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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 |
| Are you really tough? Do you think of yourself as the worlds biggest badass? Someone who could stare down any motorcycle gang with a simple glare and get away without a scratch? Would bears think twice before crossing your path? Are you the Billy in Billy Badass? Well, then try driving a hooptie. Hoopties are the kinds of vehicles that can take the venom and vinegar out of anyone. They will get you from point A to B, no problem (usually no problem that is), but you won’t look good or tough doing it. That’s why the toughest people in the world drive them. Sure, anyone can look tough, sexy and cool behind the wheel of a perfectly preserved early seventies muscle car. Throw on dark shades, stomp the go pedal, and lay a nice thick set of elevens down on the roadway at any red light. Try having that same sort of look in a late eighties Yugo. Go ahead, try it. There won’t be any elevens. In fact, you won’t even get a one-wheel peel. The most you’ll get is a few chuckles, because you’ll feel like a clown minus the circus. A Mercury Topaz is the kind of car that’s economical. It’s durable. It gets you where you need to go and the most you’ll have to do is change the oil and other fluids at regular intervals. But you’re not gonna look cool doing it. In the service, I’ve seen plenty of men and women driving large expensive trucks. Especially when the big sign-on bonuses hit. I’ve seen plenty of expensive modern muscle cars, too. If you sit outside the gate one day and watch the cars going in and out of a military base, you might think its our service men and women who single handedly keeps them in business, you’ll see so many of them. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any hoopties. These dedicated, durable, mostly forgotten about vehicles of mass-produced econobox fortunes have proven themselves time and again through years and sometimes decades of dedicated service. And yet, they never get any love on screen or in real life. In all my years of watching action movies, I’ve seen exactly two scenes that involved hoopties. One in “The Crow”, where it was played up for laughs, and another in “The Expendables 3” where, again it was played up for laughs. I honestly can’t think of any others. I guess what I’m trying to say is my ride is starting to get to me. Crash has that Caddy. Despite its dents, dings and scratches, it looks bad ass. It’s easy to look tough in a vehicle like that. Especially a beat up old American Luxury car that’s primed to move steel at a high speed. But, I on the other hand, don’t have any such vehicle. I’d love a new car. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it doesn’t have to be exactly new. But it does have to be sporty. And by sporty I mean a sports car. I don’t mean those cross-over bastardized things that look as if an SUV and a sports car had an inbred love child. I never understood the point of those. You want the room of an SUV but the maneuverability and comfort of a car? Then breakdown and get a station wagon. That’s all that is. And beneath the marketing and images of these cars going in places they will never go, doing things they will never be seen doing, beneath the angry eye headlights and aggressive bucktoothed grills, that’s all it really is. It’s a station wagon, just with a modern name. I’m counting pennies again. Ramen noodles are now becoming gourmet cuisine for me. Tap water is my new Avian. I’m saving as much cash as I possibly can over the next few months and taking a look at what’s out there. Used car prices are collapsing finally, so hopefully now’s the time I can actually afford a fun, yet easy and cheap to repair car that will help me salvage a little bit of dignity driving. If you think it’s a bit silly, you’re right. I admit it is a little silly. So is paying fifty bucks for a haircut. A hundred dollars for a shirt, or two hundred dollars for shoes. So is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a home in a fancy neighborhood for the exclusive right to say “I live here”. We all do silly little things now and again to save our own pride. Certain things that mean the world to us, but to others perhaps mean very little. What I’ve come to understand after months of driving a Mercury Topaz around is that such things aren’t really all that bad. Sometimes it’s okay to wear the leather jacket cause you feel good in it. To suck in your gut in a mirror and flex when no one’s watching. To have those little reasons to like yourself just a bit so you can honestly hold your head high when you’re around others instead of just faking it. It’s okay to be proud of who you are, no matter what silly way or means you use to get there. So yeah, I’m looking for a crazy nineties or early 00s sports car. Something probably American, easy to fix, and cheap. Something that I can easily put a good exhaust on, do a few things to the engine and get a bit more angry ponies under the hood. I’m going to be doing that for me, cause that’s what I want to do. That’s just one more small thing I’ll have to make me feel good about myself. And there’s nothing wrong with having a few of those small reasons to do that. |
| I think I’ve taken at least four showers and I still feel dirty. There are certain nights that I refuse to drink on: Christmas, Easter, and now, I will no longer drink on Halloween. Christmas drinking just leads to fighting. Alcohol is a social lubricant; it also lowers inhibitions. So, when your crazy uncle says something crazy at the holiday friendly family get together about politics or religion or both (as those crazy uncle’s like to do), just to wind people up, you spout off and say something. Pretty soon, you’re off to the races, ruining Christmas for everyone around you and being told things like “It’s alright if you don’t make it this year,” and “I appreciate it if you could not fight, or maybe not come.” Easter is the same way. I have a similar story with a different cast of characters but the same old ending. A “please don’t come, thank you” and “My eight-year-old will never look at an Easter Egg the same way you bastard.” To my credit, I thought it was a legitimate question: if the Easter Bunny actually does lay the eggs, then….you know what? I was drunk, and that is just a little too graphic for this blog. And if I complete that thought here, YOU won’t look at Easter Eggs or Skittles the same way, so I’ll end that thought there. Halloween’s story involves something a bit stranger, equal amounts of Al Cohol and his merry band of idiots, and a giant ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ from a certain part time furry, full time friend. If you remember my previous blog entry, I had started drinking. If you don’t, just look below, hit the “previous” button once. It’s all there. I was mostly drinking to forget what had happened the previous day. But as the song says ‘wine is fine, but whiskey’s quicker’. And when you’re drinking to forget or just to cope with what had happened, only copious amounts will do. After my third beer, and two thirds of the way into a bottle of Jack, there was a knock at the door. When I opened the door up, there standing on my door step was six of the dead. Four male two female, all in various stages of decomposition. Although the flesh was rotting, it hadn’t rotted completely off yet much to the delight of the maggots feasting on old and new open wounds. Not that any of the creatures or beings cared, mind you. They didn’t feel a thing. Couldn’t even feel when their limbs fell off. Remember the invitation I got? The one I was contemplating on RSVPing on it, and maybe saying no? Well, turns out that if you don’t send it back, they’ll just come get you. Imagine my shock at finding four dead guys and two dead women were standing there, all with expectant looks on their faces. One had snagged a “trick or treat” bag somewhere, and was just holding it up to the door, groaning. Everyone had been dead only a little while. Now, we don’t exactly have a large township where we live, so it was surprising to see so many freshly dead in such a place. I know of only about two burials in the past month. My only guess is that they must have been traveling, coming in from all over. Being drawn to our particular cemetery for and by whatever means. Our little town can’t be the regular location of the pilgrimage of the dead, or someone would have noticed by now. It must move around or something. Otherwise, by now we’d have news vans camped out along the highway, waiting for the arrival of the dead, all interviewing each zombie. Don Lemon or someone would cry at how beautiful it is to see the dead dance in the moonlight, all while flashing tweets at you every five seconds or so about how horrible a person you are for thinking…well something. They’d find a way to make you angry about it, just to keep you watching. Anything for ratings, after all. Their skin had begun to rot in several places. Maggots were eating flesh right off of their corpses, and of course there was that oh so fresh smell that makes you want to vomit. But what got me in trouble was the eyes. When they did their in-unison groan which I think was supposed to be ‘surprise’, or ‘hi’ or could even have been, ‘what lovely weather you delightful living have. Would you mind spending the evening with us on this clear and cool night? We promise not to bleed on anything, haha.’ Whatever the question or statement may have been intended, my response was a resounding “NO” and trying to slam the door. Like I said though, the eyes got me in trouble. I’m a dog lover. I don’t care as much about people as I probably should. Call it an occupational hazard from my previous profession. Soldiers, cops and fire fighters tend to not see the best sides of humanity in their work. But animals, pets especially, are a weak spot of mine. And slamming the door shut in their face felt too much like stomping on a litter of puppies. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. As drunk as I was already getting, I took a long swig from the bottle I was drinking. Went to where we stashed the booze and grabbed the other bottle of liquor, growled “lets do this,” and closed the door behind me as I followed the recently dead. I only have flashes and glimpses of what happened after. When you drink to the point of deleting your memory, it doesn’t do everything completely. I remember sitting in a circle with a group of them, ten or more, at least, and talking about who they used to be. Despite not knowing anyone. I guess I reached philosopher drunk. At some point I was dancing with an elderly woman about my height, who didn’t have nearly as many maggots on her as some of the others. We just waltzed in a circle in the cemetery. There was no music, though some of the others tried to sing. Their ‘song’ came out as strangled grunts and groans, if they made any noise at all. I don’t remember what all happened. A bobbing for apples thing was done, but the water ended up more brown and muddy than anything. I think I ended up with some old guys less than mentionables instead of an apple. I have no idea how it got in there, though that dead guy must have gotten a kick out of it, pointing and making an attempt to laugh. I guess I know which one was the practical joker of the group. Alcohol does kill germs. That’s what I told myself when I rinsed my mouth out with booze a couple times before taking another long swig after that. I’m not certain how long they wanted to go on. I don’t think they knew either. Everyone must have just been there till they felt the call to return to rest. Little by little, they drifted off or so I’m told. They wandered back towards whatever graves they came from, their bodies having been put at ease to rest in the knowledge that they weren’t abandoned by their spirits and souls. They wouldn’t be forgotten by everyone. At least one soul was here who still cared. Maybe more would show up eventually. By the time the barest whispers of dawn was spoken on the horizon, I was left alone, sitting against a grave stone, drinking what was left of my bottle, and just wondering what in the world had happened. According my own memory, other than the flashes and glimpses that had started to come back, I had just been drinking at the party with the dead folk, things had just started, and then, there I was. Alone. Well, not exactly alone. Crash was there, standing over me. A heavy clawed paw rested on my shoulder as the sun began to rise over the horizon. “Come on,” he growled. “Let’s get back home, and you can tell me what happened.” His fur always looked pitch black in the early morning light. As if a piece of darkness had come alive and was preparing to dismember you. His eyes glowed like a cat’s, the shine of it sending shivers up my spine. It isn’t a thing I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing. Most of what’s been recounted here comes from Crash. He insists that most of the night, other than that disastrous bobbing for apples and other party games the dead attempted to play, was spent talking. We sat in a circle, while I drank, talking to everyone. I had what every philosopher drunk wants, a captive audience. Though, Crash insists that what I was attempting to do, was to help them. That’s the part that gets me the most. Me? Help? Ha. I’ve never been good at that. Talking to others isn’t exactly something I’m well versed in doing. It’s why I write. I write because I don’t like to talk. Talking to people is difficult, writing about them is easy. There’re too many things inside of all of us. Sharped edges and smoothed out roughness to catch skin and pull scabs. Scars and injuries that we all attempt to hide and end up attacking people over because someone accidentally poked a sore spot. Too many reasons to cut others out of your life. To antagonize them. To hate them. And we all seem far too willing to do that these days. To hate. Antagonize. Attack. Kill the enemy at all costs because they posted a meme, said something dumb about a video game or movie we don’t like. Saw the wrong news article. Listen to the wrong songs. Followed the wrong individuals on social media. They didn’t step on the correct eggshells at the correct moments, so they deserve to be flogged in public for their transgressions. I’ve never been good at any of that. Some of us walk perfectly amongst the eggshells. They dance like gentle fairies amongst the pristine fragile white feelings and opinions of others easily defying and dodging and deftly handling any issue that comes up. I’m one of the others. Those that get frustrated at the eggshells and their existence. I’m more likely to kick them back in your face than to try and walk amongst them. How can someone like me actually help? I never expressed any of this to Crash as we stood in the kitchen that morning, watching the approaching light enflame the white cabinets, blue tiled floor and walls. As the light played out against dirty dishes and clean counter tops. I stood pontificating in my own mind, holding a cup of coffee instead of liquor. Wishing that I had slept the night before. That I hadn’t drank so much I forgot what happened. Wondering how I drank so much that I had forgotten. “You know, most people when the discover the existence of the zombies, they freak out. Some like to try and shoot them. Others try and ignore them, pretend they don’t exist. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who tried to sit down with them and talk to them. Comfort them,” Crash said. His large paws gripped a single coffee mug, one the size of a large soup bowl. The dark liquid inside it rippled as he took a gentle lap of it, his muzzle still prevalent. His thick fur coat still visible. I laughed. “So basically, I wasted my time.” Crash patted me on the shoulder. “Kindness, is never a waste of time.” He said, before taking a couple more laps from the mug, and setting it on the counter. Then he disappeared back into his room and I guess to go sleep. Or be human again for a while. Whatever it is that he does when he gets like this. And here I am. Half drunk as I write this, though I know I’ll be sober when I post it. Wondering exactly what happened, why it happened and what will happen to me. I’ve seen my fair share of horrible. Had to do my own share of horrible to survive, just as anyone. Have been a jack ass, an asshole, ignored others. Started arguments, fights. Cut people out of my life for no other reason than I just really didn’t want to be the one to start talking to them. How can someone like me be….kind? I’m not kind. Ask my ex. I’ve never been kind. I’ve been a kind…a kind of asshole. But never kind. And try to help others? It’s enough to make my head spin. I think I’ve pontificated enough. I’ve wasted enough oxygen for one day. I’m going to get another shower and get some sleep. I still feel grimey. |
| Sometimes life just sucks. We all have different ways to say it, though it boils down to that one phrase. Life. Just. Sucks. In the military, we pretty much summed it up into the letters: F.M.L. F@$K My Life! A curse that is uttered against your very existence in that moment and the ever-mounting problems that seem to always surround those of us who serve, especially when it’s filled with pointless “fun” runs - joyless exercises that are mostly just exercises in patience, and the ever present company ass chewing, usually dolled out to inflict punishment on everyone for the crimes of a few. That number in general usually being less than five individuals who had taken it upon themselves to do something stupid. Like drinking and driving. Not showing up to work on time. Leaving their equipment in the motorpool a mess. Whatever. I no longer had any of those problems to deal with. Didn’t have to worry about cleaning vehicles meticulously so they could sit out in the motorpool on parade, side by side, like so many Lamborghinis and Ferraris hanging out at Leno’s Garage. No, I did have other issues however that were intent on ruining my entire day. Such as a Kamikaze Lawn Gnome trying to kill my car. The day started out normal. I got up, grabbed a shower, some coffee, and started to head out to do some running around: go to the bank, get some groceries, that sort of thing. A typical mundane day. I backed out of the driveway, like normal. Wasn’t paying much attention to the lawn, because let’s be honest, who really watches the lawn when they’re backing away from it. So, I didn’t see the lawn gnome coming upon me or my car, though I did hear a tiny shout of victory as I waited for a truck to pass, as if Jerry Mouse had finally killed Tom. As I began to back out into clear traffic, I heard a shout of agony as if Jerry Mouse had finally been crushed by Tom. And finally, the familiar sound of a tire popping. At least this time they didn’t puncture my damn brake master cylinder. Naturally, I pulled back into the driveway, to see just what had happened. When I saw the lawn gnome half crushed in the drive way, and my tire side wall punctured by what looked like another tiny stone knife, I sadly had to back over the rest of the lawn gnome to park my car to change the tire. But woudn’t you know it, it must have taken me five