Our group stopped for the night on a beach that extended to an open field adjacent to a dense, dark forest. A few women pitched tents. Others started cook stoves for rehydrating freeze-dried dinners. Skyla and I had split the weight of a two-man tent between our kayaks. While she tended to constructing a campfire for the group, I scratched my head and fiddled with our collapsible poles and rip-stop nylon.
“C’mon, Mundy,” Skyla said after setting the kindling ablaze. “It’s not that hard.” Skyla threw several small branches onto the newborn fire and came to my side. She waved her hands, readjusted the poles, and like magic, a tent popped into shape.
“Wow,” I said and clapped like an excited kid. “Do it again, do it again.”
Skyla ignored me. “Maybe you could handle reconstituting our dinner.”
“Will I blow off my face?”
Skyla rolled her eyes but demonstrated the butane stove’s mechanics. I lit it without injury and put a pan of water on to boil.
“We’ll make a survivalist out of you yet,” Skyla said.
I tugged a packet out of my dry sack and read its label. “Beef tips on rice? Is this what you call survivalist?”
“Have you ever tried eating that stuff? You might prefer grubs and beetles.”
Once everyone settled down, cups of coffee or hot cocoa in hand, the group talked about plans for tomorrow’s trip. Leaning against a rock, I dozed off and didn’t wake up until Skyla shook my shoulder. “Move it into the tent, Mundy. You’re going to get a knot in your neck, sleeping like that.”
“It’ll just blend in with all my other aches and pains,” I grumbled as I rose to my feet.
I slid into my sleeping bag and fell asleep to the comforting mutter of conversation and soft laughter, but I woke late in the night to the outburst of a military-grade meteorological assault. Thunder exploded like a concussion of large artillery fire. Pounding bullets of rain battered our tent. I kicked off my sleeping bag and rolled closer to Skyla. “What kind of storm is this?” I yelled over the noise.
A distant streak of lightning illuminated Skyla’s outline as she rose to her feet. “It’s an Alaskan storm.” Another boom of thunder delayed her next statement. “We do everything big up here.”
The squall had rolled in on a cold front, and the temperature drop had me scrambling to put on more layers. “Should we be out here in the open like this? These tents don’t seem like much protection.”
“No,” Skyla said, emphatic. “We need to get over to the grove on the other side of this field.”
“I thought being near trees in a storm was a bad idea.”
“Being near one tree is a bad idea, but a big grove or a forest is good protection. It’s better than being out in the open near water like we are now, so get moving, Mundy.”
“Across the field?” Images of lightning bolts licking my heels flashed before my eyes.
“Before it gets worse, yes.” Skyla rose and dug through her dry bag until she found a poncho. She shrugged it on then dug into her bag again until she came out with something dark and heavy. A distant streak of lightning illuminated the weapon in her hand.
“A gun?” I asked.
“Bears. And other things that go grrrrr in the night.” She tucked the gun away somewhere on her shadowy figure. “Get your rain gear. I’ll get the others.”
Skyla ducked outside, yelling orders, and a scurry of action erupted from the other tents. I found my poncho, shrugged it on, and stepped out into the mêlée.
Skyla shouted over the storm. “Everybody stay low, spread out, and get across to the woods as fast as possible.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. This sucked. Badly. I dashed out into the open, doing a kind of crazy duck waddle. I am not a lightning rod… I am not a lightning rod. My imagination morphed the distance to the trees into the equivalent of several football fields, when I was certain it had been only fifty yards or so. I huffed and puffed and eventually reached the trees along with the others.
“Get deep,” said Skyla, who had remembered to grab a flashlight. I mentally smacked myself for panicking and forgetting mine. A flash of green lit Skyla’s face, and she passed me a glow stick. “Work your way into the woods, Mundy.”
“You really are a marine, aren’t you?” I said. Skyla either didn’t hear me or was too focused on trekking into the dark forest to reply. I fell in behind her and concentrated on not tripping over roots and rocks.
“Stay between the trees,” Skyla yelled out across the woods. The beams of other flashlights bobbed in the distance, but the storm drowned out the others’ voices. Skyla eventually stopped in a space where the trees had grown into a sort of semi-circle. “Get here in the middle and stay low,” she said. “You don’t want to be too close to any one of the trees. Let them take the hit, but don’t be close enough to get a second-hand jolt.”
I nodded and toddled out to the center. The thick canopy of spruce and pines did little to stop the rain, but they protected us better than the tents. The other women had taken shelter farther away. The storm dampened their shouts and dimmed their lights. Even though Skyla probably sat somewhere nearby, I felt incredibly alone as the storm raged around me. I crouched into a ball, trying to conserve body heat, and pulled my hood low over my face.
I guess that’s why I didn’t see the wolf until he attacked.
