Uncle Jack shook his head, his eyes now drooping off into oncoming sleep. The sound of the bedroom door opening caused them all to turn their heads. Kate’s eyes met her patient’s as she walked into the room. She spoke in a soft tone.
“You’re going to have to let him rest now. He’ll probably want to see you all later.”
“I agree,” Susan said, rising from her chair along with the others.
Brett felt Susan’s hand on his shoulder as he’d been the last to rise from his chair.
“This has taken a great deal of strength from him, Brett,” she said. “Let’s let him rest.”
Kate stayed behind with Jack while he slept. She’d been checking his blood pressure as they left the bedroom.
Brett led the team down the stairs and around to the back of the house. He opened a back door that stepped out onto a large patio enclosure, complete with buffet-style set picnic tables with rounded candle shades for nighttime lighting. The immense backyard view was of richly green acres sprawled beneath rolling hills that made a ridge across the horizon. The view of the skyline was breathtaking.
Susan said as much, and they all agreed, attempting to segue from the somber story they’d just been told; the details of which, Brett could not dismiss from his mind. The sound of small talk floating around him sounded much like screeching fingernails on a chalkboard.
“I’ve got to find out more about him,” he said. “Antonio, I mean. There has to be so much more to this story than Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv ever knew. I have to find out more.
“I have to know where I come from, and where I’m going. I have to discover my destiny. If Claudia wasn’t like me, then was Antonio? Uncle Jack said it must’ve come from his side of my genetic makeup. If Antonio is like me, then he has to know more about what I am.”
Susan interrupted Brett before he began to ramble.
“I agree, Brett,” she said. “You should know everything. But first, let’s discuss this rationally before we go flying off on any excursions. If you want to talk about this, now is the time, since we have some privacy.”
Brett’s frustration had burst with no prior warning.
“Why did he and his entire family just up and disappear? They’d known something; I can feel it! What was it?”
“Well,” Dylan interjected. “Isn’t that a well-known part of the gypsy culture—roaming, traveling at a moment’s notice?”
“It could also be a stereotypical association,” Susan pondered the possibility aloud until Dylan rebuked her.
“Not when you’re dealing with old-world traditions that haven’t died away in some clans or families, especially those that frequent small, rural, middle-class towns.”
“Yes, but what perfect timing,” Brett continued. “The entire family just vanished without a trace.”
“Another thing,” Sidney said. “Why not just stick around and be a deadbeat dad? Wasn’t it fairly common at that time? Better yet, why not just sign his parental rights over to Jack and Vivian?”
“Good point, Sid,” Leah said, completing the investigators sudden circle of thought.
“Because they’d known exactly from what they’d been running,” Brett said. “They’d known that Antonio had passed this mysterious gene on to his unborn child—me.”
“Okay, Brett,” Susan said. “Let’s consider the possibility that both you and Jack are wrong. What if this thing is not derived from heredity? What then?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “But, I know I need answers. There has to be a source. This thing had to have started from somewhere. He must’ve been like me. I can feel it.”
“There’s something else that I question,” Susan said, “though I hadn’t wanted to do so in front of Jack. I’d had Claudia pegged as bi-polar before Jack ever mentioned the words. But, how do we know for a fact that Claudia wasn’t a shifter? Jack and Vivian had never seen her change in that way, so how did they know she hadn’t? What if they’d never seen her do it? You yourself confirmed that Jack and Vivian hadn’t seen your own shifting until you’d shown them.”
Leah interjected with a quick and an obvious question.
“Then why would Claudia respond the way she did when she’d seen the puppy?”
“Yes, but let’s say she’d been feigning that response,” Susan said. “Let’s say that seeing the puppy and realizing that Brett had changed would’ve revealed her own secret. It would also explain the knowledge and conviction displayed in the anonymous note, the one that said ‘he changes.’ Hypothetically, Brett, she could’ve seen you shift, and after such an incident, remained quiet.”
