“Yeah.” He poked at his plate with his fork. “Squirrels are supposed to be dirty little buggers, aren’t they? I wonder what diseases the skeletal one leaves on your chips when it–”
The skeletal squirrel landed on the table again. Rob’s fist shot out and cracked it in the side. It flew across the room, hit the chrome beer taps and tumbled onto the bar. It screeched at him and jumped behind the bar. Neither the barman nor the two women in jeans and coats ordering from him noticed.
“Nice shot,” Zoe said.
He grinned. “Thanks. I practise with live squirrels.”
The squirrel – or another one – sprang down from the top of a partition. He caught it around the neck. The thing screeched and tore at his hand and wrist with its claws. Rob snarled and slammed it as hard as he could against the partition, above the seat cushion. It bit him. He struck it against the partition again.
He could feel his control starting to fray. He couldn’t lose it, not here, not in front of Zoe. He wound up to throw the squirrel.
Another one landed on his face.
He roared as it dragged its claws down his brow and cheeks. He peeled the squirrel off with his free hand and pounded it against the other. Dead bone cracked and shattered. Sparks of ghost electricity spat from their joints as they came apart.
When the things stopped moving, Rob discovered he was on his feet as much as the booth’s table allowed. His nose was full of the stench of his own blood. He could feel his skin shivering with the nearness of the change. The rage of the monster surged against the bars of his control.
Not here. Not in front of her.
He clutched the thin iron chain around his wrist and took shaky breaths. People stared his way, wondering at the racket. He could see the barman trying to decide whether or not to call security over. The two girls in jeans and coats stared in shock at his bloody face.
Zoe put a hand on his arm. “Rob?”
Someone from the next booth swivelled to lean around the partition. Probably to tell him to stop with all the banging and shouting, Rob thought. Rob stared in astonishment as the little man’s familiar scent reached him through the smell of his own blood. It was Herbert.
Herbert drew a breath to speak. Saw the blood. Froze.
Zoe tried to smooth out the silence between them. “Hi Herbert. What a pleasant surprise.”
Herbert said, “Oh nooooooooooo!” He slapped his hands to his face. Dug his fingers into his cheeks. “Oh no no noooooo!” He bolted towards the back of the pub.
“Wow,” Zoe said. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. I bet it’s not that he doesn’t like bumping into workmates outside the office.”
The shock had settled the anger inside him and he didn’t feel on the verge of losing it. He wiped the blood from his face and hand with his napkin. The scratches from the skeletal squirrels had already stopped bleeding.
Rob closed the bloody napkin in his fist. The scent, even through his wrist-chain, still called out to the monster inside him. “I’ve got a funny idea. I’m going to check on Herbert. Sorry.”
“Go ahead,” Zoe said.
Herbert’s scent was a trail towards the back of the pub, through clouds of human warmth, hormones, wine and beer, the enticing smells of different kinds of roast meat. Rob tossed his napkin onto a plate left behind on an empty table. It would be easier to follow Herbert without his wrist-chain, but he didn’t feel safe enough to take it off.
Herbert’s trail led into the thick stench of bleach and human waste that came from the men’s bathroom. Rob wrinkled his nose and pushed through the door.
Herbert was in the last cubicle. His sobs echoed off the white tiles.
“Herbert? It’s Rob. You all right in there, matey?”
“Go away.”
“I can smell the change in your scent. It’s all right. Really.”
Behind him, the door to the men’s opened. Rob was about to ask the newcomer to come back later when he saw it was Zoe.
“Uh, what are you doing in here?” He wished his voice hadn’t come out an octave higher.
“Helping.” She bent to pick something up from beneath the urinals. Rob wouldn’t have put his hand down there for a pot of gold. “What’s this?” She held it out to him.
Rob winced as he took it. It smelled like where it had been. “Good eyes,” he said. “I went straight past it. Hang on.” He held it up to the light coming from the yellow bulb over their heads. “Is this what I think it is? Hey Herbert, is this like the thing I’m wearing? The one that dulls my senses and helps me keep the monster down?”
