by Traci Briery
Loraine twisted her hands back and forth on the bars of the cell door. Wanda, her cellmate, was bundled up at the opposite corner. Their half-eaten meals lay side by side on the ground. The crazy prisoner in the next cell had begun yet another monologue. At least he wasn't arguing this time. Loraine took great pains never to make eye contact with him, of course. Her favorite cop came by eventually.
"Beddy-bye, Princess," she said. Loraine gripped the bars even tighter.
"You have to let me out of here," she said quietly.
"Oh, do I?" the cop said.
"Or move her to another cell," Loraine said. "Please. You can hate me all you want, but for the love of God, don't leave anyone in here with me. Please."
For once the lady cop's eyes seemed to soften. Only a little bit, but perhaps it was enough. She spread out her arms.
"We wish everyone could have their own cell," she said. "I'm sorry, but there's nowhere else to put you."
"There has to be," Loraine said, her voice rising. "You don't understand; it can't be tonight, or the next few nights, either. No one else can be in here!"
"No one else can be in there, either!" the cop said, pointing to another cell. "Or there! Or there! You're lucky you only have one other person as it is! Lights out!"
"I have to be alone! Put me in solitary if you have to, but—!"
"Hey, shut the fuck up!" another prisoner called out.
"This isn't a joke!" Loraine called out as the lights were shut off. "Hey! Please listen to me! Get back here, you… bitch!"
"Shut up!" came a chorus of angry voices. Loraine squeezed and tugged at the bars with all her might, which was not enough to move them even the slightest. Eventually she gave up and raced back to the barred window.
"Sorry if I smell too much for you," came Wanda's muffled voice. "Maybe I don't want anyone with me, either."
"You don't smell," Loraine whispered, irritated. She climbed up onto the bench and peered outside. A perfectly round moon lit up her face. She yelped and jumped toward the bars, then resumed her futile twisting and tugging.
"Will you fuckin' chill and go to sleep?" Wanda growled. Loraine turned around, slowly panicking.
"Cover yourself," she said.
"Huh?"
"Go completely under the covers," she said. "Um… hide under the cot, go into the corner, do something! Damn, there isn't a safe place here!"
"Shut! Up!" Wanda said. Loraine raced to her side, her chest already warming. The heat always started there, and then spread.
"You don't understand," Loraine whispered. "I tried to get you out for your own safety."
"Get your hands off me! Quit touchin' me, bitch!"
"If you don't keep as much out of sight as you can, you might not make it!"
"Guard!" Wanda said, throwing aside her blanket and stomping to the door. "Guard, get me away from this lesbo!"
The big door flew open, the lights came back on, and several angry cops stormed down the hall to the loud protests of would-be sleepers.
" 'Lights out' means lights out, people!" one of them said. "We don't want to hear another word out of here!"
"Hey, it's those two bitches that way," an inmate grumbled.
"This lesbo was all over me!" Wanda said. "Put me with the whores, I don't care! Just get her away from me!"
"Yeah!" Loraine said, running up to the door. "I want her. I want her bad, and I swear I might rape her if you don't take her away!"
"You hear that??" Wanda said. "Get her away from me!"
"That's enough!" another cop bellowed. "There better not be another word from any of you tonight or else! Now you keep your hands off each other, is that clear?"
"Hey, I'm not going near the bitch!" Wanda said.
"But I don't think I could—!" Loraine began, then winced and doubled over to groan.
"Oh, now what?" Wanda said, throwing up her arms. Loraine groaned and grunted some more, then forced herself to stand up straight.
"What's wrong?" the cops asked.
Loraine's eyes were shut tight, but she managed to grunt out a response. "I—" she said, "Just—far from me—keep away…"
Wanda backed away slowly. The cops asked again what was wrong, when Loraine suddenly stopped grimacing and grunting. She stood up even straighter and forced a smile.
"I'm fine," she said, wiping away a puddle of sweat from her brow. "I'm just—upset by everything. Being in jail and all that. I guess I went—crazy. A little."
"A fuckin' lot crazy," Wanda grumbled. A cop pointed to them with his nightstick.
"Both of you get to sleep, right now," he said. "No more disturbances. If you really are all right now—"
"I am," Loraine said quickly. "Everything's… just great."
The cops paused another moment before nodding to each other and heading back down the hall. In another moment the hall was dark again, save for the light of the full moon that shone into every cell.
Loraine held onto the bars with all her might, hoping that the wolf would be unable to let go. Her hands began to shake again. Sweat from her brow streamed down her face. Every smell, every sound began to get stronger or louder or sharper. High-pitched sounds seemed even higher, and sharp odors sharper. She heard something new now. Perhaps it was just a chorus of car horns, or very distant sirens.
"Do you hear that?" she whispered.
"Oh, God, shut up," Wanda's angry, but quiet, voice sounded from the darkness. Loraine's clothes were already soaked and sticking to her body. It itched from the fur that tried to push its way between the skin and false skin. Loraine did not move from her spot, not even to scratch. The "chorus" sounded again, and louder this time. Closer. How could anyone else not hear it?
