Page 4 of Midnight Prince
Hazel
Ihadn’t been back to the bar. I was a little scared after the first encounter and I wasn’t sure if I would seehimagain. It had been two weeks since I had met him, and I still couldn’t get him out of my mind. And to be honest, I was getting lonely. The older couple across the street were closing their curtains more and clearly avoiding me. Yes, I may have visited them one too many times this past week. And I may have upset them with my banging late at night, but it was the only thing to stop the fear building in me each night as the wolves seemed to get closer and closer to my house. I was not used to this. Yet, it was quiet here, no people, no cars driving by honking horns.
I spoke to Maeve about the wolves and she said that they travel around a lot but that she would speak to the local ranger for me. He might have more insight as to why they were coming closer to my place.
I hoped the ranger would have had an answer by now, but this was just getting worse. My house looked like a disaster zone. And I didn’t care what he said, Mike from “Holmes on Homes,”he made this look easy. I was watching re-runs of their show, trying to get some ideas of what I needed to do. And all I came up with was they needed to start their series again and come help me.
The stairs still squeaked when I walked up them, and I didn’t think I could stop that. Also, the rooms upstairs were terrible, but I just didn’t know where to start with them. Did I want to start over in there? Did I need new electric for the house? Plumbing?Probably. That would have been why the real estate agent told me to come have a look. My money was not going to stretch very far with all the issues I kept finding.
The howl of a wolf was close again. I resorted to spending most of my time upstairs at night, I had a fear they would bust in the window and attack me. I looked down at my iPhone, it had just gone past four o’clock in the morning. My eyes felt heavy and gritty. The dust in this room not helping at all. I sneezed a few times and wiped the watery tears from my eyes. Gosh, I was not one to dwell on things, but this…shit.
I made a mistake in moving here. How did I think I could do this? I lived in a fully maintained apartment in the city. Where there were no wolves or creepy local guys in bars. Or the handsome ones in bars either – who I haven’t bumped into at all. And I have been to see Maeve every day this week in the hopes he was there. I asked her about him and she said he didn’t shop at her store, not often anyway. But no, he wasn’t out and about when I took a walk into town, hoping to see him walking around. It was as if he disappeared.
More howls. A chill ran down my spine, they sounded like they were coming from my back yard now. I took a deep breath and moved into the far bedroom and looked out the window into my back yard. It was so dark, even the moon was hiding behind the clouds. I could see movement to the left, a lump formed in my throat.Holy shit. It was a wolf. Lurking in my yard. I watched as another one came out of the woods behind the first. My heart was racing now.
Shit, shit, shit. Who do I call about this? The cops? No, there was only one cop in town and this was just wolves. They wouldn’t get into my house. The ranger? I didn’t have his number. I watched as the one closest to me moved to my back porch. I pushed my face as close as I could to see what it was doing. I had no meat or food out there. And I locked everything up.
A rattling sound had me gasping, a cold chill washed over me. Was it trying to open the door? I looked down to my iPhone, only 2% left. What was I thinking? I left my charger in the kitchen. The back door rattled again and I quickly ran over to the door of the bedroom and closed it. I wish there was a lock but wolves couldn’t open doors. Right? Why were they trying to get in? I had no food inside. Just some leftover Chinese in the fridge and no offense to the restaurant, but it wasn’t that good.
A howl ripped through the air outside. It sounded angry and the rattling started again. I could hear the two wolves pacing on my back porch, their nails scratching into my door. I held my phone to my chest. I have to call the cops. I started to dial 911 and the screen went black.Shit. My breathing sped up. I was going to die. There was a loud yelp. I turned back to the window and watched as a shadow of one wolf soared through the air.
What the hell just happened? I could hear the other one growling and fighting something.Someone. I heard a man yell out. Oh my god! Tears formed in my eyes. Someone was out there and the wolf was attacking him. I looked again and saw both wolves now at the edge of the woods. One was limping away. I ran down the stairs, not knowing who or what I would see.
“Hello?” I called out, it was so dark outside and I didn’t have a porch light. I needed to replace the globe but I hadn’t gotten around to it. “Is someone out there?”
A loud groan and what sounded like someone falling over.
“Hazel.”
That voice, I knew that voice.
It was Ben.
