Chapter 9

Kate's Nightmare

Kate and the other twelve survivors—the wolves known as Scava, Lilly, Humphrey, Princess, Claws, Claudette, Runt, Stinky, Mica, Fleet, Magril, and Sweets and the crow known as Marco—were gathered together around a campfire. It had been started by the wolves, but the site where they started it had been built by a group of humans who had been camping here when the world ended.

Princess was the closest of the fourteen survivors to the fire. This was her second time crying in her entire life. Both were caused by the end of the world or the ends that followed it. The first time Princess had cried since the world ended was the morning after it ended when she had returned to the ruins of The Howling Rock. She'd thought she'd found the broken body of Runt, her mate whose pups she was pregnant with, next to Stinky and Claudette. Luckily, however, it had turned out that they were not dead, and those three had happened to be wolves who resembled Claudette, Runt and Stinky. They were the Eastern Pack wolf called Scarlet, despite her red-orange fur rather than normal orange fur, who resembled Claudette, and two male wolves from the Southern Wolf Packs called Dylan and Hamish, who resembled Stinky and Runt except for their darker fur. But just because Stinky had been alive didn't mean Mica, his very pregnant mate, hadn't cried for those three wolves—Scarlet had been one of her oldest friends from Alpha school, and the other two had been her little brothers. Claws had also cried with Mica, just for Scarlet, who had been her niece, the daughter of her sister, who had also died in the collapse of The Howling Rock.

Now, Princess was crying over the reality of everything going on. The deaths of Candy and Scar were just hitting her and they hit her hard. She felt as if she could've done something to save Candy if she hadn't gone upstairs, and she'd noticed that the ground, which Scar had been standing on when he died, had been weak but she hadn't said anything about it because Claws had been screaming at her mate seconds before he was choked to death by that vine.

Lilly and Humphrey were also near the fire, but nowhere near as close to the fire as Princess, pregnant, and her good friend Claws, in addition to the other pregnant wolves Claudette, Mica, and Magril. The pregnant wolves needed to stay warm for their unborn puppies' sake. All of the pregnant wolves, plus Lilly and Humphrey, slept by the fire. And because their mates were near the fire, Runt and Fleet were near the fire as well. It was unfortunate that Claws and Magril were widows—they had no mate to raise their puppies with and no one to sleep with at night for the comfort. Sometimes, they had cried themselves to sleep at night when they didn't have someone to sleep with. For that reason, Fleet slept between his older mate Claudette and his little sister Magril, just as Runt slept between his mate Princess and his mate's good friend Claws. Scava, a wolf from King's pack who claimed he's from Red Deer Park, and Marco, the crow, were further from the fire, keeping an eye on the group as they slept until someone can to relieve them in a few hours to take over the watch. With that murder who killed Candy and at least three humans following them, they couldn't afford to sleep without someone watching over them. Scava and Marco had volunteered to watch over them. Stinky and Fleet would in two hours, then Runt and Humphrey would, and then after them, Princess and Claws. The watch would end with Kate and Claudette. They would still get eight hours of sleep since they had all agreed to go to sleep two hours earlier than they usually did to make up for those two hours the wolves would've lost otherwise by watching over the group.

Kate was sleeping further away from the fire than anyone else was. She was so far away from it that she hardly felt its heat, not that she needed it anyway, and the only one who thought that. She was also the only wolf who was having a dream right now, of the twelve who was dreaming, but she was not having a peaceful sleep. She was tossing and turning, her ears, and tail were twitching, pawing the air with her front legs, and kicking at something with her hind legs. Kate kept snapping her jaws as if she were trying to bite something that wasn't even there. Kate was dreaming…rather, having a nightmare. If this entire world was one big nightmare, then the nightmare Kate was dreaming was Hell. And if this world were Hell then there wouldn't be a term to describe how terrible of a nightmare she was having. Now, Kate began whimpering and kicking, clawing, and biting as if she was trying to escape from something that had a hold on her.

In her nightmare, Kate was all alone in a dead landscape that looked like sand as far as she could see in all directions. The landscape had already been scorched by a wildfire, leaving nothing behind. Not even something as small as insects or as big as trees. She noticed that the rivers of the Western Wolf Pack's Territory were all dried up. Everyone she went, Kate found this destroyed landscape as well as the scorched, dead remains of trees. There was not one living thing in sight, nor was there one dead thing in sight. Just nothing. It was all very reminiscent of the morning after the world had ended. Kate was all alone in her nightmare, as she had been that same morning until she found Humphrey. Except that the nightmare was far from being as terrifying as the real thing. Or was it? Kate felt as if she was reliving that very morning, except the entire Western Territory had been burned up.

