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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack First compilation book will be available soon on Amazon. My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| There are plenty of people out there who would tell me that schadenfreude is a good thing on occasion. If you're not familiar, schadenfreude is an old world European thing. I believe from Germany, but I'm a little too lazy to look it up, so don't attack me on it please. But schadenfreude is the act of taking joy and/or pleasure from the pain and suffering of your enemies or those who have wronged you. This is something everyone's done at one point in their lives. Whether it's laughing at the Karen in her White Ford Explorer who got pulled over by the cop for speeding after she chewed out the Starbucks employee for ten minutes for doing their literal job, or it's chuckling at your boss who ends up getting chewed out in the office for ignoring good advice you gave them, we've all taken a little bit of schadenfreude in our lives. Yes, Gary had all but avoided us after the whole "Meth-headed vampire takes over the town" thing, but so did several others. It wasn't because of anything that I or they did. Many of them, including Gary, felt more than a bit of embarrassment at what had happened. But beneath that embarrassment was a naked fear. A fear of the unknown - an unknown they'd at one point in time considered to be nothing more than fairy tales and nonsense. Kid stories told at bed time to frighten children or cannon fodder for Stephen King, nothing to be considered real. That fear is something I understood. The fear is what drove me to start this blog to begin with. It's why I wasn't mad when our conversations had turned to simple head nods and basic greetings on the street. I wasn't upset with Gary when our interactions discussing cars and parts, talking about how to keep simple cars like mine on the road became awkward dances around stones that cropped up between us, stone we both chose to disregard. A mind at times can only accept so many things. Crash built me into the life slowly, with things being revealed within their own time. Gary was pushed into the deep end and told to swim. When he approached me in the yard, I had thought that perhaps he'd finally got the gumption up to talk about things like we used to – that perhaps we could ignore the insanity and talk about cars again. Instead, what I got was an awkward, stilted conversation that only got more strange as it went along. He walked up, playing with his finger nails, looking every bit of a child trying to ask their parents for a new cell phone. His mouth was drawn into a nervous pucker, eyes wide as stop signs behind his glasses. "Jason, I uh....got to talk...." he said, standing by the car. I had been changing my oil at the time. It was a simple operation at that moment of pulling the drain plug off the oil pan and letting the used oil stream out. As I did so, I came up wiping my hands on an old rag. "Sure thing, dude. How can I help?" "It's well, I uh..." he began, and looked around conspiratorially. It felt like an old sitcom from the nineties. Steve Urkel trying to buy drugs as part of a sting operation. "I need...you know...." "I don't. You're going to have to be specific," I said. I wasn't unsympathetic, but I was a little confused. He gritted his teeth, and looked around one more time. Then whispered. "Werewolf." "Gary, are you sure you want to go down this road?" A gave him as sympathetic of a look as I could muster, and clapped him on the shoulder. He looked up at me, and there was a brokenness there I didn't expect. "My son is dating this new woman. She's great, very outgoing. Has a good appetite too, I've never seen a woman eat that much and keep her figure the way she does, heh. She's friendly, almost lively. Outside quite a bit, and I started to suspect that she maybe a....well...." "Werewolf," I asked, finishing the statement for him. He nodded. "Well, Darin proposed yesterday. We all gave our congratulations but..." "And let me add mine. Congratulations, Gary." He took a step back. "I'm not sure I want a...well..." "Werewolf?" "Yeah, that. It might not be...well..." "Gary. You'll be perfectly safe. She won't interfere with you. Your son will be safe." Gary's face darkened for a moment. He looked away down the road, his mind drifting into elsewhere. "It was like being locked away. Inside. I could see myself doing all of these awful things, and I didn't want to do any of it. But the images drifted by, like scenes passing on billboards on the highway. All I could do was watch. I...don't want that for Darin. For Julia, his fiance'. For anyone. Ever. If there's even the slimmest chance that could happen to him, I have to save him." Gary turned back to me, "could you ask your friend to just...well...you know..." "Crash won't scare away another werewolf, Gary." His eyes flashed with anger for a moment, and he turned back to the highway, still unable to look at me. "Just tell him to, well, talk? Maybe? Please?" There was a wild desperation in Gary's eyes. One that forced a nod from me. "I guess I can," I said. "Don't get your hopes up. Don't go expecting miracles." *** The rest of this interaction does come from Crash. When I gave him the question from Gary, he texted Gary and told him to meet him at dusk near the woods. Not the small clutch of trees near our home, but the real forest a couple miles down. Two roads cross in front of where Crash asked Gary to meet. A handful of houses press into the trees, but otherwise it's just forest. It wasn't dark for Crash. His night vision is well enough that he could identify the color of shirt Gary chose to wear. Could see the moonlight glinting off of his glasses. Could identify where his pants bent when he walked. Crash watched Gary approach then turn. Gary kept looking around at the road, at our house. At the forest itself. When Gary looked into the forest, Crash allowed him to see his eyes. The eye shine made Gary gasp, and he stepped back for a moment. Crash stood to his full height and stepped out of the trees in his wolf form. Gary fell backwards into the street, a cry caught in his throat. "P-please..." he stammered. "Crash? T-that you?" "Yes it is. Take a good long look." Gary's breath was coming in shallow gasps. He said "I need your help. P-please...I n-need...." Crash sighed, and reached down. Gary winced a moment expecting him to attack, but instead Crash picked him back up and set Gary on his two unsteady feet. "There you go." The older man winced as Crash gently brushed the dirt from his clothing, his shirt, his hair. "Gary, I perform a service to this community," Crash said. "I'm not a monster. I work with those you have chosen not to see. I work with them to support them and you. You interact with almost a dozen different creatures every day, and yet you don't know a single one of them." "But this is different. This is Darin, my boy. If you had a child....or pup...or is it wrong to say pup," Gary wondered for a moment. "Child works," Crash said. "Child, whatever," Gary replied. "What would you do? If it was yours and you were faced with something you knew very little about. But your only interaction terrified you? Wouldn't you do all you could to ensure your son's safety?" "Where is your son and his fiance'," Crash asked. "They're at home now. But they're coming over this Saturday. For a big outdoor barbecue." It was far too cold for that right now. But Crash nodded, giving Gary a slow smile. "Text me the time and I'll be there." Crash watched as Gary walked back towards his home. There was a slow sadness in Crash's heart. Gary thought he was doing the right thing. Gary thought he was saving his son. But Crash knew, if it was a werewolf, they would not tolerate interference and protect those they loved with their own lives. If it was something else, there was no telling what would happen. For Gary it would look like war on a scale he'd never seen before. He said a silent prayer as Gary walked away. "Please don't let this tear his family apart." |
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