This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are imaginary. Any resemblance to real people or historical events is purely coincidental. AI-generated images are used for illustration.
The first wolf appeared shortly before sunset.
It stood on a ridge above the frozen river, grey against the snow, watching the sled pass below.
“Do they often follow travellers?” Dr Anton Volkov asked.
The driver, Mikhail, kept his eyes on the trail.
“Only when they expect something to die.”
Behind them, another wolf began to howl.
The Road to Kamenka
It was February 1905. Anton was travelling to Kamenka, an isolated Siberian mining settlement, after receiving a brief telegram:
FEVER IN CAMP. MANY SICK. DOCTOR NEEDED IMMEDIATELY.
The sled carried medicine, food and surgical instruments. It also carried Sergei Petrov, a company engineer with pale eyes and expensive gloves.
During the journey, Sergei asked strange questions.
Had anyone escaped from Kamenka? How many people were still alive? Had Anton received another message?
By the third day, Anton no longer believed Sergei was worried about the sick.
As darkness fell, more wolves appeared between the trees.
They followed without attacking.
Eyes Beyond the Fire
The men stopped at an abandoned logging hut. Outside, seven wolves gathered beyond the firelight.
One was almost white, with a dark mark across its muzzle.
It stared directly at Sergei.
The engineer reached for his revolver.
“Do not shoot,” Mikhail warned.
“They are waiting.”
“For what?”
Mikhail looked towards the forest.
“We will find out.”
That night, Anton woke to cold air blowing through the open door.
Mikhail was gone.
Bootprints led into the trees. Beside them ran the tracks of wolves.
Anton and Sergei followed.
They found blood on the snow and a wolf lying beneath a pine. Iron had torn deeply into its shoulder.
Anton knelt to treat it.
“You are helping an animal that would eat you,” Sergei said.
Then Mikhail emerged from the darkness, limping.
“A trap closed around my boot,” he said. “The wolf attacked the chain and broke it.”
Anton looked at Sergei.
His gloves were wet with snow.
The Empty Village
They reached Kamenka the following afternoon.
The settlement was silent. Doors stood open, food remained frozen on tables, and no smoke rose from the chimneys.
In the infirmary, Anton discovered a notebook.
Men coughing. Not fever. Smoke from lower tunnel.
Company ordered work to continue.
Workers collapsed underground.
Manager Petrov sealed the tunnel.
Anton turned.
Sergei stood behind him with his revolver drawn.
“My brother managed the mine,” he said. “The company sent me to recover that notebook.”
“With workers still trapped inside?”
“A mine employs hundreds. Sometimes a few must be sacrificed.”
Anton noticed that one page had been torn out. Faint writing remained pressed into the sheet beneath it:
Survivors taken to northern camp. Wolves gather outside.
“They survived,” Anton said.
Sergei raised the revolver.
“That is why I came.”
The wolves began howling outside.
Mikhail struck Sergei’s arm with a chair. The gun fired into the ceiling.
Sergei broke free, ran outside and escaped on one of the horses.
The White Wolf
Anton and Mikhail followed him along the northern trail.
They found Sergei beside a frozen stream. His horse had fallen, and the wolves had surrounded him.
The white wolf stepped forward.
Sergei fired.
He missed.
The wolf struck him from the side, knocking him into the snow. His revolver slid across the ice.
The pack circled him, growling, but did not attack.
Then figures appeared among the trees.
Miners.
Women.
Children.
More than twenty survivors walked towards the village carrying axes, blankets and lamps.
The wolves had not been hunting Anton’s sled.
They had been guiding the survivors home.
What the Wolves Remembered
The miners had escaped through an old ventilation shaft after the tunnel was sealed. They fled to an abandoned trapping camp, where they found a starving wolf caught in an iron trap.
They freed it and shared their food.
Days later, its pack began guarding the camp and guiding hunters towards deer.
The white wolf had recognised the company emblem on Sergei’s luggage—or perhaps simply sensed the danger he carried.
Anton treated the injured. Sergei was tied to the sled and taken back to the railway under guard.
The company tried to hide what had happened, but the notebook and the survivors made silence impossible. The mine was eventually closed.
Years later, Anton still remembered the seven pairs of eyes beyond the fire.
But most clearly, he remembered the white wolf standing beside the northern trail.
It waited until every survivor had entered Kamenka.
Then it turned towards the forest.
One by one, the others followed.
Within moments, they were gone.
Only their tracks remained in the snow.
Dark Stories 