The highway curves off into the distance, between mountains and badlands and mesas. Everything’s reddish-orange, dusty and dry, just like an old pickup truck.
There’s one right now, crawling along the slow lane. Minivans zoom right past it. Enormous tractor-trailers rush past, nearly blowing it off the road.
It doesn’t seem to care. The driver doesn’t, either. He tilts his weather-beaten hat to block out more of the sun, then turns up the AM radio as another tractor-trailer roars past. A high-pitched whine comes out of his speakers, intermingled with static.
He nods. “Right,” he says, even though no one is with him. “Uh-huh.
“Two of them? Wow. And one is a-
“Oh, heck.”
He looks up at the roadsign, promising food and lodging from six major brands. “Okay, I’m coming up on it now.”
The exit’s in a quarter of a mile. Driving one-handed, he reaches down and unzips the duffel bag next to him, before getting out a short-barreled shotgun. He touches a silver icon to it and breathes a short prayer, before returning his gaze to the road.
Two cars scream past him, driving the wrong way up to the Interstate, just before he gets to the exit. Honking and screeching sounds come from behind him, and he holds onto his hat, looking out the window for a split-second before coming down off the highway. More cars tear past at the intersection, and in the distance he hears screaming.
He turns left, heading towards the big travel plaza that’s emptying of all of its customers. Cars are pulling out fast and rear-ending each other, and people are throwing the building’s doors open and running for their lives.
He pulls into the parking lot just as it empties, and takes a spot around the corner from the entrance. Now he can hear snarling and animal breathing, and then a roar right before sounds of crashing and towers of things tumbling over.
He cuts the engine and leaves the keys in the ignition, then unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes the door open, grabbing his shotgun on the way out …
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO
*squaaawk*
“I’m sorry, what?”
Rachel sighed, and looked around the main prep area to where Tara was staffing the drive-thru window. Her friend was busy counting out change for someone waiting outside, while trying to talk to someone else on her headset.
“Uh, it comes with pinto beans, cheese, guacamole, rice …
“Rice.
“Rice, with an ‘r’.
“No, not ice. Rice!” She dropped the lid to the cup she was filling, and kicked it aside before getting a new one and cramming it on top. “Rice!”
“What are you doing just standing there?”
Rachel jumped, almost ruining the order she was working on, and turned around to see the store manager — all 4’10″ of her. She had Hispanic features, and her nametag read “Alice.”
“Sorry … ” Rachel grabbed up handfuls of lettuce and cheese, and tossed them on before wrapping up the tortilla.
“The evening rush is starting,” Alice reminded her, in accented English. “I know this is hard for you and your friend, but you need to stay on task. You can take a break afterward.”
“I know, it’s just … ” How to explain Tara’s disability?
Rachel finished her prep work, then brought the tray to the counter. “Thirty-four!” she shouted, and someone standing two feet away took it. Without acknowledging him, she walked back to the line, stealing a glance at the drive-thru window as she walked back. Tara had her eyes closed and both fists clenched, and was silently counting to ten.
Rachel glanced up at the screen and began work on the next order automatically. She had it bagged up and ready for the take-out customer when she spotted the manager again. “Um, Alice … ”
Alice coughed, and indicated the bag. Rachel handed it to the man waiting at the counter before trying again. “Listen, my friend’s having a hard time over there … ”
An entire cup of ice and soda fell off the machine where Tara was trying to fill it, and she threw the handful of sauce packets she’d grabbed at the floor in frustration.
Rachel went on hurriedly. “Can I take over from her for a few? She can go get … something … from the stock room … ” Her voice trailed off.
She saw the look on Alice’s face as she considered her friend, and knew what it meant. “If she can’t even handle this, how is she ever going to make it here?” But Alice finally looked up at her and said “You take over for her, then. I’ll get the mop.”
Rachel let out her breath in relief.
She walked over to where Tara was leaning her forehead against the soda machine, eyes closed. Rachel could hear the static of the radio in her headset. “Tara?”
No answer.
Rachel took a deep breath, knowing how much Tara hated this, and shook her gently by the shoulder. She recoiled as if shot, and her radio headset fell to the floor. “-ello? Hello?” it squawked.
“Tara, I’m going to take over for you now.”
“I can’t do this,” she said, in a quiet and just slightly quavering voice that showed that she meant it.
“I know.” Rachel kept her hands to herself, even though she wanted to comfort her. “But tomorrow’s the weekend, and-”
“I hate the weekend.” She stared daggers into the soda machine, not looking at Rachel as she spoke. “I hate our stupid apartment we can’t even pay for.”
“Tara … ”
“Yes, I know how lucky we are to have jobs, but I just can’t do this!”
A car horn honked, outside the window, and Tara jumped and nearly fell to the floor. Rachel tried to help steady her, and she fought Rachel off as if by instinct.
“Go punch something in the stock room,” Rachel said, not realizing that she’d regret it. “I’ll cover for you.”
A long second passed, and even the radio headset was silent. Then, wordlessly, Tara walked back towards the stock room, a blank expression on her face. She jumped again when the horn honked a second time, but managed to catch herself.
Rachel consulted the screen on the drive-thru cash register, and finished the order for the person waiting outside. Then she put on Tara’s headset, rubbing hand sanitizer into her palms as she spoke. “I’m sorry for the delay, can I take your order please?”
Alice came up beside her with the mop and bucket as she started filling drinks, and began to clean Tara’s mess. They both looked to the side as they heard a muffled THWACK — THWACK — THWACK from the stock room.
