Contents
Dedication
Some
Punk Rock
Werewolf Romance
In the
Oklahoma Sun
By Cyrus S. Meadows
Dedicated to my beloved wife, Fire.
Chapter 1
Isaac was drunk.
The kind of drunk that moves the pavement under your feet as you walk. The kind of drunk that dulls the sound of cars that roar past you, and numbs the cold bite of the wind. The kind of drunk that leaves you vulnerable. But Isaac had never had cause to feel vulnerable.
The moon hung full and fat in the sky above him, bathing the streets in moonlight. Bright enough that he could see his reflection, weaving it's own drunken path through the mirror of the town, from shop window to shop window. And, if he caught a glimpse of something else, moving slow and low in the shadows of the shops, well, Isaac didn't feel particularly inclined to worry about that.
After all, it had been a good night. His band, Holy Isaac and the Saviour Flavour, had played a deeply offensive fifteen minute set at one of the grimiest bars that small town Oklahoma had to offer. They'd been paid in free beer, booed off stage, and on his way out, Isaac had enjoyed a nice, solid argument with the front man of Leeching off London. The argument had enjoyably evolved into a full on brawl which carried them out of the bar and onto the dusty streets.
Leeching off London were the only other wannabe punk band south of Tulsa, and as far as Isaac was concerned, their tuneful riffs placed them firmly in the lowly category of Glam Rock, something which he had pointed out several times during his riotously successful set.
Eventually, Thomas, his bass player (who had adopted the charming stage name of scat-porn-Tommy) reported to resolve the argument and pluck Isaac up out of the gutter. He was a bony figure of a man, with a head of long black curls which dangled down just past his cheeks, and a disrespectfully patchy beard. To his advantage, however, he stood at a solid six foot seven, which was why when he emerged from the bar, the fight (which Isaac, who clocked in at five foot seven and 130 pounds, had been losing most handsomely) mysteriously paused.
There was nothing obviously punk about the front man of Leeching off London. Harvey Roman was a country boy, through and through. He was six foot tall, muscled and tanned from a lifetime spent working on his daddy's farm, and despite his desire to drone along with the best of the Sex Pistols, he had an inescapable look of the boy next door about him. Dusty brown hair, bright blue eyes, and lips that were just a touch too soft and red for the hard cut of his jaw. Too pretty to really be handsome, but far, far too rough around the edges to ever be pretty. Isaac probably would have called him ugly, if he'd been able, but just at that moment, Harvey Roman had one hand pressed down on Isaac’s throat, leaving him a little lost for words.
“I think he hears your complaint now, Roman,” Said Tommy, genially, “Why don't you let my boy up?”
“Yeah, like he heard it the last time?” Harvey snapped back, keeping his expression mean, even though his grip on Isaac's throat lessened considerably as Tommy took a warning step forward, “Or the time before that? Or before that? How many times you think I'm gonna let him talk shit on us before I don't feel like lettin' him up for it no more? That goddamn Glam Rock shit...”
“Ain't nothin' wrong with Glam Rock, Roman.” Tommy offered, placatingly, “Kiss play Glam Rock.”
“Yeah well Leeching off London ain't no piss poor Kiss cover band!” Harvey hissed furiously, pulling Isaac up perhaps an inch, only to slam him back into the dirt again, “And your goddamn trailer trash singer needs to learn that, or he's gonna lose some fucking teeth!”
This was the point where Isaac decided to resume fighting back. His impassioned resistance took the form of him attempting to get his right arm out from where it was being pinned by Harvey's knee, and when this failed, of hissing oxygen deprived curses towards Harvey.
Tommy sighed, and looked from Isaac to Harvey forlornly.
