Frostbitten (18 page)

* * *

It was a Thursday afternoon
as Anastasia exited the pharmacy with a pack of honey and lemon throat lozenges
in hand. Her usually strong immune system had failed her, leaving her throat
dry and itchy and her nose congested. Even her head ached slightly, causing her
to conclude that she had a sinus cold. Nevertheless, she refused to spend any
extra time in bed, adamant about not missing school, work and especially that
forthcoming date with Frost.

The sun was beginning
to set as Anastasia headed toward her grandmother’s car, which she’d borrowed
to run this errand, but before she could enter, she noticed a flyer under her
windshield wiper. She retrieved the flyer and unfolded it, expecting to find
some type of home improvement service offered at a discounted price. Instead,
what she read was so bizarre that it startled her.

The township of Cedar
Falls requests all citizens to render items of pure silver to the community
collection station at #1 Main Street. No item is too big or small, with every
collected piece to be melted and made into bullets. This is an urgent request
in response to the serious wildlife situation occurring in Cedar Falls Woods.
Volunteers with animal tracking skills are being recruited on an ongoing basis.
Those with military backgrounds are especially encouraged to respond. Please
apply in person.

“What the hell?”
Anastasia muttered to herself. Although she wanted to believe this was just a
prank, the official letterhead of the township made it look pretty damn real.
As for the contents, well, she was no ammunitions expert, but she suspected
that bullets didn’t have to be made from pure silver. That would only be
necessary if, according to folklore, they wanted to kill a werewolf.

Anastasia shook her
head, as if trying to erase the thoughts from her mind. She then entered the
car, determined to stay rational. Since first hearing about the werewolf in the
school lunchroom three days ago, the town had become increasingly obsessed with
the supposedly mythological creature. In fact, she feared that chaos would soon
break out if things continued as they were.

She had only been
driving for a few minutes when, after turning onto a usually quiet road, she
spotted a small group of people standing at the edge of the woods. Two cars
were nearby, both idling with the headlights still on and the doors left wide
open, like they’d exited in haste. Worried that someone might be hurt, she
parked her car and rushed toward them.

Anastasia’s presence
immediately frightened the group, which included two young identical twin boys,
a man and woman in their late forties and an elderly couple. They were all
wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but unlike the others, the twin boys looked
more excited than scared.

“Is everyone...?”
Anastasia didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence as the middle-aged man
interrupted her in an almost frantic tone.

“Did you see him, too?”

“I don’t know what
you’re...”

“I tried to get my
camera,” the man interrupted once again, “but he was gone so fast.”

Suddenly, one of the
boys growled and leapt at Anastasia, his arms extended and his fingers bent as
if he was mimicking a clawed animal. When she let out a small gasp, he laughed
and then announced proudly, “I just saw the werewolf!”

“I saw him first,” his
brother argued, giving him a hard shove.

“Stop it,” the woman,
who must’ve been their mother, scolded. “Now is
not
the time.”

Concerned and confused,
Anastasia glanced at the elderly couple, who had remained quiet up until this
point.

“You should go home,
dear,” the elderly woman advised. “We should all go home. It’s not safe for us
to be here.”

Their attention
returned to the snowy ground at the edge of the woods, exactly where they’d
been looking before Anastasia arrived. Even the twins fell silent, mesmerized
by whatever was on the ground. Gently pushing past the man and woman, who were
blocking her view, Anastasia came to a stop and directed her gaze downwards.
What she saw almost made her cry out in horror.

Barely illuminated by
the fading sunlight were wolf tracks so massive that they couldn’t possibly
belong to an ordinary wolf. They were also embedded very deep into the snow,
evidence of the creature’s extraordinary weight. Yet, most shocking of all was
how the short trail of wolf tracks turned into barefooted human prints which
led into the dark woods.

“You...you saw this
happen?” Anastasia stuttered in disbelief, unable to take her eyes off the
prints.

The man nodded,
speaking before anyone else could. “My wife, kids and I were driving down this
road, with my in-laws following in the car behind us. Then, out-of-nowhere, the
largest wolf I’ve ever seen ran right in front of us. I almost hit him, and for
a split second he stopped, looking at me with terrified eyes that seemed to
glow in the beam of my headlights. The next thing I knew, he resumed running, but
before he could disappear into the woods, he transformed...into a human!”

He was starting to
become overexcited again, causing his wife to soothingly put her arm around
him.

“I thought I’d gone
crazy,” the man admitted, “but I wasn’t the only one to see him – we all did.
Then we found these...” His voice trailed off as he reached for the digital
camera, which hung around his wrist by a strap, and then began taking pictures
of the tracks.

“If only we’d seen who
he was,” the woman said, shaking her head sadly, “then all of this could’ve
been over.”

Completely overwhelmed
by what she’d just seen and heard, Anastasia began to back away, her mind
racing with thoughts. The werewolf was real, and as much as she wanted to
convince herself otherwise, nothing would change the fact that the evidence was
right in front of her eyes. This whole time she’d thought the town was crazy,
unwilling to even consider the possibility of the werewolf’s existence, and as
a result, she’d become exactly what she despised – narrow-minded. Well, not
anymore.

Turning around,
Anastasia ran to her car, and as she went, she heard the elderly man calling
out to her.

“To stay safe, you must
stay far away from the woods!”

Anastasia shivered as
she started her car and sped away. Didn’t that man realize it was impossible to
follow his advice since
all
of Cedar Falls was surrounded by woods?
There was nowhere to run and definitely no place to hide. And the worst part
was that the werewolf could be anyone.

