The Amazing Wolf Boy

by Roxanne Smolen

  “Maybe I won’t have to change tonight,” I said with my mouth full. “He looked pretty tired. He’ll probably be asleep by the time I get back.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She crinkled her wrapper and tossed it into the empty bag. “Thanks for dinner. I was just going to get a bag of chips.”

  “We couldn’t have that.” I stood, clearing the table. “What time do you get off?”

  “Seven o’clock. Call me if you’re home.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Brittany took my hand and walked with me into the main room. Her boss sat behind the counter talking on the phone. She looked up, giving me a nod as I continued toward the door. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have hung around for a while. I felt better about myself when I was with Brittany. But I didn’t want to get her in trouble with her boss.

  “Well, have a nice night.” I shrugged.

  She smiled. “Talk to you later.”

  I went out into the warm afternoon. The sun hung low, winking at me between buildings. I got on my bike, ready for the ride home, when I spotted my uncle’s truck going down Southern.

  Disbelief turned to panic. What was he doing? He told me he was going back to the house. I remembered what Brittany said about the murders taking place just before the full moon. Was Uncle Bob part of a coven? I had to stop him.

  Leaning into the wind, I pedaled after his truck as fast as I could. The wolf inside me howled, strengthening me. I had no trouble dodging through traffic. I stayed two stoplights behind Uncle Bob, turning where he turned. Finally, I found myself on a long, deserted stretch heading west.

  Dusk fell over the scrub, giving me enough confidence to pull closer. He didn’t have my wolf eyesight. After a while, he pulled onto a rutted dirt road and disappeared beneath the trees.

  It was rough going. Rubble and roots filled the road, giving me a workout. Several times, I lost sight of him in the trees. But he was never beyond my hearing. The squeaking chassis and the crackling tires kept me on track. The truck stopped, and the engine cut. I hid my bike in the brush and crept forward.

  Uncle Bob stood outside the truck. He loitered like he was waiting for me to catch up. Then he took a fishing pole and tackle from the bed and walked into the trees.

  Fishing? Frowning with a mix of relief and distrust, I followed.

  It was dark when we reached the pond. The water was black, and early stars glistened on the surface. The moon was about to rise. I felt its pressure on the back of my neck. But I would not bow to it. Not until I was certain what my uncle was doing.

  Uncle Bob propped his fishing rod against a pile of rocks. He backed away to the tree line and stripped naked. I thought he planned to go skinny-dipping. It was a warm night.

  But then the moonlight hit him, and fur sprouted from his skin.

  I stared with my mouth hanging open. In my mind, the pieces clicked together. Uncle Bob’s birthday was Christmas Eve. The book we read at Ye Olde Bookstore said those born on Christmas Eve were in danger of being werewolves. He had a mark like a backwards C on his back. A crescent moon, like the Story Keeper said. There were other things, too, like nighttime disappearances, trophies on his rearview mirror, and a dead ostrich with no damage to the truck.

  He was a werewolf.

  How could it be true?

  For a moment, I forgot myself, stepping from cover as I stared. I’d never seen anyone shift into a wolf.

  Uncle Bob’s shoulders hunched, and his arms slid forward. There was the popping sound of dislocating joints. The gloppy sound Brittany hated. His hips drew back, dropping him to all fours. His face stretched, and his muzzle grew. Drool dripped in long strands from his fangs.

  When he was done, he looked at me, grinning, and bounded into the trees.

  Shock held me motionless. My thoughts whirled. Uncle Bob was a werewolf, and he never let on, never told me. How many times I wished I had someone to talk to, someone to tell me I wasn’t alone. He could have helped me. But he never said a word.

  With my head thrown back, I let out a garbled howl. My own muzzle elongated. I clawed my shirt, shredding it, then fell to my knees. Growling, teeth bared, I ran after my uncle before the change completed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My paws padded softly as I followed my uncle through the trees. His scent was everywhere, as if he trampled every plant, brushed against every bush, daring me to follow. Eyes glinted in the dark. His eyes. I pounced, but he ran off. I snapped at the grass in frustration.

