One hand went up. It was a man of about thirty-five with wads of shaggy black chest hair showing above the neck of his faded red T-shirt. He had an underbite like a steam shovel. “I’m Waldo,” he almost growled. “I’m a recovering lycanthropic. I just got out of treatment and this is my first meeting.”
A round of welcomes greeted Waldo, then a few faces turned in Lyle’s direction. Lyle shrugged to hide his embarrassment and grinned as he held up his hand. “I’m Lyle and I’m just new here.”
“Hi, Lyle,” greeted the group. “Welcome.”
Red-faced, Lyle managed to nod in return as he lowered his hand to his lap and focused his gaze on the floor in the center of the circle of chairs. Two latecomers entered and took their places in the chairs to Lyle’s far left. As Ted resumed the program by having members of the circle read the Steps and Traditions of L.A., the woman to Lyle’s right whispered to him, “Too bad. It looks as though Ralph went out again.”
Lyle turned and looked at the two latecomers. One was a very normal looking business type dressed in a tan three-piece suit. The other one looked like a nightmare. He was built like a short power lifter with upper arms like thighs, and thighs like sides of beef. His clothing consisted of a torn and dirty pair of triple extra large gray sweats and a pair of black shower clogs. His hands and feet both were knobby and twisted, while his lower jaw jutted out from his face so far that it appeared to be an effort for the man to keep his lips closed over his teeth. His hair was trimmed into a burr cut, and he appeared to have no body hair at all. Little bloody pieces of toilet paper on his face and the backs of his feet and hands were the aftermath of what appeared to have been a marathon encounter with a razor. His nose was sharply upturned and powdered to a light gray. Lyle watched Ralph until the man absentmindedly allowed his mouth to fall open revealing a set of tearing teeth that looked capable of biting through a picnic ham with a single snap. The expression on Ralph’s face was one of deep shame.
Just as Lyle turned to ask the woman to his right what she meant about Ralph going out, Ted called out from the podium, “Verra well, let’s hear from Allyson now. Come oop, lass!”
Accompanied by thunderous applause and howling, the woman who had been seated to Lyle’s right stood, and with a face glowing with excitement, her diminutive form replaced Ted at the podium. Ted took his place in a chair to her right. As the applause and howling died down to a few whimpers, Allyson looked down at Ted and said, “It’s OK to call me lass, Ted. Just don’t call me Lassie!”
Based on the subdued chuckle coming from the circle, Lyle presumed that it was a well worn joke in the group. It was new to him, however, and he laughed out loud. Allyson faced the circle, smiled, and said, “My name is Allyson. I’m a recovering lycanthropic.”
“Hi, Allyson,” answered the circle, including Lyle.
She shrugged her small shoulders and looked down at the podium for a moment. “I guess I’m a little nervous,” she confessed. She pushed the bobbed blond hair back from her forehead and aimed her pale blue eyes at the faces in the circle. “I never thought I’d see this night,” she said quietly. “Fourteen months ago I was locked up in a mental ward with three charges of murder pending against me.” She fixed her gaze on the one called Ralph. “The medical records from there show I weighed 307 pounds, and not an ounce of it was fat. I was covered with coarse blond hair; I had teeth that could, and did, chew through a solid oak door; I had claws and paws; and I had ears like Mr. Spock.” A quick laugh ran around the circle.
Allyson’s eyes glistened as she said, “And now I am a free human being. I haven’t turned for a whole year. It is such a miracle.” As the woman paused to get control of her tears of gratitude, Lyle found himself curiously touched. Perhaps he looked upon the whole issue with skepticism, but he certainly believed that they believed.
Lyle glanced to his left at the one called Ralph and saw the huge man sobbing into his shaved paws. Taking a second look at those paws, Lyle noticed that the claws had been trimmed very short. From the thickness of the claws it must have been done with bolt cutters.
Now in control of herself, Allyson continued. “As it did for many of us, it began for me by being bitten by an infected family member.” She held up her hands. “Now, I know that some of you have therapists who say lycanthropy is not an infectious disease at all, but is, instead, a form of hysteria, and I respect that. Speaking just for myself, though, there are lots and lots of sisters in this world who are bitten by their younger brothers who don’t become beasts ravaging and terrorizing the countryside.”
Several spontaneous growls of enraged agreement erupted from the circle. Lyle noticed Ralph looking angrily at the floor between his feet as his massive head nodded. His lower fangs were visible. Lyle studied the man, trying to see if Ralph had made himself up to look that way, but all of the evidence suggested that he was almost a werewolf trying very much to look like a human. Suddenly Ralph glanced at Lyle and Lyle averted his eyes and concentrated his attention on the speaker.
