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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack |
| The military does not make you patient. That's a misnomer that I've heard a time or two. It merely makes you good at waiting. The old saying goes, "Hurry up and wait." That's what we were doing. We had been shuffled off to our rooms, locked in, and forced to wait. We weren't doing it patiently. My hip woke me up. It was in pain, but the throbbing dull kind of ache that makes you wish you hadn't bothered with this whole thing called 'being awake'. I stood and hobbled a bit, first checking my pistol. It was there, thankfully. Clips fully loaded, giving me a grand total of thirty six shots. Each bullet silver. Downstairs a folding table was set up with food on it. Paper plates with paper plate toppers to keep food lukewarm, with our names written in sharpie across the top. I half walked, half stumbled down the stairs, each jolt sending fresh pain into me waking me up a little more. If I couldn't have caffeine to keep me moving, at least I had anger and pain. It was starting to feel a whole lot more like military service. It was almost like prison, in a sense. We stood around. We waited. We talked. Elouise visited me sometime after microwaved eggs but before microwaved burgers. I swear, whoever thought they were "cooking" for us, I'm going to find them, tie them down, and force them to watch a marathon of "Good Eats" until they know how to fry an egg and a burger. "What you think this is about," she asked. "How much you want to bet we're being bugged," I replied. She shrugged. "Does it matter?" "Well, I suppose not. Hi Cecily!" I said, waving at a wall where I suspected a camera to be. I could imagine her snarling at the screen in frustration, and that made me smile for a moment. "Let's tip our hand a little," I said. "This is part of what I know. The Nobility are not in active war with The Rodriguez clan." She arched an eyebrow. "That's right Cecily," I said louder. "I don't believe you two are actually fighting. A truce has been reached. That's why Donte and Killian are never together in the same damn place. They're trading off. The Nobility has them. And you get...who? That's what I've been wondering all morning. That's part of what I believe I have figured out." Elouise paced a bit, and smiled. "It sort of reminds me of that old movie, 'The Godfather', in a way, doesn't it?" "Yeah," I said. "They...." That's when everything began to fall into place. "Oh, shit," I said, my eyes widening. "What," Elouise asked. "You're going to have to put on your gator boots." "What the hell is going on," Elouise snarled. I thought about whispering, but they'd hear us anyway. "Damn werewolf ears," I snarled, and looked at Kris, who was wiping sleep from his eyes as he leaned against Sean. Zack grumbled, but crossed his arms. "Shit, they're going to know anyway," I snarled. "No wonder they tossed me back in here last night." "Jason," Kris yawned, then said, "can you pretend for a moment that we have no clue what you're talking about and tell us what's going on?" "The Nobility," I said. "This was all about the Nobility. Think about it. Sophia being dead but not. Her just showing up, but never quite sticking around. Constantly disappearing with Crash. And Killian and Donte always disappearing too." "You're not making sense," Elouise said. "What do those jokers have anything to do with anythin?" "Because," I said looking at her. "They're supposedly at war, right?" Elouise nodded. Then paused. "You know, I ain't seen a single attack." "There was that one," Zack said. "We were all in the car for that a few hours ago." "Yeah, with two werewolves. No dead werewolves from that, and they didn't grab a single one of us. Remember a few months back that was the first thing the Nobility did. They grabbed Crash. Then they grabbed all of us." "Yeah," Elouise said, "it was pretty strange how...tame the werewolf attack seemed." I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. "Exactly! It was loud, but there wasn't any blood. No snarling. Almost like it was staged. Not a real attack. And you can't have a war without attacks, can you?" "Well," Sean smiled sheepishly a bit, "there is that war that Canada fought with Whiskey." We all stared at Sean, who's sheepish smile widened. "It's like, true! I swear, dude. They go to this island, and then put a bottle of whiskey down and their flag. Then they leave and the other side, I think it was Danish, but I'm not sure. Anyway, they take the Canadian whiskey and flag and leave their own flag and whiskey. They fight without firing a single shot." We stared at Sean for a moment longer. Kris hugged him then and whispered into his ear something that made Elouise giggle. Sean blushed but didn't say anything. "Anyway," I said, "thanks for that weird detour. But, I believe I know what's going on, here. I don't have everything. But, Killian, and Donte. They're being held in rotation. In return, the Rodriguez gets someone." "Who," Zack asked. "Sophia." They all blink. "I saw them last year. Most of you were kidnapped, but I saw them. They hated being down there with us under those circumstances. They were willing to fight. Willing to do anything they could to get their family back." "So," Zack said, "Why don't they just get Killian and Donte back when Sophia is here?" "I don't think they can," I said. "Something is happening. The Rodriguez needs The Nobility to fire the first shot." "Why, though," Elouise asked. I shrugged. "Don't know that yet. But, I believe that Cecily isn't the one seeing us and hearing us right now. If I'm right, then..." A lone howl echoed out in the distance. It was long. Followed by others. Howls on all sides. Lots of them. A chorus that reverberated through the entire building and chilled our blood. I didn't have nearly enough. "Shit," I snarled. Then I looked at Elouise, who was already stripping down. "Give a girl some privacy, damn!" Blushing, I turned so she could change for her shift. "Sorry," I said. "So, Crash brought us here as..." I stopped Zack in his tracks with that statement. "No." I snapped. "Crash didn't betray us. Not willingly. We're here to support him. I suspect he's going to need it when he gets back. But for the Rodriguez, we're here as fucking..." "....bait." Kris said. "Shit." "I don't get it," Zack said. "Why us? Why?" "Because of the one armed bandit running them over here," I said. "Remember?" "Verner Behring," Sean and Kris snarled. I nodded. "I get to shoot his ass this time," Kris snapped. I smiled. It probably looked like a half snarl though. "We'll see." "But still. They're big huge creatures capable of doing so much. Why worry about us," Zack asked. "Because," Sean said, staring out the window. "We shamed them. We kicked them out of our home. We invaded theirs. We even, like, disfigured their leader. They owe us." "Well, I hope I give them indigestion," Kris snapped. "I hope it's the screaming shits." "Don't freak out yet," Elouise said. "Stay in the hallway. Stay together. Mama's gotcha." She was in full warrior mode. Arms out, thick with scales and claws, her tail lashing from side to side, and a low growl in her throat. The monsters were quite literally scratching at the door. I had my pistol out in the low ready position. We were trapped in the hallway. Listening to the dying howls, and the sounds of splintering wood. |
| The light at the gate was very dim so the picture to me was just a black box on a white sheet of paper. I guessed Crash could see it though, cause with just a single glance, he leaped out of the car and disappeared into the tree line. Another blur disappeared after him. "What the hell," I asked Roam. "Sophia is going to get him," he said. There was a look on Roam's face that I couldn't read. Plus it was still very dark. "She'll bring him back," Roam said. "She always does." I jumped back in Crash's car, and pulled around their gravel drive. I only ground one gear! I mean, I only used one gear, but still, the transmission will live. I followed Roam into the house, who walked over towards the kitchen and kissed his wife, then turned to us. They were both still human, Cecily was over in the corner still human as well. Donte was sitting at the kitchent able across from Eleanor, looking down at his hands and not raising his eyes to me or anyone. Then there was the guys. Kris and Sean were leaned together on the love seat, half dozing. It looked as if they were doing that kid thing were they're trying to stay awake, but their eye lids are just too heavy. I'd have snapped a photo if Kris wouldn't try to break my arm for it. Zack leand against the couch snoring away and Elouise was next to him doing the same. At least there was better lighting in there. Grabbing the print out again, I got a better look at the image. It was a camera still. A blurry shot of a werewolf attacking a security guard. The entire print out had the mosaic tile look of a low resolution image being blown up way passed it's own ability. The guard's face was obscure, the attack angle weird, but still, it'd be convincing enough for a jury. One that believed in werewolves that is. Not that they ever get a jury trial. "I'll have it deleted by morning," Eleanor said. "If they have any backups not on the network we'll have trouble, but I don't think that will be a problem." "What I don't get," I glanced around the room. I was standing near Roam who stood in the doorway between the kitchen area and the living room. "Is why the hell are they bothering with this? Why won't they just come attack us?" "We're sovereign citizens of this nation," Roam said. "They're not. They can't just..." "Oh bull shit," Kris muttered from the corner, he half yawned, then said, "If they're 'Nobility' or whatever, they have diplomatic immunity, they would just be deported." I'm pretty certain he fell all the way asleep by then. I raised my eyebrows at Roam, giving him a questioning look. Kris took the words right out of my mouth. "Well," Roam said, then looking down, "I-I'm not sure." "Eleanor will remove the image," I said. "So, why are we even bothered about this?" "Look," Roam said, "Sophia will get Crash. Then, we'll have everything well in hand." "What did Crash do for you when he was here?" That stopped everyone. "What," Tanika asked stepping forward. "What did you say?" "What did Crash do for you when he was here?" "That's..." Roam started, then said, "That's classified." I laughed, "That's rich. No, it's not. You're not government. If you were, Crash would be locked up, we'd be in a motel somewhere eating crappy fast food and hanging out with Ms. Congeniality over there," I motioned towards Cecily. She