, flexing and stretching about every joint he could. He shivered, then lunged for one of the packs on the floor.

“My fur keeps me warmer than I thought," Chris said to himself as he yanked on some long underwear, then the clothes he had grabbed for being human. He paused at this, realizing he was accepting what he had become more and more. Feeling out what he had said, he found he wasn't that upset over the change. He was sad about his friend dying, yes, but overall, the change had been mostly helpful so far.

“It certainly helped me carry all this food," Chris said with a small smile as he started up his camp stove's single burner. After a meal of half warmed taquitos and a lukewarm can of meat ravioli, he decided to stop in order to ration his food supply. Since he couldn't pack up the tent when he was a werewolf, and he couldn't carry everything when he wasn't one, Chris settled for packing up everything he could other than the tent and sleeping bag. Laying down on top of the large quilted bag, he set the same diving watch alarm, hoping he would be able to wake up before it burst his ears this time.

He woke to the earsplitting noise of the alarm going off, again, and found he hadn't remembered to get inside the sleeping bag. Muttering to himself, he shut off the alarm, yawning enormously as he did. Looking down at his sleeping bag, he sighed in exasperation. He had forgotten to take off his smaller human-sized clothes so bits and pieces littered his sleeping bag from where they had snapped off his changing body. Chris shrugged and rolled up his sleeping bag with the shredded clothes on it, trying to not let his claws get caught in the bag's fabric.

After strapping the roll onto the side of a pack, he moved everything outside and stared at the tent. While it was a bit big for him as a human, it felt small and cramped when he was a werewolf due to his extra height. Thinking of how little he actually slept at night, he decided to just take the ground tarp and poles instead of the entire tent.

Carefully shredding the tent material with his claws to get the poles out intact turned out to be easier than collapsing them. He accidently snapped the rainfly's pole while collapsing it. Chris wrapped his sleeping bag with the tarp, and stuck the poles out of a pocket on the side of the pack. He strapped them down with the straps circling the pack. Hefting the various bags and backpacks into place, Chris turned and checked for anything else he still needed. Nodding to himself, he set off at a run toward the lake he and his friend had visited that unfortunate day.

* * *

“Sir, we've found something again. Looks like pieces of a tent from that store before," cam a report over the radio.

“Roger that, the team is on their way. Any potential hostiles in the area?" Sergeant Garret asked.

“No, sir. Just the tent and an actual trail."

As Garret and his men moved into the small clearing, the squad leader assigned to the canine tracking team jogged over. Giving Sgt. Garret a salute, he made his report: “It appears to have rested here for some time. I believe the trail it left behind was not purposeful however."

“It left a trail?" the sergeant asked. “Where?"

“Right over there, sir," the corporal said, pointing at a small shredded bit of cloth lying on the ground.

Sgt. Garret walked over and crouched down to examine the scrap of fabric. It appeared to be from a short sleeve shirt that ripped along the seams. Looking up toward the edge of the trees around them, Garret spotted another piece of fabric; this one appeared to be from some long underwear. Chuckling to himself, he stood up.

“Well, that should make things easier at least," Garret said. “Good work."

Looking back at the tent, he frowned, feeling something was off. “Corporal, where are the tent poles?"

“They are missing, along with the ground tarp, sir. We believe they were all taken except for one, which has been snapped."

Garret nodded. A snapped tentpole wasn't useful for someone who was carrying everything himself. “Alright, let's take a brief break then move out. And from now on keep an eye out for that monster. We don't need any surprises like that."

* * *

As Chris stood on the shore of the lake as a werewolf, he wondered what exactly he was expecting to be here. There wasn't anything different from the last time he had been here. Sniffing around just proved that no animals had been to the lake recently, at least, from what his nose told him. Continuing around the shoreline, he found himself at a trailhead. Looking around, he realized this was the end of the trail that he and Jason had biked along. A little way off in the shallows was the danger road sign. It had fallen over and now the sign was stuck half out of the muddy bank. Trudging through the damp underbrush, Chris saw the trail that led to the cliffside that had trapped him, before he tricked the zombie wolf into falling.

He stopped. There was an odd smell from the bushes. It was similar to his own scent but different. Following his nose, he tracked the scent, which led deeper into forest. At the edge of the lakeside, Chris hesitated. If he had to run, for any reason, he knew he wouldn't be able to with his packs loading him down. Taking the packs off, he grabbed an icepick from the side. While he wasn't all too sure about using it as a weapon, he felt better having something to defend himself. Taking a slow, deep breath through his nose, Chris focused on the familiar scent. Tracking it through the bushes and around trees, he paused every once and a while to carve an 'X' on a tree.

As he followed the scent, it became stronger and stronger, before disappearing completely. Confused, Chris spun around sniffing, trying to pick up the lost scent. There was a deep sigh, nearly startling Chris out of his pelt.

He spun around to see an odd, swirling cave in a boulder. Another werewolf sat awkwardly next to the cave. It had dark, charcoal colored fur and lighter ash grey “socks" on its feet. When it attempted to breathe again, it coughed violently, and Chris could smell blood. Chris walked over to it slowly, keeping an eye on it the entire time. He wasn't sure who this was, or if they even were like him at all. When he crouched down to study the other werewolf, far enough to be out of easy lunging range, it opened its eyes. They were a vibrant purple, with dancing sparks of night sky blue.

“And so, it seems my time here is done," the dark werewolf said between coughs.

“What?" Chris said, taken aback.

“You don't…? Ah, I see," the werewolf said sighing. “I suppose it was too much to hope for, even though—" Spasms of coughing cut off whatever it had been about to say, forcing it to take slow breaths to get its coughing under control.

