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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. |
| A home must always be and feel like a home if it’s going to give you any sense of sanity. The crazier the life, the more like home it must be. So yes, the Rodriguez compound, so to speak, was almost an operating military base in some aspects. But in many others, it was just like anywhere else. Crazy prepper version, but anywhere else. The house itself was a log cabin design with beautiful windows large enough to let in natural lighting. I would not have been surprised if they were bullet proof. The roof had solar panels, and a couple of home made wind turbine generators that towed the line between sketchy and functional. There was a generator elsewhere as well that Roam happily pointed out as I made my way in. “I get a discount from a couple of the local fast food places” he said. “I buy their oil for a dollar a gallon. We filter ourselves and wammo! Electricity. Though we don’t need the generator all that often, surprisingly.” Which was a good thing. Running diesel generator on fast food cooking oil meant that you’d have a home that smelled of constant french fries, which would drive me nuts. The inside of the home was everything ours was not: Neat, organized, clean. Part of me missed our eclectic cluttered house already. Tanika sat at a kitchen table, sipping on a cup of coffee. As we walked in she stood and approached, giving Elouise and I a good sturdy handshake. “Come,” she said, “everyone is waiting in the back. I’ll bring you some coffee.” Our shared adventure with “The Nobility” didn’t seem to have much of an effect on her. She still had the strong frame, mediterranean influence, and of course, was still a werewolf, much like Roam. Of course their two children where also werewolves. They were seated at a somber table in a room that seemed to be built into the center of the house. I recognized the reinforced walls, the multi-display computer equipment, and of course, the large sliding door that could seal and lock from the inside. It would take something strong to break into this room. Or break out of it. Cecily was sitting at far end of the table with a laptop in front of her. She was staring at something on the screen with Killian sitting next to her. All of the rest of the gang was there, Crash, Sean, Kris, Zack. I grabbed a seat next to Zack, Elouise sat across from Crash. “Everyone here,” Roam asked, and yawned. He stretched a moment, then gave a sad smile, “it’s been some time since you’ve been in here, Crash.” “I don’t miss it,” he said. “Please, just tell me where’s the grave. I’ll pay my respects, and go.” “You’re going to be stepping into a storm,” Roam said. “We thought you should know that.” Crash waved a hand at the rest of us. “Nobility tends to leave humans alone.” “Your friends,” Cecily said, “pissed the Nobility off last year. It’s not safe.” “How ‘not safe’,” Zack asked. “I wouldn’t plan any sudden air travel,” she said. “And have you thought about a life insurance policy? You could make some lucky guy or gal a lot of money soon. Just not anyone sitting here, though.” Zack folded his hands and looked down, biting his lip a bit. “Look,” Roam said, “We want to take you down there, but you must be safe first.” Crash stood, snarling. “I never asked for an escort. Tell me where the grave is.” Roam threw his hands up, while Killian began laughing. Crash glared at him for a moment, and Killian just smiled wider. “You’ll never change, will you wuffy?” I filed the “wuffy” comment away for later. That would be funny. But now wasn’t the time for it. I guessed it was some sort of pet name or something. Of course, I guessed wrong. “We’ve been tracking the team that took out Sophia,” Roam said. “Took her out where,” I asked. “Well, you know, the team that killed her,” he replied. “Oh, from the way you said it, and how emotional you are, I thought you meant for pizza.” “You know,” Cecily, snarled, “You can be a real asshole when you want to be.” “Oh wuffy,” I smiled, “I’m just getting started.” That will come to be known as mistake number one. One second, I’m sitting in a chair smiling, the next, Cecily is pinning me down, growling. I couldn’t see that Elouise was being pinned in the corner by Roam, or Tanika who was trying to hold the guys back. Crash grabbed Cecily by the shoulders and threw her backwards into the wall with a force that would have stunned or injured most people. Cecily though, stood, shaking her head for a moment, and said, “come on, wuffy, I’ve wanted this for a while.” She was snarling at Crash who stood in front of her. Roam jumped on the table, waving his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Can we please be civil for five minutes and not act like a bunch of Children! Behave!” Then he gave me a dark look for a moment and turned to Crash. “I will give you the damn address, you can GPS it yourself,” Roam snarled. “If you don’t want to take out those guys who killed Sophia, we’ll do it our selves.” “Like I said when I left,” Crash snarled, “I don’t want your stupid war. Not anymore.” He started towards the door, and we got up to follow him. Tanika stood next to it, pointing an accusatory finger. “You have any idea what you’re walking your ‘pack’ into? Do you? The nobility wants all of you dead. They want to capture you, and kill your humans one by one in front of you.” “Nice guys,” I said. “And you,” Cecily snarled, “Are taking this way too soft. I know you’re supposed to be some kind of soldier, but I wonder if you even know what it’s like to fight a war.” The guy’s faces dropped at that. I felt a rage build inside of me, and turned to Crash who just shook his head. Taking his advice, I began to walk out of the war room they had prepped, my vision growing hazy red. I apparently had began clenching my fists at one point, but I don’t remember doing it. “Look at you, you coward. Running away with your tail between your legs.” I turned. Later, I’m told I had a face that the rest of them hadn’t before. A dark snarl that was only matched by my rising voice. “War you say? Getting shipped off to the middle of a country that a week prior you gave two shits about to fight for a bunch of people who don’t care if you live or fucking die? Driving a supply convoy from one fob to the next only to have your entire vehicle flipped upside down with hell and damnation raining down upon you? Being trapped in a fire fight that ends with you collecting pieces of your friend to ship home in a body bag? No. What’s that like.” Then I turned back around and walked outside at some point, though I don’t remember it. There was a beer in my hand, an an apologetic Roam in front of me. “We crossed a line,” he said. “We had assumed you came up to help us. We are sorry.” I drank from the beer more to calm my nerves than anything. I sighed, and stared up at the sky. The deep blue shown a few stars making their way through dying day. I could tell that they would have a beautiful night out here. Get far away from civilization and out in the open enough, you never truly have a pitch black night. My blood pressure had eased down at least a few notches. “I don’t walk away from fights I choose to join,” I told him. “But I won’t be dragged in. You either come clean, or we go home.” A few more heavy paces and then I was leaning on Crash’s car. Of all the people I expected to come out and talk to me, I never expected it to be Kris. He sat against the car on my other side and said “Jesus, I never expected any of that.” I gave him a shrug. “It was the highlights. From one deployment.” “You went through how many?” I shrugged again. “Enough.” “If you ever want to talk about it, Jason. We’re hear for you.” I nodded. Crash and I had talked about it a few times. He’s heard all the stuff that I haven’t and won’t print here. But Kris? Could I really tell him anything? What would happen? I wouldn’t feel any better and he’d just feel worse, knowing what I went through. Knowing the bullshit that I had dealt with. No, that wouldn’t be right. “I appreciate it,” I said. “I really do.” Which I do. The desire is there in him to deal with it, even if the strength is not. There’s real steel in him, I know. The kind of strength that can take a hit like that and not break him But it took me a while to get the nightmares to go, the guilt, the anger, the despair. Those intense feelings that spring back up as if you’re living through the moment again when you give your mind a chance to rest. Is it any wonder why so many service members drink? How much of that is right to give to someone else? That’s the burden that most service members deal with. There’s a reason why they don’t want their loved ones to know. The burden, although shouldered by more can make it easier, it makes their lives worse to make yours better. Part of you wishes they could remain innocent. That you could bottle that innocence and preserve it on a shelf next to the canned peas and carrots. To save that part of them from pain. It was my job to take the pain before. It’s not my job to share that pain with them now. I gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Crash hadn’t come back out yet, which I knew was trouble. It was that moment that I made a pact with myself. No matter what happened, Zack, Kris and Sean wouldn’t have to see action. They wouldn’t have to suffer or fight. Elouise grew up dirt poor in an area where that meant you saw as much action or more than some soldiers, so I wasn’t worried about her. But the guys? No, I couldn’t see them damaged like that. I could never live with myself if they had to. I would do everything in my power to keep them innocent. I just had no idea how hard it was going to be to keep them from the fight. |
