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Chapter 8

It was raining, hard. My boot slipped and I fell, twisting my body to protect what I was carrying. What was this heavy thing I cradled in my arms? Where was I? Cold water on my hands stung as I pushed myself off the soaked leaves that coated the ground. I had been driving Winona...back home, yes I was going home.
I stumbled off something sticking out of the ground and ran into a tree. Through the torrents of rain I could see others looming. I was in the woods somewhere. The trees and biting wet chill made me guess I wasn’t that far from where I lived, in the same state at least. That’s right, I remembered passing by the Welcome to Wisconsin sign. Rebecca had gotten excited about it. Rebecca, she had been with me.
I looked down at the limp form in my numb arms. Scratches laced Bark’s face and arms. A deep cut on her head aimed at her carotid ended in a gash that failed to penetrate the thick leather of her collar. I suppose there were some advantages to that thing.
What had happened? I remembered driving through the forest and it beginning to rain. There was a flash of lightning, I remembered attempting to make a bend in the road. The steering wheel turned but nothing happened. Then the bus had given a sudden lurch, and the trees....
I squinted back into the pouring rain. I had wreaked the bus? Apparently so. Why then was I out here? The sensible thing to do would have been to stay by the road. I turned around, and there was nothing but the rain and shadow of trees.
My body gave a violent shiver, reminding me that a t-shirt and jeans were definitely not the best choice of clothing, in fact it looked like Bark and I were pretty close to hypothermia, if she wasn’t in it already. Bark was a little better off I hoped, wearing a sweatshirt wet as it was.
I took another look around, finding the ghost like shape of a hill and heading towards it. We needed a shelter and a fire, now.

I was in luck, the partially collapsed entrance to an old mine in the side of the hill provided enough room for the two of us to stay out of the rain. But we were both soaked to the skin, and what little clothing we had was hardly enough for dripping wet at forty degrees.
Bark actually didn’t look in that bad of condition. Aside from the cut and scratches there was a sizable goose egg on the back of her head, but that was it. Her breathing was regular and pulse strong. I did a once over of her and being satisfied she wasn’t about to die in the next few minutes headed back out into the rain to try to find some relatively dry wood.
About half an hour later I came back with a single branch as thick around as my wrist. Everything else had either been a soaking wet punky sponge or still green. Bark had regained consciousness and was sitting frowning against the wall of the little cave.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

She nodded, “I think so, my head hurts like hell though.”

“You've got a nice lump on the back of it too.” I said. She reached back and quickly withdrew her hand, wincing. I took a deep breath, then continued.
“I think I wrecked the bus. I don’t remember much of anything except finding myself stumbling my way through the forest with you.”

“I remember standing next to you one moment and being thrown through the windshield the next, that’s about it,” she said, “yeah, the bus is smashed.”

I began looking for my knife, hunting through my pockets and around my belt with numb fingers. Bark smiled.

“I guess it’s time to apply some of those survival skills,” she shivered, “Problem?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t think my knife made it with me. You don’t have yours do you?”

She shook her head.

“Fuck.”

“Can’t you make one?” she asked. I noticed the blue growing in her lips.

“I don’t have the time. We need a fire and some warm clothes now, not in a day or two,” I explained. I tried in vain to peal the wet bark off the branch with my useless fingers. I needed to get down to the dry wood before there would be any hope of lighting a fire.

“Shit, this does not look good.”

I stiffly turned around to look for a sharp rock or something. My joints hurt like hell from being so cold, I had stopped shivering and my voice was beginning to slur.

“Steve!”

I jumped. My foot shot out from underneath me on a clump of wet leaves and I fell backwards. Stiffly I tried to roll over and get back up. An arm snaked under me to help.

“Thanks,” I gasped as she helped me back to the outcropping.

“Lie down.”

“What? That’ll just make the cold that much worse.”

“Trus’ me, just do it.”

I got down on my back and tried to find a spot where there wasn’t a rock digging into my back. It really didn’t matter that much though, when your skin is numb you can’t feel them anyway. Suddenly Bark was laying on top of me.

“Wha- are you doin’?”

“I’m going to keep ya warm,” she said, fumbling with her hair.

“Don’t, it’s no use. Its too cold fer that.”

“You said we needed clothes and a knife fer tools animals already had, right?” she said, getting frustrated with her stiff fingers.

“Yes...” my cold brain sluggishly tried to figure out what she was getting at. I closed my eyes to subdue the headache that resulted created. Something smooth and warm slid behind my head,

“Hold onto that fer me, will ya?”

I opened my heavy eyes again, finally realizing what she was trying to do. She already had the beginnings of a muzzle and was frantically trying to take off her soaked clothes. She managed to take her entire top layers off as fur erupted across her body, sweeping from nose to toes like the ripples on a pond.

“There,” said a deeper voice as she managed to wriggle free of her pants and turned her attention back to me. She reached up and did what I realized was the buckle to her collar on me.

“So you don’t loose that, I need it.”

I nodded.

