The night around these woods falls early. As it grows, the dark thickens, until you can't even make out the trees. Anyone who walks through this late carries light, but, nothing shines in my cabin window when the knock comes.
I open the peephole to see strawberry locks, green eyes. The face I've never forgotten.
Her.
Stale sweat still sticks to my skin in my sleeping flannel. I almost--
A wolf bay strikes the air, loud and close. I yank the door open and she rushes in. I slam it. There's another howl, even closer. My skin prickles from the sound. But that door's solid enough to keep out a bear.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Not really."
"Kay." I use the nickname. She'd always liked it better than "Kayla." "Were you being chased? Why are you out in the woods so late? What happened?"
"Yeah." She won't look straight at me. "Please, can I stay here tonight? Going back outside..."
"Of course."
Good God, why would she ever think otherwise?
"Are you injured?" I ask.
"No. No, the wolf didn't... it didn't catch me."
I nod. I get a better look at her now. She's come into her sixties better than I have, what with that smooth baby face holding through. But her eyes dart around the room. Her shoulders hold up tight. Her hands worry each other, and it's left her fingers red and chafed, the nails torn short.
The unspoken questions twist in my throat. Where has she been? What happened? Why is she here?
Why did she leave?
Maybe I can ask later, after she's had time to calm down.
"My couch is soft enough to sleep on, I think," I say.
Those taut shoulders relax. They're the first part of her to relax since she stepped in the door.
"Thank you," she says.
"Do you want a drink? I can brew something up, like hot cider?" I'm not sure whether to hug her. Holding back from her feels wrong, but. It's been so long. And she don't seem to be looking for it. I hold on to a straight face. Got to be calm for her.
"Yeah. Please. Thank you." She tries to smile, but, she doesn't manage it. "That sounds good, Dru." At least she still uses my nickname.
I keep it together through the kitchen door. Pull out the pot to heat the cider. Check the clock to remind myself how late it is. Watch the bubbles pop, one by one.
I listen to the baying of that wolf. Wolves don't usually howl when they hunt--a lone wolf'd do it to find a pack, or a mate. Maybe this one's acting funny. Maybe Kay's confused. Maybe she's lying.
I almost forget to turn the heat off the cider. I pour it into two mugs. Stir an ice cube through each, so it won't scorch us to drink it. And realize there's nothing left to do.
My cheeks are wet, my throat is burning, and my whole face hurts.
I wipe my face dry. Maybe it won't show. Pick up the mugs. Brave the living room once again.
She's on the couch, folded in on herself. Boots on the floor, feet on the cushion, reddish-blonde hair limp across her raised knees. I offer a mug, and she takes it with both hands, holds it tight against her shins. She flinches in time to the sounds of the wolf outside.
I turn on the radio. Reception's terrible, but, it's enough to get some crackling pop-rock to fill the room. Drowns out the noise from outside if I turn it up enough.
Her voice, when it comes, is so quiet I almost miss it. "Is your room safe?"
"My bedroom? From wolves?"
A nod.
"Should be. Bears haven't gotten in yet." Not the best thing to say. "The windows are reinforced. It's safe out here, too. I promise."
The next howl comes loud enough to drown out the radio.
There's a crack at the door.
I go to the bedroom for my gun. Kay shadows close behind. She sees me take the hunting rifle out of its case and puts a hand on my arm.
"Dru, no."
"Kay, don't worry. I'll get a look at whatever it is first, maybe even just scare it off."
"You don't understand. It's that wolf. You can't... shoot wolves around here."
"Can under the right circumstances."
The blows at the door turn into the fibrous crackle of wood splintering. Holy--
"I don't think that's a wolf, Kay." Bear. Got to be. They ain't never gotten through my door before, but who knows? Maybe Kay walked through the wrong territory, pissed a momma off. I get the rifle from the safe and load the magazine. I don't let my hands shake. Can't look scared. Can't be scared. Not with Kay here. Get the earplugs, too, if I'm going to be firing it.
