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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 My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| You can also read this over at my blog: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ Coming in March this blog will be only updated there. Thank you. ****** Well, I didn’t puke. I can say that much at least. There was blood. Quite a lot of blood. Two people had been taped down to the kitchen chairs of some dining room set that either came from Goodwill or a dumpster. The brown wooden chairs at least matched the brown wood paneling on the walls. Green shag carpeting in the living room looked as if it hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner in quite some time. The bodies of whatever unlucky S.O.B.s who had crossed the vampires had been hauled away by some coroner hours ago, but the chairs and duct tape remained. A lot of blood pooled into the carpeting, sprayed on the walls, and tracked to the kitchen, the bedrooms, and just about everywhere else. Well, that is before all the blood was spilled over it. Someone had spent a good amount of time walking through that blood. Back and forth to the kitchen, the bathroom, and the spare bedroom where all the meth was cooked. I didn’t go back there. I didn’t want to. The cop said there wasn’t anything for me to see there anyway. Besides, I wasn’t that interested in the makings of meth, or whatever hillbilly experiment that was going on back there that resembled meth. I was more interested in footprints. Namely, the footprints in the blood stains I did recognize. They were the same size and shape as Sarah. It seemed to scream out to me. I could see her standing in the middle of all of this and… What? I wasn’t sure. What would she be doing there? What would I have been doing there? Was she an active participant? A captive? Cheerleading or pleading? Was she delivering pizza and just waiting for her tip? I could see Sarah, wearing a pizza delivery outfit, holding two pizza boxes and sighing in contempt as hot red blood splattered over the boxes and her blond hair. “Are you done here yet? Can I have my tip now?” Rolling her eyes and smacking on gum as she did so. I don’t know where the gum thing came from. Sarah never chewed gum. She liked it okay, but it wasn’t something she regularly bought. She preferred breath mints. It’s strange the things that come to mind when you’re standing amid carnage and chaos. Standing in the middle of blood and a clear case of someone or a couple of someones who have an absolute distaste for human life, here I was thinking about how Sarah preferred breath mints to chewing gum. The human brain copes with things in strange ways and looking back on it now, this was a coping mechanism. The more you concentrate on the unimportant, the smaller the important things can seem, and the further away they feel. As much as I pretended to no longer care for or about Sarah, there were still some feelings left. Always will be. I married her for a reason, after all, and still missed her despite whatever she claimed or would claim I suppose. But concentrating on that weird fact made dealing with the blood in the living room, and those perfect Sarah footprints standing there in the middle of everything as if nothing was wrong, just that much easier. Nothing was smeared, and nothing was pressed. There were no signs of any struggle. Just one person waiting in a room, not paying attention to the two people in the chairs being slowly bled to death or having that blood tracked everywhere. Crash laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. For some reason, he was still looking human. “You okay,” He asked, concern etched upon his face. I blinked away a tear that came up from somewhere. “I guess so, yeah,” I said. “Sarah was here.” “I know,” he said. “I could smell her. Don’t worry, this blood ain’t hers.” “I know,” I said. “Those footprints are hers. And they're not of someone struggling or fighting. But why barefoot?” Crash shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s vampire logic. It will have some sort of twisted weird logical sense to it when you finally find out.” “So the twins, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” I asked. “Those,” Sheriff Nate said from behind me somewhere, I think in the trailer's tiny kitchen, “are Hank and Frank Kilton. Those names sound fake because they are. It’s just the latest in a string of aliases used by these two knuckleheads. I know them better as Leeroy and Milton Chambers. Identical twins.” “Leeroy and Milton?” I said, conjuring the image of the meth heads in my mind. Their names pulled some of the venom out of their image, turning them into even less threatening creatures. “They sound like a couple of trailer trash bumpkins.” “That’s cause they are,” Crash said. I gave Crash a look. Sheriff Nate shrugged, then said “what? Just because they’re vampires they have to be dark and mysterious? Don’t usually work that way.” “In movies,” I said, “vampires are always immortal. Powerful. Extremely intelligent and rich.” “Well, these two are about thirty and will be lucky to live to see their fiftieth birthday thanks to all the meth they smoke. They’re weak even for vampires thanks to the meth, not very smart but dangerous, and are only meth-head rich.” Crash was poking around the kitchen, picking up various things, looking at them, occasionally sniffing this or that, and setting them back down. Their movements throughout the trailer reminded me a bit of how dogs would begin tracking prey. I walked into the kitchen and spotted something gleaming on the countertop. It seemed to be interspersed with the blood and muck that covered everything in the kitchen. “That’s,” Crash began as I held it up for him. He paused a moment. Couldn’t finish the statement. “Her wedding ring.” I finished for him. “If I was you guys, I’d start right here.” I had to go outside then. For some reason, the floor began to get wavy, the walls started pushing in toward me. I didn’t notice I was sprinting until I reached the edge of the trailer home outside and dry-heaved a couple of times. I didn’t want to cry. Not yet. Emotion was a luxury I couldn’t be afforded at that moment. In my mind, I pictured a box. Inside that box I took a mental photograph of me and Sarah standing there, smiling and holding each other as we did on that wedding day. I placed that picture inside, folded the box up, then set it up on a shelf in my mind high out of my reach. After I did that, I inhaled a few times, took a few deep breaths, then turned. The emotion could be dealt with later. I'd have plenty of time for crying over what happened to her and what became of our love. There was time later to deal with the destruction of decisions and their repercussions in our life. Right then there was a crime scene to deal with. “I got good news and bad news,” Sheriff Nate said as I stepped inside. “Good news is this blood around here ain’t hers.” “I knew that,” I said. “From the footprints. What’s the bad news, that they’re bleeding her?” “How did you know that?” He asked. I shrugged. “From the last time, I saw her. She didn’t look all that great. Figured it was meth at the time, after all, she was running with meth heads. But now, I figure different.” “The blood on the ring,” Crash said. “Is hers.” “And y’all got a lead,” I replied. “More than one.” Sheriff Nate said. “We got a couple.” Crash had a pad out that I hadn’t noticed before, with notations on it. He wouldn’t let me see what was on it but mentioned it had something to do with scent patterns. It was all nonsense to me but made perfect sense to Crash and Sheriff Nate, as it would have to any werewolf I suppose. Different abilities, different ways of viewing the world. A scent to them could be like a fingerprint, they can identify not only who the scent belongs to, but just like a grease smear on a glass window, reasonably identify where it came from. Such as from working on automotive engines or working in the kitchen. This scent had tinges of both but leaned more heavily into vehicles than it did into the kitchen. It led them to a back-alley repair shop across the street from a diner. The sheriff’s car led the way through the small town, down a series of back alleys that you would have no idea even existed if you hadn’t lived in a town similar. None of it was visible from either the main street or the adjoining highway. Businesses pushed towards the road, alongside the occasional house or trailer home. Sitting in the small alleyway, next to an ancient picket fence on one side and a brick building on the other, Crash threw open the door and was out of the car almost before it stopped. Sheriff Nate jumped out of his cop car as well, both whiles shifting into something far more bestial than man. I of course remained behind, left to study the brickwork of the businesses, and the street lamp in front of them. To huddle against the freezing temperatures as I tried to ignore the loud snarling, that only I could hear it seemed. The diner across the street was the kind that was open at five in the morning and closed sometime after dinner hours. It was seedy but seemed to be the right kind of seedy you’d expect and love in a small town like that one. The kind of place that always has the best kind of cheap coffee, the greasiest breakfasts, and the nicest wait staff around to wash it all down with. The diner was closed, with no neon signs even lit up to announce it. The windows and glass door were too dark to see the handwritten sign to announce their new hours. There were two lights lit over the counter itself, but no other light on in the entire place. Sitting by the counter on a stool, looking towards the door was a familiar woman with blond hair. She