by Renee George
“Why are you--” I waved my hand at her “--all furry? Change back.”
“I can’t.” She scratched her ear with her back foot, which I found disturbing. “I’ve tried. It’s not working, and Brother Wolf isn’t talking to me right now, so I have no idea what to do at this point.”
Brother Wolf had watched over Chav when she’d been kidnapped by hunters, and he’d guided her when she’d been stalked by serial killers. The Native American deity had a habit of helping without really helping. “He sure picked a bad time to go all absentee guardian.”
“You ain’t kidding,” Chav said.
“How did we end up out here? Did we piss off a mob boss and get our asses parked in the Nevada desert?”
“We woke up in grass.”
“Oh, sure, use logic on me.” She was right though. This area was not sandy enough, aka not at all, for a desert. “I keep forgetting that Reno is in the wetlands.”
“I don’t think we're near Reno either.” Chav gestured with her nose toward a dimly lit town up the road. “Apparently,” she said, “we’re on the outskirts of Assjacket.” About fifteen feet away, a sign written in spray paint said, “Welcome to Assjacket.”
Assjacket looked deserted and spooky—a real ghost town. “That can’t be its actual name.”
“I agree,” Chav said, “but unless you want to scrape under the layer of graffiti, it’s all we got.”
The air temperature was about fifteen degrees cooler than it had been in Reno. “Where are Ruth and Willy?”
A pale, blond deer and a red, spotted bobcat came trotting up the side of the road. Chav nodded in their direction. “I believe that’s them.”
“Great. I don’t suppose they can change back to human either.”
“I imagine if they could have they would have,” Chavvah agreed.
And that meant they couldn’t talk to us. Chav’s ability to communicate was unique. Most therians in their animal forms didn’t have human speech.
“I’ll GPS locate us. Hold on.” My hobo bag had miraculously made the trip. I pulled my shoes out, put them on, then rummaged around and reached past the small first aid kit, travel hairspray, brush, ibuprofen, lip balm, my wallet, Mentholatum, a pair of clean underwear in a plastic bag—in case of an accident, like ending up outside of some town called Assjacket—and finally felt the hard edge of my smartphone. I pulled it out of the leather abyss and stared at the lighted screen. An ugly red triangle at the top of the screen taunted me. “Noooo!”
“What?”
“My phone isn’t working.” I sighed. “Since you all don’t have pockets, I don’t suppose you managed to bring anything useful along.”
“You suppose right,” said Chav. “I guess we go to Assjacket.”
“I can’t very well take a deer, a bobcat, and a mythical wolf into a non-therian town, now can I?”
A flying object zipped above our heads with a mighty shout of, “Goddess-damnit! Nooooo!”
I hit the ground as if someone knocked over a hornets’ nest and anyone poking their heads up was going to get stung. “What the hell is that?” I whispered harshly.
Chav stared at the female-shaped UFO as it zipped around like a just popped balloon. She shook her large black, furry head. “It looks like a woman, but it’s all weird and flat.”
I turned over to my back and examined the silhouette fluttering haphazardly around the sky. “No, I think you’re right on the money. How is that even possible?” The out-of-control shadow woman tumbled through the night sky toward the desolate town.
“Maybe someone gave us LSD, and we’re imagining this whole thing.”
“Together?”
“Well, maybe this is my delusion. My lack of sleep has finally caught up with me, and I’ve gone crazy.”
I stood up and pushed my dress back down around my thighs, wishing I’d worn slacks and sensible shoes. “On a positive note, I don’t think the whole supernatural thing is going to be a problem around here.”
“We should still be careful,” Chav said. The bobcat and deer nodded their agreement. “I’ve never heard of someone having the ability to fly without changing into a bird first.”
In our town, we had a resident avianthrope. Becky, who happened to be a baker with the last name of Baker, turned into an eagle on the full moon, but she certainly couldn’t fly in her human form.
“Fine.” I held up a hand. “We approach with caution. Why couldn’t we have a nice, simple bachelorette party back home, like normal people?”
