The Pack

by Jason Starr

  Jeremy let out his loudest wail, “Daddeeeeeee,” just as the doors closed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Walking uptown on Madison Avenue, Olivia called Diane and said, “I have some big news,” and Diane said, “Me too.”

  “Really?” Had Diane’s guy, Ramon, bitten her? Was she a wolf too? “Now we have to meet.”

  “But I’m on my way to see Ramon,” Diane said.

  “You don’t understand, I have to see you right now. Where are you?”

  Diane was just leaving work in midtown but agreed to meet Olivia for a quick drink at Brasserie, a bar/restaurant they sometimes met up at on Fifty-third Street near Park Avenue.

  The host, a young blond guy, asked, “How many?”

  She’d seen the guy there before but had never really noticed how incredibly cute he was. Eyeing him up and down, Olivia said, “One’s enough for me.” Then she spotted Diane waving to her from the bar and rushed over to her.

  Olivia couldn’t tell if Diane was a wolf as well, but she looked a hell of a lot happier than she’d ever looked before.

  Olivia hugged her hello—squeezing her much tighter than she’d intended—and didn’t let go until Diane said, “Ow, you’re hurting me.”

  “Sorry,” Olivia said. Then, checking the host out again, she added, “I want that guy.”

  “He could be your son,” Diane said.

  “Who cares about age?” Olivia said. “I just want his body.”

  “Okay, Demi,” Diane said.

  Olivia got the Demi Moore reference, but she didn’t smile. She stared at the guy until he looked at her for a moment, and then he turned away quickly. Olivia had to work on this; whatever vibe she was sending out definitely wasn’t helping her get laid.

  “So,” Diane said. “What’s this big news you wanted to discuss? Ramon’s waiting for me at his place.”

  “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Olivia said. “How’re things, um, going with him?”

  “Amazingly well,” Diane said, “and I owe it all to you. He’s just so incredibly passionate, you know? He makes me feel so good, so wanted. I know I might be acting crazy, maybe I’m just rebounding from Steve, but I don’t think so. I think we really have a real connection. I don’t know where these guys’ve been hiding, but we’re lucky we found them, right?”

  Olivia was shifting her jaw around. After those wolf teeth receded her mouth had hurt like hell, and it still ached a little. But what was she supposed to do, call her dentist? Her dentist would say, “What seems to be the problem?” and she’d go, “I turned into a werewolf yesterday.” Yeah, that would go over well.

  “What’s wrong with your mouth?” Diane asked.

  “You mean it didn’t happen to you yet?”

  “What didn’t happen?”

  “He didn’t bite you yet?”

  “Bite me?”

  “When you were having sex.”

  “Well, he kisses me really intensely, but I wouldn’t call it biting.”

  “I mean did he bite your neck?”

  “Like a hickey?”

  “No, like an actual bite.”

  Olivia reached out and moved the hair away from Diane’s neck but didn’t see a bite mark.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Maybe it healed already,” Olivia said. “He said it heals quickly. See? Mine is already gone and last night his teeth were deep inside me.”

  “Wait,” Diane said. “Is this really why you wanted me to come meet you now? To talk about biting? When you called and said you had big news, I thought it was something dramatic. I thought you were pregnant or got engaged or something major happened at work. Didn’t you meet with that big Japanese client today?”

  “You mean you don’t notice any weird physical changes?” Olivia said. “You’re not faster and stronger and hairier? You don’t crave meat and want to have sex all the time?”

  “Hairier?” Diane asked.

  “Oh.” Olivia thought. “I just assumed since Ramon and Michael are friends and they act like they’re from the same, well, tribe or whatever . . . I just thought he must’ve made you into a . . . never mind.”

  “Never mind what?” Diane said. “Please . . . just tell me what this is all about.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Olivia said. “I didn’t believe it myself at first. I thought Michael was just screwing with me, playing head games. But then I experienced it myself and it’s amazing, it’s empowering. You have to feel it for yourself.”