| Death is one of those things that stops your entire world and starts it again. Everything slows down and speeds up at once. Its as if the entire world spins around you, and you’re standing in the middle like a spindle on a record player, staring at it wondering how you’re going to break back into that again. How you’re going to move on and live without that special person. It especially sucks when that person was someone who had hurt you in the past. A special person who meant so much, but has done so much damage, that years later you’re still not sure how to process it. My brain likes to assign blame. It’s one of my little secrets. I like my world controlled, and assigning blame is a way to control it. So, in the past when something similar occurred to me, I couldn’t help but wonder in the back of my mind exactly how much blame should I get because of their death. That if perhaps we’d had been able to patch things up, maybe they wouldn’t have been distracted. Maybe they would have been sharper or calmer. Perhaps everything would have worked out better? How much am I really to blame for their betrayal? How much am I to blame for their demise? When you’re going through something like this, people love to tell you ‘I know what you’re going through’, as if it’s comforting to you. Misery loves company after all, and misery shared is a burden lightened, I suppose. But the thing about grief is that you only know your grief. You don’t understand someone else’s regardless of how many times you’ve been through it. Grief and mourning are very individualistic. I cringe every time those words are spoken: “I know what you’re going through.” Seriously, if you’re going to tell me that, just tell me “thoughts and prayers” instead. Thankfully, Elouise didn’t say that when Crash told her we’re going away for a few days. “Like hell you’re leavin me here to watch the swamp,” she snarled. “I’m comin.” The way her hand was cocked on her hip, her short hair held back in that bandana. She had been cleaning her house when I knocked on the door to ask her to watch the place. I could tell from the look on her face that no human, no werewolf for that matter, was going to hold her back. Kris, Sean, and Zack were all riding together. Elouise was going to drive herself up. Three vehicles heading north, into unknown territory for must of us. But a location that Crash seemed to know like the back of his hand. He didn’t even bother to GPS it. The trip took far longer than it should have, but I think that’s mostly because Crash wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for what was coming. By the time we finally got to the outskirts of a small mountain town somewhat near Canada, Crash made a phone call. “I’m in the area,” he said after the other person picked up. “Just send me the pin where the grave is.” After that, there was some snarling. Then shouting. Then Crash began to growl, and I grabbed his arm to remind him that we’re in public. After all, some ancient gas station on the side of a forgotten highway is at eight in the evening is not the time and place to begin sprouting fur, which he was very close to doing. “Public,” is all I said. “Don’t forget, public.” He looked at me, snarled again, then kept talking. The conversation, which I didn’t hear a lot of, seemed to be going a little something like this: Crash wanted to just visit the grave, pay his respects, get a hotel room, then head back. The voice on the other end demanded to Crash that he come by, and bring everyone. Which he emphatically did not want to do, but somehow the voice on the other end was able to get him to cave eventually. Which, without saying everyone but Elouise knew what that meant: we were all going to see the Rodriguez family. Crash won’t tell us what happened. What they did to him or why he stopped talking to them. The only things I was able to pull out of it was that A) Roam was terribly sorry for how everything went down, and B) If given the chance, he would have made the exact same choices all over again, to hell with the consequences. Which seemed to be the crux of Crash’s anger. I know I don’t talk about my military experience much in this. I’m not about to start now. What I will say is this: that every time I was given a mission in the military more complicated than “go sweep the motorpool” we would be given detailed plans on how to accomplish the objective, what it was, things like that. We were never tricked into doing any sort of mission and there was no ‘because I said so’ type orders. So, if that’s what happened to Crash, it’s somewhat reasonable why he’d still be upset. But if you ever ask Roam about it, all you’ll get is “it’s not my story to tell.” The convoy of vehicles twisted around a couple more mountainous roads until we dipped down into a valley of sorts. Trees pressed all around the road ways, making every twist and turn a bit more exciting than I would have liked after hour six of a four hour drive. Taking a gravel path, we rolled down winding our way through the trees until we arrived at what can only be described as a compound. A fence cut through the trees of the dense forest in both directions. Barbed wire topped it, with cameras set up every fifteen feet in what they believed to be innocuous locations. There was a cattle gate of sorts with more barbed wire. The gate was open, and closed behind us after all the vehicles rolled through it. The land was cleared for the most part. In the back was more trees. Elouise took two big sniffs and asked Crash how many cattle they had. To which he said, “I don’t know. At least a dozen. Two bulls, and smells like at least ten heifers between them.” I looked back at Elouise and we both said at the same time “show off.” The house stood towards the back. Well, one house did. There was another house that was just as big on the other side of the property it seems. That one had crops growing beside it of some kind. Since I’m not the kind of guy who can tell a corn plant from a tomato plant, I do know they were green, short and not weed. That’s all I can tell you. A man came out from behind the house, wearing a fedora, and had a rope tied to the side of his hip like a whip. He had a goatee, a smile, and a familiar mediteranian complexion. “Roam,” I said with a smile. “Or should I say, Indy!” He laughed, and gave me a hand shake that he pulled into a hug. “Not today,” he said. “This is just a rope, not a whip.” “Close enough,” I grinned. “Where’s the rest of your pack?” “Strays went into town,” he said. “Tanika is inside working on dinner and handling security.” “Security,” I said sarcastically, “I didn’t notice a thing coming in here. Very inconspicuous operation you got. I guess guard towers would have been over the line?” Roam smiled. “Who needs guard towers when you have cameras and guns? Come, let me show you inside.” Elouise pulled me back for a moment. “Hey,” she said, “You never told me Crash was involved in all of this.” “He was at one point,” I said. “He’s done with whatever they do here.” She pulled me inside her car and shut the door. Then she started the engine, and began playing the radio. It was some pop song on station, with bright colorful choruses and catchy beats designed to be sung in stadiums. “I think we can talk,” she half whispered. “Is he involved in what I think he is?” “His ex-girlfriend, the one we’re here to pay respects to, was. He wants to go to the grave site, pay respects, and leave.” Elouise looked around for a moment, and gritted her teeth. “I’m all for leaving as soon as possible.” “What’s got you so upset? We just see a stone in the ground, he cries, we go home.” She pointed, at the house. “Cause we’re not here to see a grave. We’re being thrown into something. I can tell. Crash may have a blind spot cause they helped raise him or whatever, but something else is happening here. I don’t like it.” I gritted my teeth and looked out the window. She’d said everything out loud. Everything I’d been thinking. “Well, two things, first don’t forget they’re werewolves so we can’t like this anywhere else, and two, right now we’re two weirdos listening to your favorite song after everyone else has gone inside after a six hour trip.” “I still don’t like it,” she snarled. “Me either,” I sighed, “me either.” Then I opened the door and and followed everyone else into the house. |
| Each of us, in our own unique family serves a number of functions. I suppose in someways, I’ve become the “werewolf whisperer”. On more than one occasion, I’ve been called to talk to Crash after he’s had something hard happen. Usually, he’ll bring me a beer or a cup of coffee and pull me out to the back porch. We’d stare at the sun or moon and just talk. We’re kindred spirits, in a way. We’ve both seen our fair share of crap, but that’s not what makes me and Crash unique. To be fair, everyone of our little pack here has had their own portion of it. I just choose to not reveal all of the things that gets loaded onto everyone’s plate. We’re here for a reason, after all. We stick together, through fussing, fighting, teasing, joking, pranking. Through all the tears and all the laughter, we hold each other up with heavy hands and weary arms. In the end, isn’t that what a pack is supposed to do? This dour mood though was a bit worse than most. Crash had somehow gotten time off during his more busy season. A week. He’s got a solid week to do with as he pleases, but he just hadn’t yet chosen to do much of anything other than sit around the house and mope. Normally, Crash would run through the woods to relieve stress. He’d cruise around in his car. He’d play video games with me or the other guys. He’d work on his car in the garage and blast music into the night. He wouldn’t sit around the house, staring off into the distance, still in his human form, with his own chinstrap mustache growing out into scraggly, divorced dad length. I watched him flip that envelope over in his hands hours on end, staring down at it as if it contained the wonderful and terrible answers of life. He had yet to open it. Kris threatened to open it for him once, attempting to snatch it from his hands. That didn’t go over too well with Crash, who shouted at him. And, to Kris’ credit, he didn’t back down but shouted back. Names and insults started being thrown around of all kinds. Me and Zack pulled Crash back, while Sean grabbed Kris and had him back upstairs. Everyone had approached Crash in our own ways to talk to him about that letter. But, Crash ignored, brushed off, or insulted just about everyone. I figured it was time to try a different approach. It was his first day off. He was, of course, out on the back porch staring into the woods. Not shifting, not heading out there. Just gazing at it as if it called out to some part of him that couldn’t call back. There was a coffee cup near him sitting on one of the shelves we have stacked out there with our haphazard “not good enough to go inside” organization technique. The coffee looked barely touched. There was one