Deadly Encounters

He was running through the forest, the leaves crunching under him as he fled the coming darkness. He didn't know what it was that was after him, but he most certainly did not want to find out. The ground seemed to shudder with every leap and bound he took, as if what was after him was keeping pace, and gaining ground much faster than he could escape. The moon barely lit the trail ahead of him, and he realized that, if he were to make it, he would need to switch to a deer trail. Because whatever was after him? It was big.

Seeing an opening between two trees, he ducked inside the dense understory, feeling the thorns brush off of his clothing as he passed. The rumbling behind him stopped, as if it had been just about to catch him, and he held his breath for just a moment too long. He gasped as he moved, a little slower, but steadily, through the forest's darkness. He could hear the snapping of sticks behind him, and knew that in this game of predator and prey, he was the loser.

Was it a demon? He did not remember smelling a new demonic presence in the area when he had stepped into the night. Although, where had he been when he had begun this fleeing, anyway? He couldn't remember, and slowly, he realized, he was dreaming.

He turned, though, and standing before him was a monstrosity, with gnashing teeth and slobbering lips. The smell was putrid, too intense to be a true dream. It was white, almost, glowing, in the moonlight, grinning at him crookedly as it reached out for his throat. No, this was a prophecy. He was meant to be aware of this message. And his dream self was about to meet a gruesome end. The scene faded as the pain of the claws dug into his throat. He was paralyzed, and he couldn't breathe or even scream to save his own life.

Alex awoke sweaty and shaking, sitting upright in bed. He was intensely aware of the silence in his bedroom, of the slow creaking of the door. Was this another demon come to attack him in the night? He flipped the light on, quickly, reaching under his pillow for his hunting knife.

There was nothing. At least, nothing that he could see with his human eyes. And nothing smelled too fishy, either. Just a dream. An important dream, but still just a dream. Alex slid up against the wall that his bed was backed up to. The wall was cool, and felt refreshing on his hot and fevered skin. What had the dream meant?

Deep inside, Alex knew what it meant, but still he wondered. Now? When the island is full of innocents? Are you sure? Those words were mostly to himself, but he knew what he had to do.

Alex rose slowly from his bed, hunting knife still in hand. He got up, got his balance, and then immediately kneeled on the floor, atop the ancient woven rug handed down to him by his predecessor. He stuck the knife through the woven strands and into the hole had so carefully carved into the floor for his weapon. It stuck, upright, half the blade showing, and Alex began the ancient ritual. It would be a long night, but despite his prayers, despite his pleas to the gods, they were silent. They would not tell him [what]{.underline} was coming. Only that something big, and something bad, was coming. And it was coming for him, and then for the rest of the island.

#

The storm battered the windows with such ferocity that Ivy thought that the windows might shatter at any moment. Ranger Phelps had been by the night before to warn them of the incoming storm, and to stay inside. He said it could be expected to last at least a day, possibly two. It was always uncertain what these weather systems would do over Kir'nu.

The scientists were excited for a day off, but at the same time, the ferocity of the storm led Haywood to pacing, and then, of all things, cooking. He could not go to the store for more supplies, as ferry service was closed except for emergencies, but he made due with what they had, making a delicious breakfast of pancakes from scratch. He followed that with lunch, just a few hours later, of fried pork chops. He had used leftover flour, salt, pepper, and some other, more exotic spices in the breading, and it was delicious.

It did, however, send them all to their beds for an early afternoon nap and bargain with their stomachs not explode. After eating such a bland diet the last couple of weeks, the fried food was a welcome surprise, but also, a welcome disaster. Ivy found herself taking a nice, hot bath to ease her stomach discomfort, sitting in the bath with a pile of her thesis edits.

Haywood and Ivy had been working, slowly, on her thesis edits, passing back and forth new copies from the ancient printer as they hammered out seemingly endless trains of draft after draft, each just a little better than the last. She probably should've been reading a cheesy romance novel instead of her own thesis, but she didn't fight the motivation when it came. Especially when it came so infrequently.

