Sam scrambled up to his feet so fast he almost slipped on the hut’s bare dirt. He rushed to the door. Whatever was outside, it was big, and vicious, and they had no gun to defend themselves. He couldn’t let it get inside.

He threw himself at the shack’s rickety door just in time to prevent it from bursting off its hinges as another impact slammed into it, and into Sam right behind it. The collision knocked the wind right out of him. He felt like he’d just gotten rammed by the Incredible Hulk turned quarterback, and only years of grueling training stopped him from losing his balance and flying right off his feet.

Unless this thing gave up soon, he didn’t think he could hold it at bay for long.

“Oh God, we’re gonna die,” Kaisei whimpered from behind him, “oh God, oh God, oh God…”

Another impact rocked the shack, and Sam grit his teeth as fresh pain blossomed in his shoulder, and his feet slid on the floor. From the cracks in the door’s planks, he glimpsed the massive shape again, as it reared itself back to ram into the door again.

What the hell is this thing? Sam’s mind raced. Is it a wolf? Aren’t wolves supposed to be scared of humans? Aren’t wolves supposed to be a lot fucking smaller too?

Sam hadn’t ever actually seen a wolf, but he’d seen big dogs, and what one of those could do to a person. When a big dog bit down on something, it could get up to six or seven hundred pounds of pressure. Even femur and tibia would break like twigs under that much pressure, and Sam was willing to bet that a wolf as impossibly big as the one trying to bash down the door could do much worse.

Whatever happened, he could not let this thing get in.

Sam ground his feet into the dirt, looking for proper grip, and he focused on his breathing. The world shrank around him. Breathe in, breathe out. He forced himself to ignore the giant drum thumping in his chest. Breathe in…

Sam heard the wolf rush the door again, and he tensed all his muscles, bracing for impact. This time, when the beast struck against the door, the wood groaned, but didn’t rattle. Sam’s muscles ached as the force travelled from the door to his hands and arms and into the ground.

…Breathe out.

He didn’t dare celebrate, or even hope. His small triumph was just that: small. The wolf would come again. He had to focus. He heard the rushing of paws on dirt again, and tensed up once more. Breathe in…

The wolf struck, and the door splintered under the impact.

Sam’s eyes went wide, and he scrambled to keep his grip on the failing wood, cursing under his breath. In the end, it wouldn’t matter how well he did. Even if he managed to beat the beast’s impossible brawn, the door would not be strong enough to withstand the stress, and once it failed, they were all dead.

Sam grit his teeth, and dug his heels in. He couldn’t afford to think like that. If the wood was too weak, then he would just have to be strong enough to make up for it. He would hold this thing back, dammit! He was not going to die here, eaten by some mangy animal in the middle of nowhere!

The wolf rushed the door again, and Sam readied himself. Every inch of his body, every bit of mass and every muscle he could muster, all of it leaned against the door and prepared to hold it in place when the wolf struck. Breathe in…

The door broke, and Sam went flying.

He hit the dirt sprawling, and his head impacted the shack’s far wooden wall. Stars burst into light in his eyes. As they faded, his vision swam drunkenly. He tried to make sense of what had just happened. Ultimately no amount of resolve and determination had been able to stand up to greater mass and simple, cruel physics.

Sam groaned and raised his head, blinking away the spots in his vision, and finally caught a glimpse of the animal.

The word “wolf” felt wrong for the massive creature standing in the empty doorway. It had the face of one, with dark red stripes down the sides like some sort of canine war paint, but any similarities ended there. It stood at least three and a half feet tall at the shoulders and some eight feet long, and it looked like what Sam imagined a regular wolf might, if it were reared on a pure diet of steroids and protein powder. Its oversized muscles were clearly visible even under its thick black fur, and Sam could make them out individually as they rippled when the creature prepared for one final leap that would bring it barreling through the shattered remnants of the door, and right on top of him.

He tried to scramble away, but it was too late, the wolf was already flexing for his jump. He wouldn’t be able to get out of its path in time.

From the corner of his eye, Sam caught a small blur moving fast, and before he could realize what was happening, Tasha was on top of the wolf, holding a fat rubber-gripped craftsman’s knife, and stabbing it into its meaty throat. Sam knew it wouldn’t be enough. It had been a good try, and she’d nearly gotten the jugular, but the wolf had sensed her at the last second and twisted out of the way. Instead the knife sank into thick meat and muscle, angering the creature more than hurting it. It twisted and bucked with a snarl. Tasha was immediately thrown off the wolf, the knife slipping out of the wound it had created, and she slammed into the shack’s wall with a crash, before collapsing to the floor in a heap.

The wolf’s eyes narrowed, and it glared at Tasha, growling, teeth bared, but she’d given Sam the time he needed to get back on his feet, and he didn’t waste it. Keeping his feet wide and his body low, he ran at the wolf before it had a chance to pounce on Tasha’s unmoving form. He wasn’t able to get much momentum over the short distance, and the wolf had too much mass to be moved easily, but if there was one place where Sam could rival the creature, it was mass. He crashed into the wolf’s side, wrapping his arms, below and above, and drove it into the shack’s wall with enough force to make the whole structure shake unsteadily.

The wolf immediately recovered, and began twisting and bucking against Sam’s embrace, twisting its head and snapping at him, but the tackle and hold was too good to be broken so casually. Sam’s fingers dug into the thing’s fur, and wet dog and blood filled his nostrils and mouth. The tackle was good, but the thing was just too fucking strong. He couldn’t hold it for long, he just needed…

Suddenly the wolf yelped, a surprisingly high-pitched noise from the huge creature, and with a quick motion tore itself away from Sam’s embrace, but backed away from him and Tasha rather than pounce as Sam had been expecting. Camille was standing in front of the wolf, a burning brand from the campfire held in her fingers.

With trembling hands she thrust it towards the wolf, and it flinched backwards. There was a patch of burned fur on its snout, and its ears were flat on its head as it bared its teeth and regarded the flame. It made no move to attack Camille, instead backing away every time she swung the burning wood at it. It wasn’t running away, but it was fixated on her, with an almost human expression of cunning malice smoldering in its eyes along with the reflected fire, waiting for an opportunity to get past the flame and at the person behind it.

Sam didn’t give it one. The wolf was so focused on Camille and her fire that it never saw his boot coming. Propelled forward by a mighty kick, the heavy steel toe impacted squarely with the side of the wolf’s head, sending it bouncing hard enough against the wall to dislodge the plank it impacted against from the cabin and make the whole structure shudder.

The beast recovered quickly, disoriented for only a few seconds, turning towards Sam with a snarl, before Camille thrust her makeshift torch at it again. Its eyes snapped between the two of them, and it began backing away, inch by inch towards the wrecked door frame. Finally, with one last hateful glare and a low growl, it stepped out of the cabin, turned tail, and ran.

Sam watched it go until it disappeared into the treeline, down the hill. Only then did he let himself collapse to the floor, trembling, the adrenaline and fear finally taking their toll on him.

Holy... shit. What had he just survived?