So, between you and me, the original idea was a half fluff/half crunch RPG sourcebook covering many species of traditional and not so traditional monsters and how they’d function in a realistic modern world setting. The fluff would take the form of transcripts from a “mysteries and cryptids” type podcast, which overnight suddenly becomes a great deal more direct.
I originally wrote it in a transcript format, only to decide I didn’t like how it looked, or how it would stick me to only including what was in the hypothetical “original” audio. I might still do that sourcebook, but I feel like writing the story side as its own thing. Also this is set in the “Earth” to my almost finished full novel’s “Hell”. There may or may not be planned crossover.
…
—Season 4, Episode 1: The Beast Within—
‘My guests and I were in my suite, kindly provided by the council, at the hotel where the press conference occurred the previous night. Being werewolves, this wasn’t exactly a conventional interview. Haley was sprawled on my bed in her underwear and a hoodie about six sizes too big for her. Jude was sitting cross-legged on the floor in just his shorts, eating room service pizza. I’ll admit, we were splitting a six-pack while we recorded this one.‘
‘They’re both people whose usual look could be described as ‘comfortably dishevelled’. They tend to favour weathered and comfy clothes, leather, chunky boots, that sort of thing. They tend to keep their hair scruffy, and aren’t big on razors. This may not tally with the image you saw of Haley at the news conference looking an absolute bombshell, but the dress, the hair, the makeup, in fact the entire look was all carefully stage-managed to provide the most impact to the transformation. The council has some very PR savvy individuals.‘
…
‘So, before we get ahead of ourselves,’ Cadence began, ‘I should ask the very basics. Who are you, and what are you to each other?’
‘We’re werewolves. Beyond that,’ Haley explained, ‘we’re kind of no one special. We travel around the US, doing, well, whatever we feel like, or whatever’ll pay, depending. We’ve been friends pretty much since we became werewolves. It’s sort of how we met. Now he’s my little buddy.’
‘Hey, I’m taller than you when we’re human,’ Jude protested.
‘And you can’t out wrestle me when we’re not,’ Haley countered.
‘There was one other thing I wanted to ask before we got started. Since the press conference, we’ve been using the term “monster” a lot. To put it simply,’ Cadence asked, ‘is that okay?’
The werewolves both laughed at this.
‘Sure it is, honey. It’s what we say, after all. What better word is there for vampires and werewolves and the like?’ explained Haley.
‘Can we just get in ahead of people on this one and say, unequivocally, monster is fine,’ added Jude. ‘It’s the word we use. I’m sure we’re all smart enough to get the context clues between “monster, as in werewolf” and “monster, as in bad person”. The last thing we need is some nice, well-meaning, busybody coming up with a new word we don’t want that just comes across as awkward and patronising. We are werewolves. Werewolves are monsters. We are also nice.’
‘Well, that’s pretty unequivocal. Good thing, too, I really didn’t want to have to rename the show,’ Cadence joked. ‘Then let’s start with the headliner. What is a werewolf?’
‘Well, that’s a big ol’ question, now, isn’t it?’ Haley said, musing over her response. ‘There’s a short answer, which isn’t anything you don’t already know, and a long answer, which gets a bit allegorical.’
‘The short answer is we’re people that turn into half-man, half-wolf beasts,’ Jude stated.
‘The long answer, so, this is going to sound strange, but bear with me,’ Haley began. ‘When I first became a werewolf, it was explained to me like this. Imagine the mind as one of those big executive conference rooms, you know the sort, like in the movies. Big long table, luxury leather chairs all around it. Once upon a time, not that time had been invented yet, there was only one guy there. He really doesn’t look like he belongs. Steel toe boots, worn out jeans, leather jacket. Dude hasn’t showered in two days, hasn’t shaved in a week, hasn’t brushed his hair ever. That dude’s The Beast.”
‘Well for a while, things were great, and The Beast always did whatever the hell he wanted, right? Well one day some ape with ideas went hungry to keep one of her babies alive and suddenly there’s another guy at the table. His name’s Family, and he’s an alright guy. They get along well enough, and he makes some good suggestions. Then one ape spares another in a tribal conflict, and suddenly there’s Mercy and another chair’s filled. Well over the millennia, one by one, those chairs start to fill. Curiosity, Kindness, Justice, Faith, Order, Reason, every one of them makes sense, so he doesn’t kick off. After all, he still gets the last word. The deciding vote, if you like.’
‘Until, that is, one day he realises no one’s looking at him any more. Because they’re all looking down the other end of the table. At the other end of the table is a guy that looks like he belongs. Sharp suit, shiny shoes, clean-shaven. Now he’s in charge. And he’s Man. The Beast rages and fights, but suddenly no one’s listening to him. He’s outvoted on everything. Man doesn’t need The Beast.’
‘The Beast never went away, though. He was still there, desperate to get out. To run and hunt and chase and fight and fuck and…’ Haley clears her throat. ‘Sorry, it got away with me a bit there. Well, the way the legend goes, at some point in the distant past, someone with access to a crap ton more magic than anyone is slinging around these days, made The Beast an offer.’
Cadence sat up at that and gave the wolves a look.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘werewolves were created intentionally?’
‘So we’re told,’ agreed Jude.
‘By whom, and why?’ Cadence asked.
Haley laughed.
‘The legend says elves,’ explained Haley. ‘Apparently at some point in ancient history elves and early humans went to war, and the elves were losing, badly. So they took some captured humans, reached into their psyches and stepped into the metaphorical boardroom. For the first time in thousands of unbearable years, someone walked up to The Beast and said, “fight for us, and we’ll put you in charge again”. There was more to it than that, obviously, the elves poured their magic into making their creation into the perfect attack dogs. Strong, fast, tough, with all the raw intelligence of a human, and most importantly unfailingly loyal. Those first werewolves didn’t change back and forth, they were all-monster, all the time. The perfect apex predators.’
