Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One

by Mickie B. Ashling

  He smelled sour.

  I smelled his fear.

  Glaring at him, my lips curled back, revealing a flash of canine white.

  He paled noticeably, but he had enough balls to repeat the question as the crowd’s clamour hastily muffled itself. Everyone turned to face the reporter who had dared address me.

  “Did you do it?” he asked again, softer this time, and with a lot less confidence.

  “Humph.” I snarled and spat in their direction. To hell with all of them.

  My captors grabbed me and turned me toward the imposing brick building and the iron barred cell that awaited me.

  “HARKIN, JUST ANSWER the man’s questions,” Voit commanded. Matthew Voit was my appointed legal counsel, and from the dark bags under his eyes, I could tell the past few weeks had been exhausting for him. He obviously wasn’t getting much rest. After pulling his glasses off with one hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose with the other, closing his eyes as he let out a deep sigh.

  He placed the spectacles down on the smooth metallic tabletop of the interrogation room and ran his hand over his stubble-covered face.

  I liked being out of my cell, but the manacles on each arm and leg with the heavy chains strung through them felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.

  “Why should I?” I responded. It was easier to be obstinate. After all, there was no getting out of here. I wasn’t going to see the open sky or a full moon hanging over a dense forest ever again. I’d been betrayed and forever changed. I had no reason to be in a good mood or helpful.

  “Why?” Voit quipped. “Because I told you to. Because someone out there might read the reporter’s story and sympathize. Because if the people on the jury saw you as a human being, and not some monster, you might actually wind up with a case where we can say you have a disease and the murders weren’t your fault. That’s why. Jesus…can you just work with me here? Throw me a fucking bone, man. I didn’t ask for this case.” Voit was pissed. Pissed and tired.

  “Throw you a bone? What is that, some kind of pun? Give the dog a bone? You think this is fucking funny?” I lunged at him. He sat back in his chair with a jerk, wide-eyed. That sour aroma of fear permeated the room. “They are never going to let me out into the general public. Ever.”

  I had always been somewhat sullen and quick to anger. I think those emotions were products of growing up with an abusive alcoholic father, but lately my anger would spike at the smallest of provocations.

  “No, but you might end up in a secure hospital somewhere instead of a shit-hole of a prison.” He waved his hands in the air, indicating the current facility.

  “Yeah, a hospital,” I snorted. “More like a lab where they’ll poke and probe me to see how I tick. Eventually I’ll end up sliced open and dissected on some scientist’s surgical table. I’ll be lucky if they give me anesthetic while they’re doing it.”

  “I give up. I don’t care what the hell you do. Just don’t kill the guy.”

  I lifted my hands. The heavy metal chains clanged together and suddenly stopped my movement. The noise of steel clinking against steel echoed throughout the sparse concrete room.

  “Probably not going to happen,” I sneered.

  “I’m leaving. They’re sending him in. This case just needs to be over. And soon.” Voit grabbed his briefcase and laptop bag and left the room. The heavy metal door slammed behind him, and I sat there, alone, waiting.

  I shouldn’t have been short with Voit. After all, he was just trying to do his job. But even I didn’t really know much about what had happened that night. All I knew was, I hadn’t done it. And I sure as hell didn’t get a tutorial on what to expect after the incident.

  I had no fucking clue how to be a werewolf. But I was figuring it out.

  I WAITED FOR what seemed like hours by myself, locked away in the sterile, hard room.

  Finally the door opened and the reporter from the crowd outside entered, tentatively.

  I cocked an eyebrow at the sight of him.

  “Hello, Mr. Ross…ah, Harkin, right? I’m Samir Amari.” He gave a curt nod. At least he’d had the brains not to stick out his hand expecting me to shake it. He clutched a man purse rather close to his chest. Like that would save him.

  He was heavily doused in cologne. Well, that probably wasn’t fair. He had cologne on, but with my new nose, it was the only thing I could smell in the room.

  “Hood,” I said.

