Wolfgang, fuck

It was a cold blustery night smack in the middle of autumn, and William and Phyllis were driving on a small two-lane highway at night in a dark mountain wilderness.  It was a really pretty drive in the daylight, but unfortunately, they were a bit scrambled that day and they didn’t get on the road when they were planning to. Now they were doing exactly what they did not want to do – driving at night.  What made matters worse was that a storm was blowing in.

They were driving to Gold Lake, a small mountain town of 250 people, a three hour drive from the city.  Phyllis’ elderly mom lived there by herself in a tiny little house that had gotten pretty run down over the years. She had dementia and lately was deteriorating rapidly.  Earlier in the day Phyllis had gotten a call from the sheriff in Gold Lake saying that he was holding her mom in the station, and Phillis needed to come and take care of her.  It seemed that her mom had wandered into a neighbor’s house with a shotgun and shot at their dog, an old German Shepard named Chuck.  Chuck was going to be ok, but her neighbors had wrestled her to the floor, gotten the gun out of her hands, and held her until the Sheriff arrived.

Phyllis’ dad passed away when she was in high school.  Her mom, who was mentally unstable, couldn’t deal with it and ran away, leaving Phyllis to fend for herself as a teenager.  Phyllis and her mom had had no relationship from then on.  Life had been pretty tough for Phyllis, but somehow things had worked out. She had a loving partner and a roof over her head.  But now her mom, a woman she didn’t know at all, had lost her mind.  As her only child, Phyllis now had to come and deal with her.

Phyllis and William were not very well off.  They lived in a small one bedroom apartment in the city, and bringing her mom to live with them was not going to work. Assisted living was out of the question too. The house her mom lived in was little more than a shack, and even if they could sell it, there wouldn’t be much money. They drove off into the darkness, stressed out, on their way to take responsibility for an old woman they didn’t know, and with no idea what they were going to do with her when they got there.

Driving in the mountains on a tiny rural two-lane highway at night in the rain was a whole extra level of stress. After a couple of hours their nerves were frazzled.  Just thirty minutes more and they would be in Gold Lake.  William glanced at his watch – straight up midnight.

Suddenly, something bolted from the woods right in front of them and flashed in their headlights.  They gasped, “Ahh!” and William hit the brakes.  The car skidded on the wet pavement and he lost control.  The headlights swung around and shined into the woods and they could feel themselves sliding sideways through gravel.  After what seemed like an eternity they came to a stop.

“Oh my fucking god!” shouted Phyllis.

“Holy shit!” shouted William.  Thankfully, they were unhurt, and William let out a big sigh.  “What the fuck was that?!  Did we hit it?”

“I don’t know!” Phyllis said, trembling.  Logically, it would have been a deer, because there were so many. Neither of them wanted to say out loud what they actually thought they saw – a wolf.

After a few seconds William reached for the door handle.  “Wait, what are you doing!?” Phyllis screeched.

“I’m going to check for damage.”

“No! You can’t go out there! Let’s just go!”

William was easily convinced. “Ok!” he said, and put the car in reverse.  He gunned it a little, but the tires just spun in the gravel. “Oh shit.”  He gunned it more and still nothing.  Their hearts sank.  Frantically William reached for his phone, though he didn’t know who he was going to call. It didn’t matter anyway because there was no signal, they were too far out.  William turned off the car and they looked around.  It was dark and rainy and they were in the middle of the wilderness.  At this time of night the highway was deserted too, not a car for miles and miles.  They were stranded and alone in the middle of nowhere, and they may, or may not, have just seen a wolf.

But wait, off in the distance they could see lights from a house. Low and behold, they appeared to have gotten stuck right at the end of the driveway.  Whatever it was that ran in front of their car was probably still out there, but they couldn’t just sit in the car all night.  “We gotta do it.” William said.  They looked intensely at each other for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and opened the doors.  The air was still and cold, and the rain in the forest was the only sound.  Maybe it was the fear that saying it out loud would make it real, but neither spoke about the wolf that they knew in their hearts they had just seen.  Thinking that they were getting ready to be attacked by a wolf was too much to even think about, so they didn’t.  And it was with the special courage of complete denial that they began walking up the driveway to the distant house in the woods.

