A sudden shock of wetness and heat. She slammed her eyes open wide, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, the overgrown foliage of the forest roof her only view. Ok.. she thought what the HELL just happened? I'm supposed to be bloody bits in those mutts' beliies. Kate groaned and propped herself up on her elbows, then on her hands, drawing her legs in to support herself. This feels familiar she thought groggily. Something's wrong though, I should be dead by now, where did..those….wolves…. Her train of thought slowed and coasted gently off the rails as she took in her surroundings. The small clearing in which she'd been attacked, previously so bare of anything save a straggling of bushes, was strewn with gore and pieces of wolf. Paws, tails, and viscera littered the ground, and in the middle of the carnage, the black monster of her crushing unconsciousness, that massive canine, lying asleep, curled up on itself and slumbering as peacefully as a contented child.
As Kate beheld the scene, frozen with horrified fascination, she became conscious of a weak struggling in the mound. One of the wolves was still alive, and was making a last desperate effort to get to her, to at least take one bite, one tasty morsel, of this so sweet flesh. The beast in the centre stirred, lifting its head to watch the wolf's attempt in an almost lazy manner, like that of a well-to-do city gentleman watching an urchin's pathetic attempts to ape his elders and betters. The wolf, however, was deadly serious, and kept up the approach, jaws slavering, razor teeth at the ready. The beast in the centre looked on, and raised its head to meet Kate's bewildered gaze. The hungry creature crawling in no longer terrified her, the heat of that insane defiance born when she had thought herself at death's door still burned in her heart, but she knew her body to be too weak to withstand an attack. She tried to crawl back as before, but her arms gave way, and she slumped to the ground, back flat, knees bent, helpless as any mother in birth or any child just born. Turning her head took effort, almost more than she had, but she rolled her head to the side to take in the scene, to watch the approaching animal. I may be lunch, but I'm not gonna be scared of some wounded mutt! she thought furiously. A snort behind the mutt made her start, and the wolf check its step and turn to see the source. A flash of black, a yelp, and the wolf exploded into a shower of gore and bone, its head rolling towards her, and bumping against her booted foot. The black beast, still with an air of contemptuous disdain, padded silently from the fresh corpse to the severed head, picked it up and returned it to the corpse.
Standing over the last of the pack, the beast locked eyes with Kate, saw her bewildered stare, and brushed at its snout with its forepaw, wiping away the blood and tissue in an almost human act of cleanliness. Snout pointed to the forest roof, it sniffed the air and turned to the woods behind it and let loose a long low growl, purest menace in audible form. A bush shook and was suddenly stilled, as though another wolf had suddenly thought better of attempting a late lunch. The beast rose up to its full height and bayed at the retreating noise, as though to mock its cowardice.
Kate, having regained strength to prop herself up, had seen all this and was beginning to reconsider her impression of the beast. Certainly it was a monster of some sort, and certainly it was excessively violent and bloodthirsty (though come to think of it, she'd not seen it eat any of its kill) but somehow she felt that she could, if not trust it, at least not fear it unnecessarily. So she stayed still when it approached her, at first in a direct line with her feet, as though it were simply going to clamber over her groin and hips to sit on her chest once more, but then turning at the last minute to walk around to her side. Stopping and sitting by her shoulder, it looked straight into her steel-gray eyes, eyes that shone like an immortal blade, and she looked back into its own eyes, dark as the midnight of infinite space, yet with none of that horrible emptiness the science-worshippers exalt in. Dark as the roots of the mountains, silent as the earth, those eyes were nonetheless filled with life, a life and wisdom older then the earth itself. In that instant Kate both knew and forgot, she knew suddenly her state and struggle, and forgot her weakness and despair, and even though she was still no more informed of the whys and wherefores of her situation, she knew its importance, its inherent weirdness, and forgot the idea of giving up and dying. The beast lent forward, still holding her gaze, and placed its warm tongue gently on her brow, a bestial kiss of the best sort. Kate, holding the enormous head, leant over the monstrous snout, and gently planted a kiss of her own on the top of that massive and terrible skull.