way to get through to him. I hoped so, anyway. It would either work, or get very messy. I wasn’t quite sure yet which. But sometimes it takes a good swift kick in the ass to get someone moving when they get stuck in life. I set my pistol next to his coffee cup, and sat down in a rocking chair. “It’s loaded if you wanted to.” He gave me a dark look, then stared back into the forest. “You’ve been moping this entire time. Angry, snarling at all of us. I’ve seen this before. Have gone to my fair share of funerals for this. So, I figured instead of dragging it out, why not get it over with? At least I won’t have to go to another Last Roll Call. Those are painful.” “You’re not funny,” Crash growled, and continued staring. “I’m not laughing,” I countered. “See? Your jokes aren’t even funny to you.” He continued to stare out into the woods. “That’s no joke,” I said. “You’re continuing down a path of emotional and spiritual destruction. You want to die? Just get it over with and hurry up. Don’t make us sit here and watch you torture yourself.” “Jason, I know you’re trying to help. You’ve been in the middle of most of my werewolf situations. I don’t tell you to get out of it unless it’s something serious. This is serious. Stay out of it. You don’t want to be involved.” “After everything we’ve been through,” I snap, “that’s damn nice of you.” I stood and left the room, leaving the gun sitting next to his coffee. “I’m sick and tired of you humans messing around in shit that doesn’t involve you! Listen to your fucking betters and stay the fuck out of it!” I stepped towards Crash, and stuck my finger in his face. “You ever talk to me that way again, I’ll skin you for a fucking rug.” “I’m about to bite that fucking finger off.” Before I could tell him I hope he chokes on it, Kris stepped forward, and pulled me back. “You’re an asshole,” he shouted at Crash. “We’re all trying to help you. We’re here. You called us a pack remember? That’s your words, not ours! Don’t you go pulling this lone ranger shit. Tell us what the hell is wrong!” I’ve seen Crash in about a thousand different ways. He’s rescued me from more deadly situations than I can count, good deal more than half of them being my own fault, and now, here he was, looking tiny. Kris is smaller than me by a margin, and Crash shrank back and sat down in a chair. He made a double fist and began biting on the knuckle. “I…I can’t.” I knelt down in front of him. Anyone passing and saw it would have sworn I was proposing. “You’re a good person.” I said. “You’re a good werewolf. A good friend. You’ve been good to all of us. You rescued me.” “And me,” Zack said from behind Kris. “and us, dude,” Sean replied. “You know what you did,” Kris told Crash. “It’s time you let us rescue you.” I placed my hand on his knee and stared up at him. He placed his hand on top of mine, and gritted his teeth. A moment later, there was a knock, before the door just opened. “What am I interrupting,” Elouise said, “did I miss the proposal?” “Who called her,” Kris asked. “I did,” Zack responded. “I called her when those two began shouting.” “Now, what in the world is all this about? And don’t you go tellin me it’s ‘werewolf shit’ cause you know I’ll shove that fuzzy tail where the sun don’t shine if you try that.” Elouise said. Crash sighed, then looked at all of us. “You’re not leaving unless I talk, are you?” “Nope,” Elouise said. “And neither are you.” Crash nodded and silence filled the room. Just when I thought we were going to be at a standoff, he began to speak. “I did things,” Crash said. “Things I’m not proud of. People are dead because of what me.” There was silence for a bit. “One thing about Ghosts, is that they tend to ignore the why. They only care about the what. They’re assholes like that.” He smiled and shook his head. Then he slipped the envelope out of his pocket. It had been opened. Inside was only three sentences. “She finally died. Held the funeral. Thought you’d like to know.” “Who died,” Kris asked. “Sophia Rodriguez,” Crash said. “She was my first love. She came close to getting me killed so many times,” Crash replied, with a half-smile. “There was this one time that we had both shifted and ran through the woods to this farmers house. We snuck onto the property and was about to grab a couple sheep, when…” he stopped and the smile died on his face, melting back into a frown. “We had a lot of adventures together.” “So,” I asked, “what happened?” “That’s just it,” Crash said, standing. “She’s died before.” He stared out into the woods. “I don’t know if it’s real this time.” We all looked at each other for a moment, and didn’t say anything. Elouise started it. She walked over and embraced Crash, then literally picked me up and forced me to embrace them both. Zack hugged, and so did Kris. Sean came over, and joined the hug last. The moment lasted for half-a-second before Sean gave us the loudest cartoon sniff he could and wiped an invisible tear from his eye. “Moments like these are so beautiful! I love you guys.” Sean’s silliness broke the tension. Our laughter was one of relief as we stepped back out of the group hug. Kris smacked Sean in the head, and Crash laughed. It was the first laughter we heard from him in a long time. He wiped a tear from his eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you everyone. I love each and every one of you.” Before any of us could respond, looked at Elouise and said, “give me a minute to change, and I’d like to go on a run with you.” We all began to filter out away from the back porch. Crash clapped me on the shoulder, startling me. Even as a human, he’s freaking quiet! “Thank you,” he said again, looking me in the eye. “Thank you.” “I’m always here if you need me.” I told him. Crash nodded. “I will,” he said. “Over the next week I’m going to need everyone.” There was a weight to his words. A heaviness that said what was needed would be far more than usual. I understood that. If I knew what insanity and horror would have come from it, I know I still would have said the same thing. With a smile as warm and comforting as I could make it, I said, “whatever you need from us, you got.” |
| Thing about prank wars is that around here you never know how they’ll start or how they’ll end. It could be something as simple as Zack spraying “cologne” on my towel in the shower so it smells horrible. Someone putting saran wrap on the toilet bowl. This time the prank war started with a simple shopping trip. But, holy crap did I pay for it. Prank wars isn’t something that should be attempted by everyone. You have to know your friends, how far you should take it, and when you should call it quits. I’ve seen simple barracks pranks turn into fist fights because people didn’t know each other as well as they thought they did. You never know when a small prank is too far for a stranger or someone you barely know. We’ve known each other for some time now, and although you’d think I’d have brought these small pranks in with me, they were doing it far before I ever came to live here. Crash never does anything mean. He doesn’t make calls to make you think your mom is dead or anything like that. He doesn’t do anything that will damage your stuff or your equipment. He has done the whip cream in the hand while sleeping thing though. So, you spray a little whip cream in someone’s hand while they’re deep asleep, then you tickle their nose with something, like a feather. They’ll swipe at their face and smear the cream all over themselves. It’s a small prank but it’s funny, especially when that person is an old broke veteran who can only curse at you while you run away giggling. I did remember that prank, but it’d been some time ago. Maybe I was just feeling mean, but I had a bolt of inspiration in the grocery store in the shape of poppers. Those white papery little things that pop when you throw them on the ground was perfect for the mischief I had cooked up. My idea was this: you take a bunch while he’s out and line them up underneath the feet of his toilet seat. When he sits down, they’ll pop. He’ll jump, shout and I’ll laugh. Perfect innocent prank, right? That’s not exactly what happened. By the time Crash came in that morning, it was far later than his normal hour. The sun had already risen and the birds were chirping out their morning songs of territory. He looked exhausted. Was still ‘in the fur’ so to speak, his ears splayed down like a whipped dog. He growled a ‘hello’ at me as he walked right on by and headed to his bedroom, with his bathroom and toilet seat that I had just booby trapped. He closed his door. Then I knew he went to sit on the toilet. Cause I heard a muffled pop, a not-so muffled yipe, a thump, then a crash! I raced into his bedroom to see what had happened. His bathroom was a mess. I won’t say what had happened, but I will say, being a good sport I helped him clean it up later, and that I, quite literally, scared the crap out of him. A several hundred pound werewolf is covered in their own filth, has dented the roof in their bathroom and knocked several things over from your prank. Do you, A) apologize quickly B) move as fast as you can to a different zip code and change your identity or C) give them a quick witted sarcastic line, then try to run, giggling the entire way? Any guesses on which one I chose? He glared up at me from the floor, wet, smeared with some of his own filth, and covered in toilet paper, potpourri and various other chemicals and cleaning stuffs that he knocked over. I gave Crash a quick glance, gave him my best glare and said “I thought you were house broken. Bad dog!” He grabbed me, slammed me into the wall and snarled, “Very funny!” Then he stormed off to the other bathroom with the shower as I giggled the entire time. I knew retribution would be coming. But I never thought he’d get help. All of that happened the week prior. It was independence day this week. My guard was down. Besides, I never figured Elouise would be in on the gag. We had been invited over to her place for holiday festivities. Kris and Sean stopped by said hello, grabbed a plate then headed back to their place, talking the whole time. They was in the middle of a streaming thing with another friend of theirs who was playing some new game. Zack had a shift, so Crash volunteered to bring him a plate. That left me and her alone for a moment. Elouise’s house looked better than