‘Didn’t work, though,’ Jude said, with possibly a hint of sadness. ‘Humans won. Drove the elves to extinction, or so close to it, they never put their heads above the parapet again. And those first werewolves were left at a loss.’
‘The Beast wasn’t willing to go back into the dark,’ Haley resumed, ‘but the elves are gone and even in numbers, and even as powerful as the ancients supposedly were, humanity would hunt them down and kill them one at a time. So for the first time, Beast and Man talked. Actually negotiated. Because, the thing was, Man had had a taste of The Beast, and he liked it.’
‘The end result was us,’ Jude added. ‘The Beast would agree to go into hiding, to let Man walk around and be in charge most of the time, so long as from time to time The Beast could take over and have some fun. We’re the compromise between the primal and the civilised, baby! It all bleeds together a bit, though. When we’re human we’re just that little bit more wild, and when we’re monsters we’re that bit more civilised than the ancients were.’
‘What happened to the ancients?’ Cadence asked, quietly.
‘No one really knows. Werewolves aren’t immortal, although we live longer than humans do, so they probably just died out. Shame really, I wish I could have seen one,’ Haley said, sadly.
‘You’ve got to understand we’re talking tens of thousands of years ago. This isn’t so much history as it is a mishmash of myth and metaphor,’ Jude clarified. ‘The council library does have some histories, even a few first-hand accounts, but they’re so old to get them into anything I could read would take a dozen layers of translation. I doubt there’s even a vampire left alive old enough to read those originals.’
‘If you found an old enough angel or demon, they could probably do it,’ mused Haley. ‘Hell, find yourself an archangel, and they were probably there. What? Oh, you should see the look on your face, Cadence.’
‘You? Do you mean? Are you playing with me?’ Cadence asked.
‘Hand on heart, I am taking this entirely seriously. I know pretty much jack about the mysteries of the afterlife,’ Haley admitted, ‘but I’ve met a few angels and demons over the years. They keep their heads down, but this nose can sniff through anything. Seriously. I could tell you all sorts just from giving you a good sniff. Like the last dozen meals you’ve eaten, what hygiene products you like, all manner of illnesses, what you got up to the last time you [REDACTED]. Oh, what? It’s just us in here.
‘Yeah, and now my editor is going to learn some new things about me. Sorry Eddie.’
‘He-he, sorry,’ Haley said, bashfully. ‘Something you’re going to learn is that werewolves have no boundaries, like, at all.’
‘She’s not wrong. Took me a while to get used to, I’ll tell you that much,’ Jude admitted.
‘Think about it. You wake up in a big naked heap with all your friends several times a month, quite often covered in mud and deer blood; modesty quickly becomes a pretty absurd concept,’ Haley said. ‘So, yeah. Most of the time we’re human enough. Then every few days, we turn into a savage, primal beast and just let it all out.’
‘Now, I should rapid fire some of the obvious ones out of the way,’ Jude continued. ‘Firstly, it’s not a full moon thing, or not exclusively. That would be unmanageable. Imagine it like a pressure gauge. All the time we’re human, it’s filling up. It’s ticking up right now. Try and fight it, it only fills faster. Turn into the monster and have some fun, and the gauge empties in no time flat. If you refuse to turn, eventually you’ll break and The Beast will come out whether you want it to or not. And for some reason I don’t understand, something to do with the elves old magic I should think, the gauge fills faster and the pressure limit is lower around a full moon.’
‘So that might be where the legends came from,’ suggested Cadence. ‘Some werewolf tries to keep a lid on it around humans, full moon rolls around, and it’s suddenly too much to contain?’
‘Very likely. That sort of thing still happens. Nasty shit,’ Jude agreed. ‘It’s why we have to be so in touch with who, and what, we are. I know with absolute certainty that we could turn right now, and you’d be safe, because we don’t fight The Beast. We coexist with it. Just like whoever it was carried you home all those years ago.’
‘Secondly, when we’re transformed we’re not dumb animals, and we’re not some other person. We might not be able to talk, or write, or whatever, but we’re still us. We’re still the same people we are now, it’s just a rebalancing of what’s in our heads. It’s why we’re so careful about who we turn.’
At this point, Haley looked visibly uncomfortable. Jude winced.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s fine, I know what you meant,’ Haley conceded. ‘We’re all good, puppy.”
‘Anyway, we still remember what happened, and where we’ve been, what we did, all that stuff,’ Jude added. ‘Well, except the first couple of times. They’re kind of a blur. You only remember a few fragments.’
‘Yeah, those are intense,’ Haley agreed.
‘Let’s see, what else?’ Jude continued. ‘Oh yeah, we don’t turn into dogs, it’s full hybrid bipedal wolf man. We don’t kill people for no reason. We try and be careful about what animals we hunt, but that sometimes gets a bit messy. The last big one is silver. Yes, silver is a thing. It’s not that we’re super vulnerable to it. It’s more like we’re super resilient to normal injury, and silver is the only thing that hurts us as easily as it does anyone else.’
‘Supposedly that was an elf failsafe,’ Haley clarified. ‘They make us damn near unkillable with normal weapons, so we could fight the humans for them. But as an insurance policy, they don’t protect us against silver, which they just happened to plate their weapons in for some reason or other. See, my necklace is silver, and I’m not bursting into flames or anything.’
Hayley pulled out a little silver charm she wears on a rawhide cord around her neck. It’s a silver star, which I later learned was a gift from her ex-fiancé.
‘So,’ resumed Jude, ‘yeah, it’s not specifically silver bullets as such. It’s more silver, “anything that could kill a human probably kills us”. Silver bullets, silver arrowheads, silver plated knives and swords and spearheads. Although, just for the record, don’t go getting any funny ideas. Even against silver, we’re still tougher than a human.’
