The Building
I sit watching from my safe distance and secluded peeking spot at the large singular building nestled in an unnatural clearing, surrounded by ten feet of barbed wire fencing that stretches all the way around, save for a set of very large gates at the far side. All closed and locked tight and looking deserted. There are dirt tracks showing signs of infrequent visits from off road vehicles leading up to it coming from the south, and I have been perched here for signs of life for the last hour as I try to figure out if it’s safe to get closer.
It took the rest of the day to get here, following an imaginary line from my previous camp spot in the general direction and sticking to hyper speed for most. I’m tired, my back agony from keeping on trekking at an hour I have grown accustomed to being the settling down and making camp stage. I’m sweating, breathless, hot and sticky and currently sat on my backpack as I try to figure out how stupid I would be if I just went and further investigated.
There’s no signs of life, no new tracks or lingering scents of anyone being around the perimeter from this distance. It seems silent but then it’s a large white windowless building , with a rough cast of fine white stone and looks exceptionally clean for being out here in the middle of no mans land. It has an aura of mystery and my guy is telling me to be wary, even if it’s urging me to investigate.
The mast on top is a huge metallic construction like the Eiffel tower almost, and sits on the roof like it’s a custom platform, stretching some thirty feet upwards. I thought at first it was a telecom mast or maybe power but there’s nothing connecting to what looks like a massive radio antenna coming from the top of it. There’s a generators steel box, almost half the size of the building within the compound and yet sat apart from it and it’s humming on low within its own encasement, suggesting this building has power.
There’s something off even if on the surface it looks how I imagine an unmanned power plant substation would look, and despite that my inner weird voice that kept pushing me east, its telling me to get closer. My own mind and instincts battling with what to do and its why I have sat here staring at it for so long. The sensible part is screaming danger, the less logical me is telling me how harmless this looks and that there is no signs of life at all. The weak part of me is aching for some sort of connection to civilisation and a longing to touch something real and man made after so many weeks alone. It just reminds me that despite doing better, I have been crushingly lonely still.
I can’t see any way in from this angle so the door must face those giant gates, which means it only has one entrance and nothing else. Not exactly a layout for any kind of worrying military base, I mean, it’s not even that big. At most you could park two of the Santo trucks inside so I doubt it homes anymore than some power grid equipment for maybe some of the further rural homes. Maybe it’s a radio station with sporadic visits or something. I don’t have a clue as it’s hardly my area of expertise. It’s not big enough to be anything much else.
The point is after an hour sat here, I haven’t gotten any signs of life or any reason to not go and have a closer look and the only thing stopping me is my own terrified level of suspicion. I’m just being overly cautious, my feeble side wading in and even the wind blowing this way is picking up on no human scent in any way. It seems completely deserted.
I can see cameras at the corners of the building on this side and they probably have them at the front too, but they are all pointing down at the ground within the fences so I can at least get that close without being caught on them. I guess they are to pick up on wildlife getting in or something. I might see more if I go around the other side and figure out what it is. It might have signs or maybe hazard warnings if it is just a power plant. If I know for sure then I can stop tiptoeing around and relax.
I exhale heavily, wiping the rolling beads of moisture from my brow and look up at the fading light in the greying sky. I should find a place to make camp and stop wasting what daylight I have left. Come back in the morning, but that means trekking further as this is the first clearing I have come across in hours. There’s nothing nearby that looks like a good place to set up , so maybe I might have to sacrifice a comfy night and roll up in the bear fur right here. I can’t think of anything else to do.
It’s either go check this out and then walk on when I know what it is and if I can salvage anything, or camp and look at it in the new day. I’m exhausted, really need to eat and I don’t have the energy to do much of anything.
I get up, mind in two halves and pull my backpack up with me, lugging its heavy weight as I try to make a decision. I don’t want to be out in the open when darkness falls as despite not picking up on any creatures of the night, I can’t be sure there aren’t any lurking in caves or underground tunnels. I remember the stories that they came out of the ground during the war. I would just prefer to stick to my usual plan of picking a site and staying there until dawn.
I don’t wander far, realising it’s wall to wall close knit trees in all directions but one, moving towards the building. It really is the only part here that ahs space to even lay down and I am not about to sleep in the clearing near it.
I doubt any passing big cat, bear or such spends much time walking it’s perimeter so I make the decision to pick a tree with great leaf cover and climb one. It’s better than being a sitting duck on the forest floor and I doubt I will get any real sleep when I haven’t found a good place to hide out. Up a tree I can tie myself to the trunk and at least dose off and on through the night and wait to investigate until morning. It will give me a little security and at least up high, I can defend myself if needs be.
