The Skinwalker's Tale

by Christopher Carrolli

  “I’m out,” Leah said, throwing a card on the pile and discarding the remaining one in her hand.

  “I should know better than to play cards with a clairvoyant,” Sidney said. The laughter was light and the talk playful, and then they turned and saw him.

  “Brett, you’re awake,” Susan said, looking at her watch. “How do you feel?”

  “Alright,” he said. “I feel relaxed. Has there been any word about Uncle Jack? I haven’t seen Kate, and I didn’t want to open his door.”

  “I spoke with Kate,” Susan said. “Jack’s been asleep.” Susan explained that she’d seen Kate inside, and other than that moment, she and the team had been outside the whole time.

  Brett took a seat, feeling all of their eyes on him at once. Their looks ranged from pity, worry, concern, and even fear. He thought of the only thing he could possibly say.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “I didn’t want to drop this bomb on all of you. That’s why I’ve kept this secret so long. It’s something I’ve lived with my entire life, but not something I’ve ever really understood, at least, not to the extent that I should’ve.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Brett,” Susan said. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We’re not only your friends, but among the few people in the world who could help you. How on Earth do you think you would’ve handled this alone?”

  “That’s right,” Dylan said. “How would you have lived with this without telling us?”

  “If anyone knows what it’s like to live life with some freakish phenomena, it would be Sid and me,” Leah said. “We’re always here for you, no matter what.”

  Sidney backed up Leah’s sentiment, and then Susan offered a suggestion.

  “I say we talk more about this later,” she said. “After all, we have to eat, right? And Brett, you need to keep up your strength. I say we order takeout.”

  All agreed, and on this Saturday night, they opted for pizza and beer. After all, they weren’t officially investigating.

  “Yeah,” Sidney said. “After today, I think we could all use a few drinks.”

  Sidney elbowed Brett, laughing his sarcastic, smart-assed chuckle that Brett always said he should’ve patented. They laughed as the mood lightened, and all seemed briefly forgotten.

  * * * *

  Day had turned to dusk, and dusk turned to evening. They lit the shaded candles on top of the picnic benches for the small feast they enjoyed on the back patio. The candlelight accentuated the nighttime view of the breathtaking rural horizon, tinged in a rose-colored mist that mingled with the full, silver moonlight. The lighthearted laughter from their rare get-together allowed their minds to drift from the present circumstances, if only for an interlude.

  But soon, their conversation turned to the business at hand. As expected, when the laughter died down, they remained investigators. But now the Budweiser had added a euphoric buzz to their ponderings. Susan had been the first to elaborate on a topic briefly mentioned.

  “The question of the thin line between the paranormal and the supernatural,” she said. “Obviously, that’s a question that we’re dealing with right now. Brett, what are your thoughts? Is there a thin line between the two, and if so, do you feel that you’ve crossed it?”

  It was a bold question, she knew, but she was doing her best to assess Brett’s state of mind. She realized what was happening to him. It was obvious that this thing he’d kept hidden was now becoming uncontrollable. Growing up, the shape-shifting occurrences had been rare, and he’d even controlled it once. Now, it was out of his hands. She wondered which weight was heavier for him, that, or the impending reality of losing Jack.

  She watched him stare into the soft candlelight.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I know I’m unable to stop it at this point. Earlier, when I shifted into the snake; I never meant for that to happen. The shifting rarely occurs more than once in the span of a day. I’ve crossed something, I know that. But what it is I’m not really sure.”

  This was what Susan had expected to hear, but another possibility crossed her mind.

  “Brett, do you think that the stress over Jack’s situation could be the trigger of your sudden shifting? You say you feel this ‘chaos’ coming about more frequently. It could be the constant worrying that is producing the chaos, and therefore, the end result.

  “Think of this, Brett,” she continued. “Claudia left when you were a baby; you barely remember her. Vivian died suddenly, an incident that provoked no prior stress, only grief afterward. Now, Jack is terminal, a fact that you’ve known for quite awhile. This is the event that you thought would be far off, yet here it is. The fact that it is happening confronts you with the prospect of being alone, as well as being pushed to the forefront, a responsibility you hadn’t expected so soon.”

  There was a pause, and all watched as Brett just stared into the candlelight, unflinching.

  “Am I right?” Susan asked.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Because I’m not sure I understand much about the supernatural.”

  “But, isn’t everything that we do as investigators considered supernatural?” Now, Sidney spoke on the topic of discussion. “Supernatural only means above and beyond that which is natural. So, aren’t all phenomena within that category? Things such as ghosts, poltergeists, haunted houses, aren’t they the very definition of supernatural?”

  “Sid’s got a point,” Dylan said. “If you think about it, the two words are basically interchangeable. Paranormal refers to scenarios and events outside of the norm that cannot be explained by science.”

  “And science cannot explain either the supernatural or the paranormal,” Leah said.

  “So, we reach the conclusion that they’re one and the same,” Susan said, “just as I thought. That means that we’ll help you, Brett, as we would any other client who’s come to us with a haunting or any other such matter. That brings me to why we were recording you earlier this evening. If we’re going to help you, we need to investigate this like any other situation.”

