Lunatic Fringe

by Allison Moon

Lexie, go to them, Archer chattered. They’ll do something stupid.

  To human eyes and ears, Archer’s snapping language looked like threats. Another bullet slipped into a chamber with a loud ‘shink.’ This time, one of the other hunters pulled the trigger. The shot cracked through the forest, the bullet whizzing by Lexie’s torso to clip Archer’s foreleg. She yelped, falling onto her back.

  “Stop it!” Lexie screamed, spreading her arms to create a bigger shield. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Get over here, you idiot!” the younger hunter shouted back.

  “Hank, tell them to stop!”

  “Lexie Clarion? Christ, Lexie, get away from that thing! It’ll kill you!”

  “No, she won’t! Stop!”

  Another bullet whizzed by Lexie and skipped off Archer’s back.

  “Shit, Randy, stop shooting. You’ll hit her!” Hank shouted.

  Another ‘shink’ of a reload said Randy wasn’t listening, too intent on bagging the beast that killed those boys. He shot.

  Fire slid along Lexie’s flesh, as the bullet sliced through her deltoid. Lexie soared backwards and hit the ground, blood splattering from her wound. With a bestial growl, Archer bounded over Lexie’s prone body and launched herself at the hunters.

  Lexie rolled onto her good shoulder, struggling to rise as she watched Archer’s forepaws drive Hank into the ground. Her swinging tail, like a medieval mace, smashed Randy across the face. Teeth, blood, and spit flew. Archer twisted her body to the side, using her haunches to knock the third hunter onto his back. Before Lexie could fight through the pain to scream at Archer to stop, the older man was unconscious, Randy rolled on the ground clutching a broken jaw, and Hank was on his back, silent.

  Archer ran back to tend to Lexie, whining and licking her wound, a simple slice beneath all the blood. Lexie pushed Archer’s furry snout aside, gaping at the results of Archer’s outburst.

  Are you okay? Archer chattered.

  “What did you do?” Lexie said.

  He shot you.

  “Is Hank breathing?”

  I don’t know.

  “Is he breathing!”

  No.

  “Oh my god.” Lexie struggled to her feet, clutching her wounded shoulder, and ran to the men.

  “Oh my god,” she repeated, dropping to her knees in front of Hank’s body. Next to him, Randy wheezed and moaned, shut-eyed as he managed the pain.

  “You killed him,” Lexie said, touching his neck with her fingertips and leaning her cheek to his face.

  We have to get out of here.

  “These guys need to go to the hospital! Fuck, Archer, you killed him.”

  I just knocked him over.

  “He’s dead, Archer!”

  Archer stepped over to investigate. She nudged Hank’s head to one side. It rolled like a ball on a string. Beneath it, a pine-strewn plane of rock was wet with blood. The back of Hank’s balding head was dented like a hardboiled egg.

  Shit, Archer muttered under her breath.

  “Shit? Shit?! Yeah, bad luck, huh? You killing a man like that. What a bummer,” Lexie shouted through tears.

  Archer tilted her head, wolf ears swiveling as to try to make sense of the sarcasm.

  I didn’t mean to-- Archer chattered, shamed.

  “I don’t care what you meant to do! You’re just an animal, and you made me forget. You’re not human. You don’t care about human life.”

  I do. Of course I do, Archer whined.

  “Bullshit!” Lexie shouted, an unfamiliar rage burning her skin more than the bullet wound.

  I value your life over anyone’s. Over mine.

  “They wouldn’t have hurt me. They couldn’t have.”

  Yes, they could have! I wasn’t going to let them take you from me. Not them. Not now. Not like this. Archer’s gemstone eyes sparkled with moisture, though she was incapable of producing tears.

  “You’re just a beast. A monster!” Lexie screamed, regretting the words the moment they left her mouth.

  You wanted this from me, Archer whispered, as timid as a scolded child.

  “I was wrong. I don’t want this anymore. Go away, before anyone else dies.” She should have never asked Archer to turn for her, never asked her come to this place, never should have expected Archer to defend her. It was all a mistake, the greedy affectations of a silly girl in love, and now a man was dead.

