The Craving

by Jason Starr

  Simon was unaware of time, and it seemed as though everything went silent. It was just Simon and Charlie, face-to-face, and the people and the park and the whole rest of the world disappeared.

  Then they were hugging. Simon didn’t know who’d hugged who first, whether Charlie had come over to him or he’d gone over to Charlie, but it didn’t really matter. The only important thing was that they were hugging, being unrestrained with their emotions, acting the way they felt. He had forgotten how comforting it was to have this camaraderie, to experience real closeness, and he realized how much he’d been missing it. Simon was unprepared for the emotion he felt, as if he were reconnecting with an old family member. Ah, and Charlie’s scent also gave Simon a warm, connected feeling. His aroma was particularly pungent, undoubtedly because he’d just run a marathon, but he wasn’t soaked in sweat. His shirt was only slightly moist, the way Simon’s shirts were after long runs.

  Finally, after embracing for maybe a minute or longer, they let go.

  “This is crazy,” Charlie said. “How’d you find me?”

  “I saw you on TV,” Simon said.

  “Oh, yeah, that,” Charlie said. “Can you believe I ran in a marathon?” He sounded almost giddy about it.

  Simon remembered why he’d come here, because of the danger Charlie had potentially put him in, but he was still so excited himself about reestablishing contact with his old friend that those rational concerns quickly receded.

  “Well, it was still pretty surprising seeing you here,” Charlie said. “I mean I knew I’d see you again eventually, but I didn’t know I’d see you here, now, today.”

  Wondering why Charlie was so certain their paths would cross again, Simon said, “Well, it was definitely a big surprise to see you on TV, running in the marathon.”

  At that moment a TV reporter who reeked of cigarettes and who had dyed black hair—Simon could smell the dye—came over and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Hennessy, can we just ask you a few more questions?”

  “Sorry, gotta run,” Charlie said, and he grabbed Simon’s wrist and led him away through the crowd.

  They were heading toward Columbus Circle. Simon didn’t ask where Charlie was leading him, but he was just glad to be getting away from the hordes of people because it had been starting to get him seriously claustrophobic.

  As they approached the exit near Fifty-ninth Street, Charlie let go of Simon’s wrist and said, “Had to get away from there. Being around all those people was driving me crazy.”

  Simon had to admit, he loved that he and Charlie were on the same wavelength. Since he’d been disconnected from the guys he hadn’t felt this kind of connection to anyone, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.

  “Where are we going?” Simon asked.

  “Away,” Charlie said.

  Simon knew that feeling well, of wanting to get away. He’d had it for weeks.

  Simon let Charlie lead the way, jaywalking through slow-moving traffic on Columbus Avenue, then past the Time Warner building, onto West Fifty-eighth.

  As they approached Ninth Avenue, a man seemed to recognize Charlie and said to his girlfriend, “Check it out, it’s the fireman from the marathon.”

  Then a couple of blocks up, another man—across the street, but Simon could still hear him clearly—said, “Hey, didn’t he just run in the marathon?” and on the next block a teenage boy said to his girlfriend, “Yo, check it out, it’s the marathon man.”

  Charlie didn’t acknowledge the people who spotted him, but Simon’s earlier fear seemed to be justified—Charlie was now a celebrity, potentially a world celebrity. He’d lost his anonymity, not just for himself, but for Simon as well.

  But while Simon knew this should concern him, at the moment he was so excited to be back with a kindred spirit, nothing else seemed to matter.

  They went into a bar on Tenth Avenue and went through to an outdoor seating area. There were picnic tables set up around the backyard—most occupied by at least a few people, but there were a few empty ones toward the back. Charlie sat at one of the tables in the back corner and Simon sat across from him. Before Simon could say a word, Charlie ordered two pints of Stella and eight rare hamburgers.

  “Eight?” the waitress asked, confused.

  “Good point, better make it ten,” Charlie said. “I just ran in the marathon, after all. And no buns.”

  “Oh … okay,” she said. “Do you want these on separate plates?”

  “One’s fine,” Charlie said.

  The waitress, still seeming a little baffled, returned inside.

  “You think that was a mistake?” Charlie asked.

  “Actually, I’d love some meat myself,” Simon said.

  “No, I mean the beer,” Charlie said. “I should probably be having water after running twenty-six miles, but I was in the mood for a nice, cold brewski.”

  “As long as it’s not the family beer,” Simon said.

  At the brewery in Brooklyn, Michael had given the guys a “family beer” that had, in effect, prepped them to become werewolves. The beer had turned them into half-wolves, causing some werewolf behavior. Then, after they were bitten on their necks on the night of a full moon, they became full-blown werewolves.

