Stages of Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘Lord, no.’ Trista chuckled. ‘That was a fiasco. But that wasn’t the fault of the interpretation.’

  ‘I heard it was pretty out there.’ Raleigh would always be the voice of reason. ‘Even for Off-Off Broadway.’

  Trista was shaking her head. ‘No, from what I read, it was the lead – the Hamlet – some newbie named Harvey Brenkham. Everyone said Brenkham looked the part: dark and brooding. But on opening night he lost it. Total stage fright. Squeaky voice. Forgetting his lines.’

  ‘Poor guy.’ Despite herself, Dulcie was drawn in.

  ‘Pity the rest of the cast, not him.’ Trista snorted. ‘Halfway through the ghost scene, he took off – ran off the stage and out of the theater. I gather the audience thought it was part of the production, but it wasn’t. They had to vamp their way through the rest of the scene and then wait while the understudy got in costume. Brenkham’s never going to work again.’

  ‘Well, that might be something to see.’ Lloyd looked intrigued, at least until Raleigh elbowed him. ‘Or not. But I’d be up for the URT thing.’

  ‘Me too, if the price is right.’ Chris’s familiar voice came from behind her. Dulcie turned to see her boyfriend and Jerry, both shedding their parkas as they pulled up chairs. ‘Dulcie, you interested?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Her smile had more to do with his arrival than their plans, but so be it. Besides, Trista might have a point about Chris wanting to go out. Dulcie liked to think that she and Chris had a special bond, but her blonde friend knew more about men than Dulcie did. Jerry still hung around, despite what Dulcie suspected were at least heavy flirtations on his girlfriend’s part. Besides, ever since she had begun to question Chris’s odd disappearances, Dulcie had found herself wondering about their relationship as well. Because if he wasn’t a … well, what she feared he might be, then where was he disappearing to at night? If he were a wolf, she would rather he be the faithful kind.

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Trista wasn’t wasting any time.

  ‘Maybe if I can get more work done tonight.’ Before Trista could argue, Dulcie turned to her boyfriend, who was reaching for the communal pitcher of beer. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  She caught her boyfriend mid-swallow. ‘Let me finish this, and I’ll walk you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She stood, pulling her own coat from the seat-back as she rose. ‘You just got here. Hang out a bit.’

  ‘You sure?’ He’d already put his glass down. If they were at the People’s Republik, they’d have full-size pints.

  ‘Yeah.’ She wasn’t. Not at all. In fact, if anything, she was sure of the opposite – that she wanted to sit with her boyfriend and unwind with her friends. But if they were going to go out tomorrow – an actual date, if you counted hanging out with a half-dozen other graduate students a date – then she knew what she needed to do. ‘Stay. Have fun.’

  ‘I should go, too.’ Lloyd rose. ‘I’ll walk with you, Dulcie.’ Raleigh got up as well.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Her smile was genuine now. She might not want to leave, but the show of loyalty made it almost worthwhile. ‘Enjoy the night while you can. You’re both so much better with deadlines.’

  With a quick kiss for Chris, she started for the door. Any longer and her resolve would weaken.

  ‘That is a woman who is ready to finish her thesis,’ she heard Trista say as she walked away. ‘Frankly, I’m glad. She’s been dallying with it for long enough.’

  THREE

  Suze, you around?

  Texting and walking wasn’t the smartest idea. Dulcie wasn’t really afraid of street crime – she was still in the Square, with its bright lights and crowds – but Cambridge’s brick sidewalks could make walking treacherous, even without the distraction.

  Call me?

  Tonight, though, she needed a little positive reinforcement. Suze and Dulcie had been room-mates for years – since they were both sophomores. Recently they’d drifted, a natural enough occurrence, Dulcie figured. Suze was working and studying for the bar, while Dulcie was still in school. But at times like this, Dulcie really missed her no-nonsense friend. Trista might be in her discipline – a Victorian, but still a lit major – but she had changed. Some of it was status – the multiply pierced blonde had successfully defended her own dissertation and had landed a prestigious post-doc. Some of it was … Dulcie shook her head. She didn’t know. Only that Trista had become more and more set on dominating their little social group, or at least on telling Dulcie how to run her life. And that crack about finishing her thesis. Didn’t she remember? Trista had gotten so caught up in her own dissertation that she’d given them all a scare, not that long ago, disappearing without a trace for several days.