“Look, Harv, this can go one of three ways. Either you let him up, and me and him go on our way, or, you don't let him up, and I have to kick your teeth in.” Tommy counted the ways on his fingers, drawing up a third for the final option, “Or you don't let him up, I fail to kick your teeth in, and you kill him, therefore making Holy Isaac and the Savour Flavour the only band in town whose lead singer was punk enough to be murdered in a gutter. Then I'll tell people it was some Gene Simmons impersonator, and Kellogg'll tell people that it was you, and eventually everyone else'll be saying the same shit about you that Isaac's saying now.” Thomas paused, then leaned forward, conspiratorially, “And right now, buddy? No one's listening to Isaac. So maybe you should cool your heels about what he says, huh?”
“Lots of people listen to me!” Hissed Isaac thickly, from his position in the gutter, and Harvey sighed heavily.
“I get off him now, he's gonna come at me.”
“Yeah, but he's drunk. He'll miss. ” Tommy pointed out, “And I'll haul his ass back to our van. So c'mon. Let him up, Roman.”
Harvey hesitated for a moment longer, before finally relenting, and pushing up away from Isaac. As soon as Isaac's arms were unpinned, he made a frantic, desperate swing for one of Harvey's retreating legs, before Tommy's hands scooped up under his armpits and hauled him to his feet.
“C'mon asshole. Kellogg ain't gonna wait all night for your sorry ass...”
Kellogg, their drummer, was an argumentative nineteen year old Latino, who wore their hair in a shaggy black mess, and deliberately dressed in clothes too baggy to allow anyone to clearly pin down their sex. They were a pretty terrible drummer, but owned their own van, and possessed what Isaac had quickly determined to be the punk spirit. Or possibly the riot grrrl spirit. Whichever. It was definitely a cool spirit to have. Tommy hauled open the back door of Kellogg's van, just as the drummer was putting the finishing touches on a tightly rolled joint. The band hadn't bothered to take down their kit yet, which meant that the van was at it's most spacious, with only a single bass guitar amp, two mattresses, and an array of crusty festival blankets spread nicely across the floor of it. Kellogg, who was perched neatly on the edge of the bass amp peered up at Isaac and Tommy through the black forest of their fringe, and lifted the joint, in a silent suggestion of their next course of action.
“Drugs will tear this band apart.” Isaac slurred in protest, leaning drunkenly against the open back door of the van. Tommy, ignoring him, climbed into the van to sprawl his long, spidery limbs across the mattresses, fitting himself into the negative space beside the broken amp. Kellogg lit the joint, and Isaac stared at his band mates, wiry with disapproval.
“C'mon Isaac, we played a good set, you took a chunk out of Harvey...” Tommy recounted, with a remarkable disregard for how Isaac's fight with Harvey had actually gone, “...Just come lay down here with us, we'll have a smoke, and you can take a little weight off, yeah? Just calm yourself down a little bit.”
He patted an inviting patch of empty space on the mattress beside him, but Isaac was unmoved.
“No, no, no, no, here's what you don't fuckin' get, Tommy. We're a goddamn punk band, you feel me? We ain't supposed to be fucking calm.” He slapped his hand onto his bare chest, and thrust a finger accusatorially into the van, “And I'm not gonna climb in that van and let myself be drugged down out of being angry! I'm not going to drink none of your goddamn kool aid-- and quit sighing at me, Tommy! You know I'm right!”
Kellogg, having taken a few deep pulls, now handed the joint to Tommy. Isaac shook his head, despairingly, “Okay, you guys wanna be medicated? That's your fuckin' choice. But I ain't go
nna be a party to it.”
This said, he defiantly lurched away from the van, and staggered off towards the main street again, fully intending on walking home out of spite.
Spite was a difficult emotion for him to maintain at the best of times however, and as Isaac's focus ebbed, so did his bad mood. Tommy had been right, after all. Their set had gone down exactly as they'd hoped that it would (it was received with universal dislike), and even if he hadn't exactly won his battle with Harvey, he had enjoyed the pleasure of really pissing him off.