  She reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. She spoke more like a friend now than a psychiatrist or the director of the society.

  “We’re about to become the people that are left in your life,” she said. “We need to understand what you are, for your own sake. What if there’s ever a time when you need us? You cannot go through this alone, Brett. We need to know in the event of some unforeseen occurrence.”

  Susan watched as Brett turned his gaze away from the candlelight and cast his eyes down upon the patio floor, lost in contemplation.

  “I know,” he said. “I realize that.”

  “I’ve instructed both Dylan and Sidney to set up the cameras—one out here and one in the front yard, in case we need footage from the front of the house. I had instructed Dylan to be recording when you returned. We need to know what happens to you and how it happens. As a doctor, I need to know. I’m surprised at how long you’ve kept this secret when I could have helped you long ago.”

  As Susan spoke, she spied something from the corner of her eye. There was movement beyond the window separating the patio outside and the kitchen inside. Susan casually glanced in that direction. It was Kate, motioning for Susan to meet her at the back door.

  “Excuse me for just a moment,” she said, hoping that her sudden exit would not rouse Brett’s suspicion. No one spoke, and a nagging feeling tugged inside of her as she made her way to the back door, where Kate had been waiting for her. Susan stepped inside to hear the nurse’s quiet words.

  “I thought I should alert you, first,” Kate said. “His blood pressure is dropping; it won’t be much longer now.”

  Susan nodded. As a doctor, she’d been expecting this, but still, her heart broke and then plummeted. The inevitable was about to occur, and it was time to dissolve their peaceful gathering. She turned and went back out onto the patio. Breaking the news would not be easy.

  Suddenly, it all began to make sense. This was why
Tahoe was on a flight to Pennsylvania. From afar, he was seeing something happening tonight, something that was enough to make him hop on a flight from across the country alone at his age. Yes, it was all making sense, and spiraling toward a conclusion that struck a reverberating chord of fear throughout her entire body.

  * * * *

  He watched as Susan had walked around the corner to the back door and returned in less than a minute. She’d excused herself, but where did she go? Her face was now a mask of grave trepidation, sunken and fallen features forming a severity that was coming toward him. He flinched when she put her hand on his shoulder once again.

  “Brett, I just spoke with Kate,” she said. “It’s time.”

  The words he never wanted to hear sounded an alarm inside of him. He experienced an urgent, last minute reaction that hastened to stop the inevitable. His heart pounded hard as his breath ran away from his body. The words had been dizzying, and his mind fought the sound of them. But there would be no denial; the words had been uttered.

  The moment was real. He stood fast from his seat on the picnic bench and faced Susan.

  “No,” he said. “It can’t be, not now; not so soon.”

  His voice was pleading in vain attempts for more time.

  “Brett, there’s nothing we can do now,” she said. Her tone was soft, attempting to comfort yet control. “You know that Jack has been ill for far too long. It’s time for him to be healthy again in the hereafter and be reunited with Vivian. You know that also.”

  “I know nothing anymore!” His voice turned to bitter anger and denial.

  “Damn it, Brett, we’ve already proven it! You know we have.”

  “We’ve proven it only to ourselves!” he said, counteracting her assertion.

  “Isn’t that enough, Brett?” she said. “Have you forgotten our experience with the pipeline connection? He needs to see you, Brett. You must go upstairs and face this.”

  He suddenly fell forward in her grasp, his head landing on her shoulder as the tears fell in torrents. He felt his entire life being torn away from him, leaving behind a shell of his existence, but in his case, one that changed and shifted into the shape of another. His grief turned to sobbing, and that of the investigators followed. They surrounded him in a circle, engaging in a group-hug until all were weeping.

  Finally, Susan took the lead.

  “It’s time to go upstairs, Brett,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “We all will,” Dylan said.

  Susan lifted his chin to her eye level as if he were a child.

  “You have to be strong now,” she said. “You can’t let him see you like this; it will be the last thing he sees.”

  She instructed him to breathe deeply, and he had, though it didn’t change anything. He and Susan led the way through the back door and up the stairs to Jack’s bedroom. The investigators followed slowly and respectfully behind.

  Beyond the bedroom door, the frail old man lay in bed, semi-conscious, while his breathing machine hissed and pumped the only sounds through the room. Brett noticed the color and the life fading fast from his uncle. Kate had been sitting in the chair at his bedside, and now she stood and walked toward Brett as he entered.

  “He can still hear you,” she said. “He’s fading in and out, but he knows.”

  Brett and Susan walked over to Jack’s bedside. The team remained against the wall near the doorway, watching with somber eyes that stared intermittingly at the floor. Brett took the chair that Kate had vacated, and Susan stood behind it, gripping the sides for support.

  Jack was only partially sedated by the morphine, and his eyes rolled open after several attempts. Brett’s eyes met his uncle’s, but he noticed that they were different, dilated behind a glaze that lingered over what once thrived with life. The eyes seemed to show the soul slipping away. Jack spoke, his voice a fading whisper in a heavy haze, and Brett could see that an undeniable serenity had overcome him, as though he was somehow happy.