‘Yeah, I think anyone who watched that shit show at the conference will think twice before taking a shot at a werewolf again,’ Cadence agreed.
‘Damn straight, they will,’ Haley added. It was undeniable that she was preening a little after the events at the press conference. ‘Oh, and while we’re on it, there are some ideas about certain plants being toxic to werewolves. There is actually something in that, but it’s not necessarily the ones you’d expect. It’s strong smells, they might not make us, like, run away, but large quantities of certain pungent smelling plants can be really hard to deal with. These noses are sensitive instruments.’
‘Now, I suppose that leads us on to the next obvious question, how do you become a werewolf?’
The two werewolves exchanged an awkward look. This was clearly not the most comfortable topic for either of them.
‘There are two ways you’re supposed to become a werewolf,’ Jude told her. ‘Then there’s what happened to us.’
‘The first is hereditary,’ Haley explained, ‘and that’s simple. If both your parents are werewolves, then you probably will be too. If one of them is, then you’ve got a good chance. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to skip a generation. It’s not pure genetics, after all, it’s part magic too.’
‘Good thing, too,’ Jude suggested. ‘Imagine some poor normies trying to deal with an unexpected werewolf puppy.’
‘The other is being turned by a werewolf. Now there are rules for this, and for good reason,’ Haley continued. ‘You don’t turn someone without their consent. You don’t turn someone who doesn’t understand the consequences. You don’t turn someone who isn’t responsible. No kids. No one who’s drunk or impaired. It’s a big choice, after all, and there’s no backing out.’
‘The way it’s supposed to go is, if there’s someone you want to turn, let’s say your husband or wife or best friend or something. First, you discreetly introduce them to the concept of monsters. You change for them, take them out on a run, let them see what it is. Then you introduce them to the pack, assuming you’ve got one. Once they understand it properly you make the offer. Then, after a cooling-off period, you have a bit of a do.’
‘They come with the pack, out into the middle of nowhere for a few days, like a big camping trip. You have a full on party, then at the appropriate moment, they pick their spot, and you give ‘em a big old chomp.’
‘For clarity, this ain’t some neat little nip. I’ve seen this, it’s bite down hard and give them a good shake,’ Jude clarified. ‘One step short of tearing chunks out of them. Bites fucking hurt, you want to make sure it takes, or you’ve suddenly got someone with a massive bite wound and no werewolf healing. Not a good combination.’
‘Then, the whole pack goes all protective until the newbie turns,’ continues Haley. ‘The wolves are all patrolling and guarding and bringing them food and licking wounds. The humans are all doing the actual care taking, because no one who feels that lousy wants to eat raw deer meet in a cave. And oh boy do you feel lousy, imagine the worst flu you’ve ever had. It takes a few days to do its work, but you’ll basically get worse and worse for, maybe, a week, fever, shivers, aches, eventually delirium. Then it’ll break and you’ll turn. That first one, let’s just say it never exactly gets comfortable, but the first time you turn is traumatic.’
‘Of course, by then you’re hungry, confused, stir-crazy and amped to fuck,’ Jude explained, ‘so you go full zoomies and spend a day bombing around the countryside doing all the things wolves like best.’
‘Then with any luck you wake up in a big comfy heap of werewolves back at the camp,’ Haley concluded. ‘After that, it’s just a case of adjusting. Learning how the new life goes, you know?’
‘That sounds like a lot to cope with in a short period of time. But you suggested that your experiences were different to that?’ Cadence asked.
The two werewolves gave each other another look.
‘You first,’ said Jude. ‘We might as well tell it in order.’
Haley groans, burying her face in her hands for a moment, before stretching and starting to speak.
‘We did not get that. No party, no pack, no joyful first hunt,’ Haley made a noise which was halfway between a sigh and a dog’s whine. ‘So, humans have their lunatics and their killers, and so do we. A few years back, there was this spate of, well, the only thing that ever went public was “animal attacks”. People turning up in parks or woods or what have you, ripped to pieces and half-eaten. Well, you’re not a stupid woman, I’m sure you know where this is going.’
‘Werewolf attacks,’ Cadence suggested, warily.
‘Bingo,’ Haley said, giving the host two thumbs up. ‘No one ever figured out who he was, or how he was turned. What we do know is he raped, murdered, and partially ate at least seven men and women across the US. I was number eight. The only reason I’m talking to you now is that the council had a bounty on him, and they barely made it in time. I won’t get too deep into the specifics, but I was out walking one night, and this monster comes out of nowhere. Bigger than either of us, filthy stinking great thing. Bowls me over and starts ripping me to pieces. I struggle as much as I can, but, I don’t have a chance. I don’t think one werewolf could have taken him alone.’
‘It’s a good thing the council didn’t just send one. I’m just about dead, and he’s about to start eating, when this howl goes up and then, bam, another werewolf flies out of the dark and piles into him. Tackles him, and they go rolling away, claws and teeth everywhere. I try and drag myself away but, well, I was on the way out at that point and my back was broken anyway, so what the fuck can I do but watch. This new guy, he’s losing, even I can tell that. But he wasn’t trying to win, just to stall for the rest of his team to arrive.’
‘You see, the council doesn’t fuck around. In all of twenty seconds, they come out of every direction, and they systematically dismantle this piece of shit. It wasn’t just werewolves, either. This particular hunting party was two werewolves, two banshees, a vampire, and three humans, plus some backup guys. The werewolves fought him close up, and every time they backed away from him, the banshees would step in and scream in his face. They might as well have been throwing stun grenades at him, it had him so disoriented. Every time he tried to break away and run, the vampire and the humans stepped in. They were in full modern tactical gear. Armour, assault rifles, the works. All loaded up with silver jacket hollow points. Scary shit to a werewolf, believe me. They’d drive him back into the werewolves, and they’d start the whole thing over again.’
