What the Hell

by Hunter Blain

  I thought for a moment longer and felt an idea tug on the fishing line of my brain. I yanked and reeled it in, understanding why I had brought up the conversation in the first place.

  “What . . . what if you, ah, have to turn, you know, when you are in the field? With our friends.”

  I could see Depweg’s jaw tense and relax over and over as he stared out the window to the melting world beyond.

  Another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, followed immediately by an almost deafening crack of thunder, signaling we were in the middle of the storm.

  “I know, John. I’ve been thinking about that. If I have to shift, and the feral beast takes over . . .” he turned to me with a pained expression, “no one will survive.”

  I absently rubbed at the side of my head, which had been caved in during my one-sided battle with Depweg. No one on this plane, or any other, could have survived what I’d barely lived through. No one, except maybe Ulric.

  “I believe in you, brother. More importantly, I trust you. If you want, with just you and me here, why don’t you go ahead and, you know . . .”

  “I . . . I don’t know, man. I’m scared.”

  As he spoke those two words, I became paralyzed with unrelenting fear. The books had said more than one of my allies would say it just before they died.

  But the books had been fake, planted by Satan to trick me, right? Yeah, it had all been a setup, and I was going to prove it right freaking now.

  “That doesn’t sound like the marine that I know. The marine I know jumps headfirst into a raging river of Nazi soldiers all trying to turn him into Swiss cheese. The marine I know is in control of himself.” My tone softened as I placed a hand on his round shoulder. “The marine I know isn’t scared of who he is. You’re a good man, Jonathan Depweg, and I know you won’t ever let the beast roam free again. Fail forward. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Learn from your mistakes.”

  Depweg’s expression softened as my words sunk in.

  “If we learn from our past mistakes, then they are lessons. Failing makes us stronger.”

  “Then you should be the strongest man in the universe,” Depweg chuckled, lightly backhanding my chest.

  “I mean . . .” I started while removing my hand from his shoulder and dramatically flexing with an “Oh yeah” face.

  Depweg smiled, letting out a frustration-melting bark of laughter. His gaze shifted back outside, and I could see hope in his eyes.

  Switching to a Macho Man Randy Savage voice, I animatedly proclaimed, “Now listen up, wolfman, you’re gonna get out of this here Hummer, and you’re gonna shift into a huge, hulking beast that’s gonna take back the World Title next Friday at Madison Square Garden. Now show the kids at home what a man looks like who embraces his destiny!”

  Depweg nodded his head a few times slowly, and then picked up in speed. Slapping the steering wheel, he turned to open his door and all but jumped out of the vehicle. Sticking his hands out to his sides, he lifted his face to the sky while I brought up my music app and selected “Moonlight Equilibrium” by The Black Dahlia Murder. It was a superheavy, fast-paced metal song about a werewolf, and felt apropos to the situation.

  I got out of the Hummer, turning the impressive volume up as I made my way around to where Depweg was throwing off his clothes. The rain was pelting down, with increasing flashes of lightning and thunder that vibrated the windows of the vehicle.

  Pulsing veins bulged through the skin of Depweg’s entire naked frame. Eyes shifted to yellow as vertical slits formed. A snout crackled as it pushed from a previously human face. Teeth elongated into fangs and fur sprouted over a growing body. Bones popped and tendons stretched; hands lengthened to creepy proportions.

  I had to lift my head as Depweg continued to increase in size and height until I was almost looking straight up.

  Forking bolts of lightning stretched across the entire Houston skyline, etching the outline of a twelve-foot-tall wolf that stood on two legs. Each of his arms had to be at least seven or eight feet in length with hands that were, indeed, accurately described as being the size of cinder blocks with fingers attached. Claws that were several inches long arched outward like curving blades made for piercing and shredding flesh.

  Depweg let out an earsplitting howl that made all the hairs stand up on my arms and neck. I even shuddered while emitting an, “Eeeeyaaa,” sound like I’d seen a particularly creepy spider.