"If you want to try and scare it," I say, "there's a BB gun in the safe, but I think that's just going to piss it off."
She scrambles for it, and I walk out into the living room, rifle in hand.
It don't look right. It's the size of a bear, but the snout's too long, the ears are the wrong shape. I know this because the goddamn monster of a wolf done broke a hole through my door, and it's peering its head in. I aim the gun to fire.
Kay's hand knocks my shot off-aim. BOOM, and the overhead light is bust. We're alone in the near-dark with it. The smoldering embers of the fire let out just enough light to glint off its eyes.
"What the hell, Kay?" I can't make out what it's doing, but the sound of splintering wood's come back.
"Don't hurt it."
"Are you kidding me?"
There's a storm lantern by the bedroom door. I get the lantern on, see the creature step through the shattered remnants of the doorway. I line up a shot, but Kay's faster. She pops one off with the BB gun, gets it in the eye.
The thing yelps. Blood pours black in the blue-white light. I hear a high, suppressed scream from Kay. She's only got one hand on the BB gun now. The other's clutching her eye, and blood wells up between her fingers.
Noise. I whirl back to face the door. Catch sight of the wolf's tail, and then it's gone.
I don't know when it'll come back, but I turn to help Kay. "What happened to your eye?" I pull her hand away to have a look. I can't see her eye past all the blood. "I'll get the first-aid kit."
What are we going to do? Ain't no landline, and it's a long walk to cell service. It's a hike to get to vehicles, too. With that wolf out there... She should have let me kill it. Why the hell didn't she? How'd she even hurt her eye this bad?
I draw her into the bedroom, now that we can't put the front door between us and the woods anymore. We cover the eye in gauze and padding. I ask her again what happened.
"I shot the wolf," she says.
The hell does that have to do with anything?
"If you'd killed the wolf," she says, "I'd be dead."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to." And she hisses, holds a hand over the bandages. No point questioning her if she's going to be in too much pain to make sense.
Cabin ain't safe to stay in. I had the door bear-proofed for a reason. By now everything around is going to see the broken door, smell my kitchen, and all that blood. Wolf's out there. My bedroom door might as well be paper to a monster that can break through bear-proofing. The hell we gonna do? Is Kay going to lose the eye if we don't get her to a hospital? Is the wolf gonna come get us if we stay, or hunt us if we go? The best thing is to find a way to kill it. But Kay's eye... what she says killing it would do...
BOOM.
Kay's got the hunting rifle in her hand. It's still aimed at her leg, which is now bleeding out. Tears run down her careworn face, but she's laughing.
"The fuck--" I don't have a kit big enough for this. I pull my sheet off the mattress, start wrapping it around her leg.
"Can't get me now, can you?" she asks no one. I run medical tape around the sheets, even while they soak through. Ain't no choice now about waiting or going. Got to make it to a hospital or she's gonna die.
She's too heavy to carry far. I think there's a wheelbarrow in the shed.
"Wait here," I say, like she's got any choice. I take the rifle and leave her the BB. I hope to hell she don't hurt herself further, but I can't leave her without protection. I close the useless bedroom door behind me. Ain't nothing shows in the storm lamp's glow. I carry it with me, pry the remains of the front door open. What's left sags on one hinge.
I hear a growl, low and rumbling through my bones. I drop the lantern. Its heavy weight shakes my wooden floor, and it rolls sideways through the doorway. The wolf stands just outside, its growl a rolling rumble.
There's no Kay to lose her mind around me now. I aim. Slip my finger underneath the trigger guard.
Hesitate.
It's walking towards me with a limp. I back up. The light of the storm lantern glistens over the blood welling from its injured back leg. Not much living room left to retreat.
I aim, fire. It yelps. Kay screams. The wolf falls to its side, the front leg I just shot crumpling. It can't chase us any further like that. I got the same side as--the same side Kay shot.
