by Jason Starr
“No, I definitely want to know,” Alison said. “I’ve thought about hiring a PI, but maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just do it and find out once and for all.”
“I have an old friend who’s a PI, has a big agency here in the city,” Vijay said. “His name’s, don’t laugh, Stephen Tyler.”
Alison laughed.
“He spells it with a ph, not a v,” Vijay said. “Anyway, he’s here in the city and he’s very discreet and professional. If you give him a few days he’ll tell you what’s going on and, one way or another, you’ll have a much clearer picture. Just don’t make any Aerosmith jokes, he’s heard them all.”
After all the chaos and weirdness she’d endured lately, the concept of “a clearer picture” was very appealing to Alison, so, figuring she had nothing to lose, she took Stephen Tyler’s contact information. She didn’t want to overstay her welcome, so she said she should probably get going now. At the door she told him she had a great time, and Vijay said he had a great time too, and they kissed good-bye. She didn’t want the kiss to end.
Several minutes later, she was wandering downtown on Broadway, fantasizing again about being with Vijay in Rome, when her cell phone buzzed. She hoped it was Vijay, telling her what a wonderful time he’d had because that was what she was planning to text him, but the message was from Simon:
I love you and please tell little bear I love him too. I promise someday you’ll understand EVERYTHING.
Annoyed, Alison deleted the message and typed a happy one to Vijay.
TWELVE
Simon ran with Volker all night. While it was a thrill to have a companion, a fellow werewolf, to run with, it was also a great learning experience. Despite his age—as a human Volker had deep wrinkles and appeared to be at least ninety years old—Volker was a very fast, agile werewolf. He was much quicker than Simon, but this was mainly because Simon still wasn’t fully comfortable in his wolf’s body. That started to change, though, after several hours of running with Volker. Simon learned how to trust his new animal instincts and to use more of his speed. He also learned how to be a great tree climber. This was more amazing because, in his normal human body, he’d never been a very good climber. When he was growing up, his friends could climb to the highest branches of trees, but he was always the one who was too afraid to climb very high. But following Volker’s lead, Simon was able to climb to the highest branch of a tree, where, because he was certain there were no humans in the area, he howled as loud as he could.
At one point, Volker stopped running and squatted. Simon was confused until the odor hit and he knew Volker was pooping. When Volker was through, he buried the poop in the ground using his feet/claws as shovels, and then he indicated that it was Simon’s turn. Simon had to go, so he pooped and then buried it the way Volker had. While Simon was vaguely aware that this was weird, mainly he felt very normal pooping in the woods, as if he’d been doing it forever.
In the middle of the night, probably around four in the morning, the brightness of the moon faded, and Volker settled to rest. Simon lay next to him, feeling, strangely, as if he were part of the ground, that when he inhaled, his breath went into the earth, and when he exhaled, air from the earth left his mouth. If he’d been on drugs this would have been a seriously good trip.
When he opened his eyes it was dawn. Volker was gone, but his intense werewolf scent lingered. Simon felt achy and a little dizzy and then he looked at his normal human hands. He had some cuts and bruises on his arms and legs, but he knew they’d heal within minutes. He was sad that he wasn’t a werewolf anymore—he mostly missed the carefree abandon—but his disappointment was overtaken by panic as he realized he had bigger problems. He was naked and, worse, he smelled a human, very close by, and heard footsteps—crunching twigs and dried leaves.
Simon scrambled to put on his clothes but only managed to get underwear and part of his T-shirt on when he heard, “Hey.”
It was a man’s voice and it wasn’t a friendly hey. It was a Hey, what the hell are you doing here? hey.
With his back to the guy, Simon froze with the T-shirt over his head and on one arm and said, “Um, not much.”
“You sleep here all night?”
Simon put on the rest of the T-shirt, then looked at the middle-aged black guy—in a City Parks Department uniform.
Knowing that being in most parts of the park at night was illegal, he said, “Nope, I, um, just got here.”
The guy was looking around. “Who’re you here with?”
Simon got the implication, as the Ramble had a reputation as a gay hookup area.
“No one, I swear,” Simon said. “I was just, um, hiking, and I thought I got poison ivy, so I was just checking, that’s all.” He realized this explanation was ridiculous, but, on the spot, it was the best he could come up with.
“There’s no poison ivy around here,” the guy said.
“See, that’s good to know,” Simon said. “I wish you were here five minutes ago. You would’ve saved me a major panic attack.”
Simon smiled, trying to make it into a joke, but the guy wasn’t amused.
“Just get dressed and get the hell out of here,” he said, “or I’m gonna call the cops.”
“Definitely,” Simon said, pulling on his pants. “Have a great day.”
The guy walked away, shaking his head.
Simon put on his socks and sneakers. The holes in the socks and rips in the sneakers reminded him of what had happened last night. It all seemed like a dream or a fantasy, but he knew it was real.