“Here, tuck your arms under me,” she said, lifting her chest of mine slightly. I obeyed, my arms slowly being engulfed in pain as feeling returned to them.

Gradually I began to rewarm, Bark acting like a gigantic, fuzzy, electric blanket on top of me.

Eventually she fell asleep, trying to cover as much of me as she could, her fur covered arms on either side in an attempt to block a draft. Gradually I nodded off myself, only to awaken hours later to darkness and the sounds of a drizzle splattering off the fallen leaves outside. She was still asleep, the warm breath of her muzzle beside my head having an interesting smell to it.
I pulled my arms out from the warm shell she provided and wrapped her in a hug.

“Thank you,” I whispered in her ear, then quickly withdrew my arms back under. Damn, it was still cold, the sharpness telling me it was close to freezing and it was going to get colder. Tomorrow would probably be encased in ice.
I lay there another hour or so before Bark awoke. She said she needed to eat and left to go hunting, leaving me curled up in a corner wearing all of her clothes as well as mine. I was colder than I had ever been befor, and failed another attempt at building a fire. My fingers didn’t stay usable long enough in the frost coated environment, and eventually I found myself slipping back into hypothermia.
I started calling for bark when a feeling of warmth swept over me again, but my voice was weak and my muscles refused movement. It wasn’t long after that my world faded away.

I remembered regaining consciousness with a twisting feeling in my guts. I was on my back again, this time my arms were out like I was being held up. Bark had returned and was laying on top of me, her palms on mine with her nose mearly inches away from me. My guts gave another violent shudder.

“Bark-”

“Shhhh, try to relax,” she said.

“But what are you...”

“Hush, just do it, trust me.”

I did my best to relax, but the feeling that something was very, very wrong grew only stronger. My intestines gave another twist, like someone had stuck a paint stirrer in me and turned it on. A breeze washed past, making any exposed skin of mine sting. It was then I realized that not only has she removed all my clothes, but that I would probably be lucky to see daylight thawed. If Rebecca had a plan I was not in any position to turn it down. I relaxed a bit more. I could trust her, she would do her best.
Closing my eyes the dark was ripped apart, retreating to either side. Behind there was a dim light, and mentally I tried to help push the darkness back. Suddenly there was a wolf I hadn’t seen befor, who lept out hole the moment the receading dark had pulled back enough for it to fit though.
Another shock swept my innards, this one igniting a pain in my core that exploded outwards. I began to scream as my skin burnt like hell. My bones began to crunch and pop as they moved within me. It felt like I was being stabbed in each of my fingers with a very long needle just underneath the nail.
I tried to throw Bark off me only to find I couldn’t move...and that she was already gone. My screaming was cut short as my face contorted and breathing stopped, making me light headed and the world twirl.

Suddenly it was all over. I opened my eyes and though it was still dark could make out the shape of the mine shaft ceiling above me. Every muscle in my body complained as I stiffly rolled to one side.
Against the wall sat Bark’s wolfish form. She was watching me.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Like shit,” I coughed. I thought I was about to throw up.

She gave a nod, “I did too the first time. You’ll feel better in a couple of hours.”

First time... what the fuck was she talking about? I brought my had up to push myself off the ground and froze.
My hand hadn’t always looked like that, had it? My fingers were covered in short fur, my nails now stubby claws that stuck out in front. There was a leathery pad on each of my fingertips and just beneath where my fingers connected to the rest of my palm. I picked up my other hand, which was much the same.
I looked back over at Bark in horror, what had she done to me? She remain where she was, watching with an expressionless face. I reached up to touch something that constantly inhabited the lower part of my vision and wrapped my fingers around my furry snout. I looked back at Bark, then reached back to confirm my suspicions. Yep, I had a tail too.
I smile spread across her face, but it quickly disappeared when I snapped.

“What did you do to me?!” I yelled.

“I saved your life, that’s what,” she growled. “Calm down.”

“Calm down? I’m fuzzy! What happened, what did you do?”

I didn’t know if I was pissed off of overjoyed at the change, part of my mind went to each while most of it was still trying to work out what had happened and didn’t care either way.

“You did most of it, all I did was give you a little help.”

“Huh? You were laying on top of me, how could I have done anything?”

She shook her head, “All I did was give you a little help getting started. You did everything else. Just wait a few minutes before trying to figure anything out, your mind is still trying to recalibrate so to say.”
I cradled my chin (muzzle?) in my hands (paws?). A little while later Rebecca scooted next to me and put an arm over my shoulder.

“Look,” she said, “you remember me changing right?”

When I nodded the black nose in my vision was the only thing that didn’t blur up and down.

“You remember me telling you that Megan was with me right?”

Did I? I think so. I nodded again.

“She helped me. The first time you shift you can’t do it alone, you need someone to help you. If you have animal part in you like both of us do it’s kept walled away in it’s own section. It doesn’t have any real power except the occasional heightened sense or dream you experiance through it’s eyes. That extra person helps break apart that wall, and once that part of you is free it joins the rest of you on it’s own. You being confused and asleep from the cold made it easier to do.”
I nodded again, starting to understand. “And because that wall that held it is broken I can never truly control it again, can I?”

