He wasn’t supposed to be at work for another two hours. But here he was, dressed in khakis and a black polo with The Forest’s logo. Matt smirked at me. “You scare too easily.”
“Well, why are you sneaking up on people?” I shot back before becoming hesitant. It was only then that I remembered this wasn’t only Matt my jerk supervisor. Instead, this was Matt—my jerk of a supervisor who also happened to be a supernatural monster.
As he took a step forward, I took a large step back. It was impulse.
It was as though Matt suddenly understood my silent thoughts. His expression was emotionless as he watched me. “We need to talk.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“Is that so?”
I had been back-stepping, very careful to keep him in my vision at all times. My body accidentally knocked into a chair as I stepped back too far against a table. “Fine. You want to talk?” I swallowed my fear and tried to show bravery I didn’t have.
“Clearly, or else I wouldn’t have announced that we needed to talk,” replied Matt dryly.
I was grateful he was being his usual snarky self. This was the Matt I had grown able to deal with the last month. When he would occasionally give me a rude reply or say something mean in my presence, I usually offered a remark that was just as rude before walking off. Snarky Matt was familiar; he was someone I wasn’t afraid of. I couldn’t say the same for werewolf Matt. I didn’t know how to act around him.
We locked eyes. As his icy blues watched me, I had a couple hundred questions bubbling up in my mind. But only one slipped passed my lips. “How long?”
He didn’t blink. “I don’t follow.”
“How long have all of you been like this?” I couldn’t make myself say what they were. My thoughts flashed to what I saw on the rooftop that night. Their eyes had been a haunting yellow; their fangs had looked needle sharp. Each guy had monstrous, dog-like snouts.
“You’ve lost me.”
I readjusted my eye contact, not realizing I had broken it. “You’re seriously going to pretend the other night didn’t happen?”
Matt showed no reaction as he laughed. “That you got blackout drunk before—”
“Before you all changed into monsters,” I finished quietly. There was no need to worry about anyone overhearing us. Perry had left twenty minutes earlier to a breakfast meeting with the food and beverage manager. Anyone else in the building would be the line cooks, and they would be in the kitchen that was nowhere near the ballroom.
The small smile Matt was wearing vanished immediately. His lips pressed into a hard line. “Monsters,” he said quietly, his expression emotionless. He looked away from me.
I immediately found myself feeling guilt at that particular phrasing. It looked like I upset him. But before I could take it back, Matt was speaking. “You didn’t tell anyone.” This wasn’t a question but an acknowledgment.
“It’s not something anyone would believe.” But my words weren’t entirely true. I had told someone—Simon.
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.” He started to walk away. This was all wrong; it wasn’t the way my hypothetical scenarios of confronting him had gone in my head. I struggled to find my words.
“You’re not even going to deny it?”
“And what would I say?” asked Matt sardonically. He turned to look at me, his expression bleak. “You know what you saw. I know what you saw. The whole damn group knows what you saw. You should have left the department when I told you to. It’s as simple as that.”
He started to walk away. This was once again such an odd scenario that I hadn’t anticipated it. I yet again struggled to find proper speech. “Are you guys going to…er…kill me?”
These words got Matt’s undivided attention. He stiffened before turning around, a brow soon raising. He was amused. “Yes, that’s the plan. I was just about to go out back to collect a shovel and some bleach to properly dispose of you.” He chuckled darkly as he walked away, sounding as if he thought I was the dumbest person alive.
CHAPTER 13
I really didn’t know what to make of our exchange. Matt seemed to return to his usual aloof self after that, avoiding me in general. I noticed a list of what needed to be done was left out in the employee lounge once I went on my half-hour break. Once my break was over, I grabbed the list before heading across the building to where I saw Matt headed twenty minutes earlier.
He was inside the room titled Glacier A, setting a U-shape table for twenty. At least that was what I figured he was doing. That was the terminology that was written on my paper that I grabbed from the lounge. I still had no real idea what I was supposed to be doing in the department half the time. All Perry had me doing in the mornings was vacuuming or cleaning those horrible windows that somehow always had smudges and fingerprints on them.
“You’re seriously going to pretend what I saw was no big deal?” My voice sounded a combination of whiny yet sharp.
Matt hadn’t heard me. He only saw me once he turned around to plop a chair down at the table. He popped a wireless earbud out of his ear to look at me. “Huh?”
I threw up my arms. “We’re not going to talk about the other night?” It was amazing that he could return to work and even do something as simple as listen to music at a time like this.
“You talked, I listened.” He merely shrugged. “There’s really not much to say.”
“Are you kidding me?” I balked. “We’re just not going to talk about how you and the rest of the guys are a pack of werewolves?!”
My raised voice got his full attention. Matt took both of his earbuds out to set on the table. He glowered in my direction before heading to the room’s entrance. He closed the door before speaking. “Lower the volume.”
“Then give me an explanation.” We watched one another in stony silence.