‘The thing is, when I say this guy was big, you might be thinking of me or Jude or something. But he was way bigger, way stronger. I’ve seen an elder once, and he wasn’t far off of that. But he didn’t know how to fight, only how to hunt, and now he was the prey. These people, they were professionals. Those two wolves took a hell of a battering, but they tore him to pieces. Literally. I don’t know when the medics turned up, a vampire and a witch as it turned out, but by the time they did he was barely alive. The gunmen made the medics wait for just a few seconds so that they could drag him over, and make sure I saw when they emptied four assault rifles worth of silver into his head. Then they reloaded and did it again. There was nothing left of him above the shoulders by the time the wolves picked me up and ran for the ambulance.’
‘Good fucking riddance,’ said Jude, snarling audibly.
‘That’s terrible. I-I-I had no idea,’ Cadence stammered, ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d known I wouldn’t have-’
‘Relax, honey, I’m over it,’ Haley reassured her. ‘I’m alive and living it up werewolf style, and he’s ashes in a latrine pit somewhere. And worse than that, too, if something cryptic the council once told me is true.’
‘Still, I didn’t mean to spring that back on you,’ Cadence said, apologetically.
Haley shrugged.
‘I won’t pretend I always sleep well, and I get freaked out sometimes. The council was a big help, though. Got me all sorts of counselling and even some magic powered memory suppression. Shut those flashbacks right up,’ Haley explained. ‘I made sure they didn’t touch the memory of them blowing his fucking brains out, though. That one’s mine.’
‘It’s all a bit of a blur after that. I remember odd snippets here and there. The wolves that ran me to the ambulance, desperately trying to get some clothes on so they could come with me, despite how fucked up they were. I think they already knew, and the instincts were kicking in. The hospital. Doctors, lots of doctors. I don’t remember a single moment when one of the hunting party wasn’t there. Usually the wolves, but they made the others take shifts too, so I was always guarded. Surgery. The medics from the hunting party, I saw a lot of them. They explained it to me later, basically I was fatally wounded, but I’d also been turned, so they just had to keep me technically alive long enough for the werewolf resilience to kick in. And let’s just say when my spine healed and everything below T8 started calling in damage reports, the painkiller dosage went up pretty damn quick.’
‘Anyway, after a few, horrible, horrible, days, I’m suddenly starting to heal. Now, I’m nowhere near ready to leave that bed, but the moment I can survive without the life support machine, those wolves are bundling me into another ambulance and out of the city with full sirens and a police escort. You see, my time was up, I was in no condition to hold off the change, and they couldn’t have a new werewolf changing in the city, so it was foot in the carpet until we were out in the sticks.’
‘I didn’t have a pack. No friends or family there. It was just me, the two werewolves from the hunting party and a couple of their friends they’d managed to call in at short notice. Everyone else got told very politely to beat it. I barely knew what was happening to me. Between the injuries, the drugs, and the delirium from the change, I was not remotely mentally competent. I couldn’t make head or tails of what they were telling me. Then the change hit, and it hit bad. It supercharged healing what was left of my injuries, but it also burned the last of the painkillers out of my system. Between all of it, what should have taken minutes took hours. I count myself lucky I barely remember it. Then, once I’m finally on my feet, I panic and try my damnedest to kill my impromptu little pack. Not that that was much of a problem. These were professional bounty hunters. I was a weak little puppy.’
‘That first night was, well, it was a nightmare. Eventually they get me to come to my senses, such as they were in that state, and we do go on a hunt. I think I ate a rabbit. Hunched in the dirt thirty feet from the others because I whined if they came too close. Eventually, somehow they managed to get me to go to sleep with them. Woke up the next morning in the traditional werewolf cuddle puddle. Extricated myself from a bunch of sleepy naked strangers only to find the vampire medic, Kirsty’s her name, waiting for me with a big thing of water boiling on a fire, towels, soap, clothes, the works. So much mouthwash. Mouthwash is the werewolf’s best friend, believe me. She’d even found my necklace in the park and fixed it up for me. She’s a good sort, thought it would be easier for her to sit me down and give me the big talk if I wasn’t naked and covered in mud.’
‘That does sound like it would make things more comfortable,’ Cadence agreed.
‘So we sit on this rock, by her little campsite in the woods, and she tells me everything. What happened. What it means. What I am now. That there’s no going back. Then I realise I haven’t seen my family in over a week. My parents, my brother, my fiancé, they must be worried sick. She tells me they’ve been “informed”. Informed had a very specific tone. She told me the council had sent someone to say I’d been attacked, to give them updates on my progress, omitting the werewolf in the room, and told them I’d been emergency airlifted to a special military hospital as it was the only place they could fix me up. This fictional place was classified to high heaven and didn’t take civilian visitors. They slow rolled the news of my recovery to give me a few days to get acclimated. To let me decide what I’d do.’
“I spend a few days out in the woods with the werewolves, Kirsty too, I asked her to stay. She was oddly comforting. Despite the whole vampire thing, she was just nice. Normal. I changed every night and went out running and hunting with the pack, then I’d spend the days sitting with Kirsty while she told me how the world really worked. What was really out there. Then once I was feeling a bit more, normal, then I decided it was time to head home. Kirsty came with me, along with a pair of FBI agents. Well, one was real, one was a council representative. They gave me a convincing enough cover story. Kirsty was in and out for weeks as my “nurse”. And she arranged the weekly trips away that covered for me meeting up with various packs to get to know my new half.’
