Visions of Wolves

A relaxing hike

“Wakey, wakey!” Adam’s voice bellowed from outside my door, followed by a few loud thumping knocks that reverberated through my hotel room.

I rolled over and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes so I could check the time on my phone. Urgh, 6am.

While chatting last night I told everyone how much I loved it here and enjoyed the fresh air and nature. I’m not ready to go back to the city and my desk. That’s when Ally told me about this beautiful picnic spot near a waterfall about an hour away from the hotel. If you took the dirt road you could get pretty close, which meant it wasn’t too far to carry the picnic stuff and we could spend all day there.  

Adam and Ally had the day off so we had decided to head out first thing in the morning and spend the day swimming and relaxing under the trees. Although now I felt more like sleeping in.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I croaked with a sleepy morning voice.

“No, no. Up and at ‘em,” I heard Ally now joining Adam at the door. “Mabel has packed the most amazing lunch and you can just sleep in the car if you want.”

“Urgh, ok!” I moaned from my bed. “I’ll be down in 20.”

“You have 10!” Adam shouted before I heard them laughing and walking back down the passage.

I quickly got changed, thanked Mabel for the snacks and joined Adam and Ally outside in their pick-up truck. I sat in the back with the window open, letting the cool air blow against my face. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. As I relaxed I thought back to the day Casey and I visited the fortune teller. Suddenly the same flashes of the large dark figure through the front of a car window flooded my mind. The memory was interrupted when Adam turned up the radio.

They were right, the waterfall was stunning. We grabbed all the bags off the truck, walked through what appeared to be a dense, endless forest of trees but it quickly made way to a clearing.  

The grass was relatively short and big trees here and there gave us lots of shady options to setup. We picked a spot under a tree right on the edge of the rocks overlooking the waterfall and stream below. The waterfall wasn’t very tall, but beautiful nonetheless. The water was crystal clear and sparkled from the reflection of the sun. The sky was a beautiful shade of baby blue and had a few clouds off in the distance. It looked like a painting, the whole scene was simply perfect. I felt so at home here, almost like I’d been here before.

“Worth the early morning?” Adam piped up, watching me take in the surroundings.

"Yeah it’s alright” I said sarcastically, making both Adam and Ally chuckle.

We spent the whole day eating snacks, hanging out in the stream, reading, napping under the tree and chatting. It was beautiful, and exactly what I wanted.

I was lying on the picnic blanket enjoying the sounds of the waterfall, lost in my own thoughts and half listening to Ally and Adam chatting when they both went unnervingly quiet. Suddenly they were both on their feet starring out into the trees. Their movements were so quick they gave me a fright and I instinctively jumped to my feet too.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” I whispered, frantically looking in the same direction as them.

Ally shushed me before turning to Adam “are they headed this way?”

“Yeah, I think so. I think they’ve picked up our scent.” He said quietly.

“Are they rogue?” Ally asked and received a short nod from Adam

I searched frantically to see what they were talking about but I couldn't find anything. I stepped forward to join them, the sound of the grass crunching under my foot now deafening against the tension of the moment.

“Teal, start packing up. Slowly.” Ally said over her shoulder, without looking at me directly.

I did as I was told, shaking as I crouched down and picked up each item as quietly as possible. I tried to gather everything together, starting with our phones and valuables and putting them in the bags we brought with. 

I started to wonder if they were joking, but I had never seen them like this, so serious, so intimidating. I was focused on the task at hand when a voice came out from the trees. “Why hello, who do we have here?”

I looked up to see four tall, muscular men walk towards us. Almost as big as Adam but younger by quite a few years. The one who was speaking to us stood in the middle of them, he wore a brown leather jacket that matched his short brown hair and beard.

“This is Obsidian Pack territory, what are you doing here?” Adam was always so friendly, it scared me a little to hear him be so forceful.

“That depends who you ask” the guy in the leather jacket shot back while taking slow, menacing steps closer. The young guy to his left in a cap and blue shirt quickly stepped in front of him and held him back by placing the back of his arm across his friend’s chest. 

They made eye contact, clearly saying something to each other just with their eyes. Then he dropped is arm. The look they gave each other clearly said something they didn't want us to hear. “We’re just taking a nice hike, checking out the country side, passing through really. Didn’t realise we were in the company of an Omega,” he said eyeing Adam up and down. 

His attention then turned to me. I was crouched down behind Ally and Adam and still trying to slowly pack up everything we’d brought with us. “And look, you brought a little human friend. Hey there sexy. What’s your name?” He looked me dead in the eyes as he spoke, each word sending an even bigger shiver down my back.

“You need to leave. Now!” Ally shouted, clearly in my defence. Her outburst drove his attention from me to her. This time one of the others in the back spoke, stomping towards her “learn your place, we don’t take orders from you or anyone from the Obsidian Pack.”

“I’ll show you your place, runt!” Ally said making moves towards him. Adam quickly grabbed her from behind, holding down her arms to her sides.

“Leave! Now!” Adam practically growled at them. He let go of Ally and she moved to stand next to him.

