Hitting the play button, she continued to rub the pendant her grandfather had given her. “Show me … show me …”
The only thing that moved was the spooling time counter down on the lower right hand of the feed, the date static, the seconds running by, the minutes waiting on the sidelines for their cue, the hours going nowhere soon. She increased the speed, watching the angle of the patchy sunlight shift over the landscape, the lazy flight paths of vultures more like the quick dive bombs of barn sparrows, the clouds marching across the screen, the greenery twitching like it was itchy. When night came, things went shades of green. And then the dawn brought the standard color back.
Deep inside herself, in the place that she refused to dwell, much less acknowledge, Lydia knew what she was going to see, knew it sure as she could recognize her own reflection. Cold sweat bloomed across her chest under her clothes, and beneath the desk, the heel of one of her running shoes beat out a quick tapping—
As soon as the man dressed in camo shot into the camera field, she cut the fast forward, everything resuming in real time. She took a good look at him—and couldn’t tell much. He had a pack on his back, hunter-like clothes, and a brimmed hat that was pulled down low on his face. Moving along, he seemed confident and aware as he scanned the environs—
The attack came from on the left, the wolf leaping forward with such stealth that the man didn’t even glance in the direction of the predator. One moment, the hiker was upright, the next he had a hundred-pound female gray wolf locked on his throat. The impact of the animal’s body knocked the human off his feet, and the wolf didn’t release. Even as the man punched at the head and snout, and then kicked, and tried to roll, there was no movement from the jaw. No shift of the bite, either.
Lydia hit pause and sat back, covering her face with her hands. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she saw only the wolf, with the distinctive silver stripe down its back, and its lithe body, and its dagger-like teeth.
Even as she told herself to get a grip, it was a while before she could resume the footage, and she locked her stare on the time counter, keeping track of the killing in her peripheral vision. Which was still too much information: During the takedown, the wolf struck only once and made it count, the pounds per square inch on that vital airway choking the man out. When the resistance of the prey weakened and those arms stopped flailing, there was a single reposition, a split second of release so that the animal could go for right in front, compressing the jugular vein as well as the windpipe.
As the human went totally limp, the teeth stayed where they were.
For a solid minute and a half longer.
The savagery that followed was something Lydia turned away from. There was no sound associated with the feed. No smells, either. But it was as if the ripping and tearing, the copper bloom of the blood, the consumption of meat and gristle, was happening on the desktop.
The total elapsed time of the attack was only about twelve minutes, and when it was over, the wolf stepped off from the ravaged, glistening corpse. The red stain that marked its muzzle and the fur of its chest was something out of a horror movie.
The predator looked around. And even glanced up at the camera.
Then it trotted off, light and quick on its paws.
The body lay there in the sunlight, like a gruesome beachgoer, and the behaviorist in her analyzed exactly how much meat was still on the corpse. Lots of it.
Taking the man down had been for sport, not on account of hunger. And the wolf had worked alone.
With a shaking hand, Lydia stopped the footage. And then without conscious awareness, she bent to the side, opened the lower drawer, and took out her Lysol wipes. Snapping one free, she ran the damp cloth around the monitor’s base. As the fresh linen scent tingled in her nose, she blinked fast.
Clean. She needed to clean things up. If she could only …
Stopping herself, she looked down at the wipe. It was warm now, and as she turned her palm over, the thing was the color of her skin, like it was transparent.
The debate went on in her head for about five minutes, and when she came to her decision, she threw out the wipe, put the container away, and thought of her grandfather. He would not approve of what she was about to do. But he would have approved of her reason why.
Her minor in college had been IT.