Stumbling through Wolf

He sat and watched as the feral beast devoured his arm. Watched as it tore the muscles and tendons from his bones. Listened to the crunch as it tore at his hand. A single finger flying from the remains and landing near his feet. "I hope you choke on the middle one you son of a bitch." He tried to say, but instead he just made odd gurgling noises. A lot of his throat was gone and one of his arms. He was dying. All of the blood that should be on the inside suddenly had other places to go. At least it didn't hurt. Well, everything hurt, except his legs. Probably a broken back from were he hit the tree after his arm had fallen off. Really more of ripped off but at this point he just didn't have the energy to argue it. He was getting tired, probably the whole dying thing. A loud snapping noise brought his eyes open. "what was that?" he gurgled to the thing sucking the marrow from one of his larger arm bones. "Oh, right." he remembered as he dyed.

The creature finishing with an arm bone turned and walked back to the dead man on all fours. He tore the clothing from one of the legs and started gnawing on a foot. "Ow," the dead man gurgled. "Maybe the back isn't broken" he gurgled as this time he surely died. The Monstrosity that was chewing on his foot made it all the up to the knee before the first rays of the sun showed across the dark twisted landscape. It stood and ran off into the morning fog leaping from large boulders and sprinting on all fours. At the top of the hill with the morning sun framing it in shadow, it throw back its malformed head and howled loudly into the sky. It was really quite cinematic thought the dead guy.

The sun was long up for the third or fourth night since the attack when the dead guy finally gave up on being dead and honestly he could of done it a day two earlier but some people just have no motivation. He glanced hazily down at his torn pants and marveled at his leg. Not a stump but a whole leg. He even counted the individual toes before realizing he was counting them with the arm that had fallen or been torn off, who's to argue. He stood on both legs and thought how genuinely good he felt. His trick knee had lost its trick and his back didn't protest from the early onset arthritis. Spinal stenosis the doctor had told him. It never gets better. Course at thirty three you really shouldn't have it and you should be more careful with your body. You only get one you know. And here he was with almost half a new one.

Maybe getting eaten alive by a wild looking hairy man shaped wolf thing wasn't so bad. He wished his dad could have tried it. Might still be alive. Minus the whole dying from blood-loss and being devoured alive part. He would have to worry about it later. His phone was dead and having a dead phone always unnerved him and it was especially taxing to his mental state that his watch was also dead. He thought back to his old watch, it was a citizen stiletto. Never had to be charged that watch. His new watch was an apple and he'd only recently started trusting it. Ever since he lost it in the lake and found it the next day still powered on and still fully functioning. Good on you apple.

Thinking about apple let him know that he should also find some food while on his way to charge both his phone and watch. A nice steak perhaps. A nice RARE steak. Still dripping with blood and maybe a little patch of skin with some hair to let you know it was alive. Or maybe a frozen waffle he thought remembering the crunching sounds his hand had made as it was eaten.

Before anything he had to find out where he was. The last thing he remembered before being mercilessly eaten alive was drinking a lot of beer over a very long amount of time. So he was probably near a bar somewhere. Presumably it closed and they made him leave. He didn't have a car because he had a bus. A short bus. A short bus made into a home. A home he could find when he charged his phone because google always remembered where he parked because sometimes he drank a lot of beer over a very long time and remembering things became difficult.

He looked around and didn't recognize anything. He thought that maybe one of the trees was oak, but even that much he wasn't sure. "Ahh, but that one is a poplar." He knew that because of how much he liked that word poplar. Pop lar. POPlar. It was a fun word. Still, the sighting of a poplar didn't help much. Poplars grow anywhere where it rains a lot. Most of America had a lot of rain. "At least I'm not in a desert." Though he probably would not have been killed by some sort of dog monster in the desert. Well, they do have coyotes. He looked around again to make sure he was not in a desert. He was not, probably not at least.

He checked the position of the sun. It was in the sky. That being decided he turned and put his back to it and begun walking. Too much sun gave him a headache. Even with the sun on his back it still seemed to bright. But it had always seemed too bright for him. He didn't know but now even the dark would be too bright for him.

It took a couple hours but he finally managed to find a road that ran into the forest desert and he turned and started walking down the shoulder of the road. The sun was high in sky now and the day was hot. Not Florida summer hot, but like Seattle spring hot. Slightly uncomfortable and only a little weird. He decided that he looked a little too much like a gore splattered murder victim and tried to fix this by taking a sharp looking rock and cutting the other leg of his jeans off. Having successfully made a terrible looking pair of Jorts, he continued walking along the shoulder of the road. Maybe he would pass a creek or a river. Hell, he'd settle for mud puddle at this point. The heat had made him sweat and the sweat had mixed with the dried blood that covered and now there was dry blood sweat in between his ass cheeks and it was just damn uncomfortable.

The road gained a lane and became a three lane road for a while before turning into a four lane road. He had counted twenty-seven cars, nine trucks, one Tesla, and a motorcycle by the time he made it to the small stream that ran diagonal to the road. Looking into his reflection he understood why no one had stopped. He looked unhinged. His hair was in tangles and matted with dry blood and his beard had large swipes missing all the way down to the skin. His shirt was torn at the neck and ripped all the way to just under his armpit. And all of it was stained with dry blood. Even the portion of his leg that was covered with the good jean leg was now covered in drying blood from the sweat and the heat. His eyes had a wild look to them. Slightly too wide open, which was odd because he squinting wasn't he?

He was laying face down in the water when the sheriff showed up. Not dead. Just comfortable. He liked floating. Floating was nice.