The moment ended, both rose to their feet, and the beast walked off, in the opposite direction to the would-have-been intruder. The girl followed. It would have been impossible not to, As impossible as a twin not following its sibling, and with a similar feeling. Moving silently, the pair left the clearing and walked on, heading north, though Kate knew it not. And in the clearing, the cowardly follower returned, snivelling, and followed their trail.
The pair had been walking for some time when Kate became aware of the sound of pursuit. Not the stealthy approach of a forest animal (for, whatever else the wolf-mutts had been, they had at least been stealthy) nor the casual jaunt of a pleasure-walker, who walks as and when he wishes and cares not who sees him, but the hesitant sounds of a human trying to follow without giving the pursued a hint of the pursuit. A clumsy human, at that, for their pursuer had stumbled at least twice since she became aware of him, and the noise was such that there could be no doubt that this was a man. Kate over-rode the urge to look around, to stop, to panic. The guy didn't want to panic her, didn't want her to know he was there, and so was obviously handing back a decent distance, insofar as it was possible to tell in this muck, and that was fine by her. As an aside, she looked down to her companion, the black beast, and was reassured again. It hadn't let the mutts make a meal of her, it wouldn't let some stupid oaf make sport of her. She was dismayed, therefore, when the beast stopped suddenly, and snuffled the air enthusiastically.
"What're you doing?" she muttered, crouching low to its head, "if we stick around here, he'll find us!" The beast turned its head majestically, extended the very tip of its tongue in her direction, and leapt forward in a bound that turned into a run.
"Hey! Wait!" she cried after it, almost falling over herself yet again as she turned her standing start into a stumbling run. The sounds of pursuit behind her took on a new urgency and loudness as she pursued her guide through the fog, but she paid that little attention, her only goal was to not lose sight of her terrible guide, and so she crashed on after it, regardless. The beast, however, showed no sign of wanting to lose her and remained in sight as they ducked and leapt under branch and over fallen bough until suddenly they were at the edge of the forest, in a mist-laden green space she recognised as a local park, close to the Silent Hill shopping mall. The beast, a mere five feet from her own feet, turned and snorted at the woods behind them, from which the crashing sounds of pursuit emanated faintly but unmistakably. Her guide had not lost her, but she had not lost her pursuer. Kate wiped her hands against her skirt in a Freudian gesture of anxiety and desire to clean herself of that wood. What could she do? If she ran across the park into the mall, that'd only leave clearer tracks for the man to follow, and if she stayed here he'd certainly find her. Wiping her hands again, she brushed against a hard, cold shape on the waistband of her skirt. The knife! She had completely forgotten it in her tangle with the wolf-pack, not that it would have helped against such dreadful numbers, but in a one-on-one with youth on her side, maybe she stood a chance if she could get the jump on him. She turned to return to the forest edge (the better to surprise you, my dear) and saw her fresh bootprints leading out to her. That'd never work.
As if sensing her thoughts, the beast took her boots gently in its jaws and pulled, head butting against her calves. Boots might leave an easy print, but bare feet? It was at least worth a try. She bent down to unzip her boots, almost sitting on the beast's head in the process ("Sorry doggy!") and turned them to face the park. She crept up to a nearby tree, unsheathed the six-inch blade and crouched in the brush to wait. The beast, however, merely turned to face her and lowered itself down on its forelegs, as though bowing adieu, then turned and bounded away, leaving her life as silently as it had entered. Kate waited patiently.
And so it was that the man in the woods, the craven follower, came to find a pair of empty boots with no further prints, save those of some massive hellhound and, standing bewildered, felt the cold prickle of a knife-tip against the base of his spine, froze solid, and heard a young, steady voice speaking decisively from behind him.
"You just stay where you are, pal. Don't you move a fucking muscle. You and me, we're gonna have us a little chat…"