Weregirl

by C. D. Bell

  What is he doing? Nessa wondered. He looked like he didn’t even have a plan. He was going to get caught. He had to stay hidden. Didn’t he?

  Then the gray wolf took off. Nessa didn’t know where he was going, only that he was no longer in the video image. Not a minute too soon, either, Nessa realized, as she counted one, two, three, four of the guards in riot gear running into the kennels. The guards had come looking for the source of the barking and known somehow that it was coming from just beneath the lab window. Perhaps they had seen the wolf on the same video display Mary, Pete, Nessa, and Nate were watching now?

  But where had the gray wolf gone?

  Mary must have been wondering the same thing. She toggled between different screens. Nessa could not see what she could, but from the way Mary kept hitting the keys, Nessa was pretty sure she hadn’t found the wolf, until suddenly Mary’s whole body froze.

  Without taking her eyes off the monitor, she yelled: “Walkie-talkie!” and Pete rushed one to her. She spoke into it in a voice that had lost all trace of control, speaking so quickly she had to repeat herself to be understood.

  “There’s someone at the kennels,” Mary said, her voice rising in panic. “It looks like he’s tampering with something. Oh, my god, how did that guy get in? He’s opening the gate. Get someone over there!”

  Nessa didn’t understand what was happening any better than Mary did. But with her wolf hearing she could detect what Mary and Pete could not. She heard latches sliding open, the creak of gates, the brush of paws, and the faint clicking of toenails on the cement flooring inside the kennels.

  “Why aren’t they ripping him to shreds?” Mary said. “He’s inside the kennels with them.” Then she shouted, “Hard lockdown!” into the walkie-talkie. But she must not have pressed the correct button right away.

  The person at dispatch said, “Come again?”

  But by now, the wolves had made their way over to the security guards.

  Because they know, Nessa thought. They know which are the humans who have tortured them and which is the human who set them free.

  Suddenly Nessa heard the wolves beneath the lab window, growling and snarling. A shot was fired, but then she heard human screams and one wolf whine. Had they overwhelmed the guards? Nessa knew that, counting the second group, there were at least forty wolves in the kennel. Maybe more. There were ten, maybe twelve guards max. The guards were armed, but she didn’t think that would matter after one or two wolves were shot down.

  She heard a clattering as if a wolf had jumped onto a box of some kind. And then the gray wolf was poking his snout into the opening in the broken window. He withdrew, then she saw his whole body launching through. The wolf landed on the countertop and then dropped gracefully to the floor.

  Nate turned to Nessa. “There’s a wolf here,” he said, his voice hushed.

  “I know,” Nessa said. “But he’s not going to hurt us. He’s friendly.”

  Then there was another snout in the window. Another wolf soundlessly hitting the counter, then the floor. Another behind that one. And then a fourth.

  “Are they friendly too?” Nate asked, the question phrased in a monotone though Nessa could hear the hope in it.

  “Um…not so much,” Nessa said.

  The wolves were not coming for Nate or Nessa.

  They were headed for Pasty Pete Packer and Mary Clovis. First they circled their two prey and began a high-pitched yapping. Nessa recognized the sound. A pack made these sounds together to confuse and terrify their victims. Pete had a hand up in front of his face, frozen, as if he could possibly protect himself. He could not, and he could not save his fiancée either.

  Who knew how many times Mary or Pete had been in the room during Dr. Raab’s experiments? Who knew what wolf torture they had witnessed or abetted? What had they done to these wolves or members of their pack?

  They both screamed as the wolves brought them to the floor.

  “Close your eyes, Nate,” Nessa commanded her brother in a stern voice. “Now! Do not look.” She closed her own eyes as well. But she could hear. Bones snapping. Ligaments tearing, cartilage shredded by filed teeth. Mary screaming. Pete begging and shouting to stop, finally just him gasping for breath.

  And then more wolves began to pour in through the broken window, hitting the counter, hitting the floor, until there were six of them skulking toward her and Nate and the gray wolf. Then there were eight. And then ten.

