[Dusk.] The rain had slacked off to an intermittent drizzle. It wasn't too cold but the wind would kick up every so often, it was supposed to get a lot worse in a few hours. Lt Bill Sperry wondered if the rain and approaching storm had been summoned here like the wolves by some supernatural means. He wondered what he was doing up in a tree in the Canadian forest, in the rain, waiting for a werewolf to attack. It was already a dark evening because of the heavy wet clouds and the obscured trace of a moon, didn't it have to be a full moon for werewolves? The dense shadows of the forest made it a lot darker still, but now the weak remnant of daylight was slipping away and the black night would come in earnest. Bill could already see more with his night vision monocular than with his eyes. Then the howling began. They knew some 60 wolves were in the immediate vicinity, but as dusk slipped away into night they began a mournful wailing. Not all at once, but just every so often. The wolves could be heard all around the small community, a slow collection of random howls from random locations - not like wolves gathering or calling to one another, but rather an unnerving manifestation of individual wolves, wailing like lost souls in the infinite black tangle surronding him. Bill listened to the howls for a good while before he saw a wolf, just behind and to his right, trotting further away from him back into the forest. He looked after it with his monocular, but saw nothing but forest. Just then three rifle shots rang out from the community, he could hear some shouting, but nothing discernable. He tried his radio again - but it hadn't ever worked since he got in this blasted tree. Suddenly Bill was drenched with ice cold rain driven sideways from an unexpected gust of wind as the storm broke loose. While he was dressed for the cold and rain, he wasn't ready for the hard-driven downpour whipping around him in the icy wind - he got down in a crouch with his back to the wind and was about to climb down and try the radio when he glimpsed what looked like a man on the ground below and behind him - he would never have seen anything if he hadn't turned just then - he stared at the inky blackness where the man had disappeared. He was still staring when something hard hit him in the chest, the second strike hurt just as bad, and the third hit came with the realization that he was being shot. Bill dropped flat in the blind and hoped he wasn't hit too bad, now he was getting all wet inside his coat, as if the rain wasn't enough. He wondered why his arm and head hurt as he went ahead and closed his eyes for a minute, hugging himself tightly where he could tell he was loosing blood quickly... - - - - Steve, John, and the three other local police were driving the jeep to the house that had called in - it was a hard icy rain now and black night. Steve felt invulnerable in his jungle boots and flak jacket, armed with his own personal M-16 and his razor-edged K-Bar - he felt like a US Marine again. He had 6 spare 30 round mags for the rifle and a Glock .45 for his back up. Just earlier someone had been shooting a rifle and someone else had called from the house they were racing towards, reporting wolves surrounding their house. The driver slowed and stopped abruptly, pointing and shouting something in Chinese. Directly ahead was a shattered home under siege - it was unnerving. The smashed front door was in the yard, there were four bodies lying around the entrance, screams, crashes and gunfire resonated from inside as a pair of wolves appeared dragging another body out of the house. Steve and one of the police immediately raised rifles, but at that moment the werewolf was upon them. Like a bolt of lightning the werewolf was among them, tearing into the five men like a madman attacking small children. Steve had his rifle ripped from him, shattering his left hand and violently tearing his left arm as he was hurled sprawling, dazed, and bloody into the dark mud. As slow-motion seconds ticked by Steve could hear shots ringing out, watched from behind as the werewolf tore one policeman bodily in two. He sat up in the mud, lifted his mangled left arm and pulled up his .45. He watched the werewolf turn towards him - distantly aware of the seconds as they ticked by, Steve fired three, four, five - then he was struck hard blindside by a large wolf knocking him down tearing at his neck. Time caught up with itself. Steve struggled violently, choking in his own blood, struggling to get away from the wolves tearing at his arms,legs, and body. His last thoughts were fear and shock as he could just see the form of the werewolf walking towards him. Marcus stood sweating in the freezing rain, looking down through werewolf eyes at the two wolves tearing Steve apart. Three bullets from the .45 had hit him hard but the armor had stood it - he felt sidelined. He crushed a capsule between his teeth, turned, and started slowly walking