  “Sorry?” Amari raised both eyebrows as he pulled out his laptop from his expensive-looking purse and booted it up. He glanced at me sideways. I’m sure he was checking to make sure that I was still seated and chained and unable to get across the table and kill him.

  He was good-looking, not that I usually went for dark-haired guys. Still.

  “The name is Hood. That’s what everyone used to call me.”

  “Ah, okay. Sure. Why Hood?” he asked, while clicking some keys as the computer whirred to life. He peeked over the top of his laptop.

  He was intrigued and terrified. I’m sure if I said Boo!, he’d piss himself.

  “Because when I was growing up, that’s all I’d ever wear, a hoodie, and I liked to wear the hood part up over my head. Most people don’t do that. So my grandpa ended up calling me Hood. It stuck. But no one calls me anything in here. Fuck, no one gets anywhere near me, never mind talk to me.” I looked at the wall.

  “Well, I would very much like to talk to you, if that would be okay?” Amari was trying his hardest to be pleasant and nice. That was a change. Something I wasn’t used to after the several weeks I’d already been behind bars.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said with about as much enthusiasm as the prison guards had when bringing me my meals.

  “Okay.” His gaze shifted to each side of the room, avoiding contact with me at all costs. I could already tell he didn’t like me. Or maybe he was really just terrified. Maybe I should lighten up on him. “I wonder if we should start with the obvious question. Is it true? Are you really a werewolf?”

  “Apparently.” My face remained deadpan.

  “Look, Mr. Ross…” Amari started.

  “Hood,” I reminded him.

  “Right. Hood, look—” Amari sat back and stopped typing. “I’ll be completely honest with you. If you really are what you say you are, this interview and story is going to be the biggest career boost I’ll most likely ever get. I won’t lie. This is huge. But at the same time, if this is all true…” He swallowed hard. “If this is true, then there really are monsters. And as much as I know my readers will eat that up, it will terrify them too. Or, it should terrify them. The smart ones, anyway.”

  “It’s true,” I confirmed.

  “Forgive me if I’m not going to believe you right off.” Amari shrugged. He was posturing. I understood why, but the thin layer of sweat and the darkening pit stains under his arms suggested otherwise.

  “It’s sort of like a good horror movie, isn’t it? Everyone wants to see the beast. People need to see it in order to believe it. But, like the internet, Mr. Amari, once you see it, once you click that mouse, you can never unsee it. Are you sure?” I was having a little bit of fun with him. Like I said, he was pretty good-looking for a guy with wavy jet hair and eyes the same colour. The ends of those easy curls were sticking to his forehead. His cologne was overpowering. Heat and sweat from fear did that. It amplified scent.

  “I’m sure,” Amari said, slightly more confident than before.

  “I suppose you’ll want a picture too?” I asked.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Actually, Hood, yes. Yes, you do. If you play nice, I can too. You give me what I want, and I will see if I can return the favor.” He smiled briefly. Smart move. Whether it was a bribe or trying to make a friend out of me, it was a good chess move.

  “I want candy. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a damn chocolate bar and a pack of Twizzlers.”

  Amari snickered after my statement.

 
“What’s so fucking funny?” I said.

  “The werewolf wants candy and chocolate. I find that ironic. You got it, Hood. I’ll bring you candy. So, show me. Give me proof that monsters do exist.”

  “Shit.” I shook my head. I was going to do this for a goddamn piece of chocolate.

  I might not have been given the werewolf handbook, but instincts run hard in nature. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that concentrating on anger or thinking of horrifically violent acts made the demon that lurked under my skin itch. It excited the beast. I’d been in here for weeks and for hours on end by myself without anything to amuse me. I’d learned how to control the animal to some extent. It had been my entertainment—figuring out the beast within.

  I closed my eyes.

  I could hear Amari prepping his cell phone and clicking away on the laptop too.