it did during the whole rougarou real estate fiasco. She had a new TV set up on a new stand. The stand was cheap, the television wasn’t. Cause, you know, priorities. There was red, white and blue ribbons lining the kitchen and living room. She was in her human form wearing a tang top that said “MILF” and beneath it “Man I Love Fireworks” with cutoff jeans. “I’d rather be barbecuin, but you know with the weather and all.” She was right about the weather that day. It had been raining off and on since the day prior. “How long do you prep for a barbecue,” I asked. This was my version of a southern test question. Which of course she aced. She arched an eyebrow and said, “honey, I start prepping the day prior. I get the coals going a good fourteen hours or so before we eat, get the meat on at least twelve hours prior and cook it low and slow.” Yup. That’s the right answer. “Now, the only thing I got that’s any fancy are these spicy corn breads.” She brought the plate over let me take one. I wasn’t paying much attention to them, being more concerned with the movie she had started. It was some Michael Bay, big explosion actiony thing, with lots of lens flares, American Flags and slow motion shots of people standing up or standing in place. “Now careful,” she warned. “They’re hot.” “Yeah, thanks,” I said, and popped it into my mouth. I’ve had spicy cornbread before. Usually it’s made with jalapenos. For real spiciness, occasionally they’ll pop a habanero in there. She went a step or two above that little pepper. There was diced jalapenos. There was habaneros. Seeded and diced, prepped properly. There was also a slightly small, pepper that was genetically modified to be a bit hotter than either of those two. The pepper she had chosen to bless her spicy cornbread with had taken a man from South Carolina about ten years to develop. It has a sickle like tail at the end of said pepper which was used to give the little bastard it’s name: the Carolina Reaper. The moment I put the cornbread in my mouth, I recognized my mistake. Someone had taken a coal from the very depths of hell and shoved it into my mouth. “Now,” Elouise said, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “you ain’t going to insult the cook by spitting that out, are you?” I wanted to so bad. But my pride forced me to shake my head in a no fashion, chew and swallow as quick as I could. Then, with tears streaming down my eyes, I swallowed hard, and gasped “water!” She brought me a tall glass of ice tea as I tried to ignore the burning sensation in my stomach. A sensation that I knew was going burn it’s entire way through, and perhaps was going to burn it’s very way out of my body and through my very soul. I guzzled down the tea to the sound of her giggles, and then the sound of Crash coming through the back door laughing the entire way. “Hot enough, I hope,” he laughed. I tried to yell “You sneaky bastard,” but it only came out as a gasp before I took more tea. “Sneaky werewolves got tricks,” I eventually growled to the sound of both their laughter. “Now, we’re even,” Crash said as he laughed and patted me hard on the back. “Of course we are,” I said. “But you do realize, I’m going to get you back.” And I will, too. Though, it will take me a while to come up with something to top that spicy cornbread. But as they say, revenge is a dish best served with pimento beans and onions. |
| Occasionally, I would like an alarm. Something set up above the stove that only goes off when it senses a concoction of aromas and spices. This alarm warn us to sneak out of the house before it’s too late, to push our cars to the edge of the town and drive to the nearest drive-thru as fast as our wheels can take us before we get wrapped up in another ‘werewolf meal’. Crash is an interesting person. His sensitive nose has come in handy on multiple occasions, whether it’s a shortcut for us to play the “is this bad” game with leftovers, or to sense when we have pests before they even make their presence known. It’s an overall boon to us. However, there are times when we have to remind him that yes, despite him having a human side, our tastes do sometimes differ from his, and, just because it smells like it goes together, doesn’t mean he should do it! It was his night to cook. I was glad, cause after the entire gnome business, I was out of commission for a few days while my body recovered. That is a sad side effect of things. I get injured and my body takes longer to recover these days than it used to. With enough massaging, stretching, and exercises that make me feel like I’m closer to ninety than forty, I can usually get life back into my leg, hip, back, and feet so I can feel somewhat normal again. With Crash’s skills around the stove, we had an expectation. We figured we would get his version of Italian. He’d tell us “It’s Sicilian, I swear,” with that smirk that told us it wasn’t. We’d roll our eyes and just go, ‘sure, Crash’. It was usually good though, so we didn’t complain. Sometimes we’d get southern cooking which is what he’s better at, or some European concoction that would work but be a little weird to our taste buds. I have nothing against mushroom risotto per se, but I’m American. My taste buds are American. I enjoy a good cheeseburger or burrito a lot more than I do a risotto anything. Credit where credit is do though. Crash’s concoction, whatever it was, was tasty. Weird, but tasty. It was an almost stewed green and black mass that used to be vegetables of some kind. I think there was a meat in it? But I’m not sure. All I’m sure of it wasn’t a cheeseburger, burrito, or a risotto of any kind. Crash attempted to pass it off as ‘werewolf cuisine’. He stood next to the stove, proud of his creation, a smug grin on his face. “Old werewolf family recipe,” he said. I was sitting at the table, and Kris was standing in one doorway to the kitchen, Zack was in the other. We all gave him a leery look when he said it. Kris frowned at the concoction in the pan. “No it’s not,” he said. “Sure it is,” Crash said, grinning wider. “Is this your usual ‘I threw a bunch of crap in a pan and called it an old werewolf family recipe’ sort of old werewolf family recipe,” he asked. Crash began giggling and blushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s not like he hasn’t done this sort of thing before. As they went back and forth, I remembered an incident a few months ago with a dish he called an ‘old werewolf family recipe’ that I called ‘ground brown.’ There was vegetables in it. There was ground meat in it. That’s as much as I really recall. It was spicy though, so I ate it. The rest of the guys wouldn’t touch it. Not that I blamed them. But, it wasn’t terrible. I’ve had worse. After all, I’ve eaten at a Ryan’s Buffet in the 00s. I could tease him about it, but it’s not like I’ve been perfect in the kitchen. There was the time I attempted to make home-made chili, and grabbed the jar of cayenne powder instead of chili powder. Now, if you’re familiar with the basic chili recipe, it requires two tablespoons full of chili powder. But chili powder itself isn’t terribly spicy. It needs that flavorful, earthy flavor of cumin to give it heat, at least in my experience. However, cayenne powder is a lot hotter than chili. How much hotter? Well, I’m glad you asked. If your recipe calls for, say two table spoons of chili powder which, based on my haphazard searching, is around 15,000 SHU, then you substitute cayenne for it, which is usually somewhere between two and four times hotter than that, instead of having a nice mild bowl of chili, you’ll have a dish that will be guaranteed to give you blisters when you taste test it. It will leave you running and screaming through the kitchen in desperate pain as you try to grab milk, soda, water, whatever is cold to take the fill your mouth with. I won’t say, if after this accident, whether I ended up drinking ketchup straight from the bottle or not. I will say that the guys have never let me live that one down, and I’m permanently banned from ever making chili again. Though, I have used that chili recipe as a threat. Green mush had at least a better appearance than ground brown. The flavor wasn’t terrible. It was, however, strange. Garlic, pepper, some other spices mixed in, with a look that reminded me less of werewolves, and more of a school lunch room from the eighties and nineties where you were never quite certain what was going to be on your plate, you just knew that if it wasn’t the square pizza, it probably wasn’t going to taste good. The more I think about it though, the more I believe I’m starting to get the gist of this ‘old werewolf family recipe’ gag. I honestly don’t think he’s lying. Well, not completely, anyway. Werewolves do have a much more sensitive nose than we do. Perhaps in the course of cooking, he was taught to use his nose to compliment certain flavors that maybe very mellow in the food itself. A zucchini is a zucchini is a zucchini, to a point. But if one plant happened to get a couple doses of someone’s spilled soda out in the field, then perhaps it’s produce comes out sweeter than the other. Not sweeter to us, but perhaps to him. Then if that happens, maybe Crash happens to buy it at a market one day, takes it home, and then uses his ‘old werewolf family recipe’ – I.E. if the plant smells just a hair sweeter, you put more garlic on it to enhance...well something. I’m not sure. Crash could of course just be winging it and messing with all of us. It’s not like he hasn’t done this before. Remember when I asked for classic ‘werewolf’ music from his culture, and instead I got all sorts of rock and metal songs about werewolves? I got what I asked for technically, though not what I meant. It would be classic Crash to tease us with this stuff. Making food that was, albeit edible, but just this side of strange enough to make us go ‘what in the world’ one more time with that confused look on our faces. The same reason that dads like to make those corny jokes or mom’s will occasionally break out the baby photos when you bring that special significant other over, or tell those embarrassing stories. You have to actually love someone at least somewhat, to subtly torture them in such ways. Crash could be doing this to tease us, to give us that mild torture that can only come from true family. I’d like to believe that, and in some ways I do. We are our own unique blend of family, but we’re family. All survivors of sorts of one way or another glued together with time and circumstances. Bonded together with the blood and scars between us. But, I really do think he does it cause he enjoys the taste. Enjoys teasing us, and at times doesn’t have the time or occasionally the cash to go out and get something better. After all, just because he’s a werewolf doesn’t mean he’s immune to being worn out from working nights, then days. Or days then nights. Or literally running from one side of the county to the other and back again for the sake of one case of his or another. We all get dog-tired sometimes and literally want to do nothing more than just hit a drive thru, go home, and veg in front of the television watching something with corny jokes and mindless violence. He has the unfortunate side effect of being, well, a werewolf. So, hitting a drive thru in the morning after one of his night shifts isn’t all that possible. No, not even if he hit up Mitch’s place of business. So, I don’t really blame Crash for getting creative and crazy on the occasional recipe. Whether it’s the strange concoction he calls Italian, or the ground brown, or the creative ways to have vegetables, it’s understandable that he will occasionally put on his culinary thinking cap and create a strange new recipe that some would think God never intended to exist. If it doesn’t taste terrible, I’ll still eat it. After all, I was in the military. But still, I’d rather have that alarm. |
