Welcome to Zell

by K. D. Fryslan

  “Two months ago on the 15th was the last time my family did a specific job for her so that’s where I would look, unless she just happened to reminisce in her calendar often.” He told her.

  “I asked Gideon and Jonah to look into Guyer Energy Corporation. The company has been pressuring residents around a four-county area in anticipation of tapping the natural gas shale beneath us. As usual, the Gauner’s were my first choice for investigating human intentions as our town is too remote for any aurics to live here comfortably or safely. While no Steward is certain of the origins of the Gauner species - although their choice of a name for themselves from the German language may suggest their first home - and no one, steward or otherwise, has any knowledge of how they breed or propagate their species, their very nature ensures their success at such tasks. While they kill the host when they push their consciousness into a new body to possess it, either temporarily or permanently, they can also send out their consciousness in part allowing them to root around in another consciousness and only cause their subject to lose a small amount of memory, a blank spot that I believe mimics absence seizures during that time.”

  One week later…

  “Guyer Energy is indeed trying to apply advance pressure to prepare the area for a massive fracking operation. They are an entirely human operation, though, so I will go through standard channels and attempt bribes first. Public sentiment has turned against injection wells, it should not be too difficult as long as I can keep everyone calm and allow things to move at a human pace. Gideon still won’t tell me if Gauner’s have a corporeal form at any stage in their existence. He just smiles. I do not think he will ever tell me but it has become a game we play. I think he would be disappointed if I don’t ask at least once a month.”

  The most recent entry in the log…

  “The therian families are getting restless, as they often do when they have to go through human channels. I have scheduled a meeting with John Dixon to update him on where we stand with preventing Guyer Energy from drilling in our region. I have asked Cody Miller to join us. It should move quickly along, even if John is agitated, he trusts me to take care of the town, therians just aren’t known for their patience.”

  “Why was Grams meeting with one of the Millers, a pherein family if Dixon and the other therians were the ones making the fuss?” asked Liesel as she skimmed the log entries, making no comment about the nature of his species or that she identified it.

  “Cody Miller has a calming effect on Dixon and Trudie usually meets with them at the same time for that reason,” said Gideon. He smirked at the sidelong look Liesel gave him when he said the words calming effect. “Thy are gaming buddies at the local bar. They play pool or darts at least once a week. Miller doesn’t use his abilities on Dixon. Or anyone in town for that matter, except maybe his own kids,” said Gideon as an answer to the unasked question from her look.

  “Why not include you or another gauner, or one of the felines, and cover all the groups in town and avoid having it look like she was singling out Dixon?” Liesel asked, since Gideon had been so forthcoming and seemingly forthright thus far in the conversation.

  Gideon chewed the inside of his cheek a moment, then sighed and glanced over at her, then back at the road. “We townsfolk all get along well enough but we, gauners I mean, make therians uncomfortable. They say that they can sense the body and mind do not come from the same original being and it grates along their nerve endings,” answered Gideon. “We rarely find places where we can live openly without fear of pitchfork- and torch-wielding mobs so we choose to not antagonize others in our community,” he continued. “The non-wolves tend to staying in the background, waiting to see how things progress before deciding how to act.”

  It may not be much but at least the log superficially confirmed that the only ones compromised were Gertrude, Cody, and John, and that Gideon and his kin had legitimate reason for not being at the small group meeting.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It is late when Liesel and Gideon get to the old home-stead and she can clearly make out the familiar constellations of the season.

  Gideon puts the truck into park and turns toward her, resting his left arm on the steering wheel. “Someone from town will be by in the morning, most likely after breakfast to make sure you have everything you need, drive you around town, set up any one-on-one meetings or a gather everyone up for a big meeting,” he said before getting out of the truck and coming around to open her door. She stepped out and shut the door gently, too hard and it may fall off after all, while he retrieved her other bag out of the truck bed. She turned when she reached the weathered front porch and saw he is back in the driver’s seat with the headlights pointed at the door, watching. She lifted the cracked flower pot, with its dead plant now resembling a stick, to remove the spare key oh-so-cleverly hidden beneath. She let herself in the front door, flipped the light switch to on, and closed and locked the front door. The lights of the truck briefly provide extra illumination on the homey interior as Gideon turned the truck around out front to get back to the rutted unpaved country road that leads to the property.

  Liesel walked through the empty house with ghosts of memories hovering around her. She headed to the back stairs past the kitchen to take them up to the private spaces of the house, where the bedrooms are. The bed in the master bedroom was rumpled when Liesel went to sit on it and touch the pillow where Grams last laid her head in comfort.

  “I will find out who took you, Grams. I am home now and no one takes from us,” Liesel spoke out into the darkness.

  Then she lifted her weary body and her bags and walked down the hall to the room she had used during her childhood visits. She dropped the bags to the floor, laid down on the full-size bed that once seemed large but now seemed small as she supposed most childhood things do. She pulled the old calico fabric quilt over her body and rolled until she was wrapped in a cocoon of cotton and fell into a fitful sleep. In the morning she would not remember her dreams fully, just that there was a pervasive sense of dread and danger lurking just beyond sight.

