He pulled out a couple of chicken breasts, an egg, some Italian seasonings, dried breadcrumbs, a package of fresh pasta, and some pre-prepared spaghetti sauce, which he had made a couple of days before, in order to put together a chicken parmesan dinner for himself and Aria. He hoped Aria didn’t mind Italian.
When Aria finished unpacking her things, she joined him in the kitchen. “Can I help?” she asked.
“You’ve done plenty today, having cleaned the whole house and all. Maybe I should’ve left Charlie here after all. He would’ve given you plenty to do. He’s a great dog for keeping you busy.” Wilson smiled.
“Well, I do admit that I love dogs. I had one growing up.”
“Really? Where did you grow up?”
“New Orleans.”
“Great city. I’ve only been there once, but it was fun while I was there.” Wilson coated the chicken breasts and put them in a baking pan and into the oven. He then proceeded to boil a pot of water for the pasta.
“Are you sure I can’t help you?” Aria insisted. “I can do a good salad if you have the ingredients.”
“Well, if you’re really that bored, go ahead and see what I’ve got.”
Aria went into the fridge and pulled out a head of cabbage, a tomato, an onion, and a carrot.
“Do you have a cutting board?” he pulled one out of a drawer and placed it on the counter for her while she pulled out a vegetable peeler and a knife.
“I see you also made yourself familiar with my kitchen,” Wilson commented as he waited for the water to boil. “Well, except for not knowing where my cutting board is.” Wilson smirked. “But what are you going to do for the dressing?”
“You have some bottled dressing in the fridge,” commented Aria, who then started chopping up the vegetables.
“Oh right. Good observation.”
Chapter 8
An hour later, dinner had been made and eaten, and Wilson and Aria had learned a lot about each other. The more he got to know her, the more he didn’t believe she could kill anyone, let alone several people. He even learned how she initially became a wolf.
She had previously been living in Baton Rouge, but one night she had gone to a party with a friend. When she and the friend parted ways, she went home alone as always, but that night, something in the shadows came out of nowhere and grabbed her from behind. She then felt a bite in her neck and whatever it was then dropped her on the sidewalk, growled a slight growl, and ran away, leaving her for dead…or so she thought. She passed out and woke up in the hospital with her aunt – who she had been living with at the time – at her bedside. Her aunt told her that someone found her lying on the sidewalk and immediately called 9-1-1, and then the hospital called her aunt.
Aria unfortunately had no idea what happened between the time of the attack and the time that she woke up in the hospital, and the bite was diagnosed to be from an animal, but there had been warnings of black bears getting loose and walking into the nearby towns, so the doctor figured it had to be a bear. Even the police in Baton Rouge thought this. Aria had no choice but to believe this since she was attacked from behind and didn’t see what it was that attacked her.
She also felt fine for a few days after the attack, although more wary of her surroundings when she was out at night. It wasn’t until the next full moon, about a week after the attack, that she started feeling a change in her body, and she started turning into a wolf. Luckily, her aunt was not home at the time. She was away visiting relatives up out in Seattle, Washington, but Aria knew there was no way to explain this to her aunt when she returned, and also feared her aunt’s safety, since Aria had no idea what was going on with her. When she turned into a wolf that first time, she was also aware of what she was doing and didn’t hurt anyone, but she also couldn’t control her strength and wound up destroying a bunch of trees nearby after she ran out of her aunt’s house.
Aria hoped it would just be on the full moon like it always is in movies and television shows, but she soon found out that that was not the case. She would change on random days, full moon or not, and she couldn’t control when she would change. This made her realize she had no choice but to move out of her aunt’s house and find a place of her own. She packed up her things and left a note at her aunt’s neighbor’s, asking them to give the note to her aunt when her aunt came back from Seattle.
Aria then decided she would move to a small town that didn’t have too many people, so that when she changed at home, she could just stay home, but when she changed outside, she could easily run away and not be seen. After several weeks of moving from town to town from Baton Rouge north, she wound up there in Mayville.
When she got to that part of her story, she started to freak out once again. “Oh my god, I’m going to have to move again!”
“What? Why?”
“Because if word gets out that I turn into a wolf…”
Wilson put a hand across the dinner table onto Aria’s. “It won’t. I’ll make sure of that. I’ll help you stay hidden.”
Aria calmed down a little. “I can’t ask you to do that. You’re a cop.”
“Detective,” corrected Wilson, “and yes I can. Like I’ve already said many times I want to prove your innocence, and I feel sorry for you having to run from town to town. I want you to finally have a place to stay where you can feel safe.”
“I hope you can really help me with that,” responded Aria, tears starting to fall down her cheeks.
“I’m determined to try, because you’re a beautiful girl, and no beautiful girl deserves this kind of life.” Wilson smiled again. He then got up to take the now empty plates to the kitchen.
