Sheep's Clothing

by Gary Lewis

  The buzz of flickering streetlights was almost audible as Randy slowed his pace beside a row of well-trimmed bushes lining the sidewalk. He began catching his breath in the silent air that hung around him like a blanket of doom that wrapped along the edges of visibility. Something he couldn't explain had gotten under his skin. He could feel its eyes on the top of his spine, to the point he was afraid to turn around. But each time he did, only the vacant darkness followed.

  He picked up his pace into a brisk jog, turning onto Oak Ridge Avenue, close to the park where he ran laps every summer morning. Distant, strobing flashes of blue lights caught his attention further down the street. It was too far away to know exactly where they were parked. "Wonder what that's about," he said as he ventured into the empty park.

  Despite the dense cover of foliage that surrounded most of the park, he felt secure in his familiar space where he could escape the world and push his frustrations and fears into the paved walkway. He started his laps and everything else faded from thought.

  A distant, long ring became louder as Randy slowed to a brisk walk and the siren became clear. Through the bushes across the park, he watched several police cars speed down the street toward the others. Must be pretty bad. He continued along the paved track where the open grass became thick with bushes in the dark where the dense forest surrounded. It was a natural border between the edge of the park and the old recreation center.

  As he listened, his senses snapped to a noise in the woods just ahead. The sound of footsteps was unmistakable. Then they stopped. As he waited for them to begin again, his thoughts had no such patience. They raced with images of the recent headlines. But several moments of silence started to calm his body. Randy took a huge huff before loosening his shoulders and resuming into a gentle stroll.

  Branches shuffled against the wooded wall of trees that surrounded the track. He leaned forward and strained his eyes deep into the gap of darkness between the trees where a black form stood in place, tall and foreboding. More movement from the brush revealed a glimpse of bright eyes and teeth. An arm shrugged the branches aside.

  Randy bolted in the opposite direction. While his feet carried him faster than ever before, he tried desperately to unsee the image of the beast now burned permanently into his mind. The black outline of its long snout and ears, its dark, shaggy fur, arms brandishing blade like claws and the bright yellow eyes, all penetrated his mind as he ran, gasping for air.

  A cold fear sucked the life from Randy's stomach, forcing it into his legs as he broke records without thought. He dashed over the nearest hill, breaking into the thin line of forest that separated the park from the old recreation center, jumping and dodging between bushes and limbs, putting distance between him and everything behind as quickly as possible. As he outran the wind itself, the foliage began to open into a clearing. The old recreation center was just ahead, but the fear that shook him deep inside burst into his feet as he leapt and slid over a muddy creek bed, coming to sliding stop at an abandoned fire pit.

  He huffed for air to slow the heartbeat exploding in his chest. Randy looked over the litter and burnt debris. The fire wasn't very old. Melted, plastic-coated burnt sticks from a used bottle of charcoal starter, stacks of burned photos and bundles of tape had partially survived the blaze. Nighttime boating pictures, it seemed.

  Curiously reaching toward the strange pile of destroyed items, Randy was startled by a sharp snap in the woods to his left. He stepped slowly backward toward the clearing, not daring to turn his back to the sound. Each long, slow, backward stride brought him a couple feet closer to the open ballfield behind him.

  Randy burst into a turn to dash toward the field. A large, hairy impact exploded into him the moment he turned. His body pounded into the dirt beside the fire pit. It had been right behind him. As he tried to roll onto his feet, sharp pains wrapped around his sides and chest. He could feel his broken ribs grind against one another with each painfully gargled breath. Struggling to raise his head from the dark earth, he stared across.

  From the ground, he could see large paws stepping toward him from canine legs. With the dim, pale blue glow of daylight approaching, its form silhouetted into a tall, dark, growling beast. It continued snarling with every paw pounding step closer. Randy's shirt felt warm inside as his wet clothes clung to his skin, soaking with blood every time he exhaled. Large gashes revealed themselves across his side as he strained to roll over and opened his mouth.

