Werewolves

by Paul Jessup

  Mark texted.

  Mark FULL MOON TNT. SAFER W US. COME 2 CABIN, I COME GET U?

  Me R U HIGH?

  Mark NT KIDDING

  Me IM OK

  Mark DON’T THINK SO

  Monday, April 21st

  I woke up just before dawn this morning lying next to a creek. My clothes were shredded. There were leaves matted in my hair and a rabbit carcass next to me. My mouth tasted like I licked the end of a battery. My hands were bloody and I could see when I got home and looked in the mirror so was my mouth. I’m so lucky it was still dark. It was hard to figure out where I was but I wandered till I saw the cell tower and knew where I was, not too far from home, in the woods.

  I remember going for a run last night, really needing to get outside and MOVE, especially after the sun went down. The air was cold on my arms and felt good. I didn’t see the van for almost an hour and then I turned a corner and there it was, parked and waiting. The side door started to slide open and it was like my whole body like every cell jumped all at once and I RAN. I remember sounds and smells and textures in the woods but from up close, not from a human height, lower to the ground. My muscles HURT. Worse than any time after doing some new sport and discovering muscles you didn’t know you had. Agony. But it also kind of feels good. I don’t feel paralyzed like after we went cross-country skiing and I couldn’t walk down the stairs the next day. I feel — flexible, maybe what it feels like if you’re double-jointed.

  The blood had to have been from the rabbit? So I ate a rabbit last night? I’ve graduated from steaks in the kitchen. Washed off the blood in the shower after doing the drawing and got clothes from the hamper and am in bed now before Mom wakes up.

  Of course Mark hasn’t been here for days.

  Blew off school. Had Mom call me in sick.

  That was easy. She felt my head and said I was burning up.

  I woke up feeling all keyed up, like my whole body is tense, like a spring. Jumpy. My senses seem overloaded, everything’s super-intense.

  It’s late and there’s a message from Mark asking AM I OKAY? WHERE AM I? which he left last night. I didn’t have my phone with me when I was running. I call Mark back. He was at the cabin and out “camping” with the other guys and Tomas. I tell him about the van, and the rabbit. He says I have to come to the cabin now, before it gets dark, because the changes will happen again tonight and it won’t be safe if the men in the van know where I am. How am I supposed to get there? Go out the back door and cut through the woods and get Sam to pick you up and take you he says.

  Sam came and picked me up. I took a bag of stuff with me. Left a note for Mom. “Camping” seems to be the best excuse. I told Sam about the rabbit and she didn’t really know what to say. Pretty much are you OK and what can I do to help? But I can tell she’s talking to me like you might talk to someone a little crazy, but you’re not calling them on the crazy parts cause that’ll make them not want your help, so you end up making tinfoil hats with them to ward off the Martians while you try to figure out a better way to help.

  Sam dropped me at the cabin, which looks and smells pretty much exactly like a bunch of boys are living in it.

  Here is the amazing squalor.

  Tomas and I talked about what’s happened. He’s says he’s glad I’m here though he asked about how I got here and seems mostly satisfied we weren’t followed.

  He asked what I told Sam and I say I don’t really KNOW what’s going on enough to tell Sam anything.

  The van belongs to the hunters. Apparently the best time for them to come after us is close to the full moon when it’s hard for us to control our changes, but not ON the full moon, when we’re strongest. They have some kind of code where they’re only supposed to dispatch us when in wolf form, to be sure what we are.

  I ask : “Dispatch?”

  Tomas : “Kill.”

  They use weapons that are made of silver, which is toxic and makes wounds that are hard to heal, and wolfsbane, which is really nasty.

  Tuesday, April 22nd

  Tomas says the pack hunts together almost every night. We don’t need the full moon to change, it just makes it easier, less painful, and it’s also less painful with experience.

  We hunted last night. It HURT. My bones felt too big and stretched under my skin and my hair bristled and everything was moving, it felt like everything was sprained or breaking and healing all at the same time, like I got hit by a truck and healed up in a different shape. I could see the same thing happening to the boys.

  Sensations in the forest were overwhelming and sharp, smells and shapes and things were a blur but I could also tell what they were and how they were supposed to be, even if they weren’t totally in focus as we were running. We ran and I have never felt so free running As A human — That is such a weird thing to write or even think.

  We didn’t catch anything but I could tell what was out there, deer and rabbits and other animals. I could smell streams and could even smell what felt like safe smells, which Tomas explained as the smell of dens, either that he had prepared or that were naturally going to be of use for us on nights when we don’t return to the cabin.

  Everyone’s completely wired today after last night. Tonight’s another hunt and the boys have been acting like animals.

  They keep picking on my brother.

  Shoving him. Snapping their teeth in his face.

  I hate it, but he’s not fighting back, he’s just sort of rolling over. He’s acting like he’s playing along, but he’s not, and what they’re doing doesn’t feel like playing.

