Trophy Cub - 16. Thanksgiving Turmoil

“For the last time, Mike,” Gunnar scolded sternly, “The She-Wolves are not coming here to rape you. Most other wolves in the world are not like the evil ones who kidnapped you, and these wolves risked their own lives to help rescue you. We owe them everything.”

“I know, Papa,” Mike replied timidly, sorry that he had made Gunnar angry, “I just feel really nervous at the thought of being around wolf lycans again. I don’t want my irrational emotions to get away from me and ruin the holiday for everyone.”

“From my experience,” Joshua chimed in from his chair by the fireplace, “It isn’t really a true American family Thanksgiving until somebody makes a big scene and causes a huge fight. That’s what the holidays are all about!”

Thomas burst out laughing, but Gunnar just rolled his eyes and looked back at Mike.

“You were asleep and out of it after we rescued you a month ago, so you didn’t get to meet the She-Wolves. They’re a group of drag queens, Mike! They are the exact opposite of the nasty, hateful wolves you know, and as soon as you see them, you’re going to love them, and they’ll love you. Plus, they’re going to have Pip with them, and you’re not afraid of Pip, right?”

“Okay, Papa,” Mike replied. “You’re right. When are they getting here, anyway?”

“I tried calling Susie this morning, but she didn’t answer,” Gunnar said. “According to the plan the last time I talked to her, they should be on the road now, and will be here this afternoon. We’ll have Thanksgiving with them tomorrow, and they’re going to stay with us until Sunday noon-ish before heading back home.”

“If that’s settled,” Thomas interrupted, “I could use a hand or two in the kitchen. Preparing dinner tonight and a Thanksgiving feast tomorrow for five wolves, two bears, and two humans isn’t as easy as it sounds, kids!”

“Why don’t you go help Thomas and get your mind off things, Cub?” Gunnar said to Mike, “By the time they get here, you’ll have forgotten all about being nervous and afraid.”

“Yes Papa,” Mike said, and followed Thomas into the kitchen while Gunnar kept Joshua company in the living room.

“I see he’s calling you ‘Papa’ now,” Joshua said, “He’s made his choice, has he?”

“Not yet,” Gunnar replied. “But I think he’s getting there. We’ve been sleeping together for the last couple of weeks, and he’s taken to calling me Papa ever since the first night we made love. I’ll bet that he won’t wait much longer after this weekend to officially ask me to change him.”

“After getting his first taste of that big hog of yours, I’m surprised he didn’t dip himself in honey and invite you to bite him on the spot!” Joshua joked.

“You have to remember that he just spent over a year getting raped by wolves multiple times a day,” Gunnar explained. “It’s going to take more than just a ‘big hog’, as you put it, for him to be sure that he’s making the right decision. He has to get over his anxiety over weres and lycans in general first.”

“If I didn’t think you bears would split an old man in two,” Joshua said with a grin, “I’d dip myself in honey and call myself ‘dessert.’”

“Oh Lord,” Gunnar groaned, laughing. “Who knew back in ’75 that I was creating a horn-dog monster!”

****

Thomas and Mike had dinner ready by sundown, but the She-Wolves hadn’t arrived. The four men went ahead and had their meal, keeping the rest of the food warm in the kitchen.

By ten o’clock, they were still a no-show, and Joshua had to excuse himself for the night to go home and get some sleep before the big holiday. Gunnar called each of the She-Wolves’ phones, getting no answer from any of them. His protective instincts started to fire up, worried that there was something wrong.

“Take it easy, old bear,” Thomas assured him. “They may have gotten sidetracked, or they could have been asked to do a holiday show last-minute and haven’t been able to call and let you know. I’ll bet by morning, you’ll either have a text or voicemail back from them explaining what happened, or they’ll be standing on the front porch, banging on the door wanting breakfast.”

“I guess you’re probably right,” Gunnar said, “I’d just feel responsible if anything bad happened to them on the drive up here.”

