“Take care, love. I will call,”
“Yeah, you do that,” Victor said, giving her a smile. He gave her a little hug, then stood back and watched her go swiftly through the town’s gate. Then he fired his bike and raced away.
On his way back to the cabin, As he passed through the place where the Fur Hunters had assaulted Selena, he noticed that there was no sign that something had occurred there. There were no car tracks or scattered loose sands. Apart from him coming the previous night to do some clear up, the early morning brisk wind had also helped in smoothing and flattening the sands and obliterating the wheel tracks of the car the Fur Hunters had brought. He nodded to himself, pleased for being meticulous. He got to the cabin and parked the bike in the shed. He entered the cabin and went to the fridge.
He took out a can of beer, snapped the cap off, and took a long pull. He belched gently and picked up the small radio. He snapped it on. The local radio station was playing one of Metallica’s greatest hits. The rock sound was blasting hard through the small speakers. Victor nodded his head rhythmically to the beats, and placed the radio on a table. He sauntered into the kitchenette. He fixed himself a plate of sliced bread, veggies, scrambled eggs and tomatoes.
He brought his sandwich to the room and sat heavily on a chair. He took a big bite, munching hard and licked his lips.
From the music from the radio stopped and a voice was saying;
‘Yesterday in our town, there was a big showdown between humans and scary beasts. It was like something out of a wild story! Our brave Fur Hunters really showed their courage, fighting off those creatures. Sadly, we lost three hunters, including our town's beloved priest, Father Rupert. He was a real hero. We'll miss him a lot. Huge thanks to Mr. Caesar Davenport, who led the hunters and helped defeat the beasts. The best part? They took down the Alpha of the Blood Rebel pack, Jack Axgorn. It was a major win for our town!’
The food in Victor’s hand dropped to the floor. His face became white and he could feel cold sweats rolling off him. He snapped the radio off, his hands shaking. He could hear the sound of his heart, pounding fast, and it told him how quiet the room was. Had he heard right? Jack was dead? No way! No working way! Of course! Jack had told him they were going ahead with the attack, he believed that part. Jack had told him he was gold to lead the attack, this part was the part Victor didn’t believe. He told the Alpha was bluffing.
He had thought wrong. The fool had gone ahead with the attack, still leading it. The Wolf Stopper must have got him, he thought. Yes, that was the only thing that could have killed Jack easily. The fool! He had killed himself for nothing. He remembered how Jack had managed to take care of all of them while their parents had been killed. Jack was like a father and mother to them. Fine! He had his own misgivings. He had made a lot of mistakes. But boy, he tried for them. He had taken care of everyone in the pack and now he was no more. He had fought, survived, fought and killed for nothing! All for nothing!
Victor got to his feet. Emotions washed over him and he discovered that his legs were shaking. He dropped back into the chair. He picked up the beer can. His trembling fingers made him drop it back to the table. Lots of thoughts were turning around his skull. The room suddenly felt hot and he became restless. Suddenly, he ran out the cabin, to one of the trees facing the cabin. He went there and began to punch the tree, great violent blows that shook the trees vigorously. He began to scream;
“Why? Why? Damn you to hell, Jack! Your pack needed you! You didn’t have to go. You should have stayed back! Stayed fucking back!” and he fell to the ground, he buried his face in the undergrowth, and cried for the fate of Jack and the remaining survivors of the pack.
********************
Later that day, when it was dark, Victor visited the pack. The air had gone dead. There was no movement in the trees; no wind; only a hot stillness that oppressed him. He found the remaining Blood Rebel pack members at their usual meeting ground. The silence that engulfed the whole place was so heavy that it could sink a cruiser. When the pack members saw Victor, none of them confronted or threatened him. They all looked at him, vacantly, a gloomy expression on their faces. After all, they knew he must have heard the death of their Alpha and must have come to pay his condolences.
Victor regarded them all as they sat around a big campfire. They were all led by twenty in number, much less than the number he had seen the last time he saw them here. He cursed under his breath and grimaced. With these few numbers, how the hell were they supposed to win this fight? He shook his head and looked around. He stiffened as his eyes fell on Safiya who sat on a big log. For some reasons which he couldn’t explain, she was staring hard at him, and In the flames of the fire, she looked ill and defeated. It was obvious she had been crying…..crying hard. Though she still looked beautiful, but her eyes which were red, sunken and the dark smudges under them gave her a haughty look. They both stared at each other for a long moment, and she looked away.
He dragged his eyes to Helldog. There was a heavy scowl on his face. There was a cigarette smoldering between his thin fingers. He was looking bitter and sullen. Victor was sensitive to the sad, angry atmosphere around the camp. The pack members had lost their leader and everyone was nursing their grief one way or another. Victor, tired of standing, moved to a piece of log and sat on it. He brought out a cigarette pack from his pockets and shook out one. He lit it and dragged in, letting it out slowly.