looked at me without recognition, then looked away, holding a coffee cup in her hands. I don’t remember opening my car door. Don’t remember opening the front door to the café either which thankfully was unlocked. Both seemed to have happened of their own volition. Soon, I was standing there, in front of Sarah, the woman who had stomped all over my feelings and left me to rot so long ago. It’s hard to come up with something to say in a situation like that. She held her cup of coffee, then looked down and away, as if too embarrassed to look me in the eye. I patted my hand on her shoulder, then sat down on a stool next to her. “Sarah?” Maybe it was the concern in my voice. Or perhaps the image of my face itself. But for a moment she looked up as if she recognized me, then it was gone again. “W-who are you,” she asked. Her voice was tinted with a touch of pain and confusion. I sighed. “Come on. Our marriage maybe wasn’t the best, but you can’t have forgotten me after all this time.” She shrugged. “Sorry, I,” The kitchen door slammed open. A stringy, grungy bastard of a man stood there, absent-mindedly scratching at his scabbed forearms. He looked at me and tried to snarl. Meth had rotted out most of his teeth, leaving no fangs. A fangless meth-headed vampire doesn’t leave a lot for one to be scared of. “Who the fuck are you?” He growled. Then looked down at Sarah, “Come on, we gotta go.” I pulled my pistol and leveled at the stranger's chest. “Sarah’s not leaving with you.” “Her name’s not Sarah.” He looked down at her, his eyes flashed as if a light shined behind them. “It’s Julie, isn’t it?” She looked away from me and then said, “Yeah, my name’s Julie.” “Then how do you explain,” I began, then flipped the hair up on her neck. We had gotten matching tattoos one year as an anniversary present. I had a similar one that’s faded on the back of my neck as well. The military threw a shit fit when I got it without checking with them first, but in the end, it didn’t affect my career, only meant I had to do some extra cleaning for a few weeks. It was supposed to be half a heart with my name in it. My neck had the other half a heart with her name in it. Only the tattoo was no longer on her neck. Instead, it was a series of scratches and scars, as if she was cutting on it for weeks and months trying to cut the name and heart out. “What the fuck?” I said more than asked. Meth mouth began to laugh for a moment. You never pull a trigger. It’s more of a gentle squeeze. Pulling only pulls the weapon to one side and you miss your target. I gave my trigger a gentle squeeze and hit my target dead on. Right through the heart. He stumbled backward a step, then glared at me for a moment. His eyes flashed as if they were lit up. “Oh you’re his aren’t you,” he said, then was over the counter in a flash, lifted me off the stool, and pressed my back against the wall before I could react. “Well, I’m LeeRoy. Milton will be along in a moment.” He snarled. Then smiled up at me. “We’ll be the ones devouring you this evening. You and that purty wife of yours.” It hadn’t occurred to me that I no longer heard any snarling, growling, or any evidence of werewolves of any kind. No part of me then thought to be afraid for that reason. Had I the presence of mind to notice that sort of thing, right then I might have been terrified. |
| This blog is now located at: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ and in a few weeks will only update there. Please save that location, and check often. All of the back posts from here is now located there. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------- It took us several hours to get back through Kentucky. We were halfway through Missouri when we finally decided to call it a day and rest for a few hours. Crash found a small parking spot on the far end of a rest stop and parked his old Caddy, allowing us to sleep a while. It was cold, hadn’t started snowing yet, and getting colder. I would have loved to have a hotel room, even if I had to share the bed. But none of the locations either of us called would have a room for another three hours or more. So, we slept, bundled in our coats with the top up. Thankfully the seats in these older vehicles tend to lay almost completely flat. These came from an earlier time when prospective motorists didn’t have access to Airbnb or luxury accommodations and many times had nothing more than roadside motels. Those could be iffy at best. They could either be new construction, with the fancy “massage beds” (which was nothing more really than a small Earthquake simulator that would shake you into oblivion) or they could be roach-infested run-down shacks, complete with moldy carpeting, leaky roofs, and bed bugs large enough to ask if you have change for the snack machine. Since both of these for some people, especially those who spent a good part of their day on the