snarled, but didn't say anything. "Well, then it's sensitive, and I don't want to broach that," Roam said. What bugged me the most about the entire situation was that I was missing something. You have to understand, the most I've interacted with the Rodriguez pack had been about a year ago or so when the first "Nobility" thing went down. From there, Donte and I exchanged messages and the occasional greeting card, but that was about it. Eleanor gave me a hello once on the blog, then deleted it. Roam and Tanika? Nothing. We were essentially waiting around. The guys went out to their prospective beds. It was a nice enough place that we'd all had our own bedroom, though I never asked who we were putting out with this. A little snooping revealed a bit more to me. Killian's name was on more than a couple things in there. Come to think of it, when was the last time we had seen Killian? It had been several hours prior, during that botched debriefing we'd been given. He was gone. Roam was in the living room, standing towards the kitchen. Tanika was by his side, essentially. Eleanor was over at the kitchen table, staring down at her laptop like always it felt like. So, who did that leave? Killian and Donte. It was weird, I'd never seen either one of them in the room at the exact same time the entire trip. Donte was gone with Roam. Then when they got back, Killian was still inside. Wasn't he? No, he wasn't. What the hell was going on? The door to my room was, of course, locked. I didn't lock it, but that wouldn't be much of a problem. The military teaches you a few things. One of which is how to bypass locked doors. Especially when you don't want to wait over an hour to sign a key out just to get a mop from the mop closet. Blockbuster has long since been defunct, but their products still come in handy for me from time to time. That blue and yellow card is just flexible enough to bypass basic door locks. A simple slip into the jamb and press down on the latch, and the door swung freely open. Thank you, Blockbuster! I looked at the door knob. Someone had reversed it. They placed the lock on the outside. It was one of those push style knobs, the ones you push then turn to lock. This entire thing was getting out of hand. I went over to the room that Elouise was staying in, but she was out, snoring loudly. Much louder than I'd ever hear her snore. Everything appeared haphazard. We had been locked in with the fastest rush jobs in all of rush jobs. If it wasn't for the fact that our door pulled inward, I was willing to bet they'd have just slid a chair under the knob. The gang was drugged on something and Crash was off on his own again, doing God knows what with Sophia. I needed answers, and I wasn't about to just wait around and hoped Crash survived long enough to find them. Down the stairs. I started limping as I rounded the corner, my knee and hip was exhausted. Which meant the pain was going to come, which also meant I was probably going to be in the floor soon without help. But damn it, I didn't care. Someone knew something and I was going to find out what. I walked across the yard in the dark, until I was picked up by a dark furred figure. "You're supposed to be in your room," he snarled. "Roam I presume." All I could see in the darkness was eye-shine. But it certainly could have been him. "Why are you out?" "Why are you tricking Crash?" Clawed, haired fingers grabbed the collar of my shirt and began tightening it. "I could kill you right here, you know." "Yes," I gasped, "but Crash would go to war on you." That stopped him. "Go back to your room," He snarled. Then dropped me a little too hard. It took everything I had in me to stay upright at that moment. But damn it, I wasn't about to collapse in front of him. "What are you doing to him," I asked again. He didn't respond, just turned. If I could see his ears, they would have been flattened in shame. "Just go back to your room," he said. "And don't ask questions you don't want answered." "Is it questions I don't want answered," I asked. "Or ones you don't want answered?" To those two questions, he didn't respond. Part of me wishes I'd continued snooping around the grounds that night. I was exhausted, my hip throbbing, my knee weak, but still. Maybe I could have figured something else out. Perhaps the outcome of everything could have been a lot less bitter sweet if I had figured things out sooner than I did. I'm no Columbo, though. I'm only human. Those little idiosyncrasies that all the detectives always catch on television just normally go right over my head. It does one little good to wonder, to sit and worry at night watching the stars move across the sky as you wish for your eyes to close when your head hits the pillow. When I finally went to sleep that night, dawn had just cracked over the horizon, not quite breaking the day open yet. There was no sign of Crash. That didn't sit right, either. It doesn't feel good being sidelined. It doesn't feel good being kept under lock and key with people watching your every step, the same people who are supposed to be friends and associates. People you've worked with in the past. One thing was certain that early morning when I finally started to drift off. I was beginning to understand why Crash didn't talk to this pack at all. |
| Crash had me suspended in the air. I had expected there to be more shouting, more threats. Someone to steal my quips and one-liners since air for me at that moment had become a precious commodity. But instead, Sophia stepped to Elouise. Elouise apparently pushed or threw Sophia, cause she collided with Crash, who released me as he was knocked down. That landing was one of the worst I've ever done. I had almost wished I landed on my head. Instead, it was my bad hip that took the brunt of the hit, sending pain up and down my leg, jolting through my back. I bit my lip as I writhed, clenching my eyes shut in a vain effort to shut out the pain. After what felt like eternity, the pain and accompanying muscle spasm finally subsided. The fight was over. Crash was standing over me like then like a guard dog. He even sat on his haunches like a dog, something that he had always swore to me he'd be caught dead doing. If only I wasn't in severe pain and had my camera out. "Fucking ouch," I growled, staring up at him. He lowered his ears, and looked down. It resembled the dog getting scolded for licking crumbs off the table. "Sorry," he said. "What happened," I asked. "Kris broke up the fight." I looked around. Everyone else was gone. Elouise had apparently taken the guys, and God only knew what happened to Sophia. "I...." he gasped, then looked down again. "I'm sorry. I never." I gritted my teeth. "You owe me a steak dinner," I said. "I'm talking the best fucking steak too. I want a porterhouse that makes a Filet Minogn look like one crappy things from Waffle House." He nodded. "You got it. You okay to stand?" "Just get me to the car," I said. It was becoming one hell of a trip. We drove in silence for a bit as we took the back way. "I..." he hissed, then said, "I had to do something." "I get that," I said. "Who?" "Some flunky. Wasn't even mythical. Just some human guy that the Nobility had hired. He had silver, and was determined to take my head. We weren't supposed to be there to..." Crash broke off again, tearing up. He revved the car and began to drive faster. "That's what makes it worse, you know? It was just some civilian, who thought he was doing the right thing. Jason, he was innocent, and I killed him." I got it at that moment. There's a difference between killing someone who is ready to kill you. Who has their own weapon locked and loaded, working from their own battle plan and killing someone who was so young and inexperienced they may as well not even be in the fight. "I tried to not," he said. "I...tried..." "You had no choice," I said. "I could have got shot," Crash replied. I shook my head. "No. You do that, and then I'll end up dead trying to kill every one of those self-righteous assholes." He looked at me for a moment and didn't say anything. We were driving through the back woods then, not paying much attention to where we were going or how we were getting there. Testing the bridge, so to speak, to identify where it had been charred and where to repair things. But his actions, they weren't unfamiliar to me. I'd seen other men self-destruct from such guilt. No one knows how to attack you like your own mind. PTSD can turn it into an untamed beast, ready to shred you to ribbons on the slightest provocation. But it's insidious. It's not a flash and suddenly you're standing in a killing field again for a battle you survived a decade ago. It's not like in the movies or the joke in those internet cartoons with all the cutesy animals killing each other. It's as simple as a memory. One that could be spurred on by a mundane object or person. A face caught the wrong way. A stop sign with a bullet hole in it. A car with just the right color of dirt on it's bumper and trunk. This memory springs two words which are deadly in this situation: "I wish". Then you're off to the races, your mind stringing incident after incident together. Each one your mind trying to go down avenues that had never been, trying to find a solution to mistakes you can never undo, because life has no backspace key. Your emotions rising up inside you as each scenario and failure plays over in your own head and you try to work out what you could have done differently. You know it's futile, but you still feel yourself doing it: slipping into those bonds of mistakes and yesterdays. Crash was right there, then. Chained to Yesterday and What Might Have Been. Two insidious task masters that never forgive and never lets you forget. I could tell it in the way his ear tipped down. The sniffles that he tried to hide as his heart broke in a thousand pieces and landed on his cheek fur. An idea occurred. One that would either backfire and send him spiraling, or wake him up. I wasn't sure, which. "Pull over," I said pointing to an abandoned parking lot. We were on the edge of a small city, now. And the place used to belong to a mechanic of some kind who probably had died decades ago, but no one wanted the building of. White plaster moss mold and stone. Sun bleached parking lot nearby so you could sit and watch to see if the roof was going to go ahead and cave the rest of the way in. "Get out," I said. He shook his head. "Come on," I limped over to the side of his car, pulling on his fur. "Get out!" Slowly, he climbed to his feet. "Now," I said. "Tell me, what choice did you have?" "I could have," he sighed. Then said, "Leaped over him." "Oh, so guns don't point up. Gotcha." I arched an