These thoughts caused
panic to slowly seize Anastasia, but she fought hard against it. She knew that
to save her sanity and avoid the hysterics which many members of the community
had fallen victim to, she’d have to remain level-headed. She forced herself to
reason that at some point, all animals were unknown to humans and these first
encounters were likely as scary as this one. Humans had just stopped looking,
so who knew what else was out there?

When she reached her
house, Anastasia hurried inside, determined to get answers from her
grandparents. She wanted to know everything they knew about the werewolf,
including why they had tried to hide his existence. From forbidding her to walk
home from school to not inviting her to the town meeting, it all made sense
now, especially her grandfather’s weird behavior.

“Grandma!” Anastasia
called as she made her way through the foyer. “Grandpa! Are you guys here?”

When she didn’t receive
a response, she looked in the living room and then the kitchen, only to find
them both empty. However, she soon spotted a note attached to the refrigerator
which read,
Your grandmother and I have gone into town to run some errands.
We might be late. Don’t go out again.

Anastasia couldn’t help
but scoff at the note. It seemed like her grandparents were never home anymore,
and they always used some stupid excuse to explain their absence. Tonight was
the perfect example; her grandparents knew that she’d been going into town, so
they could’ve easily asked her to do their errands – not that there really were
any.

More suspicious than ever,
Anastasia ran up the stairs and toward her grandfather’s study. Along with the
shed at the side of the house, this was the only other place her grandparents
had declared off-limits. That’s what made it the perfect location for hiding
something, especially if they wanted to keep it from her.

Stopping in front of
the closed study door, Anastasia tried to suppress her guilt as she turned the
doorknob, which squeaked slightly, and then stepped inside. She’d always been a
good girl who’d only imagined what was behind this door, and now that she knew,
it was a huge letdown. The room would’ve been bare if it wasn’t for two file
cabinets, a small desk and a chair.

She switched on the
light, knowing that she would need it if she was going to find a logbook, photographs
or just about anything which may give her insight into the Cedar Falls
werewolf. Unfortunately, having the light on meant she’d have to search fast
because if her grandparents came home early, they’d be able to see the study
window aglow from outside.

Anastasia opened one of
the file cabinets and rifled through its contents, finding nothing other than
decades of tax returns. “Don’t they know you only have to keep the last seven
years?”
she muttered, rolling her eyes as she shut the bottom drawer.

Annoyed that she’d
spent several minutes on the first cabinet, Anastasia wasted no time proceeding
to the next one. Luck was definitely not on her side as she discovered it was
filled with pay stubs, all neatly placed in his and her sections and organized
in chronological order. “Hoard much?” she commented with a groan, growing even
more frustrated as she closed the last drawer.

She looked around the
room, wondering if she’d missed anything, but the last place to search would be
the desk, and with only one short, narrow drawer in the middle, she doubted it
would contain much more than stationeries. Regardless, she reached for the
drawer and upon trying to pull it open, she realized that it was locked. She
frowned. Suddenly, it seemed a lot more interesting.

Trying to think like
her grandfather, Anastasia kneeled on the floor to look under the desk, hoping
he’d somehow hidden the key there. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. With a
disappointed sigh, she stood up, but as she did so, she noticed the calendar
lying on his desk. Quickly, she lifted the calendar, smiling proudly as a small
silver-colored key was revealed. Her grandfather always said the best hiding
places were the most obvious ones, so she’d been confident that the key would
be in his study.

Retrieving the key,
Anastasia unlocked the drawer and slowly pulled it open. Inside she found a
thin white folder marked,
Confidential
, and a tape recorder sitting on
top of it. After placing the recorder onto the desk, she opened the folder and
then let out a startled gasp. It was a copy of Chloe’s medical report from the
night she was attacked. She couldn’t fathom how her grandfather had obtained
this information or even why he would want it.

Anastasia scanned
through the report, thinking it might give her some answers, but most of it was
written with medical terminology that she didn’t understand. It wasn’t until
she came to the last page that she saw a highlighted paragraph and, from her
interpretation, it stated that Chloe’s wounds were inflicted by a cougar.

Finished with the
report, Anastasia put it back in the folder before picking up another one,
which she assumed would also be Chloe’s. As she began to read, she was shocked
to see that the medical report actually belonged to Pete. Flipping through the
pages, she soon found another highlighted paragraph, with this one sourcing
Pete’s injuries as coming from an unidentified mammal. It went on to suggest
that the closest species capable of inflicting such wounds was canis lupus –
the wolf.

“Oh my gosh,” Anastasia
muttered, finally accepting that, unlike Chloe, Pete had indeed been attacked
by a werewolf.

Hurriedly, she shoved
the folder back into the drawer and then grabbed the recorder. The sole tape
was already in it, and when she pressed play, the room was filled with chilling
words spoken by a man with a very deep voice.

It was late – really
late – when I heard that first howl. Silence followed for the next couple of
minutes, then it came again, this time closer. He sounded angry, or maybe he
was in pain. Either way, all I could be certain of was that I needed to see
this thing. I ran outside, wearing not much more than a nightshirt and boots,
but I didn’t care as long as I had my rifle. I waited for the howls to start
again, and they did – right behind me. Before I could move, I felt him
breathing down my bare neck. I prepared to fire, knowing that speed and aim
were the only two things that could keep me alive, but when I turned around, he
was gone. It was like he was never there, even though he definitely had been. Then,
from far in the distance, he howled as if mocking me. That was my only
experience with the werewolf, and to be honest, I hope it’s my last.

Almost instantly,
another voice came from the recorder, this time that of a young girl.