As they got closer they started to see that not all of the light was coming from the house, that there was something going on behind the house near the barn.  A few more steps and they could see that there were torches in the barnyard arranged in some sort of pattern.  “Creepy” Phyllis whispered.  A few more steps and they could see that the barnyard was totally empty except for the torches.

Suddenly they heard the crack of a twig not far from them in the darkness.  They freaked out, gasped, and started running back toward the car.  They could hear something coming toward them in the woods.  Phyllis screamed, and ran as fast as she could.  Now they could hear several things  in the woods, all coming toward them.  Just as they got to the car, William looked back and saw a half a dozen wolves converging on them.  With only feet to spare, William and Phyllis managed to get in the car and close the doors.  The wolves attacked the car, jumping on the roof and hood and biting at the door handles.

They were screaming as William frantically gunned the gas pedal.  Gravel shot from the tires, and maybe it was the extra weight of the wolves jumping on the hood, but they started to get some traction – a little at first, but then William was able to back the car out of the ditch and onto the pavement.  The wolves were ferocious and attacked the car viciously, but William floored it and they managed to pull away.

“That was SO scary!”  Phyllis cried.

“Oh my god!” William shrieked.  He reached out and put his hand on her knee for comfort.  She took his hand into hers, and they held hands the rest of the way.

Thirty minutes later they arrived in Gold Lake and pulled up to the little sheriff’s building. The rain had only gotten worse.  It was now nearly one o’clock in the morning but the lights were on. After sitting in the car for a minute, they turned the car off, opened the doors, and got out.  When they got to the front door they could see large scratch marks on the wood.  They looked at each other, took a breath, and knocked.

The door burst open and there was the sheriff looking freaked out and pointing a gun at them.  “Get in here, quick!” he said, and motioned them in.  Once they were in, he frantically slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt.

Phyllis’s mom was sitting across the room, obviously flipping out.  Her face was flushed and tears were streaming down her cheeks.  “Mom!” Phyllis said and went over to her.  But her mom was focused on something outside the windows and started to scream.  She was having a total melt down.  “Mom! Mom!  It’s me, Phyllis! I’m here! Settle down!”

“She’s been like that every time they come around,” the sheriff said.

“Every time who comes around?” William said.

The sheriff’s face grew solemn and determined, “The wolves.”  His voice was low and guttural, from deep within, and he strained to project any sense of confidence or control over the situation.

Suddenly something slammed against the outside of the door and Phyllis’s mom let out a scream.  It was a wolf attacking the door.  Through the windows they could see several more, growling through their fangs, coming into the parking lot.

“Goddamn it!” the sheriff shouted.  “That’s enough out of you!”  Then he flung open the door and went out shooting.  Bang! Bang! Bang! – at point blank, straight at the wolves.  But his bullets didn’t seem to have any effect.  The wolves jumped him and took him down, and viciously piled on.  Then they dragged his twitching body across the parking lot to a group of trees.

William and Phyllis watched in horror.  Then in a flash, Phyllis realized that with the wolves across the parking lot, this might be their only chance to get to the car.  “Now! We have to go now!” she said, and grabbed her mom’s hand.  As fast as they could move, they headed for the car.  Phyllis got her mom into the back seat, then William and Phyllis jumped in, slammed their doors shut, and William got the car turned on.  The wolves saw them, and started running over.  William floored it and the car spun around in the parking lot and reached the road just as the wolves jumped the car.  Again, they attacked the door handles and jumped on the hood savagely growling at them.  But as the car up, the wolves couldn’t stick with it, and fell away.  Safe in the car they drove out of town and back into the dark rainy mountains.

After a few miles they began to relax.  Phyllis’ mom sat quietly in the back seat staring out at the thick forest scrolling by.  She was calm now.  And, like it or not, from this moment on, Phyllis was now completely responsible for her. The wipers whipped back and forth on the windshield, and they drove on into the night with that special kind of courage you can only get from complete denial.  Life was about to change dramatically for all three of them.  But at the moment they were all safe and warm, and still alive.  Somehow things always work themselves out, and you go on.