Mike and Gunnar helped Thomas wrap up the leftovers and find room for them in the old refrigerator that was already bursting with the food that Thomas had prepped for the big Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and then they went upstairs so that Thomas could get some sleep, and Gunnar and Mike could make love one more time before the house was filled to overflowing with rowdy wolf lycan guests.

****

The next morning, there was till no word from the She-Wolves and the only one knocking on the front door was Joshua.

Gunnar was beginning to panic, and he called Tim. Tim wasn’t going to be coming to Sturgeon Bay for the holiday, but he kept in close contact with the She-Wolves in Chicago, and he would know if something had come up or had happened to them.

“Sorry,” Tim replied, after Gunnar asked him if he knew of their whereabouts, “I haven’t seen them since Monday night. I had thought that they were going to be coming out to the bar one last time this week on Tuesday before heading up to your place, but they were a no-show on Tuesday night. We assumed that they must have decided to surprise you and go up there a day early. You’re telling me that they never showed up there either?”

“No,” Gunnar replied, “And now I’m really worried. What can we do?”

“Well, it’s not as easy as calling the police and filing a missing persons report when you’re dealing with werewolves,” Tim said, “But there is an option. The She-Wolves aren’t officially members of the Chicago area wolf pack, but they do have a close relationship with them since they’re technically stray wolves living here by permission within their pack territory. I have the number of the Chicago pack Alpha only to be used in case of a lycan emergency. I think this qualifies, so I’ll give him a call now.”

“Ok, you do that,” Gunnar agreed, “And don’t use the word ‘werewolf’ when you’re speaking with the Alpha, okay? The term is ‘wolf lycan.’”

“Right, thanks!” Tim said, “You probably just saved me from being some wolf’s Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll call you back as soon as I have any news.”

Thomas and Mike went about finishing up the Thanksgiving tasks in the kitchen in the hopes that their friends would miraculously appear and show up on their front porch as if nothing at all was amiss.

Just as the small group was deciding to go ahead and eat their turkey dinner with just the four of them, Gunnar’s phone rang, and the caller ID on his screen said that it was Susie.

“Susie!” Gunnar exclaimed after answering, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Papi Bear!” Susie said anxiously, “I’ll tell you everything later, but right now you have to listen to me, understand? I need you to pack your bags as fast as possible and get out. Kane knows that you’re in Sturgeon Bay, and a hunting party from his pack is already on the way there. They’re probably passing Green Bay right now but they’ll be fanned out covering every possible escape route, so it won’t be safe for you to travel south. You’ll never be able to sneak past them on the roads. You have to find some way to escape going north, and you have to do it now, do you hear me?”

“Susie… what…”

“There’s no time to argue with me, you stubborn old bear! Pack your bags and go! Now!”

Susie ended the call so that Gunnar couldn’t waste any more time with questions that could be answered later, when they were safe.

Gunnar sat the phone down and relayed the information that Susie had provided to Thomas, Mike, and Joshua.

“Joshua,” Thomas said, “If we go north, is there a bridge over the bay somewhere so that we can get back over to the other side of Wisconsin or even into Michigan?”

“Nope,” Joshua replied with a shaky voice, “This is a peninsula, there’s no way off going north. You’d be backing yourselves into a corner.”

“What about ferries?” Gunnar asked, “There must be ferry service across the bay somewhere up here.”

“No ferries either,” Joshua answered, “and even if there were, they wouldn’t be running this late in the year. But I might have an idea.”

“Thomas and Mike,” Gunner said in his most authoritative Papa Bear voice, “Get upstairs and get all of our clothes and necessities packed into bags, now. I’ll talk to Joshua about his idea and come up with a plan.”

Thomas and Mike hurried upstairs as ordered, and Gunnar turned back to Joshua.

“I have a fishing trawler,” Joshua said. “It has a large open deck at the back. I take people out on charter fishing trips in the summertime, but I’ve also used the big back deck now and then to haul heavy cargo loads across the bay. We could load your Jeep on the back of the boat, and I can ferry all of you across to Marinette. From there you’ll be able to make a quick getaway north, east or west and those wolves will never know how you got away.”

