Date with a Drifter

She looked up at him with a satisfied smile on her face, biting her nail again as her eyes traveled from his flushed face down to his still rigid member.

"You got a shower?" she asked, brushing her hair out of her face. He nodded sheepishly. "Good, you're coming with me," she announced as she struggled to her feet on trembling legs. "I'm not done with you, kid, not by a long shot."

She took his hand and led him out of the room, Smoke raising his head to watch them leave, then returning it to its place on his paws as he resumed his nap on the adjacent couch.

CHAPTER 4: INTO THE NIGHT

Matt stood beside the bed as his guest emerged from beneath the haphazard pile of blankets and pillows, watching her as she stretched her arms above her head and yawned widely, rubbing her eyes as she looked up at him. She was still nude, her body hidden beneath the sheets, and she had a case of bed hair that made her look like she was wearing a wig made out of bird's nests. The pair of thick curtains that covered the window made the bedroom gloomy, the light beyond casting its shadows on the wooden floor.

"Morning, or should I say afternoon," he said. He placed a tray across her lap, upon which was a plate of bacon and eggs along with a glass of juice and some slices of toast. "I thought you might want some breakfast."

She eyed the food for a moment, then a smirk brightened her groggy expression, and she took up the fork.

"You're gonna give me diabetes, kid. By the way, do you...happen to know where my clothes are?"

"Probably still in the living room," he replied, "I'll go fetch them for you."

"Wait," she said, talking with a forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth. "What time is it?"

"It's about four in the afternoon," he said as he paused by the door, "I guess we got kind of carried away last night. I don't think we went to bed until maybe seven AM."

Her expression darkened as she chewed on a strip of bacon, seeming steeped in thought.

"Thanks for the breakfast kid, but I gotta get going soon."

"A-Already?" Matt stammered, apprehension twisting his guts. "I thought we might at least spend a few hours together today."

"I told you that I was pressed for time. I gotta be out of this town before nightfall. I'm sorry kid, I'd like to stay longer...but I'm on a schedule."

"Yeah...yeah, I know. I knew this was going to be a temporary thing going in, I just...I'll go get your clothes."

She returned to her food, glancing up as he turned his back and disappeared through the doorway, not wanting him to see the trembling of her lip. They had really hit it off, he was a great kid and knowing that she would have to leave soon made her heart sink. She had already played things too loose, she should have set off already. He was smitten with her, and she knew that leaving would hurt him, but it was for his own good.

Maybe leading him on had been cruel, but she hadn't planned for this. She had hoped that things wouldn't have gotten serious with the kid, but he was young and naive, and maybe she had secretly hoped that this would happen despite herself. Anything for a taste of normalcy, anything just to feel the warmth of another person again, to be wanted.

It couldn't be, however. She preferred Matt brokenhearted rather than dead.

***

Matt followed her out of the house, Smoke trailing behind them as they stopped beside her bike, the woman swinging her leg over the motorcycle with her crash helmet clasped under her arm. The sun was getting low in the sky, casting its golden rays over the treetops and painting the horizon in beautiful shades of pink and orange.

"So...will I ever see you again?" Matt asked sheepishly, Smoke sitting at his feet as the Husky looked between the two of them. "You can't give me a number? Not even a name?"

"It ain't my choice, kid. I feel bad about it, believe me, but I'm-"

"Pressed for time, I know. Can you at least tell me why? You act like the devil is on your heels. If you're running from trouble or something, maybe there's a way that I can help?"

She reached up with a gloved hand and took him by the collar, pulling him in for a kiss, his worries melting away for a brief moment as her lips met his. Her tongue coiled in his mouth, slow and placating, almost conciliatory as her gentle strokes made his heart leap in his chest. She broke off, sliding her helmet over her head and snapping down the tinted visor.

"For what it's worth, this is the most fun I've had in a long, long time. You're a good kid, keep up the cooking and work off that debt. Maybe the next time I come through here, there'll be an English pub in the place of that throwback diner."

Matt nodded, stepping back as she kicked her ignition, the bike's powerful engine roaring to life as Smoke scampered away from it to hide behind his master's legs. She revved it, but the rumbling purr petered out into an unhealthy chugging before finally going silent. Matt didn't know anything about motorcycles or engines, but even he could tell that this hollow clanking wasn't normal. The woman leaned over to get a look at the exposed engine, cursing to herself.