  Besides, it wasn’t that Dulcie didn’t want to finish. Of course she did. It was more that she wanted to make sure she did it right. By the time she defended her thesis, she wanted to know everything about the anonymous author she was studying. She may have started wanting to write a simple exegesis of one book, The Ravages of Umbria. But she was way past that now. And, really, with so much material waiting to be examined, how could she stop?

  It was unfair to say she was stalling. It was also, she admitted, possibly partially true. It was scary to contemplate what she would do after she’d gotten her degree. And if that was the case, could Trista’s other complaints hold water?

  ‘Maybe I am too much of a hippy.’ Dulcie remembered one of Trista’s criticisms. ‘Lucy would love that.’ Lucy, Dulcie’s mom, still lived on the commune where she had taken her daughter nearly twenty years before. The commune – although Lucy insisted on calling it an arts colony – was far from perfect. If Dulcie never ate another bean casserole in her life, it would be too soon. But its focus on cooperative government, while highly inefficient, had left Dulcie resistant to leaders of any kind.

  Suze would understand, and shivering in the wind, Dulcie thought about texting her friend again. But, no, she checked her phone. Suze hadn’t responded. Besides, if she were really being honest, Dulcie would admit to herself that it wasn’t only Trista who was bothering her. It was Chris. Chris and the idea that he just might be …

  She shook her head and reached up to button her collar higher. Just the thought made the night seem colder.

  It wasn’t the kind of thing she could ask about. She’d tried, once before. Come right out and told Chris that she thought he might be at least partly not human. There had been a lot going on, and he’d responded with confusion, so she had let it go.

  She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. She, Dulcie Schwartz, was many things. A doctoral candidate. The only child of a slightly nutty mother. The possible descendent of a brilliant Gothic author. All of these were part of her, and if somebody only focused on one facet – say, that she was able to communicate with the spirit of her late, great cat, Mr Grey – well, they might think she was a bit odd, as well. So what if her boyfriend were a werewolf. Did that really matter?

  It wasn’t as if he killed people.

  He hadn’t, had he?

  As Dulcie made her way through the Square, she found herself pondering the possibility. A wolf, by its nature, was a hunter. Chris was certainly a carnivore. Dulcie could distinctly recall some choice comments on the subject when one of their friends – it must have been Trista – had gone, briefly, vegan and invited them all to a meal featuring seitan. It had not been pretty. Unbidden, the image of what had happened on the way home came to her. Pizza – with sausage and pepperoni – devoured almost wordlessly. If she closed her eyes, she could still see his teeth …

  ‘Hey, lady!’

  Startled out of her memory, Dulcie stopped short, just in time to keep herself from walking into the man in front of her. Tall and lean, he looked down at her with a frown.

  ‘Sorry.’ She shrugged. ‘I was thinking of something.’

  His only response was to arch his eyebrows and shake what Dulcie now saw was a shoulder-length gold mane.

  ‘I said I was sorry,’ Dulcie barely mumbled
the words as he passed her by, leaning away from her as they passed on the narrow sidewalk. It was a bit theatrical, but she couldn’t really be angry with the leonine stranger. He’d probably been trying to dodge her as she had walked into him. Still, she didn’t need some random passer-by making her feel any less secure. Not when she had so many questions about the real man in her life.

  As if on cue, her phone rang.

  ‘Dulcie? Where are you?’ It was Chris, and Dulcie stopped walking again.

  ‘Why? What is it?’ Something was wrong, she could hear it in his voice.

  ‘I shouldn’t have let you leave like that.’ Behind him, she could hear the noise of the bar. Trista, she thought, was still talking, though maybe she was imagining that. ‘It’s not safe and, well, I’d rather spend my time with you. I’m coming to get you.’

  A wave of relief swept over her, warming her despite the bitter wind. ‘Thanks, sweetie.’ She felt honor-bound to add: ‘You don’t have to, you know.’