I end up walking a full circle and finding the right kind of trees nearer the main gates of the building. One’s with wide bases, multiple branches from mid-way up with extra amounts of foliage and twisting crisscrossing boughs for platforms. I squeeze between two that are close together, about twenty feet up their branches merge and curl to make an extra wide landing place and have to haul myself up with my backpack on, finding it a little more labour intensive than normal.
When I get up there, I manage to find a flat enough spot that with one of my pelts rolled out I snuggle into a dip between two parallel boughs and can properly lay down without having to anchor myself to anything. I hang my backpack on a broken stump on the trunk and lay out on top of my makeshift bed, stretching and wriggling to see how comfy I can get, satisfied that this isn’t too bad, as long as it doesn’t get windy or rain tonight. I don’t want to unroll pelts that could slide off if I roll in my sleep and draw attention to lurking wildlife. I won’t have a fire to keep some of the natural creatures at bay up here, so I have to make do with cold meat, a bumpy bed and the rustling and swaying of the trees to lull me into slumber. Not that I think it will be an issue as now I am up here, my eye are heavy and my brain cloudy with fatigue.
I sit and watch the building through the foliage for a while, sat at my safe distance, watching as the shadows lengthen and become part of the dark surroundings as light fades fast. I’m already exhausted from my extended trekking today so settling down and beginning to drift off is easier than usual. Not the usual spew of weighty things on my mind to keep me awake and it feels like only seconds of blinking and drowsiness before I zone out.
I wake with a start, jumping slightly and sitting up fast, banging my head on rough wood and silently yelping as I properly come to. I must have drifted into a deeper sleep so fast because it was a second ago, I could still see my hand in front of me and now I am in utter pitch darkness and can’t even make out what I am sitting on. Disorientated at first until I remember where I am and how I got here and my belly rumbles because I didn’t eat. I woke with a fright for sure and my heart is thundering through my chest as my nocturnal eyesight kicks into touch, clawing the area around me frantically.
I’m not sure exactly what woke me yet and I slowly sit up, sliding my legs up, my knees touching my chest as I rub my now bruised lumpy forehead while scanning my surroundings for a cause. Taking deep breaths to calm down and centre, letting my senses take over rather than my scared brain.
It doesn’t take me long to see what brought me round, once I settle down and actually look. There’s a shiny black truck parked in the undergrowth beside the fence, nearer the back of the building where I first stood. It’s about ten feet further down the makeshift road. They must have just pulled up, maybe the noise and headlights are what roused me to alert and I watch with held breath as someone slides out and makes their way around the fence to find the entrance. An eery solitary figure, shrouded in darkness. It’s both a joy to see another person but also a massive alarming worry, that I am seeing another person
They, much like the truck are all in black, wearing a hood pulled over their head so I can’t see their face at all but I can tell it’s male. Tall, stocky and as he moves around the gate with his focus on his task, eerily quiet on his feet. The wind pick up gently and blows this way, guiding his scent towards me and I recoil in utter shock like someone just tasered my ass.
He’s wolf… like me. There’s no denying that very specific scent we all carry and it red alerts me and wakes up my brain immediately.
I have no idea why the hell a lycanthrope would be manning a power plant in the middle of the forest. I mean maybe its not that big a deal, some packs live and work in the human world and have regular jobs as they try to pass off as one of them. This could just be a guy who works for the power company and for some reason likes to frequent his unmanned building in the middle of the night. I’m sure that’s probably a normal thing for unconventional hours or maybe if he has a special task at this hour.
Probably not likely and it’s too weird that all the way out here, alone for weeks on end, the first person I come in contact with is one of my kind. It’s a little too coincidental, especially as I came here after following some deeper gut feeling and stupid dreams of Sierra Santo.
I watch, squinting through the foliage as I try to see his progress and get a better look but the gates are obscured from my angle and he disappears behind trees that sit between us and out of sight. I don’t want to lose track of him, in case he somehow head sin here without me seeing and shows up at the foot of my tree. I doubt I would be a welcome discovery.
I don’t hesitate. I slide off my perch, silently climb down the tree and crawl closer until I can see him again from another angle, ducking down behind a rock and keeping low. My senses are on major high alert and I’m taking comfort in the fact the wind is blowing this way so he won’t smell me the way I did him. I am relatively safe from this distance if he doesn’t see me moving around.
I have to creep on all fours, keeping still and wedging in behind a fallen log to get a better look as I track him. By the time I figure out where he is, eyes scanning the fence and truck, he’s already inside the compound and up against the door. He moves fast and it just conforms that he is one of my kind.