She was unaware of her surroundings only a few seconds later. Even the mouth-watering smells that surrounded her no longer affected her. The sound was closer. They were closer. They were coming. That was all that mattered. She no longer felt her paws locked around the hard metal things, even though they had not moved from that position. She even remained in the two-legged form that she had woken up to. They were coming.
Crashes and booms nearby rocked the concrete and metal cages. Grumbles and cries of fear and pain echoed from near and behind the big door. There were bangs, crashes, screams, booms, and tremors assaulting the senses of every living thing there, yet only one knew no fear at that moment.
She felt something warm touch her limb, then pull away quickly. A quiet gasp blended in with the increasingly loud chaos from within and without the hallway. A living thing_potential food_made the sound, but she ignored it. They were here.
The big door slammed into the wall and made the ground shake. A blur of dark shapes poured into the hallway and whipped past the terrified prisoners, only one of whom managed to scream. Those who could see past the door spotted glimpses of chaos in the police station: cries of pain, residual gunfire, smoke, debris, bodies, and blood. Even the big door was smeared.
Her thoughts were filled of theirs. Until then she had been resisting their summons, but now welcomed it. A score of claws wrapped themselves around the bars and pulled while she pushed. In barely an instant the concrete and steel crumbled and bent, and the entire cell wall was yanked free. She fell onto all fours, as did they, and the entire pack raced back down the hallway. A mob of blue two-leggers blocked their way out. Deafening bangs and flashes of light came from them. All in the pack felt a stinging in their sides and fronts, but smashed right on through, sending the two-leggers across the bright room.
More of them met the pack in the bright room. Blood and pain were everywhere, but the two-leggers were tenacious. They formed a wall around the pack and pointed at them with their loud toys. The pack stopped only long enough to snarl before sending the beasts running for cover. In the distance they heard more banging and smelled the smoke, but the pack was long gone before anything could pursue.
Once again she thrilled to the pleasures of the earth under her feet and the wind in her face. Until now she had always
enjoyed it alone. Now a dozen of her kind surrounded her, guiding her toward a new home, perhaps. For an hour they raced through back streets and hills, seeking the parts least infested by the two-leggers. For an hour she ran happily with her new family. Then, little by little, murky memories filtered past their hold on her thoughts. She remembered much anger and violence. Blood, not from prey, but from herself or the other that had followed her everywhere. She remembered the last great confrontation, when she had howled in anguish over the death of a two-legger. It had not been like the others; this one had been special somehow… "protected." She would never have hunted this one, yet one of the pack had killed it.
She slowed her pace and began to fall behind the others. Eventually the pack slowed down to bring her back to the middle, but she slowed to a trot now. A quick bark from the alpha caused two of them to run directly behind her and nudge her forward repeatedly. She snarled at each poke, until finally she dodged to the side and fell over another, causing a chain reaction of stumbles and falls amongst half of the pack. She was the first to roll back onto her feet and plant her legs firmly to the ground. She flattened her ears and pulled back her lips so far that every wickedly sharp fang in her mouth flashed at them.
At first, there was puzzlement. The pack looked at her blankly, then one another, until the alpha wolf stepped forward. She snarled even louder and snapped once. The alpha stopped, surprised, then gave a silent signal for the pack to step forward. She was immediately surrounded, but the alpha remained closer than the others. She flashed a mental challenge at the alpha, who finally gripped the earth and flattened its own ears. Then she witnessed a remarkable thing: the alpha's body began to shift and change. Its hind legs grew longer and thicker, losing their fur, as its front legs and torso also lost theirs. The alpha pushed on its front legs until it was standing erect. A few seconds later a slender, naked woman stood before her. She blinked and looked around, and saw the rest of them in their own two-legged forms. She looked up and saw the moon shining in all its glory, and was puzzled.
A strange feeling came over her. Her own body was changing. She followed the others into their standing position, and was soon just as naked as they. She did not notice this yet. There were eight males and four females, including the alpha. A female alpha? This puzzled her. There was also something strange about her… about her body.
"Why are you doing this?" the alpha said.
"What?" she said.
"Why do you challenge me? Challenge the pack?"
"I'm…" she said, looking at her hands. "I'm… how can this be? The moon is out. I should be running and hunting."
"And so we would have, had you not challenged us," the alpha said. "We freed you from their prison; we offer you a new home, a new family. You understood this; we could sense it. Why turn on us now?"
"There was a reason I was in there," she said, turning away. "I was… there was a girl who died. A girl that I would never hunt… She died, but not by my hand. I was in the cage for that."
"We know she did not die by your hand," the alpha said. "And only now do you remember it yourself. That is why—
"One of you did it!" she said, now whirling to face the alpha. "One of you attacked me, and killed the girl instead!"
"You attacked him; it was not the other way around," the alpha said.
"You've been stalking me," she said, stepping forward, "Hounding me. Attacking me!"
"We've been calling you!"
"Who's the one who killed her?" she demanded, storming past the pack in a circle. "Eh? Who made me go to that cage instead?"
"He is not here."
"What?" she snapped, stepping to within inches of the alpha. "What do you mean, 'not here'? You will not deny me my vengeance!"
