Page 21 of Jacob Michaels is Dead

I saw him fling an elbow towards his window. A crunching sound let me know he had connected with the jaw of the wolf. The sound of a large animal rolling across the dirt road made me smile as we were propelled forward. The wolf clawing the hood and glaring through the windshield at me was a little tougher than the one who had tried to pull Lucas out through the window.

“Hold on!” I screamed before slamming on the brakes.

My car shuddered violently along the dirt road, skidding to a stop. The suddenness of our deceleration took the wolf by surprise, and it rolled from the hood of the car to land in a heap in the road before us.

“Seatbelt!” I screamed as I reached for mine and latched it quickly.

The second I heard Lucas’ seatbelt click into place, I heard and felt something leap onto the back of the car. The wolf in the road before us was drunkenly stumbling to its…paws? Gunning the car again, I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles were white, my teeth clenching as I aimed directly at the wolf before us. Lucas screamed out—either in fear or victory, I wasn’t sure—as the front of my car plowed into the werewolf. A loud crunch and a strangled yelp reached my ears as blood splattered the windshield. I didn’t take my foot off of the gas. As if going over the world’s boniest, fleshiest speedbump, we were launched a few feet upwards before the car crashed down on the road once more.

“Flat meat,” I stated simply as I kept my foot on the gas, urging the car away from Jason’s property.

“Rob!” Lucas gasped as he turned his head to look behind us. “There’s one holding onto the trunk!”

“Why wouldn’t there be?” I grumbled. “Hold on!”

Again, I slammed on the brakes. The wolf holding onto the back of the car with its claws smashed into the back window, splintering the glass, nearly sending it through and into the backseat. But its claws were pulled from the hood of the car as the stop jerked its body forward. Lucas yelped as I hit the gas again, sending the wolf rolling away. I was breathing heavily, my heart beating in my throat as I pushed my foot to the floor atop the gas pedal. Lucas had smashed one in the jaw. I had run one over. We had just seen another fly off of the back of the car, totally dazed and bloody.

Just as I expected, the fourth wolf made its presence known.

My window shattered as the wolf ran up alongside the car and threw its body against the moving vehicle. Lucas and I both screamed out in terror as glass shards rained inwards, and the car lurched up onto two wheels for a brief second.

Goddamnit, these guys are big.

And fast.

I had to keep my hands on the steering wheel to have any chance of keeping us on the bumpy dirt road, and the werewolf was running up alongside the car once more. Any second, I knew it was going to shove its jaws through the shattered window and bite me. Game over. I had no idea if I was immune to werewolf bites like Lucas—but we didn’t have the time or desire to find out. Just as the werewolf came up alongside the car, panting and huffing, running at top speed—way too fast for any animal—it turned its head. I saw a flash of glowing red eyes as it lunged. Lucas’ hand was suddenly on my forearm, and he was leaning across me, toward the window, one of his hands outstretched. He screamed out animalistically as magic coursed through my arm and into him, and fire erupted from his hand, a column of heat plowing into the werewolf, setting it ablaze and sending it tumbling away into the darkness.

My eyes shot over to Lucas as I thought of a burning pile of werewolf tumbling into the woods.

Fuck it. I thought. Let the entire town burn down. I’m not turning into a werewolf today. If I can…

“Go, Rob!” Lucas yelped as he positioned himself back in his seat. “Just go!”

“All right.” I swallowed hard, keeping my foot pressed to the floor as I turned sharply off of the road to Lucas’ house and onto the main road.

Pulling onto the main road that led out to Lucas’ lands, I didn’t let up off of the gas. Screaming down the road in the middle of the night in my busted-up car would surely attract the attention of any cop that might be out and about, looking for drunk drivers or someone else to ticket, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to stop until I was certain we were far enough away from the wolves. There was no point in keeping ourselves near an unsafe situation for fear that the cops might pull me over. With the mood I was in, and considering the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I would likely fight any cop that tried to stop us. Especially Sheriff Dennard.

“Damnit, Rob.” Lucas bellowed to be heard over the wind whistling through the broken windows. “I’m bleeding.”

Shooting a glance at Lucas, I mostly kept my eyes on the road ahead of us as I navigated the mostly straight, yet narrow two-lane road. There was no point in getting away from the wolves only to crash my car and have us out in the open like sitting ducks with no working vehicle.

“What?” I screamed back. “Did you cut yourself?”

“I guess one of ‘em bit me.” He returned. “Probably the one that I bashed in the face with my elbow.”

He tried to twist his body so that he could show me that his right elbow was soaked in blood. I grimaced as I looked at his elbow, then realized his face was ashy-white. Nodding at him, I knew that we had to tend to his wound before we did anything else.

“Let me find a safe place, and we’ll pull off, okay?”

“Okay.”

For a few more miles, I skirted the northern perimeter of the Point Worth city limits, looking for somewhere secluded and hidden so that I could pull off of the road. A place where no one who might happen by and see the car easily. Finally, as I drove along, I noticed a break in the tree line. An old service road to one of the many unused boat docks that dotted the shore of Lake Erie. I eased the speed of the car and slowly turned onto the road, killing the headlights. Slowly, I eased off of the gas as we drifted down the road, disappearing amongst the trees that lined the old road. Finally, when we were far enough within the trees, and far enough away from the road, to where I felt that we were safe, I brought the car to a full stop and put it into park. It took quite a bit of willpower to force myself to turn the car off, but I finally flicked the key. Suddenly, we were greeted by silence and darkness.

Both of us took a moment to stare out into the inky darkness before us, our breaths ragged and sharp, filling the interior of the car with the sounds of sheer adrenaline. Briefly, I wondered if the wolves wouldn’t happen by, hear the sounds of the thundering hearts in our chests and the sounds of our breaths floating from the broken windows of my car, and search us out. Of course, I knew that to be ridiculous. One, the wolves were not likely to regroup and follow us so quickly after Lucas set one of them ablaze, and I had run one over. Two, they would most likely be running, and they would never hear our breathing as they ran along the road. Though our breathing sounded thunderous to my ears in the confines of the car, outside of the car, it would be hard for anyone to hear. Paranormal or not.

“Okay.” I unsnapped my seatbelt and turned gently in my seat, trying to get my breathing and heartbeat under control. “Let’s see your boo-boo.”

Lucas smiled pitifully as he unsnapped his seatbelt and turned towards me.