Wrapped up in his thick sets of clothing, Ulric despondently followed along behind his father as the old man strapped a rope over his shoulder, carrying a deer along the dirt behind him by its legs, wrapped up and knotted. The light was gray behind foreboding, dark clouds, the sun seeming to be hiding from Ulric's father- a position the boy wished he could partake in himself.
The two trudged through muddy, soft earth, Ulric needing to escape first and pull his father out of the slop before helping him pull the deer from the quagmire next. His muscles had already begun to ache as they'd done the last few times hed been brought out to hunt, his steps almost limping from a shooting pain in his lower back.
"Yer mother has food cookin'" his father muttered, "Told ya you'd get tha hang o' this. It's nice comin' home exhausted, eh?"
Ulric didn't answer, earning the ire of his father as the old man whipped his neck around, "BOY!"
He finally nodded slowly, answering his father indignantly, "It's nice."
The old man grumbled under his breath as he turned back forward, "I swear. I didn't raise no child ta yalk back or 'ave an attitude. I shoulda disciplined ya more; now yer mother's tellin' me to quit."
He scoffed, "If I have to beat ya like a drum to teach ya respect, god damn, I'll do it."
As he'd done often enough by now, Ulric had quit listening to his father, simply going along while listening to "key words" he knew to listen for, which allowed him to reply in kind without having to absorb much. Hunting had become something of a routine now, leaving Ulric plenty of time to hone this skill.
Their home appeared as they made their way up the hill leading down to their small stead, Ulric happy to see the end of this excursion. His father was still grumbling on about him, but he didn't care, breaking into a jog down the hill toward the house, his father shouting from behind him.
"Don't you run away, ya bastard!"
Ulric was far beyond his reach, anyway. All he wanted was to be home; somewhere comforting. Now that he was jogging, the idea to not even stop crossed his mind. How easy it would be to just sprint off into the darkness, start anew, all by himself. The only problem being, of course, that his mother would be left without anything.
All he wanted was to see her.
He panted as he slowed up at the door, hunched over from exhaustion before sliding his feet across the mat at the door, removing what mud he could before stepping up the few steps to the door, swinging the door open.
"Mother?" he questioned as he stepped into the home.
He walked to the coat rack to stow away his thick coat, exhaling brusquely as he lowered his head. His eyes felt heavy as they shut, his body waving slightly as he stood there, almost feeling the visage of sleep coming across him. Opening his eyes once more, he sighed as he turned around, walking toward the table.
From there, he could see the entire house, save for the loft, his eyes slowly scanning the whole of the building, finding nothing. Growing curious, he stepped further, rounding the table, slowly, the gentle popping of soup over the fire being the only noise he heard.
His steps were light, but every creak of the floor drew a quake up his spine as his curiosity turned to terror. He paused immediately, hearing a sudden sort of rough sniffle, followed by a low, vicious, tumbling growl from in the kitchen. His eyes ran wide as he gingerly grabbed at a knife from the table, praying that his mother hadn't been on the receiving end of this wolf's meal.
He stepped past the small, wooden island that stood between the kitchen and the rest of the house, a quick gasp escaping him as his hand released the knife onto the floor. He stepped back a step in terror, his heart jumping up into his throat as his pulse began to race.
His mother was on the floor, hunched over herself, shaking mightily as she pawed at the flesh of her face, suddenly switching to her nails, her growling turning into shrieks as her skin began to shred. Ulric could tell it was her, but her body had metamorphosed in a rabid contortion, hair lining her arms and coming up roughly up her neck and onto her face. She seemed to be clawing at her face to prevent the wiry hair from encroaching onto that final bit of familiarity, but as her cries began to slowly change to whimpers and yelpings, her claws simply shook violently in defeat in front of her face.
Ulric took another step back, the shoddy workmanship of his father coming through in the suddenly deafening creak at the floor, his mother suddenly shooting her head back at him with a sadistic, blood-curdling stare, her face nearly tearing as her entire physiology seemed to be changing, her nose and mouth subtly pushing out into a snout.
Tripping over himself, Ulric fell backward onto his back, quickly scurrying away, crawling desperately to get away as his mother took a suddenly sharp leap out from the kitchen, letting loose a deathly sort of roar as she eyed him, ready now to pounce o to him.
Just as her muscled tensed to do so, a massive *POP* broke the air by Ulric's ear, knocking him to the side, missing his mother's face exploding in a haze of blood and skin as she recoiled, crying out in a miserable howl. By the time Ulric recovered, his father had him by the collar, yanking him up to his feet as he pulled him back toward the door.
"Come on, ya little shit! Get away from there!" he shouted, pushing Ulric out of the house as they made it to the door.
Ulric quickly rose to his feet as his father desperately fiddled with the door, doing what he could to keep his wife locked inside as Ulric pleaded, running up behind him, hitting his back as his cries blew into tearful shouting, "No! We have to help her! Dad, no!"
The old man shook him off, kicking him to the ground as he finished yanking the door handle mechanism out from the heavy wood, leaving the door locked with no way of escape, save for tearing through the door itself. He spun around, Ulric staring up at him, terrified, unable to move, much less stand.
"I swear ta god," his father muttered as he stomped over to his son, "If ya don't get a move on, I'll fockin' leave ya to be-"
An explosive burst of glass and wood broke toward them from the side of the house as a gangly, lupine arm thrust out toward them, desperately clawing at them as a vicious growl was thrown their way. Instinctively, the old man whipped his gun around, firing at the beast's face again without even thinking, rushing away, grabbing for Ulric without looking, settling for grabbing the boy by the throat and dragging him along.
