Where Woofs (18+)

You reel back and flop into the snow, realizing there are tears of pain pouring down your face and that's why everything's blurry. The knife hurts so much. You know you shouldn't pull a knife out when you've been stabbed, except that rule doesn't take into account silver and how awful it is -- but you've already lost so much blood -- and it's getting hard to think.

At least Erskin got away. You didn't just cover his escape, you took out the enemy, no one will be tracking his blood trail now. He can lick his wounds and heal.

You wish you could tell him to take your car keys, take your phone, keep warm in the car and call your dad to pick him up. Dad will take care of him for your sake. Maybe you could write a note. But your pack is so far away.

 

It had taken you a shamefully long time, when you ran, to remember that there should be someone running beside you, and another long and awful while before you could master the howling desire to run and run and not stop running until you dropped. But you got yourself turned back around, ditched the stupid fucking backpack, followed your own blood trail, and now here's the monster lying there dead in his own blood puddle and Bel hardly any better.

His eyes are closed and he's breathing fast and shallow, cuts and holes all over, a knife still stuck in his side. You sniff to make sure it's silver, then bite the hilt and pull it out as smoothly as you can. You drop the damn thing off to the side and lick the upwelling blood from the wound, terrified— there's so much, not even deer bleed this much, do they?— then come to your senses and remember you have to put pressure on these big wounds. You pull the hem of his shirt to get fabric over the opening, then press down with a forepaw.

You may or may not be crying like a blind puppy the entire time. No one's fucking alive enough to judge you.

 

You were drifting toward somewhere it didn't hurt -- unconsciousness, presumably -- but you hear Erskin whining and whimpering, and you can't let him stay that sad. You pry your heavy eyes open, roll your head to look for him. Smile for him.

"You came back," you rasp. "I got him, babe. I got him, you're safe."

 

"Yes, yes, I noticed, he looks like a squirrel split eight ways, and you're not in very much bigger chunks." You convey most of this via frantic face licking. You add, more intently, "How do I help, what do I do, you're so hurt, what do I do?"

 

"I'm so glad you're okay," you tell him. You swallow; you're so thirsty. You know it's a symptom of blood loss; you can't let it madden you. "Find my backpack. Get my phone." It takes such an effort of will to gather your thoughts, to organize them into words; it's as bad as your worst sensory meltdowns. Hell, it probably is a sensory meltdown; getting shot like eight times is a lot of input. You find yourself giggling a little at the thought and make yourself stop lest you scare Erskin worse. "See if we have signal. Call rescue."

 

"Okay. Okay." You grab his wrist to make him put his own hand on his knife hole, though his fingers look to be in awful shape, too. Then you bound over his body and drag the backpack back over to him, tuck it right up against his chest, and go pawing through it for the phone.

"Passcode—? No, keep pressure up. I'll do it. I can numbers." You tap them in with your nose, though you're worried enough to get 6 and 9 mixed up the first two times. At least 5 and 2 bend at different points. You can't tell if you've got a signal, you don't even know what that would look like. You nose the little call icon– you can recognize that— and then stare with blank horror at all the letters. You're not in any shape to read, you could stand here all fucking night before any of this makes any sense, with Bel bleeding all over the place. He seems to have stopped paying much attention to the proceeds, which is probably bad.

You tap the first entry. D is near the start of the alphabet, right? D for Dad. It rings and rings and then— fuck, yes, hell fucking yes— you hear someone pick up and it's his dad.

He goes "Bel?" and you go "HELP WE'RE IN THE WOODS AND BEL'S HURT" and then realize very little of it was— was hearable, besides the strangled whimpering, and all the jumping up and down around Bel's phone isn't worth shit. You sit down and bark at the phone, pitching it as yappy and frightened as you can. Which is very. You are very yappy and frightened now.

 

"You called my dad?" you croak, baffled. "Oh, poor Dad." He deserves better than to listen to you dying, if that's what you're doing. But the thought of talking Erskin through calling someone else -- and oh god, you can NOT hang up on Dad right now. So. "Dad, listen." You can't hear his voice very well, not well enough to make out words, but hopefully he can hear you better. "Some crazy ass hunter fucking... shot me a buncha times. I'm about, uh. Twenty, twenty-five miles northeast on the big loop trail. Send somebody. Okay? I need uh. Medical. Stuff." You can't keep your eyes open anymore. "Love you. Take care of..." Call might be recorded. "Rusty. For me."