  The next morning, Liesel went through the motions of getting ready for the day before going downstairs. She wasn’t quite ready to go through things and reminisce as if it were old-home-week when her Grandmother and two of her charges were either dead or being tortured.

  She trudged into the kitchen and further into the walk-in pantry, pulled the string for the light bulb overhead, then she flipped back a woven rag rug to reveal a hatch in the floor. She lifted the hatch to further reveal a flight of stairs into a small basement. At first glance, from the front, the house appeared like a typical two story ranch house but it was built on a hill so that, from behind, there was a doorway for the walk out basement.

  Bookshelves lined the walls inside. The shelves were filled mostly with Gertrude’s logs, the rest of the space held Steward Council reference volumes on policies and creatures and the like. There was also an old desk and chair with standard office supplies and stationary. There was also a large trunk in one corner of the room. Liesel opened the old trunk and it was full of momentoes from Gertrude’s long life as it always was, as full as the shelves. As far as she could tell, there was nothing missing or out of place.

  Did that mean the kidnappers knew nothing of their victims’ true natures or did it mean they were only in the dark about Gertrude. She doubted they were clever enough to go through with a kidnapping so difficult to trace but not clever enough to search her grandmother’s house. What did it mean that the home was undisturbed? Did it mean anything at all?

  Liesel tapped her fingers heavily on the desk and sighed just as heavily before going back up the staircase to the pantry, then replacing the cover and then the rug. She had just opened the refrigerator to pour a glass of sweetened ice tea when she heard a three-tap knock on the front door.

  “I’m coming,” Liesel called out as she walked toward the front door. She could see Trish Dixon through the sidelight panels. Liesel swing the door wide wi
th a smile on her face. The buxom blonde was wearing a skin tight pair of jeans tucked into cowgirl boots and her t-shirt, straining just a bit across her bosom, declared ‘If You Can Read This Bring Me A Beer.’

  “Liesel!” Trish squealed, immediately grabbing Liesel in a bear hug, almost lifting her off the ground completely.

  “I am about to smother in your boobs, Trish,” Liesel said with a laugh.

  Trish snorted a laugh and released Liesel. “Not my fault you stopped growing before you got to an adult size,” she said.

  “Nope,” said Liesel. “I’m fun sized.”

  Liesel turned toward the kitchen, gesturing for Trish to follow. “Shut the door will ya.” She said. “I have sweet tea in the kitchen and I saw some pecan pie in the fridge when I was making breakfast earlier,” said Liesel.

  The women walked to the kitchen silently but companionably, seeming to mutually decide to not yet discuss the troubles that re-united them. Trish sat on a stool at the island and watched Liesel moving around. Liesel pulled a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and set it on the counter before getting glasses, plates, and forks out from cupboards and the utensil drawer. She poured tea into both glasses, then took out the pie dish. She cut the remainder of the already partially consumed pecan pie into two generous pieces and plated them. She handed Trish her treat and beverage.

  “How did you get assigned to baby sit the baby Steward?” asked Liesel.

  “I volunteered,” said Trish.

  “And?” said Liesel.

  “And what?” responded Trish.

  Contrary to popular belief, werewolves, and natural wolves for that matter, didn’t really follow a strict alpha, beta, omega political structure based on strength or dominance. Dominance mattered but so did submission, everyone had their place but not pack dynamics. Packs were actually based around familial lines from nuclear families on outward to associated families into larger clans. The alphas were always the most dominant elders, the family matriarchs and patriarchs still in their physical prime thanks to therianthrope genetics.

  “You either have a job that is way below your pay grade or there is more to this than a baby sitting job and you need to prove something,” said Liesel.

  Trish sighed. “MeMaw barely trusted your grandmother, PawPaw did, but he grew up knowing Trudie. I said you could be trusted, that you genuinely cared about us, that you were not some uppity type that would look down on us,” she said.

  “So…” said Liesel, taking a sip of tea and started again. “What did you get from visiting the office?”

  “The families spread out but we must be sorry excuses for therians because we barely found anything and nothin’ useful that we could tell,” said Trish. “We could smell that Trudie and Cody and PawPaw had been there but the scents were old and…” she paused, “comfortable. If anyone got scared or upset, it wasn’t long enough for them to put out any tell of it, even Cody,” she continued.

  She looked away from Liesel and dug into her heaping serving of pie as if it had wronged her personally. “There wasn’t any gun powder either,” she mumbled around a mouthful of pie.

  “Was there anything that might hint at who took them,” asked Liesel after a bite. “Well, anything that suggests they didn’t just disappear into thin air other than the blown out windows?”

  Both women finished their pie while they contemplated their own thoughts. Trish took a sip from her drink. “Travis swore he smelled something strange but it didn’t leave a trail he could follow and no one could identify what it was to go looking,” said Trish.

  “Alright,” said Liesel, drinking the last of her tea. “I would like to see the office. I want to look around of course, even though it doesn’t sound like there was time for Grams to leave a message but I also need to set it right regardless so I can…” She trailed off when the door bell chimed. Liesel lifted an eyebrow looking at Trish who shook her head and shrugged. “Stay here but feel free to come running if I sound distressed,” said Liesel.

