by Brent Miller
Tyler stared at him, eyes widening. His mouth fell open, and he didn’t say a word. Tyler was completely paralyzed.
“What…” He finally managed to speak, but he couldn’t form the full question. Tyler stumbled back a step, but he didn’t turn to run. All things considered, he was actually taking it a little better than Garrick himself had. Then again, Garrick had been transfixed watching the change too. He hadn’t run until it was too late.
Garrick grabbed the edge of the counter and forced himself to his feet. He didn’t look at Tyler; he just stared at the ground. One of his knees broke as his body protested his movements. Biting back the pain, he managed to remain standing.
“Tyler,” he groaned slowly, trying his best to formulate the words through his changing vocal folds. “I’ll explain everything. Right now, I need you to get everyone out of here.”
“What do I say?”
“I don’t know,” Garrick said. He paused for a second, another wave of pain rushing over him as he felt his other shoulder dislocate itself. He probably looked absolutely horrifying. “Something. Cover for me.”
“What’s happening?”
“I can’t…” Garrick could hardly force out any more words. They were sounding more monstrous and hoarser as he spoke, and his voice was quickly becoming inhuman. Soon, it would disappear entirely.
“Can’t talk. I’ll explain. Go.”
Tyler nodded, but didn’t move straight away. Garrick felt the femur in his left leg split in two, and he fell to the ground. Tyler nodded again, but still didn’t move, eyes glued to his friend. Garrick pushed him back a little, and he stumbled backward, barely catching himself. Finally, he broke the trance and turned, walking quickly down the hallway. He was trying to be calm, but Garrick could smell the fear on him.
Garrick reached up and closed the door, locking it as if the lock would be of any use. Tyler had already seen him, and the wolf would likely just break it down. He tried to hear what Tyler told them. With his changing ears, it wasn’t hear, but multitasking proved difficult. Still, he couldn’t let go until he knew they were safe.
“I presume it’s an allergy,” Tyler justified. “Since childhood, he’s had a strong reaction to garlic.”
“Oh no,” Samantha sounded genuinely concerned. “I’m so sorry. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Tyler said. “He’d just rather not make an appearance at the moment. His face is puffy and his eyes are red. Also, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for him to leave the bathroom, if you know what I mean.”
“I should have asked,” she said, ignoring his joke.
“Honestly, he probably should be better at making it known.”
There wasn’t much that could excuse his behavior, and he was grateful that Tyler was even helping him out at all. Garrick wasn’t sure he would have been able to do the same thing had the positions been reversed. He probably would have been too scared to think of anything to say other than “Garrick is becoming a werewolf, let’s run for our lives.”
He heard the door open and close, then listened as the footsteps faded away. When he couldn’t perceive any trace of any of them, he finally gave up. Garrick collapsed to the floor and exhaled deeply. The pain dulled as he stopped fighting and let the wolf take over.
Chapter 6
Twenty-one months ago
Hayden smiled at him. She had a strange way of making him feel like he was exactly where he should be, even with every part of his mind screaming that he didn’t have a chance. He stood on her doorway with flowers. At first, he’d felt like it was a good idea, but the longer he stood there, the more he questioned himself. Garrick couldn’t help but wonder if it was too cheesy and overdone. For someone like Hayden, he should have found something more unique than roses.
In his eyes, she was the most beautiful girl in existence. She had long, blonde hair that she had curled for their date. She wore a blue dress, and it just made her eyes shine even brighter. With her heels on, she was slightly taller than him, but her confidence made him feel as though she towered over him. He fumbled for words as he looked at her.
“Are those for me?” she asked with a smile, glancing at the flowers.
“No,” Garrick responded, snapped out of his daze. It was a few seconds before he even processed the question, then his inaccurate response. In a panic, he blurted out, “I mean yeah. Yup. Yes!” He had sifted through every affirmative word he could think of until he found the right one.
“Garrick,” she spoke calmly, her smile unbroken. She placed her hand gently over his on the flowers and breathed out deeply. In an almost unnaturally soothing voice, she added, “Calm down.”
“Can we start over?” He asked, taking solace in her calm demeanor. Being around her relaxed him, even when he was terrified and making a fool of himself.
“Sure,” she agreed lightheartedly. She closed the door. Not exactly what he’d meant. She peeked her head outside, gazed at him intently, and her tone took a serious turn as she asked, “Did you mean the last five minutes, or should I bring the couch back outside?”
“No,” he laughed. “This is good.”
“Okay, good,” she responded as she closed the door again. Garrick took a deep breath, preparing himself before he knocked on the door again. As he waited for her to open it, he straightened out his shirt and stood taller.
“Hello,” he said as she opened the door.
“Hi,” she laughed.
“Wow. You look beautiful. Perfect. Like, in a good way.”
“How can that be in a bad way?”
“Look, I brought you flowers!” He handed her the flowers, and she disappeared inside to put them in a vase. He turned and hit his head against the wall, muttering “in a good way?” to himself. Before she returned, he quickly composed himself and stood, attempting to hide any negative emotion.
