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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 |
| I had strange dreams. Waking nightmares. Wolves, giant ones, stalking through brick walls and pouncing, ripping into my flesh. I'd awake with a scream in my throat that refused to leave, only to have the entire thing start again. Chasing myself through forests in my own mind. Part of me knew it was whatever medication they injected me with. Part of me knew I was just going crazy. I shivered myself awake. It took me several minutes to realize why: no clothing. I was just wearing a pair of cheap boxer shorts. Groggily I rose to a kneeling position, and brushed the dirt off my elbows, my chest. It took great effort to pull myself to my feet. I admit to falling once. The ground rising up to catch me the way it had done on so many drunken nights. It was as if I had spent an entire week drinking and was coming out of the bender. As if the world tilted itself sideways and dumped me in the middle of a forest, with jello for dirt and pin holes for sky. Part of my mind kept repeating the mantra, somewhere deep inside was remembering a half whispered promise by one of the wolves from my waking nightmare. "We will wait till sundown," it said, in it's perfect European accent. "When the sun is gone, the hunt begins. When daylight dies, the hunt is born. When you awaken, run little rabbit. The wolf will be chasing you." Each tree reached to the heavens like hands searching for a savior. Dark dead leaves crunched under bare feet, that had just begun to feel the stones and thorns. Daylight didn't die in a bath of purple and red as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. It just faded, streaking towards the trees before it gave up entirely. Then a lone howl called out. Answered by two others. Run, run, run, I thought as I started moving away from the howls. Each step staggered. Wobbled. My back and hip started becoming alive then, calling, crying out to me. As I dodged a bush, moving across and around a tree, a root caught my foot, pulling me to the ground. The pain was like an energy surge to the system. Somewhere in my brain, computer banks were powering back on, monitors were lighting up. The world was coming back into focus. "Think Jason, running like a lunatic isn't going to save you," I said. "Only a pack of pissed off werewolves chasing you, that's all. Nothing to panic about." I felt her hand before I smelled her. Cold flesh clasped around mine and helped pull me upwards into a standing position. She gave me a comforting smile, full of maggots and flies. A once beloved grandmother. A mother and lover of life, now a zombie trying to be helpful. "Shit" I whispered. "Look, I can't help you," I whispered at her, misinterpreting her entirely. "In a few moments, I may be joining you." She shook her head, then pointed to the left. I head tilted, like a confused dog. She looked upwards as if hearing something, then pointed again, frantically. Confused, I followed the former grand mothers pointing, pressing myself through the under brush. More cold hands grabbed me, the scent of dead flesh now stronger. They pressed me downward, hiding me in the bushes. Behind the trees. I couldn't see what the older zombie was doing. I heard dirt being kicked and moved. As if someone was shuffling around across a track. Then I heard growling and loud sniffing. A predator was near. More than one. "He was dropped here," Verner snarled. "I know where I placed him." "Well," a female werewolf snarled. "He's not here now. Just these damn corpses." "Tricky son of a bitch," Verner snarled. "He cannot escape. Do I need to remind you what happens if he lives?" What happens if I live? What the hell are they on about? I wanted to peak my head up and see, to see who they were talking to, but the female werewolf snarled, "I smell faint traces of him, but there's too much of those corpses around for me to get a good lock on his trail." "Start here," Verner snarled, "begin circling. We'll catch his scent soon." The two that were holding me began to slowly pull me backwards as the older zombie in front started shuffling towards them. More began to gather. "I thought you said this was clear," the female werewolf snarled. "There's got to be a cemetery nearby." "Ignore them," Verner snarled. His heavy snuffling and breathing grew close. I held my breath. My heartbeat loud in my ears. He paused. Sniffed more. Then stopped. Moving away a few steps. I gave a slow exhale. "He's here," Verner shouted. I think the attempt was for him to explode through the trees. I didn't stick around to see. The two zombies holding me let go, and lunged forward at the werewolf as I turned to run, and ran into a wall of fur. "I got you," a male voice snarled. "Hey look what I fo..." The werewolf's voice became a whine as a rotten foot from one of the zombies kicked so hard it lodged itself in the groin of the beast. He grabbed his nuts, letting me drop to the ground. I crawled away, turned right and began running. Well, as well as I could run through a forest. Snarling werewolves right on my tail. One unfortunate former high schooler who must have learned too late not to text and drive pointed with a rotted hand to my left. I followed his directions. Following an old deer path, I sprinted through the old forest as best as I could. Ignoring the thorns and branches pulling and scraping at loose flesh. More of the walking dead started emerging from the trees. It was the size of a typical dead man’s party, and seemed to be growing. They moved towards the growls, the snarls. I heard a shout of "get out of my way," as the werewolf must have caught sight of me. They started moaning, then growling