eyebrow at him that got a snarl. "It was risky, but he'd be alive!" His ears tilted back and he slashed his claws at the air in frustration. "And you'd be dead! Hello! Don't you see what this is? You did what you had to do. Anything else, you'd be dead right now and Sophia would be snarling directions at us. We'd all die." He looked down, but didn't say anything. "You'd be dead, Crash. The war would go on. I'd kill myself trying to kill all of them. You know it's true." Again, he still didn't say anything. I grabbed his muzzle like a dog's, and pointed his eyes at me. "You're a good person, you hear me? Not a monster. A good person. You did what you had to do to survive." He pulled his head away, and sat back on the car. It rocked under his weight but held. "I still wish he hadn't forced me to do that." "We all do when it's our time," I said. "But, when it's a choice between you or them, damn it, you come home!" Stepping to him, I snarled right in his face and said, "You come home! you know damn well what it would do to all of us if you didn't." He nodded, then looked down. After a couple of moments, he looked at me and smiled. With a pat on my head he said, "Good werewolf impression." Taking a heavy sigh, and looking to the sky for a moment, "I guess you're right. It's just...a face I'll always see. Something I promised myself I'd never do again." "Wait...again?" Crash nodded. "Sophia has a habit," he said, then sighed, looking skyward again. "She's got a habit of taking these dangerous and crazy jobs. The types of things that ensures there will be fights and blood shed. She enjoys it. Makes her feel powerful." I limped around to the car, mostly to sit back down and take the pressure off of my sore hip and knee. "Sounds like a party girl. Before I met Sarah, I dated this red head. She liked to go to bars and get me into fights." Crash jumped back into the drivers seat and began driving. "Really," he asked. I nodded. "Yeah. If I won the fight, the sex was great. Thing was, the type of guys she chose to have me fight? I rarely won." He chuckled. "So, why did you agree to it?" "I didn't jump into the fights with them! Most of the time I would be sitting at the bar waiting on her to get out of the bathroom or something and some dude built like...well you, would grab me by the shoulder and take a swing." He smiled and then shook his head. "Why did you date her?" "Young and dumb. The sex, when we had it, was good. But I got tired of being punched, and we didn't have anything else in common. We hated each other I found out. For her half the fun it seems was watching me get punched." He laughed, which caused me to laugh. The mood began to lift almost until we got to the compound. I wasn't sure what to expect. Flames. Fires. Werewolves stacked from one barbed wire wall to the other. But, instead what I got was Roam, standing by the gate holding a photograph. Of Crash. "We got trouble." |
| We were surrounded by angry werewolves who looked like they wanted to turn us into shredded barbecue. If I had a M-2 .50 cal on hand with a thousand rounds of silver bullets I wouldn’t be able to get even half of them before they killed me. There was only one logical action. How does the old saying go? He that fights and runs away… I sprinted towards the cars, shouting at Elouise and whoever would listen, "Crank'er up! Let's go!" Crash and Sophia beat me to his, so I turned and raced towards Elouise. The only thing that that seemed to save my life was Crash staying put, fighting off werewolves as he waited for me to get in a car. Thought I heard Sophia shouting at him the whole time, but I'm not sure. There was a lot of shouting, growling, crying from Zack, Sean and Kris, who all got as low as the could in the car. The furballs attacking us were only concerned with Crash and Sophia. It was as if us humans wasn't even there, almost. As soon as I jumped in, Crash gunned it, his car shedding creatures of the night off of it as it moved. Elouise claims she wasn’t aiming for them, but we did thump a couple. It’s hard to kill a werewolf. But if you hit one with a ton of rolling aluminum and plastic, they will limp away from regretting their decisions. There wasn't a lot of options for me to help. Sure, I was armed, my trusty Glock loaded with silver bullets beside me. But, which one was Crash? Which was Sophia? Her fur pattern was chocolate brown, which is black under moonlight basically. Crashs’ was pitch black. It looked as if the night had come alive to eat you. The rest of them were all the same: black fur, fangs, teeth, snarls. In other words, I could get head shots in the dim light beneath the street lamp, sure. But, would I be killing Crash? Sophia? There’s also the whole “we’re in a neighborhood” thing. At the moment, I imagined we sounded like some sort of wild teenagers street racing on the back streets with a pack of dogs chasing us. If I start opening fire, that would bring all sorts of crazy heat down. Not to mention any one of those stray bullets could go into someone’s home or worse, someone's sleeping child in their home. Killed for the crime of going to bed on time after eating their vegetables. So, what could we do? Crash did some crazy driving, swerving and shaking the tail of his large caddy. The wolves shook but still held on. Sophia snarled, slashing at them, but seemed to be doing more damage to Crash's car than to any of the werewolves. I pulled out my phone. "What the hell you thinkin," Elouise said as I began to dial 9-1-1. "Calling for help," I said. She swerved. There was a thump. A loud snarl that turned into a sharp whine of pain. Then a glance that I swear would have been a glare if she had the time. "You crazy?!" "We have the right to be here," I said. "They don't!" "M-monsters," I shouted into the phone when I heard the familiar '9-1-1, what's your emergency?' line. There was a couple of clicks. Then a voice with a germanic accent said with a weary sigh, "I'll be right down." No one asking me where I was at the moment or anything. Just 'I'll be right down' and click! Not sure what to expect, I looked over at Elouise. "We haven't broken the law," I said. "We were out at the damn cemetery to pay our respects when we were attacked." "It's not been my experience that the cops think too much of that," she snarled. "Crash is a fucking cop, remember?! That's his job?" "Oh," she said. Crash made a left, and then a right and floored it. We struggled to follow, though her SUV seemed to be suited much better to off-roading then over land cruising. The forest was inky black on our right, with a pond or lake of some kind on our left. It was big, but we were a tad too busy for me to see if it was man-made or not. I caught a glimpse of piercing gold in the forest, then something ferocious exploded out of it. It was here that things got crazy. This creature, which appeared to be a little larger than the werewolves, grabbed a couple. I'm not sure if he grabbed their shoulder, or threw them, in one moment they were snarling at Crash, hanging on for dear life, the next they were off of Crash's car. As soon as one wolf caught site of the new arrival, it left without a fight. There was a snarling grunt of a roar that sounded like a wild boar was pissed. Then the rest scattered to the four winds. Crash pulled over to the side of the forest, as well as Elouise. We were all called out of our vehicles. It was then that I got a proper look at the guy. He later told me the proper name of his species is Jofurr. Speaking with a bit of a Germanic accent, the creature was actually quite pleasant once the unpleasantness had been dealt with. A thick tuft of hair was on his head that reminded me a bit of an eighties punk rocker. His eyes glowed with an eerie power. As far as build goes he was similar to Crash, though Crash seemed to have more finesse, and this guy, who hadn't identified himself yet, was built for power. The other strangeness was that he was wearing pants. They looked to be a converted pair of military trousers, worn with a simple rope belt and nothing else. What's so strange about that? Well, most mythicals work, in the fur we'll call it. Makes sense though for them, cause their fur is thick enough that you don't see anything unless you're trying to be a creep. The rougarou do it cause their physiology literally hides anything and everything. There's nothing on them to oggle at, so to speak. But this guy and the vampires were both wearing clothing of some kind. His facial features? Well, take a wild boar. Give it a jovial smile, and place it's head on a power lifter. You'd come close to how he appeared. "I'm Florian, Nice to meet you," the new guy said, grinning around his tusks. Then he laughed and looked at Crash. "You couldn't handle this pack of puppies?!" Crash glared at me. "I was handling it," he said. "I'm guessing you called?" Florian chuckled. "Well, they sure didn't look tougher than those Wendigo's you helped me with a while back." Crash shuttered. "Thanks for reminding me," he growled. "Yeah, we're all alright, I think." "Well, that begs me to wonder though, why are you here?" We all looked at each other for a moment. "Visiting a grave," I said. Florian looked at me, sniffed twice with his snout, and then leaned down into my face. "Now, the little human wouldn't be stupid enough to lie to me, would he?" I did call him, but I was still running on adrenaline. He got in my face with a threat. It's instinct. Drilled into me from years of military training. As he leaned forward and made his threat, I pulled my pistol. "Not without silver," I said, holding it at a low ready. Of all the reactions I expected, laughter wasn't one of them. Florian threw his arms up and in mock shock, then began to gawfaw, sometimes warping into a literal snort. "Don't shoot," he said, between snorts of laughter. Crash shook his head and pinched his eyes, with his ears folded back in the most disappointed look I'd seen on him in a while. "Jason," he said, "Jofurr won't be hurt with silver." Florian's laughter began to pitter out finally and he spoke with just a touch of malice. "Put your toy away, boy. Before I take offense." I hadn't been that embarrassed since that time I woke up drunk in the Wal-Mart bathroom. My cheeks burned as I slid my pistol back in it's holster. Every eye felt as if it was on me at that moment. What can I say? It was reaction. Monsters get in my face, I draw. Have been trained to do that since Basic. "I'm trying to sort some things out," Crash said. Florian snorted in Sophia's direction then nodded. "Well, be careful. Cause next time one of your posse might not be so smart as to call me. And next time, knowing what your sortin, I might not decide to come." Sophia looked down at that statement for a moment. Her ears folded back, like she had been embarrassed. Of course she didn't say anything. But knowing what I know now, yeah, I wouldn't have said anything either. I would have wanted a hole to crawl inside. Florian disappeared into the trees, his form melting back into the darkness from which it was born. After a few moments, both Crash and Sophia turned on me. Yes, I grabbed my pistol again when they did. "What the hell were you thinkin," he snarled. "We had this under control," Sophia snapped. "You did, did you? Cause it looked like we were all about to be dead!" "You didn't know the plan," she growled. "There was no plan," I snapped back. Crash, on instinct I think more than anything else, grabbed my shirt and lifted me a couple of inches off the ground. "Choose your next words carefully," Sophia said. "Cause they could be your last." I had never seen him like that. For anyone. It was as if part of his mind was now gone and what had replaced it was that of a real monster, begging to be let off a leash. I looked down into his eyes, and was about to say something about this being a terrible way to end a friendship. But Elouise beat me to it. "How about if you harm him or any of your friends hairball, you'll draw back a fuckin nub." She had morphed into full rougarou mode. Thick tail, scales, gator snout, the works. And she was ready to fight. |
