I sit watching, from my safe distant and secluded viewing spot, the large singular building nestled in an
unnatural clearing, surrounded by ten feet of barbed wire fencing that stretches all the way around, save for a set of enormous gates at the far side. All closed and locked tight and looking deserted. There are dirt tracks showing signs of infrequent visits from offroad vehicles leading up to it, coming from the south, and I’m perched here for watching for signs of life for an hour now, as I try to figure out if it’s safe to get closer.
It took the rest of the day to get here, following an imaginary line from my last camp spot, in the general direction and sticking to hyper-speed for most. I’m tired, my back agony from keeping on trekking at an hour I’ve grown accustomed to being the settling down and making camp stage. Sweating, breathless, hot, and sticky, and currently sat on my backpack as I try to figure out how stupid I would be if I went and further investigated.
There’s no sign of life, no new tracks, or lingering scents of anyone being around the perimeter from this distance. It seems silent, but then it’s a large white windowless building with a rough cast of fine white stone and looks exceptionally clean for being out here in the middle of no-man’s-land. It has an aura of mystery, and my gut tells me to be wary, even if it urges me to investigate.
The mast on top is a substantial metallic construction, like the Eiffel tower almost, and sits on the roof of its custom platform, stretching some thirty feet upwards. I thought at first it was a telecom mast, or maybe power, but nothing connects to what looks like a radio antenna coming from the top of it. There’s a steel box generator, almost half the size of the building, within the compound, yet sat apart from it; it is low humming within its encasement, suggesting this building has constant power.
There’s something off, even if on the surface it looks how I imagine an unmanned power plant substation would look, and despite that, my weird inner voice that kept pushing me east it’s telling me to get closer. My mind and instincts are battling with what to do, and it's why I’ve sat here staring at it for so long. The sensible part is screaming danger. The less logical me is telling me how harmless this looks and that there are no life signs. The weak part is aching for connection to civilization and a longing to touch something tangible and manufactured after so many weeks alone. It reminds me that I’ve still been crushingly lonely despite doing better. I’m a pack animal, which goes against my nature to be solo.
I can’t see any way in from this angle, so the door must face those giant gates, which means it only has one entrance and nothing else. Not exactly a layout for any kind of worrying military base. I mean, it’s not even that big. It’s not big enough to be anything much else. At most, you could park two of the Santo trucks inside, so I doubt it homes any more than some power grid equipment for maybe some of the further rural homes. Perhaps it’s a radio station with sporadic visits or something. I don’t have a clue, as it’s hardly my area of expertise.
After an hour sitting here, I have gotten no signs of life or any reason not to have a closer look, and the only thing stopping me is my terrifying level of suspicion. It seems wholly deserted. I’m being overly cautious, my feeble side wading in, and even with the wind blowing this way, I’m not picking up any human scent.
I can see cameras at the corners on this side of the building, and they probably have them at the front too, but they are all pointing down at the ground within the fences, so I can at least get that close without being caught on them. I guess they’re to pick up on wildlife getting in. I might see more if I go around the other side and figure out what it is. It might have signs or hazard warnings if it is just a power plant. If I know for sure, I can stop tiptoeing around and relax.
I exhale heavily, wiping the rolling beads of moisture from my brow, and look up at the fading light in the graying sky. I should find a place to make camp and stop wasting what daylight I have left. Come back in the morning, but that means trekking further, as this is the first clearing I’ve come across in hours. Nothing nearby looks like a good place to set up, so maybe I might have to sacrifice a restful night and roll up in the bear’s fur right here. I can’t think of anything else to do.
It’s either go check this out and walk on when I know what it is and if I can salvage anything or camp and look at it on the new day. I’m exhausted, need to eat, and don’t have the energy to do much of anything.
I get up, mind in two halves, and pull my backpack up, lugging its heavyweight as I try to decide. I would prefer to stick to my usual plan of picking a site and staying there until dawn. I don’t want to be out in the open when darkness falls, as despite not picking up on any creatures of the night, I can’t be sure there aren’t any lurking in caves or underground tunnels, many of which I have come across these past days. I remember the stories of the vampires coming out of the ground during the war.