  “Come back here,” I barked. Did wolves understand each other? Did he know it was me, or did he think I was just a stray wolf passing through?

  The forest deepened, crowding me, blotting out the sky. Branches creaked in the breeze. I walked slowly, ears twitching, taking in the trill of insects, the rustle of field mice. My uncle darted across my path. I tore after him, but lost him in the trees. Nose to the ground, I squeezed between the narrow trunks.

  Again, he streaked past and disappeared. Like this was a game. Only I wasn’t playing. I needed answers. He was a werewolf. I was a werewolf. It couldn’t be a coincidence. But as before, he was holding out on me. I felt his eyes on my back, heard his laughter on the wind, and I never hated him more than at that moment.

  I tracked him through the night. Twice more, I saw his eyes shining from the brush. Twice more, he bounded out at me. But I never caught him.

  The wind shifted. I lifted my nose and caught a whiff of horses. Stables were nearby. I also smelled wolves. Three wolves had passed not too long ago.

  Uncle Bob shot from the brush. He nipped my ear before darting away. I growled, giving chase. Didn’t he smell the wolves? Something was wrong. I had a sense of danger. I wanted to warn him but lost him again.

  I slowed to a trot. A warm gust of wind ruffled my fur. Blood scent. A lot of blood. With my head low, I crept forward, keeping to the trees. I saw a clearing and a fence with a horse pasture beyond. I froze.

  In a patch of moonlight lay a woman. Her stomach was ripped open, and her insides were outside, strewn over the darkening grass. She hadn’t been there long. I should have been horrified. Perhaps part of me was. But a larger part felt only relief. My uncle wasn’t the killer. He couldn’t be. He was with me playing his stupid game of hide-and-seek.

  I cocked my head and wondered what to do, if I should do anything at all. There was a rifle beside her. I hadn’t heard a shot. She must not have had time to use it. Suddenly, something large dove at me. Uncle Bob knocked me over and held me with a heavy paw, his teeth at my neck.

  Was he threatening me? I could have fought him off. I started to.

  But through the trees, I saw three wolves walking along the fence. They had stumpy yellow tails. Werewolves. Blood drenched their coats. These were the killers. Worse yet, I recognized their scents as the intruders who were prowling around Brittany’s yard.

  They threatened Brittany.

  I wanted to leap out of the trees and challenge them. But part of me, my human part, saw the danger. If I fell here, there would be no one to protect her. Fortunately, we were downwind, and the trio continued walking, unaware of us. The leader seemed agitated. He spun on his followers, snarling, and bit the she-wolf hard enough to draw a yelp and a whine. All three moved quicker after that.

  When they were out of sight, Uncle Bob let me up. He nipped my ear and ran in the opposite direction. I followed. I couldn’t help feeling it was wrong. We were leaving a dead woman. But I couldn’t help her, couldn’t report the crime. All I could do was run.

  As the moon set, we reached the pond where Uncle Bob left his fishing pole. He stood on the bank and shifted into a man. Without looking at me, he tugged his clothing from the bushes where they hung. He dressed in silence.

  I tried to hold onto the wolf a little longer, afraid that we were followed. Afraid I’d have to fight. But exhaustion overtook me. Unable to stop myself, I turned back into a boy, whining with the pain of my rearranging limbs. At last, I was whole. I stood, feeling dazed.
<
br />   My uncle tossed my jeans. I caught them. “You knew it was me?”

  “Hurry. We have to get out of here.”

  “But that woman. Shouldn’t we—”

  “No. They’ll know someone was there. I don’t want them to figure out it was us.” Fishing gear in hand, he strode away.

  I put on my jeans, hopping on one foot, and stepped into my shoes. My shirt was shredded, so I carried it. I had no idea where my socks were. I couldn’t get a handle on my thoughts. Had he always known what I was? When we got to the road, I grabbed his arm.