  Screams were cut short as the force of jaws clamped like a vice onto his shoulder and jerked him up. It shook him violently. He could no longer breathe as the sapling sticks broke all around him. They matched the cracking ribs that were tearing through his insides while he was slung through dead branches. Teeth sunk deeper into his shoulder, releasing and clamping back down for several more bone cracking bites. Claws slapped wildly into his sides. He could feel them ripping away pieces before the feeling went cold and left his body.

  #Sarah#

  The sound of hammering wood forced Sarah's groggy eyes open as she squinted from the couch to look across the living room in confusion. When the pounding began once again, her eyes opened in realization. The door. David's voice shouted from the other side. "Come on! Open up already!"

  She tripped across her charger cord as she clambered to her feet, knocking her phone from the living room table onto the floor before swinging the door open.

  "What the hell time is it?" she asked, cuffing her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight.

  "It's almost noon." The agitation in David's voice matched the expression of his wide eyes that rose to his disheveled hair as his arms shifted erratically. "Were you planning on sleeping all day?"

  She squinted her tired eyes. "You make a big deal, banging at the door and then just stand on my porch shouting?”

  "Didn't you get my messages, Sarah? I saw it!"

  "No. I was asleep," she said, still rubbing her eyes.

  Sarah yawned as she took a seat in the recliner and watched David pick her phone up from the floor, returning it to the smooth tabletop before anxiously sitting on her couch with tense shoulders, leaning forward to speak. "I went to the cliffs last night to meet Tony."

  "Yeah. I know." Sarah rubbed her blurry eyes as she looked at his confused expression.

  "How would you know that?" David's tone rang with suspicion.

  "Umm." Sarah squatted forward to reach across the room to her phone on the table. She unlocked it and turned it to show him the messages. "Tony said he was going to meet you there in the group chat."

  "That's weird," David said. "He said nobody knew."

  Sarah listened silently as David continued. "I saw it. It came out right after Tony left."

  "Wait." Sarah's suspicions started to collide with David's account. "Did you say after he left?"

  David shrugged his arm aside. "Yeah, but it was already coming before that."

  "How the hell do you know that?" Her frustration now clashed against David's gullibility as she slanted her eyes at him.

  "Because," he said, sweeping his arms out. "We fucking heard it."

  "Did you go to the police or anything?" she asked.

  "Well, no. What would I say?" David asked before lifting his hand to continue. "And there's more."

  "Well, I'm all ears."

  "Something happened at the lumber yard and there were two deaths," he said quickly. "They haven't released the details yet, but there's cops everywhere and it looks like they're really enforcing the curfew now."

  "Are you absolutely sure it was a werewolf you saw last night?" Sarah tried to hold back the smile that threatened to press its way across the side of her cheek as David rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  "Of course I'm sure. Now you're going to act like I'm the crazy one?" His eyebrows pressed as he stared back at her.

  "That's not what I mean," she said, her curiosity now beginning to take over. "How could you tell it was a werewolf for sure? Hopefully you got a better look at it than
your camera did."

  "Oh. I'm sure. Trust me. Give me that thing," David said, walking over to pick up Sarah's werewolf book.

  "You see that?" he asked, slamming his finger against the page to land on an old illustration of a two-legged beast, covered in fur with a narrow but snarled snout, large ears and legs shaped like the hind legs of a dog. "Do you see that?" David asked.

  "It looked like this?" Sarah asked.

  "No. It looked even more like a werewolf than this," he said with wide eyes. "Unmistakable."

  Every etched line that marked its way through the picture inked its way into Sarah's mind, filling her with disbelief and awe. "Well, it's settled," she said. She swiftly slung her purse over her shoulder and strode straight for the door before pausing to look back at David. His mouth hung open as he leaned forward from where he sat on her couch, looking at her. "What are you waiting for?" she asked. "Let's go."

