by Jeff Sampson
Dalton ignored me and raised his fist back to smash the man’s face in even more. I jumped forward and grabbed his arm, strength fighting strength as he attempted to slam down. “Stop!” I shouted.
“Get off!” Dalton’s head snapped to the side, and he snarled up at me.
His features were moving, shifting.
The irises of his eyes faded from hazel to an unearthly yellow. His teeth were sharpening to points. His nose, his cheeks, were elongating, muscle and bone moving beneath flesh with sickening crunches and slurps. Flesh that was now sprouting a coat of brown-and-black fur.
I’d never seen someone else change into a werewolf before. It was impossible to look away from. The reality of it was so absurd that it felt instinctively like I should be telling myself, “Oh, Emily, it’s just special effects. Yay, movie magic!” But this was real. Cells multiplying and mutating, transforming a person into a monster right in front of me.
My arm went slack, and Dalton took the opportunity to yank free from me. He leaped up to stand over the guard, his hands grasping at his shifting cheeks with fingers that were stretching longer and longer. His fingernails blackened like glass held over a flame as they became sharp, shredding claws.
He growled, and before I could make a move, he darted past me and raced to the back edge of the roof. He was at its edge for only a moment before he disappeared down the side of the building.
Great. He’d not only gone all madman, but now he was going to be on his own as a wolf, doing who knows what.
I spun to face the roof. I could see my guard stirring back awake. He’d find Dalton’s guard, probably call an ambulance and the police.
Exploring BioZenith was out for the night, then. Instead, I turned and ran to the edge of the roof myself. I saw Dalton disappearing into the woods beyond the fence behind the BioZenith facility.
Looked like I had a wolf to catch.
Internal Document #3
The Vesper Company
“Envisioning the brightest stars, to lead our way.”
- Internal Document, Do Not Reproduce -
Details of Video Footage Recorded Oct. 31, 2010,
Part 3
21:03:44 PST—Control Room D1
Aux. footage picks up after a blackout of 1 minute and 22 seconds. Seven of the guards are down, confirmed to have been found unconscious from cutoff air supply and various head traumas.
Vesper 1(B) darts around one of the junior officers. She kicks the man in the back of the knee and forces him down. Then she picks up one of the fallen men’s assault rifles by the barrel and swings it like a club, colliding with the back of the officer’s head. He falls slack.
A note: Perhaps we should have protocol in place where the guards have ready access to tranquilizing ammunition in case they are ambushed before reaching our armory, as happened here.
While Vesper 1(B) takes down one guard, Vesper 2.1(A) lifts her fists and with them raises up another officer. She flings him across the room via telekinesis, where he smacks against a wall before tumbling to land slack atop another, similarly tossed guard.
From my count, only nine guards remained in the room. The tenth disappeared sometime during the camera blackout, which also affected the camera in Hallway 20, Sector D. We are investigating other footage to discover the identity of the man who ran. I recommend the coward be handled harshly. Recommendation noted, but as before: facts only, please.—MH
Their work done, the two Deviants run to look at the various security feeds. Vesper 2.1(A) is visibly frustrated.
VESPER 2.1(A): I don’t see him on any of these. He’s not here.
VESPER 1(B): I know there’s at least one more of us being kept here. Wait, look.
Vesper 1(B) points to a screen showing a feed of Detention Cell 7, Sublevel Sector D, the holding cell for Branch B’s Vesper 4. The image does not show her, but the walls of the room are clearly visible. Printer paper has been taped in neat rows and columns all over the wall, on which someone—presumably Vesper 4—has drawn a window with flowered curtains, a door, potted plants, a bookshelf, and a desk, all in crayon. The figure of someone—again, presumably Vesper 4—appears briefly in frame from Vesper 1(B) and Vesper 2.1(A)’s respective points of view.
VESPER 1(B): Found her.
