The Way Back

(A story by © Jonathan Dilas)

It was strange news that we had heard in the radio. My friend and I were on our way to a place, where a kind of creature was said to be emerged that had frightened the people there. At the moment, we were about four or five miles away from that place. Just as we wanted to cross the street, we heard an ambulance with its blue lights flashing. We took some steps back onto the pavement, when the ambulance already passed us quickly. Surprised, we looked at each other, because the ambulance did not seem to transport anybody, but was itself on the run. I looked at my friend, laughing, then I said, that they exaggerated their anxiety a little, because the very place was miles away, yet. At the same moment, we heard a screaming so that we looked up the street, which led a little uphill. There stood a gigantic wolf, at least, the creature seemed to be one. A woman let fall off her shopping bag and ran away in panic. But the wolf did only jump - and it was incredible! He opened his mouth and ate the woman in one piece. She really vanished into his terrible greedy jaws and before we could digest the scene the wolf continued with his dreadful deeds. He moved his front paws in a way similar to the chimpanzees’.

My friend and I fearfully looked at each other. I got my control faster back than he did and thus, I took him by the collar to a driveway of a factory site. We ran inside and hid ourselves behind a corner. I pressed myself as close as possible against a wall, made of red bricks, and tried to stifle my gasping. Sweat ran down my forehead. A short glance to my friend told me that he did not have enough courage to look around the corner, in order to see how the wolf behaved, whether he might pass our driveway. My friend read from my eyes the question, which was on the tip of my tongue, therefore he shook his head and struggled with nausea. I nodded and swallowed several times, then I moved along the wall to a ledge, from which I knew it would give me a good view on the street.

I looked very slowly around the corner and could see the wolf just on a level with us, but then he went on. Relieved, I draw a deep breath and when I was about to calm down my friend with this message, my heart almost stopped. The wolf had paused abruptly, remained thus and then, he moved his head in our direction. He could not have seen me! I feverishly thought and my hands started to move uncontrolled. He just could not have seen me, that was impossible! No, he had not seen me, he had...he had felt me! This idea rushed through my head like a shock and I turned to my friend: »The... the wolf, he comes over here!«

I could not bring myself to say more and instantly, I realised that my utterances would only increase his panic. At least, he forgot about his nausea, for he pressed my arm and said that we were lost, by now. I shook my head and answered that the wolf had perhaps only felt us, that he only knew we went in here.

Certainly, the wolf would blindly run into the driveway and would pay attention to the workers, who mixed their cement somewhere on the factory site. My friend nodded and stammered something. I pressed my hand on his mouth and we waited in soundless silence. Even the noises from the machines on the area seemed to be mute for the moment, when the wolf rushed through the driveway. He ran further and thus, he passed us!

»Let’s go!« I whispered and we run on our tiptoes through the driveway, in opposite direction, of course. I ran as fast as I could down the street on my right. Everything seemed to be deserted. Some cars had been left right on the streets and even a bus with warning flashers on made an abandoned impression, In my panic, I realised too late that my friend had went down the street on the left in the direction, from where the wolf had come. Naturally, his decision had been better, because I had the wolf in the back again, now. Therefore I had to manage for another time that he passes me, without noticing me. Still, he had four feet and moved with incredible speed. Suddenly, something made me look quickly over my shoulder. My eyes widened in horror. The wolf rushed again out of the driveway, and though he was at least a hundred metres away, we could look each other in the eyes. With high probability I could even have told his eye colour, because it was, as if my mind slowed down this situation, like having a bike crash in the childhood. For a moment, time was stretched out and thus, it presented enough space for sensible reactions, in order to minimise the dangers ( of the ) fall. This time my perception slowed down, in fact, but additionally his eyes were zoomed up to me and I could directly look into them. It gave me the creeps and I sprinted behind a white caravan. Instantly, I crouched down, because my almost hopeless plan was to wait, until the wolf was on a level with me and then, I could crawl around the car. In the silence of the moment I heard my beating heart. It was, as if it had expanded to my whole body. Everywhere I heard this beating in an unbearable rhythm: bum. bum. bum. bum.