| Crash wanted to keep the throne as a Halloween decoration. Valyur said it was tainted and should be destroyed. I agreed with him, but not out of some runistic or gnomish thing but because I just thought it was gaudy. It looked like it had been pulled right out of a Motley Crue video from the eighties. All that was missing was leather pants and hairspray. It took Valyur a bit of time to recover his compsure afterwards. I let him cry himself out, though at the time no one understood exactly why or what I was doing. “I’m sorry,” Valyur said then. “You meaties must think me crazy. It’s just you see, Kheid Falkirk was…” he gasped, and bit his lip like he was going to cry again. “He was your child,” I finished for him. Everyone looked at me. “He’s the only one who called him Falkirk. He’s the only one who treated Khied with mercy, and he had plenty of shots to kill Khied earlier with his pistol, but didn’t ever take them.” Everyone nodded in understanding. Kris and Sean helped each other to the door. Zack was lifted by Mitch and huddled along. I slowly pulled myself into a sitting position. “Meaty,” Valyur said to me, “I owe you.” I waved a hand at the dust. “That was perhaps the hardest thing anyone has ever had to do. We’re even.” Valyur shook his head. “My family has wronged yours. Repeatedly. I will stay here until I make it right.” I stood and stretched. Then braced myself against a tree as my bad leg reminded me that it didn’t like all of this work. The gnome, I’ll give him that attempted to hold me up, but it was laughable at best, like a three year old trying to help his drunk father to the couch. “Thanks,” I said, moving my leg slowly. “It will work itself out.” “The guys may not want you around,” I said. “No offense, but they just spent time as a gnome against their will. Crash was nearly killed by one. You may bring memories up they don’t want.” “Ey! And that’s why I gotta stick around, meaty. Cause they need a good gnome to make up for the bad one.” I shook my head, figuring Crash would put his foot down and that would be the end of it. However, Crash seemed to agree. “Besides,” Crash said. “Technically, this is all your fault.” We were in the kitchen. Crash had taken a shower and was holding his coffee cup as he stood in the doorway. I glared at him for a moment. “Why is this my fault?” “It was your bad joke that started all of this. You’re the one who had to buy a lawn gnome.” I gritted my teeth. “It was supposed to be a joke, and it was going to be funny.” Crash smirked, “well, if you say so,” he said. “I just think if you want to have weird lawn ornaments, there are better things to get. Like werewolves for instance.” Of course, he’d say that. For Crash, it always went back to werewolves. “What about Zack, Sean and Kris,” I asked. “I bet they’d hate the lawn gnome.” “What,” Zack asked, shocked that I’d even suggest such a thing. “I love Valyur. Don’t you dare get rid of him.” He came in from his bedroom and stepped into the kitchen for a drink before going back to his room. “And yes, Kris and Sean feel the same way.” So, that is how we ended up with a blue hatted gnome. He sometimes moves around. He’ll sleep beneath a tree. Garden on occasion, or clean up. The red hatted gnomes, well Mitch still hunts them, but now it’s for sport. Larry doesn’t care of course, that dragon tells us to just leave him some for dinner. Things around here are getting back to normal. My leg still hurts but I can walk on it. Crash goes back to jogging with Elouise who said she ‘misses all the good stuff’ when it comes to our adventures. “Next time tell them varmints to wake me up. I’d love to play.” Valyur for his effort puts up a brave front. But on occasion he’ll stand beneath the moonlight and weep softly. I can almost hear it in my room, since he likes to stand on the corner at night. I’ll go out there occasionally, and sit with him. Listen to old stories of Falkirk before he turned. “You know he used to love you meaties.” He told me one night. “He liked to sit below the window so you could see him.” The way he explained it, Falkirk wanted to help us so badly. I suppose that’s where he went wrong, in a way. You can desire to help someone so much, that you do more harm than good, and you can even end up destroying them. I guess that’s what Kheid’s banishment was supposed to teach him. I do wish he listened when everyone kept telling him that. |
| I stood glaring at Kheid as he sat upon his throne. He glared back his strange throne bringing him almost eye level. The gnome king raised a single glowing hand and I felt power pulling and pulsing through my flesh as I started to rise off the ground. The gnomes around us cheered and shouted. I felt like a pinata at a kids birthday party. The gun in Valyurs hand barked once. Every gnome ducked, including Kheid. I stood my ground. I’ve heard plenty of gunfire before and had been expecting his. “You said I bring the meat sack, you’d release my clan. So where’s my clan ya bastard,” Valyure shouted. Khied lowered his hand, and I lowered to the ground, staggering a moment, but stood my ground, my skin itching and burning. Laughter went up for a moment as I did so. Calls of “he’s starting to feel it alright,” and “We’ll make a gnome of ya yet, meaty!” came up from the gnomes crowded around the circle. I ignored those and glared at Kheid. “Okay, Lavrishk, release his clan,” Kheid called over his shoulder. Lavrishk chuckled as he raised an arm. There was a sick smile on Kheid’s face as several kitchen trashbags were dragged to the circle and emptied. Pieces of pink, white and blue ceramic were dumped out in neat piles. Dust drifted up through the winds into the night sky. “You bastard! I’ll kill you, you rotten cracked bastard,” Valyur shouted. “Why? I’ve kept my promise. They’re released. I released them from this mortal coil. Perhaps next time you’ll choose your words more carefully,” Khied said, then laughed. “If you like, I’ll let you change your hat. Join a winning clan for a change.” His face took on a more somber tone for a moment. “Would be nice to fight beside you again, instead of against you. We had fun together once.” There was a moment there, one I didn’t catch, but I could hear in Valyur’s voice as he answered, “Ey. But you ruined that, didn’t ya?” I hadn’t been told the plan, but I could sense it. There was a single moment I was to wait for, one that I knew naturally would come. Valyur would make his move first, and then I would act after. But I kept looking over at the once great Mitch. The one who had stood by our side during the Nobility’s attacks. The one who helped us and had visited for barbecues and hang outs. Who had invited us over to his own place for holidays and the odd birthday. That Mitch was broken, his ears folded back in defeat. He was reduced to being a pack animal for a sadistic lawn gnome. I knew I was going to ruin some great plan, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was perhaps the smoothest draw I’ve ever done from behind my back. Such a draw can be a bit awkward if not practiced. Yet, I’ve never drawn from that position faster despite my many attempts to practice it afterwards. No one saw my movement. Not until my pistol barked a single time. The look of surprise in Lavrishk’s face as the hole appeared first, then cracks ran down his entire body. I snarled “I keep my promises, Lavrishk,” as he cracked, broke, then shattered. The pieces broke down into smaller ones until there was nothing but colored sand. There was a single beat of shocked silence. Then Mitch gave a lone long howl of freedom and rage. All the other gnomes backed up from him a step at a time. “Someone get a grip on that bastard,” Khied shouted, then raised his hand. It glowed an eerie, sickly yellow light as he began chanting. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but I felt a tightness in my chest. My arms felt itchy, as if they’d been covered in dried mud. I gasped, and fought for control of my own body. For Mitch, it was payback time. Gnomes chased after him, attempting to grab his harness while he slashed, crashed and smashed every one he could get his claws on. Some gnomes ran screaming, others chased after the reins, hoping to control Mitch the way Lavrishk did. My roommates, still ceramic, could only stand and watch, unable to move. Khied still had control of them like he did of me. My arms would not cooperate. My skin burned as if it was on fire. A fire that slowly began to enter me, enter my lungs, my very veins. I felt my pulse slowed as if filled with sludge. My heart chugged, aching, trying to force the sludge through hardening veins. Khied still had me, and if something didn’t happen soon, he’d have me forever. *** Crash was suspended in the air. He felt power draining from him, as if his very life force was fleeing his body. Surrounding his circle was three gollums, each one stood with their arms held wide, chanting in a gutteral language that started to become clearer to him. The werewolf felt a single line of power draining from him. A second line of power wanted inside of him, waiting for him to be almost dead; drained of any ability to fight. Crash concentrated on that first line of power, and operating on instinct, gave it a single hard shove. *** The rune circle glowed bright for a moment. Khied staggered. For one fleeting moment I had control of my right arm back. I twisted it, aiming it down towards Khied, but before I had a chance, a smaller pistol barked fire behind me. Khied dived off his throne, one of the elongated leg bones behind it cracked. “Face me like a gnome ya bastard,” Valyur shouted. It was a war of ceramic. One ceramic werewolf, one blue hatted gnome, and one human prisoner vs what looked like dozens, possibly hundreds of red hats. Rocks were flying, some pelted me, not that I could feel much at that moment other than the pain of Kheid. Mitch was smashing as many as he could. Several gnomes had climbed onto his back and gripped the reins, though none of them knew how Lavrishk was controlling the werewolf. Mitch shook and swayed, as he swiped and threw others. There was pain in his eyes, but it held a glint of triumph. Khied was ducking, and running, still trying to chant, still trying to change me, but couldn’t finish. Every time he’d start, Valyur would fire off another shot and force Khied to jump behind a gnome or duck behind his throne and then begin again. Other gnomes attempted to help, of course. But Valyur didn’t seem to be running out of bullets in that altered pistol. I wasn’t sure how he was doing it, and wasn’t in a position to ask. With all of the chaos and fighting, Khied had forgotten something important; something he’d forgotten before. He had forgotten to watch for dragons. *** It happened almost too quick for Crash to keep up with. Larry swooped down, and dive bombed each gollum one at a time, exploding through them in quick succession. Crash later told me he wasn’t certain if Larry was pulling something out of them, if he was using an energy source of some kind or what. He could have been sneezing on them for all Crash could see. But whatever had happened, it was FAST, and angled so that Crash would be covered in mud. Crash fell with the last gollum. Larry, in one of his last runs at the final gollum, who didn’t even bother to turn around and defend itself, had also broken the rune circle somehow. The werewolf looked up, but could only see leaves and branches in awkward muddy piles. Larry had flown off. *** Valyur may have had unlimited ammunition, but I on the other hand, only had eighteen shots. And I had just used one of them. Good news was that it would only take one clear shot to destroy Kheid. Bad news was that Kheid was hiding behind just about everything and everyone, so I couldn’t get one clear shot. Mitch crawled his way into the circle, clawing and dragging half a dozen or so gnomes with him as he did so. There was a line of shattered gnomes trailing behind him, other gnomes grasping the reins, attempting to chant, though none of them new the proper words or even what power to tap into. They pushed and shoved against each other as they pulled back on the werewolf, each vying for control. It reminded me of a bucket of crabs, each one pulling the other down who was to escape. Valyur had stopped trying to chase Khied, and instead was tapping into those very same runes. He was pushing his own power into me as Khied was. At some points, I was gaining more control of my limbs than at others. Excrutiating pain doesn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling at that moment. Things growing alive, then dead. My heart racing as if almost freed, then slowing as if dying for the last time. I managed to fire a shot at Kheid, but only hit his throne. My shot did a whole lot more damage than Valyur’s did though, cracking big chunks off. Anger flashed into Kheid’s eyes as I took aim and shot it again, cracking more chunks off. I was running on instinct and desperation, but I think my goal was to anger Kheid enough that he physically attacked me so I could shoot him and be done with it. But through my shooting, the shouting, the fighting and chaos no one noticed when the first gnome disappeared. A second was gone. Then another. Then a fourth. It was when Zack was thrown into the ring that Khied finally took notice. “How,” he shouted, staring up into the sky. “How?” Kris and Sean had been tossed into the rune circle next. All three lifted themselves up and began racing towards me, a look of anger on their face. “Get him, get the meaty,” Kheid shouted as he danced from one foot to the other. They grabbed my limbs, and each one began to turn me. The way Kheid had been hiding before was literally with my own body. Whenever I’d get a clear shot, he’d turn me so I’d have to shoot through my leg or my foot to get hit him. I was unable to twist myself, or move my legs anymore, and could barely move my arms. Kris, Sean and Zack grabbed my pistol arm and pulled, twisting me around to face Kheid. They dragged me towards the gnome, an angry look on all their faces. Kheid looked over at Valyur with smug satisfaction and said, “that’s why your kind always loses, Valyur. You do not know the value of a good slave.” The smug look fled for a moment when he said, “we’ll join sides again, when you finally see I am right.” It was point blank range. I guess Kheid thought he was being given my pistol? He reached down for it and was actually surprised when I pressed it to his head. “I always keep my promises,” I snarled through my teeth, and pulled the trigger. I’m told Valyur leaped out of the circle. In truth, most of the gnomes did, fleeing as if their very lives were at stake. I couldn’t see any of that. I couldn’t see Mitch laying within it, almost dead. I couldn’t see anything but Khied. It was like what happened to Lavrishk, but bigger. Lines of power radiated down his body in cracks and fissures. They started small and began widening further and further. The power drained down from Khied, pouring into the ground. It fed into the circle which fed it back into each one of us. There was a flash of blinding yellow light, then Khied lay on the ground, gasping. Shattered hands literally holding his head together as his body slowly crumbled into dust. “So close,” he gasped, tears in his eyes. “So close.” I wanted to stand up. In truth, cause I am this cheesy, I wanted to stand over him, say ‘some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate up hill,’ then stomp on him. But sadly, life isn’t an action film. I didn’t have the strength. I laid on the ground, gasping. My heart racing as if happy it was pumping blood again instead of the sludge it had been pumping before. Sean and Kris just held each other, happy to be alive and human again. Zack staggered for a moment then fell on Mitch, who grumbled, but put a paw over his shoulder, like a large, protective bear. Valyur walked to Khied and stood over him. “Kheid Falkurk. You have committed crimes against man, gnome and nature.” His voice broke for a moment, then he said, “Your crimes are too great to stand,” he paused. There was genuine tears in his eyes. “And so…” his voice broke again. “I must now sentence you to…” He couldn’t finish. Kheid raised a single hand. There was almost a smile on his face as he said, “I’m glad it was you.” Valyur gripped Khied’s hand. Light flashed, from Kheid into Valyur. Dust drifted from Kheid’s hand first. Then painted porcelain. Then he crumbled into a pile of dust on the ground. It occurred to me then the source of Valyur’s tears. The source of his reluctance to smash Kheid during the gun battle earlier, and perhaps through a thousand other chances that he had gotten over the past several days. I didn’t say a single word. I simply rolled over and gave him my shoulder while he wept. |
| I wasn't the only one having a bad night that night. Crash was on his way from one emergency to another. The kind of night that is filled with excitement, but no fun. The exact type of night most of us think about when he think of what life is like for a cop – a night of stamping out fires and hoping none of them are just flaming bags of dog crap. His first emergency was relatively easy, though it got a bit bloody. Fortunately for the small community on the other side of the county, the ogres didn't make it into town. Crash said if they had it would have been a blood bath. But he won't go further than that. There are more dangerous mythical creatures out there. The types that would never live with humanity and sees us as basically food, an annoyance, or 'toys', creatures to be tortured and killed when bored. Think of it like a serial killer with a kitten type mentality. Perhaps that will give you a bit of a mental picture of what he was dealing with the ogres. He never told me what it was, but said he ended covered head to toe in “red goo.” There's a stream that runs through the county on the south side. At times it's small, other times it opens up wider, until it runs head long into another larger stream, which is part of a tributary system that feeds itself eventually into the Mississippi river a few states away. This stream is in a wooded area and is crystal clear. Crash said that even I could see clear to the bottom of it on a near moonless night. A coat of dead leaves cover the ground giving it the look of being shoved into one of the better slasher films from the eighties. He had stopped there on his way to another “stalk and check”, to check up on some other strange activity that had been anonymously reported. There was something different about his tranquil spot. The air felt energized somehow, as if he was standing near a power line. Even the trees, which were usually comforting, felt more like sinister sentinels. He walked towards the stream and stopped. Putting his nose to the ground, Crash brushed the leaves back. There beneath that blanket of leaves was a rune. It was thick, and held a dull light of its own, a soft sickly yellow glow. Apparently, it was part of a circle of runes that ran around the very stream Crash wanted to wash up in. He backed a single step and smacked into a solid wall of leaves, mud, and sticks. Crash leaped upwards, but was grabbed by the creature, who