On The Run

Chapter Nine

I wake up, and it's too dark to be day time. I have a throbbing headache and it is freezing out. Even the warmth of Ty next to me doesn't block the cold.

I find why I woke up... It's sitting right in front of us, growling. It's brown fur is all ruffled and he is bearing his teeth, growling.
The wolf in front of me howls, I expect to its nearby pack. This is not good.

Ty stirs next to me, and slowly, not wanting to trigger the wild animal in front of me, wake Ty up by nudging him.

He opens his eyes. And his face makes me lose all hope of making it out alive. We are going to die here, and it's my fault.

"Ty, what do we do?" I whisper. He looks lost, and fear sinks in. Into my movement, into my breathing, and I can't even think. I wonder if he is having the same reaction.

"It knows ur injured, Iz. It can smell the blood. He's targeting you." Ty says. And at that I gain hope, maybe he will leave Ty alone. I half expect Ty to slowly tiptoe out of sight, to leave me here... But he's staying.

"It's pack is going to be here soon." I whisper. Staring at the brown wolf, looking for any movements.
The wolf is starting to move toward me, and Ty puts his hand in front of me and pushes me behind him. No!

Ty takes a step forward, challenging him? No Ty don't! And the wolf starts to growl louder, longer. We are going to die. The wolf is still moving toward us, and it looks like it's going to pounce, and it does.
Straight for Ty.

Ty instinctively put his foot out to block the animal from coming closer and the wolf claws at his ankle scratching him. It's not a horrible wound, but Ty winces and blood starts to drip from his ankle.
I scream for Ty. Please be ok.
but Ty lets out a quick, loud yelp.

The wolf stops moving, and Ty does it again, longer this time. It seems to confuse the animal. Is the wolf afraid of loud noises?
Suddenly, Ty looks at me as if he has a great idea, but I'm pretty sure we are thinking about the same thing.

"Don't make eye contact, but start to shout. Anything, just shout with me." Ty orders. And we do.

We shout and shout, I don't even know what I'm saying. But I pick up a stick and start walking it in the tree behind me to make more noise.

Is it working? Is it just my imagination or is the wolf slowly backing away? I close my eyes. I don't want to accidentally make eye contact.

I'm still screaming, and I don't know what I'm rambling on about, but Ty takes my hand. When did he stop yelling? I open my eyes and look at him.
We hear a howl, and I'm hoping that it's to call the pack off... Please don't come back...

Ty is still looking at me... Confused, sad, like he's showing pity.
What did I say?
"What?" I ask trying to understand why he is looking at me like that.

"You were saying stuff about your parents... It sounded like you were yelling at them." He says. I instantly feel bad that he had to hear that. I don't want him to think that my hostility towards them is his fault. I think about my parents and all I can feel is hatred toward them.
I hope I didn't say anything close to what I feel right now.
"What did I say?" I ask him. How wasn't I paying attention to what I was screaming?

"Nothing. Don't worry about it Iz." He says. And I try to forget about that look he gave me... Such a sad look.
"We should keep moving. I don't want to run into those things again."
"No wait!" I say as he tries to limp on. Now it's my turn to worry.
"Sit down." I order, and he looks at me, a little annoyed but listens. He puts his back to the tree and winces as his ankle bends with him.

I grab his pants which are ripped from his shin down, and start to tear it, exposing his gashed skin. It's worse than I thought, but if we wrap it up, he might be ok.

I start tearing his jeans. I have four long pieces of fabric to work with, but we need something softer to soak up the blood. I grab the bottom of my hospital gown which goes down to my knees and tear it. I have two strips that I tore off. Now it's exposing my middle thigh, but we have more material to work with.

I go to the small stream and dip one of the cloths in the water and come back to wipe his wound. He winces with every stroke that brushes his gashes, but it has to be cleaned. When I am happy with my work, I take the other cotton strip and fold it into one big gauze.
I wrap the Jean strips around the carefully placed cotton piece and tie them tightly so they don't fall off or let him bleed too much.

"Thank you, Iz." He says, looking down at the makeshift wrap. I think this will hold for a while.
I nod, and help him up. He is right, we have to keep going, or the pack might be back... And now, we are both injured.
"How far away do you think we are from the trailer?" I ask, not knowing how far he drove me to the hospital.

"It would be about an hour drive, so I'd say two hours walk. But now I'm hurt... So three probably." He says, and I feel a pang of disappointment. We are going to have to change his wraps at least three or four times during our walk.

Do we have enough material?
We start to walk, And I can tell it's going to be difficult... We have to support each other.

I get dizzy from my concussion, and have to walk barefoot through the woods, and he has to walk on his injured ankle.

This is going to be a long walk.