Hello!
It’s been a little while since I reprinted a story that’s only available in an anthology, so I thought it was time to do one.
Eventually, I would like all of my stories to be available for free. I hope people will buy the books I’m published in, because it’s important to support authors and publishers, but I also know what it’s like to only have access to what’s free on the Internet. So if a story’s reprint rights have reverted to me, I’m probably going to reprint it here sooner or later.
Today’s story is The Wolf Mother, originally published in Under The Full Moon's Light. (It’s been a while since I read the rest of the anthology, but I remember it being quite good. And my friend Jen Donohue has a really weird story in it that I still think about because… why, what were they doing with all the milk and bread?!)
The Wolf Mother was inspired by the Doctor Who episode "Father's Day," in which Rose and the Doctor are trapped in a church by attacking monsters. About halfway through the episode, I had an idea about where the story was going. And I was very wrong, so I wrote my version instead.
Content warnings for human death, animal/monster death (but the monsters are definitely the bad guys), general danger and peril
The Wolf Mother
by Jennifer Lee Rossman
Mother and child huddled in the corner of the church as the things beat at the door, stained glass moonlight bathing their fear in soft blues and reds.
The baby cried. The mother cried. The man standing between them and the barricaded door did everything in his power to keep all emotion from his face. It was a skill mastered over decades of this kind of work—people felt safer when they thought their guard was brave, even if he wanted to run screaming for his life and leave them to fend for themselves.
"Why me?" Her whisper was barely audible through the sounds of the many claws digging into the wood.
Osmund glanced at her over his shoulder before returning his gaze to the door. He tightened his grip on his laser. "I don't know," he said under his breath, afraid the things could hear him. "My typical wards are rich, powerful. Influential."
"Important," she translated, only slightly bitterly. She had no delusions about her status as a poor farmer's daughter, but people usually tried to be tactful about it.
"Yes," he agreed. "There are a hundred people in town I'd have guessed I was sent to guard before I would even think of it being you." He winced. That sounded rude. "I only mean, the beasts have a taste for kings and senators. People who matter."
In the cold silence that followed, he winced again. This was why he kept his mouth shut.
"You should take their interest as a compliment." He gave Candace an apologetic smile. "It means you're important. Or he is."
She held the baby protectively to her chest and wrapped the end of her skirt up over him to keep him warm. Next time they had to flee for their lives in the middle of the night, she would remember to bring a shawl. "Are they gone?" she asked, indicating the lack of chaos coming from outside.
Osmund shook his head but allowed himself to relax for the moment. "Resting," he said, going to sit on the stone floor beside them. He poked the baby's hand and smiled when the tiny pink fingers curled around his own. "You got a strong handshake, little man." To Candace he continued, "They were designed for short bursts of violent fury, not prolonged attacks."
If the word "designed" surprised her, she didn't let on. "And why don't we take advantage of this and sneak out?" Her big, brown eyes darted to the church's ornate candlesticks, and she suppressed a smile at the thought of using them as spears.
The sound of massive bodies slamming against the door answered her question—
the beasts took incredibly short naps.
Osmund didn't get up. His old back ached, and the heavy pews piled in the doorway would fall in as a signal if the doors even began to give way.
He tried not to stare at the young mother, but he liked this one. In his line of work, too many clients acted as if they deserved his protection—once, the man who’d created the beasts demanded he kill a pack and didn't give him so much as a nod of gratitude.
But she appreciated it in a way that he couldn't even fathom, and rare moments such as this made his hard life worth it.
"What do they look like?" she asked suddenly. "I only got a glimpse as they broke through my window. Are they like wolves?"
What did they look like? Words hadn't been created to accurately describe the hideous, twisted features, the utter lack of light in their hollow eyes. What did they look like? They looked like death. Death with teeth.
"Yes," Osmund said. "They're like wolves, if wolves had been designed to inflict maximum death and given the ability to travel through time to kill their master's enemies. Six feet tall, fur like razors, and so many teeth that he had to give them a second mouth."
"Oh, so exactly like wolves. Except in all the ways." Candace almost smiled, but a thunderous crash somewhere in the bowels of the church wiped it from her face. "They're inside," she breathed.
In an instant, Osmund was on his feet and disappearing around the corner. His echoing footsteps grew softer until they fizzled into nothingness. There was the sound of electricity as his laser discharged, then silence.
When he didn't return, Candace gathered up her dress and stalked down the corridor after him. Moonlight failed to penetrate the twisting halls, and at times she found it difficult to tell whether her eyes were even open.
Heavy breathing and grunting wafted on the air, and the sound of needles scraping on stone. The baby fussed, but she kissed his head and pushed through the fear, feeling along the cold wall with her free hand.
A triangle of light cut across the floor, and the sounds became louder. Candace quietly pulled a crucifix from the wall and held it aloft in anticipation of an attack. Though she was quite sure its power only worked on vampires, its heft gave her confidence in its usefulness for bludgeoning.
She paused only briefly at the open doorway, cursing whatever it was that made her important enough to be killed, and then she charged in with a primal scream.
Osmund looked at her in surprise and amusement from where he stood, trying to slide the dead beast in front of the jagged hole in the stone wall. Several others lay sleeping outside.
"I appreciate the help," he said with a genuine smile, "but you can get the next one."
Candace lowered her weapon awkwardly and got her first good look at the things that wanted her dead as Osmund used its body to block the hole made by its entrance.
The word "horrible" didn't begin to describe it. It was a nightmare come to life, a disfigured mass of black and red fear disguised as something vaguely animal in nature. Even in death, its fur dug deep grooves in the stone floors, and it did indeed have two sets of jaws, though she hadn't imagined them to be on top of one another.