“I told her to go punch something,” Rachel said, helplessly. “To let out some stress.”
Alice shrugged, and went back to her mopping. “If she damages anything, you’re paying for it.”
Rachel sighed. “I know.”
Another order filled, and everything was quiet … or as quiet as it got at a fast-food restaurant approaching rush hour, she told herself. Two people were working the line, one of them bringing her orders to pass through the window, and Alice was up at the front taking orders. The drive-thru window was starting to get hectic, but Rachel had worked it during lunch hour, and she hoped she’d be able to handle it.
Then they all heard the clatter of piles of things hitting the floor, and a second later Tara screamed in frustration. The line workers held back, but both of them were still frozen, looking towards the stock room as Tara began crying loudly.
Rachel scrambled to finish her order, counting out change and reaching through the window to hand it to the person outside. She jumped, at another clatter of things hitting the floor and another scream from the stock room, and dropped half the coins on the pavement.
Without thinking, she took off her headset and hurried around the line, past the workers staring as Tara’s screams became more bloodcurdling. The door to the stock room was just a crack open, and as Rachel rounded the corner and headed up to it all she could think was dead, dying, horrible pain, crushed beneath piles of boxes …
“Tara!” She threw the door open. “Are you alagplx-”
There was something in the stock room.
It was twice her size, and covered in fur, and tipped with gleaming claws. And as soon as it saw Rachel it growled at her from behind the sack of tortillas it’d torn into, a muffled sound that just about stopped her heart.
I’m going to die, Rachel thought. She had never felt such fear before, and did not understand what was happening to her in response.
Acting on instinct, she slammed the door shut, then fumbled the lock closed just as the creature barreled into it. The metal door dented.
“Mad dog!” she called out to the store. It seemed like the most sensible thing to say. “Mad dog!”
Another slam into the door. Why isn’t anyone running? Rachel was terrified. The whole world seemed like it was spinning around her, and she found herself braced up against the door half in a futile attempt to keep it shut and half to keep from falling over.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to take off around the corner, but slipped and fell on some rags that hadn’t been there before. Her co-workers gasped and jumped backwards, when they saw.
Slipping, kicking the rags away, Rachel stood up and screamed out towards the patrons who were staring at her in shock. “Mad dog! Run for your lives!”
Now her co-workers screamed and ran, and so did the people out in the dining area. Trays got flung aside, napkins went flying, people jumped over tables and slipped on their wrappers. Somebody hit his head on a chair, and got dragged outside by someone else.
She heard Alice saying something and coming out of her office, and ran in that direction. When Alice saw her, she froze in her tracks, her mouth hanging open.
Rachel stopped and looked down at her, trying to think what was wrong. How bad did I hit my head? Am I gruesomely injured? Covered in blood?
I didn’t think she was this short …
Alice turned and tried to run, but Rachel grabbed her by the shoulder. “Alice!”
She screamed and tried to break free.
Rachel took hold of her and spun her around. “Alice, stop … stop screaming and listen to me!”
She stopped screaming and started blubbering, dropping to her knees and pleading in Spanish. Rachel had to get down on her knees too, just to talk to her face to face. “Alice, listen! There’s a-”
She kept crying, hysterical.
Rachel took a deep breath. “There’s a mad dog or something in the storeroom-”
It roared, and slammed into the door again.
“I don’t have a cellphone! You’ve got to get outside and call 911, and-”
SLAM.
“And, like, the National Guard or something! I don’t know!” Rachel looked over her shoulder towards the line, then back down at Alice. She was still crying, and was now doubled over with her face to the floor and her arms over her head.
Rachel hurriedly pulled Alice to her feet and shoved her towards the front entrance. “Go! Get going already!” Alice stumbled and ran on short, shaking legs, not looking back as she did so.
Rachel followed, knowing the stock room door couldn’t hold the thing for much longer. Then she got to the glass pull-door leading out to the main floor of the travel plaza, and she tried to pull it open but it snapped off in her hand. She stood there, shocked, holding the entire door in one hand for a split-second, before she realized that This is too heavy for me! and dropped it. She leaped backwards onto a table, as it fell to the floor and cracked.
What just happened?
She crouched on the table, staring down at the door in shock, as the pounding behind her intensified.
SLAM
SLAM
SLAM-THUNK.
Rachel turned her head towards the counter, as the rumbling, deep bass GROWL filled the restaurant.
I am going to die.
* * *
As the man from the pickup truck ran around to the front of the building, shotgun in hand, his features changed. He held his hat in place as long, drooping hound dog ears came out on either side, and a tail poked through beneath the back of his leather jacket.
He ran up to the spaces for handicapped people just as a ball of fur exploded out of the front of the building, cracking the glass on one door and knocking the other off of its hinges. An enormous gray creature was fighting a smaller brown-furred one, grabbing and clawing with its forepaws and trying to hold it down. Their snarls were muted as they tussled, the large creature biting and clamping its jaws down and trying to rip out the smaller one’s throat.
The dog-eared man felt a shiver that made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, running all the way down to his tail. He suppressed it and took aim with his shotgun, waiting for the two creatures to break apart.
They rolled around on the pavement, first towards him (he backed up) then straight into an abandoned car, breaking the windows and denting the side. The brown one broke free just then and leaped over the car in one bound, running across the parking lot towards the dumpsters.