He took a deep breath through his nose as he looked to be struggling to hold onto patience. “Why couldn’t you have just left the damn department when I told you to?” He shook his head. “It would be so much easier if you weren’t here.” Matt didn’t make eye contact as he said this. I didn’t say anything to counter that. He wasn’t wrong. Everything would be so much simpler if I had never transferred.
“How has no one figured out what you are?”
Matt drummed his fingers on the top of his head, seemingly trying to contemplate how to explain this. It felt as it an eternity of silence passed before he spoke. He carefully cupped his hands together. “People see what they want to see.”
“What, so I didn’t actually see what happened on the roof?”
“No. I’m saying people…” He waved his hand as if referencing outside of this room. Perhaps he was referencing people out farther than that, maybe people in everyday life out in the world. “See what they want to see regarding us. They couldn’t possibly fathom that we’re…different,” he tested, seemingly not wanting to say the dreaded W word out loud.
“I’m finding it so unreal that no one in all of the Wisconsin Dells has figured out what you guys are but me.”
“Well…others have,” corrected Matt as he begun to pace. “You’ve already met them.”
My mind drifted to people I’d come across before registering what he was saying. “The other guys.”
Matt gave a curt nod. “Sometimes, a member finds us. Sometimes, we find them.”
“And…what? They all want to join the pack of werewolves?” My voice was incredulous.
Matt’s lips quirked into a half smile. “Very rarely will someone turn down the opportunity to live for nearly all eternity.”
I thought I was prepared for anything he could possibly say to me. But I was nowhere near prepared to hear that revelation. My head swam with thoughts as I struggled to keep from drowning in them. I took a nearby seat in a chair by the U-shape, not knowing what to say. “You’re joking.”
“I neglect to see what would be funny about that.”
“You expect me to believe werewolves can live forever?
They’re not vampires.”
Matt raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to listen to my explanation or do you want to sit there and make assumptions?”
I was about to object before realizing I didn’t know what I would be objecting to. Not having anything better to say, I merely waved my hand for him to continue.
“I never said forever. I said nearly forever.”
“But what does that mean?” All my studying up on werewolf folklore with Simon hadn’t prepared me for that reveal. I never considered what the average lifespan was for werewolves, but I never would have figured they could live forever.
“It means living forever is something no one truly wants,” explained Matt without looking at me. “It means to become what we are, you have to be willing to do what it takes to survive. Not everyone is prepared to spend an eternity doing what we do. A lot of the time, after decades, sometimes centuries, we find ways to end our lives for good. To put ourselves out of our misery,” he said with a dark grin.
There was so much swimming in my head upon that reveal. My mind briefly flashed to the memory of old Mr. Thompson’s body being wheeled from his house.
“And what does it take to survive?” My voice was small, afraid.
Matt slowly approached me before he seemed to take note how I unintentionally leaned away from him as he did. He paused before looking away, his expression unreadable. “Something you are not ready for.”
Neither of us said a word. He didn’t look my direction, and I couldn’t look in his. This was becoming too much for me to comprehend. There was a question in my mind, one that I strangely felt he would be honest in answering. “Are you going to kill me to keep me quiet?”
This caught his attention again. Matt stiffened before looking at me. “You think I’ll hurt you?”
No, I really didn’t. I feared what Matt was, but I didn’t necessarily fear him. Although the same couldn’t be said about our coworkers. Cale didn’t seem to like me that much; I didn’t feel he held qualms over harming me.
“It seems to be a conflict of interest,” I explained to my shoes while unable to meet his eye. “You guys can’t really keep me alive when there’s the possibility that I could tell someone what you are.” I didn’t dare mention that Simon was in the loop of things. That would complicate things more than they already were.
“See, I don’t think you’ll say anything,” said Matt with confidence. “You could have gone to the police after the party.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not a liability.”
At my words, Matt released a dark chuckle. “It’s as though you want me to say that we’re going to off you or something.”
“If you were in my shoes, you’d be thinking the same thing.”
It was very quiet after that. He couldn’t argue my point, and we both knew it. Matt seemed to be debating how much to say to me or, rather, how to phrase what he wanted to say to me. “You didn’t read the small print of the contract you signed before entering this department.”
My head snapped up to stare at him. “What?”
“There’s a confidentiality clause on every contract someone signs before they can enter the department,” said Matt in amusement. “It’s quite minor, and frankly, a piece of paper isn’t going to stop anyone from talking if they want to, but it’s a legal way for Perry to keep someone quiet.”
I was stunned. There had been a lot of small print at the bottom of the forms I signed when I first transferred. It was full of legal and technical terms. After a few weeks in the department, I was figuring Perry had me sign it so I couldn’t sue for sexual harassment given all my coworkers’ borderline massive inappropriateness on a day-by-day basis. I racked my brain as I thought of a single sentence on the contract that had caught my eye. But I never gave it much thought or asked for an explanation as to what it meant. “I signed away my rights to revealing personal information that I could hear in this department,” I recalled slowly.
Matt nodded. “We usually have trouble hiring people based upon our ridiculous hours and an all-over-the-place schedule. Occasionally, a person will want to transfer or join set up. But then they’ll automatically leave once they see the small print at the bottom of the contract. Surprisingly, you didn’t.”