times to find just the perfect spot to change my tire. Poor little guy. As I was putting on my spare, another bold S.O.B. crawled up to the other side of my car, pulled a break line on the front passenger wheel, then crawled away. Luckily there was still the parking brake. It kind of worked, however those kinds of “find a soft target” decisions aren’t a lot of fun to make when you’re going thirty miles an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic in town and suddenly you need to go zero. All of these are easy problems to solve, honestly. Get a used tire (a side wall puncture is not something that can be repaired, sadly), reconnect the brake line, get more fluid. Get the guys at the tire shop to bleed the brakes for me, (yay more money down the drain), and finally just get the groceries I wanted to get in the first place. All of this before noon. So, today was already off to a fantastic start. It was only going to get better. So, of course since I’ve already had to deal with lawn gnomes today, I would have to deal with rogue zombies as well. After my trip to the bank, I ran inside the grocery store to pick up a couple things. After that morning, beer was definitely on the menu. Crash would complain, but after that glorious start to the day, including having tiny plaster people with a pension for pointy hats try and kill me, I figured I deserved it. When the door was cracked open, it released a stench that was so powerful, it could be tasted more than smelled. Sitting in the back seat, as if they were Ms. Daisy and I was the reliable driver, was the corpse of someone I hadn’t known in life. They were wearing their best suit, from the waist up, though hadn’t been buried with pants. I guess I understand, after all, if your loved one’s in a coffin, why spring for the full suit when the showing will only be from the waist up? It’s not like their body is going to dig itself out of the grave a few days later and climb into some stranger’s car right? The skin had faded into a moldy, green color. The teeth wasn’t yellow, though it definitely was a few shades darker than pure white. What was left of their hair pointed out at all angles, as if modeled after the hair style of some mad scientist. This being waved at me as if we were old friends, with it’s dead naked ass sitting on the cloth seats in the back. “Oh, hell no,” I shouted, as I opened the car door. “No! Not today whoever you used to be. Get out of my car. Out!” The zombie blinked at me at first, shocked as if it was a puppy who had just been smacked for the first time for doing something bad. It blinked in surprise, tried to hiss something at me. I could tell it wanted to ask a question, like “why are you throwing me out here?” Though all that came out was “ehhh?” “Because!” I shouted back, “you stink, and I’m not nearly drunk enough for this. Get out! The dead don’t ride with me. OUT!” I moved my three grocery bags to my right hand and opened the door with the other, glaring as I waited for the creature from the deep of the black grave side manor to climb out, with a look as if it had just been smacked with a rolled-up newspaper for being bad. I growled something under my breath, (which won’t be printed here. I am trying to cut down on my F bombs, honest!), and got back in the car, then opened the door again. It stared forlorne through window. I never knew until that day that the dead could ever resemble a kitten who’d been thrown out into the rain with no home to go to. The smell, which was ripe enough, was not dissipating. I quickly rolled down my window and started the car. The dead guy still stared at me, with the most pathetic look possible. I put it in gear, looked back to back up, then threw it in park. “Fine!” I shouted at it, in the voice every one of us gives a pet when they’ve gotten their way. “Get in. And lay down, cause I don’t want the neighbors to think I’ve gone insane and become a necrophiliac.” The zombie opened the door and sat back down, did it’s own version of grumbling under its breath, then laid down. It must have thought it was undignified to be hidden in the backseat like this or something. He wouldn’t be the one shampooing out the seats for the next month trying to kill the damn smell, though. So I felt no pity. The trip home had taken just under thirty minutes, but it felt like four hours. I have driven military trucks before for hours running on three days of no sleep. I’d rather do that again, with all of the bullets flying at me being thrown in than do that drive with the zombie. Now, Gary is one of our normal friends. He doesn’t have any idea about the werewolf thing, is a gearhead who loves older econoboxes and station wagons, and can sit and talk for hours about such things. An older gentleman type with a pleasant smile, a halo of hair around his head, and glasses thick enough to make certain types of lasers. As I pulled into the drive way and saw his happy wave and small poodle I groaned. Normally I enjoy a small conversation about my Topaz and whatever hidden treasure he happened to dig up. But today, just was NOT the day. “Hey!” He said, smiling as he wandered over. “Hi!” I shouted back, a little too loud, hoping the dead guy would hear and try to hide a bit better. Throwing the door open, I jumped to my feet, and raced over to Gary, smiling. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it!” I said, subtly wandering away from the car. “Yeah, I guess.” Gary said, confused. His confusion was probably because we had just spoken the day prior, him talking about Bessy, his car, and Betsy his wife. Gary currently owns a 1992 Buick Regal Grand Sport. A steal, he says, he picked up in a barn find with an interior mostly intact. Including all of the plastic wood, “made from the finest plastic trees,” he said with a grin. “I just noticed you had a spot of trouble this morning.” He replied, trying to walk closer to the car. My heart sank as his feet kept wandering closer to seeing the dead guy in the back seat. Is it legal to knock your neighbor over the head so he doesn’t see your corpse hitch hiker? “Well, just some neighbor kids playing a prank,” I chuckled. “Got a flat tire. Had to get it replaced. The tire place also had to reattach a brake hose or something that apparently worn loose. No big deal.” Concern painted over Gary’s face. “Kind of a big deal.” He started walking closer to the car. “Brake fluid is flammable you know. Did any of it…” “No, it’s fine. Besides,” I interrupted, grabbing his shoulder a bit and started walking him towards the other side of our yard. My car is parked on the south side of the property. On the other side is Crash’s, as well as Shawn’s, Kris’, and Zacks. Each one having a vehicle befitting their personality. “Crash just had to get a new rag top installed on his caddy,” I said. Which wasn’t technically a lie. “You might want to see that thing now.” Gary laughed, “seen one caddy, seen a thousand. Now, your Topaz, THAT’S a find.” He tried to wander his way back towards my car. My heart skipped a beat when he stopped, as if he had been smacked. “Smells like something crawled in it and died though. You might want to look at that. From the stench, something big, phew!” He gave a few waves in front of his nose to emphasize the stench. “Yeah,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’m kind of embarrassed by it.” “Kids again?” He asked. I nodded. “Kids. Scoundrels are just,” Gary laughed. “Yeah, don’t get me started. Though, they grow out of it.” His face grew more serious as he leaned towards me as if telling some ancient secret. “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you. There’s apparently a rather large dog around here, I almost mistook it for a bear. It seems to be running around your property at night.” I shrugged. “That’s strange.” If only he knew. “Yeah, just wanted you to be aware. Don’t want you or Crash or anyone to get attacked. Especially Crash. That poor guy has a run of bad luck it seems.” Gary smiled, then patted me on the back. “Well, good luck. If you need help, just let me know.” He said, then, thankfully, wandered back in the direction of his house. I ran back to my car. The thing was still in the back seat. “When I get back out here, you better be gone,” I growled. I ran inside, put my few things away, then ran back out, to find dead guy still sitting in the seat, upright now, and waving joyfully at me as if it hadn’t seen me in years. “What, you want to go to the cemetary or something?” It nodded. “Great!” I snapped, then jumped back in, threw the car in drive, and raced down the street far faster than any Mercury Topaz was ever meant to travel. I didn’t see if Gary saw anything, though he never mentioned it later. But who knows. As I pulled into the local cemetary, I looked around. The coast was clear. Throwing open the back door, I pointed and shouted in as stern of a voice as possible, “out!” The thing that was, well, whoever it was, crawled out, looked at me and gave me a thumbs up, then sauntered off. I still have no idea what exactly that was, but now I have a stench in my car that doesn’t seem to be going away and the nauseating image of a half-dressed corpse laying in my backseat with maggots crawling around in crevices I never wanted to think about on a corpse. So, excuse me while I go take four showers and drink myself into oblivion. I think I deserve it after today. |
