Erin Dameron-Hill (4 page)

In books and movies, werewolves just change forms but nobody tells you what happens to the human body, nor even the wolf body. Well, in simple terms, it gets eaten. I have to eat myself at least once a month, whenever there’s a full moon or whenever I can’t control the change.

Luckily, I have faint memories of the instances, but those memories are hard-wired into me and it makes me nauseous just to think about them. I’ve eaten a Pomeranian before, trash--a lot of trash. People throw out so many great tasting, rotting fast-food hamburgers and fries and…oh, shit the beast taking over. How do I know? Because under normal circumstances rotting meat is not what I crave.

“Matt!”

Sheila’s arms drove my shoulders hard into the wet carpet, forcing my seizures to subside just enough to maybe, just maybe gain some bit of control. I felt the large frame of two hundred pounds slam me down against the floor. My beast perked up to the violence and I felt a sudden need to tear at the smooth, massive neck that was on top of me. I could hear his pulse, taste that power…his power rolled through me like a freight train bearing down on a pathetic dog with four broken legs, crashing on top of it, slicing and tearing it apart. His power literally forced my beast to run and hide, to find that dark, dank pit that it lived and stay there for as long as it could. I felt the jackal run back down that tunnel, away from that wild train of power and as soon as it did, my muscles began to relax.

Matt smelled like a thousand oak trees glittering in a damp forest. He wore the scent of the woods, of trees, of leaves, and of Stetson. He was both animal and man. He had grown accustomed to the beast that he was and the beast had grown accustomed to the human. Together they were symbiotic and strong. I, on the other hand, was just a straggled mess of one trying to dominate the other. I wasn’t in perfect balance like Matt or Sheila. They wore control like a stripper wears stilettos, natural and painful. But I guess that’s why they were the mother and the father of this dysfunctional family.

I opened my eyes and stared into the Caribbean blue of Matt’s eyes and took a deep breath. His power rode over me in waves of hot orange, suffocating the scent of fresh meat, filling me instead with the scent of the forest. His square face towered over me and his thin lips smiled gently.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a deep, ruffled voice. His voice always sounded like a mix between his beast and a man, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” I managed hearing a soft growl pour through my mouth. That definitely wasn’t my voice.

“I did.” He nodded his head toward my forearms and a few lines of blood dripped softly down, mixing with Clyde’s.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It won’t yet, but I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, you helped me,” I said still with a deep, bass-like voice.

He shook his head. I don’t think he ever fully came to terms with what he was, because I knew he didn’t like hurting people even if that meant saving their life. And honestly, the scrapes didn’t hurt that much. Matt had given me just enough power to swallow my own beast, to keep it from rising. So, I didn’t mind the scrapes.

“That was close,” Sheila said now lifting her arms from my shoulders, “If she had turned, I don’t think I would have been able to control myself, either.” She sat back on her calves and rubbed her forehead as if she was suffering from a massive headache. I knew that gesture. She was still dealing with her own beast.

Matt jumped off me landing squarely on his brown, bloodied loafers. His normal attire of a polo shirt and pleated khaki pants were still in his closet because tonight he was sporting a blue t-shirt and jeans. Matt had his shirt tucked into his jeans giving him the 80’s appearance of a tight-tuck which would definitely tell women his age. But women didn’t matter to Matt, only one did, Sheila. They were high school sweethearts and had been together for twenty some odd years. I know it sounds selfish to think of this right now, but it pissed me off how everyone around me had someone and all I had was my job and my beast.

Well, not everyone had a special someone now. Billy had lost Clyde, his soul mate, and the more I thought of that loss, the more I hated myself for thinking of only my well-being.

“Sophie,” Matt said, turning my attention to him, “do you feel anything?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, nervous about voicing my concern over my selfishness.

“Can you divine anything?”

Oh, that.

“What exactly do you expect from me, Matt? You know I can’t do that anymore, so why did you bring me down here, or better yet, why bring us all down here? He smells like food, Matt.”

“I know, I know,” he said nodding his head in agreement, “it’s just that, well, looking at Clyde like this, I want answers. The cops sure as hell won’t find who did this, so its up to us.”

“Why? Why is it up to us?”

“Because he’s family, Sophie. That’s why.”

I shook my head and realized I was angry. I don’t know the reasoning nor the logic behind my rage, all I know is that I was angry. I could take a guess and say it was because this was a waste of time. I’m not going to bad mouth the dead, but right now, Clyde wasn’t important. We had all risked our beasts by just coming here, risked our lives. If our beasts had escaped us, who knows how many more would be dead? How many more would have their intestines ripped out? How many innocent humans would have been murdered just because we couldn’t control our beasts?

This just wasn’t something we should be dealing with. A mangled corpse is for the detectives to figure out, not some rag-tag Scooby-doo werewolf squad who are likely to go ape-shit and kill everyone in our way.

I looked back to the body and, as much as I wanted to swallow it down, my logic kicked in and I noticed that not a damn piece of him was missing. Sure, there was blood and meat piled endlessly in the large room, but muscles weren’t missing, the heart wasn’t missing. Everything that a monster like us would have eaten was still here. So, what the hell did this?

“Matt, what happened to him?”

“It looks like an attack.”

“I don’t smell pack on him.”

“Neither do I, so it wasn’t a werewolf.”

“Then what?”

“That’s why we’re here, Sophie. Would the cops really be able to handle the answer of supernatural? I don’t think so.”

Being a werewolf is a closely guarded secret. There are rumors of our existence, fiction of our existence, but never any proof. And that’s how it should be. We are a danger to society and if word got out that we were real, well, panic would beset so many that countless would die just in the stampede.

