Dulga Tarata
Six wolf hides, eighty pounds of steaks, forty pounds of choice innards, forty pounds of assorted bones, including tails, skulls, and teeth. The rest Dulga buried in a pit. Maybe it’ll grow into some wild flowers later. It had only been about an hour since Dulga defended her home from the wolves, but she was fairly certain that there was still some shops open this late. At least ones that’ll buy animal hides. But that also mean going into the public again, which means Dulga had to put her guns away. She’d also have to go back to the Continental at some point and see if they could repair her gun, or possibly get a replacement. She’ll still keep her stechkin, but her TT-33 was trashed. Perhaps she’ll upgrade to something with more kick. She saw a new line of police pistols effective even against villains with harden skin, utilizing some sort of high tech eletro bullets so that as long as they hit, they’ll deliver a powerful shock. Of course it wouldn’t be available to the civilian market, but Dulga doesn’t shop there anyways.
She was a bit surprised that the wolves left her motorcycle alone. For beasts as smart as they were, doesn’t even look like they investigated it. Not that there was anything there for them to check, aside from perhaps her scent. Good for Dulga at least; it would be quite a hike if they had somehow sabotaged her bike. Once she had her belongings secure on the back of her bike Dulga got into her seat and drove away.
”Tomorrow I’ll head into the woods and go after the wolves myself. Chances are they’ll wonder what happened to the others and be after me anyways. This way I’ll be more adapt to more random encounters.” Her hunter instinct didn’t like the idea of taking on these beasts without having already set up safeguards to ensure her absolute safety, but she knew this was a habit she had to break out of. Like it or not, whether she chooses to be a hero or something else, things won’t always work in her favor. She needed to learn how to adapt on the fly and be ready for anything without knowing what will hit her first. Otherwise she’ll be letting her enemy take the initiative and that could be her doom. Or someone else's.
As she drove through the night Dulga hooked up her phone to her bike’s speakers. Or rather, the radio she had rigged to her bike. A personal feature she added despite her father’s protests; he didn’t want her distracted by music while she was driving. She understood the risks but music helped her focus. Listening to tunes allowed her to not let the monotony of driving the long and empty roads make her complacent. Though she did switch to some fairly low key piano music instead of her usual EDM stuff; she just didn’t feel like listening to something with a upbeat tempo. As she was driving it seemed as if her radio had stopped playing but realized that it was just playing a
new song that had a very quiet opening. She didn’t mind it and let the music play. The haunting piano piece gave her goosebumps.
”Spooky. Maybe I should change it-”Suddenly as Dulga was driving over a bridge, a wolf lunged out at her. She didn’t even realize it was hiding near the railing; she didn’t expect these beasts to be so close to the roads. It didn’t give any warning as it latched right onto her face, the beast’s fangs digging into her face mask. Her first reaction was to draw her pistol and shoot it in the face, but when she reached for her gun she remembered she had packed them away; she had no weapons on her. Thinking quickly the first thing she did was grab the wolf by the throat and tried to pry him off, and failing that, crush his throat with her hand. It was pitifully easy for her to do; in her panic she had dug her fingers into its thick hide, and with a twist of her wrist snapped the spine, trachea, and contorted the wolf’s neck.
She tossed the beast away as she stepped on the gas going fifty to eighty miles an hour in seconds, but it wasn’t fast enough as more wolves came out of the forest to chase her, and they were gaining speed faster than Dulga was. She could only glance into her rearview mirror but she saw four, six, ten, and then finally fourteen wolves chasing after her, a few even trying to intercept her from up ahead the road. Dulga avoided them as best as she could, grabbing one of her gun cases and swinging it at the beasts since she wouldn’t be able to take a gun out and assemble it while driving. The wolves snapped their jaws at her, nipping at her heels and wheels before deftly avoiding her wild flails.
”Shit, shit!”Worse was that there was some tight curves coming up. She either had to slow down, which would let these wolves catch up and overwhelm her, or maintain her speed and possibly wipe out. But Dulga had to keep her cool. This was exactly the sort of situation she had to prepare herself for. No guns, outnumbered, at night, by herself. So many others in her class had faced
far worse than a wolf pack and survived. Hospitalized, sure, but alive. Dulga wasn’t going to let herself fall behind them. Dulga knew she didn’t have enough control over her bike to make the turns, but she also knew her bike was a damn sturdy machine and she wasn’t fragile either. These wolves might be faster and tougher than a normal wolf, but they were still beasts, and Dulga was a human. A human willing to do things no normal person would be capable of.
As the turn came up, Dulga leaned low to the ground. When she was at just the right position, she grabbed the ground while she was still going eighty miles an hour, lifting herself, her cargo, and her bike off the ground so she could toss all of it over the railing to the road below. Anything to put a bit of distance between her and the wolves. Those animals certainly didn’t expect that as her wheels hit the ground with a loud squeal and immediately burst forward. The suspension might’ve taken a hit but it was still moving, and it’ll keep moving. The wolves also jumped but only after a few seconds had passed, which by then Dulga was already fifty meters away from them and putting the pedal to the medal. It was a fairly straight road from here so she could afford to speed up. And she’ll have to.