Skyla screamed as the beast tackled me. He passed over me in a streak of dark shadow, rank breath, and wet fur. Sharp claws raked across my chest, and teeth tore into the soft meat at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I shrieked and rolled over, curling into a ball, fetal position fully employed. I threw my arms over my head and waited for the wolf to come back.
Skyla shined her flashlight at a dark place behind me. She drew her gun from a holster at her hip and pointed the barrel in the direction of her flashlight beam. Slowly she spun in a circle, shining her light in an arc, keeping her gun up and ready. My heart flailed against my ribs and pain throbbed somewhere in the back of my mind, but terror and adrenaline had temporarily numbed my senses.
Silent and moving as fast as a striking snake, the wolf lunged from the shadows behind Skyla. I screamed. Skyla turned and fired but missed. The wolf escaped into the shadows again. Several of the other women from our group must have heard the gunfire. They called out to Skyla. “Stay back,” she yelled at them. “There’s a wolf.”
“Don’t shoot us by mistake,” someone hollered in reply.
“Then stay the hell back like I said!” Skyla muttered a string of curses under her breath. “God, I don’t like firing this thing in the dark, especially when I’m surrounded by people I can’t see.”
Skyla holstered her gun and drew something else from her side—a long, wide knife. A bowie knife. I don’t know how I knew that—probably some random fact passed on by my brother. She spread her legs wide, lowering her center of gravity, and swiveled her head like a probing owl.
The wolf sprang from the darkness, aiming for me again. Skyla leapt for him, and the two fell to the ground, their dark shadows writhing like angry demons, grunting and growling, snarling and cursing. She had dropped her flashlight, but its ambient glow cast the fight in an eerie, gothic haze.
The wolf barked a high-pitched cry, and Skyla kicked him aside. He rounded on her and hunkered low, braced for another attack. The wolf’s lips rolled off its teeth, and a snarl ripped from its chest. I rolled to my knees and backed away. Skyla sidled closer, placing herself as a barrier in front of me.
Somewhere deep down, I objected to my helplessness, but I had no weapon and no clue how to defend myself. The awareness of my vulnerability and uselessness settled in my gut like rotten meat. I didn’t care to be a victim.
The wolf lunged. I yelped and fell back. Skyla jabbed with her knife, but the wolf feinted to one side, spun, and came at her again. Skyla slashed with her knife once more—this time making contact. The wolf yipped and scurried away. He repositioned for another assault, but then he hesitated and prowled before us, considering, studying, calculating.
“That’s right, you dirty bastard,” Skyla said, panting. She reached a free hand around to her side, where she had holstered her gun. “You’re messing with the wrong bitch.”
The wolf growled, baring his teeth, and eased back into the shadows.
Skyla shifted closer to me. “How bad are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” I said. The light of a nearby glow stick revealed bloodstains, thick and dark, saturating my shirt. I brushed my fingers over my shoulder and found shredded flesh and bone and more warm blood. “Shit, shit, shit,” I whimpered. The assessment of my wounds revived my pain. I sucked in a breath, gritted my teeth, and fought the urge to black out, or vomit, or both.
“Hold it together,” Skyla said. “We’re going to get through this.”
Each heartbeat drained blood from the gashes in my neck and shoulder. The little I remembered about anatomy from high school biology classes suggested the wolf’s attack had missed the major arteries. Or else I’d be dead by now. Still, the adrenaline dump and blood loss had devoured my energy stores. A dizzying sickness stirred my stomach, and black spots sprinkled across my vision.
Skyla drew her gun and antagonized the wolf again, which seemed like the wrong thing to do. “Come on out, you mutt son of a whore. Why the hesitation? Afraid to finish what you started?”
As if he understood, the wolf darted in from the shadows, fast and snapping its teeth at Skyla. She fired, but he moved too fast—unnaturally fast. He dodged aside. Skyla fired at him again. The wolf screamed an ear-splitting, gut-wrenching issue of canine pain and dashed away into the darkness. Skyla pumped her fist. “Got the bastard!”
“Hang in there, girlfriend,” she said to me. I barely heard her—keeping my eyes open required all of my concentration. “If he comes back, I’ll finish him off.”
“Keedokee,” I said, intoxicated by exhaustion and pain. I pulled my knees into my chest, closed my eyes, and sank into my thoughts, retreating to the comfort of old memories: Mani and me, playing on the beach together as children. An imaginary hot sun warmed my skin. I clung to that sensation like a lifeline. The vividness of the memory transported me away from the grove of trees and into a paradise of blessed heat and bright daylight, but then Skyla called my name, and the desperation in her voice brought me to the present. I opened my eyes but then clenched them shut again, blocking out the blinding glare of… sunlight?
“Mundy.” Skyla’s voice was dulled by the rain, but I heard her surprise. “What the hell are you doing?”
