As dawn brings some light, the strong rumbling of an old car pollutes the natural silence of the forest. At the wheels is a young man, with dirty red hair, big brown eyes, sun tanned complexion that helps accentuate a fat line of freckles that traverses from one cheek to another, with more prominence in his thin and somewhat flat nose.
His name is Jack Thorn, 22 years old, fresh out of college and temporary worker for a company of repute in the area of tourism development.
-Ah! You darted rust bucket! - Jack curses for the forth time since he accessed this particular road. - I have half a mind to just turn back and write this place as inaccessible in the report.
Unfortunately, Jack knows he can't do that. This report is a trial of sorts given to him by the company. The report would need to be in depth if he wants to stand a chance to be hired for his dream job.
-The workers that made this road should be buried in one of they left behind holes. Coffin sized they are. Ouch!M'toh..nng!
The fifth curse. The car is now let out a constant metallic groan.
-Go on, just a bit longer.
Jack slows down to avoid more damage to his ride, he wouldn't want to be left on foot in the middle of nowhere. Also the rising fog doesn't help. It becomes so dense that soon he has to drive with his face glue to the windshield in order to see anything past it.
Still jack keeps moving, he must be close to the town.
He isn't, the road just keeps on going, the hypnotic whiteness outside never ending.
Eventually jacks eyes take a glaze to them and his movements become mechanical. He starts to zone out, dreaming about the gigs he would be able to work on if the company officially hires him. Free voyages, meals and stays throughout the world in the name of reviewing, reporting new tourist attracting spots.
About an hour later, the car comes to a sudden involuntary stop. The car hit something hard enough for Jack to see the front of the capot bend before it opens fully covering his front view, not that he had any to begin with, as he opens the door the fog outside starts invading the car behaving more like a fluid than the cloud of gas that it it.
Stepping outside Jack, finds he can barely see his feet when he looks down, so he decides not to risk getting far away from the car, afraid to loose his bearings and getting lost in the forest that surrounds the road for days. So, slowly and keeping a hand in it's metallic frame he creeps towards the front to inspect the damage.
In the ground there is a broken wooden sign, putting it against the lights of the car Jack reads "Spook's Town" in bold crimson lettering. This makes him inspect his surroundings for any sign of inhabitation. It seems he successfully has reached his destination, at least according to the guide given by the company.
In the documentation, the company had been contacted by the mayor of Spook's Town with the objective to publicise the theme park alike village to the outside world. Jack is supposed to meet with the mayor at noon today and become the first tourist experiencing what this place has to offer.
-Can't see anything yet. Could the sign be far away from town? - Jack wonders as he closes the closes the capot. The front of the car shows little to no damage. Just some missing paint that might have been missing already before the accident.
Fishing his phone from his left trouser pocket, he consults the time, it's 8:00 am, still 4 to 5 hours before he has to meet the mayor.
-Can't be to far now. Better wait in the car, when the fog lifts I will follow the road again till I find someone. Now, if only I had some data available. - Jack sights before storing his phone back in one of his pockets.
Jack's eyes rise towards the door, he has every intention to get inside the car, but he can't. His body starts shaking, blood leaves his face and all instincts tell him to run as he sees what is atop his car's roof. How it got there he has no idea, there was no sound what so ever, but there it is.
Looking at him like prey, which Jack is certain he is. Wild red eyes, claws digging into the roof of car as if it's made of paper and a ferocious snout open to reveal a set of shiny razor sharp fangs from between which droll leaks and drips to the ground.
It's a wolf with half the size of his darted car.
Jack takes a step away from the car, the animal starts crouching letting out a continuous growl.
Jack stops trying to even move, he doesn't even breath, recalling something he read as a child about wild dogs not being able to differentiate a human and a tree if said human stays very, very quiet. It doesn't work, the wolf jumps at him.
It fails to land on the young man, not that Jack had time to react and jump aside, just that his legs were to weak to support him the moment the wild beast targeted his neck.
Still it was this simple irreflective act that helped Jack come up to grip with his nerves and start moving and find a way out of the situation, after all he somehow just dodged the beast, he rolls half aware that a second attempt at attacking might be coming his way. He once again dodges a bite. Looking for a way out he notices the gap between the car and the ground, is it big enough for him? Is it small enough for the beast? Perhaps. So Jacks starts crawling even as pain shoots through his body when the wolf grabs his left leg with its dagger like claws and tears at his flesh in a effort to drag it's prey from safety.
Jack manages to shake his leg lose just before the animal decides to bite it off. So soon his whole body is under cover. But he doesn't feel safe, not while the wolf circles the car and digs here and there in an attempt to reach him. So Jack's eyes are constantly following those infernal paws, for a minute, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 15 minutes. Then the wolf moves away with a growl, returning back to the forest.
Jack waits 5 more minutes and then starts dragging himself out, his leg is starting to hurt and he is starting to feel really cold. He is halfway out, when he sees it, that set of wild eyes jumping out of the fog. He crawls back in just in time. The animal landed, it's torso hitting the car hard, making it shake. For a moment Jack feared the wolf able to move his protection aside.
The wolf through lets out a long growl, circles the car one last time and jumps back into the forest to look for easier prey. Jack this time decides not to leave safety, perhaps the mayor would come looking for him with some folks when he doesn't appear for the meeting on time.
So the young man starts his long wait for rescue, his body growing colder, weaker and numb as his leg still untreated releases his blood into the outside world. As Jack's conscience fades his last throughs are towards the unwritten report as he mumbles:
-Gotta add the wolfs, right above the undrivable road.
Later in the day he would come in and out of conscience, his fever making him dream of a talking black bird, a room filled with green and purple gases with an old woman dressed in rags and a big leather smelling giant carrying him in princess carry style.