There are millions of spiritual and supernatural beings on Earth. Everything from demons to vampires to mermaids to leprechauns exist. According to scientists, 95% of the world’s creatures that once existed, are now extinct. But what the scientists don’t know, is that 15% of that number are in hiding including the unicorn, abominable snowman, and even Nessie types.

There are some deadly creatures out there and even Matt will not utter certain words in the darkness for fear of them hearing. Added to that, no one knows everything that prowls the darkness.

And knowing that, as I look at this body, I realize that anything could have killed him. And that Orlando’s finest were useless.

“Well, do you have any ideas?” I asked.

“None. That’s why we brought you here. Give us something, Sophie.”

“I can’t.”

“Please try.”

I sighed and continued to hold onto his hand. I still needed him to steady my beast so that I could concentrate. I closed my eyes and focused. But what do I focus on? I felt Matt’s pulse run through his palm, heard the countless cockroaches roam underneath the floorboards because no matter how clean a place is, those bugs are just everywhere. I’m pretty sure that if the end of the world comes, cockroaches will be the only things that survive.

Besides the cockroaches were hoards of maggots chewing their way through the rotting muscles, eating their way to morph into a fly, eating away at my friend.

For a spilt-second, a slight rage boiled just under my skin, angry and terrified that Clyde was nothing more than food to over a million hungry insects. The bugs didn’t care that he had a style no man, nor even woman could match, they didn’t care he had a lover who was also his best friend, and they especially didn’t care that he was ever alive in the first place. All Clyde was to them was just a meal.

I squeezed my eyes tighter and swallowed so loudly I must have sounded like I was choking on a frog. If only. I was swallowing a lump of emotion that had been steadily growing since I first set foot into the place and I didn’t like it one bit. There was too much loss in my life, too much to even mention. Adding Clyde to the list certainly wasn’t helping anything.

I felt a slight jolt from Matt’s palm as his pulse reminded me that I was trying to help. I noticed that as I listened and focused on my surroundings, that I was honing with my werewolf skills, I wasn’t just feeling. It’s difficult to block out the sensations of life crawling all around you to focus strictly on the dead. The dead only gave one thing, smell. And I didn’t want to dwell on that anymore. I tried to release my five senses, to embrace the sixth one, but nothing came. There was too much life all around me, from the leaves that rustled outside to the faint smell of burning tobacco…

“Anput,” the voice said. It was like my dream, except closer, tangible. The word was so full of feeling that I could touch it, watch it materialize in my hands. I knew that voice, I think. Was he really here? Or was it just a dream? I couldn’t really tell. And as soon as I focused on that voice, it was gone.

There is always more to see out of the corner of the eye than there is in looking straight ahead. Some fey can’t even be seen by staring directly at them. Perhaps that’s what this intangible and yet very solid being was, not fey, of course, I would be able to smell daisies and daffodils (because that’s what fairies smell like), but perhaps this dream creature had a few of those characteristics. He was real and yet, no, he couldn’t be real. After all, I didn’t dream anymore, I didn’t ‘feel’ anything anymore. This was all just a figment of my imagination.

I should probably stick to my medication.

“I don’t know,” I said releasing Matt’s hand.

“You don’t know what exactly?”

“For a second I thought I felt something, but I can’t describe it. And I don‘t even think it has anything to do with this.”

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head, “nothing. It’s nothing. I told you I couldn’t do this. It was stupid to bring me here.”

I didn’t want them to know that I started to dream again, because perhaps, I hadn’t. Even though I knew that was a lie. But I wanted to keep this dream, this vision, to myself. I didn’t want the world to know about the dark figure that haunted me. I wanted him all to myself and I wouldn’t share with anyone else.

The room suddenly became very close and stale threatening to drown the air and suck the life from the still living. I got up in a huff and made my way to the door and paused, “Do we have to eat him?” I asked. The supernatural, as I said before, is a close kept secret, any proof of any kind is immediately snuffed out.

“No, he didn’t bother to change. He didn’t even try to defend himself. He just laid there. Lycanthropy can‘t be detected in blood or remains. So, he‘s safe.”

I closed the door behind me and sat on the cold concrete sidewalk. I wanted out of that house. I didn’t want to have to face this. I’m used to seeing shredded deer whenever we hunt, because, well we have to. But I’m not used to seeing shredded bodies, especially a friend.

Granted, I didn’t know Clyde that well, but still, I had known him. I had watched him live, move around the picnics that we have every Sunday afternoon, felt his red wolf prowl beside me as we went hunting, and I had seen the love between him and Billy.

I placed my head in my hands and closed my eyes. All I could see was that desecrated body. All I could smell was the rotten stench of death. In a way the smell intrigued me, in another, well, I wanted to vomit.

My eyes opened and I looked up at the black sky; red lights from airplanes blinked down at me and overshadowed the barely there stars.

I knew I was being cowardly. And I didn’t know why. I wanted to help my family, to contribute, to help Billy and to bring some peace to Clyde, but instead, I sat out here looking at discarded cigarette butts and man-made stars. I was being pathetic and selfish. But really, would you want to go back inside that death filled room?

Whether I wanted to or not, I stood up and went back inside. There’s something to be said for destiny and curiosity. Or was there something to be said for revenge? I was scared and I think it was due to the fact that the killer could be a werewolf hunter and that this person or thing wouldn’t stop until it killed all of us. So, I might have selfish intentions, but at least I’m trying to help.

“Matt, did you smell anything weird when you first got here?” I asked shutting the door behind me and walking carefully down the hallway.

“The usual,” he muttered, “What are you doing back?”

“I’m really sorry, I want to try again.”