‘Amber, my fiancé, and my family, they were fairly supportive, at first. I don’t think they bought the cover stories, though. Things started to get tense. Still, I start trying to get my life going again. I go back to work part-time. I start doing normal things, shopping, going to the movies, seeing friends. Everyone’s very sympathetic, as word’s got around that something bad happened to me. They’re all a little distant, though. Then after a few months, when I’m finally getting used to the whole thing, I decide it’s time to tell Amber. I figure the secrets are what’s throwing everything off, you know? I talk to Kirsty and she arranges some backup. She comes over with a chap from the council, we sit Amber down, and we tell her everything. She looks at us like we’re fucking delusional, which in fairness I can understand. Then we get to the end of the speech, I get up, take my stuff off, and I change.’
‘I’m petrified at this point. Kirsty told me I was shaking. Possibly the least intimidating a werewolf has ever been. Amber doesn’t seem scared, though. She just goes cold. She asks the rep a few polite questions, doesn’t even look at me again. Then, once they’re done, she says she needs some time to think, gets up, collects some things and leaves. I change back. Kirsty and the rep, they have some concerns, but I say it’ll be fine. I trusted Amber, and in fairness, this was a lot to learn all at once. I thank them, practically throw them out, tell them everything will be fine. I’m back home, and once Amber’s had some thinking time, it’ll all be alright.’
‘The next time I see her is like a week later. She comes home, knocks on the door, and asks me to go for a walk with her. I assume this is good news, you know, you don’t go for a nighttime stroll with a known werewolf if you don’t trust them, right? Well, I grab my coat, and I’m out the door. We walk out into the woods. Nothing odd about that, it’s just how the area is. All woods and fields once you’re out of the town proper. We get a fair way away, and all the while I’m prattling away, saying all the things I’d been thinking about saying all week. Fucking idiot that I am. I was so excited, I let my guard down. At this seemingly random spot she stops us, looks me in the eyes and starts giving me this speech.’
‘My gut drops, I feel like my heart’s stopping. Because I think she’s winding up to calling off the wedding or dumping me outright. And then I hear people moving in the trees. I look around, and it’s an honest to god pitchforks and torches mob. Not just that, either. Guns, machetes, the works. Then she says she’s sorry, but that I’m an abomination now. That no one’s safe with me around. Then she steps back and the shooting starts. I’m already turning as I run. Good thing, really, as I take a few hits. I try and get away, but every way I go, there are more of them. It turns out she’d rallied the whole town against me. Even my own fucking parents were there. My own Dad emptied a double barrel at me. They had me wound up into such a state before I broke out that they’re lucky I didn’t kill any of them. There were some injuries, but in my defence, they were literally trying to kill me.’
‘They deserved worse,’ Jude said, darkly. He was almost growling.
‘And the fucking idiots actually chased me,’ continued Haley. ‘I’d taken god knows how many gunshots, so I was slowed enough they could just about keep up. Tracked me, taking potshots the whole time, halfway across the town. I thought I’d lost them in a cornfield, and I just picked a direction and ran. And then I ran straight into some dude with a tyre iron, I thought they were on me again, and I panicked. He panicked. I thought he was attacking me and in the scuffle… I bit him.’
Jude laughed.
‘Except that random guy, was me,’ he said. ‘Picked the worst place in history to have a tyre blow. I’m stuck at the side of the road, putting on my spare, without a single clue what was going on. Then this massive great thing comes out of the corn, practically flying tackles me, then picks me up like a pit bull with a toy and lobs me twenty feet down the road. By the time I get up again, it’s gone.’
‘I’m so fucking sorry, you know I didn’t mean to, right?’ Haley said, somewhat plaintively. She really did look like a kicked puppy at that moment.
‘We have covered this enough times,’ Jude said. ‘We’re good. You’re lucky I love being a werewolf so much.’
‘I didn’t even realise I’d done it, I just threw him away and kept running. For hours. I was many miles away when I finally stopped and turned back. Lost my phone, obviously. All I had was my necklace, Kirsty put an elastic section in the cord. She’s a clever girl. Just walked up to some random house, knocked on the door, and asked some poor unsuspecting dude if I could use his phone. Should have seen the look on his face,’ Haley said, with a chuckle. ‘I call the council, tell them everything, and they send Kirsty and the rep back out to fetch me. Turns out they’d not gone far after I’d last seen them. They expected I might be calling, but not this. Then, when they arrive, they give me this look. Because they’ve noticed just how bloody my teeth are.’
‘Meanwhile,’ Jude said, taking over, ‘assuming I just got jumped by a damn wild animal, I finish changing my tyre and hit the road back to the city. I figure I’m going to have to go to the hospital, and I knew the way to that one, so off I go. Funny thing is, by the time I get there, the bite’s scarred over. I get the scolding of a lifetime from the ER doctor for leaving an animal bite untreated for so long. I get the full talking to about rabies, and a list of shots as long as your arm. Not one of them will believe me when I say it was maybe two or three hours ago.’
‘And at the same time,’ continued Haley, ‘some very scary people from the council are giving me an even bigger scolding for being so careless as to bite someone and not even know who. They’re not mean about it, you understand. They’re fucking apocalyptically furious at Amber and the rest of the town. They’re already gathering a small army to go in and, well, have a polite conversation about exactly what will and won’t be happening next. As for me, Kirsty got a swab of Jude’s blood from my teeth, and she was using it to prime every werewolf in two hundred miles to start searching for him. Me included.’
‘Me being capitalism’s well-trained little bitch at the time,’ resumed Jude, ‘I just went back to work at the office like normal. Except I spent the entire day doing less and less work, getting crankier by the minute, and saying some rather unprofessional things to my colleagues. The next day, I turned up in full “don’t give a shit” casual dress, and verbally supplied my boss with a new anus when he complained. By lunchtime, I told them all where they could get off and walked out. I was an absolute mess and feeling worse by the hour. I think they could tell by the time I left, I was sweating, practically looked feverish. Even I wasn’t sure at the time why I decided to go straight to a steakhouse from there.’