| It was about fifteen minutes into the conversation with Roam when the strays arrived. Their arrival was a welcome addition. It was tiring dancing around the half-hearted apologies and forced small talk. Roam was judging my state of mind mostly by scent, and not being terribly subtle about it. I didn’t mind, Crash does that too, but he’s a lot more discreet. Perhaps there’s werewolf manners where you’re not supposed to let the other person know they’re sniffing you or something? Manners or no, it was a welcome reprieve when Donte arrived. His tall presence was a welcome reprieve from the apologetic tone of Roam. He shook my hand hand long and hard before bringing me into a one-armed hug. “I don’t think Roam was thinking when he grabbed this,” Donte said as he grabbed the half-drunk beer from my hand. I’d been mostly sipping on it out of politeness. Roam smiled and shrugged. “It was on short notice, eh? Donte’ could you please grab something more appropriate?” Donte smiled and pointed at me. “Way ahead of you. Odul’s okay?” “Soda is better,” I said. “Anything with bubbles and caffeine.” He disappeared for a moment and was right back, passing Roam who worked his way back into the building. He gave me an apologetic smile. “Look, Cecily and Killian they’ve been around werewolves too long, I think.” What could I do at that moment? Tell Donte that I knew why they were doing what they were doing, and perhaps they shouldn’t have pulled the thread they pulled to get what they wanted? Or that their temper tantrum, although entirely staged felt as if it paled in comparison to my very real tantrum that was still bubbling just under the surface? If Crash hadn’t needed me there, I would have said more than a couple things which would lead us all to things we’d later regret. It’s a talent. But that wouldn’t settle what Crash needed to get settled. There was something very real there that was at the root cause of everything. My friend wasn’t there for the grave at all. A grave which we all were increasingly suspecting to be fake. There was something else at play. An unsettled business that can only be as tangled and messy as any business with family. So, when Donte gave his excuses and jokes, I just nodded like an idiot as I gave a smile and said “Yeah, I guess so,” in the right places. “They don’t know it yet,” Donte said. “They really haven’t seen you work the way I have, but they need you. We really need you right now.” “What could possibly be happening that a group of werewolves can’t handle?” The smile fled from Donte’s face for a second. “Something big,” he said. “We think that...I mean we have information that leads us to believe...” “Jason, could you come in here for a second,” Roam asked, peaking his head out from the door of the house. He gave Donte a look for a second, and Donte looked down at his beer, which suddenly interested him a whole lot more than what he was going to say. I followed Roam and found Crash sitting in a room with the guys, and his family. Zack, Kris, and Sean wouldn’t look me in the eye, which meant one thing: Crash told. There’s a certain betrayal in that which stung. The events of my military career I’ve never went into on here and won’t go into. But the events of others, what other individuals had suffered through, whether I was there to witness it, or heard about it over beers on long painful nights filled with talking, tears and regret, I didn’t and will not divulge. It is not my place to say. I grew tight lipped as I gritted my teeth. “I had to explain a few things,” Crash said. I nodded, but didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry,” Cecily said. “I had no idea.” I looked at her, but didn’t say anything. I turned to Crash and asked, “everything?” He only shook his head. “Jesus,” Kris said, “there’s more?!” With a pained smirk I replied, “probably lots. Crash hasn’t heard everything, either.” “Well, I know everything.” I glared at Eleanor, who looked up from her laptop in the corner. Her fiery red hair was pulled back into a pony tail behind her. “What, I’m a hacker. You can’t tell me something like ‘he served and won’t talk about it’ and don’t expect me to not go snooping.” Yeah, understandable given her personality. Still wanted to kill her, but understandable I guess. “You got the grave site?” Crash looked at me and nodded, “yeah, we should be ready to go.” Of all the people I expected to give me words of wisdom in that moment, it wasn’t Sean. We piled into our vehicles, and I was getting ready to climb in with Elouise. I didn’t want to ride with them, to bear the weight of the stares, the whispers. But Sean patted me on the shoulder, and said, “Look dude, I know if you like, don’t want to talk about it or whatever. But if you do, we’re all here for you, man. Even if you just want to talk bullshit so you don’t have to think about bullshit.” With as much sincerity as I could muster, I looked at him and said “thank you.” But I still rode with Elouise. In Crash’s car, you get long periods of silence and classic rock. A side of classic rock you don’t normally get from rock stations. Not a lot of Elton John and Pink Floyd. But a bunch more of Dr. Hook. Punk bands you only know for one song but some how have fifteen amazing albums. And the occasional group that makes you wonder if they’re actual werewolves or if Crash is messing with you. In Elouise’s car, I got nineties country, and chatter. “So, yeah, that girl thinks she’s so slick with her super secret James bond room and whatnot,” Elouise said, following behind Crash’s tail lights. “But she ain’t as smart as she thinks she is. I mean, come on. Did you see the plan they were tryin ta get us to do? What have they been watchin too much bad cop shows or somethin? Gonna try to just jump’em on the street put them in a panel van and then what? Watch the werewolf tear through it at a red light?” She shook her head. “I can tell you why they’re in so much damn trouble.” She’s not normally that chatty. Perhaps she could see that I didn’t want to or need to talk at that moment? Sometimes its not the contents of words that matter so much, as it is the respect and courtesy given. Elouise must have understood that I didn’t want to talk or think about other things. Respected it, and gave me exactly what I needed. So, Elouise, thank you for that. It helped a lot. We pulled through one town in the evening, and cross the county to another. On the edge of a sleepy Midwestern town sat a missionary style Christian church with a quiet cemetery behind it. The church sat on a silent street lit with streetlights hung from power poles that draped lines down the side of the street. It was the kind of church where you’d expect Sunday luncheons and pancake breakfasts or fundraisers to buy books for the local school. It sat in the perfect neighborhood for a zombie apocalypse movie. Crash got out of his car, and walked a few feet, looking at the ground. I got out and followed him, with Elouise watching from her car. “I wasn’t trying to betray you,” Crash said, “I was trying to show them how much they hurt you.” “I understand. Next time make who knows my decision please,” I said through gritted teeth. He nodded, slowly pushing himself into a shift. As his arms grew hairier and his muzzle began to sprout, I drew my pistol. Twin golden eyes looked at me from the woods. Werewolf eyes. “Get back to the car, please.” “Trouble,” I asked. “No,” Crash said. “Not yet.” From the woods came a voice. A female voice. “So, you knew?” “Yes,” Crash said. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.” Emerging from the woods in full werewolf form was none other than Sophia Rodriguez. Crash walked towards her and they gave each other a respectful distance. Former lovers trying to respect boundaries and dodging the land mines of emotions they’ve laid between each other. I grabbed Crash’s discarded clothing from his shift and brought them to his car. “What’s going on,” Zack asked. “Looks like they’re talking,” I said. “Hope that’s a good thing,” Sean said. “It’s not,” Kris growled. “That’s the opposite of a good thing.” The two werewolves disappeared into the woods. I picked up Crash’s discarded clothing from his shift and brought them back to his car. Almost an hour later they emerged. As Crash came close to the vehicles, I could see the viscous dripping of blood from his claws and teeth as he approached. It was black in the fluorescent light of the street light, as if pure evil dripped from his teeth and claws. I’ve seen him torn up, covered in all kinds of filth and crud. I’d never seen Crash appear like a horror movie monster before that moment. It chilled my blood to the bone. He looked at me, his ears folding back, his lip curling. “You’re going to need your pistol.” “Shit,” I growled as I drew it from my holster. I looked around. I didn’t see any of them yet. But I could feel them. They were there, somewhere. Waiting. A moment passed. Then two. A pair of golden eyes appeared. Another behind it. A black silhouette emerged from a house down the street. Another behind us. We were trapped. And they were closing in. |