“For all the good it did me,” Herbert snuffled. “It stopped me smelling the blood, but the – the sight of it – I couldn’t –”
“You couldn’t smell it?” Rob unfastened his wrist-chain and stuffed it in the pocket of his trousers. The full weight of the bathroom’s odours shoved itself up his nose like piss-stained fingers. Herbert’s scent was in there. It was weaker than he would have thought, the unhuman part of it, but it was there. He snapped Herbert’s chain around his wrist with a quick, practiced motion.
“Holy shit, this is amazing. It’s a hell of a lot better than mine. Herbert, where did you get this?”
“A friend and I made it.” Rob heard the rustle of cloth and then the honk of Herbert blowing his nose.
“Seriously? Why aren’t you selling them?” He knocked on the door. “Open up, Herb. Let’s talk about this, yeah?”
Herbert blew his nose again. Rob heard more cloth rustling, then the clack of the door catch being released. The door swung open.
Rob drew back. “What?”
Zoe stepped up to his side. “Oh.”
Herbert sat huddled on the toilet. His face was covered in brown fur, his nose was a wet, black triangle and his ears stuck up as triangles from the sides of his head. But the shape of his head was human. The same thick fur covered the back of his hands and his fingers ended in claws, but he had fingers instead of forepaws. The shape of his body beneath his suit – not torn, Rob noted with envy – was the same compact, Herbert, human shape it always was.
“I don’t understand,” Rob said.
Herbert’s yellow eyes were miserable. “I’m a throwback.”
“This is what werewolves looked like up to about, what, twelve hundred years ago?” Zoe said. “Fifteen?”
“I didn’t know,” Rob said
Herbert hid his face in his furry hands. “I’m weak. I’m pathetic. The packs tossed me out and they were right to.”
Rob felt his anger rising again, though he didn’t feel his control fraying with it. “That’s bullshit. Just complete bullshit. So you don’t turn all the way into a huge fanged monster. So what?”
Herbert didn’t look up. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand just fine,” Rob said. He could feel his face heating. “They tell me I smell wrong. They’re fucking idiots, that’s my take on it. They’re so far up their own arses they could wag their tails out their mouths.”
Zoe barely managed to stifle a laugh. Herbert gaped up at him.
Rob unsnapped the chain from his wrist and the smells in the bathroom went from pale grey to full technicolour again. “Here. This is great. Way better than mine. You want my advice? You and your friend should start selling these to the rest of the werewolves. If they’re smart, they’ll buy them faster than you can make them. That’ll show them for turning you out, right?”
“I – I – well I don’t know if–”
“I know,” Rob said. He took Herbert’s hand and closed his fingers around the chain. “All the effort it takes people like you and me just to get through the day? I’d put a big dent in the credit card for anything that made it easier.”
“Well,” Herbert said. He held the chain up and stared at it as though he’d never seen it before. “I suppose Frederick and I could–”
“Good man,” Rob clapped him on the shoulder, almost knocking him off the toilet. “You all right changi
ng back?”
Herbert glanced up at the scratches on Rob’s face and shuddered. “I may require a few more minutes to recompose myself. I hope you don’t consider it too rude, but the sight of you will make that somewhat impossible.”
“Say no more,” Rob said. “We’ll leave you to it.”
“Yes, thank you,” Herbert said. “And perhaps you should usher young Zoe out of the men’s room, it being rather inappropriate for her to be in here.”
Zoe’s mouth quirked. Rob grinned. “Right you are, Herbert.”
Back in the bar, before they reached their table, Rob said, “I reckon we’ve made enough of a scene here and I’d rather Herbert didn’t have to deal with spotting me again tonight. Mind if we move on?”
“I don’t mind,” Zoe said, touching his arm.
They pulled on scarves and coats and ignored the stares coming at them from around the pub. Rob made it to the door first so he could hold it open for Zoe.
“What you in the mood for?” Rob asked as the December air embraced them. “If you’re not done for the night, that is?”