‘You burn a lot of calories when you’re going through that first change. I was on fucking drips,’ explained Haley. ‘No fun. Anyway, by blind luck I was one of a few wolves that got assigned to the city. An informant in the hospital had overheard something about a guy insisting a healed bite wound was new and called it in. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in a position to tell us who you were. Either way, we figured it was a good shout, as the road I’d bitten you on went right into the city. Three of us pick up Jude’s scent, and we start chasing him down. I ask if I can be the one to actually talk him through everything. It seemed only fair.’
‘What a fucking conversation that was,’ Jude said. ‘I’ve just eaten a hundred dollars worth of steak, I’m wandering home shaking like I’ve got withdrawal and sweating like I’m in a sauna, when this random girl comes up to me and asks if she can talk to me.’
‘I believe your response was “fuck off lady, whatever it is, I don’t want any”,’ Haley confirmed.
The werewolves both laughed at that.
‘I didn’t. I really didn’t want any,’ Jude agreed. ‘Then she says “it’s about the bite” and, yeah, she’s got my attention there. She insists we talk somewhere private, says it’s important. A few minutes later, we’re sitting in this apartment. I didn’t know it was a council safehouse. I also didn’t know there were two more werewolves guarding the door, and more on the way. I’m flagging by this point, and I’m really struggling to follow the conversation, and she’s saying some weird shit, but the thing that catches me is when she apologises for biting me.’
‘Like, I have to ask her to say that again, and then I laugh, because it’s ridiculous. I show her the scar, I say in no world are those teeth making that wound, and I get up to leave. I think it’s some stupid prank. And then she practically shoves me back in the chair, pleads with me to let her prove it. There’s something off about her, so I sit there. I think I was half expecting her to pull a knife or some shit like that. Then she starts taking her clothes off.’
‘I fucking love that jacket,’ Haley said, by way of an explanation, ‘no way I’m trashing it going through a change.’
‘Then she just says “please don’t freak out”, and right in front of me she changes into this, thing,’ Jude continues. ‘I know straight away it’s the thing from the other night, the thing that bit me, so I’m about to run, when, well, okay, so this is kind of considered rude in werewolf circles, but I had a dog when I was a kid. And this thing that’s got to be more than a foot taller than me and twice my muscle mass, it’s shaking, its ears are back, its tail’s between its legs. This thing that could rip my god-damn head off, is looking at me like a puppy I’ve just scolded for peeing on the rug.’
We all laughed at that one, I’ll admit. Having seen werewolves up close on more than one occasion, the image is quite amusing.
‘So I change back,’ Haley continues, ‘and I start explaining, and from there it was much the same story. An impromptu pack, a camping trip, the first hunt. Just a little bit less traumatic than mine, thankfully. I’d never get over putting someone else through that.’
…
I called a break at that point. The mood had dropped a little, and we all agreed we needed five minutes. And if I’m being honest, to call up some more drinks from room service. God bless unlimited free room service.
While the subject matter of our conversation may have been difficult, my guests moved past it impressively quickly. I was coming to learn that werewolves can turn a whole conversation on a dime. They don’t seem to get fixed on things like we so easily can, if they don’t want to think or talk about something, they just don’t.
As if to prove my point, the room service guy arrived with another six-pack and some snacks. They hugged him and declared their undying love for him.
Once we’d had a few minutes, and another beer, we resumed where we left off.
…
‘At this point, I have a few questions,’ Cadence said. ‘We’ll circle back to the council in general, I suspect the listener will have many questions on that. For now, though, let’s keep it personal. Where to start? To hell with it, let’s start big. Your families, Haley, yours, I think it’s fair to say, reacted badly. Have you had any interaction with them since, and Jude, did you have a similar situation? Have you even told yours?’
‘After I found Jude,’ answered Haley, ‘I made a quick stop at my old place. Took everything I gave a damn about, loaded it into a few bags and threw them in the car. Never planned to set foot in that shithole again. They made their position clear. The council did the same. They were told very concisely to keep their damn mouths shut, and to cause no further trouble, or they’d suffer the consequences. I don’t know what those consequences were. I don’t much care. I never contacted my parents again, and they were never dumb enough to try and get hold of me. Amber can burn in Hell for all I care. I posted her back the ring, with a short note telling her as much. I kept this, though.’
Haley gestured again to her necklace.
‘That’s mine. Call it a reminder of what could have been, or of a lucky escape, your call. The rest of the family can get stuffed. Well, with one exception. For months, my brother tried to call me. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. In my head, it was just another “abomination” conversation waiting to happen. Well, he doesn’t give up, and eventually I can’t take it any more and I ask Jude to call him back for me, and to get rid of him.’
‘I took her phone, and went off somewhere quiet to make the call,’ Jude said, picking up the story. ‘Thought I might want to say some angry things. Then about an eighth of a second after I press the big green button, I get this earful of absolute panicked wreck on the other end pleading with me to just talk to him. I calm him down, and I give him two minutes to explain why I should do anything other than tell him to get lost like Haley asked me to.’
‘Well, as it turns out, he gives me this rapid fire story of how he went back to town after she disappeared, frantic with worry, and finds no one will tell him what happened. Not even his own parents, they just told him not to try and contact Haley, and that she was dead to all of them. Amber wouldn’t even answer the door to him. Eventually, after an hours long shouting match with his father, he managed to get the truth out of him. Then promptly punched him out and told the pair of them to never contact him again.’
