Wolfpack: Origins

Karina wiped away the tear that had run down her cheek a few seconds earlier. She was medium height, thin, olive green eyes, light brown shoulder-length hair, and white skin. It was a quarter past six in the evening. She was lying face down on her bed, dressed in a light blue t-shirt and her favorite pink thong, nothing else. Her left hand was cramping from holding her head and her legs were playing up and down as Karina listened to a song by the pop artist of the moment. Without realizing it, her gaze fell on the photograph on her bedside table under the glass above it. It was the picture she and her mother had taken when Karina turned fifteen; she was now seventeen. A year earlier, her mother had died of a heart attack. When she took the picture in her right hand, a tear came to her eye.

After a minute, Karina heard her dad’s keys opening the front door on the ground floor of her house. She left the photograph on the bedside table, jumped out of her bed as fast as she could and locked the door to her room. Although she had a very good relationship with her father, she did not let him see her in her underwear, with the shame that any other girl her age might have. Her father, hearing the bang on the door of Karina’s room, asked her in a soft, calm voice if anything was wrong.

- No, Daddy, I’m changing to go to Selena’s. We’re going to watch horror movies.

He knew very well that Selena was his daughter’s best friend, so he had no problem with her going out and only answered with an “OK” and went to the kitchen to find something to eat.

Karina put on the blue jean that was hanging over the chair in front of her computer, a pair of white socks and shoes. She went into the bathroom and quickly brushed her hair. She took her wallet and left her room. When she came down, she went to the kitchen to look for her father to let him know that she was on her way to her friend’s house, but the scene she found caused her much sadness. Stephen, her father, was sitting in front of the dining room table with an empty plate on it and crying. Karina hugged him from behind and whispered in his ear:

- I love you very much.

- I miss your mother. There was never a lack of food when she was alive.

Hearing this, she opened the refrigerator and took out a tray of precooked food and heated it up in the microwave. Once it was hot, she placed it on the empty plate in front of her father and, kissing him on the cheek, went out to Selena’s.

Despite the fact that it was almost seven o’clock at night, Karina walked without fear because the town in which she lived had always been characterized by being very quiet.

A few minutes passed and she arrived at her friend’s house, who lived five houses away from hers. Selena was standing in front of the window of the main room and, when she saw her friend arrive, she immediately opened the door to pull her in from the arm and tell her:

- Now that my parents are out of town, all that’s left is for Emilia to come and watch our “horror” movies.

When she uttered the word “horror”, she made a quoting gesture in the air with the index and middle fingers of her two hands. They both laughed out loud because they knew very well that what they were going to watch was the kind of movies that girls like them still considered forbidden.

They sat in the room and talked while they waited for Emilia to arrive. An hour passed without her friend arriving, so they decided to go to Selena’s room and watch the movies she had. Once in the bedroom, Selena opened her bedside table drawer and pulled out a book with a lock that appeared to be a diary.

- I don’t want to know your intimacies - Karina joked.

- Patience, my friend - answered Selena.

She lifted the mattress and pulled out a tiny golden key that she hid underneath the mattress. Karina stared at every move her partner made.

Her friend opened the so-called diary, which turned out to be a book-shaped safe to trick thieves. Inside, there were two adult magazines with naked men on the cover. Karina also watched a DVD that had the phrase “Selena’s Stuff. Please don’t touch” written in permanent marker. Without giving her time to ask what was on the disc, Selena took it and put it in the player. She turned on the TV and lay down next to Karina who was also lying in bed.

Selena watched the film quietly so as not to wake up Karina, who had fallen asleep a few minutes after starting to watch it. When the movie was over, Selena woke up her friend to inform her that it was ten o’clock at night and that she’d better go home before her father got angry.

- I’m very tired, I’d better call him to give me permission to sleep with you tonight. May I?

- Of course you can, silly - answered Selena.

