Beware The Wolf - Pt 1

I'm back! I had some sort of bonkers idea to write a series of short story bits that progress forward on an overall timeline and overlap, though aren't directly connected to each other. Imagine sliding a window along a timeline incrementally and writing separate stories where you stop it. Confused? Sure. Hence, "Beware The Wolf". This is actually a continuation of my "Rise of the Leatherwolf" story series. 

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This one building downtown always creeped me out. It looked like it might have been a house, or maybe a church, tucked quite a few feet back from a wrought-iron gate. There were no lights on in the front yard, which was barren instead of groomed or overgrown. There were no lights on in the building, at least that would show through the windows. It was not condemned, though, no telltale colored sticky paper shutoff notices, no broken windows.

My friends and I joked about it as we walked home from hanging out one Friday night. As soon as we split up to go to our own apartments, I didn’t go back to mine. I went around the block, then reversed course.

I was going to find out what the big deal with this building was.

Alleyways ran behind all of the houses and shops downtown, and this particular building had a private alley, a driveway wide enough to back a garbage truck straight back into, and enough concrete width to let people haul the garbage out to the dumpster. There were no security lights there, and as I turned the back corner, I imagined some homeless person bursting out, or just tripping me as I stepped on them unseen in the dark.

It wasn’t purely dark, because the light from the city still filtered in, but this was not a good or safe idea at all. I’d thought about getting my friends to come with me, but we’d already been down that road, and I’d chickened out. That was two weeks ago.

No, I was going to find out what this place was, all by myself, silent, stealthy. The alley that ran behind the house was nothing special, and more industrial than I’d expected. This house was definitely used for some kind of business, as it looked like a kitchen entrance. A very disused one.

There was a window a few feet from the back door, and it had a sign taped on the inside and facing out. A trick to stop pesky thieving brats. If it had been outside, I would have taken it, because I was a brat, and because it said,

“Beware The Wolf”

I stared at it, both at how ridiculous it was, and something else. Something on the periphery of my mind. It should have been, ‘of Wolf’ or maybe ‘of the Wolf’. No, that was true. The real strange thing was that the door had no handle.

Not featureless; I mean it had no handle, just an empty slot where it would have been mounted. I walked over and used the corner of my coat to grab the edge of the slot and pull. It opened, not even latched, simply held shut by the closing mechanism.

That hydraulic cylinder and lever was also disused, and creaked terribly as I pulled the door open. Too late; might as well open it all the way. The space inside was a storage foyer, with another door that was also de-latched.

I stood there, silent, unmoving, in the cramped space. I let my eyes adjust. No way was I going to use my phone as a flashlight, or even turn on the screen.

Then I went inside. There was even less light, and I eventually gave up trying to see where I was going without my phone. I got it out and turned on the screen, and my lock screen was just bright enough to illuminate so I wouldn’t trip.

Yes, it was a kitchen. Larger than a home kitchen, less intense than a restaurant. Private. Business. Out of the kitchen, a series of small rooms. Offices. A front lobby. There were numerous places on the wall where there had been paintings or photographs or signs, lighter in color than the wall behind them. There was nothing to indicate what the place was used for or meant for.

A wide staircase led up from the front lobby, to a single great room on the second floor. This was cathedral-ceilinged, with a wooden platform at one end, with risers at either side of that. Definitely a church, the pulpit and choir section. No organ, though. And nothing at all to suggest what denomination.

The space was large and ate up the screen light of my phone, so I switched the flashlight on and I could see everything I just described. A floorboard creaked, though not when I moved, and the sound was a loud crunching affair that even echoed in the empty room.

I spun around and brandished my phone towards where the sound had come from, just behind me. Inches away, charcoal gray fur, black nose, sulfur yellow eyes, pointed ears, white teeth, a vicious snarl, a wrinkled-up pair of black lips and crumpled top of snout, and two hands, arms reaching out to balance as much as grab.

I’d never wanted to scream more in my life, and as I moved to yell, my throat closed in on itself and I just croaked dry.