  “Wait,” I said. “You’re a wolf. Like me.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  My face heated with anger. “All this time. You knew, and I—”

  “Cody,” he said. “Why do you think they sent you to me?”

  His words socked me in the stomach.

  Mom knew? My knees buckled, and I nearly fell. Mom knew about werewolves. She knew there was a chance I might become one. Like her only brother. So she took me by C-section so I wouldn’t be born at Christmastime. She had my birthmark erased. And she never told me. Never explained.

  “Cody, get in.” Uncle Bob started the truck.

  I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep my heart from falling out. She never explained. Just let me think she hated me, as if I’d done something wrong. When all along, it ran in the family. Like a receding hairline.

  “Come on.” My uncle grabbed my shoulders and frog marched me to the passenger seat. He spun the tires, turning the truck around.

  “My bike,” I said.

  “Where?”

  I pointed. He skidded to a stop. I hopped out, pulled the bike from the bushes, and tossed it in the bed. As I climbed back inside the truck, he punched it, spraying gravel behind us.

  I stared out the windshield, feeling like the world was broken. I wanted to cry, which only made me angrier. “How could you let me keep thinking I was alone?”

  He glanced at me. “You didn’t ask for help. How would I know you had questions?”

  “Help?” I shouted. “How could I ask for help? I never knew you were a werewolf.”

  “What?” He squinted like he didn’t believe me. “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

  “She wouldn’t speak to me at all. Just sent me here.”

  He swore under his breath. “All right, then. If you didn’t know I was a wolf, why were you following me?”

  “Because I thought you were the one killing those women. Because Brittany said the murders took place just before the full moon, and I thought I had to stop you.”

  “Me? Son of a—” He jammed his fingers in his hair. “Okay, okay. I have a confession to make, too. I’ve been worried you’d fallen in with that pack.”

  “What made you think so?”

  “The night you crawled in through the window, you reeked of wolf. I was afraid you learned to shift during the dark of the moon. I have reason to believe that at least one member of the pack can do that.” He looked at me sideways. “So? Can you—shift on command?”

  “Yes.”

  He slammed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know anything. Haven’t you been listening? You and my parents decided to plunk me down in Podunk land and leave me to figure things out on my own.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Why are you driving so fast?” I yelled.

  “We have to get a long way from here.”

  “Because of the pack? It’s morning. They’re no threat to us.”

  “It’s not just the pack,” he said. “Did you get a look at the woman? Dee Dee Dickerson of Triple D Ranch. She was on committees, a real activist. I’m sure the sheriff’s department is already searching for her.”

  “Maybe we should tell them where to search.”

  “I will,” he said. “Anonymously. That’s what I did for the first one.”

  “You found the first body?”

  He nodded and didn’t say more.

  By the time we got home, my anger had boiled down to resentment. Still, I took pleasure in slamming the truck door.

  “Come inside so we can talk,” he said.

  I didn’t feel much like talking, but I went into the kitchen anyway. I slouched at the table with my feet sticking into the middle of the room. After a few moments, he joined me.

  “I made that call,” he said. “It’s a bad sign when you know the number for the tip hotline by heart.”

  I didn’t look at him. He took my ripped up T-shirt from the tabletop. “This is why I buy from Howard. In bulk.” He tossed the shirt in the trash.

  I folded my arms.

  He poured milk into a Sonic cup and set it before me. “Drink. It’s good for your bones. Why do you think I always—” He looked at the ceiling. “I expected your parents to have told you everything.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “I get that.” He sat at the table. “Your mother loves you.”

  I snorted.

  “Believe it,” he said. Twisting in the chair, he faced me. His cheeks were pink like he was embarrassed, or maybe he had anger issues of his own. “When our parents died, they left each of us two hundred thousand dollars. I was just getting comfortable with being a werewolf at that time. I’d dropped out of school and was backpacking through the Rockies. Your mother was studying to be a doctor. She planned to go into gene research, hoping to find a cure for her wayward brother.”

  “She’s not in research.”

