Where Wolves Run: A Novella of Horror Read Online Free Page B

hit the wood with a thud. He winced, and his head rocked from side-to-side, but his eyes filled with consciousness.
    Father clasped the first shackle under Joren’s chin. It was too large to hold him, the metal spikes on its underside several centimeters away from Joren’s skin. Konrad was sure he could slide out of it. The shackles were meant to pin down a larger captive. If they waited a couple of days, perhaps they would have their chance.
    Joren’s eyes opened wider. He seemed alert. Still, he did not resist. Father easily tugged his limp left arm toward the clasp in the board’s top-right corner and slammed it shut. Joren lurched. His face reddened, the veins in his temples pulsating while his eyes bulged from their sockets. From his mouth came a breathless wheeze. He tried to sit up. Then he screamed. The jagged pieces of metal stabbed at his wrist and neck as he struggled to free himself.
    “Ball this up,” Father said, handing Konrad an unwashed rag. “Shove it into his mouth and hold it there until he quiets. Though the curse should be dormant now, it is safer not to let him bite you.”
    The need for silence seemed dubious, their nearest neighbor several kilometers away. Still, Konrad followed his father’s orders without question. He did not want to hear Joren speak. He cared not for filth spewed from the mouth of an animal.
    As he shoved the cloth into Joren’s mouth, his eyes met the man-beast’s. Joren’s irises were mostly yellow now, whirlpools of energy and awareness. His gaze was furtive, trying to comprehend his surroundings, no doubt. He gnashed at Konrad’s fingers and spat out the rag. Konrad forced it back in, only to have it spat out again. When Father drove his elbow into the bridge of Joren’s nose, the struggle was over.
    “Never mind that now,” his father said. Blood gushed from Joren’s nostrils. “He will not be able to breathe if we gag him. We do not want him to choke . . . not yet, at least. He will be quieter now.”
    It was true. Joren’s screaming and growling were replaced by coughing, spitting, and gurgling. But he thrashed fiercely as Father bound his right wrist, and he kicked feverishly as Konrad and his father secured each leg. Joren’s efforts only cost him additional suffering. His flesh was torn at the neck, wrists, and shins by the shackles’ barbaric underbellies.
    With Joren bound, Konrad looked to his father for guidance. The malice in Father’s eyes told him that Joren’s suffering was only beginning. Father wanted to find the rest of the pack. He needed Joren alive. Since Joren had been given the menial task of spying on them, he was likely the runt of the litter. Yes, he probably dined on scraps of Konrad’s mother, but it would have been the alpha that savored the kill and fed on the choicest bits. And although they would have long since been digested, nothing would stop Father from trying to cut them out.
    They had less than two days to find the pack, if Father’s calculations could be trusted. Once the moon rose two nights hence, full and fat, the pack would turn. It would come for them. Father set to work.
    Fortunately, Father needed little more than an hour to obtain the information he sought. A bucket filled with parts served as a testament to his grit. Konrad stared at that bucket, horrified into silence by the ghastly mutilations he had witnessed. Most of Joren’s fingernails, pried loose by Father’s dagger, now resided in the bucket. A few were still attached to fingers. A couple of toes, several teeth, and most of an ear completed the collection.
    Father never flinched.
    An eye had been next for the bucket, but Joren betrayed his comrades before that could happen. Konrad was thankful for it. His stomach had weakened to a point where vomit threatened to rise at the mere mention of another cut. Halfway into the torture, he had looked away, no longer caring if his father thought him frail.
    “They are in a cave,” Joren blurted, blood from