Jumping right in front of her was a
bigger wolf, with a snow white hide. The beast was as big as a semi-truck and coming right at her. And despite his size he was fast; Dulga was only barely able to see him before he was already right on top of her. She had managed to swing her gun case right into his snout, knocking him aside, out of pure luck. This blow was enough to stop him dead in his track as Dulga zipped right pasted, but soon he was right back onto the chase. The wolf pack was following close behind and already gaining on Dulga. She really wished she had a gun right now, even if it was just her broken TT-33; she could at least throw it. She had to think quick. Flailing with her gun cases weren’t going to do it. She needed something that would put those beasts down, even if only for a little while. She glanced back behind her and saw something glinstern in the moonlight.
Wasn’t long before three wolves overtook Dulga and lunged towards her. She kept two hands on her handles as three hands shot out to intercept the beasts. One went for her face while two went for her legs, one on each side. Each one got stabbed in the face or throat by a broken wolf femur. If it weren’t for the speeds they were moving at such crude shivs wouldn’t be able to break skin, but since both Dulga and the wolves were moving well over hundreds miles per hour, pretty much anything at these speeds would be a lethal weapon as long as it can hit. The three wolves fell quickly as the others avoided their fallen comrades and closed in, more cautious now knowing that Dulga was armed. This hesitation is what she was waiting for.
Suddenly Dulga would lower her speed, making her bike hop and crash right into a wolf. She revved her engines to crush skull and tear off flesh as her bike dropped back onto the asphalt and got close to one of the other wolves. She swung at the beast with a bone shiv, but was only able to cut it’s shoulder. Still it was a deep and bloody cut, enough to cause the wolf to stumble and slow down. He won’t be able to catch up, though Dulga’s shiv snapped in the process.
”That’s four. Five? Whatever!” The wolves jumped at Dulga’s head but she wasn’t going to fall for that so easily; she ducked, swinging a fist upwards to make the wolf sail over her head as she moved closer to a different wolf, gaining speed on it. It tried to run faster but Dulga suddenly accelerated, running it over as it made a loud yelp and tumbled off the road. More beasts were gaining; she couldn’t stay here for long and her road was coming to an end. There was at least four more miles before she’d hit the Otaru, and she hasn’t seen any headlights since this chase started. There were at least eight more wolves plus that big guy, and Dulga doubts a dinky little shiv could hurt him. Still she grabbed a few more bones and snapped them in half, ready to take on more of these curs.
Dulga turned sharply down the road, but she saw four more wolves running towards her. She wasn’t surprised that they copied her tactic to try and close the distance, and with more beasts coming from behind she couldn’t afford to slow down and get sandwiched. The cliff next to her was far too steep for Dulga to try and jump or drive across; there was no other way but forward. All four wolves jumped forward at different angles onto Dulga as she turned her bike sharply, sliding on both wheels and leaning back to try and avoid their claws and teeth. With swung two fists at the beasts, clobbering one, stabbing two, but missing the third as he jumped onto her back and bite into her shoulder, hard.
”Gaaaaaah! Sonuvabitch!” She could feel the blood quickly seeping out of her body as the wolf gnashed into her bones, and so she grabbed it with her free hands and crushed its skull and throat, though this only made it drive its teeth further into Dulga’s shoulders even as it killed the beast.
Dulga nearly lost control over her bike as she writhed in pain. But it was also in that moment that the wolves caught up to her and started to slam into her. She tried to swing at them, but her wound caused her her attacks to be too weak and too slow. They kept knocking into her, trying to push her off the road. A few tried to bite her but she was at least swift enough to make sure they didn’t get a tooth in, but between getting battered around and her gushing shoulder wound she wasn’t sure how she was going to make it.
”Goddammit! Is this how it’s going to end? Fucking wolves!?” Dulga steered back to the middle of the road and charged forward, but one of the wolves managed to latch onto one of her gun cases. Despite the pain, she reached out and grabbed the case, swinging it with enough force to send the wolf off road. She had no idea if it was enough to injure the beast but she’ll take solace of having one off of tail.
The wolf’s bite was strong however, and tore clean through the hard plastic cover. It was her mother’s rifle, perhaps one of the
worse guns she could have falling out right now. Unwieldy, single shot, had one hell of a recoil, even if she took this gun out and loaded it there was no way she could get a clear shot with all of these wolves swarming her. In fact, they were already right behind her.
”Dammit. Dammit! No choice then!” Dulga slammed on her brakes to juke the wolves, which worked for a moment long enough for her to take out her mothers’ rifle, sans barrel. It could still work but it would have very poor balance and an uncontrollable spread. As she took the rifle out Dulga grabbed three bullets, one between each of her fingers, plus one which she held with her index and thumb as she loaded it into the rifle.