  “Seriously, are you feeling okay?”

  “I know,” Olivia said with renewed excitement. “Let’s go to the ladies’ room. I’ll bite you there.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t believe me about Michael, and then you met Ramon and you saw how amazing these guys are, right? So trust me with this too.... I promise it’ll only hurt for a few seconds. You might black out for a while, but I’ll take care of you, I promise. And when you wake up you won’t believe how great you feel.”

  “I’m sorry,” Diane said. She reached into her purse for a twentydollar bill and then put it on the bar. “Ramon’s waiting for me, and I don’t know what’s going on, if this is some kind of joke or something, but this is getting a little too weird for me.”

  Suddenly craving the taste of meat, of raw human flesh, Olivia said, “You have to let me do this to you.” Olivia grabbed Diane’s hand, lifted her arm up to mouth level, then opened her mouth wide and closed her eyes, wanting to savor the taste of her flesh. She was about to clamp down when at the last moment Diane jerked her arm free and said, “Are you completely insane?”

  “Don’t worry, I told you . . . the wound heals.”

  “You’re seriously scaring me now.”

  “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

  “Just stop it, okay?”

  “You don’t understand. Before I went up to a bunch of guys at a construction site, you know, the type of guys who shout vile things at women, make them cower away in shame? Well, I used to be one of those women, I used to be a victim, but not anymore. Today I went up to the guys, right up to their faces, and took control, and they were afraid of me. You know how great that felt? It felt incredible, and you can feel it too if you just let me do this.” Olivia grabbed Diane’s arm and tried to bite Diane again, but her teeth only grazed her skin.

  Diane broke free and left the restaurant.

  Olivia followed her onto Fifty-third Street, saying, “Come on, you have no idea how great it feels to be a werewolf.”

  Diane’s eyes widened. She said, “Okay, you’re officially insane. You need help.”

  Olivia grabbed Diane’s handbag from behind and pulled harder than she’d intended. Diane stumbled on her heels and fell onto the sidewalk on her side. People rushed over to help. She had a gash on her cheek. Seeing the blood made Olivia want her even more.

  An older man was kneeling next to Diane, saying, “Are you okay, miss?”

  Olivia shoved the man out of the way and licked Diane’s wound. It was the most delicious taste in the world. She couldn’t get enough of it.

  “Please, just stay still,” Olivia said.

  Then Diane shoved her away and said, “Get the hell away from me, you crazy bitch!”

  People were glaring at Olivia, and instinct kicked in—she was in danger, she had to flee—and she rushed away toward Lexington Avenue.

  “Am I going to see Daddy tomorrow?” Jeremy asked.

  In the middle of the Radisson’s king-size bed, he looked so tiny and vulnerable, clutching Sam, his favorite stuffed bear, with the blanket pulled up to his chin.

  “I’m not sure, sweetie,” Alison said.

  “Why not?” he persisted.

  “Please just go to sleep now, okay?”

  “But when am I going to see Daddy?”

  “You just need to go to sleep, sweetie.”

  But Jeremy wouldn’t go to sleep. He continued to ask about Simon until he
realized he wasn’t going to get a definitive answer; then he asked to go to the bathroom, and then he complained that he was hungry and thirsty and wasn’t tired and that he was afraid there were bugs in his bed. It was almost like he had a list of things to ask for that would keep him awake as long as possible. Bugs, check; water, check; hugs and kisses, check. Alison was patient at first, but when it was nine o’clock and she’d put him to bed almost an hour ago and he was still awake, she couldn’t stop herself from snapping at him and finally warning him that if he didn’t fall asleep in five minutes she was going to take away Sam. Of course, that just made things worse, and Jeremy didn’t cry himself to sleep until almost ten.

  Alison felt guilty for raising her voice with Jeremy. She knew it was just the frustrations of this whole crazy day getting to her, but she also knew that was no excuse. Jeremy was already sad and confused, and she’d only made things worse.

