The Child: Episode 3
Drive to the Hospital
Relieved to get a response from the boy, I glanced back over at the wolf.
There was no wolf.
I eased myself up slowly, looking around. No sudden movements, I told myself. Wolves had been native here a couple of hundred years ago, but I was pretty sure they were extinct now. Had an animal escaped from the zoo?
I squinted into the gloom beneath the trees. There was nothing; no gray fur, no flick of the tail, no amber eyes. I shook my head. Too much caffeine and not enough sleep over the weekend with Jen.
I must have imagined it.
“Up you come.” I held out my hand to the boy.
He ignored it and prised himself off the ground. I got him settled in the car and went back to fetch my phone. There was a crack across the screen. It still worked, but there was no signal out here. The whole damn reason I’d pulled my car over in the first place reasserted itself. With a wary eye on the trees in case the wolf should reappear, I unzipped and relieved myself, then headed back to the car. The boy was still in the passenger seat where I’d left him. I hesitated a moment. Was it smart to pick up a young child from the side of the road?
His family could be out looking for him. I could be guilty of abduction. Or accused of worse, I thought to myself. But this road was in the middle of nowhere. He’d also been unconscious, and I had no way of knowing how long he’d been out. Could’ve been minutes or hours.
My best bet was to get him to the authorities where they could check him over physically and I could rid myself of the responsibility. Porter Medical Center was about a half-hour drive from here. I’d drive him there and be done with this whole situation.
I slid into the driver's seat, fired up the engine, and headed back out onto the road.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
He ignored me, staring out of his window at the passing fields.
“C’mon kid. Give me something to go on. You must have a name?”
Nothing.
I recalled the word he’d spoken when I’d tried to wake him. There had been something familiar about it, but I couldn’t place it. I tried it out on him.
“Galinder,” I said. “Is that your name?”
His head whipped around, his teeth bared in a snarl. My heart thumped so hard in my chest I almost swerved the car off the road, but regained control at the last second.
“Take it easy, kid. I’m just trying to get some details for the hospital. I’ll drop you there and they’ll take care of you.”
He started chattering at me in a strange language. It sounded vaguely familiar. Then it hit me, where I’d heard that word before…
“It’s not Galinder, it’s Galindian. You’re from…” Before I could finish my sentence, a gray wolf appeared on the highway in front of me.
It looked like the same wolf I’d seen back where I’d found the boy, but far larger. It planted heavily muscled forelegs firmly on the blacktop, head down, yellow eyes glaring at me. There was no time to swerve. I had to hope it would jump out of the way.
As we barreled toward it, the wolf gathered itself and leapt right into the car with me — straight through the windshield, without smashing it. I slammed on the brakes. The car juddered to a halt at the side of the road. When I glanced around, there was no wolf, but the boy was facing me. I blinked, and somehow, the creature stared back at me through the boy’s eyes.
CHOOSE YOUR NEXT MOVE:
Try to communicate with the wolf-boy
— OR —
The Child is an interactive puzzle fiction story. If you’ve stumbled onto this episode without reading the beginning, you can start at Episode One here.