Part 3 of Relevant Video Footage Concluded
11
ALPHA
I leaped down from the roof, then shoved through the hole in the fence. Ahead of me Dalton wove through the trees, a shadow in front of shadows, his body mutating and shifting. As he ran, he tore off his clothes. I bounded past his T-shirt and jeans, clawed to shreds and hanging like garland from the low branches of the evergreen trees.
He was almost fully wolf-boy, and he went down on all fours, using his long arms to propel himself forward faster than I was able to run even as Nighttime.
“Come on,” I muttered as I ducked beneath branches and leaped over fallen logs. “Change. Change!”
But the werewolf refused to come. I could feel her in my brain still. She was shooting messages to me constantly—duck, move to the side, leap, run, run, run. The woods were a blur around me, and I dodged trees at hyper-fast speed. I felt like I was in the speeder chase scene from Return of the Jedi.
Oh, hi, Daytime, I thought when the reference popped into my head. Welcome to the party.
Dalton had disappeared completely. But I could smell him, the familiar werewolf musk mingling with the oh-so-rancid boy smell that had permeated his nasty-ass room. I focused on the scent, the musk, and it was almost as if I could visualize a vapor trail snaking through the woods. It wasn’t exactly ideal, but it would have to do. I followed the trail, sensing I was heading south, back toward the residential neighborhoods where I lived and played as daytime me.
I burst through a patch of hovering pheromones and put my foot out to stop myself. Dirt kicked up from my sneakers.
Dalton had stopped here, only for a moment, long enough for his scent to billow. I sniffed, spun around, and found his trail again. For some reason, he’d taken a sharp left turn to head east. He wasn’t going home. He was going somewhere else.
Of course he was.
“What are you up to, crazy boy?” I muttered. I sighed, exasperated by his impulsiveness, then followed him.
And then, as I shoved between a pair of trees, I reached a street.
I halted and crouched just at the tree line. I wasn’t familiar with the area, but I knew it had to be within the Skopamish city limits. It seemed more rural, with houses spaced farther apart and separated by trees. I looked left and right, and saw a street sign: East Knowe.
I scanned the house in front of me. It was a single-level ranch-style home, like one you’d see in California on, y’know, a ranch. Dalton’s trail swirled over the road and curled behind the house. Either he’d run to the woods behind it, or this was where he’d been headed.
With a look both ways to make sure no cars were coming, I dashed across the road and crouched at the side of the house. No lights were on, and there wasn’t a car in the driveway. I made my way toward the back of the house—and heard the sound of Dalton, sniffing and scratching at a window, his nails screeching on the glass.
I rounded the back of the house and saw him, standing full height and pawing with one hand at a bedroom window through which faint yellow light glowed. He was bigger than Spencer or I had been when we’d transformed, which I suppose was because he was bigger than us as a human. I scowled. How annoying. The guy was okay by day but was becoming more of an oaf by the second at night. If he wanted to be part of my entourage, he’d have to learn to frickin’ chill.
It was the first time I’d really gotten a look at one of us as wolf people—Spencer and I had been so busy fighting Dr. Elliott that I hadn’t really taken the time. We looked straight out of An American Werewolf in London, standing like tall humans with elongated heels like a dog. Dalton’s chest was broad, his stomach flat and tight with muscles. His long arms were basically human, except for the c
laws at the ends of his fingers.
And of course there was the tail jutting from the base of his back. The long snout and pointed ears of a wolf. The sleek brown-and-black fur that covered him head to foot.
As I stood there, something shifted inside me, same as the night before. I was still Nighttime, in that I had her strength. But my vision went wolf gray. And Daytime’s brain reemerged, mingling with the other two as much as it could.
In that state, the weird transitional, hybrid form that was all and nothing, I looked at Dalton, at what he’d become—what I’d become.
I gasped involuntarily, emotion flooding my chest.
He was magnificent.
I knew if I was just Daytime, if I was still me before any of this had happened, I’d find the image of a wolf/human hybrid monstrous and terrifying. But something inside my brain clicked and told me, This is you. These are your fellows. Find them. Gather them. And I couldn’t help but love my pack, what we were, the incredible beings only a handful of us could become.