  Wednesday, April 23rd

  We made a kill. It was fantastic. A beautiful deer.

  We tracked it, surrounded it, attacked it, ate it. We tore it open and ate it down to the bones. I still remember the taste of its blood and meat in my mouth.

  We woke up after the hunt in a den that Tomas had prepared for us. Everyone was naked. It didn’t feel weird at the time, but it feels weird now after the fact when I’m writing this. There was a stash of clothes and some water and stuff to clean up with. We all woke up super thirsty. The hunt and the kill didn’t feel weird at the time either, it felt soooo good, but now today I feel a little queasy.

  Is that because I am uncomfortable that I ate a live deer, or is it just hard to digest?

  Kills aren’t that common, Tomas says, and the boys hadn’t even had one yet, that was the first.

  We went out again last night and I made a point of watching myself change in the mirror.

  Me, from memory.

  Thursday, April 24th

  Mom must be FREAKING OUT. It’s been four days. I called and left a message saying I was still on the trip and I’d be back soon, that it was part of a school program. I don’t know if she’ll buy that but I don’t know what else to do. Texted Sam and said I’m OK, talk soon. Does anyone else wonder where I am? What are we supposed to do about going back to normal life? Is that even possible anymore? I’m starting to freak out.

  I talked to my brother alone and he’s like, “This is so amazing, I wish this had happened years ago, isn’t this great?!”

  What about Mom?

  “We’ll tell her something.”

  What?

  “I don’t know.”

  What about the guys in the van, the hunters who know who we are now?

  “They’re not going to mess with us.”

  They’re already messing with us, they were following me! What about the other guys beating on you all the time?

  “They’re just playing around. I don’t mind. It’ll die down.”

  Come on. I tried to look him in the eye when he said this but he wouldn’t look at me.

  Friday, April 25th

  Tomas is explaining more about the importance of planning ahead, of the stashes of clothing — that explains the thrift store look everyone’s sporting, why buy nice clothes if you’re just going to shred them — and of the dens and getting away when we need to be wolves, and how learning to control our trans
formations will let us live as much a part of human society as we want to. So being a wolf is like joining the national guard, “serve just one weekend a month” kind of thing? What about the hunters? Tomas promises that they’ll leave us alone after we learn to control our impulses and live by the rules.

  Who made the rules?

  “The rules have been in place for a very long time.”

  Okay so why are they after Tomas? Won’t they still come after us?

  “I, well I will just say that I haven’t been playing by the rules, so far as they are concerned. But you will be fine.”

  Saturday, April 26th

  We’ve been hunting but still no kill.

  Last night I dreamed that I was surrounded by animals and I was eating and eating and tearing them apart, but they didn’t mind.

  Was talking to Danny. He and the other guys knew each other before. He said they were out drinking beer in the woods one night when Tomas attacked and bit them, a few weeks before Mark and me. He doesn’t seem too concerned about getting back anytime soon. He’s WAY into it, like Mark ‘s into it.

  He said he was glad to have us join, that me and Mark coming helped “strengthen the pack.”

  According to Danny, it works like a real wolf pack. There’s the pack but then there are two members that have specific roles, the alpha and the omega. The alpha is dominant and the others follow it as an example of strength. The omega is the lowest and is put in its place by the rest of the pack, and this is like the role it serves. What ? I guess to make everyone else feel good about themselves ?

  The alpha’s obviously Tomas, right, and the omega is — I knew the answer.

  “Your brother.”

  I told Mark what I’ve found out about the pack, that basically he’s their whipping boy and probably always will be, that it’s that way on purpose. It’s not going to get any better.

  “How do you know?”

  Danny told me.

  “Well, what does he know?”

  Is he that grateful just to be included? So yeah, being a wolf = POWER , but this is the absolute worst he’s ever been picked on. This is violent. They don’t just snap at him, they bite. It heals fast so it’s no big deal, right? Mark doesn’t care, right? We’ve been eating dinner — meat, lots of it — since we haven’t had a kill and so Mark ‘s reaching across the table and Carl barks and his jaw SNAPS and I totally jump. Mark didn’t even really flinch. Danny kept his eyes on me the whole time.

  Sunday, April 27th

  I woke up earlier than everyone else this morning. I’m still mad about the Mark thing. Even if he’s okay with it, how can he be, I’M not okay with it. Or that now suddenly we’re part of this group we have to stick together with for our own safety, even if I hate them? What if I want my old life back? How much of it can I have back at this point?

  I took the keys to Tomas’s car and drove into town and parked and just got out and walked around. Streets, shops, traffic, people. They’re all still here.

  I was heading back to the car when two guys I’d never seen before walked right up to me and said “Hi Alice.” Instinct, I crouched, I tensed up, all my arm hair standing up. My ears would have gone back, I could feel the muscles. How did they know who I was?

