Erin Dameron-Hill (3 page)

“We’ll take the Jeep,” I said. I don’t know why I said that, its not like I have five Jags just sitting outside in a garage. I guess I was trying to break the sorrow-filled silence with some sort of speech.

But Billy didn’t have a smart ass comment like he usually would, so instead, my remarks came off as idiotic.

The red Jeep Liberty beeped loudly as the alarm signaled itself off. Normally, I wouldn’t have a gas hog and before I became a werewolf, I drove a Yaris. But I needed the room to haul around a few shape-shifters and a bigger vehicle suited that need perfectly. A full on werewolf can grow up to eight feet in height and weigh over four hundred pounds. So, I needed the torque and the space.

I popped the trunk, (if you could call it that), and Billy placed his bike in the hold. The yellow bike shined brightly against the soft crescent moon.

I fixed the rear-view mirror checking to make sure I could see out the window and realized I hadn’t done a thing with my hair. Oh well, I guess if I didn’t mind a rat’s nest in my hair then no one else would.

“Billy,” I said, putting the vehicle into gear and feeling the leather grind underneath my legs, “I need you tell me what happened.”

I glanced over at his body, hunched under the heavy pull of the seat belt. He shook his head and continued to stare out the window.

“Please, Billy, I need to know.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I turned onto 436 and waited for the light to turn green. At night, the lights will always change faster because they’re based on movement detection. I was glad that I didn’t have to wait the normal five minutes for the light to change because I didn’t know how much more of Billy’s pain that I could endure.

I don’t remember ever seeing him like this before. I wanted to comfort him, but knew that if I did, I might hurt his manly ego. And he was already hurting enough. But I couldn’t just sit here and ignore it. I had to do something.

So, I turned on the CD player. I had remembered listening to the Doors recently and I instantly regretted that decision.

People are Strange
began to dance inside the jeep, forcing its melancholy mood deeper into the already depressed vehicle.

I turned it off. We didn’t need help being depressed. We were already there.

“Clyde lives down Crane’s Roost? Right?”

Billy nodded and said, “lived.”

I concentrated more on my driving. I should have left him at my condo instead of dragging him back to Clyde’s place to relive happier memories or to face a future that didn’t include Clyde.

Crane’s Roost used to be a normal, middle class playground for those who couldn’t afford the ‘burbs such as Lake Mary or Heathrow, but after a few housing developments and the building of Uptown Altamonte, Crane’s Roost was now a highly regarded area. Before the downhill decay of the housing market, a one bedroom condo went for three hundred grand, nowadays, they sell for seventy thousand. Even though the prices have dropped, the neighborhood hasn’t gone into disrepair. Palm trees still line the smooth sidewalks and smooth black, asphalt roads. White lampposts exude light enough so that people can walk their dogs with bladder problems without fear from shadows. And beautiful water fountains still erupt from the small lakes that surround the neighborhood.

As I pulled the Jeep in front of Clyde’s condo complex, I instantly wanted to turn around and go home because I could smell it, if only slightly. The foul stench of rot and decay and fresh meat exploded through my body sending passionate chills down my spine.

I shivered slightly in the well-lit darkness and heard the passenger side door slam closed. Billy had already begun to trudge up the butterfly-bush path towards Clyde’s white door.

My senses became fine-tuned as the smells from Clyde’s apartment gently wafted on the breeze towards me. I had only been a werewolf for two years now and I still didn’t have that great of control yet. And as that intoxicating scent of death poured through me, my body trembled even more.

I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself down, but that wasn’t the best of ideas because the smell lingered heavily on the air and on my tongue.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds. If I could hone one sense, then the others seemed to shut down slightly. And if I could shut down the smells, that would be a very good thing. So I listened intently on the surrounding sounds; The crickets were still chirping their love songs creating a symphony that was interceded by the sound of passing cars. The soft gurgle of a dying muffler caught the exhaust pipe of a station wagon sorely in need of a tune-up. A baby was crying somewhere near us with its mother singing a sweet lullaby. The song was a little bit off tune, but the sound of her voice calmed the child down. That same voice echoed through me and relieved a little bit of tension that had built in my shoulders.

I opened my eyes but kept my hearing in check. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose control inside that room. Because if I did, well…I didn’t want that to happen. No one did.

I knocked gently on the door so I wouldn’t disturb the neighbors and felt Billy’s hand brush past my arm and turn the knob. Apparently, manners weren’t needed tonight.

The smell hit me like a wall, thick and unmovable. I wanted to gag and rejoice at the same time. The scent was undeniably death and I wanted to roll around in it, wallow in its liquid form, and swallow it down in chunks. Hence, the gagging. Sewage lined the smell like silver lining on a cloud, threatening to spill my bile all over the floor.

“How long has he been dead, Billy?” I managed.

“I don’t know. I last saw him at eight.”

Billy was crouching in the corner of the foyer, his head pressed against a black and white photograph of a seashore. His brown eyes held that hunger that I felt and I saw the rumblings of his beast stir. Billy had more control than I ever could because he had lived with his beast practically his whole life, but the scent was just intoxicating. The smell of pack, of wild death, of bleeding meat was almost too much for anyone to ignore.

He grasped my hand tightly and that otherworldly strength would have broken a normal person’s hand several times over. But I squeezed back. We needed the feel of pain, of strength, to carry ourselves through the room. Billy probably needed that to overcome his sorrow; I needed it to overcome my hunger.

Hand in hand we trudged down the narrow hallway passing many more black and white photographs of seascapes and lagoon birds before the hall turned into the living room. The walls were mauve with white cornice moldings wrapping around the ceiling. The sofas were white as well except there were a few bright red-brown gobs staining the very clean surface. Between the two sofas rested a glass coffee table completely destroyed into tiny, broken bits and wearing the same brown-red gobs as the couch.