In the library, Haywood was exploring some of the more ancient Kir'nu records. Something in field notebook entries had intrigued him. Bigfoot esque sightings along the southern shore of the island, what was probably now either right where the field station was, or just a little bit into the federally restricted preserve area, where they were most definitely not allowed (but Ivy, of course, went anyway).

And the strength of the Ranger's reprimand. Not only had he come to warn the entire lab, but afterwards, he had pulled Haywood aside to explicitly reaffirm the idea that the restricted preserve area was dangerous because of wolves. That, to Haywood, meant that there was something more than the Ranger was telling them.

For one, both Ivy and Haywood knew that an entire pack of wolves could not subsist on such a small area -- the area of the restricted preserve. If anything, a pack would be hard pressed to survive on the entire island, especially with the lack of interbreeding and genetic outsourcing that other populations would provide. In addition, why would they introduce wolves? They would be much better off introducing solitary apex predators, like cougars, or even coyotes, to take care of the accidentally introduced deer and feral pigs.

But, Ivy had definitely affirmed her observations: She had heard the distinct howling of wolves from inside the restricted area. Which meant that either there was at least one wolf, or, there were recordings.

And finally, Haywood was concerned about the amount of time that Ivy had spent inside the perimeter, where she had been completely... gone, from Terrance's view. They had only discussed it briefly, but their stories were very, very different. Ivy maintained -- and Haywood believed her -- that she had merely stepped across to check out the endemic pitcher plants on the other side.

Terrance maintained -- and honestly, Haywood believed him, too -- that when he turned his back, suddenly, Ivy was gone, and it took two hours for her to come back. Terrance may have been exaggerating the two hours, but regardless, it had seemed to him like much more than fifteen minutes. In addition, Ivy only a few hundred yards away would have been within shouting distance, especially on such a quiet island. Things just weren't adding up.

And so, Haywood was exploring the historical documents of Kir'nu, to see if they would lead him anywhere. Other than the one odd Bigfoot entry though, Haywood had come up flat. He noticed that any of the odd entries, like about lost time, or strange noises, always came after a researcher or ranger had been recently relocated. The strange entries never came after a few months. It was like after a while, the rangers began to filter the strange occurrences out of their field journal entries. Why they had never erased their aberrant entries though, if this was indeed a cover up, Haywood had no clue.

Terrance was satisfying his own curiosity about the island by completely ignoring the events of the past few days. He had booted up his computer to play a few rounds of solitaire, and then spent the rest of his afternoon browsing the internet for funny cartoons. That is, until the internet went down.

It had always been slow -- dial up -- but shortly after an exceptionally loud crack outside of the field station, they lost the internet. Thankfully, they did not lose power. Other than one flashlight, the field research station was notoriously lacking in emergency supplies.

Separated from his source of amusement, Terrance left his computer and went into the library, joining Haywood, who had old maps and documents spread over the large, dark stained table in the center of the room.

"Got anything interesting, boss?"

"Maybe." Haywood acknowledged Terrance. "I'm looking for interesting stuff in the historical records. Want to join me?"

"Like what?"

"Well..." Haywood paused a moment, then decided to go ahead with his instincts, and trust the young man. "Honestly, I'm not sure. But with the way you and Ivy believe different things about her little adventure... and with the way the Ranger was so angry about her trespassing... I just feel like there's something they're not letting us in on."

"He was really angry, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. And scared. Like we had gotten too close to something."

"But if there was some super secret thing going on here, wouldn't they erase it from the history of the place?" Terrance asked thoughtfully, after a moment.

"Maybe." Haywood acknowledged again. "But, maybe not. For example..." Haywood stopped speaking for a moment as he moved to the corner of the table to take out a dusty, leather bound field journal, about fifty years old. "Take a look at this. Here, on the third page, the ranger writes about seeing a strange, large, hairy man in the woods on his patrol."

"Wow. Crazy." Terrance moved over to Haywood's side and gently took the journal from his hands to glance over it.