  Archer whined deep in her throat, waiting like a puppy for Lexie to pat her head and tell her she did a good job.

  The reassurance didn’t come. Lexie rested her hand on Hank’s prickly, cooling cheek. Her shoulders sagged.

  “Seriously, Archer. Leave. Now.”

  Archer’s tail fell and head slumped. She hesitated for one more moment before skulking away.

  Lexie turned her attention back to Hank, pulling her cellphone from her pocket and dialing 911. Randy stirred, and she touched his forehead, whispering, “It’s okay. Help is coming.”

  Chapter 18

  Lexie and her father sat in silence in the outpatient room of the hospital. Hank was dead, Randy was resting, and the other man and his wife were receiving directions from the doctor on how to tend to his concussion. Upon his arrival, Mr. Clarion had quietly conversed with the newly-conscious men while a nervous young nurse spooled stitches through Lexie’s arm. The third hunter, unknown to Lexie, was George Koda, and he owned the gas station down on River Road. His wife held his hand like she was clutching a bird.

  Lexie held onto her nausea in a similar manner, shutting her esophagus and tightening the strings of her belly, refusing to let her stomach win the skirmish. There was too much yet to figure out. She feared the hunter’s interpretation of the scene. Lexie’s nose tickled with the need to track Duane, to find him before the cops did, or worse, before the werewolf returned to finish the job. But she couldn’t just leave. Not while her father was here.

  He hadn’t said anything when he joined her, and now he sat at her side, mourning in his singular fashion: silent contemplation. Lexie didn’t mind. She approved of silence as an expression of grief. Her father had perfected this posture, retreating into himself like a sea anemone at the first sign of emotional damage. She had never heard him raise his voice, even as her mother walked out the door. Since then, both their lives were an exercise in emotional restraint.

  As a child, Lexie had done what any child would: she tried to act a surrogate for her mother, homemaking, providing company, taking care of him, trying to revive the more convivial version of the father she had grown up knowing. The one thing she couldn’t provide to him, however, was the one thing that he needed, the love and appreciation of a partner, to know that he was doing a good job as a man. But he wasn’t. He had failed at being a husband, which made succeeding as a father irrelevant.

  Lexie had given up on the hope that by being a good enough daughter--accompanying him on hunting trips, fishing trips, camping trips, cooking, cleaning, getting good grades--she could pull him out of the depths. Ten years of that routine did little as far as she could see. That she couldn’t warm him back to his former self, Lexie considered her own failure. So together they sat in the hospital room, bearing witness to one another’s sadness in the only way they knew how: uncomfortable silence.

  Finally, Ray’s anger sprang forth. “What the hell were you doing out there?” His tone was one Lexie knew well, low and steely, with an undercurrent of rage. Her dad was a large man who learned early on to control his anger, lest he terrify the smaller and weaker. This chilly anger was scarier to Lexie than any screaming rage.

  Lexie shrugged, the classic rebuttal of guilty children everywhere.

  “Four boys were just torn apart on that spot, and you’re wandering around playing Nancy Drew.”

  “I wasn’t--”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I was fine until those guys came along,” Lexie mumbled.

  “The fact you’re alive now is a miracle.” Her dad’s voice wavered now, as the fear
seeped through the anger.

  “The only thing that hurt me was Randy’s lousy fucking shot.”

  He raised his eyebrows, his voice growing colder. “He saved your life.”

  “That’s bullshit, Dad. He shot me!”

  “Watch your language, young lady.”

  “What other damage is there on me? Claw marks? Bite marks?” She tugged at her clothing, showing him her unmarked flesh. “Nothing except his goddamn bullet.” Again a silence rolled through the room.

  “I don’t like what this school is doing to you.”

  Lexie rolled her eyes.

  “You never used to sass me like this. I think this education is making you . . .” He trailed off in frustration.

  “What, Dad? Uppity? Mouthy? Bitchy?”

  Ray raised his palms in defense. “Alright, Lexie. Calm down. This isn’t like you.”

  “How would you know what I’m like?”

  “We spent eighteen years under the same roof. I know you better than you think I do.”