 

While Bel is making actual words at the phone— you hurriedly nosed the thing right up to his face— you go rummaging through the backpack, pulling all sorts of things out, but you don't know how you're going to apply any of it. Even the bandages... and Bel's in no shape to manipulate anything, either.

Well— if he already can't use his hands— you get a mouthful of his hair, shake him till he moans.

"Turn," you urge him. "Transform, go on. We can go— into the woods, we can hide. Change! Go on!"

 

Fighting for consciousness is like swimming for the surface after a deep dive. You know you can do it, but it feels like you can't, and also your ears are making a noise. The tinny little dadvoice is just a murmur, you can't find the words. Erskin keeps pulling your hair, which is annoying enough that it actually helps.

"Hannibal Michael Kadros, I am TALKING to you!"

Oh hey, it's your scolding name, and some shouting. Must be important. "Nn. Dad. S'ry," you manage.

Enunciating extra clearly, the dadvoice says, "I need you to hang up this call, and call 911. That will activate your GPS beacon. I'm on my way, but I need you to activate your phone's GPS. Do you hear me?"

"Mm. Yeah. 911. GPS." You fumble for the phone. It hurts. "He cut up m'hands, Dad."

Something comes out of the phone that sounds like a sob, but Dad's voice is calm and forceful: "Push through it, kiddo, you need to activate that GPS. You can do it, soldier."

"I c'n do't."

"That's my boy. I'll be there soon."

"Take care'v Rusty. He's shot too."

"I'll bring a vet for him. Now hang up and call 911."

"Kay."

It would probably have been easier to climb Everest than follow those instructions. Your phone is smeared with blood and Erskin is whining piteously by the time you hear, "911, what is your emergency?"

"GPS," you tell the lady. Your mouth is mush. "Got shot. Hiking trail. He shot m'dog too. My... my dad's coming. Air force. Search 'n rescue. Gotta tell'm." She's asking more questions but you can't parse them. "Sorry, bleeding. Gotta. Snow." You have just realized: you have to pack snow in the big cut to stop the bleeding. Phone forgotten, you clumsily sweep at the ground in search of something that's not trampled and blood-soaked.

 

This would be so much easier if you could persuade him to just stagger off the trail with you on three or four legs, rather than flop around like a gigantic dying beached whale who's probably dying. You grab the back of his shirt, but it tears, so you go after his trousers instead. He's probably more than twice your body weight, but the clumsy flailing helps, as does the icy leaf litter. You drag him off the path and into the snowy brush, where it gets a little easier. The two holes in you are starting to tear wider, though, from the exertion, so you doubt you get him more than five or six meters off the path before you have to give up, but at least there's brush. And fresher, cleaner snow for him to lie in.

You run back and fetch his phone, then his backpack, and drop them close.

 

You protest piteously, and not just because it hurts. You need to be in the open so Dad can find you! Dad is coming, he said! When the dragging stops, your complaining stops; you're too tired.

But hey, there's snow now! You scoop it clumsily toward the knife wound, hoping Erskin will get the idea and help. "Make 't cold," you try to explain. "Stop th' bl'd." There's no way either of you can apply enough pressure to stop the bleeding on an abdominal wound, but chilling the blood vessels so they contract just might keep you from bleeding out before rescue arrives.

 

"We're hiding from any other hunters," you tell him, hoping he's aware enough to understand. "We don't know if that man was hunting alone. So stay small. And quiet. If you're not going to change. I'll go find your dad and bring him to you. You've got to stay hidden." You pull and nose his limbs until he's a smaller, curled-up shape, then run back to the path to bring him the clothes you'd torn out of the backpack, then start draping them over him. He can stay warm, too. Or sort of bandaged. Something.

He's still fumbling with snow, trying to hold it against his biggest wound. Is that something that works? More to the point, is it something you're dextrous enough to manage? You can paw snow up into a mound, but picking it up with your jaws doesn't work— you settle for pawing up big drifts of snow right against him.

That accomplished, you go back to covering him with his clothes, then pulling brush and branches and leaves up all around like a sort of nest, or a fort, or something. You're not a damn beaver. But you're trying.

 

"Erskin. Erskin, baby, stop. Lookit... lookit the drag mark. We can't hide. Dad's gotta find us. Kay? Dad's coming." He's so scared of hunters, you don't blame him, but he's running around and opening his own wounds worse, and to no point. Anyone could look at the bloody place and follow the drag mark to find you. And the snow is wet and crusted, it's not like he could brush out your tracks, even if you weren't leaving a blood trail six inches wide.