  I thought of my father—such an asshole—and the ire in me stoked and lit. A little flame at first. I threw a few handfuls of kindling on it. A punch from Dad for not shutting the barn door and latching it. A backhand slap for not getting up at 4:00 a.m. to start chores. A black eye for back talk.

  The flame ignited a burning sensation. It warmed the inside of my rib cage and spread rapidly like scampering rodents running along my bones. Flames of anger woke the beast inside, and it watched the rat sprint down my arm. The inner demon immediately gave chase. The shift was fast, but it dulled the human in me. It was like someone threw a wet cloth over my face. I could still hear, still smell, still see—a little, anyways. And as soon as that thin veil entombed my humanity—as the wolf came forward, its amber eyes replacing mine, and its primal instincts prevailed. Rage bubbled to the surface of my skin.

  Just my hand…just my hand, I repeated as a mantra over and over.

  Control. I had to maintain control.

  The burning turned to intense pain as if someone had stabbed me just below my elbow. I could hear the skin split.

  I opened my eyes and laid my cuffed and chained arm out on the table for Amari to see.

  “Holy shit!” He stared at me. “Your eyes,” he whispered.

  “Look at my arm,” I snarled. The beast spoke, not me. My voice had dropped in pitch, had become gravel, and ended with a growl. Amari blanched, but he did as he was told.

  I didn’t think his eyes could go any wider, and for a man who was more brown than white, he blanched like a poached egg.

  Where the skin on my forearm had split, carmine fur was plainly visible. As the top layers of the epidermis ruptured all the way down to my wrist, my wolf’s fur unfurled from its hidden depths inside of me. The nails on my hand thickened and discoloured, growing long and pointed. The fingers stretched and became claws.

  I was a werewolf, not a wolf. I didn’t look like a big furry dog. I ended up as some cross between canine, human, and demon. That was the only explanation I had.

  The skin on the back of my hand fissured, and bones cracked as my limb continued to transform.

  “Oh my god.” Amari was dripping in sweat from fear.

  “Take your damn picture,” I growled. The command bounced around the concrete walls.

  He lifted his cell phone and snapped a few pictures, and then hesitantly raised the cell and took a picture of my face.

  “Your teeth.”

  I ran a tongue along the inside of my mouth. Shit. The change was getting away from me. The canines had doubled in size, and I could taste my own blood as the fangs pushed their way out from the gums.

  I had to douse the fire. I had to kill the rage, or this would end up with prison guards rushing in and shooting another tranquilizer dart into me. I also couldn’t guarantee what would happen to my reporter friend.

  I took several deep breaths and thought of the cool mountain stream that ran through the back of the farm. I went there often as a kid when Dad’s outbursts and flying fists were out of control.

  Cool. Mountain. Water.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Wetness. Cold, wet water.

  The demon within retreated. The thick nails on the end of my hand faltered and thinned out, retreating back into the nail beds they were supposed to be. The elongated bones shrank; the fur disappeared as the ripped skin repaired itself. Within a minute, everything was back to normal, and I sat there across from the reporter and blinked a few times. I knew the amber glow of the wolf was slowly dissolving into the mint-green irises I normally wore.

  Samir Amari was still as white as that cooked egg. He sat there and didn’t move or blink his eyes. He was shivering uncontrollably.

  I thought maybe I had broken him. I didn’t smell urine or feces. He couldn’t be that bad off.

  “I…I didn’t know…” he started.

  “I like Wunderbars and Twizzlers,” I said.

  He snapped out of it and shook his head. “Right,” he stammered.

  Amari shut the lid on his laptop and stuffed the device into his man bag.

  “I think that’s good for today,” he said and stood up abruptly.

  The chair knocked over backward, and the clattering sound made Amari jump. He glanced at me again, still frightened. I simply sat there and watched him. Kind of like a wolf watching its prey, but I was chained up. I wasn’t going anywhere. I smiled.

  That didn’t sit well with him. He backed up, and when he hit the door, he banged on it a couple of times, frantically.

  Samir Amari left without saying a word. I was pretty sure I would never see that candy.