  Lexie wanted to defy him now by revealing all her secrets. She’d be proven right, and he’d be shamed with his ignorance. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek, resisting.

  “Listen, if there’s something going on, I’d like to know, Lex.”

  “Nothing you can help me with,” she said, throat tight with bitterness.

  Ray groaned and scrubbed his face hard enough to redden the skin. “You really are your mother’s daughter.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shook his head, unwilling to engage in the fight she craved.

  “You could’ve made her stay.”

  Ray snorted in something like a laugh.

  “This is funny to you?” Lexie snipped.

  “If you had really known your mother, you would’ve known that no one could make her do anything. Most of all, stay still.”

  “Well, I’ll never have that chance now, will I?”

  “Why are you taking this out on me? I didn’t want her to go either, Lex.”

  “It must’ve been your fault,” she muttered. “If you were a real man . . .”

  “I would have, what? Locked her in the house? Beat her into submission? What do you know about being a real man?”

  “She would’ve--”

  “Listen kiddo,” he interrupted. “You have no idea what kind of husband I was. She left because she had a bug up her ass to run since I met her. It’s what made me fall in love with her, and it’s what made her always keep one foot out the door. Your ma and I settled down way too young. I don’t regret it, but she always did. She wanted adventure, and I wanted a home and a family. I wanted you. You seem to think that I’m a lousy father, but I swear I’ve done the best I could. And I think you and me have done an alright job of making it work.”

  “You made me stay in town for school.”

  “Is that what this is about? You know I couldn’t afford anything else.”

  “I could’ve gotten a scholarship somewhere else.”

  “Maybe. But then I’d never see you again. I’m not like those Milton parents. I can’t fly across the country for every play or game.”

  “So?”

  “Lexie, we’re all each other has. That might not mean much to you now, but it’ll mean something to you someday. People’ll come and go all your life, but you’ve got me until the end.”

  Ray’s face burned pink, with shame or anger, Lexie could no longer tell. “Listen, your ma fucked up big time because she said she would stay when she wanted to run. You’ve got yourself opportunities that neither of us ever had. You can get yourself an education, and you can do whatever you want in this world. You’re smart, and you’re pretty, and you’re kind. I’m proud of you every day.” His eye-contact disturbed Lexie in its strength, which Lexie never knew her father to possess.

  “Don’t ruin everything by dropping your guard with some wolf.”

  Lexie soaked in the last of her father’s words, her throat tight for another reason now. Ray returned his gaze to the linoleum.

  “How did they come upon it, anyway?” she asked.

  “Got a call on the tip line. They picked up the trail in the south, not too far outside of Wolf Creek.”

  Lexie bit her tongue. It was impossible the hunters could have tracked them this way. Archer and she had come from the north, not even close to Wolf Creek. They must have been tracking a different animal.

  “Are they sure it was the same wolf?”

  Ray sighed hard and long. “No, they aren’t. I talked to George once he came to. They found fur on the trail, different color than the one that attacked you. And yours may have been a female. You didn’t happen to see its balls, did you?”

  Lexie pulled a face. “Seriously, Dad?”

  He ignored her adolescent disdain. “A female hasn’t been spotted in a long time. If that’s what you were attacked by--”

  “I wasn’t attacked, Dad,” she muttered.

  “--It could mean a lot of things,” he continued. “That they’re mating, and there are more of ‘em that we thought.” He rubbed his jaw, lips pursed. “Randy’s not sure what he saw. Neither is George. Frankly, I hope they’re wrong, ‘cause otherwise, the problem is bigger than we thought. Either way, stay away from the woods for now, would you, kiddo?”

  “Fine, Dad,” Lexie said, eager to let the subject rest. She extended her arm in a circle, stretching the bandage and her muscles. “Any word on Duane?”

  He shook his head and his jaw tightened. “His family’s out of town. No sign on campus or in Wolf Creek. It doesn’t look . . .”

  Another silence fell. It doesn’t look good. Her father was losing himself in thought, a deep furrow forming between his eyebrows.

  Lexie knew her father wanted her to spend the night at home, but he would never say so. Lexie was okay with this.

