Coalescence Book I - Chapter 18 - The Hunt
Chapter 18 - The Hunt
-H-
What was I getting myself into?.. I was going to straddle the back of a werewolf while he hunted.. I was going to be like a baby gorilla clinging to a big momma monkey, only apes and gorillas and all that didn't hunt! They didn't chase down deer for the kill with a little one on their back. My wolf returned inside of me, letting me get dressed and grab some quick food first. How many more days off did I have? Before I had to go back to work? My sense of time and space was just a muddled mix with all that had happened. Mom.. I was supposed to be grieving. I was.. but this wolf was making it really hard to focus on my grief. Was that a good thing? I had to feel it at some point. Can't just bury it down after a day and say that's that, move on. There's no guidebook on how long you need to grieve, no set rules.. Everyone takes different paths for it. Mine just managed to have a complication, to say the least.
I slipped a pocket knife into my pants, we were going out into the woods and I felt like I should at least have.. something. Knife, wallet, car keys, sanity. Mostly all checked off the mental list. Oh, and wolf. He was always with me, I couldn't forget him. But I could forget Mom? No, I told myself never.. but I could be distracted from thinking about it. About her. I hopped into my car and for the second time I drove out to the forest, to that remote little spot by the stream. It had always seemed so far from everything and everyone, but now I was worried it wasn't far enough . What if someone saw him? Maybe they would just think he's a bear..
There had been all sorts of wildlife out by that stream, multiple times we had seen deer or raccoons or bobcats. Once there was even a cow, though that's because it had apparently escaped a farm a few miles away and went on some cow adventure, to go drink from a stream in the woods.
I parked the car nearly inside of a big, thorny thicket of bushes. It was gray and blended in mildly, if you weren't looking too hard. Didn't want anyone coming across my car while we were out.. hunting. Illegally. Or maybe it wasn't illegal.. werewolves didn't exactly have laws on the books. I was trespassing at the very least, but I wasn't going to be the one doing the hunting. I guess he'd just be a wild animal as far as the law went? If they tried to pin it on me as him being my pet well.. yeah I guess, but can you really have a pet werewolf? Besides, I'd have bigger issues than the law if we were caught.. if he didn't hurt whomever was a threat to us, then we'd have the government after us for sure right? They'd want to study a werewolf, that was the plotline in just about any movie where a kid got some unique creature as a friend or pet or whatever. Oh shit, was this E.T.? Was this Iron Giant?
"I don't remember Elliot helping E.T. brutally shred and devour a deer in the woods in a bloody massacre.." I mumbled aloud to myself.
Taking a breath and gripping my belt in my hand, I reached out for him.
-Alright bud.. come do your thing-
Like rubbing a genie's bottle he came out, pulling himself out of me like he had in his little demonstration of how this would work. At least I was wearing clothes this time. I wrapped my arms around his neck and shoulders.. At first I was worried that I would choke him, but that was laughable once I felt just how much pure muscle was beneath his dark skin and pelt. I wrapped the belt up in my hands and tightened it, the last thing I needed was to lose my grip. I knew how worried he was about keeping us connected, I could feel him leave his back connected in my chest and stomach.. What a weird feeling.. like we were overlapping and taking up the same spot there. Maybe that's what this was.. I am going to guess the word quantum is going to get used to describe whatever bullshittery is happening for this to work.
"Hey bud.. You good to go? I am betting if you stick to the area around this stream up or down that way you are bound to come across a deer or something."
His big head gave a curt nod, he seemed focused, his eyes dilated.. He was ready to hunt. I could feel his muscles flexing and almost trembling with excitement beneath me, he was a coiled spring ready to fire.
Then he was off. Marching forward on two legs and seamlessly switching to all four as he moved along an incline. He clambered up to the top of the hill with ease and peeked through the trees. He lifted his nose to the air, sniffed and smelled around, then kept moving. His body flexed and shifted and moved in my grasp, I was glad I had the belt to hold onto. And while I am sure my ankles will be sore later, I could mostly hook them and just hold steady.
My wolf was quiet, determined, in his element. Untethered by me any longer. I was no longer holding him back, weighing him down. My presence on his back was barely a blip on his radar. He looked like a true beast right now.. I stayed quiet. I barely took little breaths, not wanting to break his concentration. I pressed my face into his thick mane of neck fluff, barely peeking over his shoulders and keeping my head against his. I was watching what he was doing the way he had been studying everything I had done yesterday. He lifted his nose to the air again, sniffed.. I felt my chest rumble as a growl vibrated almost silently through him.
Gracefully, he started pacing through the trees, following the stream, following his nose and whatever else guided him. It was exhilarating to ride him, though I felt like I was more of a pest, being there, than anything.
Movement.
His ears twitched and his eyes narrowed in.. there was something moving slowly, lumbering and waddling a bit in the brush. It looked fat and round and.. A pig. A wild pig.. I knew they were around, mostly causing trouble when they got into people's yards. They had nasty tusks to worry about, and suddenly I was worried. What if my wolf got hurt? I had no doubts he could easily kill the pig but what if it gored him in the process? I wasn't exactly a vet.. Sure I had bandaged myself up countless times when I had fallen off a skateboard or fallen off my dirt bike or fallen off of something I was climbing or fallen off a roof. Or, you know, gotten slashed by a werewolf claw. In hindsight I fall off of way too many things. I could only hope I wouldn't add werewolf-back to the list.
Stalking after the boar had my heart thudding against his spine, I swore I could hear it. I hoped it wasn't distracting him. He was impressively silent as he moved on soft paws through the trees. Eyes laser focused on the unaware hog, pressing forward towards it. My wolf stood tall, stepping over and through some brush quietly, around a tree and.. he froze. His head flicked down, I couldn't see what he was looking at but he stopped in surprise.. a rich and guttural growl emanating from his chest and throat. I heard a man's voice gasp out and caught the glimpse of a camo pattern. Caught the glimpse of a gun. A rifle. A loud shot.
BANG!