Now I wonder, as I always do, if this emotion, this elation, was programmed into me. Hard-coded right into my personal circuitry. But in that moment, the connection between all of us, the reality of our unique selves finally unleashed…
It was beautiful.
Fully hybrid—Daytime in the brain, Nighttime in the body, wolf in vision and instincts, but with all three of us mingling just beneath the surface—I approached Dalton. I laid a gentle hand on the small of his back, feeling his smooth fur beneath my fingers. His head snapped to look down at me and his wolfish lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing his sharp teeth. I smiled up at him, and his expression calmed. He nodded at me, then looked back through the window. He scratched again, then once more. His nails left trails down the glass.
I followed his gaze, and started as I saw what was inside.
The room itself was neat, the walls painted yellow. There were potted plants in the corner. But of course Dalton was not taking in the decor. His eyes, and mine, were on the werewolf lying on a bed directly opposite the window.
“It’s her,” I whispered. “We found her.”
Dalton whined deep in his throat, confirming: He’d been sidetracked by the scent of the female werewolf.
She lay on her back, her legs awkwardly out straight and her arms behind her head. I was confused as to how she could possibly stand to be in such a position as a wolf, with her tail crushed beneath her body, but then I saw the chains. Before she’d turned, the girl must have locked herself down, because chains circled her wrists and ankles, connecting her to the posts of her bed. She squirmed and thrashed, her jaw snapping open and closed as she yelped in frustration.
She had been all alone the past week and a half, I’d realized. Changing just like me and Spencer, but without the luck to meet any of us and find support for what was happening to her. I didn’t know what to do, no part of me did, and I stood there gaping, silent.
Until I saw the shadowman.
It was by the girl’s bedroom door, hovering in a corner, watching her thrash. Its body shifted, rotated, so that it was looking directly at me and Dalton.
My pulse began to race. The shadowman was scary enough to daytime me, and simply annoying to Nighttime, but the werewolf part of me was frightened on a deeper, primal level. I couldn’t contain its fear. Trembling, I backed away.
Dalton howled. He scratched with both hands on the glass now, scrabbling like a dog begging to be let in. A growl burst from deep within his throat, and he bared his teeth. Like on the roof of BioZenith when he’d been human, his now yellow eyes were wide and manic.
“We have to go, Dalton,” I said to him. “The shadowman won’t hurt her. You can’t do anything to it. Let’s go!”
Wolf-Dalton ignored me. And I realized: His eyes weren’t on the shadowman, if he’d even noticed the creature at all. They were focused on the girl wolf tied helpless to her bed. He howled again, a frustrated shout into the night sky. Then he lowered his head and head-butted the window with his forehead. Glass crunched and cracks snaked over the window.
I deeply did not like where this was going. I shoved down the wolf brain and its fear and jumped forward. I grabbed Dalton around his bicep and yanked back with Nighttime’s strength. He spun to face me, snapping his teeth. He lashed out with his other arm, and I leaped back, his sharp claws narrowly missing my chest.
“Are you serious?” I barked.
He tried to turn away from me and resume busting the glass of the girl werewolf’s window, to get in there and do things I couldn’t imagine. I lunged forward and shoved Dalton square in his muscled, fur-covered chest, sending him reeling back a few steps.
“You are not doing this,” I commanded. “You’re still in there, Dalton. You can’t pretend you’re not. Take control.”
His claws clenched and his eyes narrowed on me. He leaned forward and opened his jaws, letting loose a roar that echoed through the trees. Spittle flew from his mouth, hitting my face, making me flinch.
And he leaped at me.
He landed on top of me, his claws clutching my shoulders, his body slamming into mine. I fell to the grass on my back, the wind knocked out of me. Dalton stood over me on all fours, his snout inches from my face, growling.
I expected him to calm down smelling my scent, since he went all crazy over my pheromones during the day. But he didn’t. In fact, it was almost the opposite—it seemed like being near me made him angry. His eyes were narrowed, boring into my own, commanding me to stand down.
