Wereduck

by Dave Atkinson

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. I just felt like quacking and…” she mimed flapping her wings.

  “But how did you know to do that?”

  “I just knew, I guess,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t a wolf. I don’t know how any of this works, but I just never felt like one.”

  Their feet crunched softly in the gravel as they walked.

  “I’ve been wondering about that,” said John, “what I would do if I had the chance to do it again for the first time.”

  He looked up as he walked, searching the empty sky.

  “What would you do?” asked Kate.

  “I think I’d howl,” he said. “I always knew I was a wolf, even when I was a little kid.”

  “That’s cool,” said Kate, nodding. “Cool that you knew.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  They walked quietly.

  “It’s so dark,” repeated Kate.

  She felt John’s hand touch the back of hers. His index finger hooked around her pinky. They walked with their fingers locked for a few strides before she slid her hand into his.

  They walked holding hands, chatting easily. Kate didn’t pause to wonder whether this was the right thing to do. Like becoming a duck, it just felt right. She didn’t want anything to stop this.

  “Hold on a sec,” said John. His pace slowed down as Kate’s heart sped up. He stopped and turned to face her.

  “What?” asked Kate softly.

  “It’s just…” he put his hand on her shoulder.

  Kate shut her eyes.

  “Is there a light on in that house over there?” he asked.

  “What,” said Kate blankly.

  “Look,” said John, turning her around and pointing into the dark. “That house. I think it’s the old one with the broken windows and stuff. It looks like there’s a light on in the upstairs window.”

  “That’s stupid,” said Kate. “No one lives there. Why would there be….”

  Her words trailed off as she noticed a dim light, like that of a candle, flickering from an upper window of the house.

  “Let’s check it out,” said John, already walking towards the house.

  “But,” stammered Kate, “I thought we were…” She kicked at the gravel. “Busy.”

  “C’mon!” called John, striding away.

  “But…” whispered Kate. She gritted her teeth. “I’m coming!”

  Dirk sat at his typewriter. He’d been staring at blank piece of paper for the better part of the last fifteen minutes.

  “Think, Bragg,” he said to himself. “Think, think, think….”

  He had been prolific these last few weeks. This house had been good to him. The morning after moving in, he’d stocked the pantry with the food he’d need for the month—mostly bananas, dried fruit, and jars of sauerkraut. The only evidence from the outside that anyone had been living in the house was the occasional tap-tap-tapping sound from an upstairs window. Dirk had set up his old manual typewriter in one of the bedrooms, writing story after story for Really Real News and sending them by mail to his editor in New York.

  Sandra was very happy. Dirk used the Really Real News’s unofficial motto as his guide to writing: If you can’t report the truth, just make sure it’s interesting.

  He’d written stories about panda bears opening a trendy vegetarian restaurant in New Jersey (“Today’s Special: Bamboo”), Elvis coming out of hiding to take a run at the United States presidency, and about how the union representing garbage men in New York City was plotting to overthrow the mayor. Tonight, he was drawing a blank.

  “Think, think, think…” repeated Dirk. “How about a story…about…” he stood up and paced the room, “…cats? Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Kitty-cat. Kitty Litter. Kitty…” he scrunched his forehead as searched for a word, “Zombies? Kitty zombies? Adorable Zombie Cats Take Over The Internet. BRILLIANT!”

  He jumped back into his seat, put a pencil between his teeth, and placed his hands on the typewriter keys.

  He paused. He heard a sound.

  Dirk sat with his fingers suspended above the typewriter.

  He heard footsteps and muted voices downstairs.

  Someone was in the house.

  “This is stupid,” whispered Kate as she walked behind John through the front door. “Stupid and dangerous. We don’t know who is in here.”

  “You never want to have any fun,” answered John.

  “Your idea of fun usually involves breaking and entering,” she hissed back.

  They stood in the kitchen and tried to let their eyes adjust to the darkness. They could see very little.

  “What is that smell?” asked John.

  “Stinks like overripe bananas,” said Kate. She sniffed again, “And something sour. What’s that rotten cabbage stuff called?”

  “Sauerkraut,” said John, scrunching his nose. He stepped into a room with an old couch.

  “Seriously,” said Kate. “Let’s go. I don’t need to know who is camping in this house. I don’t even want to know. This place is creepy.”

  “What if it’s someone looking for werewolves?”

  “Why would they be here?” said Kate.

  “Um, duh,” said John, pointing back and forth between them. “Two werewolf families living next door to each other? Dirt Bag already almost found us. Why not someone else?”

  Kate peered around the shadowy room. “Do you think it’s Dirt Bag?”

  “Dunno,” said John.

  “What if it’s someone who just wants to be left alone?”

  “Then we’ll apologize and leave them alone,” said John. “And maybe offer to buy them a case of rotten cabbage.”

  At the far end of the room, a doorway opened on a flight of stairs leading up.

  “Ladies first,” whispered John.

  “No, no,” said Kate. “I insist. Guys with stupid ideas first.”