“We can’t win this war,” one of the men said, breaking the silence. “I believe we best pack up and move on”
Victor regarded the man. He was tall, powerfully built and wicked looking. His name was Valko.
“I don’t think we should go,” a blonde girl with deep green eyes and glittering red lips said. Her name was Kiara. “I think we should stay and finish this fight. We can’t let those bastards get out with what they did. They’ve been killing us since I was little. They killed my whole family. I’m ready to sacrifice my life for this fight,”
“Well I’m not,” Valko fired back. “I’m getting the hell out of here. I won’t allow those damned humans to do to me what they did to my parents. I’m going to go to one of those gold mining town, hooked up one of those dynamite dames they’ve got up there and start a family,”
“You could still be killed, you know,” Night Claws returned. “I remember when I went to a fight with Helldog and we killed that damned farmer and his family. He blew Magnum brains out with a shotgun …with just a shotgun and that was before Helldog ripped him out,” He paused and went on. “What I’m trying to say is this, anywhere we go, we could still be killed. Our lives are always in danger. We’ve got to always watch our back. But if we take Fur Rivers back, we don’t need to do that any more. Why, cause it’s ours.
“But we can’t continue to fight those humans, especially with that godforsaken ray gun they have now,” a tough looking brunette from the pack pointed out. Her name was Lexi. “I’ve never seen anything like that gun. It killed our brothers and sisters yesterday like flies. They didn’t have to shoot. They just point the fucking thing at us and it spits. We stood no chance against that gun,” Her voice took an angry tone. “My sister was killed yesterday. I saw her fall with her guts all over the ground. That bloody gun eats you up like a goddamned cancer and you want us to continue with this fight?” She gasped, her body shuddering with fury.
Where Victor sat, he could feel hot rage boiling inside him but he stilled himself. He wished to talk, to scream out ti whole pack how he had warned Jack and Helldog about the Wolf Stoppers but they had tossed his warnings away. But talking now would make the whole pack have a bad memory about the late jack, he reasoned. He doesn’t want that for Jack, and so he sat there, smoldering with cool rage.
“That’s why I said we pack up and get the hell outta here why we still can,” Valko grunted.
“No! We don’t do that!” Helldog voice rapped out. Another silence engulfed the whole camp. Seeing he had their attention, he got to his feet, threw the cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his boot. He regarded the pack members, his eyes cold and unfeeling. “They killed our Alpha like a stuck pig. We can’t even give our Alpha a befitting burial. I’m pretty sure some of us listened to the radio and we all heard it this morning. Our Alpha is dead, killed like a dog. Do you know what this bastards, especially that fucking Caesar would do to body of our Alpha and our fallen brothers and sisters?”’his eyes glared at them. “Burn’ em yeah that’s what they're gonna do. They're gonna burn ‘em!” He pointed to Valko “And you wanted us to leave just like that? No fighting back! No nothing! We just packed the hell up and moved on, just like that?” He glowered at Valko.
Valko, who could not stand the hostility in Helldog’s eyes, looked away, frowning.
Helldog continued. “We need to hit these fools! We need to hit them where it fucking hurts!
“I did that yesterday!” A voice from the pack said. “I fixed the priest with my own paws.”
Everyone including Victor, turned to look at the speaker.
It was a boy barely under twenties, slim, white immature face, with bleak gray eyes. Amwolf - for the boy name was Amwolf - got to his feet, his face hard as stone. Helldog regarded him searchingly. In spite of the immaturity, there was something about his eyes and the rigid way he held himself that made some of it. the members of the pack are uneasy. Of course, Helldog knew him. In fact the whole pack knew him. But they didn’t know the boy had it in him. Helldog was intrigued.
“Amwolf, you mean you were the one that killed the priest,”
Amwolf’s thin mouth tweeted into a sneer.
“I killed him alright. '' His voice was soft and timbreless. I killed him and his bloody bodyguard too. They didn’t see it coming. See, Raven and I trailed the priest to his house. That ray gun got Raven. It killed him. I was luckier. I got that man holding the ray gun and ripped his head off.” There was a strange elation in his voice, and his eyes were glittering with pride. “Then I gutted the priest too. He didn’t see it coming! Y’all should have seen his face! Bruhhh, y’all should have! I gutted him so much the old timer fainted in my hands. I felt him go limp just like that,” he snapped his fingers, and he was smiling now, in the orange flames of the fire, he looked like a sick looney. “Christ! It felt so damned good! It felt like fucking a bitch! Even better!”
Helldog went to the boy, grinned wolfishly.
“You did good boy,” he patted Amwolf with his fingertips on his cheeks playfully. “You did pretty good. The late Alpha’s spirit is pleased with you,”
“I want a reward!” Amwolf declared. “I believe I deserve one,”
Helldog’s smile vanished.