Then, he was checking his cell phone—still nothing from Alison—when he heard a crash behind him. Simon had a strong jolt in his chest and his breath was gone; he actually thought he was having a heart attack. Then he saw Volker—the human version of Volker—standing a few feet away after his leap from a tree branch above them. Volker was dressed in black—black shoes, black pants, black turtleneck—and for such an athletic guy he looked astonishingly old. Though he had very thick white hair, his face looked like someone had carved lines it, reminding Simon of some of the last photos of Mother Teresa.
“You just scared the hell out of me.” Simon caught his breath. “I thought you left.”
“I wouldn’t leave you,” Volker said with his strong German accent.
Simon put his phone away and patted his pockets, making sure he had his wallet and keys. Then he said, “We should probably get going. That parks guy might get the wrong idea.”
“He is gone,” Volker said.
Simon breathed deeply—it was true, the scent had faded. He said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Then, aware of his lingering queasiness, he said, “How do you feel? I mean I feel a little nauseous.”
“Nausea is normal,” Volker said.
Simon looked at Volker’s very dark, practically black eyes, which were eerily similar to Michael’s, then realized he was staring and said, “Sorry, it’s just a little freaky seeing you here; I mean, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Where did you come from?”
“I’m from Germany.”
“I know that. I mean, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again myself. How’d you find me? Did Charlie send you?”
“No one had to send me. I have been tracking you for days.”
“Days?” Simon said. “How’s that possible? I mean, I picked up a scent here the other night, but if it’s been days I would’ve picked up on something else.”
“I can be more than a kilometer away from you on a city street and still be able to track you.”
Simon didn’t know the metric system very well, but he knew a kilometer was about two-thirds of a mile—pretty damn impressive.
“Wow.” Simon was seriously impressed; his own ability to detect scents didn’t seem nearly as powerful. “That’s amazing, I mean that you can do that in Manhattan; with all these scents, it can be overwhelming sometimes.”
“It’s not overwhelming for me.” Volker was emotionless.
“How is this all possib
le?” Simon asked. “I mean, I get it now, I know I’m capable of these incredible things now, but where did it come from? How am I able to change? Does it wear off? Is there a cure?”
“A cure.” Did Volker sound disgusted? “You talk as if you have a disease.”
“Well, it’s like a disease,” Simon said. “It was given to me, I didn’t ask for any of this, and I have a right to know what’s going on with my body. I mean, I know it came from you and Michael, but how did you get this way? What’s in my body? Will it make me sick? Am I going to die from it?”
“No, you won’t die for another one hundred years, perhaps longer.”
“If you think this is a joke, I’m not laughing,” Simon said.
“Does it seem like a joke?” Volker paused, staring, then said, “To answer your other questions, my father made me who I am, and unfortunately I made Michael who he is. Are there other wolves? Maybe. I’ve heard rumors, but I’ve never encountered one. But werewolfe are excellent at disguising themselves, at assimilating. That is something you must learn if you are to survive in the human world. Right now, you are like an animal raised in captivity. You don’t have the skills to survive in the human world.”
Simon’s brain was overloaded, trying to process all this—Fathers? Assimilating? Captivity? “Look, I want answers, real answers,” he said, raising his voice. “Where did all this start? What happened to my body? What’s making me act the way I’m acting? How does my body change?”
“Why are these questions so important to you?” Volker asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Simon said. “Why wouldn’t I want to know?”
Volker waited several seconds, then said, “Fine. If you insist, I’ll tell you what you want to know. Maybe it will help you understand what’s at stake.” He let that hang there, then asked, “Do you want to sit down?”
Simon had too much energy. “No, standing’s fine,” he said.
“Very well.” Then Volker was quiet again, staring blankly for a long time. Finally he said, “It is impossible to explain about Michael and me, if I don’t first tell you about my father. His name was Heinrich Hartmann, spelled the German way, with two ns, and he was a very cruel man. Every day when he came home from work he would beat my mother and me mercilessly. My earliest memories are of my father’s violence. Sometimes when I close my eyes I can hear my father yelling at me and my mother, and I can feel the pains of his fists against my face and his belt against my back. Although this happened nearly 140 years ago, the memories are fresh in my mind.”
Simon was shaking his head.
“Is something wrong?” Volker asked.
“It’s just what you keep saying about your age.”
“What about my age?”
“Come on,” Simon said, “you really expect me to believe you were around a hundred and forty years ago?”
“I was born in Freiburg, Germany, in the year 1871,” Volker said.
It was clear that he wasn’t kidding, or at least he believed it was true.
“Wow, I guess you must have some pretty good longevity in your family,” Simon said.
“Strength and healing aren’t the only gifts of the wolf,” Volker said. “You and the others will live longer than humans as well. Well, this is depending, of course, on what sort of survival skills you learn. Michael was born in 1921 and he’s still healthy and quite strong.”
