The Black Wolves of Boston (eARC)

by Wen Spencer

  The seagulls shrieked outside. He shuddered as it made him remember the screams of his classmates. The forensic photographs of kids he'd known all his life, torn open, torn apart.

  He flailed for something sane and logical and doable.

  "Clean house. Yeah, that's what I should do."

  * * *

  It was slightly ironic that his mother had a mild obsession with realty TV shows based on hoarding. She seemed to think that without periodic shocks to her system, she'd slide into such behavior. She'd watch an entire season on Friday nights and wake Saturday morning, gird her loins, and launch into frantic deep cleanings. Joshua had learned to maintain his room neat and orderly to keep the cleaning tornado at bay.

  Years of exposure to the TV shows had ingrained the process into him. Last night, they'd broken the OHIO rule of Only Handle It Once. All they'd done was simply shift the mess around; they hadn't actually done anything lasting with it. If he were going to tackle the entire house, he'd first need lots and lots of garbage bags.

  And a dumpster.

  His stomach growled loudly.

  And some food.

  * * *

  His parents had a strict rule: always leave a note on the refrigerator saying where you're going. Decker had a great deal of paper---swimming with it actually---but no workable pens, pencils, markers, crayons, or lipstick (Joshua was getting desperate for a writing tool). Joshua resorted to a lump of charcoal from the fireplace. Then he discovered that Decker had no refrigerator.

  Joshua stood staring at the large empty hole in the kitchen.

  On Hoarders, there was always a refrigerator. Scary-ass refrigerators filled with repulsive mystery food.

  Where the hell should he put the note if there was no refrigerator?

  If he had tape, he'd stick it to the back of the front door. He considered attempting to close it in the door, so Decker would see it sticking out. He abandoned this idea when he realized how many of the interior doors had scraps of paper caught between the door and the frame.

  Well, if he weren't back before Decker woke up (but he should be) then the vampire would probably check his room. It was very odd to think of the big empty room as "his" bedroom but Joshua had already slept there once and the vampire definitely gave it to him.

  That line of thinking veered Joshua too close to making him wonder about the actual sanity of staying with Decker. Really, he knew nothing about the man---vampire---person. But if Joshua left, where would he go? Where would he be safe from whoever sent the huntsman after him without endangering innocent people? The full moon was just days away...

  Right---deep clean the hoarder's house---a simple easy mind-numbing task. He was starting to understand his mother's obsession.

  * * *

  The only clear spot in Decker's house was the foyer table. (It was also one of three pieces of furniture in the entire house. Seriously? Eleven big rooms and the man only had one chair and two tables?) The night before, Decker had carefully put his phone in its charger by the front door. There was a post-it note on it stating: Let it die again and I will cut you!

  "Note to self," Joshua muttered. "Don't piss off Elise."

  Luckily Decker's phone wasn't password protected. Elise must have turned that feature off so not to confuse Decker. According to Google Maps, there were several supermarkets within a few blocks of his current location. Wherever that was. He zoomed out on the map. Cambridge. Harvard was just down the street! He sighed at dreams lost. He'd busted his butt for a year to score amazingly high on his SAT and ACT tests. Combined with his honor roll grades and the fact that he'd competed at state-level in Judo, his guidance counselor had said he'd probably qualify for a scholarship at any university. It was the only way he could have gone to college; his parents couldn't afford to pay for it.

  Harvard had been a dream; he could have only attended if he'd gotten a full scholarship. He doubted that he'd get one but he was going to give it his best shot. He also planned to apply to schools where the cost of living was lower. He wanted out of Sauquoit; away from the people that made growing up there hell. He wanted more than the hand-to-mouth existence of a minimum wage job. He wanted to be something that was guaranteed to make money. Accountant. Banker. Lawyer. Anything. Except a werewolf.

  Well, those dreams were all toast.

  Deep breathing always worked for dealing with the idiots that bullied him in school. It wasn't coping as well with a life going down in flames.

  He scrambled to think of the positives.