I was stunned. I had read the small print, but I hadn’t really taken note of it. I merely figured that was ordinary in any contract. My voice was small when I finally spoke. “So basically, I’ll be sued by Perry if I tell anyone what you are?”
Matt gave me a halfhearted shrug. “We’ve never had anyone come out and reveal us, so I can’t be sure, but that’s my best guess as his last resort.”
My head was spinning. “So, Perry knows what you all are? Is he one, too?”
Matt laughed. “Yes, he’s one, too. Although he was transformed later in life, less than four years ago. His grandfather was one. That’s how he’s in the loop of things.”
I could only stare at him after that. Even though I suspected as much about Perry, it was utterly bizarre hearing it anyway. I had a million questions wanting to fly out of my mouth at once.
“How?”
Matt was quiet for a moment as he watched the ugly carpeted floor of the room. “Perry’s grandfather and I met in the military.”
That was something else I wasn’t prepared to hear. But Matt didn’t allow me to digest this information before he was speaking once more.
“The night we came home from a tour, we were ambushed. George and I were bit by…” Matt waved his hand as if for me to guess the rest of the story without him having to give too much graphic detail.
“A few of us had gone out to a hole-in-the-wall bar in the countryside. Our friend Victor left a tad earlier. Ten minutes after he left, George and I were stumbling to our cars, out of our minds drunk.” Matt stopped talking for a moment, pausing as if contemplating if he should continue. Seeing that I was still watching him seemed to encourage him to continue.
“We saw Victor was being attacked by a large animal, but we couldn’t see what it was. George and I tried to stop him from getting pulled away to no avail. Victor was dragged into the woods out of view, screaming. There was no one else out there except us and the two bartenders inside. But they couldn’t hear his gurgled screams like we could.” Matt paused once more to let the story sit. He was quiet.
“Even while intoxicated, I knew it was too late for Victor. No one could survive that much blood loss. Whatever it was that was killing him didn’t believe in a quick, painless death. A dark red trail led all the way to the forest.” Matt paused again to watch me. I must not have been showing fear, for he nodded before continuing.
“Even though Victor was clearly about to die, if he wasn’t already dead, George was adamant we needed to do something.” A dark chuckle escaped him. Matt looked amused at the memory of George on that fateful night. “We shouldn’t have pursued the creature on a rational day,” he said, shaking his head at what was clearly a bad memory.
“Our being intoxicated made a bad situation worse. We shot at what we saw. It was something that was very tall and furry, almost resembling a human while not really.”
All I could do was sit and listen to Matt speak. I believed his story wholeheartedly. Even the best of actors wouldn’t be able to pull off the emotion he was displaying. His expression was deeply pained, his eyes haunted by the memory that probably replayed in his head quite often.
“The thing that grabbed Victor was too fast for us. Hitting its leg with a bullet did nothing. It bit off George’s hand,” explained Matt before he unbuttoned his polo and brought it to showcase the left of his collar bone. There was a very large white scar highlighting his skin. It specifically looked like a large set of jaws had been locked on him. I could only stare.
“Bit me as well.” Matt looked away. He buttoned his polo back up and then avoided eye contact. He was no longer looking at me. His eyes were staring into space, his brows slightly furrowing as he seemed to lose himself in his haunted tale.
&nbs
p; “Life rolls on,” he continued. “George was already married before the war. He and Dorothy already had a single son. They didn’t have more children after that. And then that son had another son.”
“Perry,” I quietly breathed.
Matt nodded.
“And George is…”
“Long dead,” said Matt quietly. “He took his own life thirty years ago, the same week his wife passed of old age.”
To my knowledge Perry was in his late forties. He had salt and pepper gray hair, wrinkles, and crow’s feet. It didn’t make any logical sense to what Matt was saying. Matt himself was very young, in his mid-twenties. Participating in the army with a middle-aged man’s grandfather couldn’t possibly be true. I had another question, one that I was actually afraid of knowing.
“How old are you?”
“Want to venture a guess?” He grinned. I hesitantly shook my head, and it caused him to snort. “I was twenty-five in 1945.”
My brain did the calculations fairly quickly. Although I wasn’t prepared for what those calculations revealed. “That would make you short of a hundred.”
Matt gave a slow nod. “Celebrated my ninety-ninth birthday on Halloween.”
My mind was spinning. “So the gathering, everyone on the roof…?”
“My unofficial party,” said Matt coolly.
There was so much I needed to ask. I wanted to know all about the guys in our department. I wanted to know more about Perry, why he changed into a monster later in life, why he was going along with this. I wanted to know all the hows and whys of everything, but most of all, I wanted to know which of the werewolves was the one Simon and I saw that one night. I wanted to know who it was that was leaving the dead animals and who killed Mr. Thompson. I wanted to know anything and everything at that moment. But a sharp knocking at the door cut off Matt’s explanation. He didn’t seem startled by the knock as I was. Matt took a low breath as he looked at me.
“Shall we continue this later?”
I nodded eagerly.
The Wisconsin Werewolf Page 10