The gray one stood and roared at it, then picked up the car and lifted it high. Nine feet of monstrous dire wolf stood a truck’s length in front of the man, vaguely female and humanoid in shape but with a countenance that was pure animal.
He shot it.
The car dropped behind it towards the man, rolling and smashing across the pavement, and he dove out of the way and looked up to see where the creature had gone. It was clutching its side as red mist vaporized out of a hole in it, not mortally wounded but startled and turning every which way to see what had just happened.
It saw the man, and their eyes met for a second.
He fired again and missed, and it took off as soon as he shot at it, bounding on all fours away and around the corner. That was his cue. He ran back to his truck-
The car had skidded to a stop right beside it, upside-down, its left front bumper nearly holding the door shut. He took a deep breath, and then heaved the car sideways about a foot, before climbing in and slamming the door shut and turning the keys. The engine roared to life, and he backed out of the parking spot and turned around, headed around the building to where the orange one had fled.
* * *
The first shot panicked Rachel. She wanted to run away from them, but she looked behind herself and the dumpsters she was hiding behind and all she could see was flat orange ground. I’m trapped! she thought.
Then she heard the second blast and the scared yelp of the monster-thing, and its feet pounding the ground as it ran off. And she thought Wait, that was the police, or a hunter or …
She backed up against the dumpster and slowly found herself settling to the ground, shaking, as the adrenalin started to wear off. She heard the engine start in the background, but it didn’t even register because she was so scared. There wasn’t anything in her but fear and panic, with a thin layer of conscious thought on top, and she found that she couldn’t control her own breathing. She couldn’t even try, she was so scared. And she didn’t understand the strange feelings all over her body — couldn’t see the claws shrinking, limbs contracting and fur growing back in on itself. She could only look straight upwards and gasp for breath and think I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m horribly maimed, all my guts are leaking out, I’m-
Something fell on top of her, obscuring her vision, and she couldn’t even move but could only think Why’s there a blanket on top of me now?
Rachel shifted position, feeling gravel and pavement beneath her bare skin. And why am I-
“Get in!” someone shouted, over the roar of the nearby engine.
She sat there for a moment, not comprehending. Then, slowly, she stood up, holding the blanket and trying to straighten it out. Parts of it felt slick and wet, and she looked and saw that she was bleeding.
“I said-”
Rachel screamed and jumped, and hurriedly wrapped the blanket around herself as a man stepped around the side of the dumpster.
He didn’t seem bothered. “You ready?”
“I … uh … ” She was still short of breath.
“This way.” He turned around and headed back to the truck, that Rachel saw on the other side of the dumpsters as she went and followed him.
She saw something else, too. Is that a tail sticking out of his pants? As if in response, it wagged.
He climbed in, and she did too, carefully. The inside was as old and beat-up as the outside, with cracks on the dashboard and exposed upholstery coming out of a thick gash in the seat.
As soon as Rachel got in, one arm still holding the door open, she thought What am I doing? Why is this man here and what does he want with me? Is he some kind of-
Out of nowhere the creature jumped on the hood, tilting the truck forward and sending Rachel up against the dashboard, her face right next to its claws. She screamed and tried to back up as it roared and tore off the driver’s side-view mirror, trying to pry the truck open.
Something exploded right next to her. The windshield shattered, held in place around the cracks by the safety glass laminate. And the wolf creature was blown backwards and sent into the grass, writhing in pain.
“Hold this.” The dog-eared man handed her the shotgun he’d just fired, and she took it before realizing the door was still open. Setting the gun on the dashboard, she slammed the door shut while the man flipped a switch to turn on the windshield wipers. They creaked to life, and she shivered.
“You ready?” The man looked over at her. It occurred to her that he was probably younger than his truck.
“Uh … ” She looked up at the hole in the dashboard. The blood on it was starting to evaporate, and was misting off into the air like it’d never existed. And behind it, out on the grass, the creature was starting to crawl back to its feet, clutching its wounds and looking mad.
“Good.” He threw the truck into reverse and backed up quickly, the creature seeming to shrink into the background, until the back of the truck hit the curb and went up it and both their heads hit the roof. Then he pushed the stick to put it in gear and spun the wheel around, taking them out of the parking lot with tires screeching just as the wolf creature stood.
It loped towards them on all fours, closing distance fast as the truck sped towards the Interstate. All Rachel could do was watch it get larger, framed by the words “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR,” and think Hey, I’ve seen this movie before!
As they pulled onto the highway it lunged at them and grabbed on to the back of the truck. But the man spun the wheel until it was finally thrown into the grass, the back door flying off after it. Rachel looked behind her out the window, trying to see where it went, and finally spotted it standing upright and receding into the distance.
Only once it was out of sight did it occur to her that she had been panicking nonstop, and that she was about to hyperventilate. She swallowed and choked her breathing back down, taking deep, shuddering breaths and waiting for her heartbeat to settle.
“You okay?” the man said, glancing at her.
She nodded, too quickly.
“Good,” he said, and went back to driving.
When she’d caught her breath enough to talk, she looked up at him. “What was that thing?”
“Werewolf,” he said, as though it were obvious. As he spoke, his dog ears and tail shrank back into him.
She stared. “What are you?”
“Cynocephalus.” He didn’t even look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the road.
The truck was rattling from being pushed so fast, and it was hard to hear what he said. She gave him a weird look. “You’re a snuffleupagus?”
“see-no-SEPH-uh-lus. Means weredog.”
A pause. The truck continued to rattle.
