by Amy Cross
"You should go and help her," Duncan replies.
"Yeah," I say, turning and walking out of the shop. As I'm heading out the door, I glance back, hoping to catch Duncan's eye one more time, but he's already disappearing into the back room. I guess we had a fun little chat, but he didn't seem particularly interested in me; it's not like he asked for my number or email address, or anything like that. Shame, really, but I guess I can always come back another night and try again. After all, I end up walking home late a couple of times every week.
Once I'm outside, I find Hazel is back on her feet, wiping her mouth on the hem of her dress. It looks like she's passed through the euphoria stage of being drunk and is now rapidly becoming a slurring mess.
"What took you so long?" she asks, leaning against the wall, barely able to focus her eyes on me.
"I was talking to the guy behind the counter," I say, feeling slightly wistful that I couldn't stay in there longer. Then again, if I'd hung around for too long, he probably would have thought I was desperate. I am desperate, but I like to disguise that fact as much as possible.
"Is he hot?" Hazel asks. She tries to push past me. "I'll go and see."
"No, you won't!" I say, grabbing her arm and pulling her along the street after me. There's no way I'm letting Hazel go in and meet Duncan. For one thing, she's drunk and she'd probably just embarrass both of us; for another, Duncan seemed nice but you never know, he might turn out to be a sleaze after all, and I really don't want Hazel going home with him, not when I saw him first. "We've got to get home," I say as Hazel and I keep walking. She seems to have forgotten all about Duncan now, focusing instead on trying not to fall over.
"Full moon," she mutters, looking up as we reach the front door of my little apartment.
"I know," I say, fumbling in my pocket for my key. "Cool, huh?" I find the key and unlock the door.
"I need to sleep at your place, is that okay?" Hazel asks, blundering inside before I have a chance to say anything.
"Yeah," I say, stepping in and turning to shut the door, I look up at the full moon again. It's strange, but I really feel like I've forgotten something important. For a moment, staring up at the moon, I'm overcome by this feeling of... I don't know how to describe it, exactly, but it's like... strength. It only lasts a couple of seconds, though, and then I'm back to feeling drunk and tired. I shut the door and head through to find Hazel. It's funny how strange the moon can make you feel sometimes.
Jess
Saturday
"So you're a cub?" asks the police officer, looking at me as if he doesn't believe me. It's quite clear that he's taken an instant dislike to me. He can probably smell the alcohol on my breath.
"A what?" ask. It's just after lunchtime on a bright Saturday morning and I'm hungover. Hazel's back at my apartment, probably still fast asleep, whereas I'm standing at the edge of the local park, trying to persuade this overly officious idiot to let me get past the police cordon. He doesn't seem to understand that I'm not some morbidly curious member of the public; I'm a journalist.
"A cub reporter," he says. "Fucking hell, you kids don't even know the language of journalism, do you? How do you reckon you're gonna make a success of yourself if you don't even know what basic words mean?"
I open my mouth, ready to tell him to fuck off.
"It's okay," shouts a voice from nearby. "Let her in!" DC Stuart Alexander, who I've met on a few other occasions, comes strolling over. "She's from the local paper," he says, smiling at me. "Jess and I have met before."
The police officer gets out of my way and I step through the gate, into the park. "Thanks," I say sarcastically.
"Just doing my job," he says, getting back in position. No apology, no promise to be nice next time.
"Asshole," I mutter under my breath.
"Sorry about that," Stuart says, leading me along a gravel path that winds through the trees. "We do have to be careful who comes in during our investigations, though. Can't have any old bugger just wandering around a crime scene. Don't you have a press ID card?"
"I forgot it," I say. To be honest, my head is pounding, I feel nauseous, and it's a miracle I'm here at all. I was supposed to have Saturday off, but my editor phoned this morning and I made the mistake of answering. He told me there was a dead body in the park and I had to get down and cover it. Before I could argue with him, I'd hung up. I had no choice but to come down here: lose my job at the local paper, and I lose my one slight chance of ever getting out of this town.
"I'm surprised they sent you," Stuart says, as we keep walking. "No offense, but a story like this, I'd have thought they'd send someone a little more experienced."