  ‘I know. I want to.’ The bar noise was gone, and she imagined him on the street outside. ‘So, where are you?’

  She looked up. ‘Down by that new hotel. The one that used to be the gas station?’

  ‘Got it. Wait there, sweetie.’ He hung up before she could protest again. He was such a sweetheart. Really, her suspicions were crazy. So maybe he had a dark side. Dulcie pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of the oversized sweater that served as her winter coat and stared at the building across the street. Since she didn’t drive – none of them could afford cars – she’d never had reason to patronize the old-fashioned service station that had stood on the corner for as long as she had been in town. Still, it had been a surprise when it had been torn down. Didn’t people need to buy gas any more? And when a sign appeared, announcing a hotel to be opened on the same spot, she’d found it confusing.

  ‘Why don’t they just call it Gas?’ Trista had quipped, when it first opened. This was back when Trista was still interacting rather than pronouncing.

  ‘The Fill-Up,’ Lloyd had offered, prompting Raleigh to respond with, ‘The Pump,’ and then a blush, as the rest of them had filled in the off-color possibilities for a no-tell hotel.

  The result had been anything but – it was a small boutique hotel simply called ‘H’.

  ‘It’s too pricey for my parents,’ Suze had reported. She had been the first one to check it out. ‘I’m thinking the university will use it for visiting bigwigs.’

  ‘I guess,’ Dulcie had said, strangely saddened. Another sign that the college town she had fallen in love with nearly ten years before was outgrowing its old counterculture ways.

  ‘Things change,’ Chris had thrown in, picking up on her melancholy. Standing on the corner, waiting for him, Dulcie told herself that wasn’t all bad.

  She was also, she told herself after another arctic blast, an idiot. The H might be too expensive for Suze’s parents – and that meant it was certainly out of Lucy’s budget, if her mother ever did manage to come east. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t avail herself of the lobby. Rather than standing on the sidewalk looking in at the warm glow of shaded lamps on leather sofas, she could be waiting inside.

  She pulled her phone out again. ‘Chris?’ No, her call went straight to voicemail. ‘Chris, I’m going to wait inside the lobby of the new hotel. Okay?’

  He’d find her, wouldn’t he? Stepping into the street, Dulcie paused to peer back down the way she’d come. A cab went by, and a couple huddled close. She took another step. No sign of her boyfriend. Retreating back to the sidewalk, she tried his phone again. Nothing, and just to be on the safe side, she texted him: In H lobby. Find me!

  She’d had a few minutes’ head start, but not that long. When she’d texted Suze, she’d stopped walking – a lesson she should have remembered when she nearly collided with the gold-maned stranger. And Chris had much longer legs. Plus, he knew she was waiting, out here in the cold. She looked down the street. Nothing.

  There was no point in worrying. Maybe he’d stopped for a slice. That wouldn’t be too surprising. Dulcie could imagine him ducking in, thinking he would grab one and go – and then realizing that he could bring a whole pie back to the apartment. That would add a minute or two, but it would be worth it, she told herself. He was a generous man, even if he might be a bit careless. And, really, if she were waiting for him inside, where it was warm, she wouldn’t mind a few more minutes.

  Resisting the urge to check her phone – or to call – one more time, she stepped off the curb. And wheeled around as a horrific cry rent the air.

  ‘No!’ A man’s voice – she thought it was a man’s – rang out, somewhere in the direction of the Square.

  ‘Chris!’ She called his name out loud as she turned and ran toward the noise. ‘Chris!’

  ‘No!’ A small crowd had gathered at the next corner, but she pushed her way through. There, under an abnormally bright street light, she saw him. Not Chris, but the handsome stranger. Only those strong, regular features weren’t handsome any more. Instead, they were contorted, his wide mouth stretched open in a wordless cry, long blond hair thrown back. The wolves had gotten him. They were dragging him down, taking him into the shadows.

  FOUR

  ‘Wait, no!’ The voice sounded familiar, but Dulcie didn’t pause. She pushed ahead, toward that scream, toward the shadow. And then suddenly she wasn’t going forward, as hands wrapped around her, pulling her back. Desperate to help, she jerked herself free – and felt herself fall, the grey stone of the curb rushing up to meet her.