“Why don’t you make me?” Said the guy in middle, taking off his leather jacket and tossing it on the floor as though getting ready to fight. “Your Alpha is weak, and so is his pack, his days are numbered.”

For a second I swore I saw his eyes change colour, as if they went from brown to yellow. Everything got so tense, so quickly. I had no idea what was going on or why everyone was so angry. It sounded like they were trespassing. But it’s just a picnic spot, surely we could leave?

“Enough! There could be humans in the area. This is not how things are done.” This time I was sure I heard Adam growl.

“Don’t give me that peace talk, we’re bigger, stronger and smarter. It’s time our kind stop hiding!” The guy in the middle ran forward, as he did he dived into the air, loud cracking noises and the sound of material ripping filled the air just before he landed in front of us, now as a large dark brown beast with yellow eyes.

Ally turned to me, her eyes now also glowing yellow and shouted “run!”

I gasped, too shocked to even scream and scurried backwards across the blanket. I stared at the beast in front of us, frozen in place.

“I SAID RUN!” Ally shouted back at me. As she shouted the scene in front of me turned into a chaos. So much was happening I couldn’t focus my eyes or hearing. There was growling, shouting and suddenly one beast now became six beasts snapping, clawing and fighting each other. 

I watched in absolute terror, my heart beating against my chest. Everything was happening so quickly I didn’t know where to go. I watched as a large, dark grey beast bit down on the neck of the brown beast and threw it to the ground right next to me.

The ground shuddered under its weight. I screamed and found myself running back to the car before I even realised what I was doing. I jumped over the overgrown roots, ducked under the low branches and ran as fast as my legs could take me until I reached the truck. 

I pulled on the driver’s side handle only to find it locked. “No, no, no!” I said aloud while trying each of the four doors. “No, no, no, the keys, the keys, I can’t… I can’t go back. Oh no, Ally, Adam, what the hell…what is happening?” A loud growl came from the trees, giving me such a fright I fell to the ground.

I looked around, trying to decide where to go. But it was no use, even if I got beyond the dirt road and back to the main road, it would take me hours by foot and those beasts, those beasts would find me. I felt the tears start to swell in my eyes while I looked around and realised just how alone I was. Finally I lay down on my stomach and crawled under the truck. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe quietly as I heard the growling, fighting and yelping coming from the picnic area.

“You’re fine, they’re fine, you’re fine, they’re fine…” I chanted to myself for what felt like forever. Eventually things went quiet. I couldn’t hear any noises from beyond the trees. I finally mustered up the courage to roll out from under the truck and try make my way back to our bags and the keys to the truck.

I ran from the truck to the first big tree and stood with it blocking me until I found the courage to run to the next one. I did this from tree to tree, stopping each time to listen and look for any movement.

As I got closer to the picnic spot I heard a woman moaning in pain… Ally. I moved quicker, but took the long way around. 

“Ally?” I whispered into the trees. “Ally?”

I heard her moan again and tip toed towards the sound. When I finally caught sight of her she way lying against a tree in the foetal position. She was naked and covered in blood. There were scratches and bruises all down her back.

“Ally!” I shrieked and fell to my knees behind her. We were a row of bushes and trees away from the picnic spot. I searched but couldn’t see any other movement around us. I touched her arm and she flinched. “What did they do to you?” I cried, tears uncontrollably running down my cheeks. I shrugged off my thin jacket and lay it over her, realising now that she had a large bite mark down her side. But no average bite, one of those beasts did this.

“Adam, find Adam,” she said breathlessly.

I didn’t want to leave her, but she needed medical help and quickly. I felt a new surge of adrenaline hit me. I needed to do something. “I’ll be right back I swear, just breathe Ally, just breathe,” I assured her before sneaking my way through the trees. If I could just get the keys I could get her to a hospital.

I ran over to a large bush overlooking the clearing and surveyed the surroundings. Trees were knocked over, big chunks of grass were missing. It looked as though a tornado had torn the picture perfect spot to pieces. I then caught sight of the bare, muscular back of a man on his knees rummaging through one of our backpacks. Adam.

I ran into the clearing without thinking. He turned quickly and glared at me, I had startled him. For a moment I remembered the scene from earlier, he’s one of those… things, I felt the fear start to take over again. He wasn’t the same Adam anymore. I quickly looked around for those other guys, but they were gone. “I can’t find Ally,” he shouted. He sounded weak, hurt, but mostly worried.

“She’s over here, she’s badly hurt, we need to get her to a hospital…” I pointed in the direction of Ally but continued to walk over to him. The thought of Ally needing help overpowered my fear and confusion.

As I got closer the scene became clearer, his left shoulder was out of place and he was covered in blood. He had opened the bag and flung a few items of clothing out. His chest was bare but he was now wearing a pair of loose, clean joggers that he hadn’t been wearing earlier.

He went to stand up and yelped in pain. I ran over, grabbing his arm to help him steady himself, but he flinched and cried out in pain.

“I’m fine, get the keys,” he said hissing through the pain. I quickly rummaged through the backpack until I found the keys. Adam started limping in the direction I said I left Ally while I threw what ever I could find quickly into the bag and ran over to lead the way.