"I guess everyone else is busy," I say. After all, it's Saturday: the editor's probably having a day off, and the sub is probably out photographing some stupid little fete or local sporting event. It's not like the local paper has an army of reporters. There are only three of us, and I guess being at the bottom of the pile still leaves me third in command.
"Are you okay?" he asks, stopping and turning to me. "You look a little pale."
I sigh. "I'm slightly hungover," I say. He laughs. "Only slightly!" I insist. "Just a few drinks last night. I was supposed to have today off." I immediately realize it was a mistake to admit all this to him. "Don't tell anyone," I add. "Please!"
"They won't hear anything from me," Stuart says, as we start walking again. "I wouldn't want to get you fired, would I?"
"Thanks," I say as we emerge into a small clearing. Several police officers are at work, and there's a small white temporary tent nearby which can mean only one thing: a body. A little further away, there's another tent; further still, there's a third. Three bodies? I turn to Stuart, shocked. "So what happened?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," he says. "Officially, we're investigating a fatal attack in the park. That's the line we're giving to the press, and that's the line you're going to report." He stares at me. "You understand?"
"Sure," I say.
"Don't you need to write something down?" he asks.
I tap the side of my head. "I keep it all up here," I say, trying to cover for the fact that I forgot my notebook and my pens.
"Okay," he says, smiling. "I can't work out if that makes you really really good at your job or really really -"
"The first one," I say. "So what happened here?" I'm trying to distract him by asking questions and getting to the heart of the matter. "Off the record, obviously."
"Off the record," he says, pausing for a moment, "we don't have a clue what happened, but we don't like what we're seeing so far."
"Who were the victims?" I ask as we walk towards the nearest tent.
"You mean victim," Stuart says. "Just the one."
I frown. "But there are three tents."
"Torso," he says, pointing at the tent we've reached. He points over at the next tent. "Head and neck." Finally he points over at third tent. "Limbs and lower part of the torso."
I swallow hard. "So someone got pulled apart?" I suddenly have a really strong and overwhelming desire to not go inside those tents. I don't think my hungover state could deal with seeing something that might be so hideous. "Or was it some kind of ritual?"
"They got pulled apart, alright," Stuart says. "There are even a couple of bits missing. We're still waiting for an expert to arrive, but so far it looks like... Well, it looks like maybe an animal did it. There seem to be gnaw marks on some of the bones, and I'm fairly sure parts of the body have been eaten."
"Seriously?" I ask, shocked. "What the hell kind of animal could do this? All we have around here are squirrels and hedgehogs."
"Foxes," Stuart replies. "Badgers. Dogs."
"None of those would do this, would they?" I ask.
He shrugs. "Dunno. That's why we need the experts. But there's something else." He pauses, as if he's not sure for a moment whether he should be telling me so much. "Listen, Jess," he says, taking me aside for a moment, "I'm only going to tell you this because I t
hink maybe you can help me figure out what's going on. You're smart, I've seen that, but if you breathe a word of this to anyone, I'll make sure you never get press accreditation again, okay?"
"Okay," I say, starting to get a little worried. Around here, we never have big stories, so it's kind of intimidating to find myself in the middle of an actual murder investigation. I can't deny, also, that I'm slightly excited; I mean, a story like this could really help my career, maybe even get me noticed by one of the big national newspapers in London.
"This isn't the first time this has happened," Stuart says.
"It's not?" I ask.
"I've been liaising with investigators over in East Yorkshire. They've seen two cases like this in the past month, and all their inquiries point to..." He pauses. "I'm not an idiot, Jess. I'm a rational man, which is why I don't believe their conclusions, but I can't dismiss their evidence either. They believe that there's some proof linking certain deaths in the area to wolves."
I feel a cold shiver run through my body. "There aren't wolves around here," I say.
"Exactly," Stuart says, "but -" He suddenly looks up as a police officer comes over. "What's up?" Stuart asks, apparently trying to make it seem like he and I weren't talking about anything important.
"We've found something on the body," the officer says. "You'd better come and see for yourself."