The giant wolf nudged me. “It was your idea.”
“Oh, sure, rub that in my face.” I was never going to live down Reno, I could tell already. Fifty years from now, I was certain my best friend would still be razzing me about it. “Let’s just go. How much worse can it get?”
Lots worse. That’s how much.
We began walking toward Assjacket. As we traveled past the first building, a ramshackle hardware store that I suspected had gone out of business a long time ago, three fat furballs sauntered into the middle of the cracked sidewalk and blocked our path. Willy hissed, her neck-hairs standing on end. Ruth parked her doe-butt behind Chav, and Chav stepped forward and put her humongous self between me and our roadblocks.
Since the critters had not made a move to attack us, I found the small LED flashlight in my purse and shone it on the trio.
Cats! And not like Willy. These bad boys were some overfed domestics.
“Yo, lady, get that light out of my face,” a gray cat with white spots said.
I yelped, because, hello, where I’m from house cats don’t talk.
“I think she might have brain damage,” the no-neck calico said. “Just look at her. There something not-so-bright about the blonde.”
“Hey,” I said. “That’s mean.” Basically, proving his point about the not-so-bright part of his statement. I moved further behind Chav, who’d kept amazingly quiet through the opening exchange. “How can you guys talk?”
“With our mouths, doll,” the white one with gray patches quipped.
The largest of three, a gray cat with a white tummy, nodded his approval. “Good one, Boba Fett.”
“Thanks, Fat Bastard.”
Fat Bastard looked like a fat bastard, but Boba Fett? “Are you guys galactic bounty hunters? Do I need to worry about being freeze-dried in bronze?”
“Carbonite,” Chav growled.
“Oh, sure. Now you talk,” I muttered out the side of my mouth.
“No,” Boba Fett said, “she’s right. Hans Solo was frozen in carbonite.”
I widened my eyes. “So not the point.”
Fat Bastard gestured to Chavvah. “What kinda Shifter are you, toots?”
“The kind that eats cats.”
“Boba. Jango,” the largest cat said. He nodded his meaty face at me. “Let’s show this bunch of intruders why you don’t intrude in Assjacket.”
Chavvah growled. “I bet you taste delicious.”
The cat called Jango sneered. “Just wait until the Shifter Wanker gets back. You’re gonna wish you never came here.”
“I already wish that,” I said. “Look. You don’t want us here, and we don’t want to be here. But I don’t have a working phone or a vehicle, and frankly, I have no idea where here is.”
“The last is easy, sugarlegs. You’re in West Virginia.”
I groaned. “That’s not possible.”
“You’re standing next to an eight-foot-tall wolf who talks. What’s not impossible?” Boba asked.
“We were in Reno!”
“You’re from Reno? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I don’t know, okay? And we’re not from Reno. We’re from—“ I paused. In my mind’s eye, I could see the town, the people, but the name of it escaped me. How could I have forgotten where I lived?
I looked at Chavvah. “Where are we from?”
“You really have lost your mind. We live in—“ Chavvah blinked. “I can’t remember.”
“Tha
t’s really peculiar,” Jango said.
Fat Bastard shrugged his meaty shoulders. “Witches pop in and out from all over the world.”
“There’s no such thing as witches,” I said.
Jango picked his teeth with a sharp claw. “Again, from the chick standing next to the monstrosity covered in black fur.”
“Hey!” Chavvah protested. “I am not a monstrosity.”
“Then what are you, sweetheart? Because you ain’t no dame, and you ain’t no Shifter,” Boba Fett said.
Jango stretched out then stood up. “This is probably some Bermangoggleshitz cock-up.”
Fat Bastard shook his head, his whiskers twitching back and forth. “Nope. He’s a dark jackhole, but he promised Sassy he’d stay outta trouble. I don’t think he’d do anything to blow it with her.”
My skin began to buzz with the all-too-familiar aura I felt when a vision came on. “Not now,” I whispered as my eyes rolled back into my skull and every around me went black.