| I’m not sure how much glee I get from any holidays, anymore. Christmas used to always be my favorite. I still enjoy it, the lights, the music (yes, I’m the one that likes it. Sue me!). All except that one Mariah Carrey song. That piece of corporate homogenized made schlock I guarantee is playing on repeat in hell. But I haven’t gotten a lot of enjoyment out of Halloween for quite some time. Things like trick or treaters is kind of a treat. It’s nice to see what sort of costumes kids get these days, especially when you can get the rare child or two that have homemade costumes instead of the “Spirit of Halloween” plastic foil things that parents over spent on. The candy is okay, but I’m an adult with a (albeit somewhat meager) source of income. I can get my own candy anytime I want. Do I really need a holiday as an excuse to eat candy? Spooky things have just never, really scared me. Skeletons. Woo. Oh no, vampires! Watch out. Werewolves! Yikes. Zombies! Ich. None of it has ever really got my blood racing. The fault lies, at least in my eyes, in the age I was raised in. By the time I was nine years old I was watching Freddy Kreuger on television make hamburger out of teenagers thanks in large part to video rentals. When you’re raised around slashers like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and the Halloween series, as well as grosstacular movies like Hellraiser plastic skeletons and rubber vampires really don’t have that much to offer you. Perhaps that’s one of the great things about the recent developments in my life. Finding out the truth of zombies, finding out that my friend who kept calling himself a werewolf was an actual werewolf, learning about vampires. All of the traditional horror things have gotten a new jolt of life in them. I’m not one for parties, especially Halloween ones. However, this year feels a bit different. I do have an invitation to one. I have no clue as to where it came from, but maybe I’ll go. I don’t know. Perhaps I should let Crash investigate it first? The invitation was sent through traditional mail. The paper feels strange, and has a hint of dirt on it, as if it was found on the ground then mailed out. But the address was made out correct, and my name was spelled properly on it. There wasn’t any extra postage, and I’m still alive after having touched it a day or two ago, so I don’t think it’s Anthrax. Zack, shawn and Kris all think I’d be crazy to go. So, like any self-respecting jaded veteran that just makes me want to go more. Their strange warnings of “you better shower in bleach when you get back” make me scratch my head a little bit. That came from Kris of course. Shawn just shakes his head and says “trust me dude, don’t.” Whatever that means. I swear, he must have been a surfer or something in a past life. If I do go, I’m not wearing a costume. Yeah, I know, spirit of the season and all that, but I can’t bring myself to wear an old army jacket and call myself a “bum” or spend two hundred bucks or more on something that looks like it was made in a factory filled with five year olds for ten dollars. Besides I don’t have a lot of cash, and I don’t have a lot of old clothing other than a few remaining military duds. For obvious reasons, I’m not wearing that. No self-respecting veteran will start wearing their old uniforms around town, after all. We really don’t want clout like that. We’d rather just have the discount and be on our way – if we even want to bother with that. But still. Parties are fun, sometimes. So, I might go anyway. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted. I always do. |
| “So, zombies, huh?” It was a rare day off for Crash. I told him what I had spotted on the way back from the drive through, and he proceeded to just shrug it off. “They’re harmless. They stink, but honestly, they’re harmless.” “So, what I saw was real?” I asked. We had some cheesy werewolf movie on in the living room. Red Corn Syrup, rubber effects, and horrible acting was one way to pass the time around here, especially around Halloween, a holiday that’s so remembered, honestly because it’s the one day of the year Crash can walk through Walmart in his wolf form “au natural” as he calls it, and get compliments instead of screams. I get the impression that werewolves sometimes have a lower self-image of themselves. I guess all of those screams and shouts in fear every time you show the world your furrier side must wear on a person after a while. “Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Real enough. Zombies are just like, soul wrappers without the cosmic center. They house the contents of you: the spirit and soul, but they aren’t you. Not really.” I turned to look at him. He was human, no sign of change. His face looked haggard. His goatee and side burns had grown to nearly overtake his whole face. The match set of luggage under his eyes looked as though they were preparing to fly to Europe for a twelve week stay. He’d come in a day earlier and told me that he’d been forced to take a day off. “shift fatigue,” he muttered, then walked back to bed. And proceeded to sleep for almost eighteen hours. I don’t know what ‘Shift Fatigue’ is, but I’m glad I really can’t get it. It sounds like a werewolf thing. And it sounds horrible. “Soul rappers?” I said. “So, what. They’re going to come up to me and start spitting rhymes about God and heaven and hell?” He gave me a look. “Not funny,” he grumbled. “Think of them this way: they’re more or less chip bags blowing in the wind. They know they’re dead. That the soul that possessed them before is gone. They have very few likes or dislikes. They can’t eat. They don’t even know why they’re moving. But they do move, a lot. In fact, their favorite thing to do is to walk around neighborhoods and hang out with humans.” “So, head shot kills them, then?” I said. “No. Well, it can but that’s kind of cruel.” He grumbled. “Why?” The monster on the screen growled and snarled as it began to slash through the front door separating it from its fresh kill. Crash paused the movie and looked at me. “It’s like stomping on a lost kitten.” “Lost?” That was new to me. “I thought they were resurrected by voodoo priests or something. That they hungered for human flesh or were some sort of ghoulish slave.” Crash rolled his eyes. “It’s more like they’re lost puppies. The ones being controlled are something else entirely and the best thing you can do for them is to kill them again. These, it’s well, the best I can explain it is that the flesh remembers life. It remembers having a soul, a spirit, a guide. But here, at this time of year when things are thinnest and thickest they regain the ability to move.” “Why?” none of this was making sense. When someone was dead, they were dead. A bag of mostly assembled flesh and bone that will soon be worm food. Why all of this ‘thinnest and thickest’ crap? “Well, to hang out at Halloween parties. To talk to former relatives and find out what their missing soul used to be like. To meet new people and try to make friends to visit their grave from time to time to say hi. To be, well, human. At least for a while.” “So, they long to be what they were?” I hummed. “I guess that makes sense in some strange way.” “They long to know and remember the soul they once held so lovingly and carried through this life.” Crash said. “But, they’re dead. Worms are eating their brains. They can’t remember anything cause they no longer have the ability to remember.” I replied. Crash nodded. “So, you see,” “It really would be like stomping on a lost kitten.” I muttered. I did feel bad in a way. They were missing a part of themselves they only remember having, but couldn’t remember anything about. Doomed to wander until they returned to the grave searching for that piece of themselves, they’ll never grasp, to get some peace and closure. “Besides, they’ll just rot back into the ground soon enough anyway.” Crash shrugged, then flipped the movie back on. He didn’t go into any further details about that. They’ll just rot back into the ground? Like at a faster rate? At a slower rate? I didn’t really want to know. I turned my attention back to the woman on the screen, screaming as a werewolf tried to claw its way through her front door. Hopefully all of the red corn syrup and bad acting can wash the taste of miserable rotten flesh desperately seeking themselves out of my brain. But as the movie played on, I began to doubt it. I just hope we don’t get any particularly smelly trick or treaters. |