  She normally didn’t drink hard liquor, but she needed something to calm herself down, so she went to the mini bar and poured out a little bottle of gin and mixed it with tonic. She drank most of it in one gulp and had the rest in the second gulp. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but she already felt more relaxed, a little less out of control anyway. What the hell? She opened another little bottle and poured a second glass.

  She had a lot on her mind—like trying to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life—but she was mainly still trying to absorb the scene with Simon in the lobby earlier. What with all his erratic, eccentric behavior lately, she thought he’d gone as far as he could possibly go and he was finally ready to come back to earth, admit he was ready to deal with his problems, and then what does he do? He announces he’s a werewolf. And the craziest part was that Simon hadn’t seemed very crazy at all. He’d seemed sincere and rational and actually believed everything he was saying, the way a mental patient believes that he isn’t mentally ill.

  After knocking back the second drink, Alison felt rejuvenated, or at least determined to make some sense out of all of Simon’s craziness—if not to help him, then at least to help herself. She went online on her laptop and Googled:my husband thinks he’s a werewolf

  God bless the Internet. Just when you’re at your lowest point, when you feel completely isolated and alone in the world and think no one could possibly be going through what you’re going through, you can instantly find a community of co-sufferers. It turned out she wasn’t the only wife who believed her husband was a werewolf. On various message boards and websites, women reported husbands who believed they were turning into werewolves, and there was even an account of one husband who’d begged his wife to have him arrested so he wouldn’t hurt anyone. Okay, so some of the women posting seemed as crazy as their allegedly crazy husbands, but reading their posts was still reassuring.

  Then Alison stumbled upon a search result that really got her attention. There was an actual psychological condition called lycanthropic disorder, in which a person had delusions of being a werewolf. One sufferer in northern England was so convinced that he was a werewolf that he’d developed actual wolflike features, including protruding teeth and—here was the big one—increased hair growth. Alison was buzzed, not only from the alcohol working its way through her bloodstream, but because she was convinced that she’d finally hit on the true source of Simon’s problems, and she believed that with the right treatment he could be cured, or at least stabilized, and all of this craziness was temporary. Maybe she could find a psychiatrist, an expert in the field, and Simon could get the help he needed.

  The drinks suddenly hit with full force; in an instant Alison went from pleasantly buzzed to verging on drunk. She couldn’t focus on the Internet search results anymore. She got into bed with Jeremy, who was sleeping soundly but still frowning, and his pillow was moist with tears. Alison snuggled next to him and whispered, “I’m sorry, sweetie. Mommy loves you so, so much.” She kissed him lightly on the forehead, but he remained fast asleep and didn’t even stir.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Simon wanted to go after Alison and beg her to understand and to support him and to move back home, but he knew he was better off letting her go. She obviously thought he was insane, and could he really blame her? If the situation were reversed and she came to him with some story of how she had been turned into a werewolf, he’d probably do exactly what she’d done—tell her she was crazy and try to keep Jeremy as far away from her as possible.

  So Simon left the hotel and headed back through the park toward the West Side. It was nearing dusk and there was a cool steady breeze. If it weren’t for the way he felt, he would have thought he was crazy as well, but he knew that something beyond him had taken control of his body and the old Simon Burns was merely a passive observer.

  Surrounded by all the trees and breathing in the fresher park air, he couldn’t resist breaking into a full sprint. He ran along a path for a while, then veered into the Ramble, the woodsy and hilly area in the middle of the park, jumping over fallen branches and dodging trees effortlessly. His sense of smell seemed even more powerful, and although he was running randomly in every which direction, he always knew exactly where he was because he could orient himself by the smell of the algae on the lake and food odors wafting over from the Boathouse restaurant hundreds of yards away. He could also smell people and knew instinctively how to avoid them.

  After running around for maybe a couple of hours, maybe longer, he continued to his apartment on West Eighty-ninth. It seemed noticeably quiet and bleak without his family there. His eyes welled up when he passed Jeremy’s room and imagined him sitting on the floor, playing. Making it worse, he could smell Jeremy so distinctly, and Alison’s scent was everywhere as well.