road, didn’t seem all that appealing, a large portion of Americans then would just sleep in their cars at various rest stops. Vehicles were designed for this, with fold-down seats which allowed one to do so in comfort. And despite the arctic winds getting colder and colder, Crash and I were able to do the same, and doze for a good two or three hours with nothing more bothersome than a little cold wind leaking through the rough patched top of the Caddy. It was a few hours later that we veered, and instead of ending up somewhere in Texas, as I had expected, we found ourselves in Northern Arkansas, in a community with a population small enough to make our tiny hometown feel like a metropolis in comparison. Typical American small towns are based around two separate highways. One allows you to pass through the town with relative ease. You may have to take things down to a pace that a slug would consider slow, but you need not even stop. Mainstreet will ride alongside or intersect with the highway, and that is where the vast majority of the community does their living, bill paying, and dying in. The small town that we stopped in was no different. Small “historical” style buildings resided around a courthouse that looked as if it was built out of a catalog that advertised buildings that looked historic. Each small business in the area resided in such styles of buildings. Only the gas stations and a Dollar General was different: they were newer pre-fab metal-style buildings with strange exteriors that always reminded me of the interior of corrugated cardboard. We stopped at a local truck stop diner that sold grease with a side of warm smiles and a friendly “Hey y’all”. Sitting in an ancient booth surrounded by wood paneling, feeling as though Aunt B was about to show up any minute with Andy Griffith and Opie, we ordered food and coffee, then sat and waited. Crash and I were talked out, exhausted by the road, and enjoying the peace only a quiet meal with a good friend could provide. As the caffeine began to work its magic a sheriff’s car arrived in front and out stepped a man that I thought for a moment might even dwarf Crash’s stature. They seemed to be the same build and height, with the sheriff being several shades older than Crash in appearance. His face held the ancient shape of worn leather, beaten and creased by years of rough weather. White hair sprouted out from around his cowboy hat. He had the dark skin of an unknown ancestry and wild blue eyes that pierced into me. I could tell right away, that the sheriff was also a werewolf. He sat down at our table and held his hand out to me first with as warm of a grin as he could muster. “I’m Nathaniel Collier. Just call me Sheriff Nate.” I shook his hand and gave him my name, not even attempting to give him the same warm smile he gave me. “I apologize for my sour demeanor,” I said. “It’s alright. I’d be a little sour myself if I was told I had to come get my ex-wife for she killed herself,” he said with a grin. I yawned. “I thought it was vampires that were trying to kill her. Or did I have it wrong?” Sheriff Nate’s jaw dropped open. For a moment I was tempted to tell him he could catch flies that way but wisely kept my mouth shut and instead looked down into my coffee. He turned to Crash and asked, “How much does he know?” “Jason knows a lot,” Crash replied. “Not everything yet, but he knows a lot. Much of it he learned on his own.” “Well, I’ll let you boys grab a bite real quick,” Nate said, with a serious look, then turned towards me. “After dinner, Crash can drop you off at the motel and get y’all a couple of rooms while me and him go poke around a bit. Won’t take us too long.” “Sheriff,” I said, “You’re not putting me in a cage like some damsel in distress while you go off and play the hero. I’m in this.” “You have no idea what you’re dealing with here,” Nate growled. “Me and Crash have got this. It would be better for all involved if you stayed out of it until you’re called.” “Nate,” Crash said. “He’s alright. He can handle himself.” He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Alright. He can come. But if he pukes or freaks out, I’m leaving y’all there at the crime scene.” Our food arrived a couple of minutes after that. We ate about as quickly as we could and in less than five minutes me and crash both had empty plates and coffee mugs in front of us. Standing up almost as one, we both said, “alright, let’s go.” I’m not sure Sheriff Nate was prepared for that. He blinked a couple of times, then shrugged. “Well, I guess that proves it.” He said to himself, as we paid our bill and left. As we were about to get into our cars, I grabbed the sheriff’s shoulder and asked. “Proves what?” “Huh?” He looked at me as if I caught him off guard. “You said ‘I guess that proves it.’” “Oh,” he replied then pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Heard you were