  He had no plans when he left home. He spent the entire train trip sure that he'd be sleeping on the street. He'd worried about wolfing out if someone tried to rob him or molest him, or arrest him. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He thought that he might freeze to death if the weather suddenly turned colder.

  Positive: he had a roof over his head. A massive bedroom with a tower. It could not get cooler. Well---a bed would be a plus---but Decker made it sound like he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted. The vampire had talked about painting the room any color Joshua liked.

  Vampire.

  He was living with a vampire.

  That still freaked him out.

  Deep breath.

  Positive: Decker seemed like a good person. A bit eccentric but that probably was a result of living for a long time. Decker had called the record player "a gramophone" at one point, which apparently had been the forerunner of the one they were using. He explained that gramophones had been hand-cranked since most houses didn't have electricity yet. It was amazing Decker understood the cell phone at all, considering that he was probably born before telephones were even invented. Before electricity was invented.

  Positive: Decker was fun to be around. He didn't seem ancient to Joshua. Decker didn't even seem as old as Joshua's parents; maybe because he looked only a few years older than Joshua. Hanging out with Decker was how Joshua hoped college life would be like. It turned out that Decker had actually read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. (Most "fans" Joshua's age hadn't.) Decker had also read Dune and all of Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury, and books that Joshua had never heard of but sounded interesting. They'd talked about the architecture of the house. Decker said it was a shingle-style which had been common in Cambridge and that it mimicked many of the details found in Queen Anne style. He knew what a gable was (the attic had two) and called the garage a carriage house.

  Joshua's stomach growled, reminding him that there was a reason he was looking up supermarkets on Decker's phone.

  Decker had dropped his house keys on to the table along with his wallet. The man had no ID, no credit cards, only a thick wad of fifties. Last night Decker had broken a fifty to cover Joshua's dinner. Somehow the vampire had burned through all of the change because there wasn't anything smaller in the wallet. It felt wrong to take a large bill without asking first. If there had been a couple of one-dollar bills, Joshua might have been able to take them without feeling guilty. He couldn't bring himself to take a fifty; it felt too much like stealing.

  He noticed that there were several ten-gallon milk cans on the floor, each filled to the brim with coins. One can was only half full. Decker had unloaded his spare change into a metal flower vase sitting on the table. It was approximately one-tenth the size of the big cans on the floor. Apparently when the vase hit full, Decker poured the coins into one of the milk cans.

  Joshua grinned. These were clearly hoarded coins. Something had to be done with them. He might as well start the process.

  * * *

  It rained the whole way to Star Market.

  Navigating via phone, Joshua ended up in the back alley behind the store. The block-long wall had been painted with a huge mural that depicted all the little shops that must have been torn down to build the massive grocery store. Very real windows were surrounded by fake old-fashioned buildings, painted people and flat 2-D animals. The area had once been very rural with cows and horses. Or at least, that's what the painting showed. Joshua stood in the rain and stare
d at the seemingly unending mural, feeling oddly removed from reality.

  Odder yet was the sudden realization that this painting of rural Cambridge depicted a time after Decker was born.

  Joshua wondered what had happened to his life. How did he fall so far from the sane and normal? What happened to his ordinary world? Becoming a werewolf was one thing---where were all these other weird things coming from? Vampires. Witches. Monsters. Why were they still just myths when they were real? He felt as unreal as the people painted onto the wall. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was really in a coma back in Utica and all this was some kind of drug-induced nightmare.

  He stalked around the corner to find the loading dock to Star Market. Down the block, and around the next corner he finally reached the front door, sopping wet.

  The coin machine was just beyond the carts. He stood dripping and sniffing as he poured the coins out of the metal vase. The place smelled amazing with hot roasted chicken, fresh baked bread, and donuts. He growled softly as the machine slowly clicked through counting the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. He was so hungry, his stomach felt like it was twisting into knots.

  The vase was nearly empty when he realized that the security guard was watching him intently.

  Did the guard think he'd stolen the money? Technically, he had, but he was fairly sure that Decker wouldn't mind. It wasn't like he'd stolen a large amount of cash.