| It’s my first official Halloween season as part of the pack. Part of me figured that Halloween would be a fun time for a werewolf or vampire. Think about it, you have a built-in costume. Just go as, well, yourself. A vampire just dresses up in the duds that they put you in as a dead guy, and there ya go: instant costume that’s guaranteed to win any competition. However, for Crash, it seems to be a whole lot of work. He keeps saying that things will “slow down”, but always manages to dodge the question of just what it is he does. I am curious. Not curious enough to go snooping, but I’m still curious. The centaur office lady fantasy was a fun toy for my mind to play with for a while, however, it’s finally been tossed that aside for the lure of the mystery. Twelve hour days. Fourteen hour days. Six days a week, if he’s lucky and they give him a day off. And all for what? Many days now, he just wakes up in the late afternoon or early evening, already in werewolf form, grumbling the entire way as he shuffles out the back door and walks the path towards the woods. Then we won’t see him till morning, when he comes in covered in dirt, muck and mud, showers off and goes to sleep. Occasionally he’ll eat dinner. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve threatened to put a flea collar on him. A joke that was only met with a middle finger as he stood in the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee that he gently lapped at while the sun continued it’s morning ritual. None of the other guys seem all that worried. Zack just shrugs and says “wait till the end of the month,” and doesn’t say much more. I have no idea what that even means. As if that’s anything new in THIS house. I’ve noticed other weird things though. Since I’m in the pack now, it’s like things around town aren’t hiding anymore, or their tricks don’t work on me, or whatever. I don’t even know what it is. Could it be a scent thing? As far as I know, I haven’t been marked or anything. I mean, if a werewolf pees on you, you kind of remember that event, even if its one you wouldn’t want to. I don’t know though if there’s some sort of psychic or spiritual or whatever kind of mark that lets every other monster and nasty out there to go ahead and try to freak me out. There has to be something to explain all of these weird happenings. Just the other day, I was driving by a cemetery in the evening, after a run from a local fast food place, and a guy was walking from a grave. He wasn’t alone, there was a couple others behind him, but his arm fell off. Betsy (what I decided to name my car), pulled to a complete stop on the shoulder of the two-lane road. It was a grade or two above gravel, though it would be a stretch to call the road “high grade pavement”, more like “tarred and compacted rocks”. The guy walked on as if nothing happened. Another guy walked up behind him, picked up the arm and tapped him on the shoulder with it. I was probably about thirty feet away give or take, but I could see bone and muscle tissue on the dropped arm. Nothing looked fresh, it was all putrid and rotting meat. Both guys turned and waved at me, dried sagging skin, maggots dining happily in one eye, at least I think it was maggots. It’s not the strangest thing I’ve seen in my life, and not nearly the most disgusting thing I’d seen (a guy stepping on an anti-tank mine, now that’s nasty). I simply waved back and drove on, like nothing happened. I didn’t want to see if any other body parts drop off. Call me crazy, if you like. That was just one thing. Mr. Simpson, one of our neighbors seemed to be a full foot and a half taller than he was a few days ago. I’ve heard of growth spurts, but geez! I guess the weird house with the tall doors now makes sense. I don’t know what’s going on with all of it. I’m keeping my head down, not accepting gifts from strangers, and watching out for lawn gnomes, the little suckers seem to be more active in other people’s yards too. I figure Crash will tell me what’s going on sooner or later. Or he won’t, and I’ll simply make something up like my mind always does. I just hope my roommates won’t be too freaked out if I start cleaning my gun a bit more than normal. Let’s just say it’s giving me some comfort these days. |
| One thing I’ve come to realize in my short time out of the military: job hunting sucks. Everyone. And I mean, EVERYONE thinks that you’re going to do something crazy. They hear all the time (or so they claim) of former soldiers and marines going crazy, PTSD, shooting up places. How? Where are they hearing this information? Every time I turn on the news (always by accident these days) I’m either hearing about Ukraine or Trump. A school shooting happens and no one seems to even care anymore. So where are they hearing about all of these people just going nuts? Things like this puzzle me. I feel a bit like the narrator at times in fight club, telling their boss that “you should be careful, cause this buttoned down psycho could go from office to office shooting down co-workers” in as deadpan of a voice as possible. “Or maybe you shouldn’t believe every piece of trash you pick up.” I know the movie was different, but that’s exactly what I’d say. The most that I’d likely do is to gun down people on GTA. Virtual lives pre-programmed into a video game to be ran over and shot over and over again. Only this time, there’s no Ryan Renolds character there to save everyone. So, I did happen to get a job. I worked there for about ten days officially. Well, take out the four days of training. The two days of the weekend cause, I wasn’t being paid for weekend work. So, I managed to get fired in four days. This is how it happened. I worked for a company we will call, in the interest of avoiding legalities and being sued by men with ties that are more expensive than my entire life, Brand X. Brand X is a mega-multinational, corporation with interests and organizations all over. They do almost a bit of everything, but some how manage to do nothing at all at the same time. It’s one of those corporations whose only function it ever seems to be is to spend money as fast as they possibly could with no regard for reason or cause. Companies like this can only exist in a land like America. A nation that prides itself on its own ability to stroke its own ego for ego stroking’s sake, and have built vast empires of vapidness towards it: the Facebooks, the TikToks. The relentlessly chasing your own tail for the sake of selfies and likes and hearts. Except one of those companies is actually Chinese. And the corporation I worked for was based out of Europe, not America. Brand X that I worked for was just a local branch for them. Go figure. My job title was something like “Regional Traffic Manager”. My unofficial title that I came up with was “go-fer”. “Hey army, go get us a round of coffee will you?” “Hey army, the board wants to see the results of the Johnson study. Go bring that in, please?” “Hey army, go down to Kinko’s and pick up the reports I dropped off.” To which, my official responses was “Hey Doug, your legs broken you can’t get your own coffee?” “Hey Amy, that study’s on the Intranet. Tell them to pull their heads out of their fourth point of contact and look for their damn selves.” “Hey Larry. I don’t know what reports you dropped off. I don’t know which Kinko’s you used, since the closest one is ninety minutes away. I don’t have the receipt you used to drop it off. So unless, you suddenly have gotten really good at Telepathy and told them I was coming with a complete mental photograph of me through the power of mental projection, You’d be literally wasting my entire afternoon.” To which Larry asked me if I’d ever consider trying some manners when working around the office. To which, I asked him if he’d ever try apologizing. Not to me, but to the plants in the office that’s working so very hard to replace the oxygen he’s stealing. I did get my ass chewed for that one. But it’s kind of hard to take an ass chewing seriously when the guy doing it a few minutes earlier was laughing his ass off to another manager as he described the story. This didn’t happen in front of me. But those office doors didn’t block as much sound out as they thought. The big event however that got me fired went a little something like this: It was the end of a long and TIRING day. It was only my third day there, but I was trying to help Linda (and all of these names are fake by the way), with preparations for their conference that was going to happen the next week. This conference was kind of a big deal for them. They were going to be trained in the latest techniques and gadgets and do-dads to do…well whatever it was that they actually did. I don’t know. It seemed like an excuse for them to gather together and drink and do bad karaoke, and I told them so. To which, they told me that I was already on thin ice so shut up and just do the damn job. When in the military, before you go ANYWHERE to do ANYTHING, you check, check, and check again. Why? Because there’s so much crap you have to take, that by the time the third check rolls around you’ll actually find everything you’re supposed to bring with you. So, that’s exactly what I did. Linda wanted to just shove everything in a van and leave it so I could drive it up the next week without her. She didn’t count on me pulling everything she had in the van back out and laying it out behind the van right in the parking lot. The look on her face as I placed tables, book bags, laptops (which seemed a bit dangerous to keep in a flimsy van, but what do I know?) and other paraphernalia out in the open in neat little rows and columns, by size and type. I could see by how her thrice dyed bleached curled hair was standing on end, she was angry with me. “What do you think you’re doing?!” She growled, clenching her fists. “Just put it in the van, don’t count it!” “I’m doing my job,” I calmly replied to her. “And you’re missing a laptop, a table, and about a dozen goody bags and manuals.” “I’m not….no I’m not,” she snarled. I waved my hand over the items. “Count it, then.” So, we did. And counted it again. Then a third time. Then we’re loading the van back up. And searching the building. And, well, you get the idea. After about six hours of this nonsense, we find the missing items. She never picked them up, apparently. She double counted a few things. This is why, in the army, we would check, check and recheck! Cause you never can tell how much you have when everything is in a pile. Yes, I came away from that situation looking like a hero. However, it was what happened next that made me the villain again. Brand X was in a large building in the middle of a city. The building itself was about six stories tall, complete with attached parking garage where all of this craziness happened. It was a gleaming massive glass structure, that was built with as little thought to design as possible. Another massive silver glassed tooth in the gaping maw that was the city life. I had done this entire insanity with