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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 My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| A home must always be and feel like a home if it’s going to give you any sense of sanity. The crazier the life, the more like home it must be. So yes, the Rodriguez compound, so to speak, was almost an operating military base in some aspects. But in many others, it was just like anywhere else. Crazy prepper version, but anywhere else. The house itself was a log cabin design with beautiful windows large enough to let in natural lighting. I would not have been surprised if they were bullet proof. The roof had solar panels, and a couple of home made wind turbine generators that towed the line between sketchy and functional. There was a generator elsewhere as well that Roam happily pointed out as I made my way in. “I get a discount from a couple of the local fast food places” he said. “I buy their oil for a dollar a gallon. We filter ourselves and wammo! Electricity. Though we don’t need the generator all that often, surprisingly.” Which was a good thing. Running diesel generator on fast food cooking oil meant that you’d have a home that smelled of constant french fries, which would drive me nuts. The inside of the home was everything ours was not: Neat, organized, clean. Part of me missed our eclectic cluttered house already. Tanika sat at a kitchen table, sipping on a cup of coffee. As we walked in she stood and approached, giving Elouise and I a good sturdy handshake. “Come,” she said, “everyone is waiting in the back. I’ll bring you some coffee.” Our shared adventure with “The Nobility” didn’t seem to have much of an effect on her. She still had the strong frame, mediterranean influence, and of course, was still a werewolf, much like Roam. Of course their two children where also werewolves. They were seated at a somber table in a room that seemed to be built into the center of the house. I recognized the reinforced walls, the multi-display computer equipment, and of course, the large sliding door that could seal and lock from the inside. It would take something strong to break into this room. Or break out of it. Cecily was sitting at far end of the table with a laptop in front of her. She was staring at something on the screen with Killian sitting next to her. All of the rest of the gang was there, Crash, Sean, Kris, Zack. I grabbed a seat next to Zack, Elouise sat across from Crash. “Everyone here,” Roam asked, and yawned. He stretched a moment, then gave a sad smile, “it’s been some time since you’ve been in here, Crash.” “I don’t miss it,” he said. “Please, just tell me where’s the grave. I’ll pay my respects, and go.” “You’re going to be stepping into a storm,” Roam said. “We thought you should know that.” Crash waved a hand at the rest of us. “Nobility tends to leave humans alone.” “Your friends,” Cecily said, “pissed the Nobility off last year. It’s not safe.” “How ‘not safe’,” Zack asked. “I wouldn’t plan any sudden air travel,” she said. “And have you thought about a life insurance policy? You could make some lucky guy or gal a lot of money soon. Just not anyone sitting here, though.” Zack folded his hands and looked down, biting his lip a bit. “Look,” Roam said, “We want to take you down there, but you must be safe first.” Crash stood, snarling. “I never asked for an escort. Tell me where the grave is.” Roam threw his hands up, while Killian began laughing. Crash glared at him for a moment, and Killian just smiled wider. “You’ll never change, will you wuffy?” I filed the “wuffy” comment away for later. That would be funny. But now wasn’t the time for it. I guessed it was some sort of pet name or something. Of course, I guessed wrong. “We’ve been tracking the team that took out Sophia,” Roam said. “Took her out where,” I asked. “Well, you know, the team that killed her,” he replied. “Oh, from the way you said it, and how emotional you are, I thought you meant for pizza.” “You know,” Cecily, snarled, “You can be a real asshole when you want to be.” “Oh wuffy,” I smiled, “I’m just getting started.” That will come to be known as mistake number one. One second, I’m sitting in a chair smiling, the next, Cecily is pinning me down, growling. I couldn’t see that Elouise was being pinned in the corner by Roam, or Tanika who was trying to hold the guys back. Crash grabbed Cecily by the shoulders and threw her backwards into the wall with a force that would have stunned or injured most people. Cecily though, stood, shaking her head for a moment, and said, “come on, wuffy, I’ve wanted this for a while.” She was snarling at Crash who stood in front of her. Roam jumped on the table, waving his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Can we please be civil for five minutes and not act like a bunch of Children! Behave!” Then he gave me a dark look for a moment and turned to Crash. “I will give you the damn address, you can GPS it yourself,” Roam snarled. “If you don’t want to take out those guys who killed Sophia, we’ll do it our selves.” “Like I said when I left,” Crash snarled, “I don’t want your stupid war. Not anymore.” He started towards the door, and we got up to follow him. Tanika stood next to it, pointing an accusatory finger. “You have any idea what you’re walking your ‘pack’ into? Do you? The nobility wants all of you dead. They want to capture you, and kill your humans one by one in front of you.” “Nice guys,” I said. “And you,” Cecily snarled, “Are taking this way too soft. I know you’re supposed to be some kind of soldier, but I wonder if you even know what it’s like to fight a war.” The guy’s faces dropped at that. I felt a rage build inside of me, and turned to Crash who just shook his head. Taking his advice, I began to walk out of the war room they had prepped, my vision growing hazy red. I apparently had began clenching my fists at one point, but I don’t remember doing it. “Look