Biting Wild: Lycans of Grayville

Prologue:

It was just another hike in the woods for me, just another camping trip among my many camping trips. The thick wilds around me fill my lungs with the thick freshness of a world void of us humans. The lush forests of Grayville were, by far, the best I had ever entered. I had hiked many trails in my twenty two years of life. I grew tired of the normal trails now and I often just used a compass and a map to chart my own courses in the wild. I was a nature junkie to say the very least.

I moved to this small community of less than fifteen thousand people to attend a local veterinary school. I loved wild life and wild animals. I have been fascinated with wolves the most, since I met my first wild wolf up close at five years of age. He was a tall grey wolf and I had gotten lost in the woods near my old holm outside Portland. I remember thinking that this beautiful creature was going to eat me. I was scared and lost, he nuzzled my tiny chest and after I realized he was not going to eat me, I began to pet him and scratch behind his ear. I still remember his purr of delight every time she let me pet him.

He seemed to lead me back to the main road and less than a half mile from my house. I still remember his vivid blue and green mixed eyes. He was grey with white on his chest and tail. His four paws all had black, which made them look like black mittens on his feet. He was tall, but very lean. I would learn later that he was not even an adult wolf yet, from the shape of his build.

After that encounter I had made up my mind to become a vet and help save wild animals. Now at twenty two I was in my final semester of vet school and I had an assistant position here in a lush wild area. I never planned to move just north of the Canadian border, but this opportunity was just too much to pass up.

Now here I am on my weekend off in the deep wild greens and browns. I walk for about two hours, before I locate a large stream and I make camp on the banks. I pull out my fishing rod and I connect all three sections together and I go into my mini tackle and I begin to fish for my dinner. I know I am a survival and nature junkie, but at least I am not a barbie doll folks!

........

I had cleaned and de-scaled my fish and I enjoyed some open flame fried fish in my cast iron skillet. I tossed the remains into the water, so that no predators would come sniffing around my camp site. It was full dark now and I climbed into my tent and I began to read by my little battery lamp light. I was reading up on local varieties of wolves in the area. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of one before I headed back to my new house.

The other reason I up and moved here was, because my dad had died this year and I could no longer stand to come home to my childhood home. I felt like I was dying inside a little every day. I was always a daddy's girl and an unredeemable tomboy. My mom use to try to get me to go shopping and get into girly things, well until she left us for the big shot lawyer when I was fifteen. She even had the nerve to try to come sniffing around my inheritance once daddy died. I was heartbroken and I felt alone in the world.

The vets in this small wild area were said to be very busy places to work, due to all the dense forests and the farms that border on the opposite side to the east. The ranchers have to call us in Grayville to drive out to them.

This was the golden opportunity for a girl who felt more comfortable being around animals, than she did humans.

I heard a crack of a twig and I snapped to attention. I opened the front of my tent in time to see a massive light brown wolf snap its teeth into my foot. I did not know how the hell its teeth were long enough to break my flesh through my shoes, but they did and I felt like molten fire was poured in my veins of my foot and slowly traveled up the rest of my circulatory system.

I yelped in pain and surprise, this was not general wolf behavior at all. They never came up to humans and just attacked like this, my analytical mind was in full swing. I had been attacked before, not by a wolf, but by other wild life. I looked around me for anything that could be used as a weapon. I was about to give up hope, when the wolf drug me past my fire pit and I stretched out my left arm and felt like I was going to dislocate my shoulder.

I felt the cool cast iron of the skillet against my palm and I swung it with all the might that my small frame and my full fight or flight instincts would muster, then I smashed the wolf over the head twice more, before I was satisfied that it might be dead.

I leaned over it to inspect the wounds and I could feel the hot breath low and even from the wolf. Then I saw its eyes open and in a frantic manner I smashed it over the head twice more. Leaving nothing to chance I grabbed my map and my compass and I high tailed it out of the forest. Camping gear could just be damned for all I cared at this moment. I ran for hours and I felt like my veins were going to explode in my chest. I had felt it since the very moment the wolf bit me, but now that my adrenaline was leaving my blood, I could feel it with a renewed vengeance.

I staggered back to my car and I fumbled for my keys. I finally got my car unlocked and I swung into the driver's seat and I fired it up and pealed out of the parking lot to the camp grounds.