Life With A Werewolf

That's The Way The Werewolves Have Their Picnic

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          Nothing is ever normal with Crash. This is one of the lessons I’ve learned time and again.
A simple “Christmas party” and a “work function” for most people might be a few drinks in the conference room with some white elephant gift-giving thrown in on the side. Maybe Sally or Jimmy or whoever brings in cookies or candies made in that special way that’s been in their family for generations.
You know the ones. They look nasty, taste weird, and everyone eats one because no one has the heart to tell them that their family's secret recipe should probably be kept a secret.
          This is what I expected when I was invited to this.
“It’s a bit of a work thing” is the way it was sold to me. He was dressed in fairly nice clothing, for Crash. He wore a pair of Jeans that looked brand new, a nice button-up that looked only twenty percent flannel, and even a pair of snakeskin boots on.
Had his chin strap beard trimmed up nice as well and even had a small mustache grown in to fit it. I wore a clean shirt and pants that I had picked up for the office job I held for almost a week. But I skipped the tie, still don’t know why. Maybe out of some sort of late protest against the job?
Maybe. But more likely because in my heart, I know I’m a slob and we were already a bit late.
          The reason for my tagging along was born of one burning question: What the hell does a werewolf do as a job?! I mean, is he a cop like in that cheesy horror movie, “Werewolf Cop”? Is he a supernatural trashman? Does he transport stolen goods and drugs for a vampire mafia working off some life debt to them so he could gain their trust and overthrow the bloodsuckers in a dangerous coup that could endanger all of life as we know it?
          If you can’t tell already, sometimes it’s a bit of a burden to have an overactive imagination. In the service, I’d just write all of these ideas down and throw them away when done. It kept my brain busy and wasn’t important to work so I didn’t want to get too involved in creating them. But putting them on paper at least gave my imagination some outlet. Sort of like putting your dog on a run instead of chaining them to one spot. By now, however, my imagination had run more than wild. It had broken the chain, leaped the fence, gone feral, and was now stalking and killing house pets, so to speak.
          Scenarios of all kinds popped into my mind: A secret werewolf congress. No, a secret werewolf society, that secretly ran the entire world through their werewolf mind control powers! It was at the point of actually creating a werewolf language and handshake for the secret werewolf society, (The Loup-Garou Congress, or LGC as it’s known to the inner circle), that I figured it was time I finally came clean to Crash and just outright asked him what the heck he does for a living.
          His solution? “Well, there’s this sort of a Christmas function. Why don’t you just come along to that? You can be my plus one.”
          So, of course, I said yes. I saw he was dressed up fancy. I dressed in what niceties that I had, and joined him as we climbed into his old Caddy and raced off, with the top down of course, and raced off away from town.
          I wasn’t keeping track of the turns we were taking.
I just noticed that we kept going deeper and deeper into the wooded area. Past the point, that weekend hunters would find comfortable, but not quite encroaching on the sasquatch hunters out and about trying to film their episode where they “finally bag big foot” and it turns out, again, to be a random weirdo in a hairy suit playing a prank on them. Trees pushed inwards closer and closer as the highway became a road then became a rutted trail that pushed through the underbrush.
          We pressed through one last clearing and entered, what I can only describe as a carnival of sorts. There were a few booths set up scattered around, and even a band that played live music near the edge of the woods. Some of the band members were hairier than others, though I’m not certain that all of them were werewolves. Cotton candy and frozen “meat treats” were being handed out from one of the booths near the edge. There was a beer booth as well, though since Crash was driving, he couldn’t partake in that.
However, since I was not driving, I couldn’t partake in it either, with the alcohol content of the “beer” being so high it was on the edge of just being carbonated liquor, and I didn’t want to be inebriated around this crowd.
          In what way could I describe the ones at the carnival?
Well, in truth, I can’t. There were wolves, Crash among them, who had begun his change almost immediately upon arrival. A couple of, well I’m not sure what to call them, so right now they’ll go by “were cats”, though that explanation feels a bit lame. Sasquatch could have been there, however, I’m not certain I would have recognized him in the middle of all of the creatures I saw.
          There were a few vampires there as well. They could be recognized as the regular-looking humans that nearly froze my blood when they glanced my way. Those tended to keep to themselves, however barely even saying hi to me. I’m a little glad I was off the menu, so to speak.
          How to explain Crash’s co-workers? Well, to put it bluntly, I can’t. I gawked for probably a good ten minutes at the entire scene before me.
I was still in the car when I saw Crash next. He was in full morph form, fur and claws hanging from his sleeves, a full-blown muzzle pressed out from his face, and of course the black coarse hair everywhere.
“Now, Jason,” Crash said, crouching down to look at me. “You can’t talk about anyone you meet today in that blog of yours.”
          My heart stopped. Then sunk as it started again. “Blog?”
I said, trying to play dumb.
          “Yes, blog.” He arched an eyebrow. “What, you didn’t think I knew you started that?” As dumb as I tried to play things, he only laughed in that gruff way that werewolves seem to chuckle in and said, “we’ll talk about it later.”
So yeah, I can’t discuss or mention his co-workers. How many there are, what they look like, and whether they’re even fully human or partially something else. They may come into this blog later, and if they do it will be of their own volition to be mentioned, not mine. Cause when you have what I can only describe as a “werebear” telling you to keep certain details out, with Crash nodding in fear as well as agreement next to you in full werewolf form, you listen.
          The carnival itself wasn’t large. There were a few booths pressed into the rim of trees at the far end of the clearing, with parking on the other end. The stage was centered towards everything else, giving people plenty of space for dancing near the front of it as well as providing background noise for the booths and games near the back.