military. Combat vet or something. Didn’t believe it until I saw you eat in there. Only two types eat like you just did. Werewolves and veterans. Makes sense why Crash has so much faith in you. Though, if you screw up, you die.” I shrugged. “Well, we’re all gonna die anyway.” Then walked over to the passenger side of Crash’s Caddy. Sheriff Nate was glaring at me. “What? I never said it was gonna be today.” I climbed into the car, then looked at Crash. “Your werewolf friend has no sense of humor.” He shrugged. “He says life is precious. It’s why he became a cop, after all.” Life is precious. As if I didn’t already know that. A lot of people whose risked life or limb for their occupation can get jaded. It can seem like a giant game of Whack-o-mole. The moment you press down a problem in one area, three more in three different places seem to pop up. It can feel like an accident. Lightning struck a puddle somewhere and then before you know it the algae was learning how to walk. I’ve never subscribed to that theory. Yes, life can be insane at times. A near trainwreck of cosmic insanity, a joke played out by God, the stars, the universe, or whatever other entity you can think of, playing out pranks on us actors born onto a stage whose only job is to die in some spectacularly entertaining fashion. But if life can be as dark and psychotic as some people claim, then the inverse, the light has to be just as bright, if not brighter. The prevailing theory in entertainment about such things right now is that you can’t have good without Evil. That you need the negative to know what the positive is like. I’ve never personally subscribed to that. My theory is a bit different. You can’t have evil without good. For things to be dark, bitterly dark, you have to have a light source. That brightness out there in the ether that illuminates everything. For something to exist in the shadow, to pull life down into it for the sole sake of devaluing it and destroying it then the light must exist somewhere. The light has to be there, otherwise, we don’t have life. I know it’s crazy. However, if you think about it, it just may not be as crazy as you first thought. Cause after all, for there to be rebellion against good (which, let’s be honest, is all that evil really is) there has to be good first. Good has to exist. Without it, you don’t have evil. And with that empty vacuum of good and evil, you get nothing. Which is a far scarier thing to have than good or evil. True evil does exist. I know it, I’ve seen it. Raised my right hand and have made my oath to give to my best ability to fight it. Was injured, and taken out of that fight, true. But I did fight it. Me and anyone who has served in a capacity, whether it's military, police, firefighter, what have you, have seen it. And for there to be evil, for it to exist and give those individuals a job in fighting against it, there must be a good out there for that evil to rebel against. All of this was on my mind on the short trek out to the crime scene. We drove through wooded hills and houses out onto a gravel road that lead into a valley in the literal middle of nowhere. A trailer home draped in blood. It was in this trailer home that my brief story took a bit of a darker turn. |
| This blog is now located at: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ and in a few weeks will only update there. Please save that location, and check often. All of the back posts from here is now located there. Thank you. --- Nothing is ever normal with Crash. This is one of the lessons I’ve learned time and again. A simple “Christmas party” and a “work function” for most people might be a few drinks in the conference room with some white elephant gift-giving thrown in on the side. Maybe Sally or Jimmy or whoever brings in cookies or candies made in that special way that’s been in their family for generations. You know the ones. They look nasty, taste weird, and everyone eats one because no one has the heart to tell them that their family's secret recipe should probably be kept a secret. This is what I expected when I was invited to this. “It’s a bit of a work thing” is the way it was sold to me. He was dressed in fairly nice clothing, for Crash. He wore a pair of Jeans that looked brand new, a nice button-up that looked only twenty percent flannel, and even a pair of snakeskin boots on. Had his chin strap beard trimmed up nice as well and even had a small mustache grown in to fit it. I wore a clean shirt and pants that I had picked up for the office job I held for almost a week. But I skipped the tie, still don’t know why. Maybe out of some sort of late protest against the job? Maybe. But more likely because in my heart, I know I’m a slob and we were already a bit late. The reason for my tagging along was born of one burning question: What the hell does a werewolf do as a job?! I mean, is he a cop like in that