Linda in the morning, was present for a two-hour meeting that could have been put on a post-it note honestly, and had to stay after. Cause of course, I’m the new guy. So, it ended up to me to assist with the final preparations for their conference presentations. Even though I wasn’t going to be presenting a single thing, and had no clue as to what we even did that warranted a company, let a lone a conference for it. I did the best I could, working the power point presentations up the way I used to assist my platoon leaders on occasion with their work. I was riding the elevator back down. It was night time. The sun had long since sunk below the horizon and drifted in its endless onward journey to warm the planet. I was riding the elevator down with someone who looked to be about fifteen years older than me, though the face didn’t register. I hurting. I was tired. I was contemplating quitting. I was going home in my crappy car. “You must be new here,” the gentlemen smiled. His hair on his head had fled his face, and the hair on the sides turned white from the fright of it. It was an old face that looked as if it was more used to frowning than smiling. “What gave it away,” I said with a tired sigh. “What do you think of this place, so far?” He asked. I didn’t think he was genuinely curious. Just expected the standard corporate answer. The ’30 second elevator pitch’ so to speak. So: I gave it to him. “I work for a bunch of people who at least have no clue as to what the company actually does or what their actual job is. At most who actually do know and actively avoid it and any real work. In an office that is outfitted with the cheapest pressboard furniture possible. IKEA looks like classic fine furniture compared to this place. The ninety-minute trek out here is a pain in the ass, that’s one way by the way, and hardly worth the trip, especially in a Mercury Topaz. And I still have no idea exactly what it is we really do here. I swear the CEO and entire corporate board must be sniffing paint thinner and glue up there all day to think that this company actually has a product or any actual value.” That was when Mr. ugly gave me his full name and job title: Brand X of America’s CEO. Ouch. Some choice words were said. He had apparently heard of me already. I was a trouble maker he said. I was worthless he said. “Rowing the wrong way” on the boat or something. I don’t know. It was a stupid analogy. All I knew is that my legs hurt. My hip was screaming at me. My back hurt. And I was tired of trying to focus on nine things at once in an office full of people who honestly shouldn’t be trusted running the subway in a Wal-Mart. In between his colorful description of my performance and my personality, I told him “Don’t worry about it. I quit anyway.” And walked out. “I’ll never work in that town again” is what he said to me as I left. “Yeah, well this town sucks anyway,” was my reply. Later that night I sat in the living room with Crash. I had a beer in my hand, and a tired hang-dog look on my face. He patted me on the shoulder. I drank. It’s what I did. I didn’t talk about my problems. It’s one of the complaints that my ex had from my marriage. Only, this time, I did. Other things began to spill out. The job. The way I felt worthless around the house. The way I felt worthless in life. As if I had been trained to deal with billion dollar situations, but not ten dollar ones. “The army gives you all of this expensive equipment. It’s signed to you, it’s in your name. It’s yours. You’re entrusted to make these decisions with this equipment and your squad’s lives. But here, in the regular world, I can’t even be trusted with ten dollar ones. No one wants my opinion on lunch, let alone to trust me with the upkeep on a simple company truck, or work around dangerous things, like house painting equipment. It seems all I’m good for is sweeping parking lots or being the damn Wal-Mart door greeter.” “Oh, come on,” Crash said with his trade mark smirk. “You’d make a great door greeter.” I rolled my eyes. “Sure. I would. Welcome to Wal-Mart. Go fuck yourself.” I sighed. “See there,” he said, “You have it down already.” I tried to growl at him, but couldn’t help it. I was already smiling. “When you’re ready, you’ll find something. Something will work out. Until then, why not work on yourself?” He said. I mean, why not work on me? He has a point. I will never be perfect, but it doesn’t mean I can’t fix a few things in my life. Of course, I have a few issues that I’ve been ignoring. Every alcoholic does. That’s the real difference between an alcoholic and a drunk after all. An alcoholic knows they have problems they’re running from. A drunk does too, they just never admit it. It’s time I began to work some of these things out. It’s time I began to repair a few things in my life. It’s time I stitched myself back together emotionally, if I can’t do it physically. It’s time for me to learn how to be me again. |
| One thing that Crash seems to dodge is my requests to hear some music. After all, if werewolves exist, there has to be a separate culture for them, right? They didn't just spring up out of the ground, like weeds after a summer rain. They must have at one point at least had their own distinct group or clan or whatever, with their own distinct history, and distinct culture. Culture always involves things like art, music and legends. But why would Crash be so dodgy on this? I mean, he's not exactly subtle with his whole "werewolf" thing. He has a T-shirt that actually says on it "werewolves do it wild" with a picture of a wolf on it jumping through the shirt. He has a "werewolf" mix on his Spotify account. Actions like this aren't those of a mythical creature in hiding. So, why then won't he talk about this part of the culture? The first conclusions anyone can jump to are the horrifying ones. Maybe the culture revolved around hunting and killing people? Maybe they were the mythical beasts that our cavemen ancestors were afraid of. These were the creatures they built fires at night to protect themselves from, not ancient jungle cats or other things. But if these were the creatures that went bump in the night to our ancient ancestors and they hunted in packs, wouldn't we have quite a different culture than we do now? After all, we'd be terrified of other ethnic groups and cultures. it would be so much different than today, a time were we're trained as a people by our news and media to be terrified of other ethnic groups and cultures. Seriously though there would be more evidence of entire civilizations disappearing. I don't mean the Inca drifting into the woods disappearing. I mean, the whole entire "we've all died and here are the teeth and claw marks" version of disappearing. Plus, humanity would actually have heavier mightier weapons than they had before. Which means that werewolves must have always been among us, right? Like in our culture. In and amongst our people. So does that mean werewolves have always been here? Werewolves were always just one random family amongst us? And doing what, exactly? The most I can gather from Crash's actual job is that he is a regulator or cop of some kind for...something. I'm still unsure of just what he does. And having known his werewolf side now for a few months, I'm of the opinion that I am not sure of how much I want to know. There was that whole lawn gnome thing. That should have killed me. My body and soul should currently be possessed by those damned gnomes and they should be running amuck in this house and in the whole damn neighborhood right now. Why aren't they? Why aren't I? How did Crash know just what to do? I assumed that knowing a werewolf didn't automatically mean he'd know about every mythical being out there. After all, just because you know one person who came from Japan doesn't mean you have a connection to everyone who lives on those islands. Having someone of a different race and culture in your family or friendship circle doesn't mean you know everyone of that race or culture or that they do. That would be more than just a little presumptuous. So, then that must mean his job had something to do with that knowledge. Cause after all, he called that gnome out by name. Then there was the whole doctor vampire thing. Then, well, I guess that brings me back around to music. Cause I'm not trying to dig into his past. I'm not trying to dig into his job and stick my nose where it doesn't belong. I just want to know more about his culture. About the whole werewolf thing and those people. But how, exactly, do I do that when I keep getting jokes and nonsense? Music is an easy way to learn about someone's culture. It's generally tied to religious rites and ceremonies, to historical events and figures, to important things for a people to pass on from one to the other. Music is one of those pieces of culture that is imperative to that culture. Each people have their own way of interpreting its use and importance. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. But when I ask for Crash for werewolf music, I don't expect to hear a lot of Ozzy Osbourne, or eccentric country folk artists or strange goth rock from the nineties and early 00s. But that's what I get - just the stuff that he's been listening to ever since I met him. Perhaps I'm just pushing this thing a bit too hard. Crash will open up in his own time. Just because I WANT to know more about his culture and species doesn't mean I'm ENTITLED to know more. That's a clear line of distinction not many people draw these days. These jokes he's been playing on me could be Crash's way of telling me to back off and he'll tell me in his own time. If that time ever comes. Or he could not actually have any separate culture and is just messing with me. You know. Either or. |