  “I don’t think there’s any need for that now.” Charlie’s blue eyes had definitely gotten darker. They were practically midnight blue. He added, “It really is great to see you, man. I wanted to come looking for you, but Michael wouldn’t let me. He said it would be better if you came back on your own.”

  “So Michael’s still here,” Simon said. “In the city?”

  “Of course,” Charlie said. “Where’d you think he was?”

  Simon remembered being at the Seaport yesterday, having the certain feeling that Michael was on the roof of the brewery, watching him.

  “What about Ramon?” Simon asked.

  “He’s doing great,” Charlie said. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen him with five different women over the last few weeks, and I bet there are more. They just can’t keep their hands off him, and he’s not exactly trying to stop them. But he’s not leading anybody on, know what I mean? He’s a straight shooter, and they know what they’re getting into. He says he just wants to have sex—sorry, make love to them—and they’re all okay with it.”

  This was yet another thing Simon had to worry about. What if Ramon blurted out that he was a werewolf to one of the women he seduced? And how did he have sex with them anyway, without transforming?

  He was about to ask about this, but Charlie said, “And you look great too. You look strong, healthy. You been running a lot?”

  “Actually, I have been,” Simon said.

  “Nothing better, right? I wish you could’ve run in the marathon with me. Being in front, barely breaking a sweat, all those people cheering. It was freakin’ awesome.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you can run at all,” Simon said. “The last time I saw you, you were in pretty bad shape.”

  “Yeah, a werewolf bit off a chunk of my face; it doesn’t get any worse than that, right?” Charlie laughed. “I lost a ton of blood. I didn’t think I’d make it.”

  Simon had a flashback of Olivia, the crazed werewolf, attacking Charlie, biting into his face with her enormous fangs.

  Charlie touched his cheek, and Simon noticed a faint scar.

  “I figured that if you survived you would at least be deformed,” Simon said. “I know we heal quicker but you can barely tell anything happened.”

  “It’s one of the gifts Michael gave us,” Charlie said.

  Simon had to do a double take. Charlie still sounded like his old self, but he never used to talk about “gifts” with a glazed-over, cultish look in his eyes.

  “What did Michael tell you?” Simon asked. “I mean, how is all this happening? What did he do to us? What was in that family beer? How did he get the way he is? Does anybody else know about it? Has he told you anything?”

  Charlie was almost smiling, as if remembering a private jok
e. Then he said, “No, he hasn’t told us anything.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you? He did something to you, to us, to our blood apparently, and we don’t know anything about it. How do you know it won’t make us sick?”

  “You feel like it’s making you sick?”

  Simon had never felt better.

  “Still,” Simon said, “we don’t know anything. I mean, are we the only ones? Are there others?”

  “Michael said none of that matters.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Michael says animals don’t care where they come from; only humans do. When you think about it, he makes a good point. We have the gift; what difference does it make who gave it to us?”

  “Yeah, it’s a real gift.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I agree it’s amazing, how great I feel and the things I can do,” Simon said. “The running, and the healing, and how strong I am—in that sense yeah, it’s a gift, but there’s definitely a dark side.”

  “Yeah, like the moon,” Charlie said.

  “Are we talking about Michael now or Pink Floyd?”

  Charlie didn’t smile. “Michael says every living thing is like the moon; it has a bright side and a dark side, but only animals embrace their dark side.”

  “Wow, Michael definitely seems to be having a big effect on you,” Simon said. “You’re officially a disciple now, huh?”

  “Yeah, Michael’s our big boss,” Charlie said, still not smiling.

  “Your big boss?” Simon said. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, the big boss, the leader. He calls the shots, but that’s cool. I’m not one of those control freaks or anything like that.”

  “So you still hang out together?”

  “Of course,” Charlie said.

  Simon had to ignore a pang of, if not jealousy, then longing. He didn’t miss Michael, but he missed hanging out with Charlie and Ramon.

  “With the kids?” Simon asked.

  “Yep,” Charlie said. “Same playground mostly, in Battery Park.”

  Simon remembered running along the Hudson, getting the sense that the guys were at the playground.

  “Yeah, the kids’re doing great,” Charlie said. “Nicky’s been asking about Jeremy, saying, ‘When’s Jeremy coming back? I miss Jeremy.’ I didn’t know what to tell him, you know? So how’s he doing?”

  Trying to block out an image of Jeremy standing in front of his room, watching Alison confront him with a knife, Simon said, “He’s doing great. He’s a happy kid.”