attempted to hurl him into the rune circle. If you learn nothing else from this little blog, learn this: never, EVER attempt to grab a werewolf. That is, unless you're a werewolf yourself. It will not workout for you. When this creature grabbed Crash, he lashed out with claws of his own, thrashing through mud, worms, leaves, sticks and other muck. He thrashed, snarled and fought, literally clawing his way through the mud mound until he was on the other side. Gasping for breath, he looked up, and saw twin eyes staring at him from the mud. Crash was fighting a creature he'd never fought before – a gollum. There was a hole in the center of the mud creature that glared down at him. Crash knew two things in that moment. First, that he had to avoid that circle at all costs. Second, was that somewhere out there, Kheid was up to something, and that it wasn't going to be good for any of us. *** The night at the house was one of those half moon kind of nights. The sort of night that felt waxing and waning, the kind that in my military days felt as if it was drawing itself out longer on purpose. The front lawn was covered in gnomes with red hats. There was no blue hatted gnomes left. None of the gnomes cheered my capture. They all glared at the both of us as I was walked down the stairs. “Alright,” Valyur snarled. The blue hatted gnome leader still held the gun on my back. “You bastards get back, or I'll blast a hole through his skull right here.” I heard a low threatening growl when he said that. I turned my head to see something I had never thought I would have. A smaller visage of a werewolf in sparkling white and gray fur, ceramic just like the rest of the gnomes. He had a collar on, with a bit in his mouth like he was a horse with a gnome seated on top of his shoulders. “Yeah, what he said,” the gnome growled. “His majesty wants him alive, you bastard.” “Mitch,” I said. “I never knew they could get you.” He turned he head down, his ears folded back. I looked at him riding high upon Mitch's shoulders. He was wearing a vest of some kind, with his beard braided into twin braids that hung almost to his knees. They rested on both sides of the werewolf's head he sat upon. “Yar! You bastard,” the gnome said as it grabbed his ear and wrenched it back. A whine escaped Mitch's throat as the gnome raised his head up to look at me. “What is your name,” I asked. “You don't get the pleasure of my name,” he snarled. “You're afraid to tell me?” That made the gnome sputter. “I fear no fleshpot!” “Then tell me your name.” He looked around at the others for a moment who all stared at him expectantly, then sat high and proud. “I'm Lavrishk, proud general of the one true Kheid's army. Tamer of the mighty werewolf.” And he grabbed Mitch's ear again and twisted it harder. “You're going to want to stop that,” I said. “Why's that,” he said, and twisted it one more time. A soft whine grew in pitch before leveling off. “Cause now, before the night's over, I'm going to kill you.” That caused a chorus of laughter. Valyur nudged me forward and forced me down the steps. Lavrishk kicked the sides of Mitch, and drove him forward with a growl. “I'd like to see you try, fleshpot. I'll have him naw your arms off and spank him with yer bones.” I remembered I still had my pistol, but, I didn't draw it. Something told me right then wasn't the time. “Tonight,” I shouted walking down the path that was set out before me. The path they cleared to the woods near our little home. “Tonight, you will all see what is inside a gnome. And I will show you all, what it takes to kill a...” A shot rang out. I felt it whizz by my head almost before I heard it. “Shut up,” Valur snarled. “And keep walking.” I expected there to be a bonfire of some kind, with gnomes dancing around it like a pagan ritual pulled straight from an Indiana Jones movie. Instead, there sat Kheid, upon a giant ceramic throne. The arm rests were made of skulls, and the back rest was built up as long bones which looked as if they were supposed to be femurs, but had been stretched and arched to make it into a more comfortable seat for 'his majesty.' “I told you I'd get you,” he said and smirked. The ground around him glowed in strange thick runes. “And...” he paused for a moment..... *** Crash leaped from tree to tree, trying to climb it. His only goal then was to get out of the woods. Flee the woods and race over to the next county, which was close. Get the assistance of the wolf next door, so to speak. Up he jumped, higher and higher. He leaped to one branch. Then to another. Then another. He was close to his goal. He could see the break in the woods in front of him. Just one more... He was hit with what felt like a wall of mud. The fall from the height and the added weight of mud knocked the wind out of him and dazed him. Crash stared up at the trees, as he was half dragged, half thrown into the rune circle. *** Kheid held up a single finger for a moment and smiled, “Now I have all of you. You shall join us and abandon that disgusting flesh for the proper ceramic you should have.” He leaped down from the throne. “And I know once you spend a little time as my subject like your friends,” he pointed to the edge of the clearing, and there they were. Zack, Kris, Sean. All of three of them standing there in ceramic, wearing red gnome hats, glaring at me as if waiting for something. “You will love it.” He grinned wickedly at me. “Still won't bring Faenie back, Falkurk.” There was a dangerous glint that entered his eye then. “Meaty one, I will make you pay for that!” |
| The thumping on the window grew to tapping. Tapping grew to a frantic, panicked pace. Tap. Tap. Taptap. Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap. I stepped towards the curtain and gripped it in my left hand. Holding my pistol in my right, I threw the curtain open, and pointed it at the figure in the window. A blue hatted gnome glared back at me through the glass. “Not me you fleshpot, I’m on yer side!” “Right? Cause I’ll be happier in ceramic.” My pistol didn’t waver. “No thank you.” “I don’t want you ceramic, you idjit! I don’t want you changed! I’m tryinta help you!” A rock smashed against the wall near him. It was a fake rock, the kind that one of those lawn gnomes are normally standing on. Behind the blue hat was a couple red hatted lawn gnomes with a catapult of some kind, loading it for another shot. I threw the window open and fired twice, nicking one gnome and hitting the string on the catapult, which sent the rock flying over the house. Then I looked down at the gnome, “You waiting for an invitation?!” He attempted to scramble, but I ended up helping him out, pulling him inside. The rickety box he had been standing on tottered then toppled as I slammed the window shut. The gnome in front of me had a blue hat, with faded blue paint that appeared almost more turquois now than actual blue. His beard was gloriously long with braids hanging from either side, and a single large braid with a thick brass ring in the center. “So, what’s your name,” I asked. “I’m Valyur, leader of the gnomes here. Or What’s left of’em,” he huffed. I am capable of keeping my mouth shut. In my minds eye I saw a familiar scene from an old Bruce Campbell film where he told the king there ‘Right now you’re the king of jack and shit, and jack left town.’ Knowing such a line wouldn’t help, I kept my mouth shut, and attempted suppress a smile. If Valyur saw it, he didn’t say anything. A couple of years ago, such a statement would have been too tempting for me not to say allowed, damn the consequences of saying it. In the grand scheme of things, I’d say I’m making progress. “There’s not many of my clan left,” he huffed, pacing around my room for a second. He stopped, then stared at the ceiling for a moment, his head tilted slightly in confusion. “So, this is how you fleshy ones live?” I nodded. “Yeah, climate controlled, fairly safe from bugs and such.” He shook his head. “There’s no sky. It’s so damn claustrophobic. Who cares if we’re warm, we don’t feel it anyhow. I cannot see what that other idjit sees in this. It’s unnatural for a gnome.” He left the room and headed towards the living room, with me following behind. “I did not want to involve you in our troubles, but it seems I have no other choice.” “That’s not a choice you made,” I said. “Kheid made that decision for you a long time ago.” “Yeah,” he said. “He picked a fight with you, and you and his clan have been warring ever since.” I smiled. There was no humor in my smile. Only a sad bitter anger that Valyur couldn’t understand. “I’ve not gone to war, yet. Up till now, I’ve only been defending myself.” “No,” he said. “I’ve seen you. You’ve been fighting for your king in your own way. But you’ve done so with one arm tied behind your back. It’s like you pull your punches.” I shrugged. “Neighbors get mad once you start making pipe bombs in your kitchen. They call the cops, there’s all those questions you have to answer…” “Well, your neighbors are gone now, most of’em anywho. Those left won’t remember much from this night. So, why aren’t you out there, tryin ton rescue your friends?” “Because I had a blue hatted gnome king tapping on my damn window like he’s Romeo come to talk to me about the sun and moon.” That did get a head tilt out of Valyur. “What?” “Nevermind,” I snarled. “How do we change them back. And better plan for all three, cause Zack ain’t made it home yet, so chances are he’s been turned too.” Valyur looked at my pistol. “You got one of those for me?” “I just have our back up,” I said. “Steel and such.” “Bring it to me,” Valyur said, and began drawing some symbols on the floor with his foot. They looked like a child’s approximation of runes. In my life, I had seen both cartoonish stuff that certain metal bands painted themselves with, and actual symbols used for religious things. These looked more like the cartoonish ones. I didn’t see much of a choice. Crash would be here in the thick of things if he could, but he already said he’d have his claws full on the other side of the county. The only other option was to try the “Home Alone” defense option again, but Crash has already said under no uncertain terms that if I tried that again, he’d give me the opportunity to see and count my every rib. Given how long it took him to get those windows and cabinets replaced, I don’t blame him. So, I went to the hallway and grabbed the pistol, setting it down in front of him. “There,” I said. He moved it to the circle of symbols and began chanting in some language I’d never heard before. Lights flickered, then flashed. And soon, the pistol was gnome sized, and ceramic. He picked it up and smiled. “Hey, hey! I’m finally packin heat.” “Yes,” I said, “now we need to discuss,” I began. Valyur turned the gun on me. “The plan…” I trailed off, shoving my pistol in its holster. For what it’s worth, I did see genuine sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you dunnot know what sort of power that Khied has tapped into. I’m forced to take some drastic measures, here.” “You’re not as sorry as I am,” I snarled and started walking towards the door, with Valyur training his pistol on me the entire way. “You’ll understand this later, lad. For now, just get your fleshy bottom outside.” “My ass isn’t that big,” I snarked as I neared the door. “It is from where I’m standin,” he said. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t say anything. Outside, there seemed to be a battle of some kind going on. A lot of shouts and snarls, gibberish in high pitched voices, and smashes that was occurring. I held my breath and placed my hand on the door handle. Taking a single moment, I pulled the door open and stepped outside. |