  The wolves attacking Pete and Mary paused to look up at the other wolves, blood dripping from their teeth, their muzzles stained red. Then they went back to their meal.

  The gray wolf squared off in front of Nessa and Nate. Nessa marveled at how calm she felt. Why wasn’t she panicking? She felt like she’d just inhaled extra-oxygenated air. She felt the way she did running through the patch of rye. As if the entire course of time had come to a standstill, and it was just Nessa alone, moving in the radiating glow of the overhead lights. She felt the quiet she had only experienced when she was running her fastest and not feeling anything but the lightness and the way the rhythm of her footsteps had aligned to the rhythm of her heart.

  I have this, she believed. Even if she were strapped down, immobilized, and human…supremely vulnerable, facing a pack of ten outsized, bred-for-aggression wolves.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  There was a moment when everything went absolutely still.

  Nessa didn’t know what had happened, only that the restraints on her wrists and ankles had loosened so much she could slip her paws out easily. Oh, she realized, looking down at them. That’s what happened.

  She had transformed thoughtlessly, without the moon, without rye. Now she was standing in front of the chair designed to restrain a human, but from which, in wolf form, she’d easily escaped. She was ready to protect Nate.

  The aggressive wolves jumped back, momentarily confused. They moved away from Nessa and Nate, into the rest of the room.

  “Nessie?” Nate said. He wasn’t going to show his emotion on his face. Not even now. But she could see the confusion deep in his eyes, and more than that, she could see that he felt abandoned. Here it had been the two of them in the room full of wolves and now it was just him.

  “Nessa, you turned into a wolf.”

  Nessa didn’t know how else to reassure him than to treat him as she would a puppy. Hopping up onto his seat, sidling in next to him, she pushed up against his face with her own, and then she began licking him, first his cheek and then behind his ear where she knew he was ticklish. Then, as he was distracted by laughing, she ripped one restraint free with her teeth. She nosed at the other, and he took the hint, using his free hand to loosen it. She hopped down. She batted Nate’s right hand with the side of her face. She put a paw on his shoe. He understood and bent down to unstrap his own ankles using the buckles.

  And not a moment too soon. The room had devolved into chaos. They needed to get out of there. The wolves were knocking instruments and glass vials off counters, fighting with one another on the surface of tables. They left long gashes in the soft wallboard with their claws. There were a dozen wolves in the room and each one was bent on destroying as much of what was there as they could. One wolf was systematically chewing on the keypad next to the door, gnawing and twisting his head this way and that like it was a bone with a little bit of gristle left to dislodge.

  Another wolf had climbed on top of the table where the shrouded figure lay. She watched that wolf rip the sheet loose. It was Billy Lark’s body, stiff and blue, a roughly sewn incision traveling from belly to neck, each place where the needle had punctured the skin marked by a small circle of black, crusted blood.

  “No!” she barked out and Nessa saw the gray wolf jump up on the table. He was standing over Billy’s body, his head forward, his back perfectly straight, his long legs braced for impact. He was barking ferociously at any wolf who approached. He was protecting the body.

  Nessa might have joined him, but just then some of the wolves had start
ed to approach Nate. She took a step back toward them and glanced up at the gray wolf who was defending Billy from a large aggressive wolf. It had locked its teeth into Gray’s shoulder, and he was down.

  With every ounce of resolve she could muster, Nessa growled and snapped at the wolves who were approaching Nate. Her bark was strong. The nearest wolf rolled back on its haunches. It joined another wolf ripping through surgical gowns that were spilling out of an overturned hamper.

  But another was approaching. And another. Nessa planted her paws, puffed out her chest, and let out a bark that carried every ounce of the human word “NO” she had in her. The bark was like no other sound she had ever been able to make in human or wolf form before. It was deep and resonant, full of everything she knew as a human and an animal.

  She wasn’t going to back down. She knew that. She communicated that. She was here until the death.