When the wolf was an a level with me, I crawled around the car, as I had planed. I moved my head a little so that I could look over the sealing compound of the side window. (For a moment, I took a short glance at that black sealing compound - and it was so clear, so incredible clear!) I looked through the side window of the car and took a direct look at the wolf. He stood there in the street. In a way, he was very beautiful, although oversized big. His front paws were white, but strangely crooked inwards. Now I understood, why his way of moving remembered me of a chimpanzee. His mouth was opened a little. Very clearly, I saw his threatening teeth. Fright and fascination towards that animal mingled within me, but abruptly those feelings vanished, as he turned his head and looked in my direction. Once again, I crouched down, hold my breath and tried to listen, whether he continued moving or not. Intuitively, I crawled a little further, as soundless as possible. I wanted to reach the boot. No further, only up to the boot! If he actually ran around the car, then, I could try to crawl onto the roof like a snail, if necessary. Then he would not see my hands and feet. I heard his panting, his padding, as if he easily strolled in my direction, sure of his success.

Every movement, which was necessary in order to reach the roof, I carried out in a very slow speed.

Finally! At last, I had reached the point without the feeling of being discovered. But I should be mistaken, however,, because I heard very clearly how the wolf ran around the car. I went onto the boot at once, and pulled myself up to the roof of the car. There, I wanted to lay down as flat as can be so that the wolf would not see me, if he looked up. I firmly shut my eyes, hoping, he might leave me alone and did his dreadful deeds somewhere else, but not here with me!

All of a sudden, something opened within my mind. I heard a voice! Yeah, it was incredible, but I heard a voice, which certainly could not belong to my thoughts. This voice spoke to me - it was not mine, but the wolf’s one!

»I hear you! I hear your breath, those movements, you have made, when creeping onto the roof. I hear your gasping and your heart, beating hart in excitement and agony.«

I really heard this voice in my mind. I was convinced that death would occur, exactly now, when I even hallucinated my murderer’s voice. Only in view of death one has such experiences, which every science would declare as crazy.

Then, I heard very clearly, how the wolf jumped onto the bonnet of the car and with the most intense clearness I ever had in my life, I heard his panting and sniffed his breath that stank of blood.

Now it was time. I had ever imagined death as something horrible, something unavoidable, but at this moment I realised that it actually was inevitable, but what I really feared was a dragged on dying, painful and cruel.

But now I could be happy, for death would happen quickly and thoroughly. I did not want to speculate, whether the wolf would bite me through in the middle or whether he would swallow me in one piece so that I would suffocate from lack of oxygen in his stomach.

Again, something opened within my mind and this time it was not, as if the wolf spoke to me directly, but he rather transformed one of his recalls to me, which I could experience myself.

»I am a wolf. A strange creature. A creature that ancient Indians created and set free so that it should eat up everybody, who did not succeed in gathering enough energy and power for reaching people’s ultimate and most important aim.«

In front of my inner eyes I clearly saw those old Indians, who had created this wolf and set it on the members of their tribe, in order to test them by an incredible examination. Did they have summed enough energy to meet the great ghost?

Those failed, who were eaten by the wolf afterwards. A very brutal and irresponsible examination, it seemed to me, but I realised that of still unknown reasons, this wolf had been come to our time and civilisation, in order to continue with this terrible test.

Like an inexplicable pressure, which was suddenly exerted on me, I opened my eyes and looked directly into his right eye. He stepped back and changed like the magician in one of those films with poor special effects, into a man. Now he was very musculous, had short, fair hair, and all that remained of the horrible wolf was the wild and mad look in his dark eyes.

»You have some energy, it is not really sufficient, to let you live, but it might be enough. Therefore I will stay at your side and accompany you on your way back.«

Now I remembered, whom I really met.