“Help!” she started to pointlessly cry out again, but fear constricted her throat.
Where am I? Where are they? What are those goddamn howls? Why can’t anyone hear me?
For about the seven thousandth time in three days, she asked herself if this was really real, if it was really happening. Another cry pierced the night and suddenly she realized what was happening around her. It wasn’t air moving – it was them moving the air.
A horrible smell – similar to the copper she’d smelled in the air before, with Eckert – wafted to Claire’s nose as she stood. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the absolute darkness of the forest that when the moon rose, she could see well enough to make out shapes. Nothing specific, usually, but movement and shapes caught her attention.
And right then? There were a whole lot of things moving. Something was coming toward her, and before she knew what it was, she felt a cold burst of wind, and then the rough brush of coarse fur against her leg, through a place her jeans were ripped open, baring her skin.
“The fuck?” she yelped, jumping backward almost enough to lose her balance. “The fuck was that?”
Her voice had grown tight, more tense in her throat. The wheezes were more ragged, the tightness more unbearable.
She puffed again, and the pain subsided momentarily, but not fully.
“Great,” she hissed to herself, willing her breath to come slowly and evenly. “Just great. Calm down, Claire,” she coached. She’d done this a thousand times over the years. Being an asthmatic kid had a perk or two – for one, she never had to bother with PE classes in high school. For another thing, she was always able to calm her nerves more readily than anyone else she knew. After all, if she couldn’t she’d have spent a lot more time in a hospital bed, or hooked up to one of those giant, steaming nebulizers that made her feel like her skin was coming off.
“Calm down. Everything’s fine. It’s... raccoons or something.”
Claire had to laugh at herself for that one, mostly because raccoons aren’t exactly the sort of thing you want to encounter when you’re alone in the woods either. But they were certainly more appealing than whatever it probably actually was.
She knew the howls, knew what they meant and from what they were coming. She just didn’t want to admit the truth.
When another chorus broke out, and another furry gust blew past her, she said out loud what had been haunting her for the past few minutes.
“Wolves,” she said flatly.
As Cleo jangled around, judging her and licking her dangling fingers, Claire’s leg’s wobbled. Her knees alternated between locking down and trembling.
“Get down!” she heard, over from her left.
“Huh? Who are—?”
A hand on her shoulder shoved Claire, forcefully, forward. She pitched over, sprawling face first into the forest floor. She drew her hand into a fist, picking up a bundle of sticks, wet leaves, and humus. The taste of earth and moisture permeated Claire’s entire being, starting from the dirt that she somehow managed to get all in between her teeth.
Two explosions shattered her ears, two muzzle flashes blinded her sensitive eyes. Claire screamed, accidentally, and covered her head with her hands.
Seconds later, she found herself pulled off the ground, and something hard was pressing into her palm. A feminine voice – which was approximately one-hundred percent not what she expected – hit her ears.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh,” Claire stammered. “What’s this? I—”
“A gun, hold it. Are you okay?”
Suddenly there was a pen light in her face, bouncing back and forth between her eyes. “Did any of them bite you? Scratch you?”
Claire couldn’t speak. Something about this new person made her think that possibly Superman had fallen out of a tree and was checking her for a concussion. “You’re not a hot doctor, are you?” she asked, groping for something to say to make herself stop panicking.
“Depends what you mean. I’m Jill. I came to find you, and a few, uh, others.”
“Bears? Or whatever?” Claire was so dumbfounded that this superwoman just stuck a gun in her hand she didn’t even have time to filter the possibility that maybe this was someone arresting her, or that it was whoever had done... whatever they had done, with Fury and Stone.
“Bears,” Jill repeated. “Yeah. Where’d they go?”
Claire was shaking her head. “I woke up here, with the popping noises or – well I guessed they were gunshots. Guess I was right.”
“Always a good feeling, huh?” Jill momentarily stuffed her pistol into the back of her jeans, as she checked Claire for any outward signs of damage. “So no injuries? Nothing wrong?”