“It’s still so early,” Zoe said.
She couldn’t have said anything better, as far as Rob was concerned.
“You!”
The man pointing at him was bent and skinny. His ragged coat smelled of a year’s sweat and his hair was stiff with grime. His fingers were shiny with grease and Rob knew they were the source of the hot chips odour that came from him.
A skeletal squirrel perched on the man’s shoulder. Another stuck its head up out of a pocket of the man’s coat.
He was the one who had almost wrecked Rob’s date with Zoe. He and his little undead squirrels. As the man stomped towards him on taped-up sneakers, as Rob’s anger rose up within him in response, as his lips peeled back to bare his teeth, he realised another thing too.
He wasn’t wearing his wrist-chain.
“You! Horace and Percy were my friends, you shit! My friends! They were just fetching me food! Do you–”
Rob slammed his hands against the man’s chest, caught him by the coat before he could go flying away and heaved him off his feet.
“Your friends?” he tried to say. It came out as a snarl.
The man coughed and spluttered and squealed. The squirrel on his shoulder ran down his arm in fluid little hops and launched itself at Rob’s face. The one in his coat pocket caught his belt.
Rob flung the raggedy man aside. He tumbled into the street, narrowly missing slamming into a car.
Rob snatched the squirrel from his face with both hands and ripped it in two. It came apart with a loud electrical crack.
He swept the second squirrel off. It landed on all fours on the pavement. Before it could move he jumped at it. It tried to dodge but both his boots came down on it hard. Ghost electricity discharged against his shoes.
“You shit! You shit! Bertie! Arthur! You shit!”
Rob was crouching on all fours. He swung towards the voice. The raggedy squirrel man sat on his arse in the middle of the street, screaming at him. Rob could feel his fingers turning to claws, his muscles bulking up against the seams of his clothes.
Zoe stared at him, a hand pressed to her chest.
No. No no no.
He spun away from her, arms raised as though she were throwing stones at him. He tried to pull the monster back, but it was right under his skin, right under and ripping through. And there was no friendly voice calling him back, no Julian.
He started to run. The pain of the change hit him and he stumbled, but he made himself keep moving. His clothes tore. His shoes split at the seams. He had to find somewhere to go. Where he couldn’t be found. Where he wouldn’t hurt anyone. The park.
He heard Zoe cry out his name behind him.
On all fours, his clothes shredding off him, he passed the boundary of trees at the park’s edge and vanished into the dark.
Chapter 13 – Rob and Julian
Rob hammered on the door with his right hand and covered what he could of his modesty with his left. The December morning had no warmth to give the concrete pavers beneath his feet and he hopped from foot to bare foot.
He kept pounding on the door until he heard movement behind it. The lock clunked and Rob didn’t let the door get more than halfway open before he pushed through.
“Sorry,” he said. He brushed Julian’s shoulder as he flew by.
Taking the staircase in three bounds, he dashed into his room and grabbed the first pair of boxer shorts he found lying on the floor. Warmth radiated from the tines of the radiator and his room was toasty and welcoming. He shivered and rubbed his arms as he pulled on a shirt.
It was almost eight in the morning. He didn’t see how he could eat a big, post-change meal and get to work on time. But that was well down the list of his worries after how last night had ended.
He heaved a sigh. Halfway down the stairs he noticed the wheaty smell of stale beer that saturated the flat. A few steps further and he discovered Julian sitting on the floor beside the open front door, his knees pulled up and his head buried in his arms.
“You all right? You smell like beer.”
“An amazing coincidence,” Julian said in a muffled voice.
The beer smell wafted from the living room. He peeked in and saw empty cans on the coffee table. Only three – Julian didn’t have much of a head for beer. Rob closed the front door, concerned that Julian hadn’t bothered to do so himself, and dropped to his haunches.
“Celebrating something?”
“I went to see Jacob.”
“And that didn’t go well?”
Julian hesitated and Rob knew he was going to give a non-answer.