back into the house - the pain would be gone soon enough. Suddenly he was attacked by a Chinese woman swinging a crowbar and shouting and crying. He caught her hands and crushed both wrists effortlessly, raised her to his head and bit through her neck, severing her head. He threw the body to the ground and turned to the next house. - - - - In one house, a cluster of four men and three women - some in their forties or fifties, some much older, stood back to back in their living room around a low coffee table. They had heirloom swords in their hands and death in their eyes. One of them was the old Mr. Le, just back from meeting the Americans. On the table was a yellow flowered vase set with winking sapphires and plugged with a lead seal. The ashes inside were not the reason the werewolf was here, but they knew he would come for them. Outside the suddenly fierce storm became a relentless roar of wind, rain, and rolling thunder, but through the storm they could also hear other noises of the night; shouting, gunfire, howls... They didn't have long to wait. There seemed to be a few moments of quieter rain, then the front door shattered into the hall and the whole storm swept through the houses - the wind shrieking as to give voice to the wolves swept in with the elements. One man and one women were immediately jerked out of the circle into bloody destruction, but the wolves backed away, six of them in an outer circle as the werewolf walked in. He was a monstrosity of horror and maddening wrongness - evil incarnate in its natural form - yellow teeth and claws, bloody eyes and a lolling black tongue. He was huge; a black hairy wolf in the form of a man, the furious devil-god head in the form of a wolf, a loathing hatred seething forward like a fog of noxious steam. One of the younger men rushed the werewolf, striking a devastating blow with his long samurai sword, but the hard driven razor edge turned from the coarse black hair as if it had been a wooden pole. The werewolf tore the sword arm from the man and threw him gushing blood against a pair of the wolves. Wrenching the sword from the severed arm, the werewolf then advanced upon the remaining foursome while the two wolves made a ghastly end to their still struggling victim. The werewolf split Mr. Le from the base of his neck at his right shoulder, shattering through his rib cage, down to just above his waist on his left, pulling the ancient sword down, through, and out in a single fluid motion. As Mr. Le toppled forward and backwards in a twisting, folding manner the werewolf stepped forward towards the table. The wolves at the same time had become animated again. Attacking in pairs, they immediately destroyed the three survivors. The werewolf discarded the weapon and casually scooped up the vase on the table. He carried the intricate yellow vase back out of the house and smashed it on the wet asphalt, light gray mud streaming away with the broken pottery in the torrents from the storm. Then he lifted his head and howled. Some sixty wolves stopped and howled. Two other werewolves stopped and listened. For almost a minute, the werewolf and all the wolves howled together with the storm, then the attack continued. Everywhere in the community chaos rose up and decimated lives. Three werewolves and over forty wolves attacked systematically, allowing no escape towards the roads and going house to house in a military style campaign of murderous destruction. The wolves seemed possessed of uncanny intelligence and demonic fury, as well as being seemingly impervious to the pistols, rifles, and shotguns fired against them. The werewolves were gods among them - invulnerable to all attacks, striking with unbelievable power and heart stopping speed, driving men, women, and children running in terror before them, slaying those who came within their grasp. The wolves pulled down far more, and those who escaped to the woods met with rifle bullets from Brian's men, or ran full into the face of the same doom as they discovered another twenty wolves patrolling just inside the tree line. Slim Jim did not exist, he had been totally transformed into a demonic fury. These were his people to destroy, finally given to him, and tonight he was unstoppable. He saw everything in the blackness, the clairity of the nightvision and the utility of the infrared overlay was incredible in the dark stormy night crowded with debris, vehicles, houses - people and wolves everywhere. And the werewolf hands - the hands were forces of wreakage; the hard steel exoskeleton and claws and the servo enhanced strength slashed, crushed, smashed through, and tore apart as if his own strength had become infinite. This was nothing like the suit he had used before. He pulled a child out from under a table, breaking his arm, and crushed his head in an instant in those awful hands. Suddenly he was being shot with a shotgun from another room, but as he turned to rush the man, he could see the