“Well, w-where did you come from?” She adjusted the blanket, trying to warm herself and stay covered at the same time. “Did you know? I mean-”
He turned on the radio, to a shower of static.
“Hey, I’m talking here!”
“And you should be listening.” He held up his hand. “Now shush.”
She did listen. “ZZZwhirhummm-her First Cha-KSSSH-cked the werecoyote, but was fought off by-rttTTrTTT-are now heading east on I-40.”
She stared at the radio, confused, trying to make sense of it. Then all of a sudden there was a deep, resonant female voice, and it drowned out all other noise in the truck. “Hello, Rachel. Thanks to you and Bryce, no one was killed during Tara’s First Change. Your friend will be detained in human form by the county sheriff in two hours, and will be held overnight before being turned over to a privately-held laboratory. There, she will be drugged and killed, and her remains will be dissected. Thank you for listening.”
The voice faded back into static, and Rachel found herself laying limp on the seat, plastered in sweat. That had taken more out of her than the entire fight had.
“What was that?” Her voice was a whisper.
“A Harbinger.” He glanced at her. “What did he say?”
“She said … ” Rachel was still in shock. She tried to make herself sit upright, then looked at him. “Bryce?”
“Yes?”
She swallowed. “Uh, my name’s Rachel, just so you know.”
“I know.” He nodded.
“She said … oh man.” Her free hand went to her forehead. “That was Tara, wasn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“She … ” Rachel tried to make herself calm down. “Tara’s going to be locked up, and put in a lab and dissected.”
“Did she say when?”
“Sometime tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“I, uh … ” She watched as he got out a water bottle from a sack on the floorboard between them, while he was driving, and sipped at it one-handed before offering it to her. She shook her head, then immediately nodded and drank from it before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
“I don’t know when,” she went on, as he took the bottle from her and put it back where he’d gotten it.
“Did she say who’s taking her?”
“The county sheriff … ”
“We know where to find her, then.” He nodded, eyes still on the road. “I can take you there tomorrow morning.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” She indicated herself. “I just … ”
Rachel stopped, because she realized that she was about to say I just fought off a werewolf one-on-one. And as Bryce slowly looked over at her, she realized what else she had heard on that radio.
Werecoyote.
* * *
After that, a peculiar feeling of numbness overtook her on their way into town. And it wasn’t her injuries; she barely managed to check (they had healed over and vanished). It was more like shock, and fear, and embarrassment.
Once they got into town Bryce stopped at a drive-thru, then let her eat while he went into a department store to pick up some clothes for her. She was so numb it took her a minute to take the food from him even when they had already parked, and then she still had to make herself speak in order to tell him her size.
Even letting a guy know how overweight she was wasn’t as mortifying as the knowledge of what had just happened. She knew what werecreatures were, or at least she thought she did from movies and pop-culture references. And they were just so … intense. Their minds were more animal than human, and they gave in to their feral sides and underwent grotesque transformations.
She’d seen it in movies, and it’d made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. The thought that it’d happened to her, that she’d been (that she was) one of those things changing on camera for shock value, was so alien that she just wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out.
Rachel glanced up at the parking lot, and at her reflection in the mirror above the windshield, and saw that she had furry, pointed ears sticking out of the top of her head.
She panicked as though a swarm of bees had landed on her, messing up her hair and pounding the ears to make them go away. It hurt, but she didn’t care. She finally felt them retract, along with the tail that’d come out at the same time, but by then she was covered in sweat again and was losing control of her breathing.
They saw- somebody- I-
Holding still with terror, she flicked her gaze to either side, scanning the parking lot. No one seemed to be watching her. And she was far enough from the main entrance that there weren’t many people there anyway.
Rachel finally took in a long, shuddering breath, and then covered her face with her hands.
I can’t deal with this …
The thought that “Rachel = horror movie creature” was still too much for her to bear. So she found herself imagining a real coyote as a defense mechanism. She’d seen them before on her mother’s land, and she knew they killed sheep and rabbits and things but she ate meat too, after all. And they’d always seemed so skittish, or at most curious. They were so small, at least compared to a wolf.
She imagined a coyote with drooping ears, looking like a forlorn puppy dog, and she laughed nervously because she knew That’s me. That’s what I am right now. She let herself be that thing, not physically but inside; she let herself identify with it, and was scared with it and scared as it. All the movies she’d seen fell away … all the monsters and grotesque transformations. All that was left was her, and she was a coyote and herself at the same time. And she let herself be okay with that.
Rachel felt like a scared animal, and all she wanted to do was curl up and wait for this all to be over. But she started to smell the food Bryce had bought her, now that she was aware of her surroundings again. So she sat upright and unwrapped it, careful to keep herself wrapped up in the blanket, and ate slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t from the kind of restaurant she worked at, but at this point she thought that was just as well.
She remembered as though through a thick haze what it’d been like in her last seconds there, and how she’d tried to get everyone to safety. Had she changed by then? She imagined herself as this monster (she didn’t know what she looked like) coming out into the kitchen and roaring at everyone, thinking she was telling them to run for cover. They must have been terrified, she thought, and laughed and shook her head sadly as she thought of Alice. She must have been terrified.
Bryce unlocked the door and got in just then, saying something about having bought multiple sizes and stashing bags full of coat hangers behind the seat. She just nodded and kept eating, not wanting to think about anything else.
By the time that she’d finished, they’d pulled up to a motel not far from the department store, and for a second Rachel was fearful. But when Bryce came back from the office, he handed her her own cardkey and told her where her room was.
