05: God Kidnaps a Frightened Human

The floor was still warm. He had not noticed when he had first woken full of chills and shivers, but the floor beneath his makeshift bed was still warm.

"What does that mean, though?0" Richard wondered aloud in the familiar quiet of his apartment.

The wolf had disappeared on its ominous mission. It could not be real. Everything that had happened over the last twelve hours had to be fantasy.

"But what does that mean for me?"

Richard was used to talking to himself like this. It was not as if he had neighbors or colleagues to worry about it. And rather than talk to himself, he just thought out loud. It was not as if he was holding a conversation with himself like some kind of loony.

"Though I'm starting to think I may be one." He scratched his beard and could not help but remember the wolf's soft fur. If it was all a hallucination...

"That would be too convenient," Richard said as he leaned over and peered into the other room.

His stomach did not lurch like before, but he could feel a physical discomfort as he looked at the blood and the guts. The beast had so thoroughly mutilated the deer that it was hard to tell it had even been one.

"If I'm a loony, is this another hallucination?"

And possessed by the madness of the situation, Richard tiptoed into the other room. The smell of blood and gore tickled his nostrils unpleasantly. He knelt beside the closest chunk of meat.

"What a morning..." Richard muttered as he reached out and poked the wet gore. "That's... that's real."

His finger came away red, and another silly thought popped into his head.

"And I can definitely taste that," Richard said as he gently dabbed his tongue with his bloody finger. "But if I was insane, would I be able to taste a hallucination?"

If he had the internet, he could have an answer within seconds. His subscription with Spectrum had been one of the first things he had canceled. The library had computers and free internet, which meant he knew at least one place he would visit after he calmed down.

"Can I just... leave all this, though?"

Richard's stare swept over the broken fragments of his front door. The chunks of wood were sprinkled amidst the red viscera. It may have been misplaced optimism, but he felt as if someone driving by would eventually notice the broken door and call the police.

"And what about Marco?" Richard was not afraid of being evicted. That was a very silly worry amidst all of his other troubles, but his landlord had been a good man. The thought of the eighty-year-old Italian waddling over and finding the door in shambles, the carpet stained with blood... That more than anything made Richard bite his lip.

He was distracted from his gloom, however, by a white dot in the distance. The wolf could not have been gone for more than ten minutes, but it bounded happily across the open field.

Richard had enough time to duck away from the shattered doorway this time.

"Servant!" the wolf howled with delight as she flew through the air like a rocket. She landed with a wet squelch as her body deflated.

"Oy!" Richard may have avoided the first assault, but the beast quickly spun around and launched herself at his chest. Just like earlier, the air went out of his lungs.

"Glorify my name! Praise my deeds! I have returned!" The wolf's sandpaper tongue assaulted his face with its familiar warmth. "Kyeeeh heh heh!"

Once the beast had finished its ritual, she leapt off his chest and sat upright beside the red carnage. Richard took a moment to collect himself before he turned towards her. Just like before, he found himself thinking of the wolf as a she.

Richard's heart was a tattoo as he wiped his face clean. The wolf's words were nonsense, but it seemed clear that she thought of herself as some kind of... deity. He had never heard of a burnt offering, but it certainly sounded religious. And then there was the matter of glorifying her name.

The wolf had a name?

Before he could think to ask, however, the beast made a horribly familiar sound.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Richard instinctually winced as the wolf's throat bulged with sickness. It made no sense, but it looked like the creature was about to retch.

"Paaah!" A small rectangle slid out from the wolf's mouth along with a copious amount of stringy saliva. "The Telleh-Fawn!"

It was an iPhone. Richard was not sure which model, but the wolf had coughed up a wet iPhone onto the floor.

"Where... Where did you find that?" Richard asked with an incredulous laugh.

"Another human!" the wolf said victoriously. Despite having just retched onto the floor, she struck a defiant pose. "I snatched it from their hands! Now summon them! Summon... Summon?"

The beast tilted its head. She did have the most expressive face, but Richard thought she looked confused.

"Why did I not just take the human with me, as well...?" the wolf wondered aloud.

Her confusion did not last, however. Within less than a breath, the beast's posture was once more regal.

"But such is the high priest's job! I have already done too much!"

Richard fought back a smile. It was all so absurd. He knelt and picked up the slimy iPhone. He was not even sure if it would still work.

He wiped it against his jacket, which only served to leave great smears across its screen. He had never used an iPhone before, so he spent a minute looking for the right button to press.

"Ah." The screen flickered on. The phone still worked.