I hear a beep, a click, like he opened something or had some sort of key and the door slides to the side in front of him. It doesn’t open out like I expected but more like something of an elevator door that slides out of sight back on itself, which is weird for a low-tech building.
From here I can see inside though and there doesn’t seem to be anything at all in the doorway, making it all even weirder. It looks like an empty concrete box, and no big inside room or control panels or anything from what I can peer into. That just makes the sliding door stranger, if it’s concealing nothing. I move a little closer still, not convinced I am getting a full picture, hitting the last line of trees before the clearing and stand tall to side slide behind one and peek around. I know it’s stupid getting this near to him, but I can’t see and this place has me so confused as to what it’s purpose is or what it’s importance was to my instincts.
He walks inside, turns and faces something to the left, just behind where the door is. He leans in, ducking slightly so his face comes level with an out of sight panel.
”It’s me, I’m back, bring me down.” A low growl to his tone, most definitely a wolf; I can just tell.
He stands tall and turns to face the open front door, my heart rate escalating as nerves consume me and my body begins to tremble. I swear for a second, I think he looks right at me and I dive back, flattening my back to the bark and close my eyes as though somehow that will make me invisible. I’m not sure though as he didn’t seem to react at all and I’m probably being paranoid because I’m scared. There’s a crunching noise, the humming of the generator revs up in ferocity and the whole building emits a long grunting moan.
I peek back, holding my breath to steady my shaking self, just quick enough to see the door beginning to slide shut as he slowly lowers down below the level he was standing on. It clicks instantly that the floor is moving and he is going down. Like some sort of elevator for sure and it explains why on the surface, there is no sign of life and the building is small. It’s deceptive and the sliding door, it conceals a car sized transport to a lower level. That means whatever is down there , is big enough to accommodate vehicle should they need to be taken down and that makes my blood run cold.
I don’t think it’s any kind of power plant, and I shouldn’t be here at all. It obviously has more going on below and now I know a wolf is manning this station then I have absolutely no chance of finding anything steal able and getting away without a trace. Not that I want to anymore. Everything inside of me is telling me this is a bad idea and I need to get far away from this place as soon as humanly possible.
When the door fully closes, I walk out just in front of the tree where I have been hiding and peer over at where he left his truck, wondering if he maybe left anything of value there. If I am cutting my losses and running then he might have something. He didn’t lock it, and he was alone. Maybe a medi pack, food, clothes or something.
He obviously isn’t coming out right away and I should make the most of his absence before he does come back. He might not stay and judging by the fact he did abandon his truck and never brought it into the compound I don’t think he is. I have to be quick and go.
I run along the treeline keeping to the inner side and just within its shadow and make a dash for his truck, using hyper speed to get to it fast and peek inside when I slide up against the door on the far side from the building. It’s an off road four by four, covered in mud and debris and obviously the perfect vehicle for moving around this terrain.
I can tell right away there is nothing in it at all. Not even general trash or even anything in view that I would want. It’s clean and free of anything worthwhile. Not what I would expect for a truck with frequent use so it makes this even weirder. He obviously doesn’t use it all too much to come and go. I have one last fleeting run over with my eyes, convinced he has nothing of worth.
I dash back to the closest border of brush and start making my way back to my own temporary camp without looking back, this time keeping behind the trees by two rows. My breathing is laboured with the heavy weight of mounting panic growing inside of me like a warning signal. My heartbeat pounding in my ears as it batters my rib cage and adds to my terror. I just don’t feel safe this close anymore and I should never have ventured to find this building. I don’t know what I was thinking and the last thing I need are complications from wolves and James Bond type buildings in the middle of forests. This has spy movie all over it and I am in no mood to be dangled headfirst over a vat of sharks for information I don’t have.
When the noise of the building cranks up again, I don’t know if it’s the floor moving up again to reset or if he is coming back. It stops me in my tracks and I instinctively drop to the dirt and turn around. I crouch where I am and watch, waiting with held breath, peering through the trunks and bushes to see the door, until the moaning cranking noise of heavy innards moving, comes to a halt. Yet the door doesn’t open. Nothing happens at all except the return to a previous hum. I don’t think it was him, I think maybe the floor comes up again when they reach a destination and I relax a little, blowing out my air with relief, moving again from this tree base to the next to make my way back to my perch.
I almost make it all the way in when another loud thumping noises pauses me in my tracks and makes me look back nervously, so jumpy and on edge with all my senses kicking into a higher mode of efficiency. This time the noises are less intense, less mechanical and more like regular people noises.