  Simon took off his shirt and stared at the full-length mirror, shocked by how hairy he was. Maybe he’d been oblivious lately, or just plain ignorant, because he looked hairier than those Russian guys in the Coney Island Polar Bear Club who went swimming in the ocean in midwinter. He shuddered, the way you shudder when you remember that a loved one has died, as he thought, This is real. The entire day, since he’d spoken to Volker, he’d been so absorbed in worrying about finding Alison and Jeremy and trying to save his marriage that he hadn’t fully realized the enormity of what had happened to him. This wasn’t just about feeling great when he was running in the woods and having increased sensory perception. He’d actually changed, transformed somehow. Worse, it meant that his memories of killing Tom weren’t just fantasies. He had actually murdered someone.

  Looking in the mirror, Simon had no idea who this man was, but he wasn’t Simon Burns.

  He went into the bathroom, splashed warm water on his chest, and then spread on some shaving gel and started to frantically shave. He did it haphazardly, hating this person or thing he’d become, just wanting to get this hair off his body, to be his old self again. The razor quickly became clogged with hair, and he rinsed it and continued shaving, occasionally pushing down too hard and at the wrong angle and cutting himself, but not stopping. If anything he was getting more frantic, as he just wanted this hair off his body as fast as possible.

  After about ten minutes, he’d shaved most of his chest. There were several cuts oozing blood, but he didn’t bother to do anything about them. He shaved his shoulders and as much of his back as he could reach, cutting himself a few more times, and finally stopped, realizing how pointless this all was. His problems couldn’t be resolved with a razor.

  Or could they?

  Maybe slitting his throat would be the best solution of all. Or taking pills, or taking a bath with the hair dryer, or jumping out the window. Even if what Volker had told him was true, and he really was only a temporary wolf and would revert to a normal human being if he wasn’t bitten, would that really resolve his problems? He was a murderer, and that would never change. It seemed like it was only a matter of time until the police found the missing shoe, or another witness, or some evidence that proved he was at Tom’s house that night. And even if the police were never
able to connect him to the murder, how was he supposed to live with the guilt? Every day, for the rest of his life, he’d be haunted by his memories and have to live with the knowledge that he hadn’t just ended Tom’s life, but had ruined the lives of everyone in his family. And what about Alan Freedman and his wife? Simon might have been indirectly responsible for their deaths as well.

  Simon might as well have been in a prison cell right then, because he already felt like he was in a virtual cage that was going to keep him confined for the rest of his life. There was no doubt about it—he was a horrible, dangerous person, and everyone would be better off with him dead.

  Then he thought, Why not just get it over with? Trying to kill himself with a Gillette Mach 3 razor probably wouldn’t work, but sleeping pills would.

  His heart pounding, he dumped an entire bottle of Ambien into his palm. He was about to swallow all the pills at once when he thought about his family. He couldn’t kill himself in the apartment—that would be too traumatic for Alison and Jeremy, and the last thing he wanted to do was to hurt them more than he already had. He’d jump—not from the building, from the Brooklyn Bridge. Nowadays there were cameras everywhere there and the cops might try to stop him, but if he moved quickly enough he could simply walk along one of the steel crossbeams to the edge of the bridge and fall swiftly to his death.

  He got dressed again, figuring he’d just run downtown to the bridge and get it over with already. Within a half hour his misery would be over.

  He left the apartment. On his way out of the building he said good-bye to James, the doorman.

  “I just want to thank you for everything,” Simon said.

  “You going away somewhere?” James asked.

  “Yeah,” Simon said, and left the building.

  He sprinted downtown on Columbus Avenue with the wind against his face, imagining how the wind would feel when he was falling to his death, soaring toward the dark river. Maybe he’d die before he hit the water, but he hoped he wouldn’t. He deserved that final surge of pain.