Still No Signal

by Axel Azabash

2- At least it wasn't a manticore...

A howl in the distance.

Great, wolves territory...

And the Sun was gone... according to my watch and my phone, at 2 pm in the afternoon...

And the GPS was off, and the line was also off...

Ok, shelter, I needed shelter, and if I remember it fine, wolves shouldn't be able to climb a tree, the problem is... would I be able to climb a tree? With that in mind, I started to inspect some trees to find a good one. It should be easy to climb to, free from creatures, ants and bugs in general if possible…

What was that putrid, humid, rotten smell? Probably something to do with this place.

The bushes behind me rustled, derailing my reverie.

Was that horrible creature following me? I looked around, but saw nothing. Ok, the forest was uncannily quiet and there was that weird smell in the air, something like wood rotting. Well, it's a flipping jungle, that smell should be expected.

But for some reason, it only made me uncomfortable now, I didn’t notice it before.

I continued inspecting trees, but out of instinct, checking if there was something behind me every few seconds. Ok, this was one of those moments in terror films, that moment when the music stops and the silly girl starts calling for her missing boyfriend, but that only happens in the movies.

What really happens in reality is that when you have the sensation that something is following you, or something is really wrong, you get silent, you crouch, looking around and pick up the first thing that can be used as a weapon... a stone the size of my fist and the biggest stick I could find. That's much better. Then, it was time to get out of there, as quickly and stealthy as possible.

More rustling behind me.

I turned around in time to see some bushes shaking, and a relatively big wood branch moving too quickly for it to be only the wind... and there was no wind. Ok, there was something following me, and I could point the bush where it was hiding, but I couldn't see anything, only leaves, branches, wood... just the plants.

Ok... it should be a really small thing then. I started walking backwards, then checked behind, looked around and continued more quickly. As I was going faster, the thing that was following me also moved faster, therefore, it wasn't as sneaky as before and I could hear its steps, the bushes hitting it, the branches cracking and even a faint panting.

I stopped and turned around, stone in hand, in time to see something moving, hiding behind a tree trunk and looking at me with green eyes. Ok, there it was, I squinted my eyes and saw it.

It was almost impossible to see when it was still, but I had followed the movement until it stopped again. It was a wolf face peeking from behind the tree, but it was poorly made from wood, it looked like a wolf puppet crudely crafted, there were even some leaves sticking out of it, and it had unnatural green eyes. Ok, so that thing... is just a dummy? Is it Halloween already? It can't be...

"Ok, very funny, whoever you are, come out already..." I said, relaxing a little.

But that dummy inclined its head to one side, staring at me with curiosity. Then, slowly, one branch came out on its own... Wait... not a branch, but a wood leg... then another, and another... The dummy wolf came into view, all crudely shaped, acting really natural, like a real wolf, and nobody was behind it... No strings, no mechanisms, just a pair of green glowing eyes and a sickly, stinky green smoke coming out of its mouth.

It approached slowly to me, just as any predator in front of a new prey. Slowly, my brain processed the whole situation. A creature half snake half chicken lacked any kind of logic, this wood dummy wolf also lacked any logic, it was just an animal made out of wood, and it had fangs and claws, they were made out of wood, but that green saliva didn't look very healthy, I wouldn't like to get an infected wound just yet...

I raised the stick and the stone, taking a step closer to that thing in order to look menacing. It worked a little, it stepped back but growled, showing its wooden teeth. It accepted the challenge and crouched, ready to pounce.

I hit it with the stone, making a loud crunch sound at the impact. I don't have an extremely good accuracy, but that thing was big, and I was close enough. It jumped back, shrieking and then whining like a puppy. It ran away, and I ran in the opposite direction, grabbing another stone.

Yes, it worked. When you are in front of a predator, you don't need to be stronger than it, just show it that if it tries to get you, it is likely to end up wounded, and you don't want to end wounded after hunting a prey just for food. It's just not worth it unless you are desperate.

I needed to find shelter, but I wanted to put as much distance as I could from the wood wolf and the snake-chicken.

More howls, this time a few of them, and they were uncomfortably close to me. And I could hear the sound of something running in my direction. One of them was okay... but if there were a few... It could be very, very bad... But I had no escape. I tried to run at first, but they just kept my pace.

I knew this... they were WAY faster than me. They were just chasing me. They wanted me to get tired, to exhaust myself so I could be an easier prey. Not happening anymore, change in tactics. Wow... the things adrenaline does to you... I was in extreme panic, but for some reason, I didn't lost it, I just got into fight or flight mode. I could hear my heartbeat, it was painfully strong, cold sweat covering my face, and I had just one thing in my mind: Do the best possible thing you can think of. If I was going to die, at least I was going to be as much of a challenge for those things as I could.

I turned around with my stone and stick and prepared myself to fight. They came out slowly.

Three of them.

At least three that I could see. In the middle was the one that I encountered first, I could recognize it, they were quite different because of how crudely and irregularly they were shaped.

I threw the stone at the closest one, the one on the left, but it dodged and stepped back. I crouched and grabbing another stone, I threw it at the one on the middle, the first one and now, it was the closest one. The stone crashed into its head, taking half of it away with a loud crack, but the dummy wolf didn't move an inch.