Karina took the phone in the bedroom corridor and dialed her home number. There was no answer. She tried once more, but again the same thing happened, no one answered. Thinking that her father might have been out with one of her friends, she took her cell phone and dialed his cell phone. Just like when she called home, this time she didn’t get any answer. Selena, seeing her nervous and pale, asked her to calm down and try the cell phone call again. This time someone answered, but they took the call without saying a word and immediately cut it off. Karina put on her shoes as fast as she could and ran down the steps to get out on the street and go home. Selena couldn’t go with her or say anything to her because she did everything too fast. Anyway, she thought that her friend was exaggerating things and maybe her father was having an intimate moment with some woman and that’s why he didn’t want to answer the phones, to avoid interruptions. Selena imagined Karina’s father in that intimate moment and drew a mischievous smile on his face. She took the DVD out of the player and put it in her secret hiding place. Then she stood at her bedroom window and watched her friend hurry away down the street.

A dog as black as that night pulled his snout through the bars of a neighbouring house to bark at Karina with all his might, which caused her to lose her balance and twist her ankle, falling on the pavement. On the same path, she saw a small stone that she took and threw to the dog, hitting him on the head. This throwing was not very strong, but the fright was stronger than the anger and the dog ran out to take refuge in the back yard of the house. Karina took advantage of the moment to get up and continue running home, but she had to do so with a limp because her ankle was sore from the fall.

Once in front of her house, she reached into her pocket for the keys to the front door. They never showed up. She thought she might have forgotten them at Selena’s house, but the desperation that overcame her to find out what was going on with her father was stronger than the idea of going back to her friend to look for them. Her family had always had the habit of leaving the back door to the kitchen without any security, so she went immediately to the backyard to enter her home. She heard voices coming from the living room, but she could not understand what they were saying and decided to slowly cross the kitchen to get closer and try to decipher that conversation. She was stunned. Two tall men, with strong bodies, were holding her father by the shoulders and asking him about her. She knew that there was a struggle from her father when he looked up and she could see one of his eyes beaten. Stephen, seeing his daughter petrified at the door dividing the living room and the kitchen, shouted as loud as he could:

- Daughter! Don’t worry about me. Run away!

Karina saw one of the men turn around and stare at her, ready to chase her. She, forgetting the pain in her left ankle, also turned around and ran as fast as she could out of the house.

With a strong swipe she closed the back door to distract his pursuer for a few seconds. She went to the street to try to locate someone who could help her but it was impossible because at that time of night the village was deserted and its inhabitants were sleeping peacefully. She thought for a moment of running towards her friend Selena, but out of the corner of her eye she managed to see the shadow of the man who was following her, which is why she could only advance towards the park in front of her house and go inside. She walked past the rusty, old children’s games that seemed to claim the children of yesteryear who used to use them constantly, but had now traded them in for televisions and video games. The big pond of blue water forced her to go around it in order to continue her escape. The woods were waiting for her. Did she have to go in? She hesitated. Then she remembered the words of her father who begged her to flee. Anyway, her father was a grown-up and could take care of himself while Karina got help. She took a quick look at the sky to see that the stars and the glow of the crescent gave her support to light her way through the lush trees. Trembling, she came in. Two branches of a large pine tree frightened her because they looked like arms leaning over her to catch her. As she retreated in fear, red eyes stared at her from the highest branch of another tree. She sighed with relief as the hooting of the owl who owned that piercing gaze welcomed her into the thick forest.

Forgetting the fear she had felt recently, she bent down to pick up an old stick from the ground and use it as a tool to make her way through the trees. Squinting to get a good look, she could see a narrow dirt road, perhaps made by the animals of the forest in their daily walk. She thought of taking out her cell phone to light the path and at that moment she said to herself out loud:

- How can you be so dumb? Use your cell phone to call for help.

Just like her keys, she didn’t have her cell phone with her because she forgot it at Selena’s. She knew that on the other side of the forest there were more houses in the village and she could find someone to help her. She never thought to turn around and go back along the road that led her to the place where she was for fear of running into the man who wanted to catch her. Therefore, she made her escape down that road at a fast pace. When she had been walking for about three minutes, her feet tripped over roots in the ground, her injured ankle gave way again and, losing her balance, she hit her head on an old trunk and became unconscious.