The building appears to be coming to life as it increase, the doors make swooshing noise but nothing seems to open. There’s a bang, sliding of maybe bolts, I can’t tell. A beep, a woosh like the noise a piston makes and then I can almost make out the swing of a heavy metal door and gravel rolling and sliding from it.
Lights flick on all around me, so suddenly from concealed posts further out in the trees it makes me jump and I find myself illuminated in the previously dark space, blinded by the sudden solar strength blazing pain that hits me in the eyeballs. I start blinking, shielding my eyes as my nocturnal vision craps out and gives me an instant headache, like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
I wasn’t expecting this entire area to be brightened up like standing under a sun lamp at close range and pull my wits back around me. I dart as fast as I can for the nearest sign of darkness and hope they didn’t see me. The lights must be extended above the canopy on masts further out that I just didn’t see as everything around me is brighter than daylight and I have no one direction to go to that will get me out of it faster. The entire space is bright as hell.
I run, heading towards my mountain in the far distance and concentrate on nothing else except escape. Screw my backpack and furs, I don’t need them right now.
I sprint, dodging jumping, clearing fallen logs as twigs and leaves scratch my face and hands, and rip at my skin in passing, my breathing laboured and loud, panting. I aim for the shadows not looking back, in case this is because of me, that maybe he did see me out there and whatever this place is, no one is meant to know. I put my head down and hyper speed the best to my ability, only just make it to a skidding halt into darker bushes when an alarming piercing noise fills the air around me. It has a horrible effect on my body and senses, rattling my brain inside my skull as my physical self crunches up, instantly immobile and I grab my ears.
It’s a siren, honking hard and loud, in a pitch that causes me physical pain with its sheer volume, echoing in the air and making the surroundings shudder in trembling response. My heart elevates until I think my chest is going to explode, my body straining to turn to wolf to get away faster but I don’t let it. I need to keep these clothes more than ever now and I need to get back to my tree to grab my stuff and go at some point too.
My gut tells me to abandon it all, forget about the clothes issue for now and just run, but my logic is telling me to calm down and stop and rationalise about this and stop reacting. That they couldn’t have seen me, as the cameras point down and I didn’t venture near the fences. That he maybe just looked my way but I saw no sign of reaction or recognition that someone was out here.
This could just be coincidence and something they do, even without someone like me lurking nearby. They couldn’t know I was there, if there even was a they and what really would they react like this for? What could they possibly be hiding that a young girl like me posed a threat against?
That wolf he might have been solitary, although he did talk to someone on whatever that intercom thing was, so maybe there is only two of them and this is still a power grid of some sort. I know a lot of that contradicts what the other parts of my brain are telling me but self-preservation has a funny way of trying to shake you into being less manic. Lying to myself can help abate the fear and get me moving, instead of freaking out.
I try to take some calming breaths as it all filters through my head and I keep on telling myself I am overreacting. This is just a drill, or a thing, or normal. I am fine….sure I am.
The whizzing whistle of air that skids past my left ear and physically inflicts a searing pain with the high pitch velocity it passes me with, makes me jump sideways and crash into bushes as I run at speed. I almost swallowed my own tongue and my stomach lurched and about jumped out of my body. It gave me a near heart attack and I scramble in stinging scratching bushed to fight my way back out. I get caught up in thorn heavy vines and trip back over my own muddled legs.
The fall makes me tumble and roll into hedge way knocking my shoulder on rocks and stopping my scrambling for a second. I take a moment to look back at the surging sunlit bright area I left behind, gasping as I see the pouring of black dressed men coming from some ground level hatch near the main door, like a concealed lid lifted from the gravel and four maybe five bodies appear on the ground above. There are already two outside the gates and both are facing this way looking intensely into the wood where I ran and pointing big ass gu8nns with sights trained in here.
I don’t know what flew past me, I don’t think I want to know and my doubt that I was in any kind of danger, dies an instant death. The blood draining from my body so I turn cold and statue like as it sinks in, they are definitely looking for me. I don’t stop to wait for even a blink longer, terror once again ripping through me at speed and activating my run like shit button. They all face this way and come thundering after me as soon as they see the rustle of the bushes I dart from.
Gifts that are remarkable or not, I can smell them from here, wolves and they are all armed. A little patrol of male wolves in black uniforms and they clearly are coming at me. I don’t care who you are, what story you are in, that never bodes well in any situation and I don’t think they are trying to invite me in for coffee and cake. I have obviously stumbled across something I shouldn’t have.