"Shit shit shit, fuck. Not now, not now!"

She hopped off the bike and kneeled beside it, pulling off her helmet and placing it beside her on the dirt. She reached towards the metal and then cursed loudly, waving her hand as the hot engine burned her through her glove. Her frustration was palpable. Matt was almost afraid to offer help, watching her as she pounded the bike with her fist.

"Er...engine trouble?" he asked.

She turned to look at him over the shoulder of her leather jacket, the expression on her face almost one of pain.

"Tools, you got tools here?"

"In the garage maybe, but I don't drive, and I don't know my way around an engine. That was more my dad's area of expertise."

"Where?"

He pointed towards a structure that adjoined the house with a sliding door on its face, and she rose to her feet, practically sprinting to cover the distance as her long hair billowed out behind her. Just what the hell was so urgent? She didn't just want to ditch him, nobody treated a walk of shame like a life or death scenario, something was really wrong. He couldn't for the life of him imagine what.

He followed her over to the garage as she crouched by the door, hooking her fingers under it and raising it through strength alone, her biceps visible through the tight material of her jacket. She rushed inside as Matt slipped in behind her, watching as she scanned the room frantically.

The garage was full of gardening tools and spare parts, his dad's old 1968 Camaro taking up most of the space, draped in a protective cover and with its engine block sitting to one side. The space was coated in dust and cobwebs after years of neglect. Matt had no use for it, and his father hadn't worked on the car for a solid decade, another money-wasting project that had quickly been abandoned.

The woman searched for a few minutes, becoming increasingly agitated, before finally locating a toolbox. She brought it outside and placed it beside her helmet on the ground, popping it open and sifting through the tools that had been haphazardly stored inside.

"Do you know what the problem is?" Matt asked, hovering nearby. "We could always walk it down to the garage in town, wouldn't take more than an hour or two."

She shook her head, pulling out a tool that Matt didn't recognize and beginning to disassemble parts of the bike. It might as well have been a nuclear reactor for all he knew. She worked on it for maybe fifteen minutes, pulling out all kinds of parts and components, checking them and cleaning away oil and grime with a rag. She made a pile of what looked like random pieces of metal to Matt, in all manner of shapes, the bike now little more than a skeletal frame with a fuel tank and two wheels. She wiped her brow with the rag, inadvertently smearing grease on her face, then stood to appraise the machine.

"You figure out what the problem is?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, I got a shot conrod. Looks like the big-end bolt failed, and it snapped."

"Can you fix it?"

"No, I need to replace the part."

She kicked her bike angrily, startling Smoke who was sitting nearby, then she leaned her hands on the leather seat and hung her head as she considered her options.

"How far is the walk back to town?" she asked, Matt pausing to think for a moment before replying.

"Ninety minutes, maybe an hour if you jog."

"What if I cut through the forest?"

"I...wouldn't advise that. You'd shave some time off, but these woods are dense, and the sun is setting. You'd get lost for sure. What if I called a tow truck? They could take your bike down to the garage, I'm sure they have replacement parts down there."

"It would take too long," she complained, glancing warily at the sun as it crept down behind the mountains in the distance.

"Listen," Matt said, growing frustrated with her cryptic bullshit. "I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

She laughed bitterly, and he was taken aback, it wasn't the reaction that he had expected.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

She stood suddenly, seeming to come to a decision, then turned to face him with an uncharacteristically dour expression. It was almost frightening, her complexion was ashen, as if all of the blood had drained from her face.

"I'm going to ask you to do something," she told him, her tone deadly serious. "It's going to sound strange, crazy maybe, but you have to promise me that you'll do as I say. Promise me," she insisted, "can you do that?"

Matt shrugged with exasperation.

"Yeah fine, whatever."

"Go into the house and bolt the doors, close the windows and draw the curtains. Keep the lights off until the sun comes up again. Do you understand me? Don't go outside for any reason. Stay quiet, don't even light a fucking candle. No matter what you hear, no matter what you might see, you have to stay hidden."