wolves there already. He checked the other two rooms of the house and went on to the next... - - - - The night's op was going perfect, Brian could see the results himself - Slim Jim was no longer needed - Brian pulled out the small transmitter and pushed the button. When he pressed the small red button something very unusual happened - an electronic blasting cap located in Jim's headpiece right against the base of his head exploded killing him instantly. One werewolf dropped to the ground, his wolves ignoring him and continuing with their house to house slaughter. Then Brian started hearing the rifles firing in the woods - his rifles, his men, but firing too rapidly. Then Brian understood - before he actually heard his men screaming. The trusted men he'd brought on this op were being slaughtered. It was worse than before - last time he'd lost five men, but this time it would be two dozen. His revenge on Slim Jim faded as a cruel joke as he realized that David had turned against him. He quickly scrambled into the nearest blind as he spotted a pair of wolves running towards him - he'd be safe in the tree, and he could see and shoot. Brian even consoled himself with the thought that most of his men should be able to escape to the trees. Then he saw the werewolf. The werewolf didn't climb the tree - it leaped into it, and then onto the platform. Brian turned the werewolf for a second with the one shot from his rifle, then scattered bits of Brian started filling the air. The werewolf tore huge strips of flesh from his body flung them into the black rain. He used his teeth like some unthinkable machine to sever the legs, arms, and head - eating and howling. Finally he tore open the chest with his taloned hands and ripped out the heart. Holding it towards the moon, he howled again into the night storm and then devoured it. - - - - Kim awoke to sound of that howling. She was alone on the boat out by herself in the middle of the ocean. It was the middle of the night. She was sitting up in the bed listening to the howling all around her. Then she saw the shadow of a wolf walk by through the curtain of one window, then the other. She was about to get up when she heard a growl at the foot of her bed. Then she woke up. She was alone on the boat out by herself in the middle of the ocean. It was the middle of the night. She was sitting up in the bed listening to the wind howling all around her, the small boat dipping and weaving in the waves. Then she heard it - footsteps. They were slow, stealthy, irregular footsteps - someone onboard. She wanted to get out of bed but was too afraid of the growl she might hear. It was still night - it must be a dream! She trembled and sweated and cried silently until she was no longer conscious. She was still tossing and muttering in her sleep as the cabin door opened slowly, and the troubled course of her dreams was stirred afresh by the soft growl from the doorway. - - - - [Early morning] Lt. Bill Sperry felt awful. He hadn't died yet, and had woke up - that was promising. He couldn't move - any. He was miserably cold - cold enough to die from that alone, and wet - all the way through, he even had a pool of water on his back. He wondered again why he couldn't move at least just a little. His eyes. His mouth, a little. Both of his arms were asleep beneath him, but he couldn't roll over. He started hearing voices. By 9 AM they found him. He was loaded onto a stretcher, very painfully, and stowed in the back of a truck. Then he really started going numb all over and everything faded to black. - - - - When Kim finally woke again, daylight filled the cabin, she heard and smelt someone cooking and sat up - to a sharp GROWL... A large wolf was on the bed with her, locking eyes and baring fangs! Kim was paralyized, but must have cried out because David was in the room, arms around her, speaking softly to her and to the wolf in a measured, soothing voice. He took her hand, brought it around under the wolf's head like he was introducing her to a large dog. The wolf sniffed a few times, closed his eyes and layed down again. David gathered Kim in his arms and carried her out closing the door behind him. Moving a skillet off a burner as he passed the stove, he set her down and joined her on one of the cushioned benches just out of the cabin. "Sorry for the scare, he wouldn't have hurt you. He's lost a lot of blood and his leg will need to knit properly before he could survive in the wild. I could have left him, but I thought he would be good for you, as a companion - you know how pretty little girls like yourself always seem to have Rottweilers or Great Danes or something, well you get a wolf - don't worry, you'll get used to each other, his name is Hrauk." Kim startled at the sound of the name, recognizing instictively that the pronounciation was one that could come from the throat of a man or a wolf...
- End of Chapter Six
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