”You only get one shot.” Dulga said to herself. True she was holding more bullets in her hands, but frankly that was because she was scared of missing. Scared of failing. Scared of not being strong enough, skilled enough, or fast enough when it matters most. Anyone could kill. It takes a true hero to save a life. She needed to be better, or else all she’ll know is death. The wolves jumped on her back and tried to bite onto her wounded shoulder. She slammed the stock of her rifle into its jaw and knocked it off into the path of the other wolves. Dulga slammed on the brakes while doing so, skidding over the same wolf she struck as she was, for just a moment, aligned with two other wolves. She’d prefer a headshot but she wasn’t going to be picky right now; she’ll aim for whatever she could hit. Bracing her rifle against her shoulder even as blood seeped down her shirt, she pulled the trigger. Her bullet flew wide but it did it’s job as it ribbed right through the torso of the first wolf, and still had enough energy to smash into the ribcage of the second wolf. Her rifle also let out an extremely loud gunshot, louder than her usual rifles. It was a good thing she had her earplugs in, but even so it deafened her for a moment.
Dulga wasn’t sure if it was luck, fear, or just intelligence, but immediately after that shot the rest of the wolves disengaged. Dulga didn’t slow down but she did look back, seeing that giant wolf watching her in the distance. Alongside him were many others, wounded and disfigured but still very much alive, even the ones she had stabbed, ran over, or crushed. It was somehow horrifying to see; these would wounds that would kill a man easily, but these beasts wore them like battle scars. The only wolves she didn’t see up there were the ones she shot, and even then perhaps they just haven’t gotten up yet.
”Goddamn. Did I even fight wolves or demons?”Three miles later Dulga went into a rest stop bathroom to patch her wounds. Once more she had to rely on her meager first aid kid, which was only capable of bandaging her injuries, providing very little to actually aid in healing. Her body was wracked in pain and Dulga spent a good twenty minutes curled up on the floor crying at how much this hurts. This pain reminded her of the burns she had suffered over her body, but without the trauma to numb her experience at the time. But twenty minutes was all she allowed herself before she forced herself onto her feet and back onto her bike. The bandages would stop the bleeding but won’t heal the injuries, and if left untreated she wouldn’t be surprised if she gets an infection, possibly losing her arms. Not to mention her shirt was absolutely soaking with blood now, so she was in a dire need of a new attire. Fortunately she knew a place where she could get some discrete medical service and a new outfit all for the cost of a single coin.
It was a good thing it was so late too, if this was done even in the afternoon there would be too many people looking at her. Dulga wasted no time reaching her destination; a little fish shop that appeared to be close. Dulga banged on the door loudly until an old cranky man showed up. He was yelling about why someone would wake him up so late at night, but when he saw Dulga’s bloody figure he looked frighten. But then she showed him one of the golden coins that she had used at the Continental. Then he just looked annoyed. He snorted and let Dulga inside.
”I need someone to watch my bike.” The old man continued to look annoyed but called for his wife to come down. She seemed sleepy and in a language that Dulga didn’t understand, the wife begrudgingly stepped outside and stood next to Dulga’s bike as she followed the old man to his kitchen. There he started to unplug the outlets to his over and pulled it from the wall, revealing a trapdoor underneath. He opened it with a key he had around his neck and Dulga went downstairs.
It was a long, white tunnel with fluorescent lights illuminating the ceiling. She walked quite a bit aways until she appeared to be at some sort of sterile surgery room. There was a buzzer on the wall which she pressed, which prompted a nurse looking fellow to arrive. He looked at Dulga, writing some things down onto his clipboard before directing Dulga to an operating table. He informed her that at the moment, there was no doctor present who could completely heal Dulga up.
”That’s fine. I just need to make sure this doesn’t get any worse.” Easy enough, the nurse leaves and asks Dulga to change into a smock for the operation. She did as she was told and soon two masked doctor looking folks arrived, one who was a surgeon and another was an anesthesiologist. They both had some sort of mutation quirk, but that didn’t seem to hamper them as they operated on Dulga.
Sure enough all they could really do was reduce swelling to Dulga’s wound, as well as to the bruises she sustained, as well as apply some antibiotics for any potential disease she may have caught. She was also given a blood transfusion to help balance out the fluid lost. Finally, they stitched up and properly bandaged her wounds. There was no broken bones though there was a lot of tendon damage, which the surgeon currently couldn’t help her with with his limited expertise and resources. Dulga simply grunted and left two gold coins for them and asked for a new outfit.
And before long Dulga was back on the street. She was dressed in a long black coat, dark grey pants with black rubber boots. She of course kept her mask, though the strap had broken. She’d have to get a new one back at her dorm. She was feeling quite dizzy and was recommended to take some time to rest, but she knew she couldn’t. She needed to go. Now. Perhaps not drive, but she wasn't going to wait here. Besides that old lady was getting really annoyed with her now. So Dulga thanked the two and pushed her back deeper into the night. As much as she wanted to curl up in a soft bed and cry herself to sleep there was much more work to be done before the night’s end.