"Why do I-"

"Promise me!" she snapped, her eyes wide.

"Yeah okay, I promise. But I don't understand. What's going to happen? Where are you going to be?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Just trust me, okay? Please do as I ask."

She was pleading, frightened. What she was asking of him made no sense, and yet he got the distinct impression that she was entirely serious.

"Alright, I'll do it."

That seemed to ease some of her tension, and she nodded, walking closer to him. She threw herself into his arms, burying her face in his chest, hugging him tightly as he looked down at her in confusion.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, "I was selfish. I should have just driven straight through this town, I shouldn't have stopped at the diner, and I shouldn't have strung you along the way I did. I just...I liked you."

"You don't have to apologize for liking me," he laughed. "Yesterday was...the most fun that I've ever had, hands down. Spending time with you has been a real adventure."

She broke away from him, lingering there for a moment as she looked up at him, before turning her back and setting off into the forest.

"Hey!" Matt called after her, "you're going in the wrong direction! The town is that way!"

"I know!" she shouted back, vanishing into the treeline.

Matt watched her go, shaking his head in disbelief, then called for Smoke to follow him as he walked back to the house.

***

The bolt snapped loudly as Matt locked the front door, Smoke following him through the house as he secured the windows on the ground floor and drew the curtains. He felt like he was preparing for a damned hurricane. He couldn't begin to guess at what her reasons for asking this of him were. It seemed like she feared for his safety, but from what?

There were biker gangs that were notorious for drug running, like the Hell's Angels or the Bandidos. Perhaps she had crossed one such organization, and they were hot on her tail. She might fear that they would harm him to get to her, but if that was the case, why stop in some podunk town and waste time hanging out with a stranger? If she truly feared for her life, then she wouldn't be giving her pursuers a chance to gain ground on her. She wouldn't have left her bike out in the open either, that was proof that she had been here and it would lead them right to her.

Had she committed a crime and she was fleeing from the police? No, it couldn't be that. Again, she had left her bike here, and she had caused a ruckus at the bar that would surely have drawn more attention than a fugitive from the law would have wanted.

No, it was something else.

He proceeded to the top floor, the wooden stairs creaking under his feet, moving through the house and doing as she had asked him. The property was large, but before long he had secured all of the doors and windows, and he had turned off all of the lights. It was late in the evening, not quite dark outside yet, the rays of the setting sun were still bleeding in through the curtains.

What was he going to do now? The woman had run off into the forest, if she made her way back, she wouldn't be able to get inside with all of the doors bolted. Besides, her cryptic warning had included the instructions that he shouldn't open the doors for any reason, no matter what he saw or heard. No lights meant no TV, no reading. Maybe he'd listen to some music on his phone and turn off the screen, that should be fine as long as he used his earbuds.

He collapsed down onto the couch and flicked through his playlist, Smoke curling up on the carpet by his side. He selected a few albums to play on repeat then shut off the screen, the living room cast into relative darkness. The sun finally seemed to be slipping behind the mountains. He'd get some sleep, and then he'd go out and look for the biker in the morning.

CHAPTER 5: TURNING

Matt was woken by Smoke's whining. He blinked groggily, resisting the urge to turn on his phone's screen to see where the dog was. He pulled his earbuds out, listening to the Husky grumble and whimper. He was somewhere over by one of the windows in the living room.

"What's wrong Smoke?"

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the dog scratching at the wall below the window and whining as he looked out beneath the curtain. His ears were up and alert, tracking something. This was the noise that he usually made when he saw something to chase in the forest near the house, and he wanted to be let out.

"No Smoke, you can't go outside," Matt mumbled. He rolled over, intending to go back to sleep, but then Smoke barked loudly. Matt slid off the couch, knowing that he'd get no peace as long as his pet was excited. If the dog didn't quieten down, he would have to shut him in the kitchen. Smoke yapped again, whining, something in the woods surrounding the house was getting him riled up. It was probably a squirrel or a deer.

He rose to his feet reluctantly and walked over to Smoke, gripping him by the collar and pulling him down from the windowsill, he had scarred the wallpaper beneath it with his sharp claws. Smoke immediately tried to jump back up, ignoring his master entirely, all of his senses focused like a laser beam on whatever he had seen outside.