‘I would like to state for the record that I love my brother. He’s a good boy,’ continued Haley. ‘Jude comes back and tells me the story, then sets us up a little meeting on neutral ground. A meeting at which I become a crying wreck immediately, followed shortly after by my big brother. Once we’ve caught up a bit, we get to the whole “werewolf” thing. He didn’t believe any of it, he thought they’d lost it in a different way to the one they had, so we go through the rigmarole again. Off to a safe place, I turn, his eyes light up like I’m the coolest thing he’s ever seen. Which of course I am. Then I tell him the whole story, and boy does he get angry. I had to convince him not to drive all the way home just to give Dad another black eye.’
‘After that, he made me come and stay so I could see his wife and daughter again. She was missing “Cool Aunt Haley”. We haven’t told her yet. We figure it’s not a good idea until she’s old enough. Not that she’ll go tattling, she’s a good kid, more like worried she’ll want me to bite her.’
As for mine,’ Jude added, ‘a lot less drama. I had a sit down with my parents and told them. They took it about as well as could be expected, really. They thought I’d gone crazy. Then they thought THEY’D gone crazy. Then they got used to it. There was no one else I wanted to tell. I’ve kept in touch with a few friends, but on a casual basis. Still, everyone’ll know soon enough. Do me a favour and get a cool photo next time I turn, would you? I need a new profile pic.’
‘I suppose that brings us neatly onto something else you’ve mentioned a few times. Packs?’ asked Cadence. ‘Is this a family thing, friends, how does this work? Did you ever get one?’
‘It varies. I mean, we’re werewolves, after all, we’re not big on strict structures,’ Haley explained. ‘It can be a small thing, a family, a little group of friends, that sort of thing. Most often, though, it’s a kind of cluster of extended families. A sort of informal support group. You get a few werewolf families, their werewolf friends, a few human honorary members, and you take care of each other. You help each other keep the secrets, raise the puppies, organise the hunts, deal with any problems, that kind of thing.”
‘You don’t often get whole packs meeting up, there might be dozens of members, maybe even a couple of hundred in the biggest ones, and that kind of thing can attract attention. Usually it’s little subgroups shuffling together around social schedules, and work schedules, so that everyone gets to go out with a pack once or twice a month. It’s not some super regimented thing, we’re not good at that sort of stuff, just our way of staying social and making sure everyone’s okay.’
‘As for us, we’re sort of a pack of two. Most werewolves have a pack by default from when they’re created. They sort of pickup this whole extended family as soon as they get bitten. I got a psychopathic serial killer, and he got me. But we’re not on our own. We’re kind of floating honorary members of a few different packs. We travel a lot, after all, and we wolves have our ways of finding each other.’
‘Scent marking,’ Jude stated. ‘She means scent marking. It’s gross, but effective.’
‘Don’t knock it, man. You visit some new place, wander around, and you know damn quick if there’s a potential playmate in town,’ Haley protested.
‘And you mentioned elders, too?’ Cadence enquired. ‘Are we just talking senior werewolves, by either meaning of the word?’
‘We live longer than humans,’ Jude answered, ‘that is if we don’t do something stupid, but we’re not immortal. Some of us, though, they connect more with The Beast. When their human body starts to fail, their wolf body is still strong. Sometimes, then, they decide to let their human side die. They gather the pack, usually several packs, then they head out into the wild and have one hell of a massive party. They say whatever last things they want to say, kind of like a personal eulogy, then they let their human sides go, and they turn one last time.”
‘I’ve seen it once,’ said Haley, oddly wistfully, ‘and it’s beautiful. It doesn’t happen often, there aren’t many elders. Maybe a half dozen in the whole US. Once they let their human side go, they become more. Bigger, stronger, there’s a wisdom too them too. They’re not these savage animals, they’re, oh I don’t know how to put this. They’re almost spiritual. Like they’ve lived a whole life and chosen to become something new, and they become these shepherds for us. They’re like our living history, some of them are centuries old.’
‘I thought, in their wolf forms, werewolves couldn’t speak?’
‘Doesn’t mean we can’t get our points across,’ said Jude. ‘The elders, if they want to speak, you listen. They just don’t do it with words.’
…
The werewolves seemed a little far away for a moment. They really did give off a feeling that just reminiscing about the elders was a near spiritual experience. Which is out of character for those two.
…
‘Perhaps we should go general a little. Sum it up for the listeners. What’s it like being a werewolf?’
‘Well, that’s a big question,’ mused Haley.
‘Physically, when I’m human shaped at least,’ explained Jude, ‘it’s a fairly subtle difference. I’m a bit tougher, a bit stronger. As for mentally, I’ve lost most of my inhibitions, and I’ve become almost entirely allergic to wearing a suit and tie. I find I’ve mostly stopped caring what other people think of me, unless I care about them, that is. I’m way more prone to cabin fever and boredom. In no world could I manage sitting in an office being patronised any more. I have just about zero tolerance for people’s bullshit.’
‘If I’m honest,’ he continued, ‘sometimes that can bite me in the metaphorical ass. When you’re human, you learn a lot of social niceties. And yeah, they can be stupid and annoying, but you learn them for a reason. To not upset people, to not start fights. Sometimes it’s all fun and games. Occasionally, though, it can be way too easy to just come across like you don’t care, or like you aren’t taking things seriously. Even when we are. I’ve had a fight or two, purely because I came across as if I was laughing at some guy in a bar. Lost work too, because they thought I was flaky.’
‘That sounds about right to me,’ agreed Haley. ‘As for the wolf, it’s hard to describe. The change itself, it never exactly becomes comfortable, but you get used to it. Then you’re the wolf, and every hang up, every worry, every stupid self-doubt goes away. Everything just becomes so damn simple. If you’re hungry, you hunt. If you’re pissed off, you fight. If you’re, well, I bet you can see where I’m going.’