“Clean up and get dressed,” he told her. “And set your alarm for an early start. We’ve got to be there first thing in the morning to keep Tara from being dissected.”
“Okay,” she said, and nodded. It seemed so unreal to her now.
He got out and went to his room, taking his shotgun and a satchel from under the seat with him. After a moment, she opened the door and got out herself. Then she grabbed up a few bags of clothes, holding them in the same hand that was holding the blanket around herself, and locked and shut the door and went up to the door to her room.
The first order of business was to clean herself off. She picked out some clothes to wear, and took a long shower. But as she was looking in the fogged-up mirror, after she’d finished drying herself, she saw the shadows of ears on the top of her head. And she felt her tail wag nervously, inside the towel she’d wrapped herself with.
By this time she wasn’t scared so much as disgusted. Are those going to keep surprising me like that?
But something occurred to Rachel. And so she thought of her ears and her tail as parts of herself, and focused on making the rest of herself like them. It happened so fast that she tripped on her new reverse-jointed legs, and just barely caught herself on the counter.
She could see her muzzle, and feel the thick fur on her hide. Her breaths came in from a long way away from her face, and her chops were held open as her tongue hanged out, sweating in the hot air.
Rachel looked down at her hands, and saw thick pawpads and dull claws. Looking at them from the back, they were shaped like human ones, but were furry and fuzzy and had strange finger-joints. It was unreal, and she knew that she was examining herself … she didn’t feel uncomfortable this way at all. But it reminded her of the times that she’d spent playing with her mom’s dogs when she was little, and feeling their paws and examining them up close and ruffling their fur before running outside.
A thought came to her, and she wiped a spot on the mirror clear so she could look into it. What looked back looked exactly like a coyote’s face, its muzzle hanging wide open and its fur all messed up and wet.
Rachel laughed, and it came out as a bark. She held the next laugh in, clutching her wet furry sides and giggling to herself. That hadn’t looked like a scary creature at all … all she was was this doglike thing crossed with a human. Dogs were okay and people were okay, so she was okay with herself. And as she looked at herself in the mirror, after cleaning the whole thing off, she couldn’t help but think that she looked nice this way, even if her fur was wet. It was thick enough that she could probably go out just like this, if it wouldn’t startle people.
She didn’t think she seemed very powerful this way, though, and could tell she was still slightly overweight even through the fur. She thought she was maybe a couple of inches taller, but that was probably because of her digitigrade legs … and she remembered being taller, back at the restaurant. And taking a door off its hinges.
Rachel opened the door a crack, trying not to let all the steam out, and tested its hinges a tiny bit. Then she pulled on them with more force, but she barely even heard them creak. It seemed just as solid as it always had. How did I do that? she wondered. That were- er, when I fought Tara, she was HUGE. How did I even survive that?
She tried making herself change further, but realized she barely knew how. Maybe it was some kind of instinct … I remember being so scared at the time. Maybe adrenalin does it? She didn’t know.
After making sure the curtains were closed, Rachel took a deep breath and stepped out that way, as her werecoyote self, her bare paws touching the carpet. Then she turned the television on, and alternated between watching it and testing her new self out, walking and moving around just to see how it felt. For a minute she jumped on one of the beds, and even jumped in between them, but she stopped there because she didn’t want to give the cleaning lady too hard of a time.
Just before she fell asleep, she lay sprawled out on top of the blankets (her fur was thick enough), watching a movie on television. A man was turning into some kind of fuzzy, plastic makeup-y creature, that she thought was supposed to be a werewolf. And his girlfriend was screaming … at how bad the special effects are, Rachel thought.
Heh, she thought, and her tail thumped onto the bed next to her a few times. That’s so dumb. She didn’t feel threatened by it at all, because she knew it was nothing like her.
Finally, she turned off the TV, then rolled over onto her side and went to sleep.
* * *
Rachel woke up to a knock at the door. She cracked open one eyelid, and cocked her ears towards it. Huh … it’s not even light out yet, she thought.
The knock again, more insistent. “Get up!” Bryce’s voice.
“Okay, I’m coming … ” She drowsily uncurled from the nest that she’d made in the covers and hopped down, only to find that her legs were not working. Rachel let out a yip as she fell to the floor, and tried to stand up but collapsed again.
What’s happening? Rachel looked up and saw herself in the mirror next to the door, and her mind went blank. Instead of the coyote / human hybrid that she’d seen last night, there was a full coyote on all fours.
“You alright?”
“I … don’t know!” She said it and then wondered how she had. My lips- er, muzzle moved, and I heard sound come out, but …
How come I can talk this way, but Alice couldn’t understand me back at the restaurant?
“Well, do you need me to come in there?”
But Rachel had already changed back to her half-coyote self. “No, thanks, I should be fine … ”
Her brain took a moment to process what’d happened. Then it took another long moment to remember what’d happened the day before. She looked herself over in the mirror, but instead of the familiarity from last night there was only a gnawing uneasiness, which threatened to escape in a whine.
She took a deep breath, holding it in for a second and letting it out. Then she shook her head. I should get dressed.
A few minutes later she’d changed back to her human self. She had just finished putting on one of the outfits that Bryce had gotten her, so that she could try it on, when he knocked on the door again. She ran out, bags of coat hangers in hand, the tags still attached to her loose shirt and jeans.
It was cold outside. Breath escaped from her nostrils in white puffs, in the light of the overhead streetlamp.