| Ever seen a werewolf get sick? I mean really ill. Gut wrenching, puking and shitting in just about any available corner ill? It's not a pretty site. Their skin doesn't just get white with a pale greenish color like ours does. It seems to grow silver. A faint shade of silver, pale, and of course the weakness that always comes with being sick as your body fights off whatever toxins or viruses and bacteria that's infected it. We suffered about three days of this. Crash puking after eating almost anything. Then stumbling to work at night afterwards. Only to stumble back into work during the day time, and well, crash. He was sleeping a heck of a lot longer than normal even for him. It was so long, that the rest of us got together and planned a little intervention on him. Shawn is a man of few words. He'd rather coast through life than interrupt it in any capacity. In fact, you could easily see him at home on a beach somewhere sporting a dark tan and a surf board, proclaiming to you the beautiful effects of weed when combined with the wonderful music of Phish. When Shawn gets ready to confront you about something. You know it's gone far out of control. "I just think, dude that you should get it checked. I've never seen you like this." Shawn's face was a look of concern. That was abnormal enough. It wasn't that Shawn didn't care. He was just sort of like Bo Sheep from the old Garfield cartoon. A more dude version of the dude from The Big Lebowski. He helped in his own way, but knew that many times the best way to help someone was to listen or just stay out of their way. I suspected, but never confronted that he usually just didn't have the words of wisdom we all feel we have. Those special nuggets of information we "bless" each other with that seems to just make things worse. The modern equivalent of telling a new widow that "time heals all wounds" or a fresh divorcee' that there were "plenty of fish in the sea." He wasn't broken like most of society into thinking that his special brand of knowledge was warranted or desired. That's what I think, anyway. Who knows? He could just be painfully shy. So when Shawn's ready to talk to you about something, it's serious. And Crash took it as seriously as one could expect. "Why's everyone so down about it? It's not like I'm dying," Crash said moments before he wretched again, this time in the trashcan he held between his legs. It would have been fitting to have rain that day. For it to be pissing down outside, wash the world in the grey tone that Crash was taking on. Instead, it was sunny, with birds chirping sweetly outside. Proving once again that nature is an asshole and has no sense of humor. As Crash retched in the trashcan, Kris responded with, to his credit, with as much care, concern, and compassion as he could muster. Absolutely more than anyone expected out of him, to be honest. "I swear if you die because you're refusing to take care of yourself, I'm gonna kill you!" he snapped. "Get your big ass over to the phone and call Vic!" A look came over crash that seemed foreign upon his being. Was that look fear? "No hospitals." He mumbled. "It'll pass. It's just," he started then dry heaved. "It's just a small thing. It's going." That was when Zack came back into the room. I hadn't noticed him leave to be honest, and was surprised when he came back into the room strode forward and shoved a phone into Crash's hand. Crash made a face, but put the cell to his ear and began to talk. "Tell him if he refuses to go to Vic, I'll tie his ass up and dump him on his office door. Again." Then walked out of the room. I looked at Crash. "Zack said," He hung up the phone. "I heard what he said," he sighed. Staring down into it. I've never seen Crash afraid of, well, anything really. Not for himself, anyway. "Thanks guys," he mumbled finally, handing me back the phone. "Well, if you don't make that appointment," I began again. "I heard what he said," he grumbled back at me. "Yes, but he'll tie you up you see and," Crash gave me a playful shove. There wasn't much strength in it. "I can rest about four hours. Then Vic will see me." I nodded. I wasn't sure who this "Vic" character was. But it wasn't long before I found out. Zack had work. Shawn and Kris both had a job to get to, somewhere. Though Kris volunteered to call out. He stood near the back door, uniformed shirt in hand. "It's alright, I got it." I responded. After all, what other response could I give? Walk away? Give him up for dead or let someone else take Crash in? After everything he did for me? No. There was plenty of people out there to give up on. And God knows, I've definitely given up on plenty of people in my life. But this wasn't going to be one of them. Not someone who literally dragged me out of a grave of my own making. That's what loyalty really is. Not giving up on someone even when they've given up on themselves. Not walking away and letting them make a mistake despite how desperately they want to make it. Fighting for them after they've given up fighting for themselves. Loyalty is painful though. You can ask anyone who served or anyone in an emergency service field. Any cop, fire fighter, EMT or doctor. They'll tell you. It's very painful and will exact a price upon you. I'm used to this pain being emotional. Friendships lost. Relationships damaged. The people you've rescued turning on you in their grief and pain and repaying your efforts with venom and spite. I never expected it to be physical. "I don't care if you are a damn werewolf," I grumbled as I half carried, half dragged Crash to my car. "You're going on a diet." He was trying to help, though at this point, and with the lack of fluids he's had, he was fading fast. Each step was a mere tiny shove against the approaching ground, not actual help. Each step was a throb, a stab of pain that shot up from my ankle, to my hip through my back. Like someone was skewering me alive slowly from the side. The pain jolted through me with stride after stride, but we made it, and I was able to click his seatbelt in place. The drive to this mysterious 'Vic's" was a bit more than a let down. Turns out 'Vic' is short for 'Victor', a doctor in the next town over, who had a nice practice. The building was brick, pushed back into a small clutch of trees that gave it a homey sort of feel. The curtains in the windows was your traditional vertical blinds that seems to be given to every doctors office by law. I wasn't sure what to expect when I stepped inside. But what I got was a waiting room three fourths empty. The few that were there was unrecognizable to me, save for the woman I had purchased the lawn gnome from a few weeks back. She gave me a nervous glance, then looked down, playing on her phone desperately as if she made eye contact again, she might spontaneously explode. The rest of the room was typical doctors office affair. Steel chairs with sturdy fabric set in neat rows focusing their attention on a television that was quietly playing an afternoon day time drama of some kind. One of the cheap soap operas that broadcast television likes so much: 'The Young and Restless Guiding Light to the General Hospital' or something like that. I didn't catch the name. A window with safety glass stood off to one side of the room. Behind it was a middle aged woman furiously typing away at a computer of some kind. "How can I help you hon," she said without looking up. "Well," I began, "my friend you see is very sick outside, and I need some help getting him in," There was an expectation of getting something like "he needs a hospital" or something when we got here. Flashing lights, sirens, maybe an ambulance. Instead, she looked up at me from her computer screen, blond hair tied back in a bun of some kind, then looked back down. "Oh, the Loup Garu" she said. "Vic will grab him in a second. Just have a seat, please." So, I sat. Waiting. My foot upon my leg, phone in my hand, endlessly scrolling through social media crap. Not really paying attention to much of what the world had going on around it. The scenes on the television washed over me without sticking in my head anytime my eyes wandered up to it. Why do people keep putting TVs in waiting rooms? It's like bothering with the ancient magazines that some of them still have. That's another thing: why bother with traditional magazines anymore? Bah, I could go on for hours, but I digress. It felt like an eternity, but in reality, I was only waiting about twenty minutes. When you're stuck in stasis waiting for any news about a loved one, someone you care about, time just drags slower. Part of you wants to start beating on the doors shouting "What's taking you so long, damn it! Just fix him!" But doing this, just wouldn't help. If there's one thing I'm good at: it's waiting. Anyone from a military background becomes great at waiting. When you're forced to show up at 4:30 in the morning for a battalion run that will happen at 6, you get good at waiting. When you're 99th in line to grab your gear so you can deploy, you get good at waiting. When you've just got back from leave after Christmas and the entire brigade does a drug test at the same time, you get REALLY good at waiting. And holding in piss until you have to do it on command. So, I waited until I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. The owner of that hand was thin and tall. There was a danger behind the eyes that screamed at me to watch him with every fiber of my being. Those types of eyes that you commonly