  “I got your back, sis,” said Trish.

  Liesel walked to the front door. This time she saw two men in suits waiting outside. She opened the door. “Can I help you gentleman?” she asked.

  The one on the left was shorter, maybe 5 feet 7 inches tall, Hispanic, and lean. The one on the right was tall, probably 6 feet 2 inches, white, and muscular. She would have thought his light green eyes and dark hair cut tight on the sides and a little longer on top made him sexy in a tough guy kind of way if he wasn’t wearing a boring suit. Well, that and she was positive she couldn’t trust either man any farther than she could throw a single one. Super-human strength was not in her personal repertoire.

  The one on the left smiled but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, it was a cold smile, the one on the right did not react to her at all.

  “We are from the United States Marshall Service, Miss…” Leftie said, his voice trailing off as a question.

  “Bohm,” replied Liesel. “And your names are?” she asked. Then she raised a hand to stop them before they could reply. “Why don’t you show me your identification. I am assuming you don’t make house calls without your IDs,” she said.

  Both men pulled identification bi-folds from interior suit pockets and held them out for her to inspect. Leftie was named Carlos Martinez and Rightie was named Malachi Grimsley. Yeesh, that was quite a name to saddle a kid with, she thought.

  “Don’t you guys have badges too? You do on the television shows,” she said playing dumb.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Martinez, again doing the talking for the pair. Agent Grimsley just watched, which was creepy to Liesel but thankfully she had practice playing the clueless human and had seen far scarier things than a man in an ugly suit, although she had stories about the government that could turn hair white.

  “We don’t always carry them though,” Martinez continued. “The credentials are the primary identification for our line of work.”

  “Ah,” said Liesel. “So what do you want?” She didn’t move from the doorway but at the same time did not drop the dumb and innocent act either though.

  “We are looking for a person of interest who may be a danger to the community, Miss Bohm,” said Grimsley in a deep voice, finally breaking his eerie silence. “We received a tip that they were seen near this property.”

  “Well, it is a large property and we haven’t seen any strangers besides the two of you and we don’t have anything much worth stealing so you can rest easy on our account,” replied Liesel.

  “Just the same,” said Martinez, when Liesel shifted her weight in anticipation of swinging the door closed. “It is our duty to keep people safe and you never can tell what may set off someone who isn’t in their right mind.”

  Lisel opened her mouth to tell them to get off the property and look for their psycho somewhere else when Grimsley interrupted. “Our records indicate this is the home of a Gertrude Bohm and that she is an older women, I believe,” he said.

  “My grandmother, technically she is Gertrude Junior or The Second but folks don’t really apply that to girls now do they?” said Liesel, no longer pretending to be relaxed but still not outright antagonistic.

  “May we speak with her?” asked Martinez.

  “No, you can’t. She isn’t home right at the moment. She tends to take off on little trips to the badlands or the canyons or wherever her crazy old lady heart leads her. I am house sitting for her and making sure she is okay when she gets back home,” said Liesel. She locked eyes with Grimsley. “It’s important to keep an eye out for our elders you know,” she said pointedly. “Anyhow, Grams never took kindly to strangers or the government so I would rather you both leave now,” she said to the men.

  Grimsley removed a card from his wallet and Martinez did the same. They held them out to her. It was Martinez who spoke next. “Just give us a call if you see anyone strange on the property or around town,” he said.

  Liesel rolled her eyes but took the cards. “If its on the family acreage,
I will probably shoot first and call later but okay fellas,” she said. “Bye now. Don’t get lost on your way out,” she called out after them as she firmly shut and locked the front door.

  She could hear the tires kicking up loose gravel as Trish was coming out of the kitchen. “Feds, huh,” she said.

  “Yeah, but I’m not buying that bullshit about a dangerous person running around and some anonymous tip,” said Liesel. “Am I just being paranoid?”

  Trish shook her head. “Naw, they were calm but smelled like liars. They aren’t who they say they are but they sure must be used to telling that story because their breathing and heart rate didn’t change a bit.”

  “I think its time we start calling around for a little town gathering,” said Liesel, heading back into the kitchen with her friend. “Don’t know if the suits have anything to do with the kidnappings but it does seem like they are up to something,” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It is the opinion of the Council of Stewards that the Phereins are more dangerous than the Therianthropes but their natures make them much more compliant wards. phereins possess a genetic mutation that allows them to produce an overabundance of certain natural substances generated by the human animal body. Most phereins exhibit the mutation to control the production of pheromones at such high levels that they can affect crowds of human beings. Stewards can be affected by extreme levels but are typically immune to what a single pherein can produce alone. Phereins are largely immune to each other as well. This is good because the ability manifests in infancy but control must be taught throughout childhood prior to the tumult of puberty. Because of this, many phereins exhibit symptoms of anxiety and control disorders. It is considered protocol for them to wear gloves at all times in public and refrain from skin-to-skin contact with non-phereins. Past cultural experiences have caused them to retreat from humanity in general and breed only with their own kind and in small numbers. Uncontrolled phereins have caused humans to unwittingly kill or commit suicide and the adults wish to avoid such traumatic accidents with their young.