Life With A Werewolf

The Nobility Part 1 - Home Invasion

          I never thought I’d see Mitch so soon. The fast-food werewolf I figured would go back to his life and his family or whatever he was doing with his spare time. So, it was a bit of a shock when he turned back up unannounced with a hangdog look on his face. It was as if someone had kicked his puppy and peed in his cornflakes all at once. “I just want you to know,” he said, “I’m really sorry about how things are gonna go down. And I’m doing everything I can.”


          “What,” I asked. It was early morning. Crash hadn’t arrived from work yet. He was on night shift, and it was a bit late for him, but not late enough for us to worry about anything.

          “I just…” he began. Then sighed. “How much do you know about werewolves?”

          “That you shed enough in wolf form to make another one of you. It’s a pain constantly sweeping all the time,” I said. My intention was to lighten the mood. However, those things rarely ever go the way I’d like them too.

          Instead of even getting a polite chuckle, I got a glare. “This is serious,” he said.

          “I know a bit, I guess.”

          “Well, then you don’t know much about The Nobility then. Grab your bugout bag and meet me out here with your roommates. I think we can get you all to safety before they come.”

          “I’m kind of lost,” I said. “Can’t this wait till Crash gets home?”

          “He won’t.”

          I head tilted at that. Darn annoying habit I picked up from Crash. “What?”

          “Get your roomies. Get your bag. Let’s go.”

          I did what he asked, grabbing Kris, Shawn, Zack and each one of us grabbing a small bag with a couple changes of clothing in them and what meds we needed and got back outside. Mitch’s SUV was large enough thankfully to house all of us. Though it was pretty old butdurable, as durable as an old Suburban could be, I suppose.

          We left town in relative silence, and headed south, reaching the state line in a few hours. After a fast-food lunch, and wasting a couple hours, we headed over to a cheap motel beside the interstate. I collected our phones, turned them all off and placed them in the freezer. Kris turned on a mindless reality TV show of some kind and turned the volume up. My six-hundred-pound mother’s dog’s boyfriend’s life or something like that. All of those shows are the same, anyway so who can really keep track?

          Kris crossed his arms and glared at Mitch. “Start talking.”

          “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, looking around. Despite Mitch’s massive frame he was looking smaller and smaller now, looking around the room in a few nervous glances.

          “We’re about as secure as we can be. Tell us about The Nobility.” I replied.

          “And where the hell is Crash,” Zack added, glaring up at him. “I’m missing GTA for this.”

          “And I’m missing work, dude.” Shawn replied.

          “Look, I know you’re all a bit confused about everything,” he said, “but I promise it will be alright.”

          “Mitch,” I said, stepping forward. I patted his cheek, and smiled. “Our friend needs our help. For one reason or another he’s saved all of our asses at one point in time. Mine multiple. So if he needs our help, we’re going to help him. Now, you can either tell us what we require, or we’ll go find him. By handing out flyers and shouting his name out the car window like we’re looking for a lost dog, if need be, but we WILL find him.”

          “Yes, but how the hell are you going to rescue him from five werewolves,” Mitch asked, his face growing dark.

          “Oh.”

          It was Mitch’s turn to cross his arms. “Oh.”

          “The Nobility.” He snarled it like it was a curse, then began to talk.

          “There are two theories to the origins of werewolves. One is evolution. Hunters/gatherers worked better when one had better hearing, sight, smell, was stronger and faster. A tribe with a couple werewolves could dominate other tribes much easier in theory and take whatever territory they wanted.

          The other theory is The Nobility. The original bloodline. Their family name would be quite familiar to, well, just about everyone. So among the rest of us ‘mutts’ as they call us, we just call them The Nobility. They say they were blessed by the direct hand of God himself, who reached down and dictated them to rule.

          A couple hundred years ago, right when America was having its civil war in fact, there was a bit of a civil war among werewolves. The secret war was fought in plain sight among humans and treated as random political killings or just regular murders. I won’t go into great detail of every battle, but the result was, we lost. The Nobility kept their power in Europe, and we fled here.”