“You look nice too,” she told him as she stepped back outside. He was thoroughly convinced she’d seen his reaction to his own greeting, but she didn’t say anything about it. She just wrapped her arm around his and waited for him to lead her to the car. She had to take the first step, dragging him slightly behind, before he was able to stabilize himself on his weak legs and actually walk.
“I’m warning you,” he said as he opened the door for her. He’d run through the part of the date where he went up to the door dozens of times in his head. He wanted it to go perfectly. Through all of his rehearsal, he’d been confident there was no way he’d make a mistake. Clearly, though he was mistaken.
“I think that was the best I’m going to do all night,” he finished. She laughed as she ducked her head under the roof of the car and pulled her dress down to keep it from bunching up. Before he closed the door behind her, she had to readjust herself and retrieve a part of the dress which was still hanging outside of the car.
Garrick walked around the back of the car, still trying to convince himself that Tyler’s advice was true. All he had to do was be himself, she obviously liked him if they spent so much time together already. Anyway, she’d already said yes. That had to be the hardest part, right?
“You could do a lot worse,” she sympathized as he sat down next to her.
“Really?” He closed the door and started the car, then looked at her with a grin.
“No,” she admitted. “I don’t think so.”
He was deflated. There was no way this was ever going to work out. He’d already started off absolutely wrong twice.
“It’s cute, though.” Garrick was shocked to hear that. A single compliment from her washed away his doubts as if by magic.
“You’re not a normal girl, are you?”
“It would seem not.”
“Still perfect,” he replied, still staring at her eyes. Trying to avoid an over-reaction, he bit back the smile, but it continued forcing itself to grow larger. When he looked away, he gave up and just beamed as he put the car in drive and headed to the restaurant.
Present
17 days until the full
moon
Garrick woke up on the bathroom floor. He looked around, trying to gather his bearings. It didn’t look like too much was broken. He did see his shirt, torn to rags, near him though. That had been a nice shirt, too. The rest of his clothes were also ripped up, shreds scattered around him. It didn’t look like he had torn them apart, though. It looked like they just ripped because he didn’t have time to remove them from his changing form.
He grabbed a towel from under the sink and wrapped it around his waist. Then he retrieved his phone from the pocket of his jeans. He checked the time. He wanted to know how early it was, wondering if his mom had come home from work already. Garrick couldn’t think of any way to possibly explain the mess to her.
It had been thirty minutes. How was that possible?
He decided to save the mystery for later. There were more pressing things for him to address at the moment. For one, he had to apologize to Samantha for running out on her in his own house - which was going to be incredibly difficult to explain. Then he had to talk to Tyler. If, of course, Tyler was willing to talk to him. It had taken Garrick weeks to finally talk to Hayden after he found out about her. While it would be nice to finally be able to talk to Tyler about this part of his life, he had to respect his friend if he needed time. Before he could do anything else, though, he had to clean up the mess in the bathroom and get rid of those torn clothes. He had broken apart a hand soap dispenser, and the clear contents were scattered across the floor, leaving the tile coated in a slippery film. He had also taken down the shower rod, but somehow didn’t damage the curtain itself. The damage was actually surprisingly minimal. He would have expected to find holes in the walls, leaking pipes, or pieces broken from the sink and bathtub.
Garrick decided to get dressed before worrying about anything else. He struggled to his feet, using the sink and the wall for support. Leaning on the walls as he recovered his strength, he made his way to his room and selected the first outfit he could find in his closet.
He sat on the edge of his bed and rested his chin in the palms of his hands, contemplating what he was going to say to Samantha. He could always just claim he got sick, but he didn’t want her to think it was her cooking. Maybe it would be best to go along with Tyler’s claim that it was his allergy to garlic, about which she’d have had no way of knowing. He hadn’t eaten the bread, but maybe he could convince her that he did – she probably wasn’t paying too much attention to what specific foods he ate. Additionally, any type of allergy would be something he should have mentioned to her before she cooked him food.
Settling on cleaning the bathroom first, he set his towel over his shoulder and made his way back. Cleaning would help clear his mind, and maybe even give him time to develop a script for the people to whom he had to explain. He dropped the towel on the floor and retrieved the remains of his torn clothes. He also picked up the broken pieces of the plastic hand soap container and wrapped the plastic in the shreds of fabric which had been the outfit he’d worn earlier. Holding the mess of clothes and plastic in one hand, he checked with the other to make sure there were no soap leaks. It would minimize his work if he didn’t drop soap all over the house as he walked. Garrick headed outside and moved aside one of the trash bags in the trash can and hid his garbage under it. There was no reason to suspect anyone would be inspecting his garbage, but he wanted to be safe just in case.