I don’t wander far, realizing it’s wall-to-wall, closely-knit trees in all directions but one, moving towards the building. It is the only part here that has space to lie down, and I’m not about to sleep in the clearing near it.
I doubt any passing big cat, bear, or such, walking its perimeter will bypass a sleeping me without fuss, so I decide to pick a tree with excellent leaf cover and climb one. It’s better than being a sitting duck on the forest floor, and I doubt I’ll get any proper sleep when I haven’t found a good place to hide. Up a tree, I can tie myself to the trunk and at least dose off and on through the night and wait to investigate this in the morning. It’ll give me a little security, and at least up high; I can defend myself if need be.
I end up walking a full circle and finding the right kind of trees nearer the main gates of the building. One’s with broad bases, multiple branches from mid-way up, with extra amounts of foliage and twisting crisscrossing boughs for platforms. I squeeze between two that are close together. About twenty feet up, their branches merge and curl to make a wide landing place, and I have to haul myself up with my backpack on, finding it a little more labor-intensive than usual.
When I get up there, I find a flat enough spot and roll out one of my pelts. I snuggle into a dip between two parallel boughs and can properly lie down without anchoring myself to anything. I hang my backpack on a broken stump on the trunk and lie out on top of my makeshift bed, stretching and wriggling to see how comfy I can get, satisfied that this isn’t too bad as long as it doesn’t get windy or rain tonight. I don’t want to unroll pelts that could slide off if I roll in my sleep and draw attention to lurking wildlife. I won’t have a fire to keep some natural creatures at bay up here, so I have to make do with cold meat, a bumpy bed, and the rustling and swaying of the trees to lull me into slumber. Not that I think it’ll be an issue as, now I’m up here, my eyes are heavy and my brain cloudy with fatigue. It’s been a long day.
I sit and watch the building through the foliage for a while, sitting at my safe distance, watching as the shadows lengthen and become part of the dark surroundings as the light fades fast. I’m already exhausted from my extended trekking, so settling down and drifting off is more manageable than usual. Not the usual spew of weighty things on my mind to keep me awake, and it feels like only seconds of blinking and drowsiness before I zone out.
I wake with a start, jumping slightly and sitting up fast, banging my head on rough wood and silently yelping as I properly come to. I must have drifted into a deeper sleep quickly because it seemed only a second ago I could still see my hand in front of me, and now I’m in the pitch dark and can’t even make out what I’m sitting on. Disorientated at first until I remember where I was and how I got here, and my belly rumbles because I didn’t eat. I woke with fright for sure, and my heart is thundering through my chest as my nocturnal eyesight kicks in, frantically bringing the surrounding area into focus.
I’m not sure exactly what woke me yet, and I slowly sit up, sliding my legs up, my knees touching my chest as I rub my now bruised, lumpy forehead while scanning my surroundings for a cause. Taking deep breaths to calm down and center myself, letting my senses take over, rather than my scared brain.
It doesn’t take me long to see what brought me around once I settle down and look. There’s a shiny black truck parked in the undergrowth beside the fence, nearer the back of the building where I first stood. It’s about ten feet further down the makeshift road. They must have just pulled up. Maybe the noise and headlights are what roused me, and I watch with bated breath as someone slides out and makes their way around the fence to find the entrance. An eerie, solitary figure shrouded in darkness. It’s both a joy to see another person and a massive alarming worry that I’m seeing another person.
They, much like the truck, are all in black, wearing a hood pulled over their head, so I can’t see their face at all, but I can tell he’s male. Tall and stocky, he moves around the gate, focusing on his task and eerily quiet on his feet. The wind picks up gently and blows this way, guiding his scent towards me, and I recoil in complete shock like someone tasered my ass.
He’s a wolf ... like me. There’s no denying that particular scent we all carry, and it red alerts me and wakes up my brain immediately.
I have no idea why the hell a Lycanthrope would operate a power plant in the middle of the forest. I mean, maybe it’s not that big a deal. Some packs live and work in the human world and have regular jobs as they try to pass off as one of them. This could be a guy who works for the power company and, for some reason, likes to frequent his unmanned building in the middle of the night. I’m sure that’s probably a regular thing, for unconventional hours, or maybe if he has a special task at this time of night.