  “Brett,” he said. Jack’s whisper dragged out his name.

  Brett took Jack’s hand and clutched it. He felt himself gripping, as though he’d never let go. Jack smiled at him, and Brett knew that his own valiant attempt not to falter was failing. He knew that Jack could read the expression on his face and see the pain and fear in his eyes. He was not winning this battle.

  The heightened tension of this moment struck something inside of him, something that would begin to build. But now, he listened, as Jack’s final words were strung between pauses.

  “Stay...in...control,” he said, struggling with the words. “I’ll be...watching...my boy...”

  The words fell away and were followed by gasping sounds. Brett began to call out for Jack, but Susan shushed him. Then they all heard the next sound, the final heaving breath that inhaled deeply, then exhaled one last time with a sigh just before a final silence. The beeping sound of one of the machines was quickly subdued as Kate turned it off—for good.

  Susan was holding him while he hung his head in defeat. He felt a pain so great in his chest that it muted his grief, and cascading tears fell silently to the floor. Pitiful sobs and sniffles snuck through the silence. He felt Susan gently pull away from him and address Kate. She was officially announcing the time of death.

  “I can call it,” she said. “7:50 pm.”

  So, that was it; it was over. Now, anger began to replace the helpless pain of grief. How unfair it was for Uncle Jack to suffer all of this time. How cruel it was that he himself had endured the constant worrying, and then all of it had ended in a minute with the final drawing of breath. Was he supposed to accept this? Accept the fact that his uncle’s life was over in an instant, as though he’d never existed?

  All of it had been because someone had missed finding his cancer, and soon, it had run rampant throughout his body. During the course of Jack’s treatment, many mistakes had been made by so-called professionals, but Jack had been a patient and forgiving man. Was he supposed to accept any of this? He accepted nothing.

  He nearly leapt from the chair as all of the anger, grief, love, hate, and tension balled up inside of him, pulsing through his veins and threatening to explode, yet there was no one to unleash it upon. Those who stood with him now were his family. They were here to be with him when the time came, and that had been an additional unfairness.

  The chaos was raging inside. His mind was reeling as the inner heat surged him. The sweat began to dampen his forehead. He turned and ran from the room. He heard Susan calling behind him and the footsteps that followed.

  “Brett! Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

  He could hear Susan and the team following fast behind, but he was already descending the staircase. He needed to be outside, out in the open. He couldn’t take much more; the heat was intensifying. He made it to the kitchen door that led to the back patio, and as he swung it open, the moderately cool, summer air did nothing to quench the temperature that rose solely for him.

  He stood on the walkway around the corner from the patio, doing his best to engorge himself of the night air. The team followed him outside, and now they all watched him closely. Brett looked straight into the camera that Dylan had set up in the backyard, and then he lifted his arms outward in an open shrug.

  “Well, it looks like we’re about to have some great footage,” he said, trying to catch his breath as if he’d just walked a mile in the heat.

  “Wait, Brett,” Dylan said. “Don’t let yourself slip away.”

  “Dylan’s right,” Susan said. “Brett, it doesn’t have to be this way. Try to calm yourself; try to fight it. It’s over now.”

  He felt his stomach rumble and begin to turn inside out. The sweat was soaking his body.

  “I can’t stop it,” he said. “It’s too late.”

  The heat became unbearable.

  He pulled his shirt, once again, up over his arms and threw it behind him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you don’t understand.”
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br />   He looked into the camera once more with his breath pulsing and racing harder and faster. He glanced back at the team and then back into the camera like he no longer cared. He needed to be away from here. He pulled off his jeans, tossed them aside, and stood bare frontal for the camera.

  Then, he went down on all fours.

  Chapter Ten

  It wasn’t her third eye that was showing her the wolf drawing its head back and howling an eerie homage to the bright, full moon; it was her naked eye. This was the first time that Leah or the rest of the team had seen Brett shift into the wolf that he’d described. He’d gone down on all fours, and then feet shuffled backward as the wolf sat and stirred only inches away.

  It was perched, yet hastening on its hind legs when its urgent call split the peaceful country silence apart. The howl was deafening, echoing into the night and raising the hair on her head. Its fur was black, silky in texture, and then the wolf rose to its full, four-legged stance. Leah and the team watched it sprint with surging canine speed across the vast acres and into the woods. The wolf was gone, into the night, and so was Brett. She felt the grip of shock and awe just as surely as she felt the light summer breeze that cut through the humidity.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Susan asked.

  Leah could hear the sound of Susan’s voice. It was the voice of another whose mind had been blown by the shock, but this was not a comfortable realization. Dr. Susan Logan, the esteemed psychiatrist, not to mention, parapsychologist had taken the tone of a person whose strength and sanity were surely being tested.

  “I say we go after him,” Sidney said, stepping back into the circle they’d quickly disbanded. “If we find him, we could at least watch him.”