of their own, arms raised to grab, ensnare. I don't know if they attempted to bite him. I don't know if that would have helped. I tried to shut my ears to the absolute carnage happening behind me. After the numerous jokes that the zombies had played on me over the years, (think the bobbing for apples incident in the first zombie party I was part of), I knew that they felt no pain. They functioned on an entirely different level. More of a body getting one last celebration for its use as carrying the soul rather than a strange need to eat for no other reason than it's scary according to one Hollywood producer or some focus group. Still, I cringed as I heard the ripping and tearing. He gagged at least once. I turned to look as I ran two steps, and a root of some kind grabbed my toes, pulling me to the ground. "I will kill you," Verner shouted, his good arm swinging left and right. His amputated arm holding back two other zombies. They were caked in muck from rotten flesh. The smell was horrible. "I must!" He snarled. Then a zombie somewhere grabbed his legs and pulled. Down Verner went. But only for a moment. He was up almost as fast as he fell, taking two great strides towards me. "I will feast upon your bones!" Five feet now. Three. I was crawling backwards, trying to scrambling to my feet. But it was too late. He was on top of me now. Over me. The zombies at this point had him. By the shoulders, by the legs, by the arm. They had slowed him down, but a zombie doesn't have great strength. And a werewolf is much stronger than a regular human. So despite there being more than a dozen then there all trying to save my life, they did little more than slow him down. In my mind, I was saying my last goodbyes as I Glared up at him. I refused to close my eyes to death. Refused to wince. Kneeling over me, the silver and black werewolf's lip curled in a snarl on his muzzle as his ears folded back in vicious anger, he growled, "Now! You..." That's as far as he got. I couldn't see who it was in the faceless horde of death. But one of them shoved their hand as far down as they could into his mouth and yanked to the side, snapping the limb off. Forcing Verner to literally swallow its dead, rotting hand. He gagged, falling backwards onto the ground, groaning. "Oh God, I can taste it," he snarled. Trying to vomit. "You vile! Sick things!" He tried puking again, dry heaving on the ground. "Eww, why won't it..." more dry heaves, "come out..." It was about this time, that familiar black furred arms grabbed me. "Jason," Crash snarled in my ear. "Let's get you home." "What about him?" "I'd love to kill him. But right now, the rest of us have our claws full. His day will come." It's not the answer I wanted to hear. But it's the one I had to accept. The last view of Verner that I had was the horde of zombies standing around him as he continued to gag and dry heave. Two sounds that I never for the life of me ever thought I'd hear them as somewhat comforting. After a few minutes, we came to the edge of the forest. "Jason," Crash said, his ears were folded back as he set me down. Looking all in the world like a dog who had gotten caught stealing food. "I...I'm..." he began, then looked towards the ground. What else could I do? I hugged him. As hard and as tight as I could. "I'm alive," I whispered in his ear. "Don't you dare apologize for that." One of those ears popped up for a moment, pointing back towards the woods. "Backup's coming," he said. "Let's get you home." "Home?" "Err. I mean back to Roam's." "To safety." I said. "To safety and to family." "Yes," Crash said, his tail even wagging a couple of times at the thought. "To the pack." |
| Okay, I'll admit it. There was a little bit of arm twisting to get to write this week's update. But, there is a very good reason. I wanted it on written record that I, Donte, nor anyone else in Roam's outfit, forced Jason into volunteering. None of us wanted him to walk into a situation that was almost guaranteed to result in his death or maiming. We wanted to work out a different way of doing things: find out where little Evelyn was, find their chain of command and support. That sort of thing. But Jason went ahead and jumped in with both feet, not bothering to ask any one of us if we had a better idea. I mean, we didn't, but it would have been nice to be asked. Perhaps we could have come up with something different that would get everyone back alive. On the night of the incident, Roam was across the street, waiting. Crash was in the distance, waiting at one area to follow them as soon as they left. Sophia was with Crash, like usual. They had become inseparable to the point that even we sometimes began to question if that was a good thing or not. And I, Donte, was up on the roof of the old Italian restaurant across the street from the park watching everything go down through the sniper scope. You may ask yourself now if I could snipe Verner, why didn't I just go ahead and do it? Kill him and put a stop to this. Well, first off, Verner got out of the back of the SUV. Not the driver's door. Obviously he wasn't alone. Sure, I could kill Verner, but not before the other werewolves in the vehicle tore our poor boy to pieces. And Jason, who was armed only with GPS trackers, wouldn't have been able to do much more than show us if werewolves really do crap in the woods. It was a relief seeing Evelyn racing towards Roam. I'll admit, I teared up a bit at that. Hey, that little girl maybe hellfire and a tornado wrapped into a tiny vicious ball at times, but she's ours. She's not like a sister. She is a sister to me. Besides, Cecily was in my ear the entire time to remind me. "Don't," she growled. "Don't take the shot." "I'm