hurt away and you replaced it with joy. The pain didn’t return until I lost you.”
She kissed me and nuzzled her nose against mine as our lips touched. I felt her joy beaming through her sweet lips into mine. Oh, she felt so damn good. I held her there like that for several seconds kissing her, feeling her body against mine and wondering how I’d been so lucky as to find her.
I heard a low rumbling noise just then.
I pulled back slowly from the kiss and glanced to my right. What was that? It sounded like… a growl…?
“Did you hear that?” Julie asked me. I could see the fear in her wide eyes as she followed my gaze to her left.
“Yeah…” I spoke. “Listen.”
We both listened for several seconds. We heard nothing. Julie was about to say something when I held my finger to her lips to keep her quiet. This was not nothing. There was something there.
The growling came again. This time it was closer, louder. It sounded big. Some sort of a big animal. And it was right outside of our camp, just in the woods out of the light. It was hiding in the darkness, stalking us, waiting for us to make a move or a mistake. It wasn’t challenging us. No, it knew that it could beat us easily if it wanted to. It was toying with us, trying to scare us, and doing its best to keep us right where we were.
“What is that?” Julie whispered, her mouth quivering.
I felt the fear building up inside of my chest. The guns were in the bag about ten feet from us. I’d left them out there when we were putting the tent up. Shit. Why didn’t I bring them closer? Did I forget this was the wilderness? Bears, wolves, mountain lions, etc. were everywhere. I saw them regularly. This was just stupid for me to forget to grab a gun. I wondered if I could make it in time. The animal would surely strike at me and I would probably take a hit or more. And one hit could be enough to down me depending on what it was and what animal delivered it. Fuck.
I tried to stay calm. The last thing I needed to do was freak out or cause Julie to freak out. We had to stay relaxed. The animal would feed on our fear. That would kick in the predatory instinct and blow it into high gear.
“Ok,” I whispered. “I’m going to try to get to the bag and get a gun. Don’t move.”
She nodded slowly. I took a deep breath, and I began to move slowly towards the bag. I had to move inch by inch so that the animal didn’t realize I was really moving that much. Animals perceived everything a bit differently.
I just had to pretend to be very still, to move slowly and deliberately. The growing grew louder. I wasn’t sure if this was working, but I didn’t really have time to think about it. I couldn’t do anything, and I was almost there. I just had to go a bit farther… just a little bit farther… was almost there… almost.
I reached the bag and I turned ever so slightly to reach into it. I had to fight the impulse to quickly grab the gun and fire it in air to scare the animal, which I still couldn’t see.
Fuck… where was it…?
I could almost feel the gun in my hand. That was when I felt the animal leaping out from its hiding place. It was a large, gray wolf. Its face was twisted in an evil snarl, it was growling like crazy, and I saw nothing but murder in its eyes. And it was on top of me before I could even react to it.
The wolf’s mouth clamped tightly around my calf and bit hard. The sharp, rigid teeth cut through me so hard right then. I thought the bite was going straight to the bone. The pain was immense, and I could feel the flesh tearing as the wolf’s head twisted from side to side.
“Tony!” Julie screamed.
“Stay back!” I yelled. My voice felt weak under the onslaught of the pain coursing through my leg.
The bag fell from my hand as the wolf jerked me powerfully closer to the woods. Was it trying to drag me off? Shit. I used my other foot to press against the animal, kicking it and pushing its face, but it was all futile. Being