Sure enough, Julian said, “It just stirred up some old memories.” He lifted his head and focused bloodshot eyes on Rob. “I see your date with Zoe ended with the wrong kind of nakedness.”
Rob’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah. Lost it outside the pub. I’ve spent the night hunting squirrels.” He rubbed his mouth. “Not much eating in a squirrel.”
“Where will we find your things?”
“Down in Hammersmith. I woke up on Ealing Common. Not my brightest move, but I couldn’t get hunting squirrels out of my head.”
Julian nodded. “We’d better get–”
A sharp knock shook the front door.
Rob jumped to his feet, gave Julian a hand up and opened the door to find Fiona glaring at him.
“Uh, morning,” Rob said.
Fiona’s expression darkened. “Four things,” she said. “One: please don’t answer the door in boxer shorts again.”
“Sorry about that, I–”
“Two,” Fiona said, her voice skewering his. “Jessica says she saw you running down the street with no clothes on. I do not want my ten-year old sister to see you larking about naked.”
Julian said, “But he–”
“Three,” Fiona said, “do you always ignore your friends when they text you? I’ve sent you five messages this morning.”
Rob kept his mouth shut. He figured the only way out was through.
“Four.” Fiona’s anger wavered. “We’ve got a problem in the house. We’d like you to come and check it.”
Rob straightened. “What kind of problem?”
“You just need to see it. Both of you. But put some clothes on first, Rob. My mother doesn’t need to see you in boxers either. And Julian, clean your teeth or something. I can smell your breath from here.” She turned and headed back to her front door. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. Come through when you’re ready.”
“Maybe her mother would like to see you in boxer shorts,” Julian muttered.
Rob grinned. “Ah well, we’re going to be late for work anyway. Which reminds me, you won’t believe what I found out about Herbert last night.”
Fiona had said to come right in, but Rob knocked anyway. He and Julian were dressed for the office and Julian had his satchel over his shoulder. Fiona’s mother answered the door.
“Morni
ng Amelia,” Rob said. “I hear you’ve got something for us to look at.”
Amelia smelled tense when she opened the door. He saw a brittleness in her that even his bright attitude didn’t ease. “Thanks for coming over. It’s out the back. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Flat 2 was the mirror of Flat 1, though it hadn’t been when Rob moved in. Not until the empty bedroom next to the bathroom appeared one morning, matching Jessica’s bedroom in Flat 2. Amelia showed Rob and Julian down the hallway, past several photos of the Kendall women hung on the walls, and through a kitchen tidier than the kitchen in Flat 1 had ever been.
The kitchen had a door to the back yard, same as Rob’s kitchen did. It also had a doorway to another room, a doorway and room Flat 1 did not have.
Rob stepped through. The room was long and empty, with plenty of windows to let in light. The floor was covered in carpet of an unfortunate shade of green. Fiona stood next to the entrance with her arms folded, a cup of tea steaming in her hand. Further down the room, Jessica scurried along the back wall with a tape-measure, calling out numbers.
“We found it this morning,” Fiona said in the tone of one finding a dead bird on her doorstep.
Rob moved deeper into the room, gaping at it. Jessica noticed him and waved. “Isn’t it amazing? It’s sixteen feet long and ten feet wide. I’m measuring it again to double-check.”
“Does that mean we’re going to get a room like this too?” Rob asked Julian.
Julian shrugged.
“How does that follow?” Fiona asked.
“We got a new bedroom a while back to match Jessica’s,” Rob said. He surveyed the room again, a grin spreading across his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Julian?”
“Are you thinking ‘gym?’ I’ve let my sword practice lapse since I came back and I’ve been thinking that’s a mistake, given all the trouble we get into.”
“Huh? Hell no.” He flung his arms wide. “Pool room! Our very own pool table, Julian. Just think of it.”
Julian sighed. He turned to Fiona, who had pursed her lips at Rob in disapproval, and Amelia, who clearly didn’t know what to make of it all. “I’ll give the room a once-over, but I’m sure it’s fine. Like Rob said, we got a bedroom a few weeks ago. It’s harmless enough.”
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