Title: An Australian Werewolf in Eureka
Disclaimer: Not my characters, of course, and no copyright infringement intended.
A/N: This takes place after Better Late Than Never and is going to be episode-ish. I have every intention of progressing the Zane/Jo storyline in it, but wanted to wrap that in a show-like storyline.
Carter crouched next to the burnt-out campfire, frowning at the cold ashes. Picking up a stick, he poked through the embers looking for warm coals, than cautiously let his hand hover over the cinders. He felt no residual warmth: this fire was thoroughly extinguished. It might have been there for days.
Standing up, he turned to his deputy. "What do you think, Andy?"
"There are no heat signatures in the vicinity, Sheriff, but my range in this environment is not extensive," his robot deputy replied apologetically.
"Well, someone's clearly been camping here. But it could have been a while ago." Carter looked around the clearing in the woods. A flat patch of bare ground was scuffed and smoothed, as if someone had cleared it to put up a tent, but walked on the same patch repeatedly after the tent was taken down. The tracks weren't distinct enough to tell Carter anything about who might have been here, whether it was one person or several, male or female.
He walked back to where Andy was standing, and gazed down at the source of the problem. "Definitely human?" he asked again, almost plaintively. He'd been sure when they'd gotten the anxious call that had brought them out here that he was going to find a spot where a hunter had taken down an animal, maybe a deer. But the caller had insisted, saying that a hunter would have field-dressed a kill, leaving plenty of animal traces behind, and that this was just blood. Too much blood.
"I'm afraid so, Boss." Andy replied with his customary cheer. "Unfortunately, I can't DNA-type it, but I have collected a sample to bring back to GD."
"Take some pictures, too," said Carter, frowning down at the bloody patch of dirt. "How much blood do you think is here?"
"Oh, I'd say half a liter, at most. The ground is hard-packed, so very little of it has been absorbed. Not nearly enough to have been—ah, terminal, so to speak. Not unless the human was very small."
Carter shot Andy a sharp glance. "We haven't had any missing children reports, have we?"
"No, no, not at all. Didn't mean to worry you, Sheriff," Andy chuckled.
"Well, then, let's not borrow trouble," Carter clapped Andy on the shoulder. He gave one last look around the clearing. "See anything else interesting? Or is this just a weird patch of blood on the ground in an otherwise empty clearing?"
"Hmm, when you put it that way, Sheriff, it does sound quite mysterious. However, perhaps our mystery will be quickly cleared up: the lower branches of that coniferous tree appear to have some animal fur caught on them." Andy pointed out the tree in question and both man and robot stepped closer.
"Huh," Carter carefully removed a bit of fur from the branch and examined it. "Can you tell what it is?"
Andy quickly scanned the soft gray fuzz. "Indeed. This is fur from a canis lupus."
"A canis lupus? A wolf?" Carter was no Latin expert, but even he recognized the formal name of the gray wolf. "In Eureka? I didn't know we had wolves here."
"The Canadian gray wolf is an endangered species in the United States, but there are a few packs in the Pacific Northwest. And wolves can roam for hundreds of miles: it's not out of the question that there could be a wolf in Eureka." As always, Andy was a fount of information. The database stored in his head made that inevitable.
"Great, so now we have a patch of human blood and a scrap of wolf fur. You know, Andy, I don't have a good feeling about this." Carter scratched his head.
"All right," he said, suddenly decisive. "Let's head back to the road. Hunting blindly through the woods isn't going to get us anywhere. We should pay a visit to the hiker who called this in and see if he heard anything or saw anything besides the blood, and we should get that blood sample back to GD and get it tested."
The buzz of his cell phone interrupted him, and he swiftly pulled it out of his pocket. Glancing at the screen, he answered with an automatic smile in his voice. "Alison, hi."
"Jack, I'm so glad I caught you," Carter's smile quickly faded as she continued. "Tesla just called. Kevin didn't make it to school this morning." Almost involuntarily, Carter glanced back at the blood.
"You've tried his cell?"
"Tesla doesn't allow cell phones to be on during the day, so Kevin's phone is usually off. I'm…well, I'm worried, of course, but I'm not panicking. Not yet, anyway. But I'm going to head home and see if he's still at the house. Jenna had a doctor's appointment this morning, so we left early: maybe he fell back asleep. But could you check the road to Tesla? See whether his bike got a flat or something?"
"Absolutely, I'm on my way. I'll send Andy to the school, too, and have him just check in there. Maybe one of Kevin's friends knows if he was going to stop on his way to school for something."
"Let me know you as soon as you—" Alison's voice faltered, as if the fear she was suppressing had suddenly surged to the surface, but then she continued firmly. "Call me the minute you find him."
"I will. And…try not to worry." Closing his phone, Carter glanced over at Andy. "Did you—"
"Heard the whole thing, boss. I'll head for Tesla."
Once in his car, Carter headed slowly down the road, driving a sedate 20 miles per hour as his eyes scanned the scenery on either side of the road. Suddenly, he hit the brakes. "Whoa!"
That was one huge…dog? It was mostly white leaning towards gray, decidedly fluffy, but one of the biggest dogs Carter had ever seen. It had to be at least 150 pounds.
The canine was sitting by the side of the road, mouth slightly open, ears alert, eyes on the car. As Carter slowed and then stopped his jeep, the dog—if it was a dog—stood and stretched, then dropped on its front legs, with back legs still up, as if it was bowing. It was the classic dog invitation to play. It gave a quick little shake of its rear, then turned and leapt over the roadside ditch and headed into the woods.
"Wow," Carter opened the car door and stepped out. He wasn't about to follow the creature into the woods, but he wanted to take a closer look, maybe see if it had left tracks. He wished he'd thought to grab a picture before it had disappeared.
"Jack?" The voice was plaintive, but distinct, the sound coming from right nearby.
"Kevin? Kevin!" Carter plunged down the slight incline into the ditch. Kevin was lying, flat on his back, his bicycle wedged on top of him. "Are you okay?"
"I went over the handlebars," Kevin's face was dirty and bloody but lit with relief at the sight of Carter. "I think I broke something. It hurts like hell, but that dog wouldn't let me get up. Whenever I try to move the bike, it growls at me. And it kept licking me!"
"Huh," Carter looked thoughtfully in the direction the dog had gone. "I don't usually take advice from dogs, but let's call you an ambulance and get you checked out before you start moving around."