  Charlie was staring at Simon’s eyes. It was making Simon uncomfortable.

  “You really should come back to us,” Charlie said.

  Come back to us. It sounded like something Michael would say with his weird, slightly Germanic accent.

  Charlie probably caught the slip himself because he said, “I mean, you should start hanging out with us again.”

  “You mean with Michael?”

  “Why not? Michael’s a great guy.”

  “A great guy?”

  Charlie had no reaction.

  Simon looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping—there was a group of college-age kids a few tables away, but they were distracted and too far away to overhear anything—and then practically whispered, “Michael’s a total psychopath. He killed my ex-boss and shot two innocent people in cold blood. He’s probably killed other people too. He tried to kill me, and he’s the one who did all of this to us.”

  “That’s why I love him,” Charlie said.

  “Because he’s a killer?”

  “No, because he gave me this gift. Did you see how fast I was running today? Do you know how amazing it felt?”

  “Yeah, I know exactly how amazing it feels, but what happens when the world finds out that we’re…” Simon was going to say werewolves but said instead, “…different. What happens then? We’ll be treated like total freaks. Will you think it’s a gift then?”

  “No one’ll find out,” Charlie said.

  “You were on national television today.” Simon had raised his voice. Quieter, he continued, “You don’t think people’ll wonder how a fireman won the New York City Marathon?”

  “I didn’t win.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t win. I faded at the end and finished ninth. I could’ve won if I wanted to; I could’ve set a freakin’ world record. But I was smart. I knew winning would be too much.”

  “Ninth, first, it doesn’t matter,” Simon said. “How many interviews did you just do? How many people are tweeting and Facebooking about you right now? Don’t you think people’ll find it strange that a nonrunner was able to finish ahead of so many top-class athletes?”

  “I couldn’t help it, I had to run, I had to feel what it was like. Come on, you don’t feel that way sometimes? Like you can do anything?”

  Simon flashed back to that day in the gym when he’d benched 360 pounds, the muscle heads surrounding him, chanting, “Go, go, go…”

  “What if they test your blood?” Simon asked.

  “Michael said our blood’s normal,” Charlie said. “Well, when we’re normal humans anyway. When we’re wolves, it’s different.”

  If this was true, it was the best news Simon had gotten all day. He’d thought he’d have to avoid doctors and blood tests for the rest of his life. He’d been afraid a blood test could potentially prevent him from getting a job too.

  “It’s still a crazy risk,” Simon said. “Not just for yourself, but for all of us. Did you tell Michael you were running in the marathon?”

  “No, and he’ll probably be pissed off about it too. It’s against his rules.”

  “Rules? What rules?”

  Suddenly Charlie looked uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact, as if he’d said something he hadn’t meant to. “I shouldn’t really be talking to you about any of this; that’s against the rules too.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Simon said.

  “Forget about it.” Charlie seemed even more uncomfortable.

  “Forget about what?”

  Charlie hesitated, then said, “Michael told me and Ramon not to try to find you. He said you’d come to us when you were ready. But maybe you are ready. Maybe that’s why you showed up today.”

  “No, I showed up because I saw you on TV.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t have to come find me. What made you come?”

  Remembering how horrific he’d looked in the bathroom mirror, Simon said, “I was just … concerned.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came,” Charlie said. “Seriously, when I saw your face, I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been wanting to thank you for weeks.”

  “Thank me? What for?”

  “You saved my life. If you didn’t kill Olivia, she would’ve killed me.”

  Simon looked around nervously, but the college kids still weren’t looking over.

  “You know she was Michael’s girlfriend, right?” Charlie continued. “He said he was her soul mate. But he was glad you got rid of her too. She would’ve been trouble for all of us, that’s for sure. I mean, she was out of control.”

  “I didn’t kill her for Michael,” Simon said. “I killed her to save you and Ramon.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why you’re a hero,” Charlie said, “as big a hero as me, or anybody I work with, and you didn’t just save my life either. You know what they say? Save one life, save a million lives.”

  Simon had never heard of this expression, if it actually was an expression. He said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “You saved me and thanks to you I pulled a kid, nine years old, out of a fire last week. See? Being a hero, what’s it called? Heroism. Yeah, heroism, it trickles down. That kid might save people when he grows up. He might become a doctor or find a cure for cancer, and it’s all because of you, Simon Burns.”

  “What if the kid grows up to be a mass murderer, the next Hitler. Was I a hero then?”

  “It do
esn’t work that way,” Charlie said. “You saved a million lives. That’s the bottom line.”

  The waitress arrived with the beers.

  Charlie raised his glass and said, “Prost.”