I am Wolf (The Wolfboy Chronicles) (3 page)

So I dozed off.

I was awaked by a large noise. A loud car engine
outside. I woke with a gasp. It was bright daylight. I had slept too long.
Voices were everywhere outside. Boots in the snow. I spotted uniforms through
the cracks.

Catalina made a sound and I jumped her and held my
hand over her mouth. “Someone’s outside,” I whispered. She nodded and I let go
of her. Her eyes were tormented with fear. My heart was racing. I held her
close to me.

The gate cracked and squeaked then slowly pulled open.
There was shouting and two soldiers revealed their faces. I lifted up my gun
ready to shoot at them, my finger steady on the trigger. I was ready. I wanted
to shoot those bastards; I wanted to kill them for what they had done to
Catalina and her family, for what they had done to those women and children in
the city. But then I was grabbed from behind by a pair of strong hands. The gun
was taken from me. Somehow they had found a back entrance to the barn and
attacked us from behind. Catalina screamed as to men grabbed her and started
dragging her out of the barn.

“Catalina!” I yelled while trying to fight off the
soldiers holding me down. I kicked and hit and screamed, but nothing helped.

“Dirty Jews,” an officer approaching Catalina outside
said. Then he spat in her face. She tried to kick him but missed.

“Put her in the car,” he hissed.

“No!” I screamed from the top of my lungs.

“Sami!” she yelled back as they tried to pull her towards
the car.

“I will find you!” I yelled. “I promise I will come
for you!”

The officer came closer. Now he was in my face. His
breath smelled of onions. He was spitting as he spoke. I didn’t listen. All I
could think about was her. Our eyes locked at the second she was thrown into
the black car. She was still yelling my name. Then I felt a sting of pain on my
cheek and there was nothing but a sea of darkness.

 
I
WOKE UP THINKING
I was drowning. Water was everywhere
and so was the feeling of suffocation. The pain in my face was unbearable. I
opened my eyes and stared into the face of the officer who had hit me. He had
taken off his cap and was looking at me while touching his bald head. I
recognized his green uniform as one of those from the Iron Guard. He was
laughing. It felt like a distant dream. But it was very real. In his hand he
was holding a bucket that had been filled with water until he had decided to
throw it all in my face.

“Catalina!” I said and tried to sit up, but the pain
was too overwhelming and I felt dizzy. I had to lie down again on the ground. I
was sobbing in pain and despair. I looked for the black car, but it was gone.

Someone was laughing. “Forget about her,” a voice
said.

I looked up. It was the officer. He was staring at me.
“The girl,” he continued. “Best to forget about her. She is gone.”

I groaned in pain and frustration. The officer was
lighting a cigarette. He exhaled deeply. I wanted to hurt him more than I had
wanted anything in this world. “So why were you protecting this girl?” he said
blowing smoke in my face.

I didn’t answer. Someone kicked me in my stomach. The
pain spread like a fire inside of me. I tumbled to the ground. “Answer when you
are spoken to!” another voice exclaimed. I moaned in pain.

“What were you doing with that girl?” The officer
continued still while smoking. “Why were you helping her?”

I still wasn’t answering him. I figured I didn’t owe
him anything. Another kick to my stomach blew the air out of me. The officer in
front of me killed his cigarette under his black shoe.

 
“She is a
wanted Jew,” he continued with a smirk. “A criminal. Your protecting her makes
you an accomplice. We have killed entire families for less than this.” He
stepped closer. Then he bent down and grabbed my hair. He pulled my head until
my eyes met his. I will never forget those eyes. They were grey and wore a
cruelty to them that I had never seen in a human before, only in the wolves of
the forest. It was the lust for killing I saw in them.

“Do you want me to take your family? I know perfectly
well who you are. Until now you have been protected by your status in these
parts, by your father’s name. But you are still nothing but another disgusting,
filthy Jew!” The officer spat in my face after he had said the last word. I felt
the hatred coming from him and sensed the cruelty those hands had caused. I
hated that they were touching me, I loathed being in his presence. Everything
about him made me want to vomit.

So I did. I threw up all over his shoes. It made him
move away with a disgusted sound. He let go of my hair and stepped back.

“Shoot him,” he said.

I looked at him while he walked away. Someone brought
him water and washed his shoes. A car drove up. Someone stepped out and held
the door for him and quickly they drove off.

After that I remember only pain. I was grabbed by the
arms and dragged towards a wall. I had a hard time even standing because of the
pain in my face and body. I saw a gun close to my face. I lifted my eyes and
stared into the eyes of the soldier in front of me. There was no compassion, no
humanity in them. He was young like me, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. He
was probably a student only a year ago. Now they had turned him into a killing
machine. Inhumane, brainwashed.

I closed my eyes and thought of my dear mother. I
hated to cause her this trouble and sorrow. Once she found out what had
happened to me she would never forgive herself for letting me go outside.

Something was tied around my eyes. A blindfold of some
sort. I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t. I was alone in my own darkness. A
soldier counted down.

“Three, two, one ... ”

This was it. It was all over.

But then it wasn’t.

There was turmoil, a growling and some ripping of
clothes. I waited for the pain but all I felt was the same pain I had felt all
along. The pain in my face and aching body, nothing else. I gasped and
listened. I almost didn’t dare to breathe. It was so quiet. I wondered if I had
in fact died and this was heaven? An eternity of darkness and pain. Or maybe it
was hell?