It had been a good night. And even with the bruises blossoming up his back and around his throat from his earlier scuffle, Isaac didn't feel vulnerable. He heard the scuff of feet hitting the dust behind him, and didn't turn around. Heard the clatter of garbage cans being knocked down in the alleyway, and didn't look to the sound. Isaac weaved through the town, slow and smooth and utterly confident of his own safety, and just as smooth, just as sure, something else weaved after him. He cut towards an ugly concrete alleyway, slotted neatly between the peeling brick wall of a liquor store, and a boarded up veterinarian’s office, and was about to go lurching down the narrow passage, when a sound, a growl as low and deep as thunder, rolled out from the darkness towards him.
Isaac stopped. Stared, wide eyed into the shadows, where they pooled between the two buildings, and for the first time, in that awful moment, they saw each other. Isaac, lean and pale and dressed in his torn leather coat and oil stained jeans, his hair clipped short enough to show off every fragile contour and line of his skull, the imitation of something dangerous etched into every aspect of himself... and it.
Isaac had seen wolves before. At night, working a season on the Roman family farm when he was a teenager. He'd watched them dip in and out of the furthest reaches of the electric lights that hung over the livestock. He wasn't afraid then, but that was different. On a ranch full of sheep, no self respecting wolf would ever bother to hunt down a human. On the ranch, the wolves had been far, far away. He hadn't been able to hear the gut deep growl of them, reverberating down to the pit of his stomach.
Isaac eased back a step, wanting to retreat without actually having to break eye contact, but the silhouette moved with him, advancing two steps for his one, so that the first rays of moonlight fell across it's pewter coat. The knot of fear in Isaac's stomach tightened, and it was not just the fear for survival, the fear of coming face to face with a true predator. No, it was something deeper. A more primordial, instinctive fear of the world being wrong.
Because there was something wrong with the wolf. Something in the curve of the muscles under that dark fur. Something in the vivid gold of it's eyes. In the twisted bones of it's paws.
Isaac took another step back, and the wolf growled again, low and ominous as thunder, cutting through the clear night. It took another step into the moonlight, and Isaac found the limit of his valor. He twisted on his heel, letting the dust skid up under his feet as he fled. Behind him, the snarl of the beast had died down to silence, only broken by the heavy pad of footfalls charging after him. He had to get back to the van. Back to the bar. Even back to that asshole Harvey-- back to any of them, to anyone who could stop this – before he was struck hard by a wall of fur and teeth.
Isaac landed hard on his side, and the wolf-- the thing put all it's weight on his shoulder, pressing him onto his back. It’s weight set heavily onto his waist, pinning his crotch, and for some reason, Isaac was reminded of fighting with Harvey. Jaws snapped at his throat, and he all but shoved an arm between the wolf's jaws, to keep it from catching his jugular. Weight shifted from his crotch to his chest, and suddenly Isaac couldn’t breathe. His arm was burning, and he could feel hot blood weeping from it - like a fresh spring gushing from a mountainside - as he fought to drag air into his lungs. Fought to stay conscious as he heard bone crack, and felt the creature's claws dig deep into the thin layer of muscle, drawn over the bones of his chest.
“Please,” he gasped, but the word emerged as little more than a sob, and the wolf only snarled in answer. Insanely, Isaac pressed on. As if some helpless corner of his mind expected the beast to understand, “Please stop. Please.”
The bone in his forearm shattered under the weight of the animal's jaws, and a sudden, shocked wail dragged out of Isaac’s throat, high and agonized as black shapes began to ebb at the edges of his vision. The wet, black nose of the beast pressed under his jaw, and the hot scratch of the animal's tongue ran over his throat, before, mercifully, the darkness of unconsciousness overwhelmed Isaac, and he felt no more.
—————-
No one found Isaac.
There were no ambulances, no sirens, no small town heroes that came running to save Isaac from the teeth of the beast. Instead, when Isaac woke to the first rays of dawn, blood soaked and aching, the only indication that he'd been moved at all was a trail of blood that showed where the wolf had dragged his carcass away from the mouth of the alleyway. Back into the shadows.
He tried to breathe, but a mist of copper filled his lungs, and sent him into fits of frantic coughing. He rolled onto his side, and the combination of his hangover, and his savage animal attack unified into a surge of nauseous pain, that shot from the crown of his head right down into the pit of his stomach. Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, Isaac vomited copiously onto the pavement. Vomited until there was nothing else for him to bring up, until his throat felt swollen and raw and all he could do was dry heave.
