The fog crawled over the road, its thin treadle fingers creeping through the trees that surrounded either side of the road. The waning moon and stars gave almost no light to aid the dim headlights as she drove down the road on her way home.
The hum of the engine and the hiss of the wind through the half open window was all Alisya could hear. Her hands gripped the stirring wheel while she tried to calm herself.
"Listen, Alisya," James said, "We can work it out. I know this is hard, but we can do it."
Alisya didn't reply.
James sighed, "Alisya, please talk to me," he pleaded, "You know how I feel about us-"
"Do I James?" Alisya cut him off, "Do I really know how you feel about us? God knows you never say it, so how can I know, I mean, really know?"
"Come on," James smiled running his hand up Alisya's thigh, "You know, I show you all the time."
Alisya slapped his hand off her thigh, "That's not the same thing, James!" she snapped, "That just shows me you're sexually into me, not emotionally."
"It's the same thing with me, you know that," he retorted turning to face her.
"No, it's not! Sex is just that, sex. For you, James, sex is just sex, no emotional attachments!" Alisya shouted, "I'm starting to think that's all we have."
"Alisya, how could you say that?" James exclaimed, "We've been together for two years!"
"And in all that time not once, not once, have you told me you love me," Alisya said, "Two years. Two! You've never told me you love me. So, how can I know if we've had so much sex and yet you've never told me that you love me?"
"You've never said you love me," James said childishly.
"Yes, I have!" Alisya shouted at him, "Everyday you leave for work, go out with friends, or right before you go for a run! I always say 'I love you, James, be safe,' and you never say it back!"
James was silent at her words.
The silence stretched as she drove.
Alisya glanced over at James. He was facing the window, his hand clenched and shaking. Guilt filled Alisya, she hadn't meant to yell.
Alisya stopped, put the car in park, and turned off the engine. She turned to James, "Look, baby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."
James still said nothing.
"James, I'm sorry," she whispered and touched his arms, "Baby, alright," she sighed, "Let's talk. Please baby?"
James jerked his arm away from Alisya's touch, unbuckled, and got out of the car.
"James!" Alisya screamed and quickly unbuckled and got out of the car as fast as she could.
Alisya rushed over to James, leaving her door wide open.
"James! Have you lost your mind!" she yelled grabbing his arm.
"Why would you care!" James yelled back jerking his arm out of Alisya's grasp, "Why would you care if they got me? You want to leave me anyways, so who cares if they get me!"
"James, baby, I do care! Come back in the car, we'll go home and then we'll talk about this," Alisya tried to reason with him, "Come on, baby. We'll talk, just like you wanted. Just, let's go home."
"NO!" James refused, "If you really want to talk, we're gonna talk right here."
Alisya whimpered and sighed, "Fine, start talking."
"Why do you want to leave me?" he demanded, "If you love me like you say you do, why would you leave?"
"'Cause I don't know if you love me!" Alisya screamed, "You've never said that you love me. Sure, you 'show' love me, but you never say it. So how can I be sure? I just don't know how you feel anymore!"
"Are you kidding me!" James exclaimed, "That's the reason you want to leave me! Because I don't say I love you?"
"Yes!" Alisya screamed.
"Fine!" James shouted. He walked up to Alisya and held her face with both hands, "Alisya Michelle Craven . . . I love you. With all my heart and soul."
Alisya's heart skipped, she couldn't do anything but stare into his deep golden eyes that were shaded but his long white hair, "James . . ." Alisya started to say but James' lips met hers in a passionate kiss.
Her breath caught, all she could do was kiss James back.
He pulled back, "Was that all you wanted?" he questioned Alisya, his eyes glowing.
"Was it so hard?" Alisya questioned back.
James shrugged his shoulders, "Eh," he said and smiled.
Alisya laughed lightly as she walked back to her side of the car.
Her hand had just touched the handle when it happened.
One moment she was smiling happily at James, the next James screamed as he was being drug into the woods.
Her brain and body responded before her consciousness could even register the shock.
"James!" she screamed as she jumped and slid across the hood of her car and was running through the brush after him when her mind kicked in.
"Alisya!" She could hear James calling for her. She could barely see him through all the brush as they drug him away.
"Let him go!" Alisya ordered as she ran hard through dead, broken brush under foot, "James!"
She burst out of the underbrush and trees into a wide clearing. She saw James being drug by huge beasts that had matted hair with huge, bulky bodies that came to Alisya's shoulders.
Even as that should have scared the living day lights out of her, she ran head long into the group of three that were attacking James. Without thinking, she pulled her pocket knife out and charged then, jumping onto the back of the closest one to her. She grabbed a fist of its fur a plunged the knife into its thick hide.
