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Oh God, do not let me fail. I will win this NaNoWriMo. I will KICK ITS ASS.
An excerpt, for interested parties.
I moved to the dresser and tugged it open, brought out a tattered wreck that might once have been a sweatshirt, and tugged it over my head. It dropped to my knees and covered just enough, stitched together again and again, worn ragged from years of use. Another shiver trickled from the base of my neck down my back, settling at the base of my spine in a ball of cold lead. I stood still for a moment, my head thrown back, eyes closed, watching the fireworks behind my lids as my stomach clenched.
Moving faster now, I tugged the door open and moved down the hallway silently, though it was not waking the house that I was afraid of. There was no one else here. I closed it behind my and stood in the light of the moon on the doorstep, a slight smile curving my rather thin lips.
Blue eyes blinked at me out of the darkness, and I could feel their impatience rattling against me. “Just a sec,” I snapped at them, feeling my fingers tingle, the ball of lead growing, pressing against my ribcage. I scrabbled at the sweatshirt, tugging it off and dropping to all fours, wincing as my tender knees hit a rock. My skin popped out in cold sweat as my back arched upward, agony splitting my skin along my spine, shifting, realigning, changing, my entrails boiling around to make room for a lengthened rib cage, a deeper chest, my teeth elongating almost too fast for my mouth to make room for them. Finally the agony changed to glorious, soul cleansing pleasure, and I threw back my muzzle and howled.
They came forward, wuffling at the ground, butting at my with their heads, rubbing against one another. I was the largest by far, surpassing even the Alpha, who came to me, rubbed his head against hers and took my muzzle gently in his mouth. I submitted to him, then bumped him with my rear end and headed toward the woods. I was hungry, my stomach growling with all the ferocity of a challenging young wolf. They followed my pale white form, shadows to my ghost.
They ran silently through the woods, bumping into each other, flicking their ears and waving their tails, tongues lolling out in wolfish laughter. I let the Alpha lead, falling back among the others, bowling one over as he tried to knock my feet out from under me. The laughter of the rest of the pack at his foolishness was soft but very amused.
It wasn’t much longer before one of the flankers stopped and turned off, his tail crooking at the others. I smelled it a moment later, the fresh tang of a young, cocky buck, his antlers not grown in yet. He wasn’t sick, but there were enough of them. He was small, and young, and foolish. The Alpha looked at me once, and I barked a yes.
They followed the scent to a clearing, and stopped downwind of him. He was curled in the grass, his head on his flank, ears twitching alertly all the same. My lip curled and I growled, smelling the blood pumping beneath his skin, sweet flesh so close to my. The buck started, suddenly, and for a moment I thought he’d heard me, my stomach lurching, but then he turned the other way and I heard the far off crash of boots through the underbrush.
I snarled without thinking about it, the reaction as automatic as breathing. Humans meant pain. Humans meant death. Humans were bad. And that sound was a human sound. I moved forward, the buck sprang into the air, and the air exploded in a flash of light and noise. Blinded, I crawled back to the underbrush, stunned, and stared at the body of the deer, still steaming, sprawled on its side. Its life snuffed out, I could smell the blood leaking from the small wound in its soft belly.
I could feel my throat rumbling with the growl of the frustrated hunter. The shouts and crashes of boots grew closer and closer. I could smell the foul stench of cloying deodorant and the underlying smell of human flesh. My stomach growling, my mouth began watering as anger combined with hunger, tantalizing my nose with the sweet smell of their tender flesh, so easy to bite and tear.
I began to shudder with the difficulty of keeping still, the spots clearing from my vision. I wanted. The Alpha nipped at my flank sharply with a warning growl, but I turned and snapped at him and began prowling forward, hunching powerful shoulders, my blunt muzzle questing. I could pick out their voices now, individual words garbling past my ears. I could see them through the bushes, kneeling beside the dead deer, grinning and laughing, their bright white teeth flashing, their throats white and pale and vulnerable. So sweet. I started to prowl forward, but the Alpha snarled at me again, jumped in front of me, snarling. I saw their heads jerk up, saw one of them lift something – a gun, I remembered - with a shout of alarm, aiming it at the Alpha.
They would kill him. The alarm bells shrilling in my wolf mind, I bowled him over with an easy swipe of my powerful paw and leapt out of the bushes, snarling, my fur puffed up, making me even larger. One of the boys screamed, scrambling backwards, and fell over the deer. The other paled, but he trained his sights on me, turning the gun, his finger tightening.
Another blast of fire as I leapt and pain striped along my leg. I roared in agony, more a bear sound than wolf, and fell heavily sideways, scrambling ungracefully to my feet, the smell of the blood of the deer stronger, closer now, driving my senses into a frenzy. I whirled around with a howl of rage and leapt blindly over the body of the deer, trying to fight through the haze of hunger and bloodlust, but his blood was so near and so hot and warm and tempting, and I could feel him fall beneath me, screaming wildly, his limbs thrashing at me, punching, kicking, grabbing at my fur, and my teeth were at his throat, a threat, but they pricked his skin, releasing the blood.