Probably not likely, and it’s too weird that all the way out here, alone for weeks on end, the first person I come in contact with is one of my kind. It’s a little too coincidental, especially as I came here after following some deep gut feeling and stupid dreams of Sierra Santo.
I watch, squinting through the foliage as I try to see his progress and get a better look, but the gates are obscured from my angle, and he disappears behind trees that sit between us and out of sight. I don’t want to lose track of him in case he somehow heads in here without me seeing and shows up at the foot of my tree. I doubt I would be a welcome discovery.
I don’t hesitate. I slide off my perch, silently climb down the tree, and crawl closer until I see him again from another angle, ducking down behind a rock and keeping low. I’m relatively safe from this distance if he doesn’t see me moving around. My senses are on major high alert, and I’m taking comfort in the fact the wind is blowing this way, so he won’t smell me the way I did him.
I have to creep on all fours, keeping still and wedging behind a fallen log to get a better look as I track him. By the time I figure out where he is, eyes scanning the fence and truck, he’s already inside the compound and up against the door. He moves fast, and it confirms that he’s one of my kind.
I hear a beep, a click like he opened something or had some sort of key, and the door slides to the side in front of him. It doesn’t open out as I would expect, but more like that of an elevator door that slides out of sight, back on itself, which is weird for a low-tech building.
I can see inside from here, though, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the doorway, making it all even weirder. It looks like an empty concrete box, with no big inside room, control panels, or anything from what I can peer into. That just makes the sliding door stranger if it’s concealing nothing. I move a little closer still, not convinced I’m getting a complete picture, hitting the last line of trees before the clearing, and stand tall to side-slide behind one and peek around. I know getting this near to him is stupid, but I can’t see, and this place has me so confused about its purpose or importance to my instincts.
He walks inside, turns, and faces something to the left, just behind where the door is. He leans in, ducking slightly, so his face comes level with an out of sight panel.
“It’s me. I’m back. Bring me down.” A low growl to his masculine tone, most definitely a wolf. I can just tell.
He stands tall and turns to face the open front door. There’s a crunching noise, the humming of the generator revs up in ferocity, and the entire building emits a long grunting moan. My heart rate escalating as nerves consume me and my body trembles. I swear, for a second, I think he looks right at me and I dive back, flattening my back to the bark and close my eyes, as though somehow that’ll make me invisible. I’m not sure though, as he didn’t seem to react at all, and I’m probably being paranoid because I’m scared.
I look back, holding my breath to steady my shaking self, quick enough to see the door sliding shut as he slowly lowers below the level he’s standing on. It clicks instantly that the floor is moving, and he’s going down. Like some sort of elevator for sure, and it explains why, on the surface, there’s no sign of life, and the building is small. It’s deceptive, and the sliding door conceals a car-sized platform to a lower level. That means whatever is down there is big enough to accommodate vehicles should they need to be taken down, making my blood run cold.
I don’t think it’s any kind of power plant, and I shouldn’t be here at all. It has more going on below, and now I know a wolf is crewing this station. I have absolutely no chance of finding anything worth stealing and getting away without a trace. Not that I want to anymore. Everything inside me tells me this is a bad idea, and I need to get far away from this place as soon as possible.
When the door fully closes, I walk out in front of the tree where I’ve been hiding and peer over to where he left his truck, wondering if he may have left anything of value. If I’m cutting my losses and running, he might have something. Maybe a medipack, food, clothes, or something I can use. He didn’t lock it, and he was alone.
He probably isn’t coming out right away, and I should make the most of his absence before returning. He might not stay, and judging by the fact he abandoned his truck and never brought it into the compound; I don’t think he is. I have to be quick and go.