"Okay," Stuart says, turning to me. "You want to see? Off the record, obviously."
"Sure," I say, and I follow him over to one of tents. Suddenly it occurs to me that, for the first time in my life, I'm about to see a dead body. Not just any dead body, either, but a body that's apparently been ripped apart by some kind of wolf-like creature. It's an interesting opportunity, but it's also not really what I need when I'm still dealing with a hangover.
"You sure about this?" Stuart asks. "You don't look too well."
"I'm fine!" I say, as he hands me a small face-mask. "What's this for?"
"The smell," he replies, putting his own face-mask on.
"Oh," I say, feeling even more reluctant to go into the tent.
"Relax," Stuart says, "you don't have to come in with me. Just wait out here."
"No!" I say, putting my face-mask on. "I'm ready. Let's do this." I can only hope that I won't take one look inside and run back out to throw up.
"I'm serious," Stuart says. "This isn't a joke. I shouldn't even be letting you in here, and I've seen hardened, experienced officers suffer nausea and even permanent psychological problems as a result of seeing victims of attacks like this. If you think for even a second that you might not -"
"It's fine," I say firmly, pushing past him and entering the tent. "I can -" I stop dead as I see the human remains on the ground. The tent has no floor, having simply been erected around the body parts in order to protect them, and the sight before me is horrific and visceral. There's just a human head, with part of the neck attached and a section of spinal column dangling from the wound. It looks like the victim was a girl, fairly young, and she has a strangely peaceful expression on her face. Nearby, there's a severed hand.
"See?" Stuart says, standing next to me. "We don't have an identity for her yet, but we estimate her age to have been between twenty and twenty-five. There are no missing persons reports so far that match the victim, but we're working on that.
"There's not much blood," I say, struggling to find something to say.
"We noticed that too," Stuart says, "and frankly, it's got us a little baffled. Obviously the girl had blood, so the fact that it's not here suggests it was removed somehow. Either in a container, or perhaps the killer - or killers - consumed it."
"Consumed it?" I ask.
"There's evidence of body parts having been consumed," he continues. "We have to consider the possibility that she was killed by a creature that wanted her blood. If it was a wild animal, we have to ask why it would kill her but not eat any parts of her body. It must have had a motive. But that's for the experts to deal with. They're on their way. For now, we just have this young girl, her body ripped apart and spread across the forest floor, her blood almost entirely removed, and her remains left in the open for anyone to find. There was certainly no attempt made to cover the body up or bury it. Whoever or whatever did this, they didn't care whether we found the remains or not."
I step a little closer. The girl's face is haunting: rather than screaming, she looks as if she's just looking straight ahead, with a curious smile on her lips.
"I'm impressed," Stuart continues. "Most people, even police officers, would have found this to be too much to look at."
"What makes you think it was a wolf?" I ask, my mind racing. I feel like I should know more about this case than I do. Whatever's going on, it feels like I've seen something like this before, even though I'm pretty sure that's not the case at all.
"Well," he says, seeming a little awkward, "I need to explain that to you in full. Maybe we can go somewhere later and have a chat? I really need to explain why I need your help on this case."
"My help?" I ask.
"Yeah," he says, smiling a little. "I need your help, Jess."
"I'm a reporter," I say. "I just report on what you guys do."
"Except we guys are stumped, and I think you might be able to help us." At that moment, one of his colleagues enters the tent and walks over to the head. "What have you got for us, Mike?" Stuart asks.
"See here?" Mike says, pointing at part of the spinal column. "I've just confirmed it. Without a doubt, those are the tooth marks of a wolf."
"Good work," Stuart says. "When are the team from Yorkshire getting here?"
"Another couple of hours," Mike says.
"Let me know when they arrive," Stuart replies. "I need to go and talk to Jess about something."
Mike looks up at us, and I can see the suspicion in his eyes. "Sir, with all due respect..." He leaves the sentence hanging, but I can tell from the look on his face that he doesn't approve of the fact that I've been given so much access.
"Relax," Stuart says, "I know what I'm doing. I'm not an idiot." He turns to me. "Come on," he says. "I'll fill you in on the details."