The Sheriff grabbed his radio mic and started to speak when the unhinged man came up for air. The sheriff dropped his mic and reached for his gun. The man in the water never even noticed. He just took a large gulp of air and laid his face back into the water.

The Sheriff left the road and stepped down toward the small stream. The man in the water froze. Not like ice. The water was cold but not freezing. I guess the man in the water stiffened. His muscles you know. He just stopped moving, even a little. He could feel the Sheriff walking toward him. It was almost as though he could see all the way around. He knew was a cop. He could feel it. Could feel the cops mustache wax, his aviators, even his leather cop wallet with the expired condom inside. Well he couldn't feel the condom. that would be weird.

He stood slowly from the water. Little rivulets of stream water made its way down his hairy legs, trying desperately to find the lest impeded way down. It was hard work for the water, the man had hairy legs. The water on his arms were working equally hard, they just didn't complain quite as loudly as the leg water. Most likely had less tear drops in the arm water than the leg water.

"Having a swim." Said the Sheriff matter of factly.

"Nope, Just practicing my drowning man act, for when they ask for volunteers at the big life guard meet later today."

"Son, we don't even have a lake here. Where exactly is this meet?" growled the Sheriff.

The man checked his watch. Still dead he saw. "Do you have the time? and the date? and the location?" asked the man checking his phone now. Yep, still dead.

The Sheriff just stared at the man. Most of the blood had been washed off and without it, in his jorts and ripped t-shirt, he kinda just looked like a bum. While long for him, his hair wasn't really long by normal standards, maybe three or four inches. Three or four curly inches. So it was also longer than it looked. Not that that line ever worked on anyone.

"Sorry, man. Look, I'm just trying to find my bus so that I can get out of here." he said looking up at the Sheriff and smelling the Sheriff. My god the smells. A bacon double cheese burger with extra pickles and too much mayo. Whatever that cheap brand of shampoo is. The one that cost like a dollar. Man this is going bother him. They make Shampoo and conditioner. It's that stuff you can get at dollar general. Damn. What was that name. He'd remember later. He could smell the alcohol coming through his pores too. Cheap beer and a lot of it, probably a pilsner. Like Bud lite but cheaper. Maybe Milwaukee's Best. Yep that was it. He tried it enough times. He didn't know what the fuck was wrong with Milwaukee for that to be their best, but at the moment he didn't care. Milwaukee's Best smelled slightly yellow. Which made sense he thought, it tasted slightly yellow too.

"You the one who parked the short bus up on main and Tommy?" Asked the sheriff. "The green one with the little pictures of mountains?" he growled.

"First off, yes. Second, those are murals and it's painted on the side of a bus. It's not fucking little pictures. If anything it big fucking pictures." Said the man who had spent over twenty hours hand painting little pictures of mountains onto the side of a short bus.

"Up the road a mile and take a left onto Grant st. Follow it to main and take another left. Should be right on top of the hill. Get in your bus and leave." Said the Sheriff turning. He didn't Look back he just got into his patrol car and left. Not much to see to begin with, why would he look back for another view.

Yeah, it was time to leave. He turned and hopped out of the little stream. He landed almost twenty feet away on his face. He screamed a little too. Right before he landed. He screamed a little and not in a manly way.

"What the fucking fuck is going on with me." Maybe I'm high he thought. It wouldn't have been the first time he had gotten high while getting drunk. People offered him things all the time when he was out, more drinks, food, cigarettes, sex, and he wasn't very good at turning any of them down. Especially drugs. He loved drugs. Not the heroins or the meths of the world but the good weed and pain pill types were great. So it's probably just drugs making him jump ten feet straight up into the air. Over and over again. Ten feet easy. Like too easy. Back in High School he played base ball because he couldn't jump even though the coach said he had the shoulders for football. The football team was trash though.

So he could jump and he could smell colors. Last night he was devoured alive by some sort of wild beast. It wasn't last night exactly but it felt like it to him. Unconsciousness will do that a fellow. This morning he had regrown all his severed parts and they work better than the old worn out ones. Maybe some mad scientist rebuilt him like the Million Dollar Man or ... Was it a full moon last night? He thought he remembered it being a full moon when he left the bar, but he also remembered trying to get to it because they had burgers. Right, that was a Burger King sign. It did kinda look a full moon, if you we're drunk enough. He checked his phone. Google would know. His Phone was still dead. Maybe he could do other things.

He turned and punched a tree. Hard. He broke his fucking hand. It hurt a lot. One of his knuckles started swelling almost immediately. Unfortunately, even this wasn't new to him. Every drunk has at one time punched a wall, tree, bar, table, dry wall, or even a guy named Todd who to this day still deserves it. He flexed his fingers and felt, with his good hand, the bone that ran from the knuckle of his ring finger to the his wrist move freely under his fingers. He pushed the two pieces of freely moving bone toward each other and it was almost as though they grabbed for one another. He ran his fingers along the broken bone and felt a knot where the two pieces had met. The swelling was slowly going down as well.

"I'm a god damned super hero." he said drawing completely the wrong conclusion. He took a few steps backwards and started running down the road. He jumped high into the air. He was flying. He was soaring through the air at incredible speed. It was the most amazing moment of his life. Of his new life. His new super hero life.

The asphalt was unforgiving. Stretched out as though he could fly and moving at a fairly incredible speed, he made a skid mark of blood and skin when he hit. His mind dipped out and his body rolled rag doll right back into the ditch.

A few hours later, almost all of his skin regrown, he was again washing the blood and gore off of him in the small stream. This time he knew he was not a super hero.