| A home must always be and feel like a home if it’s going to give you any sense of sanity. The crazier the life, the more like home it must be. So yes, the Rodriguez compound, so to speak, was almost an operating military base in some aspects. But in many others, it was just like anywhere else. Crazy prepper version, but anywhere else. The house itself was a log cabin design with beautiful windows large enough to let in natural lighting. I would not have been surprised if they were bullet proof. The roof had solar panels, and a couple of home made wind turbine generators that towed the line between sketchy and functional. There was a generator elsewhere as well that Roam happily pointed out as I made my way in. “I get a discount from a couple of the local fast food places” he said. “I buy their oil for a dollar a gallon. We filter ourselves and wammo! Electricity. Though we don’t need the generator all that often, surprisingly.” Which was a good thing. Running diesel generator on fast food cooking oil meant that you’d have a home that smelled of constant french fries, which would drive me nuts. The inside of the home was everything ours was not: Neat, organized, clean. Part of me missed our eclectic cluttered house already. Tanika sat at a kitchen table, sipping on a cup of coffee. As we walked in she stood and approached, giving Elouise and I a good sturdy handshake. “Come,” she said, “everyone is waiting in the back. I’ll bring you some coffee.” Our shared adventure with “The Nobility” didn’t seem to have much of an effect on her. She still had the strong frame, mediterranean influence, and of course, was still a werewolf, much like Roam. Of course their two children where also werewolves. They were seated at a somber table in a room that seemed to be built into the center of the house. I recognized the reinforced walls, the multi-display computer equipment, and of course, the large sliding door that could seal and lock from the inside. It would take something strong to break into this room. Or break out of it. Cecily was sitting at far end of the table with a laptop in front of her. She was staring at something on the screen with Killian sitting next to her. All of the rest of the gang was there, Crash, Sean, Kris, Zack. I grabbed a seat next to Zack, Elouise sat across from Crash. “Everyone here,” Roam asked, and yawned. He stretched a moment, then gave a sad smile, “it’s been some time since you’ve been in here, Crash.” “I don’t miss it,” he said. “Please, just tell me where’s the grave. I’ll pay my respects, and go.” “You’re going to be stepping into a storm,” Roam said. “We thought you should know that.” Crash waved a hand at the rest of us. “Nobility tends to leave humans alone.” “Your friends,” Cecily said, “pissed the Nobility off last year. It’s not safe.” “How ‘not safe’,” Zack asked. “I wouldn’t plan any sudden air travel,” she said. “And have you thought about a life insurance policy? You could make some lucky guy or gal a lot of money soon. Just not anyone sitting here, though.” Zack folded his hands and looked down, biting his lip a bit. “Look,” Roam said, “We want to take you down there, but you must be safe first.” Crash stood, snarling. “I never asked for an escort. Tell me where the grave is.” Roam threw his hands up, while Killian began laughing. Crash glared at him for a moment, and Killian just smiled wider. “You’ll never change, will you wuffy?” I filed the “wuffy” comment away for later. That would be funny. But now wasn’t the time for it. I guessed it was some sort of pet name or something. Of course, I guessed wrong. “We’ve been tracking the team that took out Sophia,” Roam said. “Took her out where,” I asked. “Well, you know, the team that killed her,” he replied. “Oh, from the way you said it, and how emotional you are, I thought you meant for pizza.” “You know,” Cecily, snarled, “You can be a real asshole when you want to be.” “Oh wuffy,” I smiled, “I’m just getting started.” That will come to be known as mistake number one. One second, I’m sitting in a chair smiling, the next, Cecily is pinning me down, growling. I couldn’t see that Elouise was being pinned in the corner by Roam, or Tanika who was trying to hold the guys back. Crash grabbed Cecily by the shoulders and threw her backwards into the wall with a force that would have stunned or injured most people. Cecily though, stood, shaking her head for a moment, and said, “come on, wuffy, I’ve wanted this for a while.” She was snarling at Crash who stood in front of her. Roam jumped on the table, waving his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Can we please be civil for five minutes and not act like a bunch of Children! Behave!” Then he gave me a dark look for a moment and turned to Crash. “I will give you the damn address, you can GPS it yourself,” Roam snarled. “If you don’t want to take out those guys who killed Sophia, we’ll do it our selves.” “Like I said when I left,” Crash snarled, “I don’t want your stupid war. Not anymore.” He started towards the door, and we got up to follow him. Tanika stood next to it, pointing an accusatory finger. “You have any idea what you’re walking your ‘pack’ into? Do you? The nobility wants all of you dead. They want to capture you, and kill your humans one by one in front of you.” “Nice guys,” I said. “And you,” Cecily snarled, “Are taking this way too soft. I know you’re supposed to be some kind of soldier, but I wonder if you even know what it’s like to fight a war.” The guy’s faces dropped at that. I felt a rage build inside of me, and turned to Crash who just shook his head. Taking his advice, I began to walk out of the war room they had prepped, my vision growing hazy red. I apparently had began clenching my fists at one point, but I don’t remember doing it. “Look at you, you coward. Running away with your tail between your legs.” I turned. Later, I’m told I had a face that the rest of them hadn’t before. A dark snarl that was only matched by my rising voice. “War you say? Getting shipped off to the middle of a country that a week prior you gave two shits about to fight for a bunch of people who don’t care if you live or fucking die? Driving a supply convoy from one fob to the next only to have your entire vehicle flipped upside down with hell and damnation raining down upon you? Being trapped in a fire fight that ends with you collecting pieces of your friend to ship home in a body bag? No. What’s that like.” Then I turned back around and walked outside at some point, though I don’t remember it. There was a beer in my hand, an an apologetic Roam in front of me. “We crossed a line,” he said. “We had assumed you came up to help us. We are sorry.” I drank from the beer more to calm my nerves than anything. I sighed, and stared up at the sky. The deep blue shown a few stars making their way through dying day. I could tell that they would have a beautiful night out here. Get far away from civilization and out in the open enough, you never truly have a pitch black night. My blood pressure had eased down at least a few notches. “I don’t walk away from fights I choose to join,” I told him. “But I won’t be dragged in. You either come clean, or we go home.” A few more heavy paces and then I was leaning on Crash’s car. Of all the people I expected to come out and talk to me, I never expected it to be Kris. He sat against the car on my other side and said “Jesus, I never expected any of that.” I gave him a shrug. “It was the highlights. From one deployment.” “You went through how many?” I shrugged again. “Enough.” “If you ever want to talk about it, Jason. We’re hear for you.” I nodded. Crash and I had talked about it a few times. He’s heard all the stuff that I haven’t and won’t print here. But Kris? Could I really tell him anything? What would happen? I wouldn’t feel any better and he’d just feel worse, knowing what I went through. Knowing the bullshit that I had dealt with. No, that wouldn’t be right. “I appreciate it,” I said. “I really do.” Which I do. The desire is there in him to deal with it, even if the strength is not. There’s real steel in him, I know. The kind of strength that can take a hit like that and not break him But it took me a while to get the nightmares to go, the guilt, the anger, the despair. Those intense feelings that spring back up as if you’re living through the moment again when you give your mind a chance to rest. Is it any wonder why so many service members drink? How much of that is right to give to someone else? That’s the burden that most service members deal with. There’s a reason why they don’t want their loved ones to know. The burden, although shouldered by more can make it easier, it makes their lives worse to make yours better. Part of you wishes they could remain innocent. That you could bottle that innocence and preserve it on a shelf next to the canned peas and carrots. To save that part of them from pain. It was my job to take the pain before. It’s not my job to share that pain with them now. I gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Crash hadn’t come back out yet, which I knew was trouble. It was that moment that I made a pact with myself. No matter what happened, Zack, Kris and Sean wouldn’t have to see action. They wouldn’t have to suffer or fight. Elouise grew up dirt poor in an area where that meant you saw as much action or more than some soldiers, so I wasn’t worried about her. But the guys? No, I couldn’t see them damaged like that. I could never live with myself if they had to. I would do everything in my power to keep them innocent. I just had no idea how hard it was going to be to keep them from the fight. |