| This little adventure didn’t start with lawn gnomes lining the streets, with enchanted people dragging me out of my home kicking and screaming. It started with a near miss car accident. My poor Topaz almost ate it. I was coming to a stop at a busy intersection in a nearby town when I began to ease my foot on the break. The break felt like a sponge. I yanked on the parking brake as I watched the traffic ahead of me zip along through the intersection their greenlight bright and steady. I was near a Wal-Mart which was connected to a major highway. The kind of highway that people regularly go fifteen over without question and the cops don’t bother checking unless they want to write more speeding tickets that month. I felt like a baby turtle trying to get across the interstate in the middle of summer. The parking brake was ratcheted to its max, but it did nothing to slow me down. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” I grumbled, as I yanked the wheel off the road, and began sliding the gear shift on my transmission down through the gears, trying to get the engine to help brake. Fifteen, Ten, Three miles and hour. My car rolled over the white line, the bumper easing into the divided highway, and rolled to a stop. I stared at twin semi-trucks as they approached. But thankfully they came to a soft stop for the red light which had begun shining bright for them. I feathered the throttle in first gear, easing it across the road towards the shoulder on the far side of the intersection, my hazards blinking. Thankfully it wasn’t a steep hill so I didn’t have to worry about it rolling backwards, but I still turned the wheels towards the side so if the car did roll, it would just roll into the ditch. Two thoughts ran through my mind. Neither is fit to print here. Then the third thought was of one ceramic little demon. A certain smiley pointed hat jerk hell-bent on world domination had officially made a serious attempt at murder. The game was afoot as someone once said. Thankfully, I had towing and rental on my car insurance. It took a couple of hours, but I got the car towed home and dropped in front of our garage. The parking brake had been disconnected. The brake hoses themselves had micro cuts. It was enough that brake fluid would weep through the hose, so a short trip into town would be fine, but the trip through would be deadly. One of those nicks had worn through just enough to bleed out. Either that, or that crazy pointed hatted psycho had a gnome waiting inside the car to cut the brake line as soon as I neared an intersection. Either could have been possible. The trip back to the house had been surreal. Gnomes of blue hats were on properties to the south side of our small town. Hiding in bushes, or pretending to water gardens. Each with a smile on their face. The gnomes with the red hats approached from the north and east. There was a lot more of them. Everyone of the red hatted gnomes wore a snarl and a pair of sunglasses. They were forming a battle ground with our eclectic home at the center. Each property seemed to be pushing in towards us in what I could only imagine was military maneuvers. It felt like we were sitting in the middle of a real-life game of Age of Empires, only this time there would be no save states or redos. Our home was the prize and combatants were gearing up to win at any cost. When I got home, Crash was finally awake. He hadn’t shifted into his night form yet. I’ve seen him stay werewolf days at a time when it got busy, just to avoid having to go back and forth. In his words “it starts to hurt after a while. Hurt a lot,” he told me one day when I asked why he was still more wolf than man. That was some time ago, though, with snow still on the ground and a different kind of mischief in the woods. That afternoon, he greeted me with a yawn, and a full coffee cup. “More investigations,” he grumbled. “Got some strange activity south of the county.” “Exactly opposite this house,” I said. “Convenient.” “Yeah,” Crash replied, then yawned and stretched. “Larry should swing by for some checks tonight.” “By checks you mean crapping on the front lawn again and then not paying attention to the lawn gnomes everywhere?” I was very annoyed at Larry. The only ‘assistance’ that stone dragon’s given me since we met Khied was to bomb the front yard doggie style, then leave. It wasn’t even keeping the gnomes away; it was just getting annoying dealing with his rock-hard chocolate logs everywhere. Crash growled for a moment, then looked out the window to the yard. “I’ve talked to him about that. He says he’s got his claws full with some other stuff. Our land is at the bottom of the list, but it’s on it. He said he’d do what he could, but it would be better to ‘either give the human to the lawn gnomes or just start smashing them.’” “Dragons can be jerks,” I said, looking out the window. A red hatted lawn gnome had appeared near the garage and was mooning me. “I’ve advised the guys,” Crash started, a half yawn escaping him that turned into a full body stretch complete with a reach to the ceiling. “I’ve already advised the guys to stay inside. I’m telling you the same thing. Don’t go out. Just lock the door and let this play out. Larry will be by eventually to end things.” I rolled my eyes. “So, dial 9-1-1 and wait for the cops to come by while the little ceramic murderers attempt to murder us all in our sleep?” “You’re at the bottom of the list, but you’re still on it,” Crash said. “I got more of this ogre thing to deal with.” He did explain to me what the ogre thing was. There’s not a way I can dress the story up enough to make it fit to put here. Crash’s job at times is more dangerous than others, and in this case a community was at stake. If you remember the adventure I printed a while back about Crash fighting that minotaur who’d gone crazy, that’s a Sesame Street episode compared to the Ogre thing. It’d make Clive Barker turn green. “Zack’s at work, Sean and Kris are both at work and I’m the only here today,” I said. Crash nodded. “Yeah, none of them were happy. But things should be safe until nightfall. By then everyone will be inside playing video games or something.” I yawned. His dang yawns were becoming contagious. “I’ll escort them home if need be, but I don’t think they’ll want me to.” “Might work, but you know Zack,” he said. “I’ll try to twist his arm, give him the old ‘werewolf’s orders’ and all that, but you know he hates that sort of thing.” He poured himself a bowl of Reese’s Puffs, and sat down. “Ah, more dog food,” I smirked. He grinned, “careful, or I will swap it for real dogfood and not tell you.” “But,” I said, “I thought it was dogfood! I mean, you’re eating it, right?” We went back and forth like that over his cereal while Crash fired off a few texts to the other guys. Zack was angry, but said he’d text me when he got off. Sean and Kris said they’d watch each other and to not worry, that they’d go somewhere else that night. Don’t worry. Right. Zack was an hour late for texting me. Sean and Kris weren’t texting me, but I wasn’t worried about them. They were more than likely staying the night at a friend’s place, I didn’t have to go searching for them, now did I? Zack was the missing one after all. The one that I hadn’t heard from yet. After the second hour I called his work, but they said his shift had left over an hour ago and that Zack had left with them. “No sign of’em sorry,” the harried shift manager told me right before hanging up. My heart in my throat, I went to my room and grabbed my pistol. Two full magazines, and one in the pistol. That left me with about 45 rounds. There was already more than double that of lawn gnomes in the neighborhood. But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. No car, no way to search other than rubberized troop movers, my own two feet in other words, I slid my pistol into my holster, and headed for the door, but never made it outside. Two ceramic statues were on the front step, Sean and Kris. Both looked very pissed at me. “Shit,” I growled, “sorry guys, but you can’t come in.” And I slammed the door shut. Zack was out there somewhere. Crash was on the opposite side of the county. And here I was, trapped in my own home, with two friends now statues looking very pissed at me. Crash doesn’t carry a phone with him in wolf form. Many times, there’d be no where for him to hold it, his claw would go through the screen anyway, and the phone isn’t designed with werewolves in mind, so he’d either be able to listen, or talk, but not both at the same time. So, I called his work and left a message. “Wait for Larry”, they said. Right. Where was Zack? There was a thump at the front door. I swallowed hard and slid a chair beneath it. Another thump at the front then one at the back. A tap on the glass near my bedroom window. I was trapped inside my own house. Whichever faction had gotten to the house first, red or blue, it didn’t matter. It wanted me outside. It wanted me ceramic. It wanted me dead. |
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