  THREE WEEKS WENT by. I was bored out of my mind.

  They weren’t about to give me yard time like the other inmates. I mentioned this to a few of the guards, who oddly enough never came within arms’ grasp of the circular metal bars that held me captive.

  “I want to go outside,” I barked at George. George was old, fat, and kind of dumb. And he was an asshole. George was the daytime guard, on the Monday-through-Friday rotation. He’d been around long enough to have earned that privilege. There weren’t that many who got the perk of a nine-to-five job around here.

  “Fat chance,” George was quick to reply.

  “Blah, blah, blah… Isn’t there something about basic human rights and letting me see sunshine?” I snarked back.

  “Key words there are ‘human rights,’ dog boy. You ain’t got no rights for anything. You’re lucky we feed you.”

  So, there was that. Apparently, the dog wouldn’t be getting any treats.

  I spent my days reading, if someone brought me a book. There were a couple of officers who had at least some sympathy. But they too kept a good distance from the cage. They actually used a metal pole to slide my tray of food toward my cell.

  My life was shit. If this was going to be the extent of my existence, I needed to think of a way out. Be that escape or death. I’m not sure at what point death seemed like an option, but I had managed to get there in a very short period of time. That disturbed me. A lot.

  I played games with myself. It was amazing how developed my senses had become. My hearing, for example; I could hear everything going on in my ward. The guy two cells down from me had a chronic masturbation problem. Seriously, it was a multiple-times-a-day thing for him. The guy four cells down in the other direction talked in his sleep. It was a good thing he was locked up. He had some sick fantasies about carving holes into people and putting an assortment of insects into said holes to see what the bugs would do.

  I really needed to get the hell out of here.

  I was lying in my bunk scenting the air. It amazed and entertained me for hours every day to pick up the wafting aromas and odors—and yes, there is a huge difference—when several guards approached my cell door. I could smell the Obsession for Men cologne Roland wore, and it arrived in my cell long before he did. There was a no-scent policy at the prison. Apparently, that rule didn’t apply to him.

  I really hated that smell.

  “Get up, Ross. You have a visitor,” Roland said.

  “Shut up. Seriously?”

  “You kno
w the policy.”

  “Yeah. I do.” I turned and faced the wall. Noncompliance with “the policy” generally meant a visit from the electrician. In other words, the Taser came out. Now, I like my nipples tweaked like most guys, but the feeling of being on fire while smashing your head against a concrete floor and pissing all over yourself is not my idea of a good date. So, I complied with “the policy.”

  All the guards entered the cell as I stood with my nose touching the cinder-block wall and my hands crossed behind my back. I would never forget the cold, damp, dusty smell of a cinder block. I could feel two men close in on each side of me, both holding a Taser gun. Total overkill.

  A third placed the metal cuffs on my wrists. Always too tight.

  “Let’s go.”

  After several electrical metal gates clanked open and closed as loudly behind us, I found myself strapped and chained to the chair in the interrogation room. There was only a couple of people who might come to see me: either my lawyer or the reporter. And I couldn’t imagine the reporter was coming back.

  I sat there, staring at more of the same grey concrete walls for a long time. Suddenly, the metal door swung open. All at once I wasn’t sure if I was the happiest guy in the world or the angriest.

  Kenneth Lowell walked in.

  It had been “Mr. Lowell” for a couple of years after Dad had hired him, until the summer I turned eighteen, and then it had changed to Kenneth.

  Kenneth appeared uncomfortable as he ran his hand through the long always-parted-on-the-side hair. It was blond with gold highlights, lightened by the exposure to the sun he had worked under for his entire adult life. The lightest brown eyes I had ever gazed into glanced at me and then looked away. He returned his hat to his head. Kenneth had on the usual white straw cowboy hat with the tight Wrangler jeans, carrying a box.

  He had friended me when my dad beat me.

  He had helped me with my car when my father was passed out on the floor of the kitchen.

  He had let me run my hands through the dense hay-colored hair on his chest.