A silence ensued. Brett hadn’t thought of the possibility that Claudia had kept a secret in her life, much like he had. Susan continued, the silence confirming her authority.
“Then isn’t it possible that Claudia could’ve been a shifter? I’m not saying that she was, but isn’t it possible? Jack and Vivian had always assumed that something had triggered her bi-polarity; maybe they were right. What if the shifting had been a continual trigger in her life? What if she’d experienced such an episode and it triggered her premature labor?”
Brett looked at her quickly. He hadn’t thought of any of it, and neither had Uncle Jack. Was it because the legends he’d read had associated it with certain cultures, and Antonio had belonged to one of them? Had he been completely blind to Claudia?
“And yes, Brett,” Susan said. “If it is an inherited factor, certainly Antonio is as equally a possibility as Claudia.”
“Then, I have to find out,” he said.
He lifted his head and took a deep breath of country air. He tried to relax, but the chaos was building inside of him again. The burning sensation engulfed him, hotter and hotter, as it pumped the sweat from him in streaks. The change was commencing, and he felt himself fighting, yet powerless to stop it, much like the spewing of vomit during a nasty hangover.
He breathed hard and could hear Susan asking him if he was alright.
“I need to know,” he said, in a voice that morphed and warped into a sound that seemed only half-human. He stood from the picnic bench and sensed movement all around him and heat like a bursting sun. He felt himself fall and hit the ground, where he stretched his body into what felt like endless elongation.
Then, he felt himself writhing and slithering away.
* * * *
It had been happening to Brett again; she’d seen it with her own eyes. He’d been breathing and swallowing hard as the sweat gushed from him in torrents and soaked his shirt. All of it had occurred within the flash of an instant.
“Brett, are you alright?” she’d asked.
She’d leaned over the table to get a better look at him. After all, maybe it was just nerves or anxiety. He’d been working himself well into a tirade over Antonio; that, and the fact that Jack was slipping away.
“Brett, are you alright?” She’d asked again, and then he stood from the picnic bench, his breathing harder and labored.
“I need to know,” he’d said.
But, the voice that came out of him was not that of Brett Taylor. It was warbled, distorted, sounding almost lopsided. She remembered hearing something like it in her college days when she’d tried to play an eight-track tape after leaving it behind in the sun to melt. Yet this sounded frighteningly non-human.
Everyone jumped from where they were seated, and the sound of scooting benches clonked across the patio floor. They watched as Brett began changing before their naked eyes. It was the second time today Susan and the team had witnessed such a sight, though this time, there was a slight difference. They’d seen more of the metamorphosis.
He’d appeared to be melting away, almost shrinking. His body had looked weightless when it hit the patio floor, yet the sound still made a thud followed by a soft scratching noise. She’d heard the gasps around her and the call of Brett’s name by one of the guys. Now, the only thing they saw on the patio floor was the pile of clothes that Brett had been wearing.
<
br /> Susan felt her heart stop and then sink into oblivion as a snake slithered out from inside the discarded shirt. It slid in a side-winding motion, away from them, and the scream she heard the loudest was Leah’s. It was hard to tell, but it looked like a black snake as it slithered off the back patio and into the bushes.
“Oh...my...God,” Leah said.
Dylan walked off the patio without saying a word.
“Where are you going?” Susan’s voice had been sharp as a thought hit her.
He wouldn’t dare go and search for him, not now.
“I’m going to the van for one of the video cameras,” he said. “If we’re going to help him, we need to be recording the next time this happens. Remember, he doesn’t actually see this as it occurs. We must be able to study this if we’re going to get anywhere.”
“Dylan, wait.” Leah’s tone sounded like a protest, but Susan counteracted.
“He’s right,” she said. “We should be keeping record of this, at all times. What if Brett ends up needing proof one day?”
She felt a chill run down her spine even during the heat of the July day.