"We do not kill our own kind," the alpha said calmly. "We are not like the other creatures who infest this earth, who kill each other for the pettiest of reasons. No, our greatest punishment is to banish."
"Banish??" she said. "Exile him from the pack? That's the worst you do to anyone?"
"When you have run with us longer, you will understand how devastating that would be."
"And what if I don't want to run with you?" she asked. "You have denied me satisfaction! I want his fate to match the female's!"
"You want to fight him to the death, then," the alpha sighed. "That is not our way; you must understand that. He was banished from the pack for cowardice. He was sent to bring you to us, but killed your friend and took pains to make you appear to be the guilty one. Your anguish must have been unbearable."
"Until now I believed that I had done it," she said. "And now you deny me my justice."
"We were appalled by his actions!" the alpha said. "He did not deny them, so his punishment was quick. We do not bear such cowardice from our kind."
"Where is he now?"
"We do not know," the alpha said. "When exile is done, we also sever our thoughts with them. He is no longer part of the pack in any way, physically or mentally."
"Loraine," a male voice called from the side. She turned toward him, puzzled.
"You called me… Loraine?" she said. The male stepped forward.
"You're in her form now," he said. "But not in mind. You don't remember me, do you?"
She looked at him, shaking her head. He stepped even closer and brought his arm up to her face. She tried to jump back, but he held her close and covered her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose. Now she could smell the arm. His scent… it was familiar.
"You," she said. "I've tasted you. Not long ago."
"I was a policeman in that 'cage,' " he said. "My partner shot you after you'd bitten me. I went to the hospital, then went home that night."
"I bit you," she whispered. "I've… brought you over. I'm sorry…"
"They found me only two weeks later," he said, indicating the others. "Before I'd even changed. I felt their call but didn't resist as you did. I… suppose they've given me the family that I'd never had. I was even married and have cubs—uhh, I mean children—but—it's just something you must experience to understand. The pack is the ultimate family."
"So you left your wife and children and run with the pack now," she said.
"Open your mind and heart," another female said. "Only that way will you understand us, and accept us."
"Your life before us," the alpha said. "Was it pleasant? Were you fulfilled and happy?"
"I was… struggling," she said. "I was not happy. And no, I have no family."
"You do now," the alpha said. "Run with us, cub. Join us."
"Yes, join us," the former policeman said.
"What's back there for you?"
"Unfulfilled…"
"No family…"
"Imprisoned unjustly…"
"Wait!!" she said, throwing up her arms. "My life is no better because of you, either! That's why I challenged you. Would you follow me and testify on my behalf? Would you confirm my innocence?"
"We do not go to their cities unless we must," the alpha said. "Like tonight. The cities… are offensive to us."
"I get no pleasure from being a fugitive," she said. "I truly will have to 'run' with you always. I'll be on the run. That, too, is cowardice."
"What would you have us say? That we are a pack of werewolves, and one of us killed your friend while battling with you?"
"Yes!"
"What purpose would that serve?" the alpha said. "We will not reveal ourselves to mankind!"
"Then make up a story!" she said. "Tell them that…" she added, and then her voice died. The others looked at each other while she stared at the alpha. The alpha stared back.
"Tell them what?" the alpha said.
"Your body…" she said whispered, slowly lifting her hand to point. "What happened to you?"
"What?" the alpha said, looking down and shaking her head. "Nothing 'happened' to it."
"You have no breasts…" she continued. "You have… Oh, my God. Is this what happens to you?"
Understanding now, th
e alpha ran her hands slowly along her torso, feeling each of its six nipples as they passed. It was true that the alpha had no breasts, not anymore.
She looked at each of the other females in the pack. None but the alpha had six nipples, but she could see the others in various stages of change. One had four, and two red spots. The others still had breasts, but very small ones and red spots marking where the others would soon grow. She felt her own body, which showed nothing unusual—so far.
"Eventually, wearing a bikini would be out of the question," the alpha said, a sly smile on her face. "This will happen to you in time."
"But I'm a dancer," she said. "I… can't be deformed like that."
"Deformed? You will understand how beautiful it truly is, in time," the alpha said. "Perhaps it will take more time for you. You are a dancer? This will be the ultimate dance for you."
"Having six nipples?"
"Dancing with us," the alpha said. "Running with us. Hunting. When your feet strike the earth when chasing your prey, does it not feel like a dance? Does the sand whipping up into the air as the moon sings to you not seem like a ballet? I was a poet almost a hundred years ago, and still am. Our world is a living poem. To you, it would be a living dance. To him, who was a sailor, it is an ocean of wonder. To her, who was a songstress, it is a song beyond compare."
"I… I have a life with… with them," she said.
"The humans?"
"I-I was human before," she said. "All of you were_um, are. We are still human."
"We are both and neither human and wolf. We have our own ways, our own laws. Our own world. The bond of the pack is stronger than even the bond between mother and child. No other family, human or animal, can compare. That is why banishment is worse than death to us. Even our thoughts are one, yet we have our own, as well. Open your heart, cub. You did see this. You felt it, even if only briefly. Can you truly say that you don't welcome it? Welcome us. Join us."