From The Mists Of Wolf Creek. Rebecca Brandewyne

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      Memories

      Meadowsweet Farm, Wolf Creek, The Present

      For what seemed like an eternity after the wolf had vanished into the twilight, Hallie just sat there in the car, her fear only gradually ebbing to be replaced by overwhelming relief and astonishment at what had happened.

      What had prompted the animal’s bizarre behavior? she wondered, still shaking. Perhaps the beast was deranged—or even rabid! At this last thought she shuddered visibly, knowing there was no cure for rabies and her imagination conjuring horrible, vivid visions of what a mad, sick wolf might have done to her, had it managed somehow to break the windshield and attack her.

      And the way it had grinned at her! In that instant the animal had appeared almost human, amused by her plight and her desperate determination to fend it off however she could.

      Now, for the first time, Hallie vaguely recalled snatches of conversation she had overheard in her childhood, something about the beasts that prowled the copses and meadows surrounding Wolf Creek, that they were not merely wolves, but something more….

      No, that was simply impossible, nothing but local superstition and old-wives’ tales to scare naughty children, surely—although at this particular minute, Hallie could almost believe the stories were true.

      Shivering, she finally realized she still clutched the LifeHammer in her hand, and that the first drops of rain that presaged the impending storm had started to fall, splattering like the saliva from the wolf’s panting tongue against the windshield. She could not continue to remain here on the highway, like a startled deer frozen in the oncoming glare of a pair of deadly headlights in the darkness.

      Opening the glove compartment, she replaced the LifeHammer. Then, slowly, she stepped on the accelerator, only to discover that, sometime earlier, she had mechanically and habitually slid the gearshift into Park, so she had not had to keep her foot on the brake to prevent the vehicle from accidentally lurching forward with the animal atop its hood.

      After slipping the gearshift back into Drive, Hallie started onward. But she had hardly picked up any speed at all when she suddenly observed a large, deep, dangerous pothole on her side of the road and drew once more to a halt.

      Originally, the crater had been visibly marked with an orange-and-white-striped wooden barricade topped with flashing amber lights. But at some point, someone had obviously struck the sawhorse-shaped hazard warning, knocking it flat into the ditch alongside the highway.

      Had Hallie come barreling down the road at her previous rate of speed, it was quite possible she would never even have noticed the blinking lights half concealed by the tall grass of the verge. She would have hit the pothole hard and dead-on, doubtless suffering a blowout or other serious accident.

      If not for the wolf’s unexpected and still-inexplicable intervention, she might even have been killed!

      At the dreadful realization, Hallie felt an icy tingle run down her spine.

      Gram had always taught her that the earth’s creatures were a good deal more sentient than most people ever gave them credit for being. Had the animal somehow known what lay ahead of her in the road? Could it possibly have been attempting to save her?

      No, surely, that was a farfetched idea!

      Still, now that she thought about it, Hallie recognized that the beast had not actually done anything to threaten her. It had only stopped her dead in her tracks, forcing her to proceed a great deal more slowly when she resumed her course.

      Oh, it had been a long day’s worth of driving, and she was hungry, tired and letting her wild imagination run away with her, Great-Aunts Agatha and Edith would most certainly stoutly insist. Hallie had little difficulty at all in envisioning their severe expressions of disapproval and dismay, respectively—Agatha stern and unrelenting, Edith flustered and upset that there should be any discord in the town house.

      So, for a very long time now, Hallie had kept such fanciful notions as these to herself. But it seemed that the closer she got to the farm, the more her childhood self was struggling to emerge from the strict, sheltered cocoon in which the great-aunts had enshrouded it. For a moment, Hallie wondered if when she finally arrived at Meadowsweet, she would metamorphose into one of the bright butterflies that inhabited it. Then she shook her head, smiling ruefully at herself.

      Great-Aunts Agatha and Edith would certainly not have approved of that idea!

      But Gram would have. She would have flung her head back in that wholly unselfconscious and uninhibited way she had about her and laughed—a deep, rich laugh filled with the earthiness of the land she had loved so well and to which she had been so close.

      At the memory, Hallie felt her eyes suddenly flood with tears, and for the second time in less than an hour, a lump rose in her throat, choking her. Abruptly, she laid her head on the steering wheel and cried her heart out.

      But after a short while, she recognized that she must somehow pull herself together and get moving again, that at best, another vehicle might come along at any time and, not realizing she was stopped on the highway, crash into her.

      Besides, there were the imminent storm and darkness to consider.

      Determinedly stifling her sobs, Hallie carefully maneuvered around the treacherous pothole and at last drove on, eyeing the shadowy sky anxiously through the windshield. She loathed being caught in a storm while on the highway, and she suffered from night blindness, as well.

      What if she missed the lonely and poorly marked dirt road that was the narrow turnoff to the farm? She certainly did not want to get lost out here in the middle of nowhere—especially with that huge wolf on the prowl!

      Perhaps next time, it might not have such honorable intentions as she had so whimsically sought to bestow upon it.

      Once or twice, from the corners of her eyes, Hallie uneasily thought she spied it following her, its silky black fur flashing amid the seemingly ceaseless rows of the tall cornfield that ran along one side of the highway. But as the dusk and the rain partially obscured her vision, she could not be sure, and resolutely, she told herself she was only imagining it, that for one thing, there was no way the animal could keep pace with her traveling car, and that for another, even if the beast were crazy and diseased, rather than sane and protective, it would scarcely be stalking her, but, rather, some other prey.

      Still, briefly, she did wonder if there might be something about the color of her vehicle that had initially attracted the wolf and perhaps, more down to earth than her earlier flighty musings, even accounted for its odd behavior. The car was painted a vibrant crimson shade dubbed “Nightfire Red” by the manufacturer, and Hallie knew the color red was supposed to enrage bulls—at least, that was why matadors employed crimson capes in the bullring, although some said the hue was to disguise the bloodstains engendered by the brutal sport.

      But because she had never heard anything mentioned about the color red inciting wolves, she was finally forced to discard the idle theory, eventually putting the entire episode down as a life mystery she would probably never solve.

      Sighing deeply at the thought of other life mysteries that decision brought to mind, Hallie pressed on, wondering again why Gram had ever sent her away from Meadowsweet.

      The rain was falling harder now, making it difficult for her see. So she switched on her windshield wipers and headlamps, once more hoping she did not СКАЧАТЬ