“Dylan, set up the camera back here on the patio,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get footage when Brett comes back. Do we have another video camera in the van?”
“Just one,” Sidney said, “along with the tripods.”
“Then, Sidney, be sure to set one up in the front yard after Brett returns. I want him in on this before we begin rigging the place with cameras.”
They agreed and Susan wondered how long it would take for Tahoe to arrive. She felt a growing unease building inside of her, especially if what she suspected was true—that Jack didn’t have much longer. She let out a long sigh, one of sorrow and angst.
“We have to help him understand that this is for his own safety.”
* * * *
It slithered out from a bush and through one of the adjustable slats that pillared the patio deck. In its notable side-winding motion, it moved toward the pile of clothes that carried an all-too familiar scent. The four of them were spread in a half-circle watching the winding serpent twist through the pile of discarded garb, then Dylan stepped closer to catch the scene with the camera. He maneuvered as best he could with it perched high on his shoulder to gain the perfect scope of the slithering shifter.
They watched as the serpent seemed to grow larger, yet it wasn’t so much a snake anymore. It twisted and writhed, changing color from black, brown, to yellow, and then a semi-flesh tone. It was now a mass on the floor, and something moved through it. And then the mass morphed into the shape of a man. Brett was face down on the patio floor, naked and writhing in the clothes he’d left behind.
Gasps of astonishment were mixed with cries of shock. Brett jumped up from the patio floor with a quick breath and what looked like acute realization and embarrassment. He moved quickly, holding his jeans in front of him and quickly pulling them on. Susan and Leah turned out of respect, but also from the shock of which they’d not yet become immune.
Brett pulled his shirt over his chest and turned to them. His hair had been soaked, and the sweat had been worse than when he’d shifted into the dog. This time, Dylan noticed a filmy substance that slicked with his sweat, yet he said nothing. He kept the camera on him, having captured the metamorphosis as best he could.
“You’ve been recording me?” Brett asked, resuming his seat at the picnic table.
“Don’t you think we should, if we’re going to help you figure this out?”
Dylan answered him, still holding the camera and getting Brett’s reaction on video. Dylan turned his eye away from the lens and looked at his friend. He noticed the slight embarrassment, the conflicted emotions about being the recorded subject, or the next case they would have to solve. The emotions seemed to die away as Dylan began to question him.
“Brett, how do you feel, right now?”
“The way I always feel after this happens—physically exhausted, yet mentally exhilarated. The stress melts away, even if only temporarily.”
“Brett, do you know what it is that determines the particular shape that you shift into?” Dylan asked. “What is it that decides whether you become the wolf, the hawk, or the snake?”
“I don’t know,” Brett said, his voice drifting into a sleepy calmness. “It’s just the way I feel at that particular moment, like when I want to be free of something, I feel like the wolf. The shifting happens, and then I run like I’m part of the wild.”
“But what made you shift into the snake, Brett? What did you feel at that moment?”
“I don’t know,” Brett said, once again. His voice took a testy, irritated tone.
“Alright, that’s enough for now,” Susan said. “The show is over, Dylan. Turn the camera off.”
Dylan shot her a quick glance, his face displaying the scowl of heated disagreement. He had a few more questions for Brett. Now was the time to get answers from him, when whatever knowledge Brett retained, if any at all, would still be fresh in his mind. But his words were held prisoner at the sight of Brett languidly slumping over onto the picnic table. He didn’t want to make this worse for him.
“Now, Dylan!” Susan hadn’t taken her eyes from him. She gave him an order, and it seemed an eternity had passed with their eyes locked together in confrontation.
Dylan pressed the stop function on the camera and lowered it to the table. Susan turned her attention toward Brett.
“We wanted to capture whatever we could, Brett,” she said. “Dylan’s right; we do need to study this in order to help you. But right now, you need to take it easy, try to calm yourself whenever this thing you call ‘chaos’ begins to build. You’re going to need your strength for Jack.”
