SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Horst plunged out of the cage and howled. You motherfucker I’m coming for you .

Then a gasp came from the top of the stairs, just as Horst began to bound over the debris littering the carpeted steps.

Rene stood there, hand clasped over his bloody shoulder, completely naked. Horst paused, ears cocked forward. Why the hell aren’t you wearing any clothes? It’s minus insane out and it’s not like you have any fur—oh. Oh, wow, right, fuck! Rene nodded at him. “You okay?”

Horst wurffed out a quick affirmative, tail wagging until he forced it to stop. Even as a wolf he realized he was acting like a puppy. Rene’s alive. Play it cool.

“Asshole’s around front. I pushed his Ski-Doo over before I rang the bell but I bet that’s where he’s going. Gimme a second here and I’ll be right with you.”

The heavy thud of machinery crunching onto snow came from the other side of the house, then the grind-click of an ignition not quite catching.

Horst tore off, rounding the house just as his captor succeeded in getting the snowmobile started. The man glanced over his shoulder and fired the Glock at the dire wolf surging over the drifts at him. Horst took a bullet in his right shoulder and yelped. But he kept coming, crossing behind to the man’s left, so he couldn’t fire again without turning. Instead of trying to keep the wolf in his sights, he faced forward and gunned the motor. Horst sprang with hind legs powerful enough to throw him onto the back of an Irish elk. The snowmobile shot off over the sparkling white drifts—but not before Horst’s teeth sank into the thick foam-and-wood base of the rear seat. The machine slowed as Horst’s massive body was dragged through the snow behind it.

The man glanced over his shoulder and gaped, inadvertently easing up on the accelerator just long enough to allow Horst to get his good foreleg under him; then, realizing his life depended on it, the man turned his back on the wolf and gunned it. Horst was pulled off his feet again, but his jaws held firm.

Over the whine of the engine and the flurry of snow thrown up from the treads, Horst heard a deep roar from Rene. But then they plunged into the line of trees at the edge of the property, passing through the grasping bare branches and growling down into the ditch alongside the highway.

The fabric and foam of the seat tore the harder Horst held on. The man crouched over his handlebars like a frog, the T-shirt under his ski pants rippling in the burning-cold wind. Horst couldn’t see where he had the Glock.

The engine coughed into a deeper growl and the machine slowed. Horst just had time to scramble his hind legs under him and see they’d come to a gravel road intersecting the highway, blocking the ditch. There was a culvert underneath it to allow water to flow through in the summer, but it was far too small for the snowmobile. The man hauled on the handlebars and took them up to the left, toward the highway. Horst let go of the shredded seat and leaped up behind him, stumbling when his injured foreleg took some his weight and crumpled. The man glanced over his shoulder, screamed, and hit the gas. The machine shot up over the edge of the ditch and Horst clamped his teeth onto the nearest thing available—the man’s shoulder.

After a few seconds flying through the air, the snowmobile landed with a metallic scrape and a thud on the wind-swept asphalt. The man grasped for something in the front of his chest-covering ski-pants—the Glock, of course—while still driving forward. The roar of the engine drowned out all other sound, but from the direction Horst’s snout was pointed, he saw the semi first.

It was barreling down on them from the north. The truck driver hadn’t seen them yet.

Horst’s would-be abductor had the Glock out now and its muzzle flared with a deafening bang so close to his snout the reek of gunpowder shot into his nose. He let go of the man with his teeth and jumped back and away from the snowmobile. He landed heavily on the northbound turning lane, unable to do more than roll as his wounded leg gave out again. At the same time, the semi’s airhorn blared, too late, and the rig smashed into the snowmobile. The smaller machine flew to pieces with a splintering crunch. Plastic and metal and fabric shot through the air, along with the stink of oil and gas and rubber and the scent of blood. Horst glanced down the lane in which he had landed—headlights approaching. He crawled and limped, each ragged step far too slow, as the new vehicle bore down on him. Never look at the headlights , Mitch always said. You don’t want to be nailed like some stupid deer . But it was hard to look away.

Horst tumbled into the ditch and lay panting in the frigid darkness. His ears told him everything that was happening now, and his nose filled him in on the rest.

The car that had been coming toward him braked near where the semi had come to a stop. Car doors opened, shouts of Holy shit, what happened? And Guy tried to cross the highway on his fuckin’ Ski-Doo . Then Oh my God and the sound of retching. The scene was more than a hundred meters south of where Horst lay but his hearing was already starting to recover. You guys heal fast, don’t you?

He heard the sound of the trucker’s voice again. I radioed for help but they’re not gonna be able to put this poor asshole back together .

Horst’s wounded foreleg still wouldn’t bear his weight, and his other foreleg, whose paw still had a claw missing, felt weird. But he struggled through the snowy ditch to the stretch of field through which he had been dragged. If he followed the treadmarks of the snowmobile he’d find his way back and hide his own pawprints at the same time.

Each limping step was painful, and it wasn’t long before an unfamiliar scent put his back up. He paused, checking for cover. Where had he smelled this before? Right outside the house, when he’d encountered Rene—

A massive bear shambled out of the line of trees ahead, carrying a duffel bag and backpack in its teeth. It was so large—bigger than a grizzly—they looked like lunchbags. It dropped them in the snow when it caught scent of Horst, then melted back into human form.

“Got your stuff,” said Rene. “Saved your finger, too.”

Horst shifted back as well, his shoulder knitting itself back into shape as he did. Still ached though. And his empty knuckle remained bare.

Horst retrieved his clothes from his bag and dressed while Rene did the same. The realization that Rene was like him , but something he’d never seen before, kept hitting him like a final beat you don’t get right the first time. Bam. No, bam. Bam-crash. He had a hundred questions drowning in the relief that he—and Rene—weren’t going to die tonight. Mitch had always been vague on details about shifting into other animals. Now Horst had new questions—but they could wait.

“It over?” said Rene, his words a plume of steam in the moonlight.

Horst shuddered. “Semi smashed him up. He’s dead.”

Rene clapped Horst’s shoulder and left it there, a warm, reassuring presence. “Gonna have to find out what he was up to.”

Horst wanted to say something that didn’t sound like his whole life was turning into even more shit, but all he could come up with was “Fuck.”

“Hey,” said Rene. “No one’s in this alone. You know what I mean.”

Horst leaned his head in slowly until their foreheads were touching and then they kissed. “I guess I do.”

Rene smiled. “Next time, let’s go see a movie instead. No offence, but this first date kinda sucked.”

Horst grinned, and he knew it was a stupid, uncool kind of grin. He didn’t care. “Fuck off.” As they continued retracing the snowmobile tracks, he added, “Damn it, my car’s dead.”