“I’ll turn the heat on in the truck,” Bryce said.
“What about the … ” But as she spoke, he pulled out a small, gleaming metal item from his pocket, and waved it over the holes in the windshield. The glass creaked and hissed as it fused back together.
” … what was that?”
“A Token of friendship.” He held it out to her. It was a tiny silver medallion. “From the Harbingers.”
“Oh … ”
He closed his palm around it, and put it back in his pocket. “Let’s go.”
Soon the bags were stashed behind the seat, and the truck was rumbling back the way they’d come at just barely the minimum speed limit. It shook, and she shook with it and the cold, and rubbed her hands right next to the heater vent.
Bryce, in his thick leather jacket, was unaffected. “You can change to anthro, if you like. To keep warm.”
“What’s that?”
“Anthro means ‘human.’ It’s like a human with animal features, or an animal walking upright.”
“Ohh, right … I tried that last night. Won’t it … ” Then she noticed she already had ears and a tail.
“Nah, it doesn’t mess up your clothes. Only the war form does that.”
Rachel looked out the windshield at the road. The sky was dark and moonless, and there were no headlights approaching. So she let herself become half-coyote. She felt her fur bunch up underneath her clothing, and her shoes tightened so she kicked them off. “How does it … ” She felt around back. There was a hole for her tail, somehow.
He glanced over and nodded. “Works every time.”
Rachel was still shivering, but she could feel her fur coat’s warmth. She’d need to ask him to turn off the heater soon. “So what’s the one with ears and a tail? Or does it have a name?”
“Kemono.”
“Kimono?”
“Kay-mo-no.”
“Uh-huh.” Rachel said it under the rumble of the truck’s engine. She raised her voice to ask “What does it mean?”
“It’s basically Japanese for ‘person with animal ears and a tail.’”
“Oh.” Rachel tried to adjust her clothing, and found a tag in the way. “Uh, could you turn the heat off please?”
He did.
She looked out the windshield, to see if there were incoming cars. It felt daring to be out in public looking like this, but if somebody saw her she knew she’d be mortified.
Something Bryce had said caught up with her, though. “What’s war form?”
“A form for war.”
She sideyed him. It was easy to do, since her eyes were more on the sides of her head.
“You know,” he said. “War. As in killing people.”
Rachel squirmed.
It seemed he could tell she didn’t understand. He looked over at her before continuing. “You know there’s this chemical called adrenalin, that puts you into fight-or-flight mode.”
She folded her arms, embarrassed and miffed. “I know.”
“When a werecreature feels that way, bad things happen.”
“Bad things?”
“Like nine feet of death cutting through everything in its way.” He looked straight ahead as he spoke to her. “Sometimes you can reason with them. Sometimes you can’t. Best to try after you’ve gotten out of the way.”
Rachel looked straight ahead too, reliving the attack. Remembering the terror. When she’d seen the monster, she hadn’t stopped to think about anything … what it was, how it’d gotten there, what’d happened to Tara or if it had eaten her. Everything she’d done, including locking the door and trying to warn everyone, she’d done on autopilot. Or if not fully on autopilot, then close.
I wonder what Tara felt like? she wondered.
I wonder how she’s feeling now?
* * *
Tara felt like a lost, forlorn puppy. She lay curled up on her cot in the concrete prison cell, wearing an orange uniform and bundled up in a thin blanket. Her eyes were closed, but she hadn’t slept the whole night.
The drunken man two cells over was still calling to her. She covered her face and her ears, squeezing tears out of her eyes. Go away, go away, go away …
In her mind’s eye, she saw the puppy she imagined herself as sitting at the table, in the “special” school she’d been sent to after her diagnosis. “Pick up the spoon,” her teacher said.
The puppy stared up at her, confused.
A hand came down and took her paw, and set it down on the utensil. “Pick. Up. The spoon.”
The puppy barked. Then a shadow loomed over her, and she cowered. The hand picked her up and tossed her into a pen, and she tumbled to a stop, shook her head and looked up. Shadows over her gestured and fought.
“Your daughter’s progress is too slow.”
“She’s not my daughter! My daughter’s been taken from me!”
She paced in circles, head low and ears and eyes towards the things casting the shadows. As she paced, she grew to the size of a small dog.
“Talk to me! Why won’t she talk?”
“She’s just too slow. Look, she doesn’t even understand what we’re saying.”
The “dog” looked up, and sighed.
She grew into a young adult wolf, gray and fluffy and lean. And she looked up, as a hand was held out towards her face. At first she held back, hesitant, but then she leaned forward and sniffed it.
It grabbed her, and she fought and squirmed as it forced her into a harness. Then she looked up at the enormous sled dogs all around her, towering over her and forming neat lines.
A whip cracked and they took off, and she ran as fast as she could trying to keep up with them. Her lungs ached, and her heart pounded, and her legs felt like they would give out. But a voice kept saying Go! Go! Faster! Faster! You think you can rest now? There is no rest! Run! Keep running! Don’t ever stop!
The voice sounded like her father. “You think I’m going to pay to support you once you turn eighteen? Think again.”
The voice sounded like her mother. “Honestly, Tara, what’s so hard about this? These are the best years of your life!”
The voice sounded like the people at school, and she cried and fought to forget what they’d said.
She lay there curled into the fetal position, arms pressing the pillow against her ears and the back of her head. Her lips moved silently as the voice found physical form. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless.