Commanding me?
Yeah, no.
I don’t know if I made it happen, or if the transformation to werewolf happened on some timetable I couldn’t predict. But my moments of being the muddled three-in-one Emily were done for the night. Daytime Emily and Nighttime Emily both faded into the back of my conscious mind. The wolf took control. And as Dalton hovered over me, eclipsing all I could see, I began to shift.
It happened quickly, painlessly. My body was used to this by now, these abnormal, impossible changes to the very structure of my skeleton, my musculature, my brain. Whoever had designed us to be these wolves had the good sense to dull whatever pain there might be, so that while the shifting flesh, the sprouting of fur, the twisting of bones could all be felt, the process didn’t hurt.
In the span of several seconds, my torso contorted, tightened beneath the turtleneck. My nose and mouth merged together, splitting apart and lengthening into a snout. My teeth sharpened to points, my tongue grew fatter, longer. My ears climbed up the sides of my flattening skull, and my limbs lengthened. Claws appeared on my hands, my feet. My shoes were ruined. But the sweatpants and turtleneck stretched with the changes of my body.
And I was the wolf. A wolf being held down by another of my kind. One that was inferior. One that should not have dared to try and defy me.
I snarled right back at Dalton, not tearing my eyes away from his. I had beaten his dad in a staring contest. I would do the same with him.
But he didn’t look away. He didn’t move. In fact, he lowered himself so that the space between us was minuscule. His ears were flat back against his head. His eyes challenged me.
Challenge accepted.
With a snarl, I curled my legs up beneath Dalton’s stomach. I shot my clawed feet up, jackhammering into his gut. He flew off me, snorting for air. One of my claws had punctured his hide. Blood dripped from the wound.
I didn’t wait for him to recover. I kicked up and arched my back, jumping to stand at my full height. As I did, my tail slipped through the hole cut in the back of my pants, helping me maintain my balance.
I lowered my head and barreled forward, like a linebacker. My shoulder met his chest, and I shoved forward with such force that he stumbled back, deeper into the girl werewolf’s backyard. Dalton tripped over his feet, smashed to the ground on his back.
Jumping, I landed hard on his chest. I straddled him and shot my hands out to grab his wrists and hold his arms down on the lawn. Momentarily, memories
of Nighttime in the same position with Dr. Elliott flooded my brain. But werewolf me brushed those memories aside. She out of all of us was not concerned with the silly dead man.
It was my turn to snarl down at Dalton. I leaned over him, snout to snout, once more looking into his eyes. He struggled to escape, but even though he was the larger werewolf, I was the stronger of the two. I nipped at his nose, again and again, and he yowled each time in frustration. Until, finally, he got the hint and fell silent. Glaring up at me still, but silent, resigned.
He knew as well as I did that he was not in charge here. Because I was his alpha.
Alpha.
Most kids who learn about animals in elementary school know about the alpha of the pack. The leader. I always thought wolf alphas could only be male.
I also used to think werewolves and shadowy ghostly figures weren’t real.
Apparently, the rules of genetically engineered werewolves were different from the rules for real wolves. I didn’t know what made me the alpha. I didn’t care. All I knew was that, in that moment of full-on werewolfness, I was in charge. I was the leader.
And Dalton, so out of control at night and as a wolf, realized it too.
His yellow eyes softened. He stopped thrashing, and his limbs went slack. His growls and yelps turned into plaintive, apologetic whines.
I let him go and rose to my full height. I watched him warily as he rose as well. His tail was low, almost tucked between his legs.
I flicked a claw toward the window he’d smashed, then shook my head, growling. No. Dalton lowered his head and made no move to resume his relentless assault against the glass.
I looked back toward the window myself. From what I could see, the girl werewolf no longer thrashed. She lay still, her chest rising and falling so slowly that it seemed as if she’d fallen asleep. From the distance and angle I was at, I could not see the shadowman.
And though men with guns and crazed boy werewolves did not frighten me, those shadows did. I had no desire to get closer to see if the creature was still in the room.