  They crept to the top of the dark stairs. Two doors led off the landing. One led to a bathroom. The other was closed.

  “That’s the room that faces the road,” whispered Kate. “That’s where the light was coming from.”

  “What should we do, just knock?” said John.

  “This is so stupid,” said Kate. “Let’s just go.”

  John rapped lightly on the door. The sound echoed through the old house.

  “No reply,” said John.

  “Um, duh,” whispered Kate.

  They waited in silence outside of the room.

  “Now what?” asked Kate.

  “A little something I like to call ‘opening the door…’” said John.

  He reached for the doorknob, turned, and pushed.

  A faint smell of smoke drifted from the room as the door opened.

  “Someone just snuffed a candle,” said Kate “Smell it?”

  John nodded and walked into the room. “So where’s the candle? And where is the person who snuffed it?”

  But for a wooden crate by the window, the room was empty.

  Dirk couldn’t believe his luck.

  He fiddled with the settings on his camera as the sound of a woman singing country music—badly—drifted across the bar.

  It had been a narrow escape. All the practicing he had done in the last few weeks—throwing all his worldly possessions into his bag, stuffing the bulky typewriter into a pillowcase, and escaping through the bedroom window—had paid off when it mattered. By the time those bickering kids made it to the upstairs landing, he was already halfway to his truck.

  He took a sip of his beer and leaned back in his chair. It was good to be back in civilization, such as it was. He’d slept the rest of the night in the back of his truck, which he’d hidden on an old logging road several hundred meters into the woods behind the abandoned house. He’d then woken early and driven far enough away that he was sure h
e wouldn’t accidentally run into any of the werewolf family. He’d checked into a dirty motel a few towns away from the werewolf camp, called Sandra, then made his way to this seedy country-and-western bar to celebrate his good fortune.

  The wolf story was locked up. In two days, the moon would be full. He’d sneak back to nab the pictures, video, and story that would land him on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

  Even better, his editor just told him she’d booked him on the national TV show America This Morning. As soon as he had his proof, he would drive to the closest TV studio and expose the story to the world.

  But, of all the luck, who would have believed this backwoods town in the middle of New Brunswick had a karaoke bar? Dirk looked around the room to the small, mid-afternoon crowd assembled.

  They are about to get the show of their lives, he thought.

  The bartender tapped him on the shoulder to indicate it was his turn. Dirk set his camera on the table, pointed it at the stage, and hit the record button.

  He ran his hand through his greasy hair as he climbed the stairs to the stage and stepped up to the microphone. That familiar wave of nervous excitement washed over him as the first few notes of steel guitar echoed around the tiny bar. He pulled the microphone to his mouth and began to sing.

  Baby, I’m a drivin’ fer yer looove.

  But baby, I hope yer not abooove

  waitin’ fer me, and the love that I proviiide’

  ’cause baby, I can’t live without this ride.

  The music swelled as it climbed toward the chorus. Dirk threw his arm in the air and sang passionately into the microphone.

  “My wheels belong to the road, but my heart—belongs to yooooou!”

  The half-dozen people in the bar cheered. They rose to their feet as he belted out the final chorus of the song.

  Dirk gave a modest bow, waving away the applause. He returned to his table and switched off the recorder on his camera. Dirk usually recorded his karaoke sessions so he could critique his performance later on in private. He was pretty sure this one would make it to his highlight reel.

  “Maybe it’s haunted,” suggested Bobby, as he looked around the empty room.

  In the light of the morning, the house didn’t seem so scary to Kate. It just seemed dirty, old, and empty.

  “Ghosts don’t eat sauerkraut,” said Kate. “From the looks of the mess downstairs, someone’s been living here a while.”

  “I don’t get how you could see the light in the window and find the whole place empty,” said Bobby. “It just doesn’t make sense. You said you could smell the candle, right?”

  “Right,” said John.

  Kate looked at John’s face. He was so serious. He’d given no indication this morning that anything had happened between them the night before. She was beginning to feel as if she’d imagined it. She placed her hand on his back.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He stepped away from her touch and approached the window.

  “It’s a long way down,” he said. He ran his fingers along the window sash, grabbed hold, and pulled. Despite its age, the window opened easily. He peeked his head out the window and looked down. “Well, would you look at that.”

  “What?” asked Kate.

  “Come on,” said John, as he swung his leg over the window sill and climbed out. A narrow balcony, invisible from the road, ran along the edge of the roof just below the window.

  “A widow’s walk,” said John.

  “What’s a widow’s walk?” asked Bobby, following him onto the ledge.

  “You see them a lot in old fishing towns,” explained John. “We saw a bunch of them in Maine and Boston when we lived down there,” his eyes fixed on the horizon. “You can see a long way from here. On a clear day, you could probably see the Bay of Fundy.”

  “But what’s it for?” asked Kate.

  “A fishermen’s wife would come out here after a storm to watch the fishing boats come in,” said John. “The longer she waited for her husband’s boat to come home, the more likely the boat was lost at sea. She’d pace up and down this walkway until she knew he wasn’t coming back.”

