For a while, all three listened attentively to the hunter. When the story came to a huge wolf and a certain aircraft, Lera, widened her eyes, looked at her brother and said, «Is this really about us?»
«Yes, yes, listen. Uncle Venya is not Baron Munchausen. He does not lie.»
Lera was really scared, and, looking around, she suddenly screamed loudly at the limit of her vocal cords, «Oh, someone is following our car!» It was so unexpected that both brothers flinched.
«What are you squealing about, little sister?» Peter asked with genuine concern in his voice.
«I saw that someone was running after us,» Lera repeated in a breaking voice through involuntary crying. It was clear that she was really scared.
«Come on, it seemed to you,» Andrey tried to give his voice as much ease and calm as possible. He looked through the rear window at the road and saw only the blackness of the forest.
«No-no, I definitely saw some kind of a huge shadow,» Lera answered with horror in her voice through nervous crying.
«Fear has big eyes?» Peter asked jokingly to reassure his sister, but nevertheless began to look more often in the rear-view mirror.
For a while he saw nothing but the dark, indistinct outlines of the thicket that surrounded them. However, at some point it seemed to him that something big was moving behind the car in huge leaps, and even in the dim light of the taillights, when he slowed down a little in the turn of the road, two huge phosphorescent eyes flashed. At the same moment, Lera squealed so that both Peter and Andrey had a chill on their skin.
«Be quiet!» Peter shouted at her in annoyance.
«I definitely saw it! There are two huge eyes,» the girl cried out through hysterical sobs.
Peter was not yet completely sure that he, and his sister had not imagined it. Yet from the story that Uncle Venya told, and the uncomfortable feeling of the forest darkness surrounding them, he also felt uneasy. He pressed on the gas, once again not paying attention to the speed buzzer. A huge animal resembling a wolf, traces of which were seen and even photographed by hunters; an unknown flying object that left marks on the ground and trees; a microchip with the highest technologies, it is not clear how Andrey got it; obvious memory lapses in his brother and sister; the mysterious discovery of teens in a collapsed bale of hay; and the incomprehensible behavior of his boss… too many coincidences over the past two days. As strange and implausible as it all was, Peter’s nerves were on edge, and he, using all the emergency driving skills he had been trained to, drove the car forward to the limit of its capabilities.
«What do you have there, Pit? Is something going on?» the hunter calmly asked. He had been silent all this time, listening to the sounds coming through the phone.
«It’s not clear yet, Uncle Venya,» Peter answered, making another sharp turn.
«Does it just seem so, or is someone really chasing you as Lera said?»
«I don’t know yet, Uncle Venya,» Peter answered somewhat irritably at the next turn.
«Where are you now?» the hunter continued his questions.
«Soon we will pass the Old Pool.»
«Ah, I see…» Veniamin croaked and hung up.
* * *
Kanny did not feel tired, but he knew that he could not run faster. As fast as the beast’s body was, it couldn’t match the speed of the shiny car in which the two teens and their older brother traveled. At some point, when the car slowed down due to a lot of winding sections in the road, the werewolf managed to close the distance. That was when he suddenly felt the characteristic smell of fear coming from the car. Without a doubt, those three who were inside the car were afraid of something, and most likely, they were afraid of him.
«Looks like I’ve been spotted,» he thought. Just at that moment, he sensed from the car the smell of firm determination and readiness to fight, and the car began to quickly pick up speed. Kanny understood or even felt it at the level of wolf intuition that this third person, the one who was driving, was a very strong person, and if problems were to arise in completing the task, it would be most likely because of him.
«I need to come up with something?» he thought.
Strangely, he noticed that after elevating to an independent level of transformation, his humanity and ability to think became less suppressed by the Spell, and he was now able to think and reason even on the run. In Kanny’s head, as if on the screen of some internal navigator, a map of the road appeared.
«Now there will be a direct section. On it, he will be able to drive at maximum speed. I can’t catch up with him. But I can cut across the forest and get out by the old pool. A very winding road starts there. Despite all his desire, he won’t be able to move very fast.» Realizing how to act, the werewolf turned into a thicket.
* * *
However, Kanny was not the only one with a road map in his head. The last time it seemed to Peter that he saw a huge big-eyed shadow chasing them, he also thought about how fast this creature could move if it really was chasing them. In the blink of an eye, childhood horror stories flashed through his memory about a werewolf living in the forest. This wolf, allegedly, was seen several times by people, and who from time to time allegedly carried away or killed someone.
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