  The wolf tilted its massive head down in my direction before reaching out with a hand whose fingers almost wrapped completely around my chest. I let it happen because I was just as sure that Depweg wasn’t going to hurt me as I was that Jeffrey Epstein hadn’t killed himself.

  The enormous wolf lifted me off the ground, easily, and brought me up to his eye level. His orbs were yellow without a trace of red, signifying that the man was in control of the beast.

  “Told ya,” I said with an excited smile that I might have been forcing. Truth be told, it was beyond unnerving to look at this ridiculously sized monster that could kill me without even having to fully exert himself.

  He brought me closer to his maw that had sharp fangs the size of AA batteries, with four particularly long ones at the front of his snout where his canines were. They snaked up to the top of his nose and bottom of his lower jaw, and were as thick and long as my middle finger. A disturbing thought came to mind that if he bit down on my shoulder where it connected to my neck, those four canines would probably touch my juicy center. A crudely drawn kid standing next to a tree with a bird replaced the thought.

  “Mr. Owl,” the kid said, “how many bites does it take to get to the center of a Johnny Pop?”

  “Only one,” I whispered out loud, making Depweg tilt his head.

  Bringing me even closer to his jaws, the monster huffed steaming breath over my face, making me flinch, before he did the unthinkable.

  Depweg, the twelve-foot-tall werewolf that could take on an entire army of mortals, licked my face with a tongue that was as wide and long as a piece of paper. Obviously, it was thicker than one, but still, the sheer dimensions were crazy. My entire face was coated in slobber before Depweg set me down with repeated short bursts of chuffing.

  “Are . . . are you freaking laughing at me?”

  He chuffed louder, with wheezing breaths in between.

  “Got a present for ya,” I announced as I lifted my fist up with my palm facing toward me. With my free hand, I pretended to grab a crank and began whistling a circus tune as my middle finger began to stic— Something blurred and my hand disappeared.

  “Huh?” I asked, bringing my nub closer to my face. Something thudded on the asphalt of the parking lot, and I looked over to see my fist lying in a puddle, my middle finger sticking halfway up.

  I slowly returned my gaze to Depweg, who looked down at his own hand, opening and closing it as he shifted on his feet in confusion.

  “Sah-ry,” the monster said in a rumbling voice.

  “Whoa! Did . . . did you just freaking talk?!”

  “Wh-oa!” he echoed.

  “Holy shit!” I exclaimed, striding over to where my hand lay. Picking it up, I placed it at the end of my nub, and the pieces grew back together while I kept my eyes on the talking wolf.

  Walking back over, I said, “Now, where was I? Oh yeah,” before lifting my reattached hand and extending my middle finger.

  I smirked at Depweg, who shifted his gaze between the hand and me. Somehow, even with his wolf face, a single eyebrow arched.

  Following his gaze, I saw my hand was on backward and I was freaking flipping myself off.

  “Whatthe . . .” I breathed as I examined my hand. I wiggled my fingers and they all worked. “Neat! Didn’t know I could do that!”

  Grabbing the hand, I was preparing to forcibly turn it around and let it reheal when an idea came to me. Focusing on the hand, I willed my own blood to come to the surface until it looked like my entire appendage was made of nothing but liquid scarlet. With an intense focus
of the mind, I reversed the positioning, then willed the blood to retreat again. My hand was correctly positioned now.

  “Neat!” I exclaimed. “I bet I can have some fun with this trick!”

  Squinting at my hand and making a face that I was sure would look like I was trying to poop my pants, I willed blood out of the space between my thumb and index finger. It stretched and thickened until it was the size of the other digits, and I focused on creating digit number six on my hand.

  The crimson faded to a lightly tanned white color, and I was left with an extra finger.

  Depweg chuffed as he did a double take with his massive head.

  I wiggled the new finger a few times before opening and closing my fist. I could feel the tendon under the skin, and understood that my body had done all the necessary back-end work to make the digit functional.

  “Dude, this is awesome!” I exclaimed before grabbing the thumdex finger with my other hand, ready to tear it off. A thought came to me, and I released the new digit and focused on my blood, once again covering it.