| Death is one of those things that stops your entire world and starts it again. Everything slows down and speeds up at once. Its as if the entire world spins around you, and you’re standing in the middle like a spindle on a record player, staring at it wondering how you’re going to break back into that again. How you’re going to move on and live without that special person. It especially sucks when that person was someone who had hurt you in the past. A special person who meant so much, but has done so much damage, that years later you’re still not sure how to process it. My brain likes to assign blame. It’s one of my little secrets. I like my world controlled, and assigning blame is a way to control it. So, in the past when something similar occurred to me, I couldn’t help but wonder in the back of my mind exactly how much blame should I get because of their death. That if perhaps we’d had been able to patch things up, maybe they wouldn’t have been distracted. Maybe they would have been sharper or calmer. Perhaps everything would have worked out better? How much am I really to blame for their betrayal? How much am I to blame for their demise? When you’re going through something like this, people love to tell you ‘I know what you’re going through’, as if it’s comforting to you. Misery loves company after all, and misery shared is a burden lightened, I suppose. But the thing about grief is that you only know your grief. You don’t understand someone else’s regardless of how many times you’ve been through it. Grief and mourning are very individualistic. I cringe every time those words are spoken: “I know what you’re going through.” Seriously, if you’re going to tell me that, just tell me “thoughts and prayers” instead. Thankfully, Elouise didn’t say that when Crash told her we’re going away for a few days. “Like hell you’re leavin me here to watch the swamp,” she snarled. “I’m comin.” The way her hand was cocked on her hip, her short hair held back in that bandana. She had been cleaning her house when I knocked on the door to ask her to watch the place. I could tell from the look on her face that no human, no werewolf for that matter, was going to hold her back. Kris, Sean, and Zack were all riding together. Elouise was going to drive herself up. Three vehicles heading north, into unknown territory for must of us. But a location that Crash seemed to know like the back of his hand. He didn’t even bother to GPS it. The trip took far longer than it should have, but I think that’s mostly because Crash wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for what was coming. By the time we finally got to the outskirts of a small mountain town somewhat near Canada, Crash made a phone call. “I’m in the area,” he said after the other person picked up. “Just send me the pin where the grave is.” After that, there was some snarling. Then shouting. Then Crash began to growl, and I grabbed his arm to remind him that we’re in public. After all, some ancient gas station on the side of a forgotten highway is at eight in the evening is not the time and place to begin sprouting fur, which he was very close to doing. “Public,” is all I said. “Don’t forget, public.” He looked at me, snarled again, then kept talking. The conversation, which I didn’t hear a lot of, seemed to be going a little something like this: Crash wanted to just visit the grave, pay his respects, get a hotel room, then head back. The voice on the other end demanded to Crash that he come by, and bring everyone. Which he emphatically did not want to do, but somehow the voice on the other end was able to get him to cave eventually. Which, without saying everyone but Elouise knew what that meant: we were all going to see the Rodriguez family. Crash won’t tell us what happened. What they did to him or why he stopped talking to them. The only things I was able to pull out of it was that A) Roam was terribly sorry for how everything went down, and B) If given the chance, he would have made the exact same choices all over again, to hell with the consequences. Which seemed to be the crux of Crash’s anger. I know I don’t talk about my military experience much in this. I’m not about to start now. What I will say is this: that every time I was given a mission in the military more complicated than “go sweep the motorpool” we would be given detailed plans on how to accomplish the objective, what it was, things like that. We were never tricked into doing any sort of mission and there was no ‘because I said so’ type orders. So, if that’s what happened to Crash, it’s somewhat reasonable why he’d still be upset. But if you ever ask Roam about it, all you’ll get is “it’s not my story to tell.” The convoy of vehicles twisted around a couple more mountainous roads until we dipped down into a valley of sorts. Trees pressed all around the road ways, making every twist and turn a bit more exciting than I would have liked after hour six of a four hour drive. Taking a gravel path, we rolled down winding our way through the trees until we arrived at what can only be described as a compound. A fence cut through the trees of the dense forest in both directions. Barbed wire topped it, with cameras set up every fifteen feet in what they believed to be innocuous locations. There was a cattle gate of sorts with more barbed wire. The gate was open, and closed behind us after all the vehicles rolled through it. The land was cleared for the most part. In the back was more trees. Elouise took two big sniffs and asked Crash how many cattle they had. To which he said, “I don’t know. At least a dozen. Two bulls, and smells like at least ten heifers between them.” I looked back at Elouise and we both said at the same time “show off.” The house stood towards the back. Well, one house did. There was another house that was just as big on the other side of the property it seems. That one had crops growing beside it of some kind. Since I’m not the kind of guy who can tell a corn plant from a tomato plant, I do know they were green, short and not weed. That’s all I can tell you. A man came out from behind the house, wearing a fedora, and had a rope tied to the side of his hip like a whip. He had a goatee, a smile, and a familiar mediteranian complexion. “Roam,” I said with a smile. “Or should I say, Indy!” He laughed, and gave me a hand shake that he pulled into a hug. “Not today,” he said. “This is just a rope, not a whip.” “Close enough,” I grinned. “Where’s the rest of your pack?” “Strays went into town,” he said. “Tanika is inside working on dinner and handling security.” “Security,” I said sarcastically, “I didn’t notice a thing coming in here. Very inconspicuous operation you got. I guess guard towers would have been over the line?” Roam smiled. “Who needs guard towers when you have cameras and guns? Come, let me show you inside.” Elouise pulled me back for a moment. “Hey,” she said, “You never told me Crash was involved in all of this.” “He was at one point,” I said. “He’s done with whatever they do here.” She pulled me inside her car and shut the door. Then she started the engine, and began playing the radio. It was some pop song on station, with bright colorful choruses and catchy beats designed to be sung in stadiums. “I think we can talk,” she half whispered. “Is he involved in what I think he is?” “His ex-girlfriend, the one we’re here to pay respects to, was. He wants to go to the grave site, pay respects, and leave.” Elouise looked around for a moment, and gritted her teeth. “I’m all for leaving as soon as possible.” “What’s got you so upset? We just see a stone in the ground, he cries, we go home.” She pointed, at the house. “Cause we’re not here to see a grave. We’re being thrown into something. I can tell. Crash may have a blind spot cause they helped raise him or whatever, but something else is happening here. I don’t like it.” I gritted my teeth and looked out the window. She’d said everything out loud. Everything I’d been thinking. “Well, two things, first don’t forget they’re werewolves so we can’t like this anywhere else, and two, right now we’re two weirdos listening to your favorite song after everyone else has gone inside after a six hour trip.” “I still don’t like it,” she snarled. “Me either,” I sighed, “me either.” Then I opened the door and and followed everyone else into the house. |
| Each of us, in our own unique family serves a number of functions. I suppose in someways, I’ve become the “werewolf whisperer”. On more than one occasion, I’ve been called to talk to Crash after he’s had something hard happen. Usually, he’ll bring me a beer or a cup of coffee and pull me out to the back porch. We’d stare at the sun or moon and just talk. We’re kindred spirits, in a way. We’ve both seen our fair share of crap, but that’s not what makes me and Crash unique. To be fair, everyone of our little pack here has had their own portion of it. I just choose to not reveal all of the things that gets loaded onto everyone’s plate. We’re here for a reason, after all. We stick together, through fussing, fighting, teasing, joking, pranking. Through all the tears and all the laughter, we hold each other up with heavy hands and weary arms. In the end, isn’t that what a pack is supposed to do? This dour mood though was a bit worse than most. Crash had somehow gotten time off during his more busy season. A week. He’s got a solid week to do with as he pleases, but he just hadn’t yet chosen to do much of anything other than sit around the house and mope. Normally, Crash would run through the woods to relieve stress. He’d cruise around in his car. He’d play video games with me or the other guys. He’d work on his car in the garage and blast music into the night. He wouldn’t sit around the house, staring off into the distance, still in his human form, with his own chinstrap mustache growing out into scraggly, divorced dad length. I watched him flip that envelope over in his hands hours on end, staring down at it as if it contained the wonderful and terrible answers of life. He had yet to open it. Kris threatened to open it for him once, attempting to snatch it from his hands. That didn’t go over too well with Crash, who shouted at him. And, to Kris’ credit, he didn’t back down but shouted back. Names and insults started being thrown around of all kinds. Me and Zack pulled Crash back, while Sean grabbed Kris and had him back upstairs. Everyone had approached Crash in our own ways to talk to him about that letter. But, Crash ignored, brushed off, or insulted just about everyone. I figured it was time to try a different approach. It was his first day off. He was, of course, out on the back porch staring into the woods. Not shifting, not heading out there. Just gazing at it as if it called out to some part of him that couldn’t call back. There was a coffee cup near him sitting on one of the shelves we have stacked out there with our haphazard “not good enough to go inside” organization technique. The coffee looked barely touched. There was one way to get through to him. I hoped so, anyway. It would either work, or get very messy. I wasn’t quite sure yet which. But sometimes it takes a good swift kick in the ass to get someone moving when they get stuck in life. I set my pistol next to his coffee cup, and sat down in a rocking chair. “It’s loaded if you wanted to.” He gave me a dark look, then stared back into the forest. “You’ve been moping this entire time. Angry, snarling at all of us. I’ve seen this before. Have gone to my fair share of funerals for this. So, I figured instead of dragging it out, why not get it over with? At least I won’t have to go to another Last Roll Call. Those are painful.” “You’re not funny,” Crash growled, and continued staring. “I’m not laughing,” I countered. “See? Your jokes aren’t even funny to you.” He continued to stare out into the woods. “That’s no joke,” I said. “You’re continuing down a path of emotional and spiritual