Kate attempted to call out the names of the survivors she was sleeping a few feet away from in reality but no words escaped her lips when she opened her mouth. In her mind, she had cried the names of Lilly and all her other surviving family members, but the words died on her tongue. They didn't escape her mouth no matter how much she tried to speak or scream their names. She couldn't even scream when she attempted to. It was so muffled of a scream that she sounded as if something was covering her mouth or as if something had been stuck in her mouth to prevent her from speaking. But if something was doing either of those, why couldn't see feel it? Kate blinked, keeping her eyes closed for less than two seconds, and when she re-opened her eyes, she was suddenly surrounded by fog. The scariest thing about this fog was not that it was there so suddenly but the color. The fog was not white but red—dark, no blood red!

Kate hardly had to sniff the air to pick up a familiar scent. It was so strong. This scent was one she knew from going on many hunts before the world ended. It was the scent of blood, and not just in the blood-red fog, that was floating around her body, staining her fur red with blood, much to Kate's horror. She stuck her tongue out to pant—it was suddenly getting hotter—and she could state blood when the fog made contact with her tongue. She pulled her tongue back in her mouth immediately and screamed again, and this time, sound escaped her mouth. It was a loud, almost ear piercing screaming that echoed through this barren terrain. Now, she didn't feel as alone as she had been. She felt like she was being watched…and just maybe she was. There was a set of eyes in a single, brown, burned, bush that seemed out of place in this dead landscape.

The eyes were red. So red that Kate sensed something evil was in that bush, and about the entire area. The eyes, of whatever it was in the bush, blinked shut once, and they re-opened burning like fire. The bush went ablaze then a female wolf stopped out of the burning bush unharmed. She had the same eyes, which were still burning. The body of this female wolf didn't have a single scorch mark or injury on her body. Not a single strand of her hair and fur was out of place. The most frightening thing about this wolf was that she was an exact replace of Kate—in every way except for her red and burning eyes. And then her voice—

—her voice was just as different from the real Kate's voice was her eyes were different from the real Kate's eyes. It was raspy and sounded like the voice of an old wolf, only scarier and eviler. The real Kate's heart rank to her stomach and she felt ill.

"You…" the seemingly evil clone of Kate said slowly." I have come for you…"

"NO!" Kate screamed. "You are not real! This is a nightmare! A nightmare! You are NOT REAL! This is just a nightmare!"

"It is not fake, or a nightmare!" Kate realized how much this demonic female wolf sounded like a male now. "I have come to take your soul…you will be damned to Hell forever!" the demon screamed at Kate.

"NO!" Kate screamed again.

"YES!" The demonic female roared back in response. Then something else began to happen. Every individual fur of this female demon wolf turned to flames. Then her body exploded into a mess of burning blood and guts that showed Kate. When Kate re-opened her eyes—she'd closed them to avoid getting the blood and gore in them—and looked up, all that remained of the demonic wolf was her skeleton and her eyeballs. Her blood and her guts, right down to her reproductive organs and the unfertilized eggs that would become puppies if fertilized were all over the ground and hanging from the branches of the burned and dead trees.

Now, the female demon had teeth more like long fangs that overlapped each other. Her claws were just as different and poked holes in the ground every time she clicked them on the ground. And Kate would have learned what it felt like to be ripped apart by those fangs and claws if it was not a nightmare. The demon wolf lunged at her, and pinned Kate to the down, then tore her to shreds…piece of flesh by piece of flesh until she was reduced to a bloody skeleton…

Kate woke up screaming and crying, flailing her limbs about with her claws extended. The wolves and the crow, even Scava, had come to check on her had to retreat to avoid being wounded by Kate's claws. It was risky for any of them to try, but all it took to calm Kate was a kiss, rather a lick on her cheek. It was not Humphrey but Lilly who did it.

"What happened?" Princess asked, wide eyed.

Kate told them what happened in her hellish nightmare and they were all too scared to go back to sleep early that night, even Scava. When the survivors finally returned to sleep again, all extremely close to each other, with Scava and Marco still on watch, they would not sleep easily for the rest of the night.