Gunnar pulled Joshua into a big hug. “Thank you, Jay, you’re really saving our lives today. I love you, old man.”

“I love you more, Gunnar. Don’t you worry about the house. Let’s just get down to the docks and go. I’ll take care of everything here after I get back from taking you across the bay.”

Just then, Thomas and Mike came thudding down the stairs, arms loaded down with bags. Gunnar ran over to the stack of binders sitting in the corner of the living room and grabbed the blue one containing the central time zone properties. He was going to need it and didn’t want to leave a trail behind that might show Kane where he was planning to hide.

They drove quickly into town and to the boat docks, and Joshua showed them where his trawler was moored. It was quick work to set up the ramp extending from the edge of the dock onto the back of the boat, and Gunnar carefully drove the Jeep over it until he was securely parked on the back deck.

Joshua confirmed that he had enough fuel in the tanks to get them across the bay and back again and started the engines. They cast off the mooring lines and were on their way to Marinette.

****

Five black SUVs converged on the blue house with white trim in Sturgeon Bay. The doors opened and about twenty lycans piled out, including Bart the Beta wolf.

Bart gave his orders quickly and quietly. As ten of the wolves surrounded the house from the outside, the other nine crept up to the front porch, and finding the door unlocked, rushed in. Bart waited impatiently by the cars for the team to emerge with the prisoners. Anyone found in the house, including any werebears and their missing human were to be transported back to the pack house for punishment and judgement.

After what seemed an unreasonably long time to storm such a small house, the ten wolves trickled back through the front door empty-handed, all except for the last wolf who was munching on a turkey leg.

“Samson!” Bart snapped, “What the fuck are you doing? Report!”

“Nobody inside,” Samson said around a mouthful of dark meat, “Somebody must have tipped them off, because they left with dinner sitting still warm on the table and a fire in the fireplace.”

Bart slapped Samson across the face with the back of his hand, knocking the turkey leg out of his grip and to the ground.

“If the food is still warm, then they can’t be very far away yet. Find their scents and track them. I do not want to have to tell Alpha that we’ve let them slip through our fingers!”

****

As Joshua’s boat chugged along through the choppy November waters of Green Bay, Gunnar pulled his phone out and called Susie back.

“Gunnar,” Susie said, answering her phone, “Tell me you got out of Sturgeon Bay in one piece.”

“We loaded the Jeep onto the back of my caretaker Joshua’s fishing trawler and he’s ferrying us across the bay to some town called Marinette. From there we should be able to go anywhere. Now, tell me what happened to you.”

“Oh, Gunnar. After we got back from your operation a month ago, I touched base with the Chicago area pack Alpha and let him know what had happened, just in case Kane or any of his pack decided to track us back down here. Alpha Apollo told us that he’d post extra patrols for a while to keep an eye and a nose out for unauthorized wolves, but after a couple weeks it looked like we were in the clear.

“Tuesday night, just as we were all getting ready to go out to the bar, Kane, his Enforcer, and a bunch of wolves from that pack kicked our door in, bound and gagged us all. They shot us full of drugs and hauled us out to an abandoned building where that sadistic Enforcer and his cronies tortured us for about thirty-six hours nonstop, grilling us on where they could find you and Mike. Finally, this morning, poor Pip cracked and told them everything. Once he had the details, Kane called his Beta at the pack house and instructed him to take a hunting team up to Sturgeon Bay and bring everyone at your house there back to the compound alive.

“Kane then left with a few of the wolves, after telling his Enforcer to kill all of us, slowly and one at a time, starting with Pip and ending with Dixie. They had just started the slow process of killing Pip when a team of wolves from the Chicago pack burst through the doors and windows coming to our rescue. Kane’s wolves put up a fight, and his Enforcer managed to escape before the Chicago team was able to subdue them. It turned out that our friend Tim had called to alert the Chicago pack’s Alpha Apollo that we were missing this morning when we hadn’t showed up at a certain bear’s house, and Apollo’s team did a swift job of tracking us from our apartment to the building where we were being held.