          The night raced on, though I barely noticed it. The other booths mostly were typical booths with games and prizes. Some of the games were easy (ring toss, etc), and others relied on senses that I simply did not have and couldn’t play. For example, one of the booths was called “sniffer”, which was essentially a scent trail game. They blindfolded you, spun you around several times, then you had to get down and sniff out a scent trail they made using rabbit meat. This trail dragged through the grass on the ground in a strange pattern and ended up in one of the several holes at the end of the booth. The way Crash explained it to me they used other things to scramble the scent trail: chicken, beef, pork, humans dragged their feet through it, and you had to sort through all of the background noise to find the right hole that had the rabbit meat in time. Find the meat, and win the prize. I couldn’t even play of course, but he won it easy finding the rabbit meat in record time.
          We played some games, watched the band play more than danced, and even got to eat some regular burgers and fries while Crash quickly inhaled several frozen “meat treats”, essentially half-cooked meat, frozen on a popsicle stick. The night simply melted away as we enjoyed ourselves and I got to meet several nice co-workers and other individuals Crash meets regularly on his job. The one thing I was asked to mention is that there is no, nor has there ever been a skinwalker employed by the county, or state for that matter. If I had ever met one, it wouldn’t be as funny or cute as I made “Larry” out to be, to say the very least and it would possibly end up being one of the more horrific times in my life.
          My werewolf escort only disappeared once in the middle of everything. I was hanging out with his boss, who was going through a humorous situation he’d been through, which again, I can’t detail here. When I looked around and noticed Crash was gone. I suppose my blood should have run cold at that thought, but you’d be amazed at how quickly you can get used to a situation you’re thrown into. I was already used to the carnival, though I’d only been there a couple of hours. Rides, games, and of course Christmas-themed things, all with Krampus instead of Santa, blended into the background as we talked. Crash came back as we were talking about the myth of Krampus and their version of events for things.
          Did you know that Krampus is Santa’s were form?
It’s why it's so crazy. And Krampus isn’t just meant to take the naughty kids, but bring treats to the good little were boys and girls. I’m sure you can guess where the naughty kids go.
That myth is as dark and entertaining as the Santa myth is jolly.
          As the dawn started to approach, Crash and I made it back to his car. The following conversation I’m told I’m allowed to put here.
          After some discussion about the band and their taste in music, I finally got into the question that had been burning on my mind since we began this insanity: What is his job?! We were driving back home in that good time daze you get after having a blast for so long when I decided to finally pop the question. The vehicle pressed down the trail back through sasquatch country, on the road out toward our home. Sunlight had begun to dance its way through the leaves leaving occasional patches of red and gold to pierce through the darkness.
          “Well, you could say I’m a detective of sorts.”
Crash replied. “I work with the police, but not for them. We’re like the other side of that coin in the whole enforcement.”
          I did a literal head tilt. “You’re a werewolf cop? Like the movie?”
          He snickered. His muzzle was starting to press back inwards towards his face, though he still had the hair. “No.
Well, kinda. If, say, a hulderfolk troll goes crazy and tries to kill a normal human, I’m called in to deal with it. If a vampire goes rogue and starts killing the people in their town instead of just light feeding, I’m called in.”
          “So, you deal with the situations that the regular police just can’t handle,” I said, as everything finally clicked in place for me.
          “Right,” he smiled, then tipped one of his pointed ears at me. The ear had slid back down somewhat to its normal position but still looked more “Hollywood Wolfman” than human.
          Everything made sense. Everything. When his shift started, he went on patrol, stalking the towns and neighborhoods and checking on things. He investigated certain crime scenes that cops would view as being just too vicious for it to be a regular human.
          “So, if there’s like evidence on the scene of something or something?” I asked.
          As we started passing through the thinner woods, the sun was now in full-rising mode. There was no more evidence that I was even with a werewolf. This time, he was standard Crash. Rugged features, chinstrap beard. “Well, it goes,” he shrugged, “I investigate things, or if the cops stumble on something, they contact the ‘special unit’ as they call us, and we’re pulled in.”
          “Look,” Crash said, turning to look at me for a moment.
We were nearly back in civilization at this point, though we hadn’t reached town yet. “We’ll do a sit-down-like thing after everything is said and done.
But I heard some things tonight at our little get-together that I don’t like.”
          “What things?”
          “You remember Sarah, don’t you?”
          How could I not remember Sarah? Coming home from a deployment to an empty house devoid of literally everything kind of burns a person into your memory, the way landing face first on a hot stove would. “Yeah,” I grumbled.
          “Well, she’s in trouble,” Crash replied.
          “Good,” I growled, looking out towards the road.
          “No, I mean, deadly trouble.” He spoke.
          I sighed. Well, it was probably closer to a growl. “Let me get my gun,” I grumbled as he pulled up to the house. It wasn’t even Christmas, and already things were looking crazy. Sarah. That blond-haired beauty who could quote UCMJ and military regulations like some preachers quoted scripture. That should have been clue one that she was trouble, however hard-headed dolts like me never actually ever seem to learn, especially when they blink their pretty blue eyes at you in that way that causes all of the blood running your intelligence to flee your brain for a more nether region of your body.
          Some people are always in trouble. From the moment they enter your life to the moment they exit everything they do or touch just ends up being more trouble for you than what it’s worth. Still, either by loyalty, stupidity, or some sense of insanity you feel a responsibility to help them. She was responsible for a lot of the pain I had felt. A lot of the pain I had gone through over the past several years. And now, I was about to try and help her.
          “You aren’t going to ask what sort of trouble she’s in,” Crash asked.
          “She left me for twin meth heads. I can guess what the trouble is.” I growled.
          “No, not meth-heads. Meth-headed vampires. Twin meth-head vampires. And for her things just got a whole lot worse.”