On the upside, Isaac noticed (with no small amount of satisfaction) the absence of any blood in his vomit, and took this as a good enough omen to warrant dragging himself the rest of the way up to his feet. His chest was sticky with half dried blood, but although his body ached all over, there were no immediately apparent injuries that it could have come from. Bolstered by this discovery, Isaac took a careful, shallow breath, and decided to save himself the unnecessary expense of calling an ambulance. Instead, he began picking his way, painfully down the alleyway, and back towards his apartment.
It took him, perhaps another forty minutes of limping to get home, but once he arrived at the all night convenience store which his apartment was situated on top of, Isaac felt better. The taste of vomit was still clinging unkindly to his lips, and his head was still sore and foggy from how much he'd drunk the night before, but somehow... he did still feel better. The swelling in his throat had died down a little, and the ache that had been permeating his entire body when he woke up had almost entirely subsided.
Isaac showered, brushed his teeth, and climbed onto the bare mattress of his bed. His apartment was almost bare, but thanks to that, was almost tidy as well. He saved on washing his clothes, by having very few of them, and saved on cleaning how house, by owning almost nothing. He had two guitars propped up against the wall, a stack of vinyl records, pushed against a player in one corner, a small pile of clothes, his large, dirty bed, and a wireless landline phone, nestled comfortably on the bed beside him.
The very last thing that Isaac wanted, as his damp, aching bones sank into the mattress, was for that phone to ring. So of course, the phone rang. And, against all of his better judgement, Isaac smacked his hand uselessly around on the bed, until it landed on the phone, and he answered it with a wordless, unhappy sound.
“Mnnnghhh?”
“Isaac? Ohhh, someone sounds sleepy!”
“Mom?”
“Did I wake you up, cookie monster?”
“Mom why?”
“Did you forget that we were going to see grandma today?”
“No!” Yes. “I never forget grandma.” Isaac, had completely forgotten grandma.
“Then you'll be ready for me to come pick you up at ten then?”
Ten. Being picked up at ten might give him an hour and thirty minutes of sleep, before he'd have to leave the house again. He could work with ten.
“Of course I'll be ready mom.” Isaac promised, his face still half buried in his pillow, “Love you.”
“I love you too, Isaac.�
�
The phone clicked dead against his ear, and Isaac sighed contentedly, laying down the phone, and letting himself sink into the shallows of sleep.
Isaac's mom, as Tommy loved to remind him, was a pretty cool lady. She wasn't into punk, which made her decidedly less cool than Isaac, but she played Lou Reed in her car, and didn't even seem to particularly care if doing so made her cool or not, which made her super fucking cool. Also, Isaac was pretty confident that she loved him, even though he'd spent the first two decades of his life being a huge asshole, and had only redeemed himself into a dutiful son at the ripe old age of twenty three. That was pretty cool as well. He was still in bed when he heard the tell tale roar of her chevy pick-up outside, and he had to force himself up even as every single fibre of his being longed to stay down. He yanked on a pair of jeans, grabbed the top shirt from the shirt pile (a white vest with the Hole logo emblazoned across it) and straggled down to open his front door just as the phone started ringing again.
Sure enough, she was waiting at his front door, lingering gracefully at the very edge of her sixties, and dressed in a white blouse and considerably cleaner jeans than his.
“Well, look who's decided to join us today! You're looking rested.”
“Thanks,” Said Isaac, even though he was quietly certain that his Mom was just being polite, “You look nice too.”
In the truck, Lou Reed sang satellite of love, and Isaac looked out the window. It took them a little over fifty minutes to make it to the hospital, and perhaps another ten for his Mom to find a parking spot. They bought two lots of sandwiches in the hospital lobby, then walked up together, in silence, to see grandma.
Some Punk Rock Werewolf Romance in the Oklahoma Sun Page 1