I am flying. I am finally fucking flying! Exile is over bitches. Yasss!
The words are coming out of my mouth, but it’s not me talking.
Without warning, it’s like my batteries to my power dies, and I drop like a stone to the ground. I can feel it. This reality is slipping from me. Nooo, this can’t be happening. I can’t be stuck here. I walk forward toward the force, and my magic fades with every step. I turn away and run. I run until my feet are once again off the ground, and I’m flying back to the one place I don’t want to be.
I look down and see four black shapes on the side of the road as I fly back to the armpit of West Virginia more determined than ever. I don’t care what it takes, now that I have my magic back, I plan to never let it go again.
My eyes snapped open, and my head felt like someone had driven a railroad spike right through my temple. “Ow.” I sat up since I was now sprawled out on the ground again. I slipped my right shoe on and noticed a large hole at the heel of my pantyhose. Damn it. With some effort, I managed to get to my feet.
“Bad one?” Chav asked.
“And then some.” Confusing as hell too, but I was beginning to believe witches did exist. “Hey—” Before I could finish, a resounding boom shook the ground beneath us.
Chav looked at me.
I shrugged. “Nope. Not what I saw.” Once again, my vision had been less than helpful.
A fiery bright flash followed a second thundering noise. The cats jumped behind a trashcan, and I ended up smashed against Chav, wearing bobcat claws on my back, and a deer nose up my butt.
After a few seconds of silence, the cats came out of hiding. “If you know what’s good for you, hot stuff, you and your buddies will clear out of town before we get back,” Fat Bastard said, then all three of them took off toward the blast.
Chapter Three
“Jayzus!” I shouted. “And ow. Get off me, Willy. I’m going to have scars on my ass.” The bobcat jumped down. “What the hell was that?” I looked around for our welcome wagon, but the three tubby felines were nowhere to be found. “Great. Just when a local tour guides might be helpful.”
“Should we go check out the explosion?” Chav asked.
I eased Ruth’s nose from my backside. “Are you crazy? We should do just the opposite. Didn’t your momma teach you anything? You don’t run toward danger. You run away from it.”
It was weird hearing a wolf snort, but Chav managed. “When was the last time you ran from danger?”
“The last time your parents came to town.” My in-laws, Babe and Chav’s mom specifically, did not exactly approve of their coyote son marrying a human. Even after squeezing two babies out my hoo-haw, I still wasn’t good enough for their youngest child.
I sucked in a breath to stop the tears. I missed my kids, Jude and Dawn, not to mention my sexy, howly, husband Babe. Why hadn’t we just stayed home? “Going to Reno was the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
Chavvah brushed me with her hairy, and kind of smelly, shoulder. “Oh, honey. I’ve known you a long time. Reno doesn’t even rank.”
“Har-har,” I said bitterly. She wasn’t wrong. I’d made some questionable choices in the past, like scrubbing a layer of skin off my face with a miracle sponge or the time I decided a bikini wax in my last month of pregnancy would be sexy. Unfortunately, those weren’t even some of my worst ideas. “We don’t have to dwell on the past right now. We should find a phone so we can call home.”
Another earth quaking firework and a deafening sound rocked us to the ground.
“Christ all mighty,” our deer-shifter friend said. “Finding a phone is the least of our worries.”
Chavvah and I turned to stare at the pale-blonde doe.
“You can talk?” I asked, feeling both shocked and incredibly relieved.
Ruth’s ears fluttered back and forth, and her white tail swished. She blinked a couple of times, then said, “I guess I can. That’s weird.”
I had to agree. Hearing human words come out of her narrow muzzle was super weird, not to mention the unnatural way her mouth was moving. It was as if we were in a kung-fu movie and English words were being dubbed over Chinese.
“Yep, weird,” Willy, still in bobcat form, agreed. Then she perked up, her body stretching high in an arch. “Hey, I can talk too.”
I groaned as a new theory formulated in my head. “We’ve died, guys. And this is hell.”
“We’re not dead, Sunny,” Chav said. “Besides, you don’t believe in Heaven or Hell.”