Normally Simon would’ve dismissed Volker as a demented old man with an excellent imagination, but after experiencing what he’d experienced last night, and witnessing Volker’s remarkable strength and agility, how could he discount anything?
“So what does your father, Heinrich, have to do with this?” Simon asked. “Was he a werewolf too?”
“No, not initially,” Volker said, “but one day something happened to him that would change the course of our family forever. It began like any other day. My father went to work, and when he returned he was drunk and began beating my mother. I came to my mother’s defense, but I was just a young boy and my father was a very large man, at least twice as large as me, and I couldn’t hurt him with my fists, but when he grabbed me and was going to hit me I bit his arm. This enraged him further and I knew I’d made a huge mistake, that he would beat me mercilessly.
“Then he grabbed me by my ear and pulled me outside behind our house. I was screaming very loud and he didn’t want the neighbors to hear so he pulled me farther into the woods, where no one could hear my screams. Then he told me to take off my shirt and turn away from him. I knew what was coming and I just wanted it to end as soon as possible. I didn’t want to think about the pain, but I couldn’t help it. He beat me with his belt harder than he ever had before, and my screams must have echoed through the woods. I prayed to God for a miracle, for the pain to end, and then the wolf appeared.
“I saw it in the woods, in the distance ahead of me. It was big and gray and very majestic and it was watching my father whip me. My father didn’t see the wolf, or he would have stopped beating me, I’m sure of it, but I sensed the danger and ran away. My father yelled for me to come back and chased after me. Usually my father could catch me easily, but I was so frightened of the wolf that I ran faster than I’d ever run before. I was running through the woods, trying to get home, and my father was chasing after me, and then I heard my father but he wasn’t screaming my name—he was screaming in agony. The wolf was attacking him, biting into his flesh with its huge teeth. There was blood, so much blood, and my father was defenseless. It was a wonderful thing to see. After all the abuse I had suffered, I loved seeing my father feel some of my pain. I wanted the wolf to kill my father, to get revenge for my mother and me.
“I ran home and I was so happy I was probably laughing out loud. My mother asked where Father was and I lied to her. I said my father had gone for a walk in the woods and sent me home. I was afraid if I told her the truth she would send men into the woods to try to save my father. That night, my father didn’t return, and it was the happiest night of my childhood. I imagined him in the woods, his body torn to shreds by the wolf, and that my mother and I would never have to fear him again. I hoped there was a hell and my father was in it and would feel the pain of the wolf forever.
“In the morning, there was a search for my father. They found his blood, but not his body. We were told that the wolf probably dragged his body somewhere and that my father was almost certainly dead. Although my mother cried, I knew they were tears of joy, that she was as happy as I was that my father was gone forever. So you can imagine how surprised and terrified we both were two weeks later when my father returned from the woods stronger and healthier than ever.”
Simon could tell that Volker was so caught up in the story that, in his mind, he was back there in the woods, watching the wolf attack his father. Meanwhile, Simon felt like he was at a campfire, listening to an old man tell an eerie story. But the fact that he knew this wasn’t a story, that this related to his life and his future, made him even more anxious to find out what happened next.
“So where did your father say he’d been?” Simon asked.
“He said he had been lost in the woods,” Volker said. “The authorities concluded that the blood that was found must not have been his, and everyone in the village was glad my father was alive—well, everyone except my mother and me. I, of course, knew the truth, but I was afraid to tell anyone. I also knew that as soon as he had the chance my father would beat me mercilessly for leaving him in the woods to die.
“But my father didn’t beat me, which surprised me, but I knew something about him had changed. There was a darkness in his eyes that I had never seen before, and I feared him more than ever. At night he would leave, sometimes not returning until morning. He was eating meat constantly and was always restless, and he grew a thick beard and had more hair on the rest of his body as well. He was very strong—one day I saw him chop down a thick tree with a single swing of an ax. People in town thought he’d gone mad from being in the woods for so long, but I kne
w he wasn’t crazy. And then, on the night of a bright full moon, it happened.”
Simon couldn’t doubt Volker anymore; how could he? The description of Heinrich’s behavior after getting bitten was so similar to what Simon had experienced.
“What happened?” Simon asked anxiously.
“I heard him and my mother in their bedroom,” Volker continued. “It was the sounds of lovemaking at first. I was ashamed to listen, so I put a pillow over my head, but the pillow couldn’t block out what came next. My mother was screaming, as if she were being attacked, and it sounded as if there were an animal in the room with her. I had no idea what was happening, but naturally I wanted to save my mother, so I went to their room and opened the door and saw my father attacking her. But it wasn’t my father—it was my father as a wolf. He was chewing her flesh, his animal face covered in blood, and my mother’s silence told me it was too late to help. Then my father turned toward me and before I could run he was upon me, biting into my neck. I was certain I was going to die and, in a way, I suppose I did die, because my life as a complete human ended that day.”