Free Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers Page A

can, and whether one of them is turned at me or not, I’m seeing we’re far, further than I thought, and all the other black lines moving on Feeny are much closer, it looks like, than we are, and we can yell as loud as we want but they aren’t getting pulled off by anything, they’re on him.  Ojeira falls over in the snow and is yelling in pain, then he’s stumbling and tripping trying to get his feet back up on the snow, and he stumbles backwards in terror when he sees them closing on Feeny, then he stops, like he doesn’t want to leave Feeny, but he can’t make himself go get him.  Neither would I, alone, half- broken like him.
    I’m still making for Feeny as fast as I can, but Feeny doesn’t have any fight in him, and one of them hits Feeny and then the lines all rush suddenly so much faster than before and shoot at him like knives across the snow, and they’re all on him, the one I thought I pulled off turns and runs back at him too, and I can’t see Feeny any more at all under their bodies but I’m still trying to get to him, and yelling, but I realize I’m not aware of the others anymore behind me and they aren’t yelling anymore, just me, and I realize I hear just Henrick.
    “ Wait! ” Henrick's yelling.  “ To your side! ”  
    I look around, and I see why he’s yelling.  The big wolf is there, running in at me, I never saw him at all, and suddenly he’s much closer to me than the others, charging at me, cutting me off.  I stop dead, involuntary, from fear, I just stop and look at him, and he stops too, our breath misting. 
    In this half-minute gone by it’s almost full dark, as good as, but I’m closer to this one than I was when I saw him at the fire.  I see him better than I did before.  He’s a lot bigger than I thought, his hackles up, and his fur is darker, yellow-gold in his eyes, what light they’re catching.  My muscles freeze, I feel them clenching, by themselves, because the rest of me remembers having these on me, however the body arranges it so you feel fear, all of that is seizing up, my body’s trying to get out of itself.  And feeling all that I’m forced to notice he’s a beautiful kind of thing.  He looks like death to me, which is not the thought I want in my head.
    A couple of the other wolves trot up from nowhere to his flanks, out of the dark, and stare at me too, stopping me or anybody else from getting to Feeny, and I’m aware we’re all just strung out staring at these ones in front, while Feeny is getting dragged this way and that in the snow and I can’t hear him, he’s quiet by now, or not making any noise loud enough to hear from here, and the big one and the ones with him keep staring at me, daring me to go at them.
    So like an idiot I do go in at them, thinking of Feeny.  I pull off my pack and run in at the big one roaring and swinging the pack at him, with the log inside, and he just snarls, and he and the others just hop out of my way, loop around me again, and seeing I’m past them I charge on for Feeny a few steps but I feel them coming up on my hindquarters.  I turn, face them, so now I’m between two sets of wolves away from the other guys and I’m fucked.  I can’t go to Feeny because the big one and the others will run me down from behind if I do, and if I charge him again he’ll just do what he did again.  He outplayed me. 
    I look at him and the two on his flanks while they loop around in front of me again, between me and Feeny, daring me in the same stupid game. I’m beaten.  I just watch while Feeny is dragged and ripped, and the others watch too, spread out, I don’t know how long.  Not long, and too long.
    Feeny’s dead, probably, the first two wolves who hit him are walking away from him, leaving the others, then one by one they stop and stroll away, until the smallest one seems to realize he’s the last, and he finally stands up and walks away, too, and we see Feeny’s a dark mess in the snow.  It’s hard to see