Haley waggled her eyebrows at Cadence. Jude just chuckled and shook his head.
‘Sometimes you just run for hours, and hours. Once we crossed the whole of Kansas in a day, North to South, for no reason other than it was there,’ Haley continued.
‘Which is where, I’ll admit, some practicalities come into play. If we stay in one place for any length of time, we tend to stash some cheap clothes and a little cash if we can spare it in a few places. Mark it, so other wolves know what it is, and to keep animals away. You never know when you might go for a run and end up waking up a few miles away from where you started. You get good at hiding your phone and your keys and all that stuff, too. Also, cheap sweatpants are a godsend.’
‘You ever think about maybe a little backpack for the wolves or something like that?’ Cadence asked.
‘I’ve seen some people try it. It’s not the easiest thing to get yourself to keep something on when you’re changed. If you’re on a job, and it’s something important, then yeah, you’ll get why you’re lugging it around,’ Haley told her. ‘We’re not stupid when we’re changed, after all. Otherwise, you’ll just get annoyed and stash it somewhere. And it’s always better to do your stashing when you’re human shaped, and you’re paying attention properly. You try your best when you’re the wolf, but you’ve got more interesting things to worry about.’
…
Haley started telling me about the practical challenges of keeping valuables safe and hidden while in random, unfamiliar locations.
Jude then took the opportunity to change to his wolf form while we weren’t paying attention, then pounce on Haley and begin several minutes of rough housing, which we edited out as it was mostly laughing. I kind of wish I’d had the camera running, though. It was cute. Eventually, she clouted him over the head with a pillow, and he conceded defeat. Much of the rest of the interview was conducted with Haley sitting in the wolf-monster’s lap, with him cuddling her like a kid with a plush toy.
…
‘See what I mean about these goobers. Look at him!’ Haley said, struggling not to laugh again.
‘You’ve mentioned work a few times,’ said Cadence, to get things back on track. ‘How does that even work for you now?’
Jude rolled his eyes and let his tongue hang out.
‘That can be a challenge, yeah,’ Haley said, scratching Jude’s belly. ‘I’ve never met a werewolf that can sit out an office job for more than a few days. Home working helped a lot of us, so did flexible hours. Like I say, we aren’t stupid. We can do a job, we just don’t do well with structure. So we tend to gravitate towards self-employment, outdoorsy stuff, stuff that puts you on the road a lot. Our old jobs were no good to us. I worked in a coffee shop, he was an office bitch.’
Jude whined. Literally whined, like a dog.
‘Yeah, no fun all around. Nowadays, considering our somewhat unique circumstances, we took up doing jobs for the council to cover a lot of our bills. Other than that, we actually started a little courier business, keeps us moving. We do have an apartment, we share it with a human who’s thrilled she gets the place to herself so much. Not so much about the occasional shedding, or raided fridge, but she’s cool, and she puts up with us in exchange for werewolf cuddles. Also, I cannot stress enough how cuddly werewolves can be. Yeah, we might be able to rip a dude’s head off, but when we’re happy it can be like having a big soppy Labrador in the house. Case in point, this guy.’
‘How do you even begin to approach someone for that kind of arrangement, and in a broader sense, I suppose, how easy it is to keep your nature a secret?’ Cadence asked.
‘It wasn’t so hard. We get the roomie first, get to know her. When we’re sure she’s chill, we let her in on the secret,’ explained Haley. ‘There’s always a gamble in this sort of thing, but most people are either cool with it or want nothing to do with you. Reactions like, well, like home, they’re rare. We have it fairly easy, as monsters go. Ninety percent of the time, we just look like humans. I mean, we might tend to be a bit more lax on the personal grooming front, and I refuse on principle to iron my clothes, but we pass. We tend to keep a handle on the transformations, so we’re pretty fine. And I suppose I’ll never need to worry about keeping it a secret again, that ship’s sailed for me. As for everyone else, the puppies have it harder, it’s harder to ask a kid to keep something like this secret and to do shit they don’t want to do, when at any moment they could just turn into a cute little wolf monster puppy and run off chasing cats.’
‘Yeah, I would not have done well at school if that had been an option,’ admitted Cadence. ‘I had enough trouble paying attention as it was, always daydreaming.’
‘I bet whatever was in your head was more fun anyways,’ said Haley. ‘You should see the puppies, they’re adorable. Especially when you get a pack together, and they’re all playing. They’re a handful, though, I don’t know how the parents cope. Still, I suppose that’s not as much of a problem now. If things go well, they’ll be able to go just say screw it and let the wolf out. Teachers, if you want to tucker them out, just throw an extra gym class in. They’re suckers for ball games.’
“As for us, personally, it wasn’t all that hard because we made some pretty hard pivots from our old lives. There weren’t all that many people that knew the “old” us to flag up something weird, and my dork’s old friends just think he snapped at work and had a quarter life crisis. I think it’s fair to say that the more ties you have to your old life, the harder it is to maintain. If you live alone, in a rural area, and have an outdoorsy job, then yeah it’s still a big change but not necessarily an unmanageable one. Some poor city boy, with a family in an apartment in a block in the city centre, getting the bus to a boring job in an office every day, now that’s a challenge. Good luck making a twice monthly trip out of the city when you only get a couple of weeks off a year, especially if your family doesn’t know.’
Jude made a sad little noise, and Haley reached up and scratched him behind the ears. His tail wags when he gets scratched behind the ears. It appears to be entirely involuntary.
‘There are challenges, but once you get it figured out, it’s joyful. Just this complete change of perspective, this new view of what’s really important. Something switches in your head, and you just stop caring about all the nonsense. Materialism goes out of the window. So does all of society’s bullshit. All that matters is you, the pack, and being happy. Life is good, you know?’