  I think my tongue was sticking out the side of my mouth as I shut one of my eyes and widened the other in my concentration.

  The blood-covered finger began to shrink in both length and thickness before disappearing completely into my hand.

  “Dude . . .” I drawled as I looked up at my huge friend. Dropping my hand, I shifted to a “really” face and said, “Alright, you can shift back now. We get it. You’re awesome and all that.” I crossed my arms and began tapping my foot. “Come on. Man-suit. Don’t wanna scare the . . . wait! Keep the wolf suit on. Tee-hee.”

  “No,” Depweg rumbled.

  I looked at him with a sad face and said with pouting lips, “Aw, why not? It’ll be funny.”

  “It won’t be funny if Hayley lights me on fire or Ludvig shoots me in the face.”

  “Ah, right. ’Cause . . . ’cause they would totally do that in an instant. Yeah. Good call,” I said, slapping his long, muscular forearm. “But hey, you’re already learning to talk good in your wolf suit!”

  “Talk well,” Depweg corrected.

  “That’s what I said. Now shift back, and let’s go downstairs.”

  The rain let up as Depweg began the transformation. I noted that it didn’t look as painful as the first time he had changed from the wolf that was more than double his man size. Then again, knowing my best bro, it probably hurt like hell but he was expecting it. I, on the other hand, was a little girl when it came to things like pain. Actually, I was sure little girls were better equipped at dealing with pain than I was.

  After he was back to normal, nonhorror movie monster size, Depweg put on his wet clothes. He opted to leave his socks off as they were nearly impossible to put on while soaked, content to put them in his pocket while slipping into sloshing tactical boots. Luckily, those zipped up on the sides.

  While walking, I thought about how I had grown an extra appendage that actually functioned, and had an idea come to me that every guy has thought about. Well, every white guy, at least.

  While I squinted my eyes and bit the tip of my tongue, my pants became a little tighter in the front.

  “There we go,” I said, proudly.

  “You say somethin’, bud?”

  “Hmm? Oh, nothing,” I answered, pulling on the front of my jeans to provide some wiggle room.

  A moneymaking scheme came to me in a flash. I could make a fortune offering, ahem, extension services on the black market.

  “Hmmm,” I hummed to myself as I stroked my chin. Then the thought of having to touch a forest’s worth of penises in order to add length came to mind, and I quickly shook my head, erasing the thought. Plus, I was already, like, ultrarich.

  Either way, I was going to have to find a reason to walk around the house naked to make Joey jealous. Maybe pull a Captain Morgan stance, like on the rum bottle.

  You’re doing it again, Baleius stated, making me jump inside my own mind.

  Lilith! I forgot you were here! Don’t do that to me, man!

  I merely spoke, breaking you from a train of thought that was purely for distracting you from the unescapable future.

  You are a buzzkill. Ya know that?

  I have a feeling that any point of view, especially one that is factually based, would be considered a “buzzkill” for you, Baleius countered, doing air quotes.

  Your mom’s a buzzkill, I whispered inside my head.

  What was that?

  Hmm? Oh, would you look at that, we are at the front door. Talk later.

  I opened the door to my lair and walked in, feeling uncomfortable with how one of my pant legs was tighter than the other. Reaching down, I pulled at the material around my knee.

  “Everything okay?” Depweg asked. “Your knee itching or somethen? ’Cause I didn’t know you could itch.”

  “Hmm, I had never really thought about that,” I admitted before giving up and willing Lil’ John back to normal size. How did black guys do it? Was it special underwear or something?

  I do think this is the most embarrassed I have been, Baleius said. I could almost hear him face-palming and shaking his head.

  “Your mom,” I said.

  “What?” Depweg asked, confounded and annoyed.

  “Oh, shit. Wrong person.”

  “Hey, guys,” Locke said as he came out of his room. He stopped and looked at my feet before returning to glare up at me.

  “What?”

  “Could you not drip on my floors?”

  “We still on the whole ‘your’ thing?” I asked harshly with air quotes.

