Cursed

by Brent Miller

  He shook his head. He hadn’t been to the gym since Cailean had ‘trained’ him. That felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Alright,” Tyler said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Hey,” Garrick said, catching up to Samantha as she walked out of the coffee shop. The sun was setting, and the purple hues in the sky started to fade to black.

  “Hey,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”

  “Of course I made it,” he responded.

  The two of them walked a few blocks, talking about their days. It was mostly Samantha telling Garrick stories about how ridiculous some of the customers had been and Garrick trying to find little truths in the events of his day that he could share. He hid behind half-truths, telling her that he’d spent the day with his best friend. He told her that since his break-up with Kayla a few days ago, Tyler had needed him there.

  That was mostly true. Only, he didn’t really need Garrick. He needed a way to distract himself, which presented itself in the form of researching cures for lycanthropy. That part, though, he decided was something that should stay unsaid.

  “One of them asked me for a decaf drink, alright? That is totally a normal thing. Then, as I hand them the cup, they tell me, ‘thanks, I needed a boost. I probably would have fallen asleep at work.’ I’m like ‘yeah, so that isn’t exactly what you needed then,’” she rolled her eyes as she finished the story.

  “You actually said that?”

  “Of course not. I laughed at him. He thought I was laughing with him. I don’t know, maybe he was kidding. Whatever,” she said. She smiled. Garrick did too.

  They stopped in front of her house, and she turned around to face him as she leaned against the door frame. She was studying his eyes, and he wasn’t exactly sure what it was she was looking for in them. Whatever it was, Garrick tried to keep her from finding it. He did his best to keep any emotion he could from being reflected.

  “You are hiding something, Garrick Elliott,” she said. Her using his full name felt strange. It wasn’t like he didn’t hear it every day. It had actually become a sort of nickname that Tyler used, saying that it just rolled off his tongue. Over the years, though, it had become something vaguely personal, like an inside joke between himself and Tyler. It almost felt like an intrusion for someone else to use it.

  “Oh, you think so?” he asked. Inside he panicked, but he recovered as well as he could. He didn’t want to give her any further reason to suspect she was right – she may not want to be his friend anymore. It was great to have another friend, even if it didn’t mean anything more. Even worse, though, she may be inclined to investigate, and he didn’t want her anywhere near that side of his world. He’d already roped Tyler in, he didn’t want anyone else to have to bear his burdens.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And I’m going to find out what it is.” She leaned forward and tapped her finger against his nose. He smirked, leaning back subtly as she’d inched uncomfortably close.

  They looked at each other for another moment. Garrick couldn’t tell if the thing he was feeling in the air was some kind of tension or just the awkward silence. Either way, he wanted it to end. He was starting to feel uneasy.

  He was just about to break the silence when the look in her eyes suddenly changed. She closed the distance between them and kissed him. Garrick froze, not certain how to process the information. He felt a confusing wave of emotion rush over him, and he couldn’t sort through the racing thoughts.

  She quickly stepped back, looking into his eyes, gauging his response and probably deciding if she should apologize.

  “That was…” Garrick muttered, unable to find the proper words. It wasn’t that he was necessarily stunned, but more that he was unsure of what exactly it was. Part of him was happy, but a much larger part was unsettled.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No,” Garrick told her. “Don’t be.”

  “I just thought that it was a good moment.”

  “Yeah,” he said, still trying to think of how to handle the situation. What he did was one of the worst ways he could possibly have responded. “I have to go. It has nothing to do with what just happened; it’s just that I promised Tyler I’d be somewhere. Really, I’m not leaving because of…”

  “The kiss?” she finished when Garrick trailed off.

  “Yeah. I mean no. I’m not leaving because of that. I really do have to leave, though. I’m sorry about the timing.”

  After a few seconds of a pause, he waved his phone and added “Best friend duties,” goofily. He turned and walked away, embarrassment adding to the mixture of all of the other confusing emotions swimming in his head. He absolutely did not want that to happen again. He felt like he was cheating on Hayden, even though they weren’t together anymore. He still loved her. He shook his head as his heart began pounding.

  Garrick found himself distracted by every sound as he passed. The streetlights buzzing became deafening, and the light blinding when he looked up. His stomach churned as he tried to focus on simply moving forward.

  “Okay, breathe,” he muttered under his breath, willing himself to heed his own advice. Though he was shaken by what had happened with Sammi, he knew his body’s reaction was drastically exaggerated. It was only a kiss, but for some reason, he’d lost all capability for rational thought. His head started pounding as every thought raced through his mind, and he could feel his lungs closing up, refusing to accept oxygen. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before – as if his own body was fighting him.

  Garrick pushed himself forward, moving one foot after another. Believing that focusing on a task would help him come to his senses and get over the pain, he tried to forge a path to the gym.