Dylan watched as his longtime pal said nothing, only lifted his head upward with his eyes closed, inhaling the fresh country air that surrounded them all. He wasn’t about to leave Brett like this. What had been revealed today was unbelievable; it was on a scale of paranormal that he and the rest of the team had never encountered. It bordered more along the line of supernatural, and here it was, right in front of them.
“It’s even more pertinent now that we stay here through the night and wait for word from Tahoe,” Dylan said. “If he’s coming here to see Brett, then we all need to be here.”
“Agreed,” Susan said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here like this, Brett, especially now. I want you to go upstairs and get some rest for a few hours. We’ll all be here when you wake. Jack will want to see you later, and as I said, you’ll need your strength.”
Brett silently agreed, rising from the bench and making his way toward the back door.
“Come on,” Susan said, as she and Sidney began walking with Brett into the house.
Dylan and Leah were left alone on the patio. He could see as she paced that their thoughts ran rampantly on the same wavelength. She obviously felt the same way he did: flabbergasted, speechless, stymied for an answer, and clueless as to how to proceed. Leah turned to him after tiring of pacing. The look of astonishment lingered on her face.
“Just when I thought I’d seen everything.”
“Think again,” he said.
Chapter Nine
It was a black snake that slithered beneath the blazing sun, sliding in a side-winding motion across some sort of a cement platform. Suddenly, the sun died out and gave rise to a bright, full moon that cut a glint through the night, the onset of which had been instantaneous. Then, a black wolf lifted its head up to the perfect shape of Luna and howled with a sharp, hollow call, announcing its presence beneath the great orb. The wolf’s howl was real, so real it woke him from the dream...
Tahoe nearly jumped from his seat aboard the non-stop flight but felt the restraint of the seat belt he’d fastened before takeoff. The only sound he heard now was the soft, reverberant hum of the aircraft. It was what had put him to sleep in the first place. He felt his heart beating a little faster than normal, but only because the dream had be
en so real. The howl that woke him belonged to the same black wolf he’d seen in the vision, but the dream had showed him something that the vision had not—a snake.
So, the day had arrived when young Brett’s secret identity had found its way to the forefront, the day when he would need the help of his friends in order to continue. It wasn’t long ago that Tahoe had predicated this day would come. He looked at his watch, which he’d set to Eastern Standard Time as soon as the flight had taken off. A bit early, but Tahoe wanted to try to psychically get the feel for what was happening in Pennsylvania before he got there.
His watch told him that it was 7:00, still at least another hour before he’d land, and God only knew how long before he’d get out of the airport. Time was inching closer on the ground, but dragging in the air. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to envision. Another faraway scene flashed in his mind...
They’d been seated in a circle, surrounding the old man who lay in bed amid the medical apparatuses that filled his room. The vision was draped in a dark pall that Tahoe knew well, the shadowy shade of death, fixed and unmoving. Tahoe opened his eyes and stared out of the small airplane window. Thousands of feet below, an event was about to occur with or without him. He silently prayed for the impossible, for time to stand still.
* * * *
Brett had slept for almost two hours, and now he felt the rejuvenation that sleep had provided. The stress had melted away for the most part, but an underlying inevitability about Uncle Jack kept nagging at him. There was not only that, but the fact that he’d shifted twice already today. He was beginning to realize that the chaos was becoming greater, the shifting more uncontrollable. Earlier, he accepted the chaos, immersed himself in it in order to show the team. And he’d also shifted into the snake, a rare occurrence and one that was often a response to feelings of anger, or the need to remove himself from a situation.
He’d forgotten that little detail when Dylan had the camera pointed at him. Now, he couldn’t even remember what had transpired before it happened. His mind felt muddled and hazy, yet his body remained tranquil. He quickly showered and went back downstairs, where the team had been faithfully awaiting his return. They were playing cards at one of the picnic tables on the back patio, right where he’d left them.
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