destruction. You want to die? Just get it over with and hurry up. Don’t make us sit here and watch you torture yourself.” “Jason, I know you’re trying to help. You’ve been in the middle of most of my werewolf situations. I don’t tell you to get out of it unless it’s something serious. This is serious. Stay out of it. You don’t want to be involved.” “After everything we’ve been through,” I snap, “that’s damn nice of you.” I stood and left the room, leaving the gun sitting next to his coffee. “I’m sick and tired of you humans messing around in shit that doesn’t involve you! Listen to your fucking betters and stay the fuck out of it!” I stepped towards Crash, and stuck my finger in his face. “You ever talk to me that way again, I’ll skin you for a fucking rug.” “I’m about to bite that fucking finger off.” Before I could tell him I hope he chokes on it, Kris stepped forward, and pulled me back. “You’re an asshole,” he shouted at Crash. “We’re all trying to help you. We’re here. You called us a pack remember? That’s your words, not ours! Don’t you go pulling this lone ranger shit. Tell us what the hell is wrong!” I’ve seen Crash in about a thousand different ways. He’s rescued me from more deadly situations than I can count, good deal more than half of them being my own fault, and now, here he was, looking tiny. Kris is smaller than me by a margin, and Crash shrank back and sat down in a chair. He made a double fist and began biting on the knuckle. “I…I can’t.” I knelt down in front of him. Anyone passing and saw it would have sworn I was proposing. “You’re a good person.” I said. “You’re a good werewolf. A good friend. You’ve been good to all of us. You rescued me.” “And me,” Zack said from behind Kris. “and us, dude,” Sean replied. “You know what you did,” Kris told Crash. “It’s time you let us rescue you.” I placed my hand on his knee and stared up at him. He placed his hand on top of mine, and gritted his teeth. A moment later, there was a knock, before the door just opened. “What am I interrupting,” Elouise said, “did I miss the proposal?” “Who called her,” Kris asked. “I did,” Zack responded. “I called her when those two began shouting.” “Now, what in the world is all this about? And don’t you go tellin me it’s ‘werewolf shit’ cause you know I’ll shove that fuzzy tail where the sun don’t shine if you try that.” Elouise said. Crash sighed, then looked at all of us. “You’re not leaving unless I talk, are you?” “Nope,” Elouise said. “And neither are you.” Crash nodded and silence filled the room. Just when I thought we were going to be at a standoff, he began to speak. “I did things,” Crash said. “Things I’m not proud of. People are dead because of what me.” There was silence for a bit. “One thing about Ghosts, is that they tend to ignore the why. They only care about the what. They’re assholes like that.” He smiled and shook his head. Then he slipped the envelope out of his pocket. It had been opened. Inside was only three sentences. “She finally died. Held the funeral. Thought you’d like to know.” “Who died,” Kris asked. “Sophia Rodriguez,” Crash said. “She was my first love. She came close to getting me killed so many times,” Crash replied, with a half-smile. “There was this one time that we had both shifted and ran through the woods to this farmers house. We snuck onto the property and was about to grab a couple sheep, when…” he stopped and the smile died on his face, melting back into a frown. “We had a lot of adventures together.” “So,” I asked, “what happened?” “That’s just it,” Crash said, standing. “She’s died before.” He stared out into the woods. “I don’t know if it’s real this time.” We all looked at each other for a moment, and didn’t say anything. Elouise started it. She walked over and embraced Crash, then literally picked me up and forced me to embrace them both. Zack hugged, and so did Kris. Sean came over, and joined the hug last. The moment lasted for half-a-second before Sean gave us the loudest cartoon sniff he could and wiped an invisible tear from his eye. “Moments like these are so beautiful! I love you guys.” Sean’s silliness broke the tension. Our laughter was one of relief as we stepped back out of the group hug. Kris smacked Sean in the head, and Crash laughed. It was the first laughter we heard from him in a long time. He wiped a tear from his eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you everyone. I love each and every one of you.” Before any of us could respond, looked at Elouise and said, “give me a minute to change, and I’d like to go on a run with you.” We all began to filter out away from the back porch. Crash clapped me on the shoulder, startling me. Even as a human, he’s freaking quiet! “Thank you,” he said again, looking me in the eye. “Thank you.” “I’m always here if you need me.” I told him. Crash nodded. “I will,” he said. “Over the next week I’m going to need everyone.” There was a weight to his words. A heaviness that said what was needed would be far more than usual. I understood that. If I knew what insanity and horror would have come from it, I know I still would have said the same thing. With a smile as warm and comforting as I could make it, I said, “whatever you need from us, you got.” |
| Thing about prank wars is that around here you never know how they’ll start or how they’ll end. It could be something as simple as Zack spraying “cologne” on my towel in the shower so it smells horrible. Someone putting saran wrap on the toilet bowl. This time the prank war started with a simple shopping trip. But, holy crap did I pay for it. Prank wars isn’t something that should be attempted by everyone. You have to know your friends, how far you should take it, and when you should call it quits. I’ve seen simple barracks pranks turn into fist fights because people didn’t know each other as well as they thought they did. You never know when a small prank is too far for a stranger or someone you barely know. We’ve known each other for some time now, and although you’d think I’d have brought these small pranks in with me, they were doing it far before I ever came to live here. Crash never does anything mean. He doesn’t make calls to make you think your mom is dead or anything like that. He doesn’t do anything that will damage your stuff or your equipment. He has done the whip cream in the hand while sleeping thing though. So, you spray a little whip cream in someone’s hand while they’re deep asleep, then you tickle their nose with something, like a feather. They’ll swipe at their face and smear the cream all over themselves. It’s a small prank but it’s funny, especially when that person is an old broke veteran who can only curse at you while you run away giggling. I did remember that prank, but it’d been some time ago. Maybe I was just feeling mean, but I had a bolt of inspiration in the grocery store in the shape of poppers. Those white papery little things that pop when you throw them on the ground was perfect for the mischief I had cooked up. My idea was this: you take a bunch while he’s out and line them up underneath the feet of his toilet seat. When he sits down, they’ll pop. He’ll jump, shout and I’ll laugh. Perfect innocent prank, right? That’s not exactly what happened. By the time Crash came in that morning, it was far later than his normal hour. The sun had already risen and the birds were chirping out their morning songs of territory. He looked exhausted. Was still ‘in the fur’ so to speak, his ears splayed down like a whipped dog. He growled a ‘hello’ at me as he walked right on by and headed to his bedroom, with his bathroom and toilet seat that I had just booby trapped. He closed his door. Then I knew he went to sit on the toilet. Cause I heard a muffled pop, a not-so muffled yipe, a thump, then a crash! I raced into his bedroom to see what had happened. His bathroom was a mess. I won’t say what had happened, but I will say, being a good sport I helped him clean it up later, and that I, quite literally, scared the crap out of him. A several hundred pound werewolf is covered in their own filth, has dented the roof in their bathroom and knocked several things over from your prank. Do you, A) apologize quickly B) move as fast as you can to a different zip code and change your identity or C) give them a quick witted sarcastic line, then try to run, giggling the entire way? Any guesses on which one I chose? He glared up at me from the floor, wet, smeared with some of his own filth, and covered in toilet paper, potpourri and various other chemicals and cleaning stuffs that he knocked over. I gave Crash a quick glance, gave him my best glare and said “I thought you were house broken. Bad dog!” He grabbed me, slammed me into the wall and snarled, “Very funny!” Then he stormed off to the other bathroom with the shower as I giggled the entire time. I knew retribution would be coming. But I never thought he’d get help. All of that happened the week prior. It was independence day this week. My guard was down. Besides, I never figured Elouise would be in on the gag. We had been invited over to her place for holiday festivities. Kris and Sean stopped by said hello, grabbed a plate then headed back to their place, talking the whole time. They was in the middle of a streaming thing with another friend of theirs who was playing some new game. Zack had a shift, so Crash volunteered to bring him a plate. That left me and her alone for a moment. Elouise’s house looked better than it did during the whole rougarou real estate fiasco. She had a new TV set up on a new stand. The stand was cheap, the television wasn’t. Cause, you know, priorities. There was red, white and blue ribbons lining the kitchen and living room. She was in her human form wearing a tang top that said “MILF” and beneath it “Man I Love Fireworks” with cutoff jeans. “I’d rather be barbecuin, but you know with the weather and all.” She was right about the weather that day. It had been raining off and on since the day prior. “How long do you prep for a barbecue,” I asked. This was my version of a southern test question. Which of course she aced. She arched an eyebrow and said, “honey, I start prepping the day prior. I get the coals going a good fourteen hours or so before we eat, get the meat on at least twelve hours prior and cook it low and slow.” Yup. That’s the right answer. “Now, the only thing I got that’s any fancy are these spicy corn breads.” She brought the plate over let me take one. I wasn’t paying much attention to them, being more concerned with the movie she had started. It was some Michael Bay, big explosion actiony thing, with lots of lens flares, American Flags and slow motion shots of people standing up or standing in place. “Now