cheesy horror movie, “Werewolf Cop”? Is he a supernatural trashman? Does he transport stolen goods and drugs for a vampire mafia working off some life debt to them so he could gain their trust and overthrow the bloodsuckers in a dangerous coup that could endanger all of life as we know it? If you can’t tell already, sometimes it’s a bit of a burden to have an overactive imagination. In the service, I’d just write all of these ideas down and throw them away when done. It kept my brain busy and wasn’t important to work so I didn’t want to get too involved in creating them. But putting them on paper at least gave my imagination some outlet. Sort of like putting your dog on a run instead of chaining them to one spot. By now, however, my imagination had run more than wild. It had broken the chain, leaped the fence, gone feral, and was now stalking and killing house pets, so to speak. Scenarios of all kinds popped into my mind: A secret werewolf congress. No, a secret werewolf society, that secretly ran the entire world through their werewolf mind control powers! It was at the point of actually creating a werewolf language and handshake for the secret werewolf society, (The Loup-Garou Congress, or LGC as it’s known to the inner circle), that I figured it was time I finally came clean to Crash and just outright asked him what the heck he does for a living. His solution? “Well, there’s this sort of a Christmas function. Why don’t you just come along to that? You can be my plus one.” So, of course, I said yes. I saw he was dressed up fancy. I dressed in what niceties that I had, and joined him as we climbed into his old Caddy and raced off, with the top down of course, and raced off away from town. I wasn’t keeping track of the turns we were taking. I just noticed that we kept going deeper and deeper into the wooded area. Past the point, that weekend hunters would find comfortable, but not quite encroaching on the sasquatch hunters out and about trying to film their episode where they “finally bag big foot” and it turns out, again, to be a random weirdo in a hairy suit playing a prank on them. Trees pushed inwards closer and closer as the highway became a road then became a rutted trail that pushed through the underbrush. We pressed through one last clearing and entered, what I can only describe as a carnival of sorts. There were a few booths set up scattered around, and even a band that played live music near the edge of the woods. Some of the band members were hairier than others, though I’m not certain that all of them were werewolves. Cotton candy and frozen “meat treats” were being handed out from one of the booths near the edge. There was a beer booth as well, though since Crash was driving, he couldn’t partake in that. However, since I was not driving, I couldn’t partake in it either, with the alcohol content of the “beer” being so high it was on the edge of just being carbonated liquor, and I didn’t want to be inebriated around this crowd. In what way could I describe the ones at the carnival? Well, in truth, I can’t. There were wolves, Crash among them, who had begun his change almost immediately upon arrival. A couple of, well I’m not sure what to call them, so right now they’ll go by “were cats”, though that explanation feels a bit lame. Sasquatch could have been there, however, I’m not certain I would have recognized him in the middle of all of the creatures I saw. There were a few vampires there as well. They could be recognized as the regular-looking humans that nearly froze my blood when they glanced my way. Those tended to keep to themselves, however barely even saying hi to me. I’m a little glad I was off the menu, so to speak. How to explain Crash’s co-workers? Well, to put it bluntly, I can’t. I gawked for probably a good ten minutes at the entire scene before me. I was still in the car when I saw Crash next. He was in full morph form, fur and claws hanging from his sleeves, a full-blown muzzle pressed out from his face, and of course the black coarse hair everywhere. “Now, Jason,” Crash said, crouching down to look at me. “You can’t talk about anyone you meet today in that blog of yours.” My heart stopped. Then sunk as it started again. “Blog?” I said, trying to play dumb. “Yes, blog.” He arched an eyebrow. “What, you didn’t think I knew you started that?” As dumb as I tried to play things, he only laughed in that gruff way that werewolves seem to chuckle in and said, “we’ll talk about it later.” So yeah, I can’t discuss or mention his co-workers. How many there are, what they look like, and whether they’re even fully human or partially something else. They may come into this blog later, and if they do it will be of their own volition to be mentioned, not mine. Cause when you have what I can only describe as a “werebear” telling you to keep certain details out, with Crash nodding in fear as well as agreement