WHERE? WOLF?: By Rickey Rivers Jr.
Saturday, November 27th, 2010An old hunter lived in the woods with his lovely wife. He’d stopped hunting for several years due to the lack of excitement and adventure. During his last years of hunting he began to feel bored with the kind of game he’d ran across. “No competition!” he would say, “It’s way too easy!” His wife would roll her eyes when she heard him talking like this. She loved most things about her husband, just not the way he acted when it came to hunting. One day while reading the morning paper the hunter saw that there had been several wolf attacks in the woods.
The mayor of the town was offering ten thousand dollars for the capture of the beast. Dead or Alive with a caption at the bottom of the article that said “Preferably dead”. The hunter jumped with excitement, “Ah finally a challenge!” He made sure not to tell his wife about the news because he knew how she felt about his hunting or rather how she felt about how her husband acted when it came to hunting. She believed that he loved hunting more than he loved her, the hunter of course knew that this was not true he just found it difficult to convince her to believe otherwise.
He thought of a plan to leave the cabin once his wife fell asleep. After she did he would capture the beast and bring it back home, quietly and safely in the night. His wife might not have liked him hunting but he was sure that she wouldn’t mind him bringing in some extra money and he would get plenty of it for killing the beast. Later that night after his wife had drifted off to sleep the hunter tiptoed out of the house with his shotgun and hunting knife in hand. The hunter stayed out almost all night searching for the beast.
He didn’t think it would be hard to find a wolf in the woods but it turned out to be more difficult than he thought. Hours passed and no sign or howl of a wolf. He waited a little longer, heard a owl hoot. Heard the wind whistle to him, he even saw deer walk right past him but he didn’t shoot him. Any other time he would have but he’d get no money from shooting the deer so he let it live. Tired, the hunter decided to go home, get some rest, and follow through in the morning. Upon arriving home the hunter noticed that the door to his cabin had claw marks on it. The hunter’s heart sped up a beat, the wolf was here! But how can he kill the wolf without waking his wife? Just then another thought crossed the hunter’s mind, “What if the wolf has eaten my wife?” The hunter rushed into his home, and ran upstairs towards his bedroom.
The beast met him at the top of the stairs, standing on it’s hind legs. The wolf took one look at the hunter and snarled. The hunter took aim and shot the beast straight through it’s heart. The beast fell hard to the floor after the shot, and the hunter stood over it victorious. He shouted for his wife to come and see what he’d accomplished but she didn’t answer. “Honey come down!” he repeated but still no answer. As he walked past the fallen beast he noticed a ring on one of the wolf’s claws. His wife’s wedding ring!
Thinking the worst, the hunter pulled out his hunting knife, plunged it into the wolf and began to rip through it’s stomach. Frantically the hunter searched but he could not find a fragment of his wife in the bowels of the wolf. After several minutes the hunter passed out from a mix of exhaustion and anxiety. He’d been too late. Much to his surprise he awoke the next morning next to his wife. Her stomach completely torn apart.
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© 2010 Rickey Rivers Jr.
Rickey lives in Mobile Alabama. He is currently chained to a computer with his hands glued to the keyboard. Not by choice, well maybe by choice. Flash Fiction and Short Stories are what he loves to read and write. Mostly horror but he dabbles in other genres occasionally.