Red, thick, sweet. Hunger pounded in my temples and my limbs. I slavered, my eyes glazed over with the craze of bloodlust and fury, lunging for his throat, ripping upward, shaking his body in my teeth as he thrashed and struggled wildly, weakening and going limp. In a haze of blood and rage, I heard a snarl that rumbled through my paws. Automatically, I let go of the kill, backed away, and rolled to my back, showing my belly to the wolf towering over my, his fur puffed out, impressive teeth bared. The Alpha was reminding me of my place, and I trembled.
The bloodlust left me gradually as he loomed over me, and finally when my eyes were completely clear, my heart beating normally, he backed up and whimpered worriedly. I nuzzled him, my nostrils flaring, smelling the blood, but no longer mastered by it. I turned and looked at the carnage. The second boy was gone. The first was hardly recognizable. The human in me surged, and in a blaze of fire along my limbs, the wolf was gone, leaving me weak, sick, and shivering as I emptied my stomach on the forest floor, the coppery taste of blood lingering in my mouth. Naked, I scrambled away from the bodies, staring. The Alpha whined but kept his distance. The others were lying in the bushes, their eyes staring at my bleakly.
There was nothing else to do. I’d been in
I would never see him again.
Tears pricked my eyes momentarily, but I shook them away impatiently. He was a wolf. A wolf, nothing more. I wasn’t either, and I had sworn to herself that I would have no more than necessary to do with either of them.
And perhaps, now, it had been too much.
By the time the sun rose over the Tetons, I was sitting in a hotel room in
I only hoped I hadn’t left them to death.
The steam rising from the pavement made
The honk of the foghorn split through the last of my haze of sleep, as the shower on the floor above rattled creakily into life. Shaking out my hair, nearly shoulder length now, I tugged pants and then a shirt over my head and went outside. I picked up a newspaper and flipped through it, but there were no articles about mauled boys that had died in
That done, I headed down to the waterfront to buy something to eat, my stomach growling. Picking up a package of chicken, ignoring the weird looks, I tucked it in my bag, went down the street a ways, picked up a slice of ham. Down a little more, I got some bread and a box of eggs. Finally finished shopping, I headed up to Pike Place Market and hunted down a fish market, where I bought a freshly killed trout, requested it whole, and walked away, reminding herself where I’d been this morning so I wouldn’t go there again for a few days, giving them time to forget about me.
I found my way to the Olympic Sculpture Park and settled on a bench, staring at the typewriter eraser, and pulled out the chicken first. I plowed through all the meat in about fifteen minutes, leaving the fish for last. I ate it whole, raw, trying to keep it hidden from the curious gazes of the loud East Coast couple walking on the path behind my. It made for a less than pleasant experience, but I washed it down by nibbling on some bread and getting a coffee at a Starbucks nearby.
Living this way wasn’t easy, I reminded myself as I walked back to my apartment, but there was a reason for it. When it came down to it, without the forest calling me, the wolves calling my name every night, I could control the wolf all but once every few months, when the itch under my skin intensified to unbearable heights and I fled the city to run, catching maybe a rabbit and fleeing from human sight. The itch was near constant at other times, the desire, the need to change, but I could suppress it without the smell of the wild, and with the occasional solitary eating of a rare steak, still bloody.
When the wind was blowing from the west, bringing with it the scent of sea air and rain, sometimes I could feel the wolf stir, uncurling, her eyes bright as she snarled at the bars of her cage, but I could keep her back. At least, for now. And when I couldn’t, it would be time to move on again.
I shook off the thoughts like pesky blackflies and continued trudging up the hill. Next week I’d be starting school again, learning to be something safe and decent and respectable, so I could get out of the cubicle and move into something uninteresting and dull like marketing or perhaps architecture. At nineteen, perhaps I was young to be considering it, but I been out of my house at fifteen and grown at seventeen.
I found my feet, strangely enough, guiding me to the community college. It was nearly time for school to be let out. I stood staring at the double doors until the bell rung, shrill and harsh, and the students began trickling out, first as a stream, then as a flood. I watched them for a while before going over to the flower box, sitting on the edge, and pretending to wait for an anonymous friend. No one gave me a second glance, or those who did just waved incuriously.
Then I saw him. He was watching me from across the lot, his eyes glittering darkly even at this distance, his eyes slightly tilted, his face vaguely Asian, hair black and stark against the paleness of his skin. He looked like he spent most of his time indoors, and judging by his scrawny build, he did. I should have looked away. I should have left. Even that he was looking at me was a bad thing, and staring at me was worse. I did my best not to be noticed. It was safer that way – for them and for me. But instead I leaned back casually and gave him a half smile. Apparently he took it as an invitation, cause he started heading my way.