next to you in full werewolf form, you listen. The carnival itself wasn’t large. There were a few booths pressed into the rim of trees at the far end of the clearing, with parking on the other end. The stage was centered towards everything else, giving people plenty of space for dancing near the front of it as well as providing background noise for the booths and games near the back. The night raced on, though I barely noticed it. The other booths mostly were typical booths with games and prizes. Some of the games were easy (ring toss, etc), and others relied on senses that I simply did not have and couldn’t play. For example, one of the booths was called “sniffer”, which was essentially a scent trail game. They blindfolded you, spun you around several times, then you had to get down and sniff out a scent trail they made using rabbit meat. This trail dragged through the grass on the ground in a strange pattern and ended up in one of the several holes at the end of the booth. The way Crash explained it to me they used other things to scramble the scent trail: chicken, beef, pork, humans dragged their feet through it, and you had to sort through all of the background noise to find the right hole that had the rabbit meat in time. Find the meat, and win the prize. I couldn’t even play of course, but he won it easy finding the rabbit meat in record time. We played some games, watched the band play more than danced, and even got to eat some regular burgers and fries while Crash quickly inhaled several frozen “meat treats”, essentially half-cooked meat, frozen on a popsicle stick. The night simply melted away as we enjoyed ourselves and I got to meet several nice co-workers and other individuals Crash meets regularly on his job. The one thing I was asked to mention is that there is no, nor has there ever been a skinwalker employed by the county, or state for that matter. If I had ever met one, it wouldn’t be as funny or cute as I made “Larry” out to be, to say the very least and it would possibly end up being one of the more horrific times in my life. My werewolf escort only disappeared once in the middle of everything. I was hanging out with his boss, who was going through a humorous situation he’d been through, which again, I can’t detail here. When I looked around and noticed Crash was gone. I suppose my blood should have run cold at that thought, but you’d be amazed at how quickly you can get used to a situation you’re thrown into. I was already used to the carnival, though I’d only been there a couple of hours. Rides, games, and of course Christmas-themed things, all with Krampus instead of Santa, blended into the background as we talked. Crash came back as we were talking about the myth of Krampus and their version of events for things. Did you know that Krampus is Santa’s were form? It’s why it's so crazy. And Krampus isn’t just meant to take the naughty kids, but bring treats to the good little were boys and girls. I’m sure you can guess where the naughty kids go. That myth is as dark and entertaining as the Santa myth is jolly. As the dawn started to approach, Crash and I made it back to his car. The following conversation I’m told I’m allowed to put here. After some discussion about the band and their taste in music, I finally got into the question that had been burning on my mind since we began this insanity: What is his job?! We were driving back home in that good time daze you get after having a blast for so long when I decided to finally pop the question. The vehicle pressed down the trail back through sasquatch country, on the road out toward our home. Sunlight had begun to dance its way through the leaves leaving occasional patches of red and gold to pierce through the darkness. “Well, you could say I’m a detective of sorts.” Crash replied. “I work with the police, but not for them. We’re like the other side of that coin in the whole enforcement.” I did a literal head tilt. “You’re a werewolf cop? Like the movie?” He snickered. His muzzle was starting to press back inwards towards his face, though he still had the hair. “No. Well, kinda. If, say, a hulderfolk troll goes crazy and tries to kill a normal human, I’m called in to deal with it. If a vampire goes rogue and starts killing the people in their town instead of just light feeding, I’m called in.” “So, you deal with the situations that the regular police just can’t handle,” I said, as everything finally clicked in place for me. “Right,” he smiled, then tipped one of his pointed ears at me. The ear had slid back down somewhat to its normal position but still looked more “Hollywood Wolfman” than human. Everything made sense. Everything. When his shift started, he went on patrol, stalking the towns and neighborhoods and checking on things. He investigated certain crime scenes that cops would view as being just too vicious for it to be a regular human. “So, if