  The coins stopped falling. He glanced at the total.

  Two hundred and forty dollars.

  Holy crap.

  "Is that a funeral urn?" the guard said.

  It took Joshua a moment to realize that the guard was talking to him. Only the words didn't make sense. Funeral urn? "W-w-what?"

  The guard pointed at the metal vase in Joshua's hands. "That's a funeral urn---isn't it? It looks like the one that my girlfriend's father is in."

  Of course Decker had a funeral urn sitting in his foyer. What else would a vampire keep coins in? A coffin would be too big.

  The guard was standing there, waiting for an answer.

  "I-I-I don't know. I just found it---sitting around---in the garage." Garages were full of weird stuff. They were almost as bad as attics and basements. "I thought it was a metal flower vase."

  "It's probably worth a couple hundred dollars," the guard said. "I saw on 'Antiques Roadshow' once a guy brought in a copper urn. There's a surprisingly large market for old funeral urns. Doesn't that beat all? I really don't understand it. I always thought it was a little creepy to have a dead family member sitting on the mantle. Especially when you're making out. I hide my girl's father in the closet; first thing I do when I get there. Last thing I do before I leave is put him back on the mantle."

  Joshua stared at the urn in horror. Was it a used urn? Had someone been dead inside it? His skin started to crawl with the need to wash his hands.

  The guard pointed at the coin machine. "You need to hit accept and get a receipt. You can either cash it out at the service desk or take it to one of the cashiers."

  Joshua stabbed the screen to get the receipt. Luckily there were sanitary wipes next to the cart rack and he could disinfect his hands immediately.

  From there he went straight to the Bath & Body aisle and found hand soap. His family always used unscented Dove because his older sister was allergic to everything. She'd moved out but they continued to buy it. He tossed shampoo, a comb, a toothbrush and toothpaste into his cart. What else did he need? Toilet paper was a must before last night's Chinese hit bottom.

  Cleaning supplies were next to the toilet paper. He grabbed the giant economy roll of garbage bags. He eyed the prices of brooms and mops with dismay. Those were going to have to wait for another coin run---and next time, no creepy urn.

  What else did he need? Stationery was beside the cleaning supplies, so he picked up a notebook and a pack of ballpoint pens.

  His stomach growled impatiently. It wanted food! A lot of it!

  There was a little cooking stand set up by the refrigerated section run by a young woman with dark purple hair. She was heating chunks of sausage links and setting them out on a plate with toothpicks in them. He'd eaten half before he could stop.

  The woman backed away from him, big brown doe eyes going wide. Her nametag read: Winnie. Her lipstick was as purple as her hair.

  Joshua blushed as he licked his greasy fingers. "I'm sorry. I didn't get breakfast."

  Her doe eyes went wider and she shook her head. "No, no, no, it's okay. You can have all of them. A hungry wolf is a dangerous wolf."

  "What?"

  Winnie's white cable sweater was too big for her and the sleeves covered half her hands. Her fingernails were the same bright purple as her lips as she caught herself just short of chewing on them. "Everyone knows it! It's like one of those Snickers commercials. You know 'when you're hungry you're not yourself?' Just eat them all. It will be safer for everyone if you do."

  He was still trying to process "Everyone knows" when he realized that he'd wolfed down the rest. "Who..." He nearly swallowed one of the toothpicks. He fished about in his mouth and discovered there were three total. He felt like he was doing the magic trick where the magician pulled endless bright colored scarfs out of his mouth---only with toothpicks. "Who is everyone?" He didn't know! How did everyone find out? Was there some secret meeting that he'd missed, like the one in school on puberty? He'd been sick that day and came back to find everyone looking bewildered but unable to explain. (Really, the human species was how old and that's the best that public schools could do?)

  "Everyone that knows about werewolves." She edged away from him. "See a wolf, feed a wolf. The safest way to go, to keep your fingers and toes; feed a hungry wolf Ho Hos."

  "You're kidding." He wondered which aisle Ho Hos were in. Back home they were with the baked goods in one store but with cookies in another.

  The squeak she made might have been "No."