"There's nothing else in that one, but in others, there are strange noises, and random dead animals..." Haywood took a breath. "But all of these observations happen in the beginning of these journals. As if they rangers get accustomed to the strangeness as they go. Or let in on the secret or something."

"Wow, you're developing quite the conspiracy, aren't you?" Terrance laughed nervously, and Haywood smiled.

"Yes, I suppose I am. But what else are we to do on such a violent day?" Haywood asked, and the thunder rumbled in answer, shaking the field research station's walls with ferocity.

"Alright." Terrance said, slapping Haywood on the back. "I'm in."

#

It was the day after the storm, and Ivy and Terrance were out to survey the damage. The small, planted trees outside of the field research station had fared rather well, but the rest of the island had not. Even the rangers were out in full force today, picking up the pieces and making sure that none of the stranded hikers had fared poorly in the storm. The scientists were released to survey their sites without supervision, but with the rangers everywhere, it was obvious that Ivy and Terrance could not sneak away to do any more restricted area observations. That was ok. If trees had fallen into their quadrats, there would be enough clean up to do without warranting time spent on their "extracurricular" project. The scientists, of course, had already developed action plans for if one of their sites was damaged.

Haywood and Emily had gone in the opposite direction, to the river, to see if the storm caused flooding, and if it was safe to resume invertebrate sampling. They had been sampling weekly, and were going to try to correlate hiker density with stream health, chemically, and stream biodiversity. They didn't expect a huge change in invertebrates, but the chemistry would tell them if the hikers were stressing the river.

"Doesn't look too bad." Terrance commented to Ivy as they were walking towards the transects. They had been told to stay away from the Red Rock Caves area, in case the violent storms had dislodged some of the larger boulders.

"Not at all, considering the crazy weather. Maybe these trees are used to the dangers of living on Kir'nu."

"Heh. So they're like super trees?"

"Absolutely." Ivy laughed. "We might be able to get a publication out of it. Especially if there are barely any trees down here. Those were close to hurricane force winds."

"There's one." Terrance pointed to a small tree, laying across the perimeter fence.

"It's like the fates are begging us to cross that barrier."

"You know we can't, today." Terrance pointed out, and Ivy nodded.

"We should probably head back. If the perimeter fence is down, those supposed wolves might be around. Or the cougars. Or the aliens."

"Should we radio it in?"

"We'll just go back and let one of them do it. Ranger Phelps will know what to do about it." Ivy said. "It shouldn't take more than a fifteen minute walk, right? What could possibly go wrong?"

Ivy found out several minutes later, exactly what could go wrong. She and Terrance were still within sight of that fence when the sound of something walking in the leaf litter of the woods came from the outer perimeter -- from near the main road that circled the preserve. Ivy looked up, but couldn't see anything.

"Weird." She said. "Do you hear that sound?"

"Yeah. I was trying not to notice it."

"Did you... not notice how it stopped when we did?"

"Yes. I absolutely did not notice that."

"Do you have your knife?" Ivy asked quietly. "It could be one of the things that they were keeping in. Or it could be a squirrel."

"I've yet to see a squirrel here." Terrance pointed out, as he unclipped his field knife from his belt.

"I know." Ivy said, taking her knife out too. "Can you reach your radio easily, without bending over or taking your pack off?"

"Yeah, it's in my pocket. From when I was about to use it to report the fence down earlier." Terrance dug the walkie talkie out of his pocket. "Here."

"Thanks." Ivy took the walkie and they heard the noise again, this time much closer. They turned and saw a large black dog, with brilliantly white teeth, quite literally smiling at them.

Ivy's hands were shaking, but she managed to hold onto the knife and the walkie talkie as she said slowly and calmly to Terrance, "We need to act really big and shout and scream. Just like if it was a bear. We need to show it that we're bigger than it."

"Um, that's not a wolf." Terrance said. "Or its the strangest wolf I've ever seen. Like, ever."