Then I sensed something else. I heard a heavy
breathing close to me. It wasn’t human, it had to belong to some animal. A big
animal. I lifted my hand carefully and reached out. My fingers touched
something, something furry and hairy. I gasped and withdrew my hand. It seemed
to be the size of me!

I was shaking all over as I sensed the animal coming
closer. It was panting; its breath hit my face. There was a deep growl.

“Oh God,” I exclaimed. “Please don’t kill me.”

Then it attacked me. I felt its paws on my shoulders
and then I was thrown to the ground, pinned under its weight. I was more
frightened than I had ever been. I felt its breath on my neck when it sunk its
teeth into the side of it, penetrating the skin causing me to scream in agony
mostly because I knew this was definitely going to kill me. I was ready for a
painful, dreadful death in which the beast would eat me one piece at the time
and leave me to bleed to death. But to my great astonishment the bite hardly
hurt. It was like the beast was trying not to cause me any pain. When its teeth
had penetrated the skin the beast paused like it was restraining itself. I
thought for a moment it was tasting my blood, drinking it like the vampires in
my mother’s stories. But that didn’t seem to be the case either. It wasn’t out
for my flesh or my blood. What did it want? Just to kill me for the fun of it?
As the teeth met my veins and its saliva mixed with my blood I felt a thrill of
excitement go through my entire body. It was like a huge shot of adrenalin rushing
through my veins, causing all pain to disappear immediately. My body and wounds
seemed to heal like a stroke with a magic wand. The blood was rushing faster
causing my heart to beat faster and my muscles to ache. I felt stronger, I felt
lifted up, and I felt suddenly powerful. That was when something truly amazing
happened.

I heard the beast think.

It spoke to me through its thoughts; it pushed
sentences into my head. Its voice was gentle and deep yet hoarse and
experienced, similar to an old man’s.

Fear not, it said. Don’t fight it. You can’t fight the
inevitable. You were destined for this.

A strange calmness and peace ran through my body while
he planted these thoughts in my mind. I felt a wondrous connection to this
beast that I hadn’t even seen but now shared something deep and intimate with.
It was suddenly like I had known him my entire life and he had always known me.
As if this moment was predestined from before I was even born. It was so much
bigger than me.

Could it be destiny?

Suddenly I felt him withdraw his teeth from my skin
and a profound feeling of sorrow emerged from within me. I didn’t want this
feeling, this rush, and this supernatural kick to ever leave me again. I wanted
it to go on. I wanted him to keep biting me. But he pulled his fangs out and
soon after there was nothing left but the darkness again.

 
I
WOKE TO THE
gentle singing voice of my mother. I
thought I had died and gone to heaven, this time for real. Nothing was dearer
and more heavenly than the sound of her voice. I opened my eyes and realized I
was still alive. The blindfold was gone and I was in familiar surroundings. I
lifted my head. I was in my home, my father’s estate, lying in my own bed. My
mother was sitting next to me, sewing while singing some of my childhood’s
beautiful hymns. She looked so beautiful from the light of the fireplace. So
delicate. Like Catalina had looked in the light from the full moon.

“Catalina,” I exclaimed. What had happened to her?

My mother lifted her head to the sound of my voice.
“You’re awake,” she said and got up on her feet. She touched my forehead
gently. “Still burning up, though.”

I shook my head. “I feel fine,” I said.

She smiled and stroked me gently with her hand while
smiling soothingly. “Don’t try and get up,” she said with a low voice. “You
still need to rest.”

I lifted the covers and stared at my body. I was
wearing bandages on my legs and arms and I felt sore, but it didn’t seem to
hurt much anymore. I lifted my hand and felt my neck where I had been bitten.
There was nothing there. Had it all been a dream? Had the encounter with the
beast been nothing but a feverish nightmare?

I couldn’t believe it. It had been so vivid, felt so
real, almost more real than anything else I had ever lived through.

“What happened?” I asked.

My mother took my hand in hers. “We don’t know,” she
said. “When you didn’t come home your dad and brothers went out to look for
you. They searched for you all night and finally found you at a farm in a
valley far away from here. You were badly beaten and bruised. Those soldiers
had done it to you. They hurt you. But they had all been killed. Your father
said it looked like they were going to shoot you. When they found you, you were
still blindfolded. You were lying on the ground lifeless and they thought you
had been killed like the soldiers by some bear or whatever attacked them, but
you were still alive. Only unconscious. They brought you home to me.”

“Are they looking for me? They know who I am. Have
they been here?”

She shook her head gently. “They’ll probably think you
were killed by the bear as well. All the soldiers were dead. Ripped apart by
its claws. There is no way they can believe you survived this attack.” She
paused and wiped my forehead with a wet cloth. “I don’t know how you managed to
survive that, but I have always said that you have a special guardian angel
watching over you. I think he was there for you that day. It looks like the
animal didn’t touch you at all. The bruises you have are clearly manmade. I am
just glad we found you before more soldiers came to the farm. The way it is now
I don’t think anyone knows you were even there.”

I smiled and leaned back on my pillow with a deep
sigh. “No one knows what kind of animal did it?”

“No. Everybody is guessing that it was a bear. It had
to have been a big one though. But he is kind of a local hero now. Secretly of
course.”

I chuckled. To my surprise it didn’t hurt. “Of
course,” I said.

“You’ve had a fever ever since you came back and I
can’t seem to bring it down. Therefore you need to stay in bed a little while
longer.”