Life With A Werewolf

The Nobility Part 2 - House Party

          The hardest part of my plan was honestly getting everyone on board. I had to explain it more than once to Kris and Shawn, both of whom was very skeptical of turning our home into a death trap. “What if Crash comes home” came up more than once.


          I promised Mitch, and well, everyone that if Crash came home, I’d be the one to stop him from coming inside before we disarmed the traps. Then there was the manner of traps we could use.

          I’m not certain a claymore would stop a werewolf, though it would slow it down and piss it off. That’s what we would be going for. Slowing them down, at least until we could do something a bit more to them. Unfortunately, silver doesn’t work like it does in the movies. A simple touch or glance at it does nothing. It has to get into their blood stream to hurt or kill a werewolf. I wasn’t desiring to kill any of them. At least, not yet.

          This did feel a bit like kittens protecting the den from a lion. In the end, there wasn’t much we could do if they decided to, say, forgo all subtlety and jump from the ground to the second-floor windows to literally bite our heads off. But it was better than sitting and waiting for them to come get us. Plus, being pro-active against a problem feels better than waiting for your problem to come and maim you in the middle of the night.

          I’m not much of a sportsman so I stopped by the store to pick up some fishing line. It makes a great trip line that’s hard to see. I stretched the fishing line across a few of the stairs and in one door way. Then I did a couple things you’d expect. A nail or two on the stairs, some trip hazards in a small hallway, Soapy floor in the kitchen, then we set inside upstairs, and waited. If we had the home set up the same way the kid did in the movie, I would have definitely set up some paint cans to the face style traps. But as it stands, I felt confident in our ability to at least piss off our attackers before they killed us. That made me feel a little better.

          When we had completed the trip back to the house, all the shopping, and were upstairs in Kris and Shawn’s room it was almost morning. Mitch was downstairs preferring to have a bit more open room to fight, especially if he was going to “get his claws dirty” he said.

          Although all of us had seen Crash shift more than once between human and wolf, Mitch preferred privacy to do it so we let him perform that feat alone. Getting The Nobility to walk into our trap after we had set everything up, we thought would have been a challenge. However, as we worked setting the house up, I had an epiphany. Instead of hoping they might happen to show up to get us, I just texted Crash and asked him when he was coming home and told him that everyone was worried here.

          There wasn’t much more that could be sent. “The party’s here”? “Don’t forget we’re hunting”? Anything of the like and we might as well just text them, “bye the way, we know you’re not actually Crash and we’re setting a trap.” As it stood at that moment, I still wasn’t sure that I had done exactly that.

          Expectations were non-existent. After all, were they going to just show up in black SUVs like in the movies? Maybe a few old Cadillacs or something like in a Scorsese flick? We didn’t know. We certainly didn’t expect three colorful, expensive and very out of place European SUVs.

          They waited until nightfall before they showed up. We ate, we talked, we planned, and we jumped at every little shadow and vehicle that rolled down the road. Tension is like pulling on fishing line. After a while, it starts to cut into your skin, leave lines. It can even cut you if you keep it tight enough, long enough.

          It started to cut us a bit. I won’t go over everything that was said, but to sum it up: Kris at one point said this was all my fault for starting this little blog. Shawn of course backed up his man. Zack tried to point out that fighting is stupid when everyone was about to show up. And I said….

          Well, I’m ashamed of it. But I didn’t start this blog to sugar coat anything or make myself feel any better about the world. I really started it to try and make sense of the insanity that was happening, to try and screw my head on right. To also try and get a little bit of therapy through these words on the screen, cause anyone who’s ever attempted to get mental help from the VA can attest to, they ignore you till you almost die, then they treat you. And when they treat you, you go back to wishing you’d just been ignored.

          What I had said was “Well, I guess instead of just helping Crash with things perhaps I should be more like you free loaders and do absolutely nothing.”

          That was the most hurtful thing I could come up with on short notice. Yes, there was more curse words in it, and maybe the word wasn’t exactly “free loaders”, but closer in tone to a curse word. Hell, this blog isn’t censored, I don’t know why I’m doing it now. The words used was ‘useless fuckers’ not ‘free loaders.’ I’m still ashamed I said it. Though it did give everyone a pause. The one good thing that came out of that fight was the silence. It allowed us to hear the engines running outside.

          One individual stepped out of the lead vehicle, a blue Mercedes of some kind. He was in human form, talking on his phone. I couldn’t see more than that thanks to the encroaching night.

          Front and back door slammed open under the heavy feet of the werewolves. Zack, Kris and Shawn all jumped out of their skins and into each other’s arms, a cry dying in their throat.

          I didn’t blame them. Experiencing this sort of thing was frightening at first. Heck, I can’t really count how many times I’ve seen it whether it’s with training or through real life situations in my previous occupation, and it was still frightening for me. My fear response had just been trained to be pulling a pistol instead of crying out.

