Chapter Text
Thus far the Canadian wilderness is maintaining the exact range of temperatures necessary to irritate me: it’s not so mild as to be negligible, yet neither is it extreme enough to threaten hypothermia. I suppose I could shed a few layers just to escape this exhausting middle-ground and add some excitement to the search — it wouldn’t be especially responsible of me, but then what’s life without a little borderline suicidal reckless abandon?
Perhaps next year. There’ll be no detours for death and relaxation until I’ve accomplished the task at hand.
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think she didn’t want to be found. I started out merely a day’s travel behind her, sure I could fulfill my promise in short order so long as I kept appropriate pace. Fast as a werewolf may be, I’d assumed her need to sleep meant Uncle Fester and I could take shifts driving in her approximate direction until technology made up the difference between man and beast. As per usual, technology failed to live up to its end of the bargain. Before long I’d fallen from ‘hot on her tail’ to merely ‘on her tail’ and then ‘on her trail’ before landing unceremoniously at ‘trailing her.’ As detective stories go, this one has been nearly as embarrassing as it’s been dull.
Like an amateur, I’d failed to realize that werewolves don’t need to sleep. Not in wolf form, anyways. My interactions with those actively ‘wolfing out’ number in the single digits, and with a solitary exception no one incident ever lasted more than a few minutes at most. My own experience in Enid’s body was the longest I’ve ever been around someone in wolf mode, but I’d assumed it was adrenaline that kept me going that night. In retrospect, a ridiculous thing to assume. Did I imagine all werewolves would wolf out, run around like hyperactive German Shepherds for a few hours, then settle down for a nap during the remainder of the night? Obviously not.
It only makes sense that the magic which sustains their transformation also grants them the energy not only to maintain their lupine form for the night, but to make it through the following day without suffering exhaustion from so long without sleep. Of course, under normal circumstances a werewolf is under no obligation to remain transformed until dawn. Enid’s first time lasted only thirty minutes or so, as I understand it. Still, they have the option to do so, and now I understand why that is.
If Enid is trapped in wulfin form indefinitely then I am chasing a creature who does not require rest. It’s no wonder she was getting ahead of me — and my absentee uncle ceased to be any help as of approximately one week ago, when he unceremoniously took Thing and abandoned me in the middle of the woods with no transportation, no means of contacting civilization, and few supplies. I can appreciate the nostalgia inherent to leaving me alone in the frozen elements like this, but please, Uncle — I’m not six years old anymore.
He’ll be back, presumably, in order to provide with me a ride home or retrieve my frozen remains. Frozen or eaten. The latter strikes me as less fun; I suspect it’s hard to appreciate all the nuance of dying while one is in the midst of fighting off predators. Being devoured alive would probably make for a better story, though. I’ll circle back to which of the two endings I’d prefer some time later, when I have more free time to waste on daydreams.
Hopefully I can remember to write this all down later.
Speaking of being eaten: about ten days ago I finally hit a break in a small town near the woods I’m currently occupying. Reports of an unusually large werewolf devouring the local wildlife came in on the police radio I’d been using to no avail up to that point. Thankfully the sightings were dismissed by the normie authorities for having been reported during a crescent moon. At least, that’s the gist of what I could make out. My French is impeccable; I wish I could say the same for the rural Quebecois.
Enid wasn’t exceptionally large for a werewolf last time I saw her, but what little documentation I’ve found on alpha biology has proven infuriatingly vague. Their culture has taken painstaking efforts to minimize access to information about their every little dirty secret in order to present the image of one big happy pack. Maybe Enid wasn’t too far off about our situations being remarkably similar: I can’t think of a better description of The Addams Family.
I’ll omit the more mundane aspects of the trek: setting up an igloo; foraging for food to extend my dwindling supply; warding off a pack of wolves with a sword and torch. The everyday drudgery of the great outdoors is exactly why I outgrew camping before my age hit double digits. I’m starting to think this lead was a bust, and my visions have been agonizingly silent on the issue. Every so often I’ll get a vague flash of my aunt Ophelia — a subject I’m not prepared to broach until I’ve found my quarry — and otherwise not so much as a glimpse. Apparently tales of alpha savagery have been greatly exaggerated, which is honestly a shame: the occasional grizzly murder would make finding her with my powers considerably easier.
I catch my second break of the search when I come across the aforementioned hypothetical grizzly murder scene, now markedly less hypothetical. If only I held deer in higher esteem, perhaps I’d have had a vision of its hunter slaying it so brutally. It’s immediately apparent that whatever did this was neither mundane wolf nor normie hunter: the unfortunate cervid is in too many places for that. No commercially available firearm could do this to an animal, and a pack of wolves would have simply taken their meal. This creature was torn to ribbons. Torn and slashed. Even a bear would have trouble producing this kind of gore.
I take a moment to admire her handiwork. I admit, I didn’t think she was capable of this level of brutality. Would she be flattered if I complimented her viciousness once I find her, or would that cause her to burst into tears? The nuance of Enid’s acceptance of her beast has always eluded me. At first glance she seems the type to mourn the death of a random animal, but perhaps her place on the food chain has been culturally ingrained in her by now, and she’d simply accept it as a fact of life. For all I know, Enid regularly hunted with the pack. In retrospect, maybe I should have gotten to know them better. It might’ve helped me track their kind more efficiently.
I shake my head. Clearly all this blood is making me sentimental if I’m lamenting my unwillingness to socialize, even for utilitarian reasons.
It’s easy enough to track Enid from there. The trail of viscera isn’t so cold as to be useless, and the snow hasn’t been heavy enough to cover tracks as broad as the ones she’s left. It looks like my translation of the mangled French of the Sûreté du Québec proved accurate: she’s considerably larger than she was last time I saw her. Granted, I’d just been uncovered from being buried alive at the time, but the dirt blurring my vision was surely counteracted by how refreshed I was feeling.
I barely have a moment to appreciate my eventual success before I’m pinned to a tree. I’m unable to breathe as I struggle to register exactly what’s happening: one moment I’d spotted Enid huddled in a shallow cave surrounded by an assortment of bloody animal bones, the next I’m struggling to keep adrenaline from burning up what precious little oxygen is still in my bloodstream. I’m dully aware of the uncomfortably humid roar warming my face, and of the acrid stench of rotten meat which accompanies it, but the maw of blood-slick razors from which the sound erupted is difficult to concentrate on when my lungs are refusing to cooperate.
It takes a moment to register that I’ve only had the wind knocked out of me; I’m not being strangled this time, merely pinned by the torso. It’s just as well: Enid’s claws are sufficiently deadly that I doubt I would survive having her fingers that close to my throat, no matter how much fun it might otherwise be. On the other hand, I believe I’ve got some shallow gashes on my newly bruised ribs. With any luck I’ll be able to torment Enid with the scars for years to come.
Assuming she doesn’t devour me on the spot.