  ‘Dulcie? Are you okay?’ The voice was familiar but faint. She was deep, deep under the sea. ‘Dulcie?’

  ‘Stand back, please.’ Another voice, breaking in. ‘Stand back. Coming through.’

  ‘Dulcie?’ She opened her eyes to see Chris, his face drawn and more pale than usual under the blue-white street lights. Around him, five or six other faces leaned in. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What?’ Before she could properly respond, Chris disappeared. A burly stranger took his place, blocking out the others.

  ‘Don’t try to get up, Miss. Just relax.’

  ‘Wait …’ Where had Chris gone? Dulcie sat up, only to be hit by a wave of dizziness and nausea.

  ‘Steady there.’ Hands like catcher’s mitts wrapped around her upper arms.

  ‘Dulcie!’ Chris’s face popped up over the broad man’s shoulder, his dark eyes wide.

  ‘Chris.’ The nausea was replaced by relief, and she reached out to him. ‘Give me a hand?’

  ‘Miss, don’t.’ The stranger held on, and she turned toward him.

  ‘Do you mind?’ She channeled her best Thorpe and reached forward, taking Chris’s outstretched glove.

  ‘Dulcie, are you all right?’ He pulled her to her feet, and she fought another wave of dizziness.

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded. A mistake. ‘I think so. What happened?’

  ‘You fell and hit your head.’ Chris was shaking his. ‘I heard you yell.’

  ‘Miss, you really should come with us.’ The big stranger – who, Dulcie now noticed, was wearing an EMT jacket, size XXL – started to nudge Chris back among the other bystanders.

  ‘No, wait.’ It was coming back to her, and she turned toward her boyfriend. ‘Someone grabbed me. I was … what happened to the wolves?’

  ‘Miss.’ With a nod to Chris, the EMT wrapped a thick arm around Dulcie. ‘Let’s go—’

  ‘No!’ Dulcie shook free. ‘I know what I’m talking about. The reason I was running – the reason I fell – was that I saw someone – a man with long hair – being attacked.’ She looked up at Chris. ‘I did.’

  ‘I believe you, honey.’ He turned to the EMT. ‘She sounds like herself. Can I just take her home?’

  The tech didn’t look pleased, but before he could object another voice chimed in. ‘Phil, there’s another call.’

  ‘Well, okay then. I’m writing this one down as non-compliant.’ With a grumble like rocks rolling down
a mountain, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘Maybe we should go to the university health services.’ Chris was by her side, and she leaned on him. ‘I mean, you were out cold.’

  ‘Was I?’ Now that the drama was gone, along with the ambulance, the small crowd was dispersing as well. ‘Chris, that man – the one who was attacked – what happened to him?’

  Her boyfriend only shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dulcie. There’s nobody here.’

  She pushed past him and stared down the street. The blue-white light put the pavement and sidewalks in high relief, and she ran down to the break in the buildings, to stare down into the shadowed alleyway where she was sure …

  There was nothing. Not even a garbage can. The buildings on both sides ran back about twenty feet to a dead end: a solid brick wall that lacked even a door. Not that wolves could open a door. Though if the wolves were really …

  ‘Dulcie?’ Chris called from the sidewalk and started walking toward her.

  Quickly she dropped to the pavement and ran her hand along the asphalt. No blood, not that she could see, although there was a strange faint glitter to the dark surface.

  ‘Dulcie?’ Chris was kneeling beside her now, taking her hand in his. ‘Maybe we should go now? I think you should see a doctor after all.’

  FIVE

  Dulcie knew enough to keep her mouth shut. Even as the doctor shone his light into her eyes, asking her to tell him what had happened, she both tried not to blink and to sound coherent. Talking about a pack of wolves in Harvard Square wouldn’t help her case at all.

  Chris, however, ratted her out. ‘She was talking about wolves, Doctor.’ He had cornered the tired-looking physician as he’d started to leave the room. But if Chris thought that Dulcie couldn’t hear him, he was mistaken. ‘About a wolf pack taking down some blond guy.’