  Her confusion and sadness about what had happened in her town were wrapped up inside her bark, but also all the joy she’d known growing up here so close to the woods, the farms, the sky. She barked again and realized as the second wolf backed away that she was strong the way her mother was strong, the way trees that can bend but not crack in fierce winds are strong.

  Behind her, Nate had opened a cabinet and was ripping the caps off bottles. Nessa instantly regretted every disparaging comment she’d ever made about his obsession with his chemistry set. He was using chemical compounds as weapons now, dousing approaching wolves with hydrochloric acid like he was in a water fight, sending them whining and screaming into the corners of the room.

  And just then there was a flash of light near the door. The body of the wolf chewing on the keypad went stiff as sparks flew from the wall and then the wolf collapsed to the floor. He’d electrocuted himself but he’d also killed the lights, the ventilation, and the security system. The electronic mechanism of the door let go and the doors swung open.

  It took the aggressive wolves a moment to notice the now-open door, but when they did there was a collective howling like they were soldiers who had just successfully breached the walls of a besieged city. They flew from the room, streaming into the hallways even as new wolves continued to leap through the broken window, heading straight through the open door as well.

  And then they were gone, leaving nothing but the echoes of destruction behind.

  Nessa took the corner of Nate’s tee shirt in her teeth and pulled. Carefully smelling for hydrochloric acid, she led him through the wreckage of the room to the table where Gray was lying next to Billy’s body.

  She nudged the gray wolf and, as he rolled over in response, Nessa smelled the blood. Then she saw it. It was fresh still, flowing, pooling under his front shoulder, where she’d seen him get bitten.

  She let out a whine. She couldn’t help it. She needed to transform back into human state where she’d have hands and could open cabinets and find bandages.

  She butted Nate with her head, showed him what she wanted by nosing open a cabinet. He got the idea and quickly found bandages. He was inexpert, but he’d seen enough of the animals Vivian treated in the garage at home to know the basics, pressing the bandage into the wound, wrapping the shoulder, taping the wrap.

  Nessa knew Nate was not strong enough to lift the gray wolf, who likely weighed more than he did, so Nessa gave the wolf another nudge to get him up and walking. He looked almost comatose, his eyes flitting in one direction and then the next without moving his head, which he was too exhausted to lift. It was hard to imagine him walking, not in the state he was in, but she didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if he stayed.

  Eventually, he stood. He took a few halting steps, yelped in pain, and stopped. Then he took a few steps more. He kept looking back at Billy’s body, but Nessa stood between him and it to let him know he had to move forward.

  Once outside, they saw that the Paravida guard towers were deserted. Lights were flashing, a siren was wailing, guards were running and jumping into Paravida vehicles. Wolves were everywhere, fighting with each other, fighting over garbage they’d found, trotting in small groups as though on patrol. One was lifting its leg to pee on the corner of a building. Another was digging a hole in a landscaped bed.

  Nessa heard the mechanical gate begin to open. Someone must have decided that the campus would feel a lot safer if the wolves were let out. She still didn’t understand how the Paravida people had managed to get the wolves to cooperate before, coming at the whistle, heading straight to their kennel. Maybe the guards who knew how to use the whistle were all dead?

  Leading Nate, encouraging the gray wolf to follow her, she moved toward the opening in the fence that the aggressive wolves were now streaming through. The gray wolf was moving slowly. They reached the gate just as it was closing up and got through it just in time.

  Then Nessa heard a noise she would have recognized anywhere. An engine idling. But not just any engine. It was an engine whose idle sounded like it was going to choke out at any moment. The Monster.

  Nate must have heard it too, because he started to move toward it, navigating the thick underbrush in the woods.

  Nessa turned to the gray wolf. She didn’t know how to say, “Stay here,” so she just looked at him intently, concentrating on the words as much as she could. Then she ran with Nate, breaking a trail for him to follow, then letting him go alone—she sat back in the shadows when they saw the outline of Bree’s car.