He went back inside and quickly set the shower curtain back up. He twisted the rod to try to size it, but it kept sliding down the sides of the shower. He groaned dramatically as he tried a few more times, and finally extended it enough to stick in place. Though he would still trade it if he could, there were perks to his lycanthropy. That curtain would have grown rather heavy in the past. He wiped down the floor with the towel to clean up all of the soap, but it seemed to just be spreading it. Trying a different approach, he dampened the towel in the sink, then went back to cleaning the floor. The soap started to bubble up and just create more of a mess. After a few rounds of ringing out the soapy water, it finally started to look like the floor was just wet. He retrieved another towel to dry it up. Because he wasn’t quite sure if all of the soap would make too many bubbles and wreak havoc in the washing machine, he carefully rinsed the soapy towel in the bathtub first. He swung the towels over the side of the shower. Finally, he grabbed a new soap dispenser from the cabinet under the sink and set it up where the old one had been.
The kitchen looked just as it had before he’d changed. He was just happy that he hadn’t done anything truly damaging, like shredding the shower curtain or breaking the mirror. Or tearing the appliances out of the wall. At least all the damage was easily remedied without informing his mom.
He had done everything he possibly could to distract himself, but he knew he had to have the conversations eventually. He took out his phone and stared at it, willing the perfect excuses into his mind. It was just before 9:00 pm. He wondered if that was too late to show up at Tyler’s house. He knew Tyler’s family was strict about certain rules, so he didn’t want to risk waking his parents. However, since he’d built up the resolve, he also had to try to talk to his friend before he lost it. He looked for his jacket but quickly gave up when it wasn’t in the first place he checked. Instead, he just changed into a long sleeve shirt and headed outside. He locked the door behind him and started walking to Tyler’s house. As he walked, he pulled out his phone and sighed deeply. Best to just get them both over with.
“Hey,” he texted Samantha.
“Hey there,” she sent back almost instantly.
“Sorry about tonight.”
“It’s okay. I had a great time.”
“Until I disappeared?”
“Well, that was a little odd. What happened?”
He didn’t respond for about a minute. He hadn’t been prepared for her to answer so quickly, and he was still struggling with the wording on his response.
“I think I get it.” That would definitely impress him. He himself didn’t get it. It would be amazing if someone who didn’t even know that werewolves existed could explain why one just changed for a few minutes on a random night in the moon cycle.
“?”
“I know you just broke up with Hayden. Tyler explained it all. I didn’t know how recently it was.”
“Yeah,” he said. Because it was the best excuse he had, he tried to use it to his advantage. He was shocked that she’d given it to him. It would make the explanation easier, if nothing else. “I guess I was a little freaked. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“I know.”
“We don’t have to be anything more than friends. I didn’t even think that was a date, to be honest. Until Tyler told me it was.”
“Oh. Well I feel dumb”
“No, don’t. I was happy when he told me.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
Garrick was walking up to Tyler’s house. He saw that lights were still on in the second story window, which was Tyler’s room, so at least he was awake. He walked up front and saw a faint blue glare shining through the living room window. He’d been there enough to realize that was likely the television, which implied someone was watching it. Still, he didn’t want to knock so late, in case they’d fallen asleep in front of the T.V. again. But he also didn’t want to call Tyler; he didn’t want to give him the chance to ignore the call or to freak out before he saw him. Garrick had no plan, so he just stared at the door as if it would open itself.
“Maybe, eventually, we can have a second date,” Samantha sent. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t ever want to date her. It wouldn’t be fair to her. He loved Hayden. As much as he liked Samantha, he could never give her that.
“For now, how about we hang out next week? As friends.” She was being understanding. She was nice, caring. He really wanted to feel something for her, but he couldn’t muster up any type of emotion whatsoever. Nothing more than a possible bond of friendship.
“Okay,” he
conceded. “I’d like that.”
He called Tyler. The phone rang, but he didn’t answer. Garrick took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Garrick!” Tyler’s mom exclaimed as she opened it, beaming at him. She hugged him, pulling him inside. In his peripheral vision, Garrick could see Tyler’s step-dad sitting on the couch, watching some sport with a beer in his hand. “How are you?”
“I’m great, how are you?” he asked, pasting on a fake smile and trying his best to avoid allowing her to detect any difference. He didn’t need to owe another explanation to anyone.
“I’m glad you got a date,” she cheered. “I always thought you could do better than Hayden.” She was trying to be nice, but there really was no better than Hayden. She didn’t even sound convinced as she said it.
“Anyway,” she added slowly, detecting the awkwardness lingering in the air. “Tyler is up in his room.”
“Thanks,” Garrick told her. He climbed up the stairs, taking his time. He had no idea what to say when he saw Tyler.
He knocked on the door. Nothing. When he tried again, Tyler opened the door. He pulled Garrick into the room, closing the door roughly behind him. He didn’t say a word to him. Instead, he just sat in the chair and glued his eyes to the book which lay open on his desk.
“Tyler?” Garrick asked hesitantly. “Is everything okay?”
“Okay?” Tyler asked, his voice not carrying the tone Garrick would have expected. He almost sounded excited. “My best friend is a lycanthrope!”
“That’s not really something you should be screaming.”
“Sorry,” Tyler whispered. His voice was much quieter, but it was still full of excitement.
“So, I just wanted to make sure we were okay.”
“What are you talking about, Garrick Elliott? I’m not going to despise you for what you are. That’s the definition of racism. I’m wounded that you didn’t tell me sooner, but that’s unimportant at the moment.”