Why can’t you just control yourself? she whispered. What are you going to do if you have one of your meltdowns in public? You could go to jail for that!
Everything turned into a haze.
Tara sat up with her back to the wall, hugging her pillow between her chest and her knees. She rocked back and forth, eyes closed and lips continuing to move.
* * *
That’s how she was an hour later, when Rachel came in to rescue her.
The door down the hall opened. But all she heard was snoring, from the drunken man two cells down. She couldn’t hear any footsteps until they were right in front of her.
“Tara,” Rachel whispered.
She looked up. And then she stared. It looked like an animal given part-human form, stuffed into clothes with the tags still attached. Tara felt her insides turn to ice.
“Tara, it’s me! Remember?”
Slowly, Tara shook her head, and clutched the pillow to herself.
“Do you remember the fight at the restaurant?”
She nodded. Then she shook her head. Her wide eyes did not leave Rachel.
Rachel sighed, and leaned her head up against the bars. “Tara, you’re a werewolf. You shifted to what’s called ‘war form,’ and you almost killed everyone there at the store.”
Tara began to shake.
“I’m a werecoyote, and I helped a cyno … cyn … a weredog hold you off. Now we’re breaking you out of here. Come on!”
Tara shook her head quickly, eyes closed, still shaking.
“Why?”
Tara’s lips started moving long before even Rachel’s furry ears could make out what she was saying. ” … should be destroyed, should be destroyed, should be destroyed … ”
“What? Tara, stop saying that!”
She shook her head, eyes still closed. ” … should be destroyed … ”
Rachel sighed, and listened for another long, painful moment before speaking. “Tara … ”
” … should be destroyed … ”
“Tara, listen to me!”
She shook her head quickly.
“It’s not your fault, okay? You didn’t know. None of us did. And you shouldn’t have been there to begin with. It was loud, it was chaotic, they wouldn’t let you sit down … it’s no wonder you lost control. There weren’t any accommodations for your-”
“I shouldn’t be here,” Tara whispered, sniffling.
“I know, that’s why we’re breaking you out!”
“I mean in the world. At all.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “If I can’t put up with the same things that everyone else can, then I just ruin things for everyone. Or end up hurting other people. And now I’ve k- … I’ve … ohh … ” She started crying into the pillow, pressing it close to her face.
It tore Rachel apart to watch her. Can coyotes cry? she thought. She found out she could.
Rachel swallowed. “Tara, you didn’t kill anyone. Okay?”
“How do you know?”
“I know you wouldn’t have. You only fought because you were frustrated and you were being held back. And a … ” She stopped, unsure how to say it.
Tara looked up.
Rachel sighed. “I heard the voice of a higher power, and it told me that you didn’t kill anyone.”
“A higher power should kill me,” Tara whispered, looking away.
“A higher power created you, Tara!” Rachel’s muzzle hung open in between sentences, because she was perspiring like mad. “It made you autistic, and it made you a wolf. And wolves aren’t meant to be caged.”
“I could hurt people … ” She looked up at the wall, as if examining it.
“And they could hurt you too. But at least you know that your actions can hurt other people. At least you try not to hurt them. They don’t even realize when they hurt you. Or when they’ve forced you into a situation where you can no longer control yourself.”
She said nothing.
Rachel’s eyes flicked up to the door leading out. “Tara, they’re going to dissect you.”
She said nothing.
“Tara, please come!”
Rachel’s ears perked, as she heard footsteps and doors opening outside the hall. But Tara just rocked back and forth, seemingly dead to the world, until the door to the hall was flung open.
The drunken man snorted, and woke up.
“Well, what have we here?” a male voice said. It didn’t sound loud and gruff, like the trooper who’d picked her up last night, but silky and polished like a city man. Tara glanced up to see it, but the cell wall blocked her view.
Rachel backed up against the wall. “I, uh … ”
“Shoot her.”
The cell block was filled with LOUD, and the wall was splashed with red. Tara instantly jumped to her feet.
* * *
He looked like a recent grad from business or law school. Clean-shaven, with a suitcoat so black it was glossy, and a large onyx gem set into a ring. It gleamed as he straightened his tie, enjoyed Rachel’s shocked look and smiled.
Beside him were two literal stuffed shirts. They wore uniforms and carried rifles, but they were not human. Inside the clothing and past the sunglasses were thick masses of water shaped like people, their features rippling with surface tension. The overhead light became swimming pool shadows around them, but they themselves didn’t look glossy enough to be CGI.
“Go in,” the man said, looking over at them. “Get them both.”
The two walked up to the bars to Tara’s cell, stopping in front of it calmly. One of them walked through the bars, its clothes folding and its rifle held in between them. The other stood outside and watched.
There was a gunshot, and the man winced. Then water came splashing out of the jail cell, drenching Rachel (who scooted back) and the other “guard,” who raised its gun. It shot twice as the bars were pulled open, then the rifle was yanked out of its hand and sent flying down the hall.
The man ducked, ignoring the startled look of the drunk in the cell just beside him, and looked up to see a female werewolf in war form biting down on the “guard”‘s neck and tearing. It splashed apart, clothes collapsing and water sloshing across the floor towards him. And the wolf looked down at the coyote for a second before looking up at him and growling, one hand pressed to the floor. It was a low sound, that shook the walls and seemed to come from the earth itself.
The man drew a gleaming silver revolver on her, sweat beading across his forehead, and took three tries to pull the catch back. Then he swung around as he heard footsteps, and saw a dog-faced man in a leather jacket.
