Wolf Ravine

Chapter One

A loud crash startled Cheri from her deep sleep. Wide-eyed she sat up in bed wondering what had roused her. She looked over at Gerard lying next to her, sound asleep. Nothing could wake him.

Crash. Again. This time even louder. Cheri tensed. Quietly, she crept over to the window, peaking around the edge of the curtain trying to make out which direction the sound had come from.

She froze when she saw movement near the barn.

What was out there? She rushed over to her husband and shook him awake.

“What the hell are you doing, woman?” he mumbled.

“Gerard, there is an animal or someone out by the barn.” She whispered.

Gerard looked at her disbelievingly, but the look on her face told him that there was no rolling over and going back to sleep. Grabbing his shotgun, he went out through the kitchen door.

The night air was cold and crisp, a light fog reducing everything to shapes and shadows as he crept over to the barn. He stopped dead in his tracks when he caught a glimpse of the creature that had woken his wife.

Gleaming eyes stared back at him from inside the musty barn. Gerard didn't know what to do next. He thought of shooting a warning shot into the air and hoping that it would scare the wolf away.

Wolf? Gerard assumed it was a wolf, but as he peered through the fog, straining to make out the dark form, it suddenly took flight, leaping out of the barn and into the woods before he could do anything. Gerard was caught by surprise. This creature was far larger than a wolf and had a lithe body that moved swiftly and silently between the trees with a speed and power well beyond that of any wolf he had ever seen.

Cheri called from the kitchen doorway. “Gerard, what was it?”

He looked back at her still shaking from the adrenalin that was pumping through his taut body. “Just a wolf Cheri.” He said, not convincing himself.

Cheri shivered. She couldn’t help feeling something was not right.

Very rarely did they have trouble with wolves on the farm. In fact during the three years that they had owned Green Valley Acres there had not been a single one.

Granted, she had heard that occasionally her neighbours would see one or two. Never that close, never so near to the farmhouse. They knew people were dangerous. Or did they?

Chapter Two

Cheri scrambled up from picking tomatoes in her vegetable garden when she suddenly felt like she was being watched. Gerard was out in the cornfields. Cheri stood slowly to her feet and peered around. Nothing. Only a sultry crow sat staring wide-eyed at her from the telephone wire.

Gerard, lost in thought on his tractor didn’t notice one white truck after another making their way down the road to the valley below.

From where Cheri was standing she could see them. Soundless, as they travelled at law-abiding speed past their farm. Something didn’t feel right. Being inquisitive, she didn’t wait around for something to happen. Gerard would be in the fields for at least another couple of hours before lunch so she figured she had plenty of time for a walk.

She hurriedly put on her sweater and started following the trucks. She took the short cut, through he woods. She didn’t go alone, Buddy, her Bull Mastiff went along for the walk.

The woods were beautiful and so full of bird life, but strangely enough the only sound she could hear were the leaves crunching beneath them. The air was chilly. She could see the trucks at the bottom of the hill near the river, one behind the other another.

The woods became quite steep as she wound her way down to the river. Buddy suddenly ground to a halt. And they both nearly toppled down the grassy bank. Buddy growled low in his throat. Cheri tugged on the lead and he followed reluctantly.

Cheri saw men in white uniforms starting to infiltrate the woods with what appeared to be laser weapons. She began to feel a little unsure of her decision to follow them.

Her heart was pounding in her chest. She decided to turn back. Swinging around she caught a glimpse of something moving in between the trees. Black as the night. It crept along the forest floor. Then another one on her other side. Buddy was growling loudly and she was worried that someone would hear her, it seemed like there was a whole pack of wolves around them.

A shot rang out, and she saw the wolves stop moving. Not a movement. She was too far away to get a close up look and now, she and Buddy were running away in a panic.

From between the trees she noticed the black creatures moving closer. Buddy was barking now, erratically. Cheri felt a burning in her chest. The men in white suits were following close behind. One wolf went down but climbed quickly to its feet again.

From the river below a man watched in utter horror at what his work had created. Monsters, he thought to himself. The government had shut him down. All his research confiscated. Damn government monsters!

They had destroyed everything he had worked for. At the start they were perfectly happy to fund his research until they found out that he had resorted to genetic manipulation, oh, no, then he was “tampering with God-given nature”.

His idea of creating animals that could fight wars for you and not lose human lives, well that was a different matter! There were those in high up positions that were interested in continuing his funding, but ‘the others’ found out.

Cheri felt a sharp pain hit her chest. She went down just before Buddy hit the ground with a thud next to her. “The lights went out”, she thought.

Chapter Three

A swirl of lights, voices, sandy smells. Her hands were cold and the table was icy. Cheri woke up in a strange place. She could see doctor’s working over her. A nurse caught her eyes and quickly administered more anaesthetic.

“She shouldn’t be awake” she said swiftly.

Out again, Cheri dreamed of the strange day, she saw floating black beasts with wolf-like faces that resembled people. They reached out for her.