Half an hour later, Stuart and I are sitting in a small pub near the park. I'm a little surprised to see that he's ordered a pint of beer, considering it's only just gone midday, but I guess that rule about not drinking on the job can be waived occasionally. For my part, I've still got a splitting hangover so I decide to have the strongest coffee imaginable. It's quite obvious that Stuart is nervous, and that he wants to say something but he can't quite get it out of his mouth. I'm pretty intrigued, since I don't buy the explanation he gave about why he'd invited me into the tent. I'm a wannabe journalist working for a hack local paper; there's got to be a reason why Stuart broke official protocol to bring me into the case.
"Good coffee?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say, smiling. Stuart's in his forties, but he's not unattractive. "Good beer?"
He laughs as he takes a sip. "What do you think about the supernatural?" he asks.
I stare at him. "You mean like ghosts and stuff?"
"Ghosts," he says, nodding, "and other things. Creatures that really shouldn't exist, but... they just do, anyway. Or at least, people claim to have seen them." He pauses. "Have you ever seen anything that might be considered paranormal in origin?"
"Me?" I ask. "No. Nothing." It's true. When I was a kid, I always wanted to see ghosts or monsters, but I was never lucky. Over time, I just assumed that none of that stuff exists. I mean, after all this time, wouldn't someone have managed to get a convincing photo of one of these things?
"Me neither," he says. He seems lost in thought for a moment. "That's not quite true." He pauses. "I'm a police officer. I have a reputation, and I have to retain the respect of the people I work with. That's why I wanted to talk to you."
I smile. "Because you don't care about my respect?"
"Because I need to talk to someone," he says earnestly. "We've met a few times, Jess, and I really
felt a connection with you. I felt like maybe we could talk on the level, but off the record, if you know what I mean?"
"Sure," I say, though in truth I'm feeling a little creeped out. Sure, I've met Stuart a few times, but I've never felt we had any kind of 'connection'. I guess it's all in his head, though, which is... flattering. "But I really don't have any experience with this kind of thing." I pause, lost for words. I still don't quite understand why he's brought me here, because so far all he's done is danced around the issues. "What I -"
"I get it," he says, interrupting me. "I mean, it seems crazy. But here's the thing." He takes a deep breath. "The girl whose body we saw earlier. It's my honest opinion that she was killed by a werewolf."
I stare at him. At first, I'm expecting him to start laughing, but then I realize - gradually - that he's serious. He really does think she was killed by a werewolf. "Like..." I start to say, but even the thought of saying the words seems silly. "Like a person... who can turn into a wolf?"
He nods. "I know it sounds ridiculous, which is why I can't talk about it to any of my colleagues. They'd laugh me out of the police force. But the few times I've met you, Jess, I've felt that we're somehow... on the same wavelength. I know it probably sounds crazy, but the moment I saw that girl's body this morning, I immediately knew it was a werewolf and I immediately knew that I had to talk to you about it. Is that weird?"
"Er..." I pause. "No?" I say. "I mean, well... kind of..." I look down at my coffee. Is this the weirdest attempt to chat me up ever, or does he really believe all of this stuff? Werewolves aren't real. If werewolves existed, I'm pretty sure they'd have been discovered by now. There'd be werewolves on TV, and werewolves acting in films, and famous werewolves, and everyone would generally know. The world has been flattened out over the past few years; there's no room for secret species to exist in the shadows.
"You think I'm mad," Stuart says.
"No," I say. "I just... werewolves?"
"Like I said," he continues, with obvious enthusiasm, "there's a team coming today from East Yorkshire. They think the same person who killed two people over there is responsible for the murder of the girl in the park today. They've got various items of evidence that suggest - very strongly, in my opinion - that a werewolf is responsible for the first two deaths. Now, they dismiss that evidence as garbage, because the idea of a werewolf is too bizarre for them to consider. Instead, they're spending their time trying to come up with some other explanation. But the truth is, if you accept that a werewolf was responsible, everything fits into place. Everything makes sense. It's like... It's like suddenly all your ducks are in a row."
