Freya's Howl

“I close my eyes to sleep; the shadows speak. And they won’t stop when I’m awake”

- Parkway Drive

Lucy Welsh hadn’t asked to be spiritually yeeted across dimensions on her walk home from the late shift at the warehouse.

Nor had she asked for the freezing Melbourne rain that soaked her high-vis shirt so thoroughly she could see the black singlet underneath it. Nor had she asked for the customer returns she’d spent the entire evening unpacking – three of which contained adult toys that were clearly unwashed, or to have her knee slammed into three years ago by a guy twice her size during a friendly game of footy on base that resulted in a full reco and a medical discharge from the Army and landed her in that job in the first place.

And she’d definitely not asked for the gut-deep pull she felt the moment she’d stepped off the curb near the Mcdonald’s on Leakes Road.

One minute she was catching up on her group discord chat discussing that weekend’s session of Storm King’s Thunder with Parkway Drive screaming through her earbuds, the next, there was no ground beneath her, and her wet phone slipped from her hand as she braced for her leg to twist into the bottom of a foot-deep pothole full of water.

Her breath whooshed out of her as she landed not on the road, but something damp and springy. No puddles, no asphalt, not even gravel. This was grass and mulch and rotting leaves.

She sat up, gasping. Her earbuds were still in her ears, but the heavy guitar line of In Glitch was no longer playing. Instead, they chimed a cold little no connection tone that somehow made everything seem worse.

Her hands scrambled through the wet leaves, searching. Phone. Phone. Where the fuck was it?

“Fuck,” she muttered, desperately, “fuck fuck fuck.”

It wasn’t anywhere nearby. Her lifeline, her music, her connection to the world, her outlet for all of the frustration she was feeling, hell even just to reconnect and stop this infernal tone in her ears!

“God Fuckin’ Damnit!” she yanked the earbuds out and threw them into the dark. Her brother would have laughed at her: “Aaaaand there goes the baby with the bathwater.”

Her hands were shaking now, and mud streaked the reflective strips on her pants and the front of her shirt.

She blinked, looking around.

No lights. No road.

No Macca’s.

This wasn’t Leakes Road. This wasn’t even Tarneit.

“What the fuck,” she whispered.

She turned, expecting to see the glow of traffic lights, the golden arches promising her comfort food. But there was nothing.

Just trees.

Dark, old trees, clawing up at a sky that looked… wrong.

Lucy was in the middle of a forest that looked like The Witcher had fucked Skyrim and left her in the wet patch.

She looked up. Moments ago, the moon had been hidden behind a thick curtain of fast-moving clouds. Now, two moons stared down at her from a clear sky one similar to the one she expected to see, and another slightly green, and much smaller. But still... a moon.

She was one step away from crying. She’d lost her phone. And now she’d apparently lost Melbourne.

“No.” Her voice cracked. She scrambled to her feet.

A low sound stopped her. It sounded like the purring growl of a big cat. It wasn’t as much a growl as it was just a vibration that she felt in the marrow of her bones; low and ominous.

Then another. Deeper, almost like a chittering. That one sounded like the Predator. And another. And another.

Her breath froze in her throat. She spun, looking for headlights, for anything human, but the sound came again, longer this time. Not from one place, but everywhere.

“What the fu…”

Shadows detached from the trees. Towering, unnatural, joints bending the wrong way, dense limbs too long. Eyes too far apart gleamed unnaturally. She couldn’t see much more than that. She didn’t want to know what those shadows became when they stepped into the moonlight

A screeching cry broke the night, seeming to fill the entire world.

Lucy didn’t think.

She bolted.

Saying that she ran for her life would imply she had a handle on what the fuck was happening.

No, this felt more like running because every nerve in her body was screaming that stopping meant she’d never run again.

All she’d wanted was mustard-drenched deep-fried chicken and some sugar to cry into while yelling at the TV. And instead? She was running through a nightmare forest in a high-vis shirt that made her look like a fluorescent Happy Meal toy for whatever the fuck was chasing her.

Something howled. It wasn’t a dog. Not a lion either. Something bigger. Meaner. And definitely carnivorous.