  He breathed deeply for a few minutes, slowing down as he tried to catch his breath. Nothing seemed to work, and he felt the panic set in. Not long after, the unfamiliar feelings began to be replaced with far more recognizable ones. He felt the pain pushing itself forward, the beast inside clawing its way to the surface. Agonized, he collapsed on all fours on the sidewalk, lurching forward. He stared at the lines in the concrete, willing his pounding migraine to fade. The pain was starting to get too powerful. He watched claws grow from his hands. Biting it back with everything he had, he stared at his fingers. The wave of pain passed by relatively quickly, and the claws retracted. He stared in awe at his hands. Last time had only been about half an hour, but this time he hadn’t even lost himself. He didn’t know if he should be excited by that or terrified by the fact that he was still so close to changing when the moon wasn’t full.

  Garrick stayed on all fours, panting as he tried to breathe. His vision was blurry, but at this point, he knew it wasn’t the wolf – it was the shock. He dropped to the ground, lying on the cold, hard concrete and staring up into the night sky. After a few minutes, he allowed himself to stand up slowly. He wiped the sweat that had been dripping from his face and continued his walk to the gym. Now more than ever, he had to find a way to stop this.

  “Wait, you stopped it?” Tyler asked. Garrick nodded. For the past five minutes, Garrick had been running on the treadmill at maximum speed and incline. In that time, he’d explained the situation to Tyler, and he still wasn’t short of breath at all. As much as he’d love to dispel the curse, he couldn’t deny that there were perks to being a werewolf.

  Still, he felt like he wasn’t reaching his maximum speed on that treadmill, and he was getting concerned that he might never even get tired. For the most part, the strength that wolves had just came from the frequent tearing and rebuilding of muscle, but their healing factor was how the muscles rebuilt so quickly. That same healing, though, would keep his body intact when a human would be gasping for breath. Aside from that, his heart was just another muscle which was torn apart as he transformed into a wolf. He’d never tried to push himself to the limits, but with everything that his body went through, he was beginning to doubt there were any.

  Even as a werewolf, though,
he was at least in part human – so he was bound to run out of energy eventually. Especially as far from the moon as it was, Garrick was sure that he didn’t have the full force of the wolf backing him, and eventually, they’d be able to determine the validity of Tyler’s newest idea.

  “I don’t know,” he responded. “I mean, yeah, I fought it. But it didn’t fight back as hard as it usually does.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t strong enough to, given the fact that it isn’t a full moon. It’s possible that the wolf’s power just grows with the moon, and then the full moon is the only night it’s strong enough to take over.”

  “That makes sense,” Garrick said. “But the moon is bigger now than it was last time, so why would it be weaker now?”

  “Well, could it have been triggered by something?” Tyler asked.

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Sammi seems to be the common factor. Perhaps somehow she brings it out of you.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time with her without anything similar happening, though.”

  “Well, the first time was a first date, right? I know you were trying to avoid that, but deep down you were bound to have some inclination that it was still interpreted that way. What about this time. Was it special?”

  “No,” Garrick said.

  “Nothing?”

  Reluctantly, Garrick offered, “She kissed me.”

  “Well, that certainly explains it. She’s triggering the transformation!”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, though. I’ve felt emotions much stronger than any of these with Hayden, but that never forced a change.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but it’s the best lead we have. Humor me; how does she make you feel?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Garrick said. For the first time since he’d started running, he began to take note of his breathing. He was beginning to have to focus on breathing correctly as he ran. There was no fatigue setting in yet, but it was a start.

  “Try.”

  “She doesn’t make me feel like anything. Wolves mate for life,” he started, using the same explanation Hayden had offered him a year ago. “So that means I can’t ever love anyone like I loved Hayden.”

  “Fine, but does that mean you can never love anyone at all?” Tyler asked.

  “Yes. I really like her, but I don’t have those kinds of feelings for her.”

  “Right, but think about this, Garrick. The way you explain it to me, the human and the wolf are basically separate entities – the two of you constantly vying for supremacy. That struggle proves that even though you’re a werewolf, part of you is still human.”

  “Okay.”

  “So there is a part of you driven by the wolf, and that part will love Hayden forever. But maybe the human side is able to move on – and to start having feelings for a new girl. If that’s the case, it follows that the wolf would be angry, because it doesn’t think you should be with anyone else. When you get too close to her, it takes over and tries to stop you.”

  Garrick tried to process the suggestion. It made sense on some level, but he didn’t want to accept it. He didn’t think he loved Sammi, but he wasn’t over Hayden, so he couldn’t distinguish that feeling quite yet. Maybe the wolf was picking up on something that he was trying desperately to hide from himself.

  “This is going to sound absolutely insane,” Garrick said.

  “What?”

  “That might actually make sense.”

  “Appreciate it,” Tyler said sarcastically. “Well, now that we have a working theory, what’s the next step?”

  “For now? I just avoid her. Our number one priority is finding a cure. If she is the reason for the mistimed transformations, I have to stay away from her in order to protect her. And if she’s not, then I am right and I just don’t love her. If that’s the case, then I can only ever love Hayden; I shouldn’t be leading Sammi on. Especially after tonight.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said hesitantly. He clearly wasn’t enthused with Garrick’s response. Garrick had been moping around since the break-up – he was well aware of that. His friend just wanted him to be happy. Still, Garrick was confident that his logic was sound, and though Tyler wasn’t happy with the conclusion, he couldn’t argue with it. “Then let’s get this cure.”