What had she done to deserve the wrath of these hideous things? She looked at her son. His father, maybe. She'd hardly known him; maybe he was important and the beasts' master thought it would destroy the father to have them killed. Good luck, she thought with a bitter shake of her head. She hadn't seen him in months.
"More will get in," Osmund said grimly, wiping the sweat from his brow. He picked up a massive, pointed tooth that had been dislodged when the beast fell and carefully handed it to Candace. "If one goes for you, jab it with this. The fool made them venomous but forgot to make them immune to their own venom. Take care not to touch the pointy end."
She laughed despite the dire situation as she slipped it into her pocket. "What on earth are you?"
The area around his eyes crinkled in a smile. "Oh, just an old mercenary, raised by an even older mercenary. No one else likes hunting these things down, so I do it. You could say it's in my blood."
"Your parents did this, too?"
"Never met them. I'm told my mother died a hero, though, so there's that." He turned over his left hand and showed her a round scar surrounded by a nasty discoloration on his palm. "No, it's really in my blood. Lucky I didn't die, being so young, but it gave me their powers to travel—"
Chaos erupted in the main room, the pews falling from in front of the door.
Taking Candace's hand, Osmund nearly dragged her from the room and down the twisting halls. Like the things, he must have been able to see in the dark.
Up a flight of unseen stairs they went, their footfalls and breaths obscuring any sounds of further entry by the wolf beasts. Another flight, and Candace felt their escape routes flitting out of reach like dandelion seeds.
They reached the landing and Osmund pushed open the door to the widow's walk leading to the belfry. The cool night breeze chilled her tear-streaked face, and she covered her baby to spare him the discomfort.
Beside the ancient bell that once tolled the hour but now only rang for weddings and funerals, they stood and watched the wolf beasts break into the church.
The pack writhed in the moonlight as one massive creature, and indeed it was. A hive mind, they called it in the future, each individual acting selflessly for the good of the queen. It was her, one of several breeding females made with higher intelligence and bloodlust, that the master sent through time to find his victim. The packs followed her, merely doing her bidding as she lurked somewhere out of sight.
Osmund thought it best not to tell the poor girl about the wolf queen and managed to keep his mouth shut this time.
"Will they ever stop?"
He shook his head. "Not until we kill them or they kill you."
She stared blankly at the silhouetted shapes of her town, doing a remarkable impression of someone looking very brave. "And do you have a plan?" she asked. "Other than getting us trapped up here?"
"There…aren't usually this many," he said in weak defense of his poor decision. "I just wanted to buy us time to strategize, maybe find out how your existence becomes so threatening to their master. If we change your future—"
"So there's really such a thing as time travel." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. "There's time travel, and creatures from the future want to eat me."
"Not eat." Osmund caught the baby's eye as his little face peeked around his mother's arm, and Osmund gently relieved her of him for a moment. "They are actually vegetarians." He let his voice rise to a comically high pitch and touched noses with the baby. "They just enjoy killing. Yes they do. Yes. They. Do!"
Candace flopped to the ground in frustration, the beast tooth falling unnoticed from her pocket with a clatter. Osmund sat next to her, bouncing the baby on his knee.
"Now think, Candace," he said gently. "Their master has a hatred for the rich and influential, and sends them after kings, leaders of businesses…on one curious occasion, the owner of a parakeet who earned Internet fame for whistling the theme to Titanic." He ignored her confusion at these terms from the future. "Why would he want to kill you? A farmgirl from an era where women like you—forgive the bluntness—don’t become rich or influential?"
She just shook her head as the baby patted at the ground, reaching for something.
"No political ambitions or plans to invent the laptop computer?"
"The laptop what?"
"Good." At a loss and with the beasts now filing into the church, Osmund felt desperation closing in around them. In a last attempt to change the future, he said weakly, "Promise me you'll never do anything with your life."
She laughed and wiped her eyes. "Promise. How do you know they aren't coming for you, anyway? You seem to be his biggest adversary, going through time and saving all of his victims."
"I am." He showed her his scar again. "Beast venom. Their DNA." Realizing this was several centuries ahead of her time, he explained, "They're not too bright, you see; think I'm one of them. Maybe the queens are smart enough to see past it, but I'm not their target."
A new level of fear flashed through her eyes. "What do you mean, the queens? Do these things come in a larger size—"
A shriek of pain cut through the night. Candace grabbed her child and pulled the beast tooth from his hand, watching in horror as his skin began absorbing the coloration of the venom.
"No," she whispered, holding him to her tightly.
The scrabbling of claws and faint howling from inside the church abruptly ceased as the beasts' intended victim became one of them.
"I stand corrected," Osmund said with tears in his eyes as he laid a hand on his mother's shoulder. "I was the target."
If she understood the gravity of this statement, she did not give any indication, and sobbed into her son's hair.
A shadow crossed in front of the moon. The pack wandered off toward it, as if drawn by some instinctual force.
The queen, stepping carefully over the houses down in the village. Her footsteps sounded like thunder, and the hairs on the back of her neck rattled like rain on a tin roof. If the beasts were death, she was the horrors waiting in hell. And she was headed for the church.
Candace gave no thought to her own safety. She picked up the tooth, holding it tightly in her fist. "This will kill her?"
"Yes."
"And they won't come after either of you?"
"No."
She kissed her son on the cheek and handed him to his older self before climbing down the belfry.
"It occurs to me," Osmund said to himself, "that she never told me your name. I'll have to name you after myself then, as I always did."
The baby cried, the queen beast howled in pain, and Osmund's mother died a hero.
END
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