He agreed that he would, and we parted ways, a full day ahead of us, though my day would be spent mostly in the office. I was the proposal writer for grants and other funding, but I backstopped our educational outreach administrator. We basically worked the office, handled questions, wrote up articles and content for the website, fielded interviews and Q&As, or arranged them where our biologist or vet or others were called for. I did other fun things too, like bill-paying, spread-sheeting, scheduling, and troubleshooting. It was a relief when I occasionally took a break to participate in something like the afternoon wolf encounter.
Some rescues were entirely no contact, and I completely got that. Most of our animals were off-limits except to be viewed in their enclosures. But a few were more social, and we allowed limited visitors who signed up, and were vetted in advance, agreeing to our strict rules and accompanied by our staff, to visit with our animal ambassadors. But we were not one of those places who constantly bred baby animals for photo ops and tore them away from their mamas.
When the time came, I stretched out the hours of sitting in my office chair, listening to my vertebrae snap, crackle and pop, then went out to mix in with the back of the tour group I’d be accompanying. Our volunteer, Jenny, started up the group wolf howl, encouraging the tour to howl with the wolves, and it warmed my heart, as it always did, when the wolves, wolf-dogs and coy-wolves across the rescue took up her call. Our entire woods were filled with the joyful, communal sounds of pack, of being recognized and reinforced. It was heartening. Bolstering. Bracing.
I almost forgot all my fears. Until the howls started to subside, and in the last echoes, something entirely other came back at us. Laughter. Entirely preternatural laughter that said you can’t touch me, for you are in there, and I am OUT HERE.
It dared all to follow and be lost.
The humans on the tour looked at each other for reassurance at the primal fear they felt. Their howls cut off, but the wolves took up again, answering the challenge. More than a few fences were tested as wolves flung themselves at the perimeters.
Thompson came home with me that night, loaded for bear. Quite literally. I didn’t keep guns on the property, even with the threats we sometimes received. Threats to property weren’t worth a potential loss of life, and who was to say my animals wouldn’t get caught in any crossfire.
I didn’t like guns. I’d seen the damage they could do. Tranq guns, though, were a different matter. They took a target down but not out, and that was the plan. Whatever this thing was, it had been evolutionally designed that way. It was obeying its instincts. I didn’t have to like them or submit to them, but I was against the death penalty for people or animals. If we could keep this thing alive, we certainly would.
I just hoped that ‘loaded for bear’ would be enough. Maybe he should have come ‘loaded for moose.’
I’d sent Sarah to her sister’s. Hopefully, that meant the beast would be coming for me. I was equating the imitation of human speech with human intelligence, which might be a mistake, but many animals were so much smarter than we gave them credit for. And predators in particular could be wily. They had to be, especially if they hunted alone.
Luke, after a chin ’sup of acknowledgement, a raid of the refrigerator, and a retreat to his room, gave no thought to Thompson’s presence and asked no questions. We were left alone in my cozy living room/kitchen combination to sit catty-corner to each other over coffee, him with the tranq gun resting against one leg and Beau hard-leaning against the other, as if I never gave him any love at all and Thompson could scratch behind that ear all night, thank-you-very-much.
I tried not to enjoy the sight too much.
And then I heard it. It was soft at first. I sat up straighter in my seat, as though that might help me hear. Beau pulled away from Thompson, whimpering, ears perking forward. He heard it too.
A cry—my name, Sarah’s voice.
“Lacey!” Out of breath. In pain. “Lacey, help me!”
It was a trick. It had to be a trick. I’d sent her out of town. She promised to go.
“Help!” A scream this time, as though whatever was after her had taken her down and she was seconds from death.
I ran for the door, grabbed for the walking stick I kept beside it, and wrenched it open. Thompson was right behind me. Beau tried to get out between his legs, but our biologist kept him back.
“Not this time, buddy.” He closed the door in Beau’s face, and I heard his barking and scratching behind us, desperate to join and protect us despite what had happened the last time. I was relieved that he was safe. That Luke with his headphones would never even hear the commotion.
“Lacey!” It was otherworldly, as though Sarah was choking on blood as she screamed.
Thompson outpaced me, which made me angry, somehow, and I poured on more speed until we were side by side. The uneven ground of the rescue tried to trip me, but momentum kept me upright as I raced, vaguely aware of the howling and fence rattling all around me. My animals were restless. They knew there was an invader in their midst. Whether Sarah was in trouble or not, this thing was here. Right here. In my territory. Their territory. Thompson and I were all that stood between it and my rescues.
As we ran past Spirit and Frost’s enclosure, a shadow launched out of nowhere, landing on Thompson’s back and biting into his neck with a crunch I could feel as though it were my own pain. He went down with a cry, arms going wide, tranq gun flying off into the night. I raised my walking stick like a club, leaping in to bash it over the beast’s head, desperate to get it to release, to save my friend. If it got Thompson’s jugular… I thought of that sharp ridge of teeth I’d seen in my Internet search. I didn’t know how well it would cut, but it seemed like a chopper, like something out of a butcher’s shop. Terribly effective. And that spurt of blood…
My brain wouldn’t stop with that until the monster—the krokotta—turned on me, jaw running with blood. Its lips pulled back from the teeth and there was no gum at all, just that ridge of bone straight down to the jaw, razor sharp and cutting. It looked like a horror version of a hyena, but pride lion sized, a sense reinforced when it flicked its lion-like tail my way as though swishing at a fly. It leapt off of Thompson’s body and started to come at me.
No, not off his body. He had to be alive. I had to draw the thing away. Had to put it down before it could double back to finish him.
It came slowly, sinuously, casually, as though it had all night. As though it was enjoying this.
I jabbed my stick forward; it snapped at it like it was nothing more than a twig. I pulled back quickly, afraid that it wouldn’t stand up to those jaws. Suddenly, it seemed a flimsy thing, and yet it was all that stood between me and death.
I angled so that I could redirect myself, try to get at the tranq gun that had skittered off, but the thing’s eyes flashed in the night, as if with sudden insight, and it pounced at me, striking out with its hooves, knocking my walking stick away and driving me to the ground. I rolled before it could take me, but I came up in the wrong direction. It was between me and the gun. And my stick was too far away to grab.
It laughed. That same mocking, horrible laugh from earlier that day, and a howl went up around the camp, a rattling of fences, especially close by. I’d recognize Spirit’s vocalizations anywhere, and he was snarling and throwing himself so hard I was afraid he’d hurt himself. I made the mistake of turning to look, an instant of inattention to the threat before me, and the krokotta pounced.
Only to be met in the air by a one-hundred-pound gray wolf-dog determined to rescue me as I’d once rescued him. How he’d gotten free I had no idea, but—