"Go away!" Ivy shouted, waving her arms at the dog. Unperturbed, it sat down.

"Um, Ivy?" Terrance shouted, not as a question, but rather as a plea, and waved his arms to the left of Ivy. She glanced over, where another giant dog was sitting patiently, waiting for them to stop their antics.

"Are we surrounded!" Ivy yelled, looking slowly to her right. At least on three sides, yes, they were. "We need to get back to back. If you see an opening, run for it!"

"Okay. I don't want to leave you!" Terrance shouted, grabbing her arm with the walkie. He rotated with her so that they were back to back. Just three wolves, he realized, and there was an opening in the exact direction that they had been initially walking.

"The trail ahead is free!" Terrance shouted. He relinquished her arm as she pulled it away from him and brought the walkie to her mouth.

"Wolves." She pressed the button and shouted into the walkie talkie. "There are giant black wolves surrounding Terrance and I halfway between our transect area and home base. Please help." She let go of the button, knowing that the stalemate between the wolves and the humans would not stay like this forever. A muffled voice of hope rang through the radio.

"Hang on." She thought it was Phelps, but she was unsure. "Help is on the way."

She sure hoped so. She did not think that Terrance and she could handle three gigantic dogs. These dogs, sitting, nearly came to her neck. Terrance was far more muscular than she, but it would only take one bite. Human flesh is not made for battles.

"Terrance, we're going to make it through this." Ivy said quietly. "I promise. If you get a chance, run."

"You too." Terrance said, and Ivy acknowledged her consent.

The wolves were inching closer. Even though she barely saw the movement -- it was if they were sliding their butts across the forest floor; they seemed to be growing closer by the second.

"I'm going to hand you the walkie." Ivy said, lowering her hand from her mouth. "If they start advancing, I want you to chuck it as hard as you can at one's head. Try to go up a tree if you can't outrun them. Try to get back to home base."

"You're talking like you're going to make some crazy kamikaze move."

The wolves had stood and were actively, but tentatively, advancing. Their growls were ominous.

"I'm not. I just want to make sure we're on the same page."

"I think it's time." Terrance said. The middle wolf couldn't be more than fifteen feet from the two bodies.

"The others will probably leap at our throats after we startle their leader. Thrust the knife up. Go for the heart, or the throat, or the eyes."

"I've been in fights before." Terrance pointed out. "Just not with wolves."

"Are you ready?"

"This going to make such a cool story. I'm ready."

"Ok. Take your shot. Remember, startle them, defend yourself from a counter attack, then run like hell."

Terrance lifted the walkie talkie to throw it in his best baseball-esque throw, despite his basketball expertise, but it was like the wolves knew what he was going to do before he did it. All three leapt.

Ivy screamed, stabbing out with her knife and making contact. Terrance used the walkie as a stone and his knife as the follow through. Although he got the first one, and it backed away with a whimper, the second was not so skittish, and leapt upon him. Terrance struggled under the snapping jaws, desperately trying to get his toned legs under the wolf's gigantic body to push it off. He swung out blindly with the knife, but could not seem to get any more than fur in his strikes.

His right foot slipped under the wolf's body, and he hoped it would be enough. He didn't feel any pain, yet, but he knew that somewhere, somehow, he was bleeding. Drilling his left foot into the ground, he pushed down with his left and into the wolf's stomach with his right. The sudden move surprised the monstrously heavy wolf and he flipped right over Terrance's body. Terrance scrambled up, knife in hand, much quicker than the wolf could get its bearings.

The wolf stared at him. Great. Another standoff. Where was Ivy? Terrance hadn't heard her scream, so he assumed that she must be okay. Where were the other two wolves?

With a sickening feeling, Terrance realized that Ivy must've run for help, and the other two wolves must've follower her.

"Go away!" He shouted at the wolf. "I don't want to hurt you!"