“Boy,” the dog said, “do you think that’s going to stop her?”
The growling intensified, and there was a scrape as claws dug into concrete. The suitcoated man looked back.
“You’d better run now.”
* * *
The chase would’ve lasted about one second if Tara hadn’t had to slow down to go around Bryce. As it was, the suitcoated man barely made it out into the foyer before she grabbed him, held him up till his head hit the ceiling and roared right into his face. He screamed.
She held him there for a long moment. Breathing on him, glaring at him, remembering all the people in suits who had made her life miserable. The grip of her claws tightened.
Finally she flung him into the wall. He smacked into it and hit the floor, taking some of the plaster with him and landing next to the stunned sheriff, who was gagged and tied up behind a desk. The man did not move after that.
She stood there clenching and unclenching her fists, squeezing her pawpads with her claws. She did not move as Bryce helped Rachel out into the foyer, and then leaned down to check on the suitcoated man.
“Still alive,” Bryce said.
Rachel coughed, painfully.
“We’d better get going.” He looked up at Tara.
She followed them outside, watching as they climbed into the truck, knowing that it was too small for her now. Tara looked up, out at the mountains in the distance and the miles of flat country between them, and it was dark out but she could see as well as if it were daytime. Deep breaths of cold air cooled her tongue and chilled her insides, and she realized that she’d never felt more alive.
The wind rustled her fur and roared in her ears, and she couldn’t hear what Bryce was saying to her. She jumped into the truck’s flatbed, and it creaked angrily and she heard him yelling at her to get out. So she did, hopping down and crouching next to it.
It started up and pulled out of the parking lot, and she ran after it, out onto the highway. On two legs at first, then on instinct she switched to all fours. It wasn’t like crawling on hands and knees; it was like running, but twice as fast. Each set of limbs propelled her, and picked up where the other left off. She didn’t know how fast she was going, but the sense of speed was incredible, and she felt momentum carrying her so strongly that she knew she’d flip over if she tried to stop.
Wind pressed on her like an invisible curtain, and she squinted into it as it pressed her fur against her. Concrete wore and rubbed at her pawpads, and she veered off into the brush, the dry grass whipping her neck but the earth softer under her paws.
The truck began to speed up, and she pushed harder into the wind, grinning and enjoying the game. But then it went even faster, too fast for her to keep up, and the distance between them increased. She finally slowed down, slowed and came to a stop, just as two police cars sped by. And for a second she wanted to chase them, but she took one step and knew that she couldn’t. Tara was breathing hard, taking in deep breaths one after the other, her lungs burning and heart racing.
She forced herself to take slow, stiff steps one after the other, to keep knots from forming in her arms and legs. After what seemed like only a short time, her heart rate settled down, and she stood back upright and dusted off her hand-forepaws. Then she looked down at them, and herself.
Tara didn’t recognize herself. Her shape was still vaguely humanoid / feminine, but she was covered in thick fur. And it wasn’t just that; she was partway shaped animal-like. The joints of her arms and legs suggested a creature meant to run on all fours, even though she was standing upright.
She turned around and examined herself in the light of the crescent moon. The grass was much shorter next to her than it usually was, and she knew she was still in the war form, even though she had calmed down. Even after that run she felt like a coiled spring, powerful and ready to leap and run and climb without stopping. She had never felt anything like it … but there was this sense of familiarity, of having seen or felt or known this before. As though she was rediscovering it.
She clung to that feeling, and willed herself to believe that this was okay. That it was normal, or at least normal for her. Because if it wasn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.
Something startled her, and she whirled around, instinctively baring her claws and scanning the highway for movement. What had happened? What was it?
Tara heard it again, like a voice whose breath was the wind. She held herself still, slowly looking around with her eyes, scenting the cold air and cocking her ears in all directions.
Finally she heard it, as though the whole world was speaking to her and she stood atop its vocal chords. It was a male voice, high-pitched and gentle somewhere past the force it conveyed. It was so powerful that it shook her, and she fell on her hands and knees. “Hello, Tara.”
It was quiet for a second, and she shook her fur out of her face and tried to catch her breath. In less than a minute, she’d gone from feeling enormous to tiny and insignificant.
She coughed. “H-hello?”
It spoke again, and she braced herself against it, scared because of how strong it was. “The person you injured will recover. Your friend will recover as well. She and Bryce will escape from the people pursuing them, using the Tokens that have been prepared for them.
“You will be spoken to again tomorrow, and again as courtesy dictates. If you follow the instructions given to you, you will not hurt anyone more than is needful, and you will never be caged again.
“Your life has been a hard one. It is good that you are set free.”
“Th-thank you,” she whispered, her face now covered in tears.
“Thank you for listening.”
The voice went away.
* * *
Tara sat there in the grass for some time, huddled into a ball against the cold and the intense emotion. Crying into her own fur, and sniffling and rocking back and forth. For a moment she imagined seeing herself from the outside, and thought how hard it was to imagine a creature like this acting the way that she was. But she had to, because it was the only way she knew how to react. It was the only way she had strength to.
She finally stood up, sniffling, still taller and stronger than before. Much of the strength had left her, because of the experience that she’d just had, but she felt it returning slowly. It was only a matter of time.
As the sun rose, she started walking away from the highway, towards the mountains. The voice would speak to her again, she knew. Maybe she’d find out what to do … maybe she’d find out how to change back, or to catch up with Rachel.
Either way, maybe she would be okay.