"Summon them, servant!" the wolf said impatiently. He could feel the ticklish heat of her breath on his neck.

"Summon who?" Richard asked as he stared at the screen. The face of a woman with long black hair and an unhappy cat stared back at him. He wondered if there was a way he could get this back to her.

"Sumon the humans, of course!" The wolf nudged him with her long snout. "A hundred! No, a thousand! We shall erect a shrine worthy of my name!"

"I still can't do that," Richard said, and he looked away from the phone. The wolf's golden stare bore into him like a drill.

"Whyever not? Don't tell me this The Telleh-Fawn is also cancelled. I saw the human use it!"

"Th-that's not the problem," Richard said. He swallowed nervously as the wolf bared the ivory white of its teeth. "The phone is... locked?"

The wolf blinked several times.

"Locked...?" The beast padded closer and sniffed the phone as if its scent might hold an answer. "What dost thou mean? Oh... This is a keyhole...?"

"No, no! Not like that," Richard said as the wolf's tongue probed the phone's USB port. "That hole is for... That is not a keyhole. The phone has a password. We can't use it without the password."

He showed her the password screen and fought back a hysterical laugh. He was explaining electronics to a magical talking wolf. He had completely and utterly lost his mind, but he was admittedly starting to have a good time.

The wolf stared at the screen for several moments. Richard could not decipher the look on her bestial face. Her golden eyes were unblinking.

"Ahhhh." The beast broke its silence with a long sigh. "I understand everything now. This The Telleh-Fawn is sealed."

Richard wondered if she really understood, but he held his silence.

"Most unfortunate," the wolf said, licking its left paw. "When it comes to seals... Well, there is a reason I was trapped there for so long! Can you break the seal, servant?"

Several answers crowded his throat. He suppressed another laugh as he stared into the wolf's earnest stare.

"I can't," Richard said simply. "I don't know the password."

"Who would know the password?" the wolf asked, her eyes brilliant.

"Probably the human you stole this from," Richard said. He coughed into his hand and continued. "Look. Phones are important to people. You can't just- "

"Mmm, mmm. I understand everything now," the wolf said, interrupting Richard. She looked away from him and towards the busy road outside. "I will be right back."

"Right back?" Richard repeated dimly. The wolf had already padded past him and out the door. "Wait, wait, wait. Wh-where are you going? Hello? Wait! Hello?"

He raced outside after her, but the wolf was already halfway across the field. She was heading towards the road, which meant she had already frolicked amongst the traffic at least once. If she was not a hallucination, Richard could expect to hear a couple sirens soon.

"This day..." He pinched himself for what could have been the tenth time, but the buzz of traffic continued unabated.

The wolf had disappeared from view, so he shuffled back inside where it was at least slightly warmer. He scarcely even noticed the gore that filled the room. His attention was focused squarely on the iPhone.

"An emergency number," Richard muttered to himself as he looked down at the phone's lock screen. He could call an emergency number. An ambulance. He kind of felt like he could use an ambulance with all the craziness that was happening.

But what would he tell them? What could they do for him? If he really was insane, they would throw him in a psychiatric hospital. They would wrap him up in leather straps and feed him through a straw. Some would call it a fate worse than death.

"This morning..." Richard said with a sigh. He looked up from the phone, and his heart caught in his throat.

It could not have been more than a minute, but a white dot was bouncing back towards the apartment. As it grew larger and larger, the distinct shape of a human appeared in its mouth.

"You didn't..." Richard felt no manic laughter as the wolf returned with the same black-haired woman from the iPhone dangling between her clenched jaw.

"Human!" the wolf roared with delight. "This is the Keeper of the Seal!"

The beast burst through the shattered doorway and deposited its prize on the floor. Richard stared at the black-haired woman with wide eyes and a slab of icy dread in his chest.

"Praise me!" The wolf nudged Richard with her long snout several times. He continued to stare at the woman. Her arms and legs were already smeared red with blood. He held his breath...

...and then she moved. Her entire body thrashed as if electric life surged through her limbs. She flailed her arms as if she was drowning. When she rolled over, Richard found her almost unrecognizable because of all the deer blood smeared over her body. Bloody viscera stuck to her hair and made her look like a corpse.

The black-haired woman stared wide-eyed at Richard.

Richard stared wide-eyed at the woman. He struggled for what to say, and then she seemed to notice the mutilated haunches of meat all around her.

"Don't be afraid," Richard sputtered. "This is all a hallucination."

The woman screamed.

Richard whined.

And the wolf cried out happily.

"Kyeeeh heh heh!"