John O'Brien - Return

The New World series is a fictional work. While some of the locations in the series describe actual locations, this is intended only to lend an authentic theme. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The sound of feet running behind him was constant as he ran through the darkened streets. On this clear, summer night, the moon was out and almost full causing his skin to tingle only slightly from the reflected light. It wasn’t as bad as when the other bright light, which caused immediate and intense pain, was in the sky.

He and his pack of seven behind him were out searching for something to eat as they did most every night. He became leader of this pack because of his greater strength and ability to locate food. There was food to be had in plenty, it was just a matter of finding it before the other packs did or had a chance to get away. There was the two-legged and four-legged kind — that was how he thought of them. They had found and chased down one of the four-legged ones last night; large enough for the whole pack to feed. The two-legged ones were his favorite but were becoming hard to find. Plus, they had to be cautious as he had lost several of his pack to them. They were smart and crafty and had to be taken with care. That was another reason he was the pack leader, most of the other of his kind would rush blindly at them in a persistent manner. Sometimes this worked and sometimes they paid for their rashness.

His thoughts did not come to him in the form of words but more in images and smells. He was cunning and could think through situations, finding ways to get food and other things they needed, but it was not a familiar thinking pattern. The pattern consisted of images that were similar to complete pictures that tell a story; both simple and complex in nature. He hunted primarily by means of smell and had become adept at picking up the faint smells of food, sometimes up to a couple hundred yards away if the wind was right. The scent was different somehow than the smell of everything else. It was more like a warm scent, if a smell could have a sense about it, along with a certain sweet mustiness. The smell from the others of his kind was not appealing in a food sense. No, there would not be any form of cannibalism there.

Not that he thought along those exact lines as he ran through the streets. Up ahead, he saw the flash of another, smaller pack quickly cross his path several streets up; vanishing quickly into a side street as he listened to their echoing footfalls diminish. Along with his heightened sense of smell, his vision at night was adequate as he was able to pick out the varying shades of gray relatively well and it seemed to improve almost nightly. The moon certainly helped.

Buildings continued to pass by as he ran through various streets in a search pattern trying to pick up the scent or sight of food. One large building he passed by had two circles around a central dot on it. For some reason this triggered something inside his mind; almost like he knew what that symbol meant. The flash of a memory passed through, the meaning hanging there just out of reach but tantalizingly close; like the name of a song remembered from long ago but forgotten and keeping just outside the grasp of knowing or comprehension. His mind was actually remembering and, for a brief moment, he thought he knew he had been someone or something else before. Then, the brief opening of the mind closed, shutting the memory or even the memory of having a memory off.

The pack stopped behind him as he stopped and were searching the area for the reason. Food was plentiful so there wasn’t any danger of being attacked by competing packs but there were other dangers. Packs of four-legged ones sometimes attacked the smaller packs of his kind so they kept a watch out for them. On occasion, some of the two-legged ones were out hunting and those were the dangerous ones. There was something compelling about the other two-legged ones that caused something inside the pack to want to attack them on sight.

Forgetting why he stopped in the first place, he started his jog once again and, after a short distance, caught the warm scent of life and food. Coming to another stop, he sought to ascertain its direction. The scents in this area swirled around the streets and buildings making it hard to accurately tell exactly where the food was located. This smell was of the two-legged kind and the light intensity of it indicated that there was only one or two of them. He stood sniffing the air and, suddenly knowing exactly where the scent was coming from, started in that direction.

Rounding a building, he saw one of the other two-legged crouching outside of one of its lairs, trying to sneak through the night. Sometimes they seemed so stupid that he could not fathom how they were a danger. Did that one not know he could see him crouching there in the open?

Signaling his pack to spread out with grunts and signaling with his hands, he turned in mid stride toward the two-legged one. Letting out a scream to let the other packs in the area know they had found food - an instinctive reaction he could not help - he launched himself toward the crouched one in ever-quickening strides. The two-legged one turned toward him and let out its own scream and tried to run but it was too late. To his left, one of his pack members launched itself over a fence and tackled the two-legged one in mid air just as the food turned the corner into the yard of one of its lairs. It was over in seconds and the rending of flesh began.

Out of the corner of his eye, the pack leader saw another of the two-legged ones leap a fence several yards away. Giving a signal to several of his pack, they launched themselves after the one fleeing. Several minutes later, he heard one of his give a shriek of finding. It was followed by a couple of the loud bangs that sometimes accompanied the ones who ran on two legs. Those bangs were the danger and were what caused him to lose some of his pack earlier on. The ones he had sent out returned a short time later with another food. He had sent out four but only two returned. He had lost more of his pack but they ate well that night.

They weren’t quite finished with the second one when the glow in the sky indicated the return of the bright light. It wasn’t so much of an actual glow but more of a hint of the sky lightening. The small lights in the sky in that direction started to fade so it was time to leave and head back to their shelter. With this, there was no hesitation with any of them or the other packs. They had all felt the intense burning and heat of the bright light. Those who were caught in even a glimpse or hint of that bright light for more than a couple of seconds died.

And so it was with haste that they retreated to the building where they stayed accompanied by the sound of many packs heading to their own lairs. The night filled with the sound of feet slapping on the pavement; not the paced jogging of the hunt but an all-out run. The streets quickly emptied. The time of the other two-legged ones was coming. They lost two this night but others would come to fill the gap. There were still single ones or in twos or threes running around just waiting for a pack to scoop them up.

Stepping into the broken door to the building where they holed up during the day, he trekked up the stairs and into the darkened room where they slept. He chose this room because it had no place to the outside where the light could shine through. He was tired and laid down with his pack, nestled together for warmth; some nights closer together and others spread out depending on the heat of the day. He kept closest to the entry because he was the strongest, their leader, and that was his place.