to being the main street of Buckton, was mainly a throughway to other areas of the state. Very few Buckton residents chose to make their homes in the deep forest of the hill. Given the realities of snow removal, garbage collection, and postal service, what little new home construction there was in Buckton tended to be in the areas already populated.
As such, only hikers, hunters, and amorous or adventursome teens made their way into the densest parts of Pine Hill. Among those, only a small percentage stumbled upon Bartleby Road, a densely overgrown dirt path that had once accommodated wagons and carts laden with building materials. For, once upon a time, there had been an enormous estate built atop Pine Hill, more than a mile from the nearest road.
Before there was a Buckton, there had been the old Bartleby place. And yet only the eldest members of the community were certain it had existed. Others knew of it only as a legend, a whispered story to frighten young children, a house full of bogeymen, perhaps. The ghost of a house, most thought, if it had ever existed at all.
But it had.
Now only the ruins of the Bartleby place remained, tumbled fireplaces and fire-blasted brick, charred lumber under nearly a century's worth of detritus. The estate had burned to the ground in 1904. The only human beings who had seen it in the past few decades had literally stumbled across it. Almost all had continued on, thinking nothing at all of it.
Almost all.
A few had poked around, even tried to camp there. Hikers, mostly, and mostly from out of town. Some of those had never made it home.
It was a sacred place to the Pack, for it was where Bartleby himself had been slain those many years ago. The Prowlers who had lived upon that land had been driven off, not to return for decades. Once they had returned, however, and created of Buckton a sanctuary where all Prowlers were welcome so long as they followed the rules, the ruins became their meeting place, the chapel within which they worshipped all that was wild.
If the Prowlers could be said to have a religion, that was it. The wild and the wilderness. And the blood of prey.
It was late afternoon that Thursday, nearly one hundred years after Bartleby's murder, that the Alpha bounded along paths human eyes would have missed, up the Pine Hill toward the ruins. Rain pelted from the sky and slicked back his fur. He barely noticed the storm, however. His blood raged with a fury that had been all too common in recent days, and yet this latest development had upset him more than anything else.
A steady, ululating snarl emerged from his throat as his claws tore at the ground, and he burst from the last stand of trees beside the remains of Bartleby's sanctum.
The others were already there. At times - particularly when, as now, they met during the day - some of them would choose to appear in their human forms. In the rain, especially, they might have opted to wear coats or hold umbrellas to protect them from the elements. Such things disgusted the Alpha. The elements were part of the Wild. The Prowlers were part of it as well.
Among the ruins, nine members of the Pack awaited his arrival, mostly elders. The rest were in the town, going about the business of their human lives in a community filled with people who had no idea that monsters lived amongst them. Other pack members were still far from home, wandering across the world, though they would return someday.
When the Alpha reached the ruins, he paused, then advanced slowly, head high, establishing his primacy within the Pack. The others approached cautiously, lowered their snouts in greeting. Even those in human form cast their gazes at the ground. He waited until all such proprieties had been dispensed with before he spoke a single word.
It rumbled from his chest like rolling thunder.
"Desmond."
The young Prowler, who had challenged him three years earlier for Alpha and lost, raised his head with a start and a barely audible whimper.
As such, only hikers, hunters, and amorous or adventursome teens made their way into the densest parts of Pine Hill. Among those, only a small percentage stumbled upon Bartleby Road, a densely overgrown dirt path that had once accommodated wagons and carts laden with building materials. For, once upon a time, there had been an enormous estate built atop Pine Hill, more than a mile from the nearest road.
Before there was a Buckton, there had been the old Bartleby place. And yet only the eldest members of the community were certain it had existed. Others knew of it only as a legend, a whispered story to frighten young children, a house full of bogeymen, perhaps. The ghost of a house, most thought, if it had ever existed at all.
But it had.
Now only the ruins of the Bartleby place remained, tumbled fireplaces and fire-blasted brick, charred lumber under nearly a century's worth of detritus. The estate had burned to the ground in 1904. The only human beings who had seen it in the past few decades had literally stumbled across it. Almost all had continued on, thinking nothing at all of it.
Almost all.
A few had poked around, even tried to camp there. Hikers, mostly, and mostly from out of town. Some of those had never made it home.
It was a sacred place to the Pack, for it was where Bartleby himself had been slain those many years ago. The Prowlers who had lived upon that land had been driven off, not to return for decades. Once they had returned, however, and created of Buckton a sanctuary where all Prowlers were welcome so long as they followed the rules, the ruins became their meeting place, the chapel within which they worshipped all that was wild.
If the Prowlers could be said to have a religion, that was it. The wild and the wilderness. And the blood of prey.
It was late afternoon that Thursday, nearly one hundred years after Bartleby's murder, that the Alpha bounded along paths human eyes would have missed, up the Pine Hill toward the ruins. Rain pelted from the sky and slicked back his fur. He barely noticed the storm, however. His blood raged with a fury that had been all too common in recent days, and yet this latest development had upset him more than anything else.
A steady, ululating snarl emerged from his throat as his claws tore at the ground, and he burst from the last stand of trees beside the remains of Bartleby's sanctum.
The others were already there. At times - particularly when, as now, they met during the day - some of them would choose to appear in their human forms. In the rain, especially, they might have opted to wear coats or hold umbrellas to protect them from the elements. Such things disgusted the Alpha. The elements were part of the Wild. The Prowlers were part of it as well.
Among the ruins, nine members of the Pack awaited his arrival, mostly elders. The rest were in the town, going about the business of their human lives in a community filled with people who had no idea that monsters lived amongst them. Other pack members were still far from home, wandering across the world, though they would return someday.
When the Alpha reached the ruins, he paused, then advanced slowly, head high, establishing his primacy within the Pack. The others approached cautiously, lowered their snouts in greeting. Even those in human form cast their gazes at the ground. He waited until all such proprieties had been dispensed with before he spoke a single word.
It rumbled from his chest like rolling thunder.
"Desmond."
The young Prowler, who had challenged him three years earlier for Alpha and lost, raised his head with a start and a barely audible whimper.
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