  "You can't be serious," he said.

  She turned toward her porch and continued to the steps.

  "But I haven't even gotten ahold of anyone else yet," his voice approached from the door as she strode through the bright sunlight toward his car.

  "Janice not answering her phone?" Sarah asked as she climbed into the driver seat of his car. “Hurry up, already.”

  David strolled closer to where she sat waiting in his car as he waded through her knee high grass. “I really wish you would cut this stuff some time,” he said as he approached the side of the car.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Sure, your highness. I’ll get right on that as soon as I deal with the dining room.”

  “That’s never been a problem,” he said as he opened the passenger side door and bent to look at her, pointing at the jungle of plant life protruding from her yard. “This is the stuff I have to try and walk through every time.”

  Sarah’s eyes lowered to the bottom of the steering wheel. I just can’t right now.

  He finally slumped into the passenger seat and buckled up with a sigh before he turned to look at her. “For the record, I think this is a terrible idea.”

  ###

  Sarah cruised through traffic along Central Avenue as Bluff Mountain loomed closer by the mile. She observed David's anxious fidgeting while she looked across at the blackening clouds to the west, a heavy shade of darkness that wanted to claim the bright sunny day and smother it with gloom. The four lanes of highway became two and eventually gave way to gravel. The dense forests once again swallowed them into the belly of seclusion as Sarah's stomach began to turn with anticipation of the unknown.

  ###

  "Here we are," David said from the safety of his car as Sarah stepped out onto the rocky parking area near the trailhead at the cliffs. "It was over there."

  "Well?" she asked as David let out a sigh and hesitantly opened his door.

  "It was standing right here?" she asked

  "No. Over that way, just behind the trees."

  Sarah walked cautiously in the direction that he pointed, stepping carefully as she examined the dirt. The clumped bits of soil and stray pebbles of gravel weren't unlike the mess of brush and branches turned this way and that. It was story written into nature, describing everything that happened there. Unfortunately, it was a language that she was completely illiterate in.

  "Figure anything out yet?" David asked, still hanging back.

  "If we had a hunter with us, we could probably track this thing pretty quick," she said, finding an opening in his defenses. "Oh, but wait.” She tilted her head and glanced her eyes widely to the sky. “That's right. We can't, because the only one of us that actually knows how to do that is at odds with you over Janice."

  David didn't say a word, but she knew he got her point.

  "No. I can't make anything out over here," she said. "Which way do you think it went after you left?"

  "How the hell should I know?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "Thought you were the expert, here."

  "You know what?" she said loudly, folding her arms. "You're right. Let me just get out my damn werewolf handbook and we can CSI this back together." Sarah's annoyance was beginning to match his as the summer sun cooked away at their patience.

  "You sure that's a good idea?" David's now distant voice sounded behind her as her steps brought her a little further. She only intended to step a little beyond the yellow tape still urging adventure seekers to turn back to the world from which they came. But with every step, she was compelled to venture further down the shaded trail. There was always something else just ahead. Another broken stick, old footprint, or patch of disturbed dirt, another potential clue that turned out to be nothing.

  "Wait up." David's voice preceded the sound of his jog as he began to catch up. A distant noise trickled closer to them as they approached the familiar gathering place. The creek still looked the same as it did the other day. Even the beer cans and cigarette butts still littered the rocks.

  "You check over that way." Sarah pointed toward the large tree that David had once sat against. "And I'll look around the creek." She began to stride toward the muddy slope that led down to a flowing gush of crystal-clear water.

  "What exactly am I looking for?" he asked as he wandered aimlessly around a pile of giant rocks above a muddy path that rose high from the other side of creek.

  She shrugged. "Anything that looks like it might have been-"

  "Sarah. Hurry!” David said, waving her over. “Check this out."