“As soon as my hands were free, I grabbed my phone to call you. I’m glad you listened to me. They’re probably in Sturgeon Bay right now.”

“Is everybody okay?” Gunnar asked. “How’s Pip?”

“We’re all fine.” Susie confirmed, “No permanent damage. It was a close call for Pip but he’s already healing. If Kane had told his wolves to kill us all quickly instead of slowly like a sadistic asshole, it would have been a different story altogether. The Chicago pack has six of Kane’s wolves in custody, and Alpha Apollo is going to be discussing this matter with the Lycan Council. That Enforcer is still on the loose, but Apollo’s pack hunters say that he’s already fled back across the Illinois border.

“Pip is most worried that you’ll be mad that he cracked and spilled the beans about where to find you, but you have to understand they were really torturing the poor guy horribly. I was in the same situation, and it was agony for me to have to watch what they were doing to him.”

“Tell Pip not to worry,” Gunnar said. “It all worked out in the end, and I’m so sorry that you all had to endure all of that abuse on my behalf.”

“Papi Bear, you’re not at the end yet. You need to go off the grid for a while. Find someplace to hole up for the winter and keep your head down. Don’t tell anyone where you are, even me. Anyone who knows will only be in jeopardy.”

“Understood, sweetie,” Gunnar replied. “This will be the last you hear from me for a while, but not the last time ever. As soon as we’re sure that this has blown over, I’ll give you a call.”

“I’ll be waiting. Adieu, Papi Bear.”

“Til vi møtes igjen, Susie Banshee.”

(Until we meet again)

****

Joshua called the guy who operates the cargo crane at the shipyards in Marinette and had him meet the boat when they arrived at the docks. Gunnar slipped him $100 to pick the Jeep off of the back of Joshua’s boat and set it onto dry land.

“Joshua, you aren’t going to hear from us for a while,” Gunnar said carefully before parting ways. “I can’t tell you where we’re going, because I don’t want you to have to be put in a position where those wolves try to extract the information from you. If they confront you back in Sturgeon Bay, you don’t have to hide where you’ve taken us today, they still won’t be able to find out where we’re going.”

“Bullshit,” Joshua replied. “I’m not telling that flea-bitten pack of mongrels anything. I’m a seventy-five-year-old man who has been ridden hard and put away wet. There’s not a lot they can do to torture me that I don’t already go through just trying to tie my fucking shoelaces in the morning.”

“I promise that I’ll call you and we’ll come back just as soon as it’s safe,” Gunnar said, giving the old man a hug.

“Just don’t let it be another fifty years,” Joshua replied, “I don’t know if I can wait around that long this time.”

****

It was well after dark when Joshua’s boat pulled back into the dock in Sturgeon Bay. He shut down the engines and then secured all the mooring lines. He began walking toward his home so that he could get his car and drive back over to the lake house and clean things up, when a group of figures strolled out of the darkness to surround him.

“Hello, old man,” The leader of the group said, stepping forward. “I think you just transported some friends of ours somewhere on that boat of yours, and you’re going to tell us where it was.”

“Fuck off, fleabag,” Joshua snapped. “You ain’t getting shit outta me. You’ll have to kill me first.”

“Oh, please,” the wolf replied. “What do you think we are? Savages? We aren’t going to harm a hair on your feeble little head. Your phone will tell us everything that we need to know.”

As two wolves moved up to grab the old man by his arms and hold him in place, Bart reached inside Joshua’s jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. He opened the Google Maps app, and quickly accessed Joshua’s timeline. A map popped up on the screen clearly indicating a blue line traveling from Sturgeon Bay across the water to Marinette, Wisconsin and back.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Bart said, sliding the phone back into Joshua’s pocket. “Have a wonderful Thanksgiving evening.”

The wolves let go of Joshua’s arms and the entire group disappeared into the dark.