“This place… is a [i]door[/i]," it said slowly, waving a limp paw toward the strange cave. “I was… a [i]guardian[/i]. Against others."

“Others?" Chris asked, worry and concern quieting his voice.

“Others… like me. Like [i]it[/i]," the guardian said, each time it spoke the smell of blood growing slowly stronger.

“Like that zombie wolf?"

The guardian nodded slowly at the question. “I am surprised… you have heard of such… [i]things[/i] in this world. They should not… have gotten through."

“We always thought they weren't real." Chris replied hesitantly.

“They are. We are. None were supposed to… to interfere. To [i]invade[/i]," it rasped.

“And that zombie wolf?"

“[i]Ambushed[/i]. Have been growing weaker… with time away. Can destroy [i]it[/i]. And I… But the door… it needs a [i]guardian[/i]," the werewolf looked Chris in the eyes then, desperation and resolve evident within its eyes.

“And what can I do?" Chris asked, feeling events moving along too quickly to keep track of anything.

“Come… here," the werewolf coughed.

* * *

“Shit! This thing just won't die!" someone screamed. Sgt. Garret knew exactly what they meant. The team had followed the trail of clothing scraps to the edge of a lake. On the opposite side of the lake, the scouts had spotted a pile of bags, presumably belonging to the one they were following. As the scouts moved ahead of the team around the edge of the lake, none of them were prepared for a Hummer-sized wolf to hurtle out of the brush and take one of the scouts in the side. The man had torn in half like a piece of wet paper. Immediately, the entire team and the two scouts not pinned or eviscerated by the monster opened fire on it.

The two dogs that had leapt for the thing's throat, lay dead already. One bisected by the fleshless jaw and the other kicked so hard, the monster's paw went right through the dog's ribcage. The scout that had survived the initial ambush, but been pinned under the beast, had pulled his pistol to fire shots into the zombie's underside. This lasted until the thing realized he was there and removed his pistol, and his arm, in one massive bite. The other two scouts had been disemboweled by massive sweeps of the monster's forearm length claws, leaving them to scream to death as their guts fell to the muddy ground.

Now, as his team put continuous fire into the beast, it didn't seem to falter one bit at the hail of burning lead. When Sgt. Garret ordered some of the team to aim for the legs, the pulverized bone and flesh knit itself back together almost faster than they could shoot. The purple glow in the monster's skull appeared to be bouncing around more violently as time passed, and this seemed to cause the thing some form of pain. Every time the purple glow spiked in intensity, the thing growled and shuddered.

Sgt. Garret could tell bullets weren't doing enough. “Grenade! Get ready!" he called. Pulling the pin, he counted to three, then tossed it as the zombie wolf opened its jaws roar at them again. The grenade went right down its rotting throat, neatly missing the fangs. The wolf didn't even seem to notice.

Then the grenade exploded. The abdomen of the wolf swelled up, then popped, sending minced intestines and diced organs over every soldier standing within twenty feet. Wiping his goggles, Sgt. Garret gaped at the monster. The zombie wolf still stood despite not having almost anything except its ribcage below its back. The pulses of purple light were near constant now, and it raised its skull to give a bubbling, sickening howl.

As the howl tapered off, the purple light inside its skull flared, changing color to a bright amber-gold, forcing the soldiers to look away. As they turned back, the monster stood, frozen. Then, slowly, it began to fall apart. First went the boney tail. Then the jaw. Then a rib. Until it collapsed all at once, turning into a huge pile of bones and rotting meat.

“It… It's dead?" Sgt. Garret asked aloud, hope evident in his voice.

“It's dead."

The sergeant spun around, weapon at the ready. His light shone on someone standing just inside the trees around the lake.

“Cut that out. It's not polite to shine a light in someone's eyes." The deep, growling voice came again, this time Sgt. Garret could tell it was from the figure in front of him. Angling his light downward a little, Garret frowned.

“That's better. Now, I understand you're unsettled by [i]it[/i], but I assure you, I am now this door's guardian. I can tell if it's dead or not." The figure said easily, stepping out into the light of a half dozen flashlights. The being stepped forward, keeping its hands—no, paws—in the air to show it was unarmed. Garret heard the whispers running around the squad. [i]Werewolf[/i].

He had to swallow hard to prevent himself saying anything with the rest. “And what do you mean by guardian?" Sgt. Garret asked.

The werewolf stepped further forward, its glowing amber gold eyes seeming almost amused. “I meant exactly what I said. As long as there is a guardian, there won't be any more of these [i]invasions[/i]."

“Th-There's more?" Garret stammered, horrified at what he thought it had taken to take out just one of these zombies.

“Not currently, no." The werewolf said, lowering its paws. “There have been in the past, and there may be in the future, but not from this door. I give my word as Christopher Anderson, werewolf and guardian of the Forest Door."

“Christoph—What? You mean…"

“Yes. And you can tell your higher ups to not go snooping in older areas than their grandparents' grandparents. I think that should be it. Good bye." The werewolf smiled and waved a paw. Sgt. Garret tried to say something, but his eyeballs felt like they were twisting, then his body and mind quickly followed suit.

Sitting up with a groan, Sgt. Garret looked around. The entire team, including the bodies, were laying in the cleared parking lot of the hospital he had departed from. Letting his head drop back down with a sigh, Sergeant Garret thought this mission was the most fucked up insanity he had ever experienced and that the paperwork would be too.

* * *

Back at the lakeside, Chris let out a long breath. I guess that went reasonably well, he thought. Looking down at his paws, now permanent as a result of becoming the guardian, he sighed a bit.

At least I have a stable job, Christopher Anderson, werewolf and guardian of the Forest Door, thought with a laugh as he walked back into the woods.