not, Ceci," I said. "Just observing." "Good, cause you're libel to hit Jason too. Especially since you're emotional right now." "I'm not," I paused to wipe a tear away. "I"m not emotional." "Sure." The plan wasn't perfect, but it was the best plan we had. Crash and Sophia lying in wait would, to the best of their ability, follow the car when Jason was in it. We had the GPS units to show exactly where they were going. Roam and Tanika were going to take Evelyn home. I was there to observe, in case they decided to get froggy and just try to kill Jason there. I could take out at least two of the bastards, and hopefully, Roam could get to him in time. Killian was on the opposite end of the city, in case they decided to go in the other direction. He was standing just in the woodline near the highway, waiting for the G-Wagon to pass by. Things didn't quite go our way that evening. First, the bastards took the opposite way. We had expected them to leave town as soon as possible. Instead, they drove through town, throwing everyone off. Crash, Sophia and Killian was in full werewolf form. They couldn't exactly run through the center of town. "Tell Tanika to be ready," I shouted at Cecily. "She's with Roam," Cecily said. "What's going on?!" "They're cutting through town!" Her voice rose in panic. "Well, don't lose them!" "What am I going to do?! Sprout metal wings and fly down like the Falcon?" "I don't know! Do Parkour or something!" "Damn it Ceci, I'm not Tom Cruise! Where's the GPS taking us?" The plan was supposed to be simple. Jason meets them in the park. We get Evelyn back. They take Jason. We take them out. Easy. What the hell happened?! Instead, Jason was gone. The Nobility had disappeared, and what's worse, we had no idea where they were going. No one tailing them. All that was left was Cecily. "They're leaving a trail," she sighed over the radio. "That a good thing?" "They're finding the GPS units one at a time. They're almost down to the last one. No Wait! Yup. They found it. He's gone." That was the loudest I'd cursed in my life. At the last location of the GPS unites was a bag with several of the units, along with every stitch of clothing he had been wearing. It was tossed in a dumpster behind a Wal-Mart. Crash, Sophia and Killian all tried picking up the trail, but eventually they just came up empty. Roam and Tanika attempted to as well. Cecily hacked in and somehow was able to snag security footage. Nothing. The plan was to go back to base and regroup. Put our heads together so to speak. Crash and Sophia went stalking off on their own. They were probably going to find some poor Nobility to take out their aggression on. I felt sorry for whoever that person was. Killian, instead of going inside, stood guard outside at the gate, certain that The Nobility was going to attack us at any moment, believing we were vulnerable. What bothered me the most is that Jason was never meant to be part of this mess. I was adopted into it. Tanika and Roam escaped from it. Half-adopted Crash into it after his whole mess. We all wanted Crash back one day, for the entire beef to be squashed. To have our spiritual brother back. But, not like this. Crash was half-feral. I know Sophia was supposed to be helping him, but she really wasn't. And then there's his pack. I expected screaming. Yelling. Accusations and finger-pointing. To be honest, part of me wishes that we got the screaming. Yelling. Finger pointing. We met everyone in the living room. Roam broke the news. Kris and Sean held each other. Zack glared at me. "So, get him back." "We'd like to," I said, "we want to. But we don't even know where they have him." "Where's Crash," Kris asked. "He's trying to track them down. I'm not sure if...." Gator Lady at least began growling at us. "Fuck! Don't even say it. Don't even say it, you mangy fuckin varmint." With that, Elouise stomped out of the room. "Come on," Sean said to Kris, "Let's go get some air." I grabbed a beer and followed them outside and watched them disappear into the darkness. I knew we'd be fine. No werewolf or other creature would dare come onto our property. Especially with Killian standing ready to tear anyone apart who came close. "Shit," I said, staring up at the sky. "Well, Jason, I hope whatever happens to you is quick. You didn't deserve this." I didn't look at the beer that I grabbed and took a sip, then made a face. It was the Odul's that Roam picked up for him. Then I poured a little out on the ground in honor of him. "Well, dude, I can see why you don't like this crap." I didn't hear Zack come up behind me. "Why are you talking like he's already dead? How can you give up hope so quick?" "Because, The Nobility wanted to kill him and now they have him. If he's not dead yet, he soon will be and baring a miracle, there's nothing we can do." It was right about then that Sean walked up from the Darkness. "Uh dude," he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. "They said they know where he is. At least I think that's what they're saying." I'll admit, we were glad to have help from anyone or anything at that moment and Sean's new friends certainly did help. But they sure as hell did stink. |