The beast howled in surprised pain and bucked in attempt to get Alisya off. But Alisya held on, even as the wolf things fur became slick with blood she held on, continuing to stab her knife into any place she could reach.
It let out one final, pain-filled howl before it collapsed to the damp ground.
Alisya jumped off the limp body of the wolf-beast to face off with the other two. She barred her teeth at them, knife at the ready, hunched over.
James was no longer screaming and thrashing, trying to get lose, so the creatures now faced Alisya, totally focused.
They circled her, taking opposite sides of her. They snarled at her, she snarled back.
She slowly pulled the metal hair sticks out of her bun, letting the thick water fall of white curls cascade around her shoulders and face so that she could use them.
The beast at her left moved and Alisya's eyes darted to it. Just as she did the one to her right jumped.
Alisya's reflexes were fast and the metal rod she used to hold back her hair was now buried in the creatures chest, surely puncturing its lung.
It howled in pain and warm liquid hit her face as it did tried to rear back away from her. She quickly pulled up the pocket knife in her left hand and slit the beast's throat.
It fell, limp, to the ground, making a sick, sucking noise as she pulled the rod out of its chest.
Now it was the last creatures turn to dance with Alisya.
Somehow, she could feel, it was smarter than the others. It tested her, moving this way and that, watching Alisya's reaction to its movement.
If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought it had a smug look on its face.
Then it charged right at her.
Alisya's reaction was slower, she was tiring and, somehow, the beast knew it. It tackled her to the ground but Alisya managed to flip it over and off her, pinning it to the ground instead.
It snapped at her throat, barely missing as she fought to control its razor sharp claws that cut at her arms.
With a scream, she plunged the rod into its ribs. It howled in agony and managed to throw her off.
Alisya rolled away, bouncing across the sodden ground. She gasped for air when she was still, the fall knocked the wind out of her.
She watched, through her blood streaked white hair matted with derby and mud, as the wolf-beast struggle to its feet, yank the rod out with its dagger like teeth and then turn and glare at her.
Alisya knife in her right hand, her last and only weapon.
The beast paced around her again, looking for a weak spot she knew. It wouldn't find one. But Alisya could. It was favoring its left side, the side she had stabbed. She grinned to herself.
She made her first move.
When she charged the beast with a roar, it held a startled look. Alisya tackled it to the ground, making cutting motions with her knife only to barely miss as it rolled itself and her away. It limped to its feet and faced Alisya's form where she lay on the ground lay on the ground trying to gain her bearings.
The beast charged at her and she screamed as it pinned her to the ground.
Her knife flew from her hand at the impact and she was forced to defend herself with her bare hands.
The wolf-thing snapped at her face, she could feel its fur and whiskers brush her face as she held it back with her arm, dripping hot saliva across her face and neck.
With her left hand, Alisya grabbed its ear and pulled. It yelped in pain and jerked away long enough so that Alisya could flip over, grab her knife and just as the wolf-thing came at her –
Its teeth were inches away from her throat when it froze.
Alisya felt hot liquid flow down her hand where she held the knife at her and the wolf's chest.
It blinked a couple of times as if it couldn't believe what had just happened, and stared at Alisya in shock.
Alisya shoved it back with the arm that had blocked it when it charged and could feel the blade slide out of the thing's chest with a sound that made her stomach turn.
It fell to her left and lay there till its ragged breathing slowly stopped.
Alisya's whole body shock as she watched the creature die.
She looked down at her clothes, they were covered with blood, derby, and dirt soaked with blood. She gagged and vomited at the sight of the three bodies and the blood that covered all of them.
She was still gasping for breath as she hurriedly crawled to James.
Without touching him, Alisya checked his injuries.
James' pants were torn and bloody but Alisya could tell that they were only minor compared to the gashes on her own arms.
She gently turned him over, running bloodied fingers over his cheeks.
"James?" Alisya whispered looking around, watching for more wolf-things, "James, baby, wake up. We have to go."
James groaned and Alisya's attention was drawn to his golden eyes as they opened and stared wide eyes at Alisya's bloody figure crouched over him.
"Alisya," James gasped as he sat up to hold her.
"We have to go, baby," she said back as she dropped her knife to help him stand.
James groaned as he walked out of the woods, away from the dead bodies of the creatures that they all feared.
The crunch and snaps of breaking twigs as Alisya and James limped their way out were like thunder claps to the silence that surrounded them.
The howl of the wind soon replaced the sound of their retreat, whistling through the bare trees and dying grass.
A howl sounded though the woods, followed by more and more all around the clearing. A growl could be heard in the brush near the last wolf-thing Alisya killed.
Then the body was jerked into the underbrush.