As I passed by the blue and white oriental vase, I knew where the smell was coming from; Clyde was nothing more than hamburger strewn about that immaculate room. If the scent of our pack wasn’t on him, I wouldn’t have known who it was. His face was a shredded remnant of aged perfection with bits of white bone and gray matter sticking out at odd angles.

The entire inside of his belly had been ripped out, leaving torn intestines, liver and lungs seeping from their out-of-body posts. His ebony skin, although now in tiny pieces, was still as smooth as I could remember it. The skin no longer covered his entrails, instead, his entrails covered his skin.

I felt a hard grip on my hand and its sudden release as Billy ran back down the hallway and slammed the door behind him.

My eyes returned to the pulp in front of me. No human could have done this, only a monster could have.

“Hey, Sophie,” said a soft voice from behind me. Through the haze of death I smelled her vanilla perfume and the unmistakable musk of the feminine protector.

“Hi, Sheila,” I replied placing my head in-between the crook of her neck and shoulder. Like many pack animals, I had an uncontrollable need to constantly touch members of my family. Especially in times of distress. I was never much for inviting people into my personal bubble, but I needed that feel of safety running through my fingers and down my arms.

I inhaled her deeply and allowed that smell of serene calm replace the smell of death. Sheila’s vibrant, from-a-bottle red hair trailed over my face leaving hard, hair-sprayed curls landing with a thud on my smooth skin. In this kind of humidity, curling hair means lots of product and Sheila was living proof of that. And honestly, I’m surprised that her hair was still curled at three in the morning. She probably used more product than I originally anticipated.

Her small hands wound their way around my back, massaging me lightly in an attempt at sympathy. I breathed her in one last time and turned around to face the remains of Clyde.

As I looked over that torn and shattered body, I had to ask myself,
What the hell am I doing here?
I’m not a forensic scientist or a detective nor do I have a special license that makes me an expert at crimes scenes. I’m just a normal, everyday werewolf.

“I’m sorry you had to see this,” Sheila said, “but Matt thought it would be best.”

My eyes continued to roam over the battered and strewn corpse and I knew I didn’t belong here, “I don’t belong here, Sheila, I don’t even know if I can control myself.”

She touched my forearm lightly and nodded, “I know how you feel, but we need you. Your talents…”

“My talents?” I interrupted, “They disappeared the night I turned. I don’t have those talents anymore.”

I knew I should never have told them about my past abilities, but we were family, and we don’t keep secrets from one another. So I told them how I had dreams and feelings and that whatever I dream or feel comes to fruition. Hence, my job as a psychic although now, I was more of a charlatan. I used to be able to read people, but I can’t anymore. All I can do now is lie.

“We hoped they might reappear over something this dramatic,” she said.

“Well, it’s not, and it won’t. The only thing I can offer to this pack is my loyalty and some money in case one of us needs medical attention. That’s all I can do.”

I donate to my family because we have to hire a specialized doctor whose primary concern is the health of the preternatural community and who can keep our existence a secret. And trust me, he doesn’t come cheap. If there’s an outbreak of fleas or ticks, don’t expect us to run to CVS and pick up a flea collar. No, those are dangerous chemicals. The doctor is more of a shaman than anything and he uses herbs and the like to heal us. Therefore, health insurance is useless. What are you going to say on the form, outbreak of werewolf fleas? I’d like to see that explained to the plump nurse who now believes you should be in the loony bin.

I looked back at Sheila through the flashlight haze of early morning and dimmed lights. Her eyes were begging me to divine something from the scene and I knew I couldn’t. The sixth sense that had plagued me since I was eight had vanished two years ago and frankly, I preferred it that way. And now I was being selfish and thankful that I couldn’t help my family figure out who killed one of my wolf-brothers because I was glad the gift (I use that word loosely) was gone.

So, I was upset that I was here, upset that they had put so much faith in me. I couldn’t walk in here and get a feeling or dream about the murderer, instead, I just felt hungry and embarrassed that I lusted over the corpse. It’s really quite pathetic how tight I was getting and wet.

“Please, Sophia,” Sheila began, “please try.”

I sat down because my knees just didn’t want to stand anymore and they buckled under the pressure of the scent. Cross-legged, Indian style, my favorite sitting position was all I could do. As my eyes rested on the shredded remains I breathed deeper. I inhaled that intoxicating scent and felt the bristles of my own power crawl along my skin like tiny biting insects. It raced in-between my thighs and out through my mouth as a moan.

My beast was stirring. I felt the black jackal that was me rousing inside, threatening to come out and devour all that precious meat in front of me. It could sense the corpse, taste the body in the air, and it wanted to swallow it all. The black jackal growled from deep within and began that run up the tunnel and through my muscles. The beast was coming and I couldn’t stop it.

I fell back into the blood feeling the cold, coagulated liquid soak my tank top to my skin, feeling the sensation of sticky sweet crimson drown my back. My beast pushed against my body, pushed to lick up that treasured blood, to roll around in it…

“Matt!” Sheila yelled from far away.

I knew what was coming and I didn’t want it. The change is painful and intense because the skin, muscles, and bones literally rip themselves apart to change. Do you know what its like to feel your insides explode through your body and plaster themselves on the wall as that beast then eats it all back up? No? Then I can’t explain it.

And I hate being in wolf-form. I only remember flashes of what I do, and those flashes I would rather forget. I remember the first time my beast emerged. My human body was littered all over Sheila’s bedroom and my beast devoured it. I tasted myself like I was nothing more than spaghetti, swallowed my own muscles and bones and then puked them back up only to eat myself again.