  She trekked carefully up the damp, slippery mud near the stream, noticing every disturbance in the soil as it shifted from order into chaos. Bare footprints led up from the creek, mashing the wet clay apart. Though they were only partial and their size was unclear, they were definitely human toes. Sarah followed them further as they became broader and more defined.

  "No,” David said. “Up here!"

  Sarah squatted in the mud, transfixed on the tracks. "No. I think you should come down here and see this." Her eyes slowly followed the muddy prints up the hill. "They turn into giant paws."

  As she rose to her feet, she pulled her phone from her pocket and focused the camera on the ground to find the right angle. "Shit." Her annoyance blurted at the low battery icon just before the screen went black. "I charged this damn thing all night."

  "Probably messed it up when you knocked it over," David mumbled from the top of the hill, still looking around his feet.

  "Oh of course. It was my fault." She stood to press her fist against her hip and glared up at him. "Had nothing to you with you banging at my door this morning."

  David looked away as he stepped carefully around, continuing his search. "It wasn't morning."

  The forest seemed much darker than when they arrived and the midday heat subsided into a cool breeze. It picked up into an occasional gust that whistled between the tightly packed trees, now beginning to slightly sway back and forth. A slow, deep rumble finished with a sharp crackle above the canopy of the trees. The sound of leaves, now rustling together, rushed Sarah's ears from all sides.

  "We better hurry before it rains," Sarah said, marching back down the slippery mud toward the other side of the creek. Her foot banged into something, sending her into a stumbling slide. She barely caught herself before coming to an arm balancing stop just beside the unsearched end of the stream.

  Imprinted into the damp, reddish brown earth, large animal tracks became long streaks of claw that stretched from where they dug deeply into the earth. "They stop here?" she asked as she ran up to meet David where boot prints had smeared across the damp ground into an obvious scuffle that spread around about a fifteen-foot area of recently broken branches and ripped clothing.

  "I told you it was here last night." he said, squatting to examine the ground.

  "No.” Sarah lowered her eyes. “This was from Brad's jacket. Don't you remember?"

  His eyes slowly rose to her face. "It might not be his, Sarah."

  "Yeah. I mean, it's not like I would know Brad's jacket or anything." She rolled her eyes and
turned her face away as the wind picked up, sweeping her blonde hair to blow into the wind.

  Sarah wondered why David would try so hard to convince her of what he saw. Why is he pretending that he doesn't recognize Brad's jacket?

  Another crackle of thunder cut through her thoughts and gave way to a pattering sound on the treetops above. "We better go," he said, marching back toward the trail as she stepped faster to catch up.

  Before she realized, they were racing through pouring rain, back toward the red metal shelter that they drove in on, still parked at the approaching trailhead.

  Just as they shut the doors, the floodgates opened to a torrent of rain. "Let's hurry before the road gets bad," David said as he started the engine. The previously dry crackle of gravel under tires was now replaced by the grinding of rocks smooshing through mud as the tires crashed up and down. The car slammed through underwater holes covered in a stream of brown muck. David drove on, splashing their way down the steep route known for its sudden and treacherous transformation during storms.

  "Damn,” David said, leaning forward to press his eyes through the pouring rain with concern. “This one really came out of nowhere." Sarah saw him reach for his wiper switch in vain. They were already on full blast, unable to sway the waterfall from the windshield ahead.

  "Don't slow down! Keep it moving through the puddles," she shouted over the pounding of water and thunder. Fear started to take over her expectations of returning home.

  "Relax. I know what I'm doing," he said with a tone of confidence that caught her off guard. She noticed the car barreling around curves, perfectly straddling holes and dodging every branch and chunk of wood that appeared in their way.

  Sarah's trust in David's capability now renewed more with every boom and flash from the sky. The sounds faded into the background as all the uncertainty washed away into the torrent that sprayed across their windows. Time slowed and her worries dissolved behind the splashing tires. She looked back across at him as he guided the wheel. He was in complete control and their destination disappeared from her mind as he turned to look back at her.