| Conversations flew back and forth for the next several hours. Most of which, I wasn't privy too, but to be honest I'm not certain if anything would have changed if I was. Roam was on the phone screaming at times. Crash was too and more than once and disappeared only to appear hours later tired and angry, and still in werewolf mode. Cicely was typing furiously on this chat or that email. But the result was the same. Either, I'm sitting on a specific bench at a specific time at the edge of a park at sunset, or they would never see little Evy again. What could I do? We went to Cecily who outfitted me with just about every air pod and tracking device she could. Roam must have apologized a thousand times, and swore he'd find a different way. As he stood in that kitchen with big sorrowful eyes that looked as if he was going to start bawling his eyes out that very moment, I said, "Hey, a kid's involved. I'm in. Don't worry about it." Then I smiled and said, "I'm a salty, rotten bastard. Ask anyone. If they bite me, they'll spit me out." That sad attempt at black humor didn't go over quite as well as you'd think. Crash about crushed the life out of me with his hug. Then Zack joined in. Followed by Kris and Sean. Elouise did too, since she's become like a big sister to our group. We stood in the doorway of Roam's house holding each other as if waiting for time to stand still. But of course, time, like death, marches on. And when we're called, we all march along, whether we want to or not. Crash drove me in his Cadillac. "It feels appropriate," he said. No one else. Just me and him. At first we stood in front of it, letting me take in the sights for what felt like a last time. The crops in the distance, the strange nature of Roam's house which then looked smart instead of just weird: designed for efficiency and defense, not looks. The sun dropping down to the horizon. And Crash, in full werewolf mode, his ears down, his eyes welled up with unshed tears. "You...don't have to," he said. I nodded. "To get Evelyn back? Yes. Yes, I do." There wasn't any talking in that car. It felt like a first deployment all over again. Watching the trees pass by the car windows, wondering how much danger lies just beyond each one. Nerves pulled at my chest, making every breath heavy. But, I didn't grit my teeth as we pulled up to the park, that looked more like a new cemetery than an old park. I didn't shake as I stepped out of the car and looked around at the stone wall that circled it. I glanced around, nodded one last time at Roam who parked his own vehicle across the street, and walked towards my bench. There I sat, looking away from the highway, towards a treeline in the distance. At the time, I remember wishing I faced a sunset, but of course, the sun was behind me and all I could see was the encroaching darkness. Fitting, I guess for what I was waiting on. The Mercedes G-Wagon rolled into the park from behind me. I could hear it rolling up and wasn't surprised when I saw what it was. My guess at the time was that Verner had learned from his previous mistake. I wasn't certain when, if ever, we'd see him in another limousine. It rolled to a stop in front of me, then the window rolled down, and Verner, with his chiseled face and perfect chin looked at me and said, "Okay, you come. Then we will release her." "Yeah, right," I said. "Let Evelyn go first. She must go all the way to Roam, across the street. Then I'll let you take me." "I could take you by force right now," he growled. I shrugged. "You'd have five pissed off werewolves on you before I even made it to your car. There would be an open battle right here in front of all these good people, and I don't think you want that." Part of that was a bluff, part of it was true. There would have been at least three pissed off werewolves. I'm not so sure Sophia would have cared, and Donte, who had disappeared and pretended like he had other things to do was off doing his own surveillance, I knew. He didn't count so much as a werewolf, but he would have done what he could. Verner snarled and rolled the window up. There was a moment or two that I wasn't sure if he'd call my bluff or not. But a back door opened, and a little girl sprinted as hard as she could away from the car. There was tears in her eyes the entire way, and I could hear the relief in her voice as she cried out "daddy," when she ran up to Roam. Not 'Roam', not 'Roman'. Daddy. He hugged her tight and buried his chin into her shoulder, whispering something. If I had to guess it was probably something like 'I love you' or something similar, but I never asked. Witnessing that brief moment, the real love they had for each other, made everything that happened and everything after worth it. Verner exited his vehicle and made a show of slamming the door. He walked over to the bench and sat down upon it. "I wish," he said, "you were a werewolf. We could use one like yourself. Vicious. Resourceful. Intelligent. Ah, but life is cruel at times. You have the soul of a werewolf within you, but you do not have the flesh of one." "Life is a cruel mistress," I said. "You know, it was always about you," he told me. "The girl. The fight. Everything. I told Roam from the start to get me you and he could have his daughter back." I smiled. "Nice to see someone willing to swipe right." "This request was supposed to keep you busy, keep you arguing, but no. You persisted. You had to interfere. This is twice now. We had this won almost and you interfered. You disrupt every where you go. Cause problems." "Now you sound like my drill sergeant," I said. "You come with us now. It is time." "This bullshit ends," I said. Well, it was probably more of a snarl. He smiled to me. There was some sympathy in it, but most of it seemed to be respect. "Come now," he said, "You are no longer in any position to argue." What else could I do? I stood. Then took a step towards his vehicle. "Just make it quick." He gave me a dark laugh and said, "I can promise you that your death will be slow. We are going to make a celebration of it. We have something very fun planned for your final moments." Then I stepped into the vehicle. There was a needle. Then, there was nothing. |
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