  Kate shuddered. “That’s so sad.”

  John nodded. He looked down. “See? It wouldn’t have been that hard for someone to climb down. It’s not that far of a drop from that ledge to the ground.”

  “Okay,” said Kate sitting with her legs dangling over the ledge. “So we know how they got away, but we still don’t know who it was.”

  “I bet it was Dirt Bag,” said John.

  “I thought he gave up on finding wolves here.”

  “Whoever it was really didn’t want us to find them,” said John.

  “That doesn’t’ mean it’s Dirt Bag.”

  “No, but it kind of seems like him,” said John. He shielded his eyes from the sun and stared off toward the bay.

  “You going to tell your dad?” asked Bobby.

  “No,” he answered shortly.

  “Why not?” asked Kate.

  John paused.

  “He’d just get paranoid and say we have to leave. We always have to leave just when I’m starting to like it somewhere.”

  Kate flushed. “So, what are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Something,” he said. “The full moon is in two days. And if it is Dirt Bag, he’s here for us.”

  Kate’s bare feet dripped with dew as she walked through the grass toward the lake. The morning sun was just starting to dissolve the thin layer of fog resting on the water. The lonely call of a passing loon drifted from overhead.

  Kate came to the lake to be alone, but as she approached, she could see someone sitting on the shore. It was Bea. She sat hugging her knees and watching the water. As Kate got closer, she could see her eyes were red and puffy.

  “Hey, are you okay?” asked Kate. She sat beside her.

  “Fine,” said Bea. She sniffed and forced a smile. “Fine if you like heartbreak, which I seem to be a glutton for.”

  “Oh, Aunt Bea,” said Kate. “What happened?”

  Bea closed her eyes. “You ever notice the harder you try to take things nice and easy the more likely they end up being stupid and hard?”

  Kate’s lip quivered.

  “Of course you know,” said Bea, recognizing some of her own feelings on her niece’s face. She wrapped her arm around Kate. Kate leaned against her for support and sniffed back her own tears.

  “Look at us,” said Bea, laughing in spite of herself. “We’re pathetic.”

  “I thought the pathetic thing went away when you grew up.”

  “I wish,” said Bea. “So what about you? Is it John?”

  Kate nodded. “I don’t even want to like him, but I can’t help it. And the other night…I was sure he felt the same way I do, it was amazing.”

  “Amazing,” repeated Bea.

  “But now it’s like nothing happened. I feel stupid and small, like he thinks I’m just one of his little buddies, like Bobby.” She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweater. “What about you?”

  “Same old story,” said Bea. “Girl meets boy. Girl falls for boy. Boy tells girl he’s moving away. Boy invites girl to come with him….”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. And boy tells girl she shouldn’t ever expect to see her family again.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Bea shook her head. She looked into Kate’s eyes. “He says he and John never go back to the same spot twice. They never look back. They just keep going.”

  “You aren’t going to go with them, are you?”

  “No,” said Bea. “It’s really nice with him. I was almost ready to say I love him. But I can’t do that.”

  “Good,” said Kate. “When are they leaving?”

  “Tomorrow morning. After the full
moon.”

  Kate picked up a stone and flicked it into the water.

  “So at least both of our problems will be gone by this time tomorrow,” she said.

  Marge stood in front of the cabin with her arms crossed.

  “Repeat after me,” she said. “I promise….”

  “Grandma, this is stupid,” said Bobby. “I’ll stay put. I swear.”

  “I said, repeat after me,” said Marge. “I promise….”

  Bobby sighed. “I promise…” he repeated.

  “…that I will stay in this cabin all night,” said Marge.

  “…that I will stay in this cabin all night.”

  “No matter what,” she said.

  “No matter what.”

  “And if I leave….”

  “And if I leave…” he repeated.

  “I’ll do the dishes for a month and be in charge of hauling firewood for the rest of my natural life.”

  Bobby paused. “The rest of my life?”

  “Say it.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Dishes for a month and firewood for the rest of my life. Happy now?”

  “Ecstatic,” said his grandmother. She kissed his forehead. “Good night. Sweet dreams.”

  “Thanks, Grandma,” said Bobby.

  He retreated to the cabin and shut the door. He watched through the window as his grandma and parents chatted and tended to the campfire. After a few minutes, they hiked toward the woods and disappeared into the foliage.

  Bobby paced up and down in the cabin. “I hope John and Kate know what they’re doing,” he said to himself.

  He glanced out the window one last time before slipping out of the cabin and into the woods. “This better be worth a lifetime of hauling firewood.”

  Marcus stood alone in the clearing, watching the sky as it changed from blue to pink. Suddenly he heard a rustling in the brush nearby.

  “Is that you?” he called.

  Dirk emerged from the shadows. “Sorry, I got a bit turned around in the woods.” He absently fiddled with the settings on his camera. His eyes flared with giddy excitement. “Oh, man. This is going to be great.”