Legacy of the Wolf

The Cabin

After another minute of climbing she crested a small rise. The trail widened and she saw it just ahead, barely visible through the mist: the cabin.

It was a single story, made of logs like some mountain man's lodge from an old western. Sam shuffled up onto the small porch and tried the door. Locked. There were no lights on inside but she knocked anyway, praying that there was no one home; no one who would be endangered simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sam waited, as little by little, the sounds of movement in the woods returned, growing louder.

Time was quickly running out. Satisfied that the structure was empty, Sam crossed to one of the small windows that flanked the front door and used the butt of her shotgun to smash it. She would have to barricade the windows anyway. After knocking out the remaining glass from the frame she set the rifles and shotgun inside. As she began slipping her backpack off, she looked to a large axe lodged in a nearby stump. She glanced down at the wooden porch deck...

And ran quickly to retrieve the axe. She tossed it inside, followed by her backpack. Next she stepped up onto the frame and jumped into the cabin's main room. Feeling around, her left hand landed on a table and something on top of it—picking the object up and holding it to the moonlight she was able to make out that it was a lantern. Luckily, it was battery-powered and when she hit the switch, a blast of light washed over her surroundings.

The main room was fairly small; just a few hundred square feet. Taking the lantern for a quick walk through the structure Sam noted a bathroom and a bedroom with a closet. No other door to the outside; one entrance, one exit.

In the main room was sparse furniture, including a couch, bookcases and cabinets. Her eyes traveled to the open window, expecting a beast to come leaping through it any second. She put the lantern on the floor and hauled a bookcase over, blocking out the pain in her sore ankle, knocking a few novels to the floor in the process. It felt like it took forever but finally she dragged it into place. Luckily the unit was tall enough to cover the void. It wouldn't hold for long but it was something. As she dragged the next set of shelves to the second front window, Sam thought: if I'm strong enough to move these, the hell hounds will make quick work of them...

Especially the unit in front of the broken window. The only other piece of furniture to use was... the couch. Sam got ahold of one end and pulled it over, her breath fogging, muscles fatigued as she lifted one end so that it braced diagonally against the unit.

There were two more windows on either side of the living area and one in the bedroom. The bedroom would be her fallback position so it was imperative to bar that window completely. Searching through the cabinets, Sam found several tools, including a hammer and nails. She took up the axe and the lantern, ran to the bookcase in front of the intact window, threw out the books and then dislodged the shelves. Those she took into the bedroom and hurriedly nailed across the window; she then upended the bed and wedged it against the makeshift barrier. She was bent over, hands on her knees, thoroughly exhausted but she still had the two remaining windows in the main room to worry about.

With the lantern back on the floor she began dragging a cabinet to the eastward-facing window when she heard it, just outside, a desolate chorus that sent shivers down her spine:

The howling.

She knew, without knowing how exactly, that it was a signal for the pack to attack. She had barely gotten the cabinet to the window when the assault began.

Snarling, growling, guttural animal noises erupted from outside the walls. Heavy impacts rocked the shelf unit in front of the broken window, sending books flying across the room. The end of the couch that was still on the floor skidded, leaving scrape marks in the wood.