"Settle down. Come back. C'mon." You try to catch his ruff, to pet him into settling against you. "Keep me warm."

 

You stare at the dark spatters of blood in the snow, defeated, then let him pull you over. You'll just have to keep alert. Bel's in no shape to heroically fight off the next hunter, so you'll have to do it, and you certainly won't be able to if you don't get the drop on them.

Well, at least all the clothes and branches and such will insulate him, a little. He's shivering. You nose the backpack away from his side and take its place, then dig around till you find the phone and put it in a clear spot by Bel's face. The screen is dark, but it's making noises, so you don't know what's going on, about that.

Lying down hurts. Sitting up hurts. It's all unpleasantly reminiscent of getting stuck in that damn leg-hold trap. You want to keep moving. Instead you curl into him and start licking his poor fingers.

 

"You're so good," you tell him groggily. "Love you. So good. You came back."

The finger-licking hurts, but it keeps you present, keeps you real. You know you're going into shock. Staying awake might save you. So you focus on Erskin and your hands, and every so often you remember to push snow against your side, and you wait.

Time stretches and contracts in weird ways. You have upsetting little half-dreams. You shiver. You explain to the 911 operator that you aren't going to die, because you have to take Mom's ghost camera to Alaska and photograph the wolves. At one point you remember that Rhett guy might've still been in the park, and what if the hunter got him too? He was an asshole, but he didn't deserve to die. You explain to the 911 operator that your dog is a good dog, the best dog, and loves you, and won't leave, so they have to take you both together, okay? Both together to the hospital.

You have no idea if she answers. Sounds are weird right now.

You're honestly shocked that it's still light out when you hear helicopters. "Dad!" you croak, as loud as you can. "Dad, I'm here!" -- even though it's not like he can hear you.

And then, what seems like only seconds later, there's a chopper hovering, and voices -- through the sparse red leaves you glimpse the beautiful, beautiful Machine of Going Home, pale and deafening with that little red cross on its side, and something bright yellow coming down on a line -- oh, it's a stretcher, they're lowering a stretcher, they're going to airlift you -- and you laugh for sheer relief. "We made it, bro," you tell Erskin. "We're gonna be okay."

Stranger voice: "Holy shit, what happened here?"

Stranger voice: "Through here, it looks like he crawled under the trees for shelter. Yeah, I see him -- uh. Uh, there's a. Wolf?"

Dad voice, relieved: "He's got his service dog. I'm coming, I'll calm him down."

Dad voice, soft: "Rusty. Hey, Rusty. Look at you, taking good care of our boy. We're here to help now, it's okay."

 

You remain standing over Bel, puffed up as big and toothy as you can get. No one else gets to touch him but his dad, anyone could have a knife. Everything smells like blood right now, anyway, it wouldn't even need to be a silver knife! When a stranger edges closer you bounce threateningly and snap at her.

 

He's not your dad, but you take his point. You go lean against his legs, trembling, and watch very fucking closely as the strangers approach again. Whenever they look at you, you show them your teeth, just to make it clear what's going to happen to them if they're bad guys.

 

"What happened to your collar, buddy?" Dad says, and through the massive overload of strangers investigating your wounds and trying to put an oxygen mask on you, you manage the impressive feat of realizing he's trying to give witnesses a reason not to see Erskin as a wolf.

"He scraped off his backpack somehow," you mutter with a fond, bloody-toothed grin. "Lil' escape artist. Not without him!" you add, panicky, as the paramedics lift you onto a stretcher. "He's hurt too, he has to come too!"

"Sir, please calm down," a medic tries to tell you, but you're having none of it.

"I'll calm down when I know my furry hero bro is getting the. The. The hero treatment! He is a hero."

Then your dad is there, smoothing your hair back and making wibbleface at you. "He'll be okay. There's a good vet waiting. What if we -- Rusty, can you get up here, sit on his legs?"

 

You shove the strangers aside to get back to Bel. If they'd stopped you you'd probably have bit one, but they thankfully give you some room.

"I'm here," you assure Bel, pressing your chin to his stomach. "I'm here, it's okay." Nothing is okay. You're probably going to lose your head and bite someone, and then you will have to be put down for rabies, or something. The female stranger leans in and you growl at her again, shaking all over with nerves. No one had better grab you, is all, and you think you might just possibly be able to cope.