see on serial killers and madmen. He had thin brownish blond hair and blue eyes. If he smiled and a camera caught him just right, about a million teenaged hearts would break all at the same time and desperately pour out their undying love toward him. "Come with me please," the man said. "You must be Vic," I said as I stood up. "You are correct, I am doctor Victor Hammerstein," he said. I expected an East German/ western Russian accent. The type that most Hollywood actors and us plebs alike butcher when we're trying to imitate Dracula. Instead what I got was a familiar beige, mayonnaise dull mid-western accent. I was lead through a door, down a hallway with cheerful blue office carpeting and pastel walls towards a small room near the back. Crash laid on a table, gasping. He was sweating profusely, his form looked. Well, it looked horrible. "Your friend has been poisoned," he said matter-of-factly. "From the color of his skin, it's got to be silver." The doctor leaned in close to Crash, smiled and said "You're lucky you got good friends you moron. Where did you get it from?" He gave me a look, his face turned apologetic for a moment. Then looked away. "around," he replied. I didn't see where he got the needle from. But he drew liquid out of a vial. Then he turned to me. "This is deadly to you." He said. "But it will help him. I'll give him this injection now. But he'll need two a day for the next three days. One in the morning, one at night." He then demonstrated to me how much he'd need, pulled down Crash's shorts to reveal a silvery pale butt cheek and stuck the needle home. Then he smiled up to him and said "Oh, you'll feel a slight sting." Crash mumbled "asshole" to him and grinned a bit. "No changing." He said to me, then looked at Crash. "No changing! You're off the bench for the next week. They can do their patrols without you for a while." Patrols? What patrols? What was going on? "Great. Desk work." Crash grumbled then looked up at him. "Can't you just inject me with more silver instead?" Vic chuckled, "hell no! You still owe me twenty bucks." "I'll pay you tomorrow," Crash replied. "Then can you?" The doctor smiled at me. "Your friend will live." They talked and joked for a few minutes more. Crash got some dietary guidelines and things from Dr. Vic, then he turned to leave the office. Before he left, right as his hand touched the door knob, I finally spoke up. "Oh doc, can I ask a personal question? It's been eating at me since I saw you in the waiting room." I began. "Oh, vampire." Vic replied. "Yes, I can read your thoughts. Yes I feed on human blood. No, I won't feed on yours, unless I don't get paid that is." His looked at Crash who raised a middle finger in the air back at him. "Looks like you're on the menu," he replied with a wink. "Do that and I'll shit in your yard," Crash grumbled. "Really? That's all I get," I joked, holding my hand to my heart. "Jeez, some friend." "You ever try cleaning up werewolf shit," Vic replied. "Takes days. Always stinks to high heaven, believe me. It's more than enough. Filthy creatures." "Shouldn't you be diving in a coffin," Crash sat up, as he spoke. Color began to slowly return to his face. "Shouldn't you be marking a tree," Vic shot back. Crash grinned. "Nah, I've moved onto doors. I'll pee on your door one of these days." "Don't you dare," Vic barked, then opened the door. "Don't!" He looked down at me, and said "you're welcome to leave when he's got the strength. No, don't stop at the front desk just move right on out. His office will pay for it." Then he looked at Crash and said "you're welcome, by the way." and closed the door. "Victor Hammerstein," Crash stood on his feet, swayed a moment, then stood upright. "Is one of the good vampires. And I don't owe him twenty bucks, he owes me fifty. Just don't tell him that. And don't think about it on the way out, it's just like telling him." Crash was able to walk out towards the car on his own two feet. His appetite began to come back too, much to my wallet's detriment. Though since he was poisoned and dying I'll let it slide. We had a good conversation on the way back. But to sum it up: Vampires are generally in the medical field. They're always arrogant, and usually assholes. Though, Vic is Crash's kind of asshole. They hit it off immediately. Vampires do drink blood, but tend not to kill. They weaken people though and the people die of other things, such as cancers or the like. It's why most of them go into medical fields, I reckon. The entire thing was an eye opening experience. Since then Crash has recovered, and is now going back out at nights to patrol or do whatever it is that he does. I seriously have this super hero image in my head now. Maybe I should just buy him a cape? |
| Job hunting sucks. Anyone who says it doesn't really hasn't ever had to go job hunting. Especially after you've spent a better part of your adult life in the military. The civilian world and military one are two entirely different beasts. One is cold, calculating, bitter ready to chew you up and spit you out if you let it and only the strongest survive them. The second is the military. Think I'm exaggerating? All it takes to survive in the military is four things: Right place. Right time. Right Uniform. Right attitude. You have those for things, and you're good to go. Be where you're told to be, when you're told to be there. Be wearing the right clothing. Have a positive attitude about the crappy situation that you're about to suffer, whatever it is. Unit runs. Command layouts. Inspections. Recall formations. Whatever the situation, be positive about it and things run much smoother. Try that in civilian life. Sure, those qualities can get you in the door, but they only carry you so far. And your bullshit detector has to be in good working order, cause it's going to get some work, especially when people find out that you've been in the military before. Most just want nice, simple things from us military types. You know: the horrific stories of death and destruction that we'd rather not live through again with each retelling and instead would rather just drink those memories away. The bitter drama of going away on deployment only to come back and find out your spouse had taken the opportunity to screw half the folks on installation, most of the folks off, has ran away with your cash and is currently living three states away with another person who is driving your car. You know, those horrible things. But others want more. They want our cash, benefits, anything we're willing to sign away to them. Of course, dodging the traditional greedy, money hungry types who just go hunting for soldiers is easy enough. However, dodging those who come at you with the face of one organization or another who simply want to "help" you is where it's easy to get in trouble. Sure, there is crooked schemes out there looking to take advantage of us. It comes with the territory. There is also those who simply are afraid of us. Those who watch far too many movies and expect us to snap at any moment and start spraying bullets through an office building simply because Suzie in accounting has said the wrong thing about our red swingline stapler. So, yes you could say that job hunting has been a bit of a chore. I've thought of doing the traditional things: security guard (can you do that with a cane or laying down?) postal worker (all that walking? With my hip?) TikTok personality (Yeah. No.) You know, all of the jobs that us military types have available to us when we leave military service. I've managed to shoot down pretty much all of them. I have far too much ADHD to be of any use in a boring job that requires me to concentrate on one thing for too long. So that leaves a couple things, sadly TikTok personality could be among them. But I'm not the type who can do funny faces or even dumb, catchy dances. So, that only leaves writing. But writing isn't all that it's cracked up to be. A shrinking market filled with a growing number of players who all want to be a part of the game makes for a very competitive work place. Work that isn't always paying all that much. But it always helps to have friends. Zack is good for help and a game or two. Shawn and Kris are great listeners, and everyone pitches in on groceries. A support system of caring, loving people. A family of sorts that is, in it's own weird way a pack. A misfit pack. Crash has told me before that werewolves always form packs around them. Usually it ends up being mostly werewolves, but for him it's been mostly us human types. We're always there for him. He's always there for us. We're always there for each other to give what another needs, whether it's space, an ear or a helping hand. I'm not angry about ending up in such a place or in such a space. Sure, it would be awesome if I ever find some of that Stephen King money. Have the type of success where a growing list of B grade movies are made of your characters starring a string of bad soap opera actors. That would be great. But life never quite works out that way. I'd be happy with Edgar Alan Poe fame. That sort of success level that only hits after I've gone from this plane of existence into the next. Of course, I'd prefer to get printed, and paid now. But I think I'll settle for this. A life with a werewolf friend, several human room mates, an occasionally visiting stone dragon who helps keep our lawn gnome infestations down, and a car that is ugly but just won't die. And of course the vampire. Oh, I didn't talk about him yet, did I? Well, that's a long story I'll tell another day. |
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