“I was nine when my brother bit me,” said Allyson. “He was seven. He’d been a little strange ever since a huge dog bit him when our family was camping in Maine that one summer when he was five. He had the disease, of course, but I’d never seen him turn so I didn’t know what was going on. I just thought he was being a little brother.” After a sympathetic chuckle from the circle, Allyson bowed her head and became quite melancholy. “In fact I’d never seen him turn until I was brought in to identify his body four years ago. He had been killed while attacking someone who was armed. Until he died my brother hid his disease from all of us. Of course, it wasn’t any big accomplishment to hide it from me. By then I was, as we say in L.A., up to my own knees in fleas.
“It was about three months after my brother bit me, almost on my tenth birthday, when I turned for the first time. It was after fourth grade gym in the shower room. I’d been feeling sick all day and had been excused from gym early. While I was by myself in the shower, it happened. The bone pain, the stretching of my skin, all of the awful hair. It hurt and surprised me so much I screamed. The janitor heard me and came running in. By then I was fully turned and I—I mean, he was the first—you know—what for legal reasons we’re supposed to keep just between us and our sponsors.” Again Allyson paused to control her tears while Lyle struggled with what she had said. Did she mean she had offed the janitor? Her next words gave him chills.
“After I cleaned up the mess I looked at myself in the mirror, the taste still in my mouth. You all know how it felt.” Ralph and the newcomer, Waldo, grunted violently while the rest raised their eyebrows and nodded. “I had never felt so strong, so alive. I crawled in among the steam pipes down in the furnace room and slept off the first of many, many binges.”
Ted stood and whispered something to Allyson. She nodded in return and looked back at the circle, a note of embarrassment in her voice. “It’s just been pointed out to me that my words might cause some of you to want to go out again, and forgive me if I’ve called up any euphoric memories.”
Lyle glanced to his left and saw a string of drool dribbling from Ralph’s open mouth. The backs of his hands appeared to have gotten a shade darker. Waldo had his arms wrapped around himself and appeared to be holding on very tightly When Allyson resumed her talk she concentrated on all of the horrors of a young girl, sensitive about her appearance and desperate to make friends and be popular, afflicted with a disease that would, without notice, turn her into a hideous creature that craved human flesh. She talked about when her parents found out and pulled her out of school. From then until she was seventeen she was kept under lock and key. Shortly after her seventeenth birthday the police found her parents dead, their throats torn out, the barred windowless room where she had been kept, empty.
By day she took classes and worked at odd jobs until she graduated into a well-paying position as a paralegal. By night she moved through the shadows of the inner city, seeking prey. On one of her nightly prowls she was taken do
wn by officers from the University Division, L.A.P.D. They were assisted by a wildlife expert with a tranquilizer gun.
“They didn’t know what to do with me at the mental hospital where I had been sent to assess if I was competent to stand trial. One of the orderlies there asked me if I wanted help, and when I said yes, he was the one who called Lycanthropics Anonymous.” She glanced at the fellow who chaired the meeting, then to her left at a smartly-dressed woman in her sixties.
“Ted and Margie were the ones who showed up for me. They told me their stories and met with me almost every day, teaching me how to share and work the program. That was when I stopped turning for the first time. I’d go back after a few days, but my periods out were shorter and shorter. By the time experts on lycanthropy filed a brief with the court and the charges against me were dismissed, I hadn’t turned for six days and that was three hundred and fifty-nine days ago. This was the first meeting I went to after getting out of treatment, I asked Margie to be my sponsor, and she took me to meetings all over L.A. until I could trust myself out at night alone. It’s been a miracle for me and I never want to go back to what I was before. Thank you for letting me share.”
Applause and howls erupted from the circle, Lyle clapping along with the others. As the applause continued, Margie stood, presented Allyson with something, then gave her a big hug. Allyson returned to her seat and Ted took over the podium. “Verra well, people, it’s time for our break. Coffee, donuts, and the rest are in the refreshment area, and we’ll pick this up again at midnight.”
As some of the members headed for the kitchen and a few others headed outside for a smoke, Lyle leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. He couldn’t make up his mind. Should he be afraid or fascinated? This was certainly a great subject of study for a thesis, but Ralph frightened him. So did Waldo. Everyone else seemed all right, but it was such a bizarre affliction.
“Having a tough time making up your mind?” He turned to his right and Allyson was smiling at him.
Lyle shrugged and said, “Congratulations on the year.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded toward her hand. “What did you get?”
She opened her hand revealing a key chain. Hanging from the chain through a hole in its base was a silver bullet marked with the numeral 1. “The program group gives these things out for anniversaries. I guess it’s a bit of a joke.” She held put her hand. “I’m Allyson.”
“I know.” Lyle shook hands with her. “My name’s Lyle. Did that guy Ted say there’s coffee out there?”
Allyson nodded. “Coffee, tea, donuts, a little burger—”
“Burger?”
Allyson nodded and lowered her voice. “You know, ground beef. In case a newcomer starts freaking. A little raw burger can sometimes help bring them down.”