Aria picked up her up own plates and followed suit. As soon as she put her plates on the counter by the sink, however, she started putting her arms around her stomach and groaning.
“What’s wrong?” Wilson quickly put his hands on her shoulders.
“I feel it…happening. I’m about to change…”
“What should I do? Should I get you outside?”
“No, it’s getting too close. I might get seen by Ella or one of your other neighbors before we make it to the forest. You need to tie me down somehow. You have handcuffs, don’t you? And I saw you have a basement downstairs with a gym.”
“Yes, but what are you thinking?”
“Take me downstairs and handcuff me to one of the gym equipment downstairs. Something strong that will stay put, like the treadmill or the butterfly machine…”
Wilson quickly helped her to the basement. Thankfully he still had his pair of handcuffs in the pocket of his coat, which he grabbed on the way to the stairs that led down to his basement. There, he did as she asked, putting one end of his handcuffs around her wrist and the other on one of the bars of his butterfly machine. Aria kept groaning as he did this.
“Step back,” she warned, or I may hurt you as soon as I turn, because I will grow so big that you will be pushed back. Wilson did as he was told. “Leave and close the door. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“But it’s okay…”
“No, please, just listen to me.” Aria groaned again, feeling like she was turning from the inside out. “I just hope I don’t ruin your gym equipment while I’m changed.” Aria tried to let out a little laugh before moaning some more.
Wilson nodded and quickly left the room, closing and locking the door behind him. He could hear the groans getting much louder until there were loud ripping sounds, presumably from her clothes breaking off her, followed by growling from her having fully turned into a wolf. She then heard howls and scratching sounds from within. He walked upstairs back to the main floor, wondering what to do in the meantime. Eventually he drifted off to sleep on the couch, despite all the worries about what was going on under him.
Chapter 9
He awoke at a little before six in the morning to a buzzing sound. It was his cell phone, which he had turned off to enjoy a quiet evening with Aria. He picked it up and checked the phone number. There
were several missed calls from the police station and several voice mails. He dialed up his voicemail box to listen to the first voicemail.
“Wilson, where the heck are you?” It was Sheriff Sherwood. “There’s been another attack! Two victims this time, but I don’t recognize them. Could be visitors from elsewhere. Call me when you get this!” The other messages were all asking him where he was and why he wasn’t calling back. He decided to face them when he got to work, but for now, he needed to check on Aria.
He looked around the house and then went downstairs, taking his gun with him just in case. He also grabbed the blanket off the couch that he had covered Aria with before. He checked the basement door. Still locked. That was a good sign. He then carefully unlocked the door and opened it, holding his gun up in case Aria was still a wolf and she had gotten loose, but he was happy to see that she was once again passed out, leaning against the butterfly machine with her handcuffs still attached. He unlocked the handcuffs, put the blanket around her, and carried her upstairs to the guest room, where he lay her on the bed.
He took a step back and looked at her, and there was one thing he knew for sure. Aria couldn’t have been the one who had been killing all those people, because she had been locked up in his basement when the latest attacks took place.
But if not her, then who was it? Could there be another wolf in town just like her? He had to know and he had to know soon, because until he did, her life would be in danger from the rest of the police, because if they were to find out she was a wolf, they would surely likely assume that she was behind the attacks and would want to kill her.
Rise of the Living Dead
(She Wolf and The Detective series 2)
Chapter 1
“Sorry for being unreachable last night,” Wilson explained to Sherwood as soon as he walked into the station. “My niece paid a surprise visit, and I wanted to catch up on things with her quietly.” Wilson figured if he’s going to go with the niece lie with his neighbor, he better stick with that same story with everyone else.
“Niece? I thought you said you were an only child, Wilson?” Oops. Forgot about that.
“She’s actually the daughter of an old friend of mine. She’s not actually my niece, but I think of her that way.” Phew. Thought his way out of that one quickly.
“Oh, well, bring her by some time. I’d like to meet her.”
“I’ll think about it,” Wilson lied before heading to his office. Chances are the sheriff probably already met her, since it’s a small town and she had been living in it for some time now. “Better get to work looking over the evidence from last night’s murders.”
“Sure thing,” said Sherwood.
In his office, Wilson found that the murder the night before had all the same clues as the previous ones, this time taking place in the woods instead of in the middle of town. The couple was indeed unknown. Their names were found on their drivers’ licenses, but they weren’t from around there. Instead they were from Philadelphia. Sherwood’s notes say that they were visiting and had just gotten into town the weekend before. The friends they were visiting had already been alerted.
“Such a shame,” Wilson said quietly. “They came to our great little old town only to wind up dead.” Wilson shook his head and sat down at his desk.