          Crash in wolf form has a brown and black fur pattern that blends in with the night. So, if he wants, all you see in the darkness is his two eyes shining and his teeth glistening in the full moon light. He pulled this little prank on me when I was going to the pisser on one of the first nights living with him. That’s why I saran wrapped his toilet seat by the way, I did literally wet myself because of that.

          Mitch’s fur pattern is pure nightmare fuel. A mix of silver, white and grey, so it almost glistens in the light, making him seem even larger than his already humongous frame. He looks like a ghost of a monster come to life in order to rip you to shreds. When the door kicked in and the first wolf came barreling through, he pounced, twisted and chomped their shoulder. They crashed to the floor and into a wall, with a snarl and a wail. Then after tackling them, he leaped through the dining room over to the kitchen and landed on the kitchen table, which creaked under his weight.

          Two came in through that side door, and launched themselves at him. The soap beneath their claws slipped, and they hit the floor, their jaws snapping shut in a loud clop! Mitch leaped off the table, landed on them. Digging his claws in he leaped forward throwing them into the table and wall behind him.

          As he was doing this, the first wolf made it to the stairwell, stepping on a nail and yelping loudly. He snarled something, then tried to take the stairs two at a time. He missed the first trip wire, then like an expert hooked the second, landing face first on the stairs and got tangled in the third.

          That made a perfect path for the other two. They had just finished sliding around our kitchen and just about destroying it and was racing upstairs, with Mitch in tow, literally snapping at their heels. The first of the two brown wolves leaped up the stairs, landed on the first wolves back, then leaped into the doorway, snarling at me.

          I glared back at them through the site of my pistol. “Far enough,” I growled.

          The first one of course, didn’t listen. He smiled at me, his ears twisting back as he did to make it look more vicious and stepped forward, drool dripping onto the floor. He growled some sort of threat that I couldn’t understand. Mental note for everyone out there. Threats only work if people understand them. If you try to threaten someone in a language they don’t understand, all they’ll hear is gibberish. I understood the pointing with claws and snapping of teeth, but the language barrier just left me feeling confused instead of scared.

          “Hey moron!” I shouted. “I think I can blast your buddy in the eye through your nuts. You want me to try? We live with a werewolf; you want to bet this isn’t loaded with silver?”

          That’s when he said the first thing I could understand. “You want to see your friend alive? You come with us.”

          “Bullshit,” I growled. “Either he’s dead already, or soon will be.” I didn’t see the looks everyone exchanged when I said that. I didn’t have to. But it was a fact. If we left Crash’s life, Crash was effectively dead. Loneliness is the biggest killer of werewolves out there. It also does a number on people as well. Loneliness breeds depression, which breeds despair, which breeds death. First the death of any desires and joys in your own life, the death of your hopes and dreams, then your own literal death.

          It had nearly killed me when Crash came and pulled me out of there. It nearly killed him all those years ago before we moved in. I wasn’t about to let it finish the job on him. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I have a gun aimed at your jewels,” I said. “Release Crash.”

          “You’re under arrest,” he snarled.

          “I don’t think you get this, but I’m American. I’m also a combat veteran. Which means, I’m hurting. Which means I’m already pissed off, and you just invaded my home in a state that says I’m allowed to kill you for that. You know the only cure for cheering up a combat vet? Killing. And buddy, you ain’t giving me many reasons to keep your dumbass alive.” I pulled the hammer back on my pistol for effect. “Try me.”

          He grinned viciously. “Look out the window.”

          I didn’t move. Zack took a moment and peered down. “Holy shit,” he said, “They have Crash.”

          “What,” I asked.

          “Yeah. Two of them have Crash by the throat,” he said.

          “Either you come with us, or he dies,” he said.

          “So, we die and then he dies slowly, or we all die now, huh,” I said. Then raised the pistol at his head. “I choose,”

          “Don’t!” Kris shouted.

          I sighed, and looked over at him. “What?”

          “Just don’t,” he whimpered. “Crash can’t die.”

          I sighed and nodded. “Alright,” I conceded. “You go first, then we’ll follow.”

          It was slow going, but we made it out onto the lawn. There were very few stars out, but we did have a beautiful moon above us. I looked at it and thought about how strange it was that the moon should be the last thing I saw before I died.

          Crash snarled at his captors, thrashed in their claws to try and free himself, but could not. Two werewolves could very easily restrain one. I wish I had beautiful words to tell him but could only stare like the rest of us. Don’t look, I thought, Don’t watch. Please don’t watch this.

          It’s here that I must say thank God for our lovely neighbors. I am sincere in saying that. Cause if it weren’t for them, I certainly wouldn’t be typing this out for you now. Zack, Kris, and Shawn would be long gone. They said they owed us more than one and that’s why they interfered, even if it was interfering in the affairs of werewolves. Honestly, I’m just surprised that they could come up with such a complicated plan. I guess you should never underestimate them, even if they do seem simple.