"Smoke, bad dog," Matt grumbled. "Smoke!"

The dog barked again, his tail as straight as a rod. Something really had him spooked.

A howl rang out over the forest, loud enough to be heard clearly inside the house, making Matt's skin crawl and his blood run ice cold as it echoed through the trees. Smoke barked excitedly, tugging at his collar as Matt struggled to hold him.

That was a wolf! Had to be. Matt knew that there were timber wolves in the Pacific Northwest, but they tended to steer clear of humans and population centers.

Wait a minute, the biker was out there, alone in the forest. Timber wolves could grow to be as long as a human was tall and they hunted in packs. If they had come across her out in the woods, then she might be in danger. As much as he loved nature, reintroducing those animals into the wild had been a fucking stupid idea. Who knew when some lost hiker or wayward camper might fall prey to them.

He released Smoke, rushing to get his boots and his coat. Her cryptic instructions be damned, he wasn't about to wait around while she got savaged by a pack of wild animals. He had a gun, most people who lived out in the boonies did, an old double-barrel shotgun that would deter a wolf if it didn't kill it outright. It belonged to his father, but he had shot it a couple of times in his youth, and he knew how to handle it well enough.

Smoke shot towards the front door, smart enough to know what was going on. He sensed that his master was on the hunt. The dog whined and scratched at the door as Matt tied his laces and threw on his parka, retrieving the gun from its place beside the coat rack and opening the break action. No shells, he had forgotten that it wasn't kept loaded, but he knew that there were some loose shells in one of the kitchen drawers.

He raced to the kitchen, fumbling in the drawers until he found the shells, loading the weapon with two of them and shoving a loose handful into his pocket. He made for the door, unbolting it with a loud click as Smoke spun excitedly nearby.

"No Smoke, stay! Stay!"

The dog was ignoring him, so Matt raised his voice, his tone stern.

"Smoke, sit! Stay!"

The dog sat reluctantly, his ears still standing erect and his eyes fixed on the door. Matt opened it a crack, trying to slide through without giving Smoke room to escape, but the dog was large and powerful. He bolted past his master like a bat out of hell as soon as he saw an opening.

"Smoke! Come! Bad dog!"

Too late, the Husky had vanished into the trees. Matt cursed under his breath and set off after him, at least the damned dog would lead him straight to the wolves. If he could at least scare them out of the general area, then they hopefully wouldn't find the biker. He should have kept Smoke on a leash, damn it. He was a big dog, but he couldn't face off with a timber wolf.

Matt jogged towards the treeline, Smoke now out of sight as he entered the forest, hurrying in the direction that he had seen the dog run. The air was cold, stinging his mouth and nose as he panted, the shotgun held ready lest he meet one of the wolves. The pine forest was dark and steeped in shadows that might hide all manner of critters or beasts, lit by a bright full moon that was at its apex in the sky, the night cloudless and dotted with twinkling stars. It was fortunate, he could at least see where he was walking. In his haste, he had neglected to bring a flashlight with him.

"Smoke!"

He couldn't hear anything besides the rustling of the trees in the breeze. There were no howls or barks, no whining or shouts for help. He got the impression that he wasn't alone, however. The feeling was making the hair on his arms and neck stand on end, as if there was some unseen force watching him from afar. He clutched the comforting heft of the shotgun in his hands, feeling the wood grain beneath his fingers as he shouldered the stock. He had to be careful, the last thing he wanted to do was shoot Smoke accidentally if he came barreling out from between the trees, he looked enough like a wolf himself.

As he made his way through the forest, he spotted something on the ground, black and shiny. He walked over to it and crouched down to examine it, realizing with a pang of anxiety that it was the biker's signature jacket. He lifted it, fearing that it would be torn and bloody, the evidence of some horrific attack. It was intact, however, undamaged. Almost as if she had taken it off herself. Why would she have done that?

The eerie silence was broken by another blood-curdling howl, this one sounded closer and whatever was making that ominous noise was fucking big. It was deep and powerful, guttural, somehow wrong. That wasn't how a wolf should sound, it sounded more like a bear, but bears didn't howl like that...