  Nate ran for it. Bree was standing by the driver’s side door, opening the back seat for him, holding him by the shoulders when he reached her, checking to make sure he was okay. Bree cupped her hands at the sides of her eyes, blocking the light coming from her car, scanning the woods, Nessa was sure, for her. Nessa moved forward, into the light, standing where Bree could see her and know that she was okay. Bree waved. Nessa lifted her chin.

  Then she moved back into the shadows. Nate would have to explain to Bree that Nessa was returning to care for the gray wolf. She was thinking she could get him home, to the garage, that Vivian would treat him, that she would know what to do.

  But when she returned to the spot where she’d left him, the gray wolf was gone.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  They met up back at Nessa’s house. It didn’t take long for Nessa and Bree to explain to Nessa’s mom (most of) what had happened. Vivian called the sheriff almost as soon as they’d finished talking. They had left out some crucial details, including Nessa’s shape-shifting, and dwelled on their investigation of the clinic study following Billy’s death. Still, the story was horrifying. Thankfully, Vivian believed them. Nate’s silence—he was so traumatized he’d stopped speaking or even answering direct questions—perhaps did more to convince her than any of the grisly details Nessa and Bree had provided.

  The next morning, the sheriff, who happened to be a distant cousin of Vivian’s, used their statements to acquire a warrant, and they all drove out to Paravida to investigate.

  “You just need to see it,” Nessa had promised. “You have to see the lab and these wolves.”

  She had imagined they’d find Dr. Raab in the remnants of his lab. And even if he wasn’t on the premises, the kennels, the wolf building, the lab where she and Nate had been held—it would all be there.

  But when the sheriff pulled up at the main Paravida gate and requested Dr. Raab, they were sent to the main administration building and met by a man in a suit who introduced himself as Dan Green, Director of Paravida Public Relations. Bringing them into a conference room, he explained that Dr. Raab had resigned from the clinic study for family reasons the previous week. It was a long commute from California, Mr. Green said, laughing. Then he assured the adults that Dr. Raab’s resignation had nothing to do with Billy Lark’s unfortunate death. The Dutch Chem study would go on, of course. Paravida took its obligations to the community seriously. They had found a great medical researcher in Detroit who would be taking over. Dr. Priscilla Lewandoski. Look her up!

  He then crossed his legs
, leaned back in his seat, and listened patiently, without emotion, as Sheriff Williams related the story of Nate’s being abducted and what Nessa had seen. He looked sympathetic but in no way concerned, and when Sheriff Williams had finished, the PR director smiled and began speaking.

  “We were aware, of course, of the break-in last night, but as you know we are very much a community member in Tether, and we had been hoping to contact the youth empowerment office and resolve this without involving the police.” He looked directly at Nessa at that point. “Especially since it’s Nessa Kurland, our town’s running superstar, not to mention current winner of the Paravida Award. We’d hate to besmirch her image in any way and jeopardize her chances of securing a scholarship to college next year.”

  Nessa looked at her mother’s face. At the sheriff’s. They both looked confused, waiting for the evidence to call this man’s bluff.

  “If it’s all the same with you,” Sheriff Williams said. “I’d like to look around.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Green said. “I’ll take you myself.” He spoke into his walkie-talkie, and a younger employee came rushing in with a ring of keys. Mr. Green (“call me Dan”) ushered them out and into a golf cart to travel between the buildings.

  “As you may have read on the Paravida website,” he intoned over the low hum of the cart’s engine, “Paravida has a strict policy of not using animals in research, in either our pharmaceutical or cosmetics divisions.” He cracked an arrogant smile. “And we certainly don’t use human animals, though I’m not sure we even bother to specify that policy in our public communications materials.” He looked directly at Nessa when he said this and chuckled like this was a pretty good joke.

  “Over there,” Nessa said, pointing to the turn he would need to make to get to the wolf building.

  “Here?” he said courteously. Nessa couldn’t quite reconcile his calm face with the fact that they were about to come upon rows and rows of wolf kennels and a building dedicated to labs and surgical theaters where experiments were being conducted. One of the huge doors of the building stood open, and when they were able to see inside, the space was totally and completely empty.