          “I don’t get it,” I said. “What does this have anything to do with Crash?”

          “Well, The Nobility deems werewolves to be automatically part of their nation, whether they want to be or not. It’s membership by birth and only revoked by death. This is part of the reason why we fought. The other reason was xenophobia.

          You see, The Nobility sees humanity something to be protected, kept, guided. You know, like a pet. You’re never supposed to know about us. You’re never supposed to live with us. And you’re never supposed to be in a pack with us. Since Crash has all of you as his pack, then by their law, he’s supposed to die.”

          “How did they find out about Crash, anyway,” Zack asked.

          “Because,” Mitch said, “someone decided it was a smart idea to start a blog.”

          I smiled sheepishly, then shrugged. “It’s not like anyone reads the damn thing.”

          I got a couple of glances, but no glares. “They probably already knew about all of you anyway,” Mitch said. “Can’t say for sure, though. My family fought against them to the last wolf. Finally my grandmother fled here so our family name would live. She met a human, she fell in love with and well, here we are. The Mutts.

          The Nobility has Crash. They’re having a ‘discussion’,” he threw air quotes around the word, “about his life choices. Their choices will be to kill all of you and Crash. Or to just kill Crash.”

          “Great,” Kris grumbled. “Those fuckers will kill him either way.”

          “Crash could be lucky. They could tell him to just kick you out,” Mitch said.

          “So, kick us out or die. Mitch, you do realize kicking us out will kill Crash, right,” I asked.

          He nodded. His eyes were watery for a moment. He looked out the window. The cracked parking lot stared back up at him. I was smart enough to ensure we had something on the second floor in the middle. That way we wouldn’t be easy to grab. I didn’t ask why Mitch chose the rundown Motel over a nicer hotel though, despite us being able to pool or cash together to afford it. Cause in a pinch, he can easily go through the walls here and make us an escape route.

          At least that’s what I choose to believe. It could also be because he’s really cheap. I don’t know.

          According to Mitch The Nobility are a funny bunch. They expect ones like Crash to either just marry the first werewolf they run across or live in solitude forever, even if solitude is what kills most werewolves. They consider werewolves of those from a human parent to be “mutts.”

          When he said this, he spat the word out. We had been sitting in that Motel room for the longest time, as the sun began to set, it was Zack of all people who finally put things into perspective. “We all have jobs and lives to get to. I understand hiding out in this motel if they’re after us. But it sounds like they’re after Crash instead.”

          Kris nodded. “Besides, Crash really can’t live without us. We don’t want to live without him. And who says it’s their damn business anyway who he chooses to have as a pack, anyway?”

          “They do,” Mitch said. “And their thousands of werewolves they can call upon to fight for them at moment’s notice. If The Nobility chose to, they could literally wipe your town and any memory of it off the map.”

          We sat there for a long time, listening to the sounds of the people on television talk about their frustrations living with this 600 pound dog’s wife’s girlfriend’s brother or whatever they were going on about. As the mindless monotony droned on, we all stared at the floor. Or the wall. Or the ceiling. Kris and Shawn held each other for comfort. But a single thought kept running through my head.

          In guerrilla warfare, those who know the home have the advantage. They’re the ones who understand every shortcut, every nook, every cranny. They have the memories of the people who lived nearby, of dead-end roads, of which paths through the forest twists around in circles and which one leads directly to the other side. Or to the creek.

          Militaries in the past have studied local maps, interviewed local people, have fought hard to mitigate this advantage, but no amount of satellite photography, of talking to other people could eliminate the boon of having the home field.

          “We could go back,” I said.

          Everyone looked at me. “How,” Zack asked.

          “Well, easy. Mitch gets in his surburban and drives us. Then we might have enough time to get ready,” I said.

          “You know this will be incredibly stupid,” Mitch said.

          I grinned. “Well, I’ve been accused of being brave before, but never of being smart.”

          “What’s the plan,” Zack asked.

          “We follow Kevin McCallister’s example,” I said.

          “What are you talking about,” Mitch asked.

          “What? Haven’t you ever watched Home Alone?”