Journey Days of Henry McAlister
                                      CHAPTER TWENTY
                               Chapter twenty-part two

     Fenton stepped towards the side window and cleared away the moisture from the glass to view what was outside. As he peered into the darkness, a wolf’s head with its black eyes and white fangs appeared directly on the other side of the glass. Fenton jerked back from the window just as the wolf bounded through the glass. He staggered to his right between the booths and the bar as the wolf landed on the floor beside him. Its claws dragging into the wooden floor, it continued sliding until it ended in a heap along the wall. He scrambled to get as far away from the beast intruder as he could, knocking over plates and glassware on the tables and whiskey bottles that stood on the bar top. The porter, his eyes wide with fright at the sight of the wolf now crouched for an attack at the open end of the bar, could only hope that he wasn’t going to be its victim, he slowly knelt down and tried to make himself as small as possible to hide behind a case of whiskey that was stored on the floor. The wolf fixed its eyes of the retreating figure of Fenton and clawed its way towards him then leapt onto the Fenton’s back. The brute force of the wolf’s attack and its weight caused him to collapse onto the floor among the shattered bottles and dinnerware. His yells and screams of terror and pain fixated everyone on the frenzied blood soaked attack. Fenton pinned to the floor with the wolf tearing away at his back, neck and head, tried to reach behind him to dislodge the wolf, the wolf ignored his hands and fists to continue its attack on his shoulders and neck. Its fangs ripping away chunks of coat, flesh and muscle with Fenton’s blood spattering in every direction.
     “Shoot it, shoot it,” screamed Katherine.
     Virgil raced towards the rear of the dining car to retrieve his shotgun that stood in the corner, he hoped he would be quick enough to stop the wolf’s attack before it finished with Fenton and then turned on the rest of them. Henry awaked from his fixated trance of watching the horrifying scene just a few feet in front of him by Katherine’s screaming, pulled his revolver from under his coat jacket and fired twice at the black blood soaked shape that continued struggling on top of Fenton. The wolf paused for a moment from hearing the loud sounds of Henry’s revolver but none of the bullet’s stuck the wolf, instead they splintered into the face of the bar beside it. Again Henry fired his revolver, the bullet hitting the wolf in its rear leg, it recoiled from the shot for a few seconds as if to wonder what had struck its leg, it seemed to feel no pain from the wound. Virgil pushed Henry aside causing Henry to fall into a booth, then carefully raised and aimed his shotgun and pulled the trigger. The blast from the shotgun hit the wolf in the neck and shoulder, shattering the wolf’s left leg, it careened backwards, stumbling over the still body of Fenton, then turned in a half-circle on its three legs, its head slamming into the floor behind the last booth and flipped over onto its back. The body of the wolf slid along the floor crashing into the wall and knocking the small firewood stove off its stand and dislodging the stovepipe. The firewood stove tilted into the corner as its door opened exposing the hot coals inside, with black acrid smoke bellowing from the dislodged stovepipe. Virgil stepped past the body of Fenton towards the now still wolf and looked at it with its black eyes and blooded tongue hanging from its mouth and levered his shotgun at the animal. The second blast exploded the wolf’s head over the walls and floor. Henry straightened himself in the booth and went over to Katherine, he sat beside her and wrapped his arms around her holding her as tightly as he could. He would never have forgiven himself if he had allowed anything to happen to her. She buried her head into his shoulder, sobbing and shivering uncontrollably.
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To be continued...