  “I’m sorry about Hank, Dad,” Lexie said as he stood to go, placing a half-hearted hand on his arm. He flinched at her touch, but nodded before turning toward the door. He gripped his plain wooden cane and eased himself out.

  Chalk it up as one more failure for Dad, Lexie thought, watching him shuffle away. He couldn’t protect his daughter, couldn’t save his friend, and couldn’t put an end to the killings.

  He paused at the door, bracing himself on the frame. “I love you, Lex.” The admission was sheepish and stilted, as though he was afraid of what the words would conjure.

  “Love you, too, Dad.” She mumbled in a similarly forced way. She wished she had the words to tell him that he was a good man, in some way he could hear and understand her--words of absolution and calm--but Lexie didn’t know what they sounded like. Instead, she watched her broken father walk away to the cold comfort of yet another night on his back.

  Chapter 19

  It was the quality of moonlight that made Archer crazy. Eager like hunger, not desperate like thirst. The first time she resisted a change during the waxing moon was difficult. It didn’t bother her now, or no more than an itch, like a rash. Or like a simple runny nose that irritates more than a tickle but less than a persistent lust.

  On full moon nights, Archer’s teeth would ache as they shifted in her skull, and her fingertips would throb against the splinters of claw that dug into her nail beds. Growing pains like countless pubescent mornings, kneading her muscles back into shape, stretching and popping joints, relearning how to use her body as she walked the woods on two legs.

  Her posture would worsen during those days and nights. Her strong shoulders hunched, her neck curled under like a swan. A stranger could mistake it for a contemplative pose. For Archer, it was a simple act of will, mind over matter.

  It took strength and resolve to witness the full moon and keep her human shroud tight and clasped. Each cell within her resisted, tugging at its membrane, shifting and shuddering in its monthly attempt at renewal and purge. Her cells stretched against their bonds, reminding themselves of span, pliancy, resistance and ease. Archer forced them to accept their
new container by force of will.

  Archer would feel antsy. Then irritable. On bad nights, imprisoned. She would pace, a tiger in a flesh cage, not looking for a way out, but conjuring an interruption, struggling to create something new and startling from of a series of circular days.

  Instead she chose blood. It always startled her, the drops of blood between her legs. Each time, she reacted to it as if it were coming from a wound. After a moment she would realize, and then she would feel ashamed for the doubt. So many women cherished this event, ritualized it. To Archer, it was a punishment for refusing her true nature.

  The moon was heavy tonight. Archer had cleared her plate from the table, leaving it in the sink to deal with another day. She felt restless, wanting Lexie naked on her floor in front of the fireplace. She wanted to bury her face between Lexie’s legs, to hold her up by the hips and feel her body enveloped again. Sex would be the perfect way to ground some of the frenetic energy that kept her from focusing on anything but the girl who refused to vacate her brain.

  Since meeting Lexie, Archer felt stirred with feelings she hadn’t thought of for years. Not since Natalee. Not since her Pack.

  Years ago, when she was first exiled, Archer became an insomniac. Sleeping without the rhythmic breathing of her sisters around her was impossible. She would shiver without a body snuggled against hers, whether or not it was actually chilly. When she did drift to sleep, she often woke with a start, convinced a terror lurked nearby, waiting for her to drop her guard. Without the keen senses of her sisters to accompany her, she didn’t trust her own.

  Immediately after her exile, Archer fled, spending most of her time as a wolf. She skulked through the woods alone, searching for an identity she’d lived her whole life avoiding. Occasionally, another lone wolf would cross through the territory, and she would rush to meet it for an evening of fevered anonymity. While it calmed her mind, it would only ever last as long as one night, and then she would return to the silence of an unaccompanied bed.

  It had been a slow, agonizing process, learning to exist on her own again. Without her family to care for, she felt redundant, useless. She had no love to share, no one to feed, no one to protect but herself. Eventually, she learned to avoid felling large game or else leave a half-eaten carcass to rot in a field. She began to hunt birds or small mammals, missing the thrill of felling a creature of speed and heft, abandoning the joy of celebrating a kill with her family, of sharing the meal with eager, chattering laughter.