  Neither of them said anything for the next twenty minutes, but Garrick’s breathing slowly became more labored. An hour later, he started to feel like he couldn’t move his legs anymore, but he kept going. According to Tyler, he had to be so exhausted that he actually lost his ability to move.

  Tyler eventually just gave up and started thumbing through a magazine he found. He was clearly amazed at Garrick’s endurance, but even his awe had its limits. Garrick himself was surprised, but for the opposite reason. He hadn’t pushed himself since his first transformation, so he was only now discovering that he had limits at all.

  After another ten minutes, Garrick just collapsed face-first onto the treadmill. The belt continued to rotate at its maximum speed as he dropped down. Garrick turned his head as he fell, avoiding connecting with his nose first. Still, the rubber scraped layers of skin from his face as it thrust him backward. Thrust from the machine, he rolled onto his side – but his arm twisted around him and snapped, the bone splitting in two. Garrick hit the wall behind him, his head snapping back as he connected. His vision blurred for a brief moment, and he had no question in his mind that he was concussed.

  Tyler’s shouts as he jumped toward his friend melded into the cacophony of screeching noise that filled Garrick’s ears. The shattering of bone had clearly been loud enough to hear over the roar of the treadmill. Garrick looked down at his arm. Though he was seeing double, it was still blatantly obvious that it shouldn’t be bent that way. Hearing heavy footfall, Garrick looked up to see the man who’d been working at the desk running toward him. Dizziness set in due to the quick rotation of his head, but he tried to focus. As he gathered his bearings, he noticed that the treadmill’s screams began to die down. The safety key was dangling from Garrick’s collar.

  He struggled to catch his breath, but was more worried about the worker getting across the gym and to him, because it wouldn’t be difficult to notice the scrape already starting to close on Garrick’s face. If he trapped them in conversation long enough, he’d watch Garrick’s arm twist back into its proper shape.

  “Get me out of here,” Garrick managed to force out through his gasps. He blinked rapidly, trying to regain his vision. The double vision he had was starting to blend together to one, but everything was still vaguely blurry. Tyler reached down and helped his friend up. He wrapped Garrick’s good arm around his shoulder and the two walked toward the door. The worker approached them, but Tyler turned to keep Garrick’s more injured side facing away.

  “Are you alright?” The man asked. “I think I should call the paramedics, just in case.”

  “No,” Garrick argued unconvincingly.

  “We just have to get him home. He was trying to break a record – pushed himself too hard,” Tyler said. The man looked at them skeptically, but he didn’t stop them as they gently nudged past him. Garrick’s vision returned to normal as they stepped into the darkness of night, and he felt confident he could stand on his own. He straightened himself out, standing taller and taking his arm from around Tyler’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Tyler apologized.

  “Don’t be,” Garrick told him. The wound on his face had stopped bleeding, and the blood which was already there began to dry. All he wanted to do was get home and clean himself up. There wasn’t a part of him that regretted trying Tyler’s solution, because at least there was one more thing to cross off the list. He could still feel the wolf just under his skin, and the healing was clearly present, so he knew it hadn’t worked.

  “I probably should have planned this better,” Tyler ruminated, his eyes downcast. He was probably realizing, as Garrick had, that if it had worked, Garrick wouldn’t have healed very well from that injury. To Garr
ick, that would have been a small price to pay – but it was evidently weighing on Tyler.

  “No,” Garrick said. “I thought it was worth a shot. I still do. Anything that may or may not work, as long as it doesn’t put my friends at risk. A little pain passes, Tyler. I just want to be rid of this thing.”

  “You broke your arm, Garrick Elliott.”

  “Yeah, well,” Garrick said, snapping the bone back into place with his open hand. He felt the muscles and tendons begin to reform around the bone and hold it in place. “At least we know that that doesn’t work.” He moved his arm which had been broken, showing Tyler that the bones had all grown back to normal.

  Chapter 9

  Fifteen months ago

  “Hey, Chase,” Garrick muttered. He and his friend were eating lunch with Hayden and her friends again, but he’d pulled Chase away the first time an opportunity presented itself. With that group, it was difficult to find time to speak to any one person individually, but he knew he had to talk to someone.

  He wasn’t sure exactly how tasteful it was, but Chase had become one of his best friends, and no one knew Hayden better than him. He was the best one to ask for advice. Garrick was getting concerned, and he thought maybe Chase would have some idea how to tell what was going. Maybe, if it was something Hayden felt more comfortable talking to friends about than Garrick, he’d know exactly what was bothering her.

  “Yeah, what’s up?” he calmly responded. Chase didn’t seem off-put by Garrick’s tone or the fact they’d steered away from the others for this conversation. Garrick couldn’t help but wonder if that was because Chase was just a good friend – and a good actor – or if he was overplaying the awkwardness of the situation in his mind.

  “Do you know if Hayden’s alright?” Garrick forced the question out, fighting through his perceived awkwardness. She’d been acting differently for a while. He had a creeping suspicion that it had something to do with the fact that they’d slept together the previous week, but there was no chance he was going to bring that up to Chase. Still, maybe Chase would have another idea – one which would make Garrick feel a little better.