“But you do. What if I’m wrong, and you were right?” My lower lip jutted out. “What if you were right?”
“Then we certainly wouldn’t be in Hell.”
“I’m a non-believer, of course, I’m in Hell.”
Chav looked at me then moved her gaze to Ruth.
“Oh, right.” I might end up in the bad place, but not Ruth. “Fine. If we’re not dead, how do you explain what’s happening with you guys?”
“Just because the answer isn’t obvious doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Willy said, going into cop mode. “We just need to look at the evidence. The last thing I remember was you lunging at that fortune teller, second, we wake up outside this awful town, and third, there were three talking cats to greet us, and forth, a huge explosion a few blocks away.” She paced back and forth on the sidewalk. Her stubby tail jerking like it was having a seizure.
“And what can you conclude from all that?”
“Fuck if I know,” the bobcat said. “I’m beginning to think we followed Alice down the rabbit hole.”
“My dead theory is looking more promising all the time.”
“Hush, Sunny,” Ruth said. “We’re not dead. I did not leave home for the first time in ever to end up dead. There is a reasonable explanation for all this. We just need to find it.”
“I think we need to do a little more investigating,” Willy said.
“Agreed.” Chav started walking toward the fire. “And that explosion is as good as any place to start.”
We passed a gas station, a barber shop, a diner, and a grocery store that looked several years passed its sell-by date, and my friends were picking up speed.
I did my best to keep up, but even at a canter, they were way faster than me, the advantage of four legs over two. “Slow down!” We’d been running for what felt like an hour, but had only been about two minutes. Still, my lungs burned. I really needed to start working out again.
My heel snapped, and I cursed Reno for the umpteenth time. If I’d have had a heads up about getting high-jacked to this whack-a-doodle town, I would have put on jeans and sensible shoes.
“Damn it!” I shouted, as I kicked off my shoes and limped to where my friends had finally stopped to wait for me. I heaved a breath as we stared at the blue and white tipped flames licking the sky, mimicking the run in my hose licking up my thigh.
Ruth’s voice sounded awed. “Now that’s a fire.”
“That’s not natural,” Willy said.
“Like anythi
ng about this place is natural,” Chav agreed.
“I think this only validates my theory about us being dead.” A sharp pain in my ass made me jump. “Hey!”
Willy retracted her very, sharp claws, the ones she’d just used to gouge a hole in my flesh, and gave me the stink eye.
“Hey! You’ll ruin my—never mind. These stockings are toast.”
Willy twitched her nose at me. “I am getting married, Sunny, so I can’t be dead. So, quit saying it.”
“Ditto that,” Chav snarled.
“Denial,” I coughed.
Ruth said, “I think our best bet is to get on the road to the next town. I don’t think we’ll be finding any help here.”
I followed her stare as people and animals of all kinds ran toward the fire. It was disconcerting to see bears, wolves, chipmunks, skunks, and raccoons working together to haul water to the fire. I’d been living with therianthropes for three years, and not once had I seen them doing anything in tandem while in their animal form.
I still couldn’t tell what was on fire though? We moved closer. “What is that?” The fire began to die down. A head emerged from the flames. A bear’s head. And it was missing half its face. “Holy shitballs!” I remembered the vision I’d had when I’d grasped the fortune teller’s hand right before we wound up outside of Assjacket. “Where is she?” I scoured the mob. “Where?” When I got my hands on Tennison, I was going to punch her right in her all-seeing eye.
A chipmunk transformed into a naked man. He pointed a finger at us. “Strangers!” he shouted. Then there were three more chipmunks who shifted into their buck-naked human forms. All four of them began chanting in unison. “Stranger danger. Stranger danger. Stranger danger.”
Chapter Four
I stared at the four sets of dangly bits, because hello, naked men! While the therianthropes in my group might be immune to seeing everyone in their birthday suits, I still had my good old-fashioned human hang-ups.
Out of the side of my mouth, I said, “I’m pretty sure they’re talking about us.”