Pure instinct takes over and the urge to turn is almost killing me with the rate my human body is pounding itself to shreds with sheer adrenalin. I run, I trip, I fall and I know that human form is only slowing me down and making it more likely they catch up with me. I know only too well that wolves will not be kind and show me mercy at being caught in their lands. I have one set of clothes…and that’s it.
I need to think about survival now, even if that means ending up naked and backpack less miles further into the undergrowth. I just need to find another way to gather the things I need later, and curse myself stupid for ever venturing this way near this dammed building. It’s obviously not an inconspicuous power station. Those men were guards and whatever they are guarding is important enough to carry weapons and stay in the multiples.
I am so god damn stupid. Fuck you Sierra and your damn dreams and pushing me East. Fuck the fates.
I turn. My inner wolf almost howling with an intense release, glad to be free finally. Head down, clothes shredding pitifully as I leave the last of my worldly possessions in the dirt and run like the wind. I have nothing else that I can do and they are in fast pursuit.
I fall, wedging between trees that are too close to get through and break free noisily with sheer strength and will power. Wood splintering branches crackling but being silent is no longer my concern as the noise of their pursuit out sounds mine. I can feel them coming, hear them , smell them, I can even feel their heart beats synching with mine as scent follows me close on my heels.
Panic spreads through my veins and I hope that angry numb I gained with the bear kicks in soon or else I am screwed. I can’t even stop to try and use any sort of gift right now when I don’t even know how. The last few days of trying to conjure it up proved futile. I’m scared right now, not angry and I have no hope in hell of conjuring any other feeling.
Something else whizzes over my head, like a small shooting tunnel of air that makes my hair tingle and pull in its passing. It shoots directly into the tree several feet in front of me and stabs viciously into the trunk, standing proud and straight when it comes to an instant halt. I only catch sight of it for a split second, like a clear tube, filled with clear liquid, with a red tail embedded deeply in the rough wooden skin of the poor tree. It catches me eye, draws my attention and before I can run past it still trying to figure out what it is, something fires into my spine immediately after, right between my shoulder blades with a stinging pain so intense it makes me howl involuntarily. A loud wailing noise that honestly hurts my own ears.
The impact is hard, the pain unexpected and the combination makes me trip and crash face first into the branches and rocks on the ground I was crossing at speed. I roll, hitting the rough floor of the forest like a dead weight and skid ungracefully, pulling debris and dried leaves with me, kicking up a cloud of dust and choking on it, across a tiny clearing knocking whatever was sticking in my back off as I do so. I feel it being yanked out.
I land on my face, legs sprawled as my body betrays me and turns back to human form without my say so and my eyes focus on the tiny thing only feet on front of me. Dazed, trying to catch my breath as this unearthly warm and strange sensation pours through me from the connect spot in the centre of my back.
It’s the same as what hit the tree. A clear empty tube with a red brush tail, only this time I can see the tip and its long, silver, extremely pointy and looks a lot like a dart for taking large animals down. I’ve seen them on African game reserve documentaries. The needle is thick and huge so no wonder it felt like something stabbed me with a big object; they literally did…at bullet speed. I let out a groan and try to roll and move, aware that an empty tube suggests the contents are in me.
I attempt to get up but my limbs give out like useless heavy weights of flesh with no control, and my vision begins to spin. My head turning woozy as everything around me sways crazily like I just got on the deck of a boat amid a storm.
I don’t like this and I can feel the thundering of feet fast approaching me as wolves growls turn to human voices and I can make them out ever so slightly coming at me on the gentle breeze of the rustling trees as silence begins to take over. My hearing and head fading out despite trying to fight it.
“I hit her…she’s to the left. Split up and spread out in case we need to double dose her.”
I can’t grasp anything as my hands claw at the dirty muck strewn ground below me, desperate to keep trying to run. As futile as I know it is, something in me is refusing to give up the fight and urging me to get to my feet. Like a tiny warm voice in my mind , softly calling out to me.
I swear I hear Sierra drifting my way in the wind as she reminds me of the same thing she has been saying all along, yet it somehow means something else in my drugged stupor.
“Save us”
“I can’t. I’m not strong enough.”
It’s a pathetic whisper at no one as my eyes blur with tears at my own failure, and my heart aches that somehow, I let her down even if it makes no sense. Maybe it’s the pain of failing myself. Weeks of running, hiding and I can’t do anything about what I have gotten myself into. I was stupid to think I was special.
I can feel them so close now and as I try to lift my head and shoulders up from the soggy earth in one last ditch attempt to save myself, my vision blurs our completely and I lose consciousness.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