Lyle stared at her for a moment and was about to say “you’re kidding,” when there was a loud noise from the direction of the kitchen. He looked at the door leading to the kitchen as he got to his feet. “What in the hell was that?” One of the members peeked out of the kitchen door and said to all those left in the room, “Ralph’s in trouble. Get Ben. I think he’s out front having a smoke.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lyle. Turning to Allyson, her back was toward him. He placed a hand on her shoulder and asked, “Is Ben the guy Ralph came in with?”
Before she could answer there was a crash from the kitchen, then a long mournful howl which was immediately followed by Ralph bellowing out, “To hell with the damned beefburger! Out there is live meat! He was staring at me like I was some kind of thing. Live meat!”
“He’s right,” came Waldo’s voice. “That guy, Lyle! He’s not one of us! He’s meat!”
His hand still on Allyson’s shoulder, he looked at the back of her head and whispered, “What—what should I do?”
She turned her head to the right, looked down at Lyle’s fingers grasping her shoulder, and then bit them. “Ow!” He pulled back his arm, looked at his hand, and sucked on the side of his fingers where Allyson had bitten him. The skin wasn’t broken, but it hurt like the dickens. “What in the—”
She turned and looked at him with blood-red eyes. She then smiled displaying gleaming white fangs that seemed to grow before his eyes. He bolted and ran screaming into the night.
“Allyson?”
She faced the kitchen door, removed her false fangs and faced Dr. Raeder. “You people were too slow He ran before anyone could shout ‘April fool.’ ” Janos Raeder dropped his Waldo mask and makeup on one of the chairs and said between gasps of laughter, “You mean he still doesn’t know? Hey, everybody, Lyle still doesn’t know He’s probably calling the police right now.”
Ben and his two smoking companions came in from the front. “Hey, what gives? Lyle or someone was supposed to come and get me to sit on Ralph, right? I just saw Lyle going ninety plus across Alameda. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed.”
The laughter died down as Ben’s comment sobered them a bit. Allyson cocked her head to one side and said, “It’s my fault. I got a little deep into the part and bit his hand.”
“You bit his hand?” demanded Dr. Raeder.
“Just a little nip. I didn’t draw blood or anything with these rubber teeth.” They all stood in silence for a moment, then one of them made a rude sound by letting the air out of his pneumatic muscles. They all broke down and laughed as they howled and began removing their makeup. It was the best psych department April fool’s prank ever.
Out of breath, Lyle leaned his back against the alley wall and gulped air. After only a few seconds, he looked around the corner and saw that the street was empty. “Oh, god,” he gasped. “Oh, god.”
There was a tightness in his chest and shoulders, and he pushed away from the wall to shake it out. As he crossed his arms in front of him, he could hear the seam on the back of his shirt split. He looked down and watched in horror as the hair on the backs of his arms lengthened.
“What? Oh, god! No! It couldn’t—” He shook his head as he thought at panic speed. That woman, Allyson, had bitten him, but she hadn’t broken the skin. How—
He looked down at the hand that Allyson had bitten, hair already covering the spot, skin a darkening purple in the dim alley light, the nails already beginning their metamorphosis to claws. She hadn’t broken the skin, but he had sucked on his hand immediately afterward.
“The saliva! Omigod! The saliva!” The sleeve seams split one after another and Lyle felt himself filled with savage power, physical strength beyond anything he could have ever imagined, cravings and lusts that seemed to blot out portions of his awareness. His chest expanded as his thighs and upper arms thickened. He lifted his clawed hands and felt the shape of a muzzle erupting from his face.
“Hey, who’s that? Look here, Pauly.”
A young man with a blue printed bandanna covering his curly black hair stood in the alley entrance, his face hidden by shadows cast by the street lights. Lyle saw him and felt an eerie heat fill his chest as his heart pumped energy to his growing musculature.
“What you got here?” said the one called Pauly. He carried a wicked looking stiletto in his hand.
As the pair advanced on him, Lyle could see his immediate future very clearly. It would involve a lot of late nights, demands, and sacrifices that would probably savage his grade point average, but there was the excitement, the high, the incredible thrill waiting for him. Now he knew why Ralph had been drooling as Allyson related her war stories at the meeting. It was, Lyle knew, the first step on a walk through hell. It was a journey, however, that would not be denied.
Deep within his soul there remained a tiny human spark that spoke to him with fear. Perhaps there would come a time when the pain of the night hunt would exceed the sick thrill and excitement. Possibly then, when enough was enough, he would want help from those people at Lycanthropics Anonymous. He nodded his shaggy head as he felt the drool fall on the backs of his bristly paws. As soon as he was finished with Pauly an
d his friend, he’d have to go to Dr. Raeder’s home and get his copy of the meeting list. He’d have to go to Dr. Raeder’s house in any event. He could already tell that the pair facing him in the alley would never be enough.
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L.A. in L.A. Page 2