“Fuck’s sake,” she wheezed, ducking under a branch that clawed at her face. “What is this? Hunger Games: Jurassic Park Edition?”

Her boots weren’t designed for this. They were made for cement floors and rogue pallet jacks, not forest loam that sucked her steps down like quicksand. Every stride jarred her knee, sparking white-hot pain up her left leg, but she couldn’t stop.

If she stopped, she was done.

Behind her, something snapped. A branch, maybe? Or her sanity.

She glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see those glowing eyes, low to the ground. More than one set. Whatever they were, they were running on all-fours now. Lucy finally understood the terror of those people running screaming through the theme park with a pack of velociraptors snapping at their heels like it was a game. Eventually she’d run out of wind, and given she had stubbornly avoided running at all since her last BFA, it wasn’t likely she’d get very far. And these things were definitely not letting up.

It sounded like she was being pursued by a pack of brumbies. Only, these were not the wild horses of Banjo Patterson’s Australia breathing down her neck. This was something else.

Of course, she thought to herself, I survive ten-hour shifts with Todd the Forklift Wanker, only to get eaten by… fuck-knows-what. Great. Awesome. Love that for me.

Another unholy screech came from her right, closer now.

What the fuck am I doing? She chided herself, Frying pan or flame?

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she whined, half winded, and drove her right foot into the ground for a quick turn away from the horrific sound. Digging deep, she threw herself forward, hoping the quick change of direction would confuse the animals on her trail.

She managed a five-step burst before a shape lunged from the side. She veered, almost face-planting straight into the thick trunk of a tree. Her breath came ragged, half-sobs, half-laughter, the hysterical kind you only get when you’re either drunk, high, or about to die.

Something hit her from the front like a truck and the air whooshed out of her lungs as her feet left the ground, still running like they hadn’t received the message yet that the rest of her had met an opposing force. She barely had time to register the blur of fur, before she was yanked upright, feet dangling.

Every expletive she knew came tumbling out of her mouth in a half-scream, half-sob as she started swinging, smacking at anything she could reach. Elbows, knees, steel-toe kicks, but none of it mattered. Whatever had her was built like a damn brick wall, body hot and solid against her back, limbs like steel bands locked around her ribs.

“LET ME GO, YOU FURRY FUCK! I AM NOT YOUR DINNER!”

The thing behind her growled in response, low and so deep it rattled in her bones.

The scream in the woods came again, but Lucy didn’t hear it. She shrieked, twisting, but another set of hands caught her ankles.

Hands?

“I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL BITE YOU!”

“Settle down!” Someone hissed. The voice was human. Male. Rough. Close to her ear.

Lucy froze for half a second, blinking in confusion, and breathed, “What… what the fuck?”

“Be quiet.” Another voice came from her feet, low and firm, like they were scolding a misbehaving dog. “You’re drawing it closer.”

She kicked harder.

Then the one holding her ankles ducked into her line of sight. They were in a thicker part of the bush, the canopy blotted out the moons almost completely, so she still couldn’t completely make them out. But he was tall, broad-shouldered, with glowing pale blue eyes and dim light caught the edges teeth too sharp to be anything safe.

“Wha-” She sucked in a breath, panic clawing it’s way back up her throat. “What the fuck are you?! Werewolves?”

“Trying to help,” the voice by her ear snapped.

“Help?!” she hissed, resuming her desperate kicking. “This feels a lot like fucking murder!”

That other sound came again.

Lucy Froze.

It was much closer now, and sounded like an industrial fan chewing bone. The vibration of it thrummed through the ground and into her teeth.

The talking, glowing-eyed creatures surrounding her stiffened as well, before their movements became more urgent.

Lucy felt the world blur. One of the men, no, the things hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and sprinted, silent except for the hard, rhythmic pounding of feet on wet earth. Her breath punched out of her lungs with every stride.

“Wait, No, Wha… what is that?” she hissed.

There was no answer. Only faster running.

The sound came again, still closer. It was like the forest itself was dying.

Lucy’s voice cracked, ragged. “Seriously, what is that?”

The man carrying her snarled, “Be quiet.”

Whatever the hell it was, if it had just made even these things run, she didn’t want to know what it was.

She did as she was told.