  “No. Somehow, she got into brain surgery instead. Anyway, I let her have my share of the inheritance to get through med school with the stipulation that if I needed money she would give it to me. She’s kept her side of the bargain.”

  I thought of the many times I’d heard of Mom sending him cash to get this or that. The last time was to buy the truck.

  “She always swore she wouldn’t have children,” he said. “Lycanthropy follows the mother’s bloodline, you see, and she wanted to stamp it out of the family. But then she fell in love and got married. Your dad wanted a family so bad. After a while, she had you.”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to think of her as a regular person with plans and problems.

  “I was there when you were born,” he said. “She cried, so afraid she’d ruined her only son’s life. I guess it was her sense of guilt that kept her from talking to you.”

  “That’s not an excuse.”

  “No.” He sighed. “I have no excuse, either. I should have sat you down and talked to you long before now. I just thought you were the private type, you know? I thought I was giving you your space. It was wrong of me. I should have been there for you.”

  I glanced at him, then took a swig of milk. “Did you have someone to teach you?”

  “Yeah. Actually, I had an Uncle Bob, too. I was named after him. I would have loved it if we’d gone romping through the woods together. But he was a lot older. He didn’t romp.” Uncle Bob chuckled as if at a pleasant memory.

  I scowled, nurturing my anger. “So what’s this about shifting during the dark of the moon being dangerous? Will I get stuck that way? Like Mom used to say, don’t cry or your face will freeze.”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s the power of it. You begin to think you can do anything. Like being human is beneath you.”

  “I don’t think that.” Do I?

  “I’m certain the leader of that pack can shift at will. That’s what gives him dominance.”

  “A rogue werewolf,” I said.

  Uncle Bob raised his hands. “Actually, the two of us are the rogues. We don’t belong to a pack, and we don’t hunt humans.”

  “How do we stop them?”

  “We don’t. Just let them pass through. I’ve come across violent packs of wolves before, and I’ve learned to stay out of their way.”

  “But shouldn’t we—”

  “No. I like living in Loxahatchee. I’d hate to
leave.”

  I nodded, thinking about the body of poor Mrs. Dickerson. “I don’t want to be like them.”

  “Being a werewolf doesn’t make you a killer.”

  “Real wolves kill.”

  “Wolves kill to eat. Werewolves are human most of the time and can eat at McDonalds. Werewolves who kill do it for the sheer exhilaration of the hunt and slaughter.” He shrugged. “They don’t make very nice humans, either.”

  After a short nap, Uncle Bob left to build a chicken coop. I begged off. I had a lot to consider. But thinking about my parents and how they’d duped me all my life was depressing. I grabbed my bike and went to visit Brittany at work.

  She grinned as I walked through the door. “What, no fries?”

  “Sorry. Is it lunchtime already?”

  “Almost.” She gave me a peck on the cheek, then peered up at me. “You okay?”

  “Your boss around?”

  “Not until three. What’s going on?”

  I took a breath. “I’ve got weird news and weirder news.”

  “Here. Sit down.” She pulled a stool from behind the counter. “Give me the weird news first.”

  “My uncle isn’t the killer. I know because I found a body, and he couldn’t have done it.”

  She paled. “Another murder? Who?”

  “Dee Dee Dickerson,” I said as if I knew her.

  “Oh, my God. Was it awful?”

  “Pretty bad, yeah. And I saw who did it. Werewolves. Three of them.”

  Her eyes widened, and her hands flew to her mouth. I jumped off the stool and helped her sit.

  “More werewolves?” she said. “What is it, some sort of secret society?”

  “This is where it gets really weird. My uncle knows about me. He’s known all along. Because he’s one, too.”

  “What?” She yelped and leaped to her feet.

  “I saw him change last night. He was with me when we found the body.”

  “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “You must feel so…betrayed.”

  She got it. She understood how I felt, and I didn’t even have to explain. My love multiplied. I thought of telling her about my parents and their part in the scheme, but the subject was too painful.