there’s like evidence on the scene of something or something?” I asked. As we started passing through the thinner woods, the sun was now in full-rising mode. There was no more evidence that I was even with a werewolf. This time, he was standard Crash. Rugged features, chinstrap beard. “Well, it goes,” he shrugged, “I investigate things, or if the cops stumble on something, they contact the ‘special unit’ as they call us, and we’re pulled in.” “Look,” Crash said, turning to look at me for a moment. We were nearly back in civilization at this point, though we hadn’t reached town yet. “We’ll do a sit-down-like thing after everything is said and done. But I heard some things tonight at our little get-together that I don’t like.” “What things?” “You remember Sarah, don’t you?” How could I not remember Sarah? Coming home from a deployment to an empty house devoid of literally everything kind of burns a person into your memory, the way landing face first on a hot stove would. “Yeah,” I grumbled. “Well, she’s in trouble,” Crash replied. “Good,” I growled, looking out towards the road. “No, I mean, deadly trouble.” He spoke. I sighed. Well, it was probably closer to a growl. “Let me get my gun,” I grumbled as he pulled up to the house. It wasn’t even Christmas, and already things were looking crazy. Sarah. That blond-haired beauty who could quote UCMJ and military regulations like some preachers quoted scripture. That should have been clue one that she was trouble, however hard-headed dolts like me never actually ever seem to learn, especially when they blink their pretty blue eyes at you in that way that causes all of the blood running your intelligence to flee your brain for a more nether region of your body. Some people are always in trouble. From the moment they enter your life to the moment they exit everything they do or touch just ends up being more trouble for you than what it’s worth. Still, either by loyalty, stupidity, or some sense of insanity you feel a responsibility to help them. She was responsible for a lot of the pain I had felt. A lot of the pain I had gone through over the past several years. And now, I was about to try and help her. “You aren’t going to ask what sort of trouble she’s in,” Crash asked. “She left me for twin meth heads. I can guess what the trouble is.” I growled. “No, not meth-heads. Meth-headed vampires. Twin meth-head vampires. And for her things just got a whole lot worse.” |
| All Caught up! Life With A Werewolf is completely caught up on the other site, and will return to its regularly scheduled madness in a bit. Again, that site is: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ I will be transitioning slowly to that site. March 1st I expect all posts to be there almost exclusively and this blog to more advertising for that blog. Jason Forte really should be his own character with his own blog and outlook for his own things. Especially since Crash now knows about the blog and... well, I'll get to writing about that soon. I promise. |
| Okay, here's what's happening: I'm going to be slowly transferring my blog, life with a werewolf, to a separate site: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ The reasons I'm doing this are many. When I originally started this blog, I couldn't find a blogging host in my initial searches. So, remembering Wordpress from ages ago, I started the site using WordPress. I was unaware of the amount of scams, hackers, spyware, spamware, and bots that were out there searching for WordPress sites to take advantage of them. After deleting 30 and sometimes 60 scam comments a day, (If you wonder what happened to all of the guys who created the "make your penis bigger" "Russian Wives in your area" "You have a rich uncle in this tiny island nation that noone's ever heard about who has died and left you TRILLIONS", they apparently created bots to spam my site.) I finally decided enough was enough and began posting my blog here. Thing is, this relocation was always supposed to be temporary. Jason Forte' is a separate character, with his own life and ideals and things. It's hard to maintain a separate character and their fictional blog under an account with your own name. The degree of separation that I want to build that universe just isn't there. so, I'm moving. Again, that address is: https://lifewithawerewolf.blogspot.com/ It's a slow process, and will probably take a couple of weeks or so. Once that movement is completed, I'll keep posting here for a while, but after a bit will go back to what I was doing before - making announcements that I've posted a new entry and go back to posting my short stories and doing the reviews of other stories. Thank you everyone who enjoys this. I am continuing it, in a format that hopefully will allow you to enjoy the blog a bit more thoroughly. Thanks again! |
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