"Hah! Suck it! Now you will think twice before trying to get... me?" The words died in my throat beholding the scene in front of me.

The twigs and leaves that had been cut off from the wolf's face were slowly returning with that creepy green glowing smoke. The wolf kept advancing without a care in the world.

I took a few steps back, grabbing another stone. I threw it at the wolf again. It didn't dodge and let me hit it. The little damage done was already regenerating. The other wolves got it. Whatever attack I could do, wasn't going to be enough to cause them any serious damage.

I looked around for a moment, searching any way out of there, and then sprinted to a nearby tree. I could feel their fetid breath behind me, chasing me, but I reached the tree and started to climb.

Something pulled me down, and I kicked it out of instinct. With a crunch and a whinny, the dummy wolf fell to the ground. Then I realized that I could really climb a tree, the things adrenaline makes you do. I was sitting on a big branch halfway up. There were a lot of branches coming out of the trunk so I could use them easily the rest of the way.

The wolves barked, howled, jumped, tried to bite the lower branches, but they wouldn't stay up for a long time before slipping and falling to the ground. It looks like in the end wolves really couldn't climb trees, at least not the wood kind of wolves... whatever.

I winced when I used my right leg for support. Looking at it closely, I saw the bite mark. It was bleeding. Looking down, I saw one of the wolves licking its muzzle... Okay, they managed to bite me. With the adrenaline rush, the pain was ignored, but now that it was wearing off, it stung badly.

The wolves continued circling the tree trunk, biting it, clawing it, looking for a way up and trying to scare me off of the tree. There were five of them right now, but I didn't care.

One problem at a time.

I had shelter, a precarious one, but shelter. I should find a secure and comfortable branch to spend the night. The wolves would probably get tired and I had plenty of food and water in my backpack. One thing was for sure, I was going to get little to no sleep that night. And the wounded right ankle stung as hell.

I sat on a branch, with the tree trunk between my legs. I put my backpack backwards, in front of me, so I could take the stuff inside comfortably. Taking one of the water bottles I cleaned the wound and put a little disinfectant from my first aid kit using one hand and kind of guessing where the wound was in the dark by the way it stung when the squirt of alcohol hit it, but I could not comfortably bandage it without risking a fall, or try to inspect it closely. That's it, the best thing I could do. Then I drank a little and rested against the tree.

Then I remembered something. I used my phone to make an emergency call. But after a few unresponsive seconds, the robotized female voice informed me that there were no telephone lines available… Still no signal.

Comments

[Teikan]

They wanted me to get tired, to exhaust myself so I could be an easier prey. Not happening anymore, change in tactics

Pha, you are a human, you will completely run out of steam much later than an ordinary animal,

[Comrade_Stallion]

11335533
yea, that's like, our whole thing
alas idk if i'd call woodshop wolf an ordinary animal

[Green121]

Oh he's gonna get camped

[Glitched Grim]

11449286
For some reason, you pfp is causing me to laugh/chuckle spontaneously.

[Mrnom]

11415125
No No it's not it was ''our thing'' so long ago it doesn't apply to now a fat man or woman wouldn't be able to do it fck it a regular man or woman wouldn't be able to do it cause people now a days don't have the endurance n stamina to do it only one KNOW human today has and he made his entire career out of running cause he ran everyday.forgot his name he's famous for a
His running speed though I know hes a black man who I think lives in Africa? Either way his run speed was apparently as fast as a cheetah cause you know he ran everyday.which a majority of the population doesn't

[Mrnom]

11335533
No

[Midknight Defender]

11492944
I consider myself a fairly out of shape nerd, and I know firsthand that I can still cover several miles in a go if I decide I really need to. Of course, “out of shape” isn’t the same thing as “Pizza the Hut sized couch blob,” but even without any kind of special training regimen or regular cardio workouts, human endurance is naturally freakish.

A quadruped may be faster in the sprint, but they generally just cannot keep going and going like the energizer demon the way we naked murder apes can, so long as we haven’t completely let ourselves go to flab. Yeah, a top tier marathoner can run where I would be fast-walking, and that several times farther, but if you’ve never tried to push yourself, you just don’t know what you can do.

Of course, any of that might be completely moot against a magically empowered cellulose golem, so running away would be tactically silly if one didn’t have knowledge of where one could run to for help or to reach a prepared defensive position.

[anomoly]

11492944
I don't normally repsond, but wtf are you talking about? Not a single human in history can run as fast as a cheetah, and with adrenaline pumping through your system you won't even realize you're tired till you colapse.

[Jack-Pony]

11335533
Except for one. There's a reason we domesticated wolves, because we couldn't out run them and we sure as hell weren't gonna let them eat us...so we did the next best thing, we fed them.

[darklight731]

Well, that could have gone better.
Or worse. At least it wasn`t a manticore.

[Axel Azabash]

11692023
Kind of in the middle of things. A manticore would score really high on the 'oh-shit' scale, and I can't come up with a way a regular human could survive one, at least not a reasonable one, so, timberwolves it is.