Little Wolf

Ch 42 Contact

I took a deep breath and shifted back to man. I counted, did random math; I even did my abc's. I went through family connections. I stopped at Grandfather, backtracked to Running Elk and Mahina. I focused on my breathing, deep steady breaths.

"You ok?" asked Derrick as he stretched. He winced when his stretch pulled against his arm.

"Yeah, just focusing. I went pretty deep into the wolf last night."

"Gee, you think? You howled half the night!"

"How you handling things?"

"You mean you being a werewolf or my broken arm? You're a stubborn wolf and my arm is throbbing. Other shoulder feels a bit better. You ready for breakfast? We got some granola bars, a few energy bars, jerky and chips."

"Give me an energy bar and some water. I'm thinking of going back toward the other entrance to see how well the explosion sealed it."

We discussed our options as I opened the energy bar.

"Eww," I complained, trying not to spit the bite out. We had too little food to waste any of it. "People eat this on purpose? You can have all the energy bars! You can have the rest of this one. This is not real food!"

Derrick laughed at me. It felt good to talk out loud and not have to whisper. I had to grin at him. I was glad he could laugh; it was a good sign.

I stayed human as much as I could, getting my pants back from Derrick and slipping on my shoes. We found a few lines that went pretty far. We found an underground creek if you could call it that, with water just seeping through, and refilled the water bottles that were empty.

I had a granola bar and some of the jerky for lunch. Derrick was content with the energy bars. It felt good to tease each other over our meal choices.

When I was pretty sure we covered everything behind us except for the low spot and the few long areas, I mentioned moving our camp up.

"I think we should keep camp where it is. I could feel the difference in temperature this morning. It was actually warmer further back."

"Yeah, we can stay put. I'm debating whether we should split up.

"Go on, check out some of those long areas. I'll eliminate the simple areas. I promise I won't go down anywhere too far."

"Good," I told him, " because I don't know what I'd use to rescue you. If I find a way out, do you want me to keep going or come back for you?"

"If it's an easy way out, come back. But you've had to crawl through just about everywhere. My arm won't get me out that way, so go on and bring back help if you can."

I took off my shoes and pants, shifting enough to have fur.

"Seriously, never going to get used to that. Seeing you as all wolf isn't bad, but the half-way thing is weird."

"This isn't anything," I laughed, "you should see when I'm practicing. Besides, you need my pants for the warmth. What food do we have left?"

We looked through it. I ate a granola bar and a bit of jerky, leaving him the rest.

"You sure?"