A bright, white light was shone into her eyes. “Cheri, my darling, are you awake now?” Gerard’s voice gently woke her.

He sat next her in the hospital room. Her face was pale with fatigue. Gerard held her close to him and started crying. “I love you, I almost lost you, don’t do that to me again.” He said softly.

Cheri looked at him, “do what again?” she asked confused. Gerard began to explain how he had come home early only she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, after searching the entire farm he called his neighbours to help him look. They found her passed out, alone in the woods. She had deep cuts in both of her hands and they were bleeding terribly. Buddy was then found a little way off with his neck snapped. Dead.

Cheri almost choked on her tears. She could not believe what she was hearing. All she remembered was collapsing with a sharp pain in her chest and she had assumed that she had been shot with one of the weapons the men were using to fire at the wolves. But were they wolves? Her mind began to wonder.

Gerard tried to console her. He just wanted to know what had happened. Cheri told him all that she had seen. He was stunned and said that he had only been gone an hour or so before returning home and he had not seen any white trucks driving out of the valley. To top that off, the building facility that Cheri said she had seen by the river was nowhere to be found.

Things just did not add up to Cheri. The doctors said she would be able to return home in the morning. Her hands were terribly scarred and she had suffered tremendous trauma, they wanted to keep her overnight.

Gerard wanted to stay with her but she told him that someone had to watch the farm, so he left.

Cheri fell in and out of sleep that night. She woke suddenly when she heard footsteps outside her room in the early hours of the morning. Her door was pushed open slightly so she could see the outline of someone. They walked in. she had her eyes half open but with the painkillers she still felt a bit drowsy.

The person, who she thought was the nurse checking in on her, walked slowly over to her. She opened her eyes. They lifted a needle and stuck it into her fragile arm. She screamed only to have it stifled by the person’s hand. A man’s hand. Strong, smelling sandy. She fell into a deep sleep.

Cheri awoke the next morning in her own bed at home on the farm. Gerard brought her breakfast in bed, apparently they were not able to wake her up and Gerard was assured that it was just the result of the painkillers and that she would wake up soon.

Cheri had lost a lot of weight. She looked like she had been through hell and back again. Her head ached.

During the course of the next few days Cheri kept having strange flashbacks. Black, silky flesh pressing against hers. She woke in the night in a cold sweat. Faces haunted her dreams, black, smooth faces, almost human, but not. There was a strange familiarity about them. She didn’t tell Gerard. She felt almost guilty.

Over the next few months Cheri would be in one place in the house and black out and be somewhere else, always when Gerard was out working in the fields. She would wake up feeling dreamy and sensual.

Gradually the dreams and black outs dissipated and she went back to her normal routines. There was always an aspect of her experience that she questioned but she knew she had to move on with her life.

Chapter Four

Patrick Muldoon sped through the traffic to get to his new lab. There was an emergency. One of the creatures had escaped. “Crafty beast” he thought.

He would need to find and capture the creature before the ‘government monsters’ got wind of it, or they would shut him down, again.

“You are attracting too much curiosity.” They told him the last time. He didn’t expect anyone to get involved, not a civilian. She was so beautiful, he remembered as he had lifted her up and swiftly carried her away from the 'white coats'. How she had fought him with her hands so much that they had bled.

The loss of his research had made him go insane, just for an instant, so he injected himself with the animal genes, the changing genes. He was one of them now. He didn’t want to hurt her, he just wanted some company. He returned her to where he had found her. No longer would he let the government control him and his beasts. He had relocated without them knowing. Hiding by day as a human being and by night a wolf of the ravine.

Patrick raced along the dirt road. He eventually arrived at the old farmhouse. Remnants of dried bones were lying around. He was feeding them too much meat. They hungered for it day and night. Even he had the hunger for it. He could still control himself. He thought.

Slowly he approached the entrance to the lab. The cars were all there. Walking inside, he heard no one. Where were they? The smell of fresh meat reached his nostrils. He leaped through the lab door.

He froze. All the assistants were dead. Remnants of their bodies lay all over the lab. He gagged.

He walked through to check the cages. They could see him, they watched as he walked into their domain. Patrick turned the corner and walked slowly into the cage room. They were all gone. Free. He stiffened. He must change quickly, what if they were still there? They would attack him for sure. That is what he had created killing machines hadn’t he?

Just as he reached into his pocket for the syringe, he felt warm breath on his neck, his eyes glazed over as the last breath escaped his body.

Not even a scream came from the lab.

The 'white coats' would surely come. But would they be in time to destroy the creatures.

In her bed Cheri felt sad and could not understand why. She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest. She jumped out of bed. Gerard was sound asleep as usual. She heard a faint howl in the night. The pain worsened she began to feel as though she had changed. Her body felt lithe, sleek and smooth and she took one leap out of the window into the misty night to join the others.

It had been a while since she had joined them. Now she remembered everything. “Poor Gerard”, she thought, “he would never know the freedom she felt.