I really should have left then. The last thing I wanted was a college kid butting into my life and messing up my neat little lie. But I didn’t really want to, and I hadn’t talked to anyone in ages, except maybe a “Hello” to the person in the apartment above me every once in a while and sometimes a “Fine, thanks” to a question from a salesperson. And very rarely a “Piss off, please” to the landlord – none of which constitutes a conversation, in my opinion.
“So, what’re you really doing here?”
I gave him a look. “A friend.”
He snorted. “No kidding. You’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes, and everyone’s out of the building by now. I promise. So what’re you really doing here? Can’t pay for college, so you’re hoping you can pick something up by watching it?”
I scowl. “I’m nineteen, for your information. I’ve already had two years.”
“Uh huh. Impressive.”
“Get out of here, smart ass,” I snapped, feeling an unexpected surge of anger. Then he laughed and I realized he’s been baiting me.
“Well. Got a name?”
“None that’s any of your business,” I shot back.
“
I didn’t take it. “Evadne.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Evadne?”
I bristled. “Yeah. That’s my name.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You were going to.”
He grinned at me. “So, if you’re not just lurking around here, what are you doing?”
“Looking for smart asses,” I snapped. “I eat them for breakfast every morning.”
“Hmm. A little late, it’s almost lunch,”
The crack of a snap made me jump.
“I have to go,” I blurted out, desperately. I needed to get away. Go to open spaces. “I’ll see you later. Bye –“ I fled, ignoring his shout after me. I couldn’t afford to change here, not now, not – I felt sick in the pit of my stomach, fear pounding through me. My spine struggled to arch, dropping me to all fours against my will. I hit the highway and ran across without stopping in a roar of beeping and honks. I struggled to the nearest copse of trees and dropped to my knees there, panting, hoping that no one had followed me, no one would chase the crazy woman who ran across the highway. I doubled over, in agony, trying to fight the transformation, my teeth gritted. “Can’t – change – not – now –“ I gasped out, but a spasm of pain forced my words out in a shrill scream and I fell to the ground, my spine arching beyond what is humanly possible, my legs bending out of place and back in again, rearranging muscles and bones.
Finally shuddering in the aftermath of the pain, I lay crumpled on the ground, shuddering, my pelt soaked with sweat. I curled up weakly, exhausted, and tried to ignore the pounding in my head and stomach. I couldn’t hunt, not now, not here. Couldn’t hunt.
The small, rational part of me realized what has happened and was shuddering with horror. He made me change. Something about him brought out the wolf in me, and I could not fight it. I should stay away from him. But my nose twitched as I recall his scent, my ears as I heard the thud of his heart. He was beautiful, entrancing, fascinating.
He made me hungry.
I had to see him again.
I woke up in the morning, cold, wet, and shivering, unfortunately naked. I didn’t have any clothes, and I certainly wasn’t going to run across the highway naked or as a wolf again. Cursing under my breath, I considered my options. They were few. I could just go walking out and wait to get arrested for indecent exposure. That would be lovely. Or I could wait until cover of darkness, change back, go back to the apartment, and make headlines tomorrow as the freak wolf in
A soft woof startles me. Usually dogs don’t come near me, or if they do they stare at me warily and growl in the back of their throat. When they’re friendly dogs, I usually have to make some kind of excuse about having cats at home and escape as quickly as possible. I don’t think they’d actually attack me, but it’s not worth the risk. I can’t change, and it’s easy to get mauled by a dog when you’re in human form. But as I spin around, lifting my arms to protect my face, I realize where I recognize this particular dog from. She’s not a dog at all.
I know her only as Ice Nose, because of the pale markings on her muzzle. She was the omega of the
Here.
In
In
I must admit I panicked. “Ice Nose what the hell are you doing here this is a city you’ll be killed you’ll get me killed are the others here what are you doing?” I gasped out in one breath.
She looked at me, whined, sat down, and lifted a paw plaintively. Her ice blue eyes were melting. I realized, slowly, that she’s alone. She didn’t smell of pack, even to my less sensitive human nose. She smelled of forest and rain. She smelled, in short, of West Coast. And the faintest hint, barely imbedded yet, of gasoline.
I stared at her. “You came alone?”
She rolled over on her back and whines. I stare at her a little longer, sat down on the ground, and buried my face in my hands. First
She didn’t budge. In fact, she just lay down, looked at me, and whined. I rolled my eyes. “Can you be a good dog?”
A woof, and her tail thumped on the ground. “Fine, then go get some clothes from the nearest store with an open door. You don’t have to pay for them. A shirt, pants, and then run.”
I didn’t expect her to understand, but she barked and licked my chin, then set off at a trot, tongue lolling. I put my face in my hands and sighed. Damn stubborn wolves.
I did warn you I was on a werewolf kick. *guilty look*