I run along the tree line, keeping to the inner side and within its shadow, and dash his truck, using hyper-speed to get to it fast and look inside when I slide up against the door furthest from the building. It’s an off-road four-by-four covered in mud and debris and the perfect vehicle for moving around this terrain. I can tell right away there’s nothing in it. Nothing in view that I would want, not even general trash. It’s clean and free of anything worthwhile. It is not what I would expect for a truck used frequently, so it makes this even weirder. He obviously doesn’t use it very much to come and go. One last fleeting run-over with my eyes convinces me he has nothing of worth.
I dash back to the closest border of brush and start making
my way back to my temporary camp without looking back, keeping behind the trees by two rows. With the heaviness of mounting panic growing inside me like a warning signal, my breathing is labored. Heartbeat pounding in my ears as it batters my rib cage and adds to my terror. I don’t feel safe being this close anymore, and I should never have ventured to find this building. I don’t know what I was thinking, and the last thing I need is complications from wolves and James Bond type buildings in the middle of forests. This has a spy movie written all over it, and I’m in no mood to be dangled headfirst over a vat of sharks for information I don’t have.
When the noise of the building cranks up again, I don’t know if it’s the floor moving up again to reset or if he’s coming back. It stops me in my tracks, and I instinctively drop to the dirt and turn around. I crouch where I am, watch and wait, peering through the trunks and bushes to see the door, until the moaning cranking noise of heavy innards moving comes to a halt. Yet the door doesn’t open. Nothing happens at all, except the return to a previous hum. I don’t think it was him; I think maybe the floor comes up again when they reach a destination, and I relax a little, blowing out my breath with relief, moving again from this tree to the next to make my way back to my perch.
I almost make it all the way in when another loud thumping noise stops me in my tracks and makes me look back nervously, so jumpy and on edge, with all my senses heightened for more efficiency. This time the noises are less intense, less mechanical, and more like regular people noises.
The building appears to be coming to life as it increases. The doors make a swishing noise, but nothing seems to open. There’s a bang, sliding of bolts; I can’t tell. A beep, a whoosh, like a piston's noise, and then I can make out the swing of a heavy metal door and gravel rolling and slides from it.
Suddenly, lights flick on all around me from concealed posts further out in the trees and make me jump. My heart skips a beat, and ice flairs in my veins; I find myself illuminated in the previously dark space. Blinded by the sudden solar strength, a burning pain hits me in the eyeballs. I blink, shielding my eyes as my night vision craps out and gives me an instant headache, like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
I wasn’t expecting this entire area to illuminate, like standing under a sunlamp and pulling my wits around me; I dart as fast as possible to the nearest spot of darkness and hope they didn’t see me. The lights must be extended above the canopy on masts further out that I didn’t see, as everything around me is brighter than daylight, and I have no one direction to go to that will get me out of it faster. The entire space is bright as hell. I run, heading towards my mountain in the far distance, concentrating on nothing else except escape. Screw my backpack and furs; I don’t need them right now.
I sprint, dodge, jump, clearing fallen logs as twigs and leaves scratch my face and hands and rip at my skin in passing. Breathing labored and loud as I pant. I aim for the shadows without looking back in case this is because of me, that maybe he did see me out there and, whatever this place is, no one should know about it. I put my head down and hyper-speed to the best of my ability, only making it to a skidding halt into darker bushes when a scary, piercing noise fills the air. It has a horrible effect on my body and senses, rattling my brain inside my skull as my physical self crunches up, instantly immobile, and I grab my ears.
It’s a siren, honking hard and loud, in a pitch that causes me physical pain with its sheer volume, echoing in the air and making the surroundings shudder in trembling response. My heartbeat elevates until I think my chest will explode, my body straining to turn to a wolf to get away faster, but I don’t let it. I need to keep these clothes more than ever now, and I need to get back to my tree to grab my stuff.
My gut tells me to abandon it all, forget about the clothes issue for now, and just run, but my logic is telling me to calm down, stop reacting, and be rational about this. As the cameras pointed down, they couldn’t have seen me, and I didn’t venture near the fences. Maybe he just looked my way, but I saw no sign of a reaction or recognition that he knew someone was out there.
This could just be a coincidence and something they do, even without someone like me lurking nearby. They couldn’t know I was there—if there is a ‘they’—and why would they react like this? What could they possibly be hiding that a young girl like me posed a threat to?