He could see blood smeared on its coat, but he wasn't sure if it was his blood or the wolves. He cast a wayward glance down at his own outfit. Clean, albeit a bit dusty. So it was the wolf's blood. Well. Dog. Wolves were not as black and big as this dog. Feral island dogs, perhaps? The eyes were remarkably intelligent though. The dog almost looked... insulted by his injuries. Maybe Ivy was okay.

"Terrance!" A shout distracted Terrance from the stare down with the wolf. Ranger Phelps was running up to him, gun drawn and pointed at the wolf-dog. "Are you okay? Where's Ivy? Move back slowly!"

Terrance backed up, but before the ranger could get close enough to fire his gun, the wolf took off at a trot in the opposite direction.

"Shit." The Ranger said. "Are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine. I don't know where Ivy went. There was a scuffle."

"Okay. We're all converging on this area. She's intelligent. She should be able to handle these dogs. It's just weakness and fear that makes them aggressive. Not that you guys were -- I mean, you know."

"I know. These guys were out for our blood. They were stalking us before they attacked."

"Did you try to scare them off?" The ranger kept his gun drawn, but gave Terrance the once over.

"Yes. We shouted and waved our arms. It did nothing." Terrance realized he was shaking, but shamefully, could do nothing to stop it.

"Looks like you got the crea -- the wolf, a little." The ranger was pointing at Terrance's field knife. Terrance nodded.

"Don't worry." Ranger Phelps said, putting a comforting arm around Terrance's shoulders.

"We'll find her."

#

Ivy was running as fast and as far as she could. The wolves were following behind at an easy pace, as if they were just waiting for her to tire before they pounced. She had grazed one of them with her knife, and had gotten a head start. She had seen Terrance kick the third off of him, and knew that he would be just fine. The wolves seemed more intent on playing with their food than killing it. These island wolf-dogs were very strange.

But play their games she must. She had no other choice. She could not handle two. So she would run until she could run no longer, and hope that help would get to her before the wolves did.

Ivy seemed mostly intact -- a small scratch on her forehead was occasionally dripping blood down her face and onto her lips, but she wasn't concussed. The wolf that attacked her had seemed to be going for Terrance above her, and its paw had raked her face pretty badly. The blood was annoying, and a constant reminder of her own mortality.

She realized that she was running towards the bog, probably the last place she should go. She knew the fence was down, and had a hypothesis: perhaps if she crossed the broken barrier, they would not, for fear of being trapped. Then again, they could see it as her entering their territory, permission to rip her to shreds. But she had to do something, and this was the direction she was headed anyway. Perhaps the bog would slow them down.

Ivy's breath came fast and hard, as she saw the fallen tree holding the fence down, looming in the distance. Not much farther, before she would either die trying to save her own life, or save her own life by diving. Where was the omnipresent Alex Sloane when she needed him? Why didn't she have a bigger knife?

The tree had fallen into the restricted area, making a nice bridge for her to leap. The wolves were keeping their distance, but she did not slow more than a fraction when she reached the tree. Gathering her courage, she jumped onto the trunk, thanking the gods as it held her weight and she vaulted over the fence into the restricted area.

It was not quite as she imagined. The wolves did indeed, pause, for a moment. As if... thinking at each other. No, that was impossible. Then again, this entire situation was impossible. What would her mother say, if she got eaten by wolf-dogs on a tropical island?

She heard a growl behind her and her stomach sank. Had she run smack dab into another wolf? She turned her head, knowing that she was sacrificing her position with the other two, to see the new danger that awaited her. Yes, another wolf-dog. This one though, was much lighter in color. But it had the same eyes: intelligent. Angry. Devilish.

To the bog, she decided, as the new wolf advanced, and she could hear the wolves behind her moving closer and closer to the fence. Her eyes darted to the right -- yes, the path was clear. Hey, maybe the wolves would decide to fight each other instead of her.

That was her last coherent thought as the light wolf leapt at her. She ducked preemptively, but lost her balance and fell flat onto her face on the hard, hard ground. Her head exploded with lots of pretty lights and colors, and Ivy knew no more.

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