  He tried another tack. "How do you know about werewolves?"

  "I'm a medium; I channel spirits. It's not as fun as it sounds. But anyone with a gift knows about the Prince of Boston and his family...or to be more exact, his lack thereof."

  "Huh?" Channeling spirits didn't sound fun to him. It sounded creepy. Did Decker say anything about the prince? They'd talked about a lot of things last night but very little had to do with werewolves. He'd mentioned his vision but had forgotten to explain exactly what the black wolf had said to him.

  "They're all dead," Winnie clarified. "That's why there's no wolves in Boston. Except you. Whoever you are. Who are you?"

  "I'm not sure any more." Joshua didn't want to tell Winnie his name; his parents probably had an Amber alert out on him or something.

  "Hm?" Winnie tilted her head, squinting slightly, as if listening intently. "Fred says you're one of the black wolves of Boston and that I shouldn't be afraid of you."

  "Fred?"

  She pointed upward. "Spirit guide."

  He glanced up. Something loomed over them. Tall and willowy, bending to fit under the high warehouse ceiling. It was dark yet insubstantial, less like a shadow and more like the absence of light. He leapt backwards, snarling.

  "It's just Fred!" Winnie cried. "He's my spirit guide! He won't hurt you. Here. Have more sausage." She chopped off big slices of the sausage, stabbed toothpicks into them and shoved them uncooked toward him. "Sorry. Most people can't see him. Wolves can. I forgot."

  Joshua couldn't resist the allure of the meat. Still growling, he darted forward and stuffed the offered slices into his mouth. Fred smelled of fresh dirt and earthworms. The scent reminded Joshua of an open grave and it raised the hair on the back of his neck.

  He'd eaten three big slices of uncooked sausage before he thought to ask if they were safe to eat raw.

  Winnie held up the package and pointed to the label. "They're organic fully cooked sweet apple chicken sausage. They contain only hand trimmed, fully cooked, uncured premium organic cuts and organic spices. These sweet apple sausages add t
he subtle flavor of apple and spices to your favorite meal."

  "Is that your sales pitch?"

  She squeaked, dropped the package. "Yes."

  He felt guilty for scaring her and a little mind-boggled too. Him? Scary? All five foot two and a hundred twenty pounds? One of the reasons he always got bullied---despite the fact that he could beat the snot out of most guys---was the fact he couldn't look intimidating even when he tried. It was like he had a giant neon sign over his head that read: harmless dork please kick me.

  Even spirit guides could read the sign. "Fred said I was harmless."

  "No, no, he didn't say you were harmless." She waved her hands as if to ward off an attack. "He said I shouldn't be afraid of you. That's not the same. You have to be careful with spirit guides. They mean exactly what they mean and nothing else."

  "So he might actually be warning you that I might wolf out on you if you're afraid?"

  "Yes!" She smiled brightly. The smile wavered as she parsed the statement more. "Have more sausage!"

  He ate the offered slices, growing aware that he'd gobbled down two full packages. He was in the process of cleaning her out of samples. "Won't you get in trouble if you let one person eat them all?"

  Winnie opened another package. "I'm not liking this job as much as I thought. It seemed so simple. Cook yummy chicken sausages and get people to try it so they'll want to buy it. It's kind of a captive audience. People are here to buy food! Most of them are hungry. But it's really strange and boring."

  "Strange?" Werewolf strange?

  "Everyone keeps saying the same thing! 'Where's the pancakes?' Seriously. Even the people who are vegans say it. I'm starting to think there's some evil spirits involved. Like all those chickens aren't happy with me. But that's probably the lithium."

  If it wasn't for the looming shadow, he'd think she was just a little crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. Considering his life lately, though, she was par for the course.

  "I take it to inhibit my powers," Winnie said. "Lithium that is. Fred hates it. I don't like it. Makes me drink like a horse and that means I have to go pee constantly. Wait. It's eat like a horse. Drink like a fish." She wrinkled her nose. "That makes me sound like a drunk. I'm not sure why you only mean 'booze' when you say that. Fish are in water."