Ulric scratched desperately at the massive hand cutting off his air, gagging as tears streamed down his face, finally ripping the old man's fingers away and falling to the grown as his father yelled at him, his hand whipping back in forth to alleviate the boy, "You son of a bitch! Get the fock up then!"
Struggling to his feet, Ulric stated back toward their homestead, "W-What was that? What did it do to mother?!"
"I don't know," the old man reply, roughly, "But I don't 'tend ta stick around and learn more about it. C'mon."
The two dashed into the woods, content that whatever that creature was couldn't follow behind. Ulric was running so fast, his arms couldn't keep up with the branches in his way, his face taking a beating as varying sizes of twigs and bark smacking him in the face as he gasped for breath, unable to catch up to his lungs.
The two ended up in a clearing, beside the very same lake where Ulric had found his first kill just a few weeks ago. He looked around as he bent over to take a breather, his father panting as well as he took the time to reload his rifle, his eyes carefully scanning the trees surrounding all sides of the small grove. Ulric peered up at him; it was the first time he'd ever seen the man frightened.
"There were rumors," the old man mumbled aloud, "'bout some illness; that's why they clos'd up the gates. Said it been turnin' citizens into more wolf than man."
Ulric's forehead curled in horror, "Th… That was mom?!"
His father didn't reply as he rotated his body, finally looking at his son, "I don't know. Might've been fer all I know."
Ulric's face already blood red from his tears, his teeth clenched angrily as he suddenly rushed at his father, tackling him to the ground with a loud roar, kneeling over him as he rained punches down onto the man's face.
"YOU KILLED MOM!" he shouted, louder than anything he had ever heard before in his life.
His father frantically waved his arms around to try and grasp the source of his sudden blasts of pain, finally wrapping a hand around Ulric's wrist and yanking him off of him, furiously throwing the boy onto the ground as he quickly made it to his feet, aiming his rifle down at Ulric.
"OF ALL THA SHIT YOU'VE PULLED, BOY!" his father yelled back in a fury his son hadn't ever witnessed before, "YER LUCKY I DON'T OFF YA LIKE I DID TA-"
He paused suddenly, reaching up to his neck as he dropped the rifle in his hand, slowly dropping to knees as well. His eyes shot open, wide, staring over toward Ulric, who stared back in a similar horror, his arms and legs quickly carrying him across the ground, away from his father.
The man choked, his hand pawing at his throat as if trying to find some relief, his eyes building up tears as his body began to feel as if it were about to tear itself in half from the inside out. He bent down, his fingers digging into the soil as his throat released a pitiful whimper, his eyes burning from the accumulation of tears and sweat running over them.
"R-…" he whispered, hoarsely, as if he'd gone a month without water, "R-… R-…"
Ulric watched him, terrified, the old man hunching over in a bestial pose, his voice finally managing through a desert dry whimper, "R-… Run…"
Doing as instructed, Ulric slowly rose to his feet, his eyes never leaving his father as the man writhed there, hunched over himself on the ground, his hand scratching his skin as if to free something within him, trying to kill him so that it could burst free. Ulric eyed him, but his eyes slowly descended down to the ground, where his father's rifle lay.
He watched it just laying there, his eyes curious as his father's dry whines drowned out into the background. It lay near where Old Denny had laid, just a few weeks ago, Ulric thinking back to that day. His eyes slowly flashed up to his father, the old man resembling something like a helpless beast himself now.
Ulric slowly walked forward, toward his father, stopping short as he bent down to pick the rifle up, keeping his eyes on his father. Suddenly, the boys face turned to one of anger as he turned around, stomping off in the other direction, clutching the latch on the rifle, sending the empty she'll flying into the air as the gun reloaded, Ulric quietly holding it to his side until he made it nearly out of the clearing, stopping at a dead tree.
The same dead tree where he'd taken his first life.
He knelt down, resting the rifle along the side of the tree, his two eyes staring off at his father, pathetically clawing at himself and at the ground in a frenzied attempt at relieving the pain. Ulric bent his head down, closing an eye as he focused down the length of the rifle, aimed right at his father.
He was prepared to take a second beast's life.
His father managed to lift his head, his face beginning to shift just like his mother's, the old man's blood-shot eyes staring down the clearing toward his son, his voice croaking, panicking as he scratched at the earth in a vain attempt to escape. Ulric kept his aim true, even as his father yelled out through the disjointed tune of a howl.
"S-Son! Don't-!"
*BANG*
Ulric remained unmoved as smoke trailed up from the opposite end of the rifle, distorting the scene beyond its vapor, but Ulric could see enough. His father fell forward, quietly, onto the ground. His lifeless pile of skin and bones fell to the side as gravity took its toll, leaving him laying there on his side, dead.
The boy slowly stood up, rounding the tree before walking over to his father, coming up within earshot before grabbing the rifle like a baseball bat, swinging it down onto the old man's face before dropping it there, panting lightly from the exhaustion.
"She needed two, you son of a bitch," Ulric muttered, shaking his head, "How dare you die so easily, just to escape. Couldn't even fight."
Ulric only watched him for a moment, allotting him only the time he figured he deserved in death, before turning around and walking off into the distance, head lowered as he contemplated his life. He had nothing here for him. Not anymore. He had no relatives, no friends, no-
Suddenly, Ulric's eyes broke wide as he reached up, grabbing at his neck. His throat choked up in worry, though his hand slowly slipped down from his neck, down his chest. His heart sped up as his mind raced.
What if the same thing was going to happen to him as well?
His feet still, he slowly managed to raise his leg as he began to walk again, cautiously, his mind still mulling over that question. As frightened as he had been, it was nothing compared to the terror that now lined the insides of his very mind. He decided, then, that he wouldn't stop to find out the answer.