careful,” she warned. “They’re hot.” “Yeah, thanks,” I said, and popped it into my mouth. I’ve had spicy cornbread before. Usually it’s made with jalapenos. For real spiciness, occasionally they’ll pop a habanero in there. She went a step or two above that little pepper. There was diced jalapenos. There was habaneros. Seeded and diced, prepped properly. There was also a slightly small, pepper that was genetically modified to be a bit hotter than either of those two. The pepper she had chosen to bless her spicy cornbread with had taken a man from South Carolina about ten years to develop. It has a sickle like tail at the end of said pepper which was used to give the little bastard it’s name: the Carolina Reaper. The moment I put the cornbread in my mouth, I recognized my mistake. Someone had taken a coal from the very depths of hell and shoved it into my mouth. “Now,” Elouise said, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “you ain’t going to insult the cook by spitting that out, are you?” I wanted to so bad. But my pride forced me to shake my head in a no fashion, chew and swallow as quick as I could. Then, with tears streaming down my eyes, I swallowed hard, and gasped “water!” She brought me a tall glass of ice tea as I tried to ignore the burning sensation in my stomach. A sensation that I knew was going burn it’s entire way through, and perhaps was going to burn it’s very way out of my body and through my very soul. I guzzled down the tea to the sound of her giggles, and then the sound of Crash coming through the back door laughing the entire way. “Hot enough, I hope,” he laughed. I tried to yell “You sneaky bastard,” but it only came out as a gasp before I took more tea. “Sneaky werewolves got tricks,” I eventually growled to the sound of both their laughter. “Now, we’re even,” Crash said as he laughed and patted me hard on the back. “Of course we are,” I said. “But you do realize, I’m going to get you back.” And I will, too. Though, it will take me a while to come up with something to top that spicy cornbread. But as they say, revenge is a dish best served with pimento beans and onions. |
| Occasionally, I would like an alarm. Something set up above the stove that only goes off when it senses a concoction of aromas and spices. This alarm warn us to sneak out of the house before it’s too late, to push our cars to the edge of the town and drive to the nearest drive-thru as fast as our wheels can take us before we get wrapped up in another ‘werewolf meal’. Crash is an interesting person. His sensitive nose has come in handy on multiple occasions, whether it’s a shortcut for us to play the “is this bad” game with leftovers, or to sense when we have pests before they even make their presence known. It’s an overall boon to us. However, there are times when we have to remind him that yes, despite him having a human side, our tastes do sometimes differ from his, and, just because it smells like it goes together, doesn’t mean he should do it! It was his night to cook. I was glad, cause after the entire gnome business, I was out of commission for a few days while my body recovered. That is a sad side effect of things. I get injured and my body takes longer to recover these days than it used to. With enough massaging, stretching, and exercises that make me feel like I’m closer to ninety than forty, I can usually get life back into my leg, hip, back, and feet so I can feel somewhat normal again. With Crash’s skills around the stove, we had an expectation. We figured we would get his version of Italian. He’d tell us “It’s Sicilian, I swear,” with that smirk that told us it wasn’t. We’d roll our eyes and just go, ‘sure, Crash’. It was usually good though, so we didn’t complain. Sometimes we’d get southern cooking which is what he’s better at, or some European concoction that would work but be a little weird to our taste buds. I have nothing against mushroom risotto per se, but I’m American. My taste buds are American. I enjoy a good cheeseburger or burrito a lot more than I do a risotto anything. Credit where credit is do though. Crash’s concoction, whatever it was, was tasty. Weird, but tasty. It was an almost stewed green and black mass that used to be vegetables of some kind. I think there was a meat in it? But I’m not sure. All I’m sure of it wasn’t a cheeseburger, burrito, or a risotto of any kind. Crash attempted to pass it off as ‘werewolf cuisine’. He stood next to the stove, proud of his creation, a smug grin on his face. “Old werewolf family recipe,” he said. I was sitting at the table, and Kris was standing in one doorway to the kitchen, Zack was in the other. We all gave him a leery look when he said it. Kris frowned at the concoction in the pan. “No it’s not,” he said. “Sure it is,” Crash said, grinning wider. “Is this your usual ‘I threw a bunch of crap in a pan and called it an old werewolf family recipe’ sort of old werewolf family recipe,” he asked. Crash began giggling and blushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s not like he hasn’t done this sort of thing before. As they went back and forth, I remembered an incident a few months ago with a dish he called an ‘old werewolf family recipe’ that I called ‘ground brown.’ There was vegetables in it. There was ground meat in it. That’s as much as I really recall. It was spicy though, so I ate it. The rest of the guys wouldn’t touch it. Not that I blamed them. But, it wasn’t terrible. I’ve had worse. After all, I’ve eaten at a Ryan’s Buffet in the 00s. I could tease him about it, but it’s not like I’ve been perfect in the kitchen. There was the time I attempted to make home-made chili, and grabbed the jar of cayenne powder instead of chili powder. Now, if you’re familiar with the basic chili recipe, it requires two tablespoons full of chili powder. But chili powder itself isn’t terribly spicy. It needs that flavorful, earthy flavor of cumin to give it heat, at least in my experience. However, cayenne powder is a lot hotter than chili. How much hotter? Well, I’m glad you asked. If your recipe calls for, say two table spoons of chili powder which, based on my haphazard searching, is around 15,000 SHU, then you substitute cayenne for it, which is usually somewhere between two and four times hotter than that, instead of having a nice mild bowl of chili, you’ll have a dish that will be guaranteed to give you blisters when you taste test it. It will leave you running and screaming through the kitchen in desperate pain as you try to grab milk, soda, water, whatever is cold to take the fill your mouth with. I won’t say, if after this accident, whether I ended up drinking ketchup straight from the bottle or not. I will say that the guys have never let me live that one down, and I’m permanently banned from ever making chili again. Though, I have used that chili recipe as a threat. Green mush had at least a better appearance than ground brown. The flavor wasn’t terrible. It was, however, strange. Garlic, pepper, some other spices mixed in, with a look that reminded me less of werewolves, and more of a school lunch room from the eighties and nineties where you were never quite certain what was going to be on your plate, you just knew that if it wasn’t the square pizza, it probably wasn’t going to taste good. The more I think about it though, the more I believe I’m starting to get the gist of this ‘old werewolf family recipe’ gag. I honestly don’t think he’s lying. Well, not completely, anyway. Werewolves do have a much more sensitive nose than we do. Perhaps in the course of cooking, he was taught to use his nose to compliment certain flavors that maybe very mellow in the food itself. A zucchini is a zucchini is a zucchini, to a point. But if one plant happened to get a couple doses of someone’s spilled soda out in the field, then perhaps it’s produce comes out sweeter than the other. Not sweeter to us, but perhaps to him. Then if that happens, maybe Crash happens to buy it at a market one day, takes it home, and then uses his ‘old werewolf family recipe’ – I.E. if the plant smells just a hair sweeter, you put more garlic on it to enhance...well something. I’m not sure. Crash could of course just be winging it and messing with all of us. It’s not like he hasn’t done this before. Remember when I asked for classic ‘werewolf’ music from his culture, and instead I got all sorts of rock and metal songs about werewolves? I got what I asked for technically, though not what I meant. It would be classic Crash to tease us with this stuff. Making food that was, albeit edible, but just this side of strange enough to make us go ‘what in the world’ one more time with that confused look on our faces. The same reason that dads like to make those corny jokes or mom’s will occasionally break out the baby photos when you bring that special significant other over, or tell those embarrassing stories. You have to actually love someone at least somewhat, to subtly torture them in such ways. Crash could be doing this to tease us, to give us that mild torture that can only come from true family. I’d like to believe that, and in some ways I do. We are our own unique blend of family, but we’re family. All survivors of sorts of one way or another glued together with time and circumstances. Bonded together with the blood and scars between us. But, I really do think he does it cause he enjoys the taste. Enjoys teasing us, and at times doesn’t have the time or occasionally the cash to go out and get something better. After all, just because he’s a werewolf doesn’t mean he’s immune to being worn out from working nights, then days. Or days then nights. Or literally running from one side of the county to the other and back again for the sake of one case of his or another. We all get dog-tired sometimes and literally want to do nothing more than just hit a drive thru, go home, and veg in front of the television watching something with corny jokes and mindless violence. He has the unfortunate side effect of being, well, a werewolf. So, hitting a drive thru in the morning after one of his night shifts isn’t all that possible. No, not even if he hit up Mitch’s place of business. So, I don’t really blame Crash for getting creative and crazy on the occasional recipe. Whether it’s the strange concoction he calls Italian, or the ground brown, or the creative ways to have vegetables, it’s understandable that he will occasionally put on his culinary thinking cap and create a strange new recipe that some would think God never intended to exist. If it doesn’t taste terrible, I’ll still eat it. After all, I was in the military. But still, I’d rather have that alarm. |
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