All he knew for sure was that there was no way it could be Aria. She would’ve had to gotten out of his handcuffs, unlocked the basement door from inside with the lock on the outside, gone up the stairs, gone out the front door, and then attacked. Then returned back to the basement, lock herself back in from the inside, and lock herself back up in the handcuffs. He knew that he could prove that to Sherwood and the other police, but they’d still want to take her down for being a werewolf. They’d lock her up in some kind of lab and let scientists do experiments on her, or worse. Wilson shuddered at the thought of that.
The more and more he thought about it, the more and more he thought about how beautiful Aria was and how much he wanted to prove her innocence. He had been single a long, long time. None of the single women currently living in town interested him romantically. The last one he dated had broken up with him and moved away, not able to handle the downsides to having a relationship with a detective, such as the long hours and the worries about the dangers he could be putting himself into at any time.
Just then the phone rang, and he picked it up on the first ring. It was Aria, who he had taken to her apartment before work to gather up more of her things and check her phone messages, since she had not been home for a few days. He had told her to remain there until he got off work.
“Wilson, I need you to come here as soon as you can.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“There’s a message on my phone…I think you better listen to it.”
“Okay, I’ll be over as soon as I can. Remain where you are and keep the doors locked until I get there.” Wilson hung up the phone, stood up, and headed out with the evidence still sprawled out on his desk.
“Where are you heading off to?” asked Deputy Jones. “Didn’t you just get here?”
“It’s…my niece…she needs me. You know, new girl in a town she’s never been before. Probably thought she heard a bear in the woods by my house or somethin’.” Wilson let out a fake laugh.
“Your niece? I thought you were an only child.” REALLY should’ve thought that lie out, Wilson thought to himself.
“Friend’s daughter. I think of her as my niece. She’s visiting.” Quick, short explanation so that he can get out of there as soon as possible.
“Ah, okay. Yeah, I know what you mean. My niece was the same way last time she came to visit me.”
“Yeah…well…I’ll go calm her down and then be back as soon as I can.”
“No worries, but have your cell turned on this time, just in case. You should’ve seen how upset Al got when he called you several times and you didn’t answer.” Obviously Sherwood had gotten over that overnight, considering he didn’t exactly go into a yelling session when Wilson arrived that morning.
“Already back on,” said Wilson. “That’s how my niece called me.”
“See you later, then.” Wilson waved at Jones before exiting the station.
Chapter 2
Wilson drove out to Aria’s apartment, where she was anxiously waiting for his arrival. He knocked on her door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“It’s me, Wilson.”
“How do I know it’s really you?”
“Look in your peephole.” Wilson flashed his badge.
At that, she unlocked and opened the door for him. He entered and locked the door behind him.
“I’m sorry you had to leave work after you just got there and all, but I think you should hear this.” Aria led him to her answering machine, where she pressed “play”. After the standard message stating the date and time the message was received, the message itself played.
“Aria, honey, where are you? I have been trying to call you these past few days! It’s about Sienna; she’s missing! Call me as soon as you get this!”
Wilson already knew who Sienna was. She was Aria’s sister, who, upon last word, had been murdered while visiting New Zealand. The case had still been unsolved, but the body was sent back to New Orleans, where the funeral took place just before Aria left. Upon the last check, the body was still in the coffin at the cemetery where it was about to be buried. So if Sienna was dead, how could she be missing? The only way would be if someone stole her body, of course. But why would someone do that?
“Have you called her yet?” he asked Aria.
“No, not yet. I was waiting for you to come over.”
‘Then you better call her now. Put her on speakerphone so that I can listen in.”
Aria picked up the phone, put it on speakerphone as requested, and dialed. As it was ringing, Aria quickly said “My mom doesn’t know…about my condition. So please don’t say anything if you have to speak up.”
“Okay, I won
’t.”
After several moments, someone picked up.
“Hello?
“Mom, it’s Aria.”
‘Honey, where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”
“I’m so sorry. I had some…unexpected…things come up…with work…and had to go on a…trip…for work.” Aria tried hard not to sound so nervous as she told all these lies to her mother, but she couldn’t help it. She was never a really good liar when it came to her parents. “So what’s going on with Sienna?”
“That’s the thing, nobody knows. A few weeks ago, as you know, we received word that the land your sister was buried in had been bought and that her body would have to be moved.”
“Right.” Aria responded. “They didn’t lose the coffin, did they?”
“Well, no,” explained Aria’s mother. “Actually, when they dug up the coffin, they realized it was amazingly light, so they called us to ask if they could open it to check inside…and honey, you won’t believe this. The body was missing!”
Wilson gasped.
“How can that be? Did they leave the coffin sitting out unattended? Maybe some sick person came along while no one was around and…”
She Wolf and The Detective: (Suspense, Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Fantasy) (Book 1-3) Page 3