  “We know you and your brother.”

  They want to talk to me, they say, “Let’s go to the diner down the block and get something to eat.” Did they think I was stupid?

  “It’s broad daylight and we’re in the middle of town, surrounded by people. Come on, we have a lot to talk about. “

  OK. Why not.

  We sat down in the corner away from everyone. I tried to order the vegetarian omelet and they both laughed at me, “Alice, come on,” so I ordered a hamburger. They’re hunters, right, so why are they doing this, what are they doing, what do they want from me?

  Bob Look we understand that this isn’t you or your brother’s fault, or your decision to get caught up in this.

  Dave As far as we’re concerned, you’re victims here. You didn’t ask for this, and we’re not after you.

  You’re not? So why were you following me around in your creepy van?

  Dave We’re not interested in you. We’re interested in Tomas. He’s been doing this for a long time. He goes from town to town and he infects —

  Bob No offense.

  Dave He infects some young people to serve as a new pack, to protect himself —

  From you.

  Bob Yes, but —

  See this is scary. Why does he need protection from you? Why don’t I need protection from you?

  Bob The problem here is that he involves people in this against their will, and works them up into a state of agitation so that they DO get themselves involved, they engage in conflict, and when that happens, sometimes people get hurt, on both sides. It’s reckless, it’s irresponsible.

  Dave If you could choose to do this whole thing all over again, would you choose the life you have now?

  I don’t tell them that my brother might.

  Bob Look, things are the way they are at this point. Go kill a deer once a month, what do we care? You think we go snuffing every werewolf up and down the country here? There’d be bodies—

  Dave Bob —

  Bob Okay, okay.

  They paid for the hamburgers.

  Outside I say, I don’t think you’re telling me everything.

  They say, All you need to know is that we will leave you and your brother alone. You can go back to the life you had before. All we want is Tomas.

  We trade cell numbers. I say, You’re going to follow me.

  They say, No we won’t. You’re parked over there, we’re walking this way, see? call. This is your way out before things get out of hand.

  I watched them drive off in the other direction. I circled a few random blocks and even parked for a while to make sure they were gone before heading back to the cabin.

  When I got back everyone was ready to pounce. Where was I? I didn’t even try to pretend, I told them I got lonely for town and that the hunters came, and I told them that they said they were only after Tomas. The boys, even my brother, were MAD. Tomas says, you were followed.

  No, I was careful.

  “No, you were followed. We have to leave at once.”

  Everyone started packing up immediately. Nobody really has all that much, but Tomas told us only take what we can carry. As we walked outside, Tomas headed straight for the woods and the boys followed. I asked Tomas, aren’t we going to take your car? “It’s not my car,” he says. We left it and walked into the woods.

  We’re headed to a farmhouse that Tomas knows about — one of the benefits of his preparedness deal is that he always has a Plan B in mind. We’re all practiced enough with our animal vision that we don’t need any light but the moon to make our way. We’re traveling as humans rather than wolves — although we’d be able to cover the ground faster that way — because if we wolf out, we’ll lose all our stuff.

  Monday, April 28th

  I got a text from Sam today — I kind of jumped when I felt the phone vibrate, I didn’t think there’d be any reception out here. She says she’s been doing some poking around and there’s a researcher at Case Western Reserve who’s been studying lycanthropy and DNA and the gist of the article is that it’s a scandal that she got some government money to do this obviously crackpot research. I mean, werewolves, right? Sam’s going to look into it some more.

  We’re going to sleep in the rough tonight, in a clump to share body heat and stay warm, no fire, to keep a low profile. Tomas is semi-transformed and is standing watch, listening and sniffing.

  Tuesday, April 29th

  We heard some branches breaking last night in the woods not too far from us and I was UP and had transformed partway but then stopped like on a dime when Tomas motioned to stop — he wants us to stay human while we’re in the open so that we stay in better control of ourselves, not run off and everything. I didn’t know I had that much control already. Carl
and Razor were up too. Razor sniffed and said “I think it’s a deer, let’s get it !” and Tomas said sometimes they bring deer, and if they’re good they know how to mask their scent, though he can usually tell.

  We stayed put and didn’t hear it again.

  We made it to the farmhouse this afternoon. It’s big and kind of boarded up but not like a dump or anything — how does Tomas know about these places? It actually looks really safe, the boarded up situation kind of being a defense if it came to that. It didn’t take too long to find a way in and also not too long to shut the opening from inside.

  After investigating the place, some abandoned furniture and whatever, we took naps and now are all in front of a fire. Tomas said he thought it was safe to build one. When you’re a wolf, the forest is the best. When we had to stay human out there, what I was craving more than anything was to be indoors. Now that we’re here and our stuff is squared away, we’re itching to go out and roam the forest and hunt. It’s been too long keeping the wolves inside.