She shook her head, “No, you can control it, as it’s just as much a part of you as your leg. You just cannot keep it separate from the rest of you. Your natural state of being is how we are now. Through a lot of effort you can either make yourself look human again or fully canine, just like you can make yourself forget about your leg or arm, but I wish you luck staying like that without help. Just like the moment something brushes against your leg it reminds you that it’s there, so the moment something triggers your canine side will it remind you. Unless of course something outside prevents it.”

“The collar..’”

“That’s right, you can feel yourself rebel and hate it. In fact you’ll probably just decide to take it off if you can, but it replaces the barrier smashed. At least in me I hate control so much it acts like pinching a nerve.”

My mind was slowly starting to stop spinning and regain logical traction.

“I found your concealed weapon.”

“What?”

“You said before if I ever went against your intuition you’d be able to handle yourself. I figured you had a Luger or something shoved in your jacket, never the ability to turn into a set of teeth backed by 165 pounds of muscle.”
She gave me a toothy grin, then leaned her head against my shoulder. We sat there for mabey another two hours, listening to the wind kick up, knocking over trees and driving ice sideways past the opening to the shaft. Occasionally lighting tore the sky open, momentarily illuminating the forest floor before plunging again into darkness with an explosion that shook dust loose from the ceiling above.
Eventually the storm passed, leaving a light flurry of snow that drifted silently past the skeletal trees and evergreens.

“Well,” said Bark, making me jump, “why don’t we get going. There’s no use just sitting here.”
She stood on all fours and shook herself before padding silently out, leaving me trying to scramble after her. Despite how gracefully she managed to make it look the simple task of moving was a totally new experiance to me. Walking had to be done on the balls of my feet with a new gait. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt a light touch against my heel. It turned out to my my tail, drifting to and fro to counter the torque generated by walking, much like swinging your arms.
She had taken off in the direction we had come, first trotting with her nose to the forest floor, then running, then looking at the ground again before returning to sprinting at a pace I had only experiance in my dreams. It was only a matter of minutes before she was out of sight, leaving me to follow her trail of disturbed leaves and mixed fragrance. Eventually I caught sight of her, looking over the top of a small hill. Leaves scattered as I plowed into the embankment next to her. She mearly motioned for me to be quiet and pointed down the opposite side.
It was the road, about fifteen feet below us. We watched as a pair of police cars quietly drove past in the opposite direction we had been driving. A few minutes later an ambulance followed, lights and siren both off. Out sight it could be heared thundering over a wooded bridge with loose boards. Bark motioned for me to follow her.
She lead me about a hundred yards into the woods before we started following the road. She stole along with me creeping behind. The bus was somewhere along here, I remembered the dilapidated bridge not long before the bus had gone off the road. Then again, at 65 miles an hour that could be a couple of miles.
Something sickeningly sweet wafted across the breeze. I called out to Bark.

“What is it?”

“Smell,” I said, “it’s antifreeze.”

She tested the air.

“Is that what that smell is? It smells like something sweet burning.”

“If it’s from the bus, it probably is burning.”

She cut left and began to head towards the road. Seconds later we found ourselves on the outside of a curve where a large scare had been cut into the trees. Snowflakes floated in a small puddle of oil, the rainbow traces in the mud leading from where it had flowed from some ruptured part on Winona. There was broken glass and pieces of the front bumper and hood scattered along with the smashed trees and brush, all the way to the enormous chunk of granite that had finally brought the yellow beast to a halt. There were foot prints and marks of equipment, even places where a truck had spun it’s tires for a short while, but my beloved home was nowhere to be found. It had probable been towed away.
My heart sank. I knew I should have been thankful that both Rebecca and I had escaped relatively unscathed, but I had put so much work into her that I was attached to the old bus.
Bark however didn’t wast any time in going back to follow the road. I sulked behind.

“Come on, they just towed it to get it out of the way. They can’t have a piece of abandoned wreckage just laying next to the road. It’s probably at the station or something until someone claims it. Besides, it was a bus, we can build a better one now that we know what we’re doing.”
I couldn’t reason against her logic. That left only one thing to do.

“How far is your folks place anyway?” she asked, “You said yesterday that we weren't that far.”

“About four miles up this road another road crosses it,” I explained, “we take that to the left another two miles and their driveway is on the right, next to an old rusted out tractor. We really aren't very far.”

“Great!” she laughed, “We could even take a shortcut through the forest and kill two birds with one stone.”
I gave her an odd look.

“We need to stay out of sight and it would shorten our distance,” she explained.

“No, I understand that. It just how you intend to navigate four miles of unfamiliar forest cross country that is past me.”

She winked, “Peter Parker has Spider sense, we have wolfy sense. Trust me, just follow you gut feeling and it will take you where you need to go.”
I didn’t know if I liked the sound of that, but I didn’t feel in any mood to argue. Across the road and into the bush we plunged.