Kay. I gotta go help Kay. She'll have two limbs bleeding now.
I can't believe that I believe her.
It's hard to process when I walk in to see her arm coursing bright red blood. One of my longer skirts stanches the flow. She's barely conscious, but she smiles at me. It's half a grimace, but she knows I stopped the wolf.
I haul her onto my back, where she clings with the one good arm. Open the bedroom door. The wolf is trying to move on its two remaining legs. It stares at her, ears sagging, tail down. I feel Kay's blood on my skin, wet where it's soaking through the makeshift bandages.
"Never again, old friend," she says. "Never again."
I press us both against the wall, get furniture between us and it where I can. We make it out the broken front door.
Unlock the shed and get the wheelbarrow, Kay's blood still drying on my hands. She helps me ease her into it with her good arm. Somewhere underneath all the metal smell of blood, I catch a whiff of her hair, lilacs and evergreen. I used to know that smell.
With the good hand, she runs fingers down the side of my face. "I missed you," she says.
I draw back. Got to get her to the hospital. God knows what we'll tell the doctors.
In the end, I don't know what she tells them. The ambulance don't let me come with. By the time I get my truck to the hospital, they've locked her up in a room, and they won't let me visit. Never mind how long we lived together before she disappeared--we couldn't get married then, so we ain't married now.
I sit in the waiting room. Any minute, the cops're gonna come in and take me in for questioning. I'm sure. I shot her, after all, even if it was through some weird magic. What'm I gonna do if they come to take me away? I can't leave. Not until I know she's alright. Not until I can ask her... everything I never could.
I hold vigil in the waiting room all night, all the way into morning. People filter in and out, and each time it makes me twitch, a new maybe-threat. Part of me still keeping an eye out for bloodied fur and gleaming eyes. I still don't know what that thing was, or what tied it to Kay.
Cops come. I tense rigid as they pass me and walk into the intensive care unit. One of them comes out and talks to me. At the end, I don't remember much, other than the words "I don't know" coming out of my mouth over and over. On the inside, it's like a hand's clenched fingers around my heart. On the outside, my face is relaxed, calm. It's like I'm two different people.
After a while, I realize they're trying to identify some imaginary idiot firing shots into the woods at night and hitting innocent hiker Kay. In this fairy tale, I'm some kind of noble rescuer who found her hurt and bandaged her up. I don't know what we'll say when they investigate and find the wolf. Most of Kay's wounds don't have bullets to trace back to my gun and tell a truer tale. The one in the leg, Kay's told them she did by accident while she was trying to defend herself.
By the bewildering end, they let me see her. In privacy, even. She's laid out in bandages, covered in sensors hooked to machines that beep and push fluids. But her eyes don't dart around the room. Instead, they fix on me and see me.
"Dru." There's no pain in that smile. "I missed you."
I close the distance between us. She pulls me in with the good arm, and our foreheads touch, our lips brush. I don't say it back, but I think she knows.
After we part, I pull over the chair. "Why?" It's about everything, really.
"It's not that I wanted to leave you, Dru. I just thought it would be safer."
"Because that thing was chasing you?"
"Because that thing was me."
I don't try to disbelieve her, this time. Just nod.
"After..." She swallows. "...years, I learned how to split it away from me." Her eyes lose focus. "But it chases me, and catches me, and I become the wolf again."
The howling, like it was seeking a pack-mate. Never again, old friend, she'd said to it.
"Is it going to chase you forever?" I ask.
She shakes her head, as much as the wires will let her. "Three nights. If I keep it away for three nights, it's gone forever."
"How many nights have you managed to escape?"
She spares a glance out the hospital window; the sun is shining. "One. With you."
I reach out to her, touch her hand. "Then let's keep running."
She smiles at me, with those green eyes I remember so well. It's her. It's her, and we don't have to be apart anymore.
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