  “I had the whole place redone when you decided to take a ten-year vacation. Chose everything myself. So, yes, my floors.”

  “You‒” I began while lifting a finger.

  “It’s all semantics anyway, with the mansion being built,” Locke interrupted.

  My finger dropped.

  “It’s already being built?”

  “SAC Baker has sent over a small team to start prepping the land. Clearing trees. Leveling the foundations. Digging holes for various things like a septic system.”

  “And pool, right?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Of course that’s where your main concern would lie. Yes, a pool. Why? You plan on getting a darker tan?”

  “Easier to make annoying people disappear when you have a pool. I don’t know what happened, officer! He must have just fallen in and drowndeded!”

  “Hmph,” Locke answered as he narrowed his eyes at me.

  Depweg disappeared into his room, shutting the door behind him, leaving Locke and I alone.

  Changing my tone to one of genuine concern, I softly asked, “Hey, um, about the kid at the fire station.”

  “I already set it up. Da actually left incredibly detailed notes before he . . . left. I am using the same home that Magni was placed in and set the child up with a savings account drawing seven percent interest yearly. He will never want for anything.”

  “Thanks D—” I froze as my mouth tried to say the wrong name. The feeling in my heart was an established one, and my mouth was only going off muscle memory. It embarrassed me that I’d had to send not one, but two children to a special home because of what had been done because of me. “Locke,” I finished. My wizard friend decided to let it go with a small nod.

  “I also made a donation to the home in hopes that more orphans would be taken care of. College tuitions have been paid for. New computers for the school. And even a generous bonus for the loyal employees who, I think, really just want to help the children.”

  “Thanks, man,” I said as I placed a hand on his shoulder. My heart felt warm. Only the sound of steady water hitting the floor pulled me from the moment.

  I looked down at my dripping clothes, and a thought came to me.

  I took a step back from Locke, focused on the air around my frame, and began to slowly excite the molecules of the air, creating heat. The air around me began to waver as I asked more and more of the molecules to m
ove faster. Steam began coming off me, lightly at first and then billowing as the hot air dried my clothes.

  Hayley came into the common area, apparently having been awakened by Ludvig as he entered his room to shower and, probably, burn all the clothes I had vomited on.

  “John, I wouldn’t do th‒” Hayley began until Locke held up a finger, shushing her.

  “I got this,” I proclaimed as I continued to heat the air. Well, just like most of my ideas, this one backfired and showed me I did, in fact, not got this.

  My right sleeve burst into flames before the other followed suit.

  “AAAAAHHHHHHH!” I shrieked as I began running in circles, waving my arms around.

  “May I?” I think I heard Locke ask Hayley. I couldn’t really hear him over the übermanly screaming that sounded nothing at all like a basket of newborn kittens all meowing at the same time.

  “Sure,” she probably answered. I don’t know. Once again, couldn’t really hear over my death metal screams that were definitely not like the teapot shrieks of a lesser man.

  A blast of ice smashed into me, throwing me against the front door where I stuck as if held in place by ten rolls of duct tape.

  I forced one eye open, because the other wouldn’t obey my commands, and saw everything through a blueish-white haze.

  “Dear me, what on Earth has befallen your friendly neighborhood vampire?” I asked, though I was sure with my frozen face all that came out was, “Der e, er hahe yer ire.”

  “Very good, Locke!” Hayley exclaimed, applauding vigorously. She may or may not have been reduced to heaves of mirth, as well. It was hard to tell for some damn reason.

  “Hey, John,” Locke called out before switching to the worst Arnold accent I had ever heard. “Chill out.”

  That made me mad. I put some energy into my body and shook my head, sending ice crashing to the floor and yelling, “Don’t you DARE butcher Arnold in this house! And we don’t quote Batman & Robin, either! Those suits with the nipples still give me daymares.”

  “I actually have to agree with him on this one,” Hayley reinforced while looking at Locke.

  “Thank you, Hayley,” I said, dripping with passive-aggressive rage. “Now, if you would be so kind, could you, oh, I don’t know, GET ME THE FUCK DOWN FROM HERE?”