at you, you coward. Running away with your tail between your legs.” I turned. Later, I’m told I had a face that the rest of them hadn’t before. A dark snarl that was only matched by my rising voice. “War you say? Getting shipped off to the middle of a country that a week prior you gave two shits about to fight for a bunch of people who don’t care if you live or fucking die? Driving a supply convoy from one fob to the next only to have your entire vehicle flipped upside down with hell and damnation raining down upon you? Being trapped in a fire fight that ends with you collecting pieces of your friend to ship home in a body bag? No. What’s that like.” Then I turned back around and walked outside at some point, though I don’t remember it. There was a beer in my hand, an an apologetic Roam in front of me. “We crossed a line,” he said. “We had assumed you came up to help us. We are sorry.” I drank from the beer more to calm my nerves than anything. I sighed, and stared up at the sky. The deep blue shown a few stars making their way through dying day. I could tell that they would have a beautiful night out here. Get far away from civilization and out in the open enough, you never truly have a pitch black night. My blood pressure had eased down at least a few notches. “I don’t walk away from fights I choose to join,” I told him. “But I won’t be dragged in. You either come clean, or we go home.” A few more heavy paces and then I was leaning on Crash’s car. Of all the people I expected to come out and talk to me, I never expected it to be Kris. He sat against the car on my other side and said “Jesus, I never expected any of that.” I gave him a shrug. “It was the highlights. From one deployment.” “You went through how many?” I shrugged again. “Enough.” “If you ever want to talk about it, Jason. We’re hear for you.” I nodded. Crash and I had talked about it a few times. He’s heard all the stuff that I haven’t and won’t print here. But Kris? Could I really tell him anything? What would happen? I wouldn’t feel any better and he’d just feel worse, knowing what I went through. Knowing the bullshit that I had dealt with. No, that wouldn’t be right. “I appreciate it,” I said. “I really do.” Which I do. The desire is there in him to deal with it, even if the strength is not. There’s real steel in him, I know. The kind of strength that can take a hit like that and not break him But it took me a while to get the nightmares to go, the guilt, the anger, the despair. Those intense feelings that spring back up as if you’re living through the moment again when you give your mind a chance to rest. Is it any wonder why so many service members drink? How much of that is right to give to someone else? That’s the burden that most service members deal with. There’s a reason why they don’t want their loved ones to know. The burden, although shouldered by more can make it easier, it makes their lives worse to make yours better. Part of you wishes they could remain innocent. That you could bottle that innocence and preserve it on a shelf next to the canned peas and carrots. To save that part of them from pain. It was my job to take the pain before. It’s not my job to share that pain with them now. I gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder, but didn’t say anything. Crash hadn’t come back out yet, which I knew was trouble. It was that moment that I made a pact with myself. No matter what happened, Zack, Kris and Sean wouldn’t have to see action. They wouldn’t have to suffer or fight. Elouise grew up dirt poor in an area where that meant you saw as much action or more than some soldiers, so I wasn’t worried about her. But the guys? No, I couldn’t see them damaged like that. I could never live with myself if they had to. I would do everything in my power to keep them innocent. I just had no idea how hard it was going to be to keep them from the fight. |
| Death is one of those things that stops your entire world and starts it again. Everything slows down and speeds up at once. Its as if the entire world spins around you, and you’re standing in the middle like a spindle on a record player, staring at it wondering how you’re going to break back into that again. How you’re going to move on and live without that special person. It especially sucks when that person was someone who had hurt you in the past. A special person who meant so much, but has done so much damage, that years later you’re still not sure how to process it. My brain likes to assign blame. It’s one of my little secrets. I like my world controlled, and assigning blame is a way to control it. So, in the past when something similar occurred to me, I couldn’t help but wonder in the back of my mind exactly how much blame should I get because of their death. That if perhaps we’d had been able to patch things up, maybe they wouldn’t have been distracted. Maybe they would have been sharper or calmer. Perhaps everything would have worked out better? How much am I really to blame for their betrayal? How much am I to blame for their demise? When you’re going through something like this, people love to tell you ‘I know what you’re going through’, as if it’s comforting to you. Misery loves company after all, and misery shared is a burden lightened, I suppose. But the thing about grief is that you only know your grief. You don’t understand someone else’s regardless of how many times you’ve been through it. Grief and mourning are very individualistic. I cringe every time those words are spoken: “I know what you’re going through.” Seriously, if you’re going to tell me that, just tell me “thoughts and prayers” instead. Thankfully, Elouise didn’t say that when Crash told her we’re going away for a few days. “Like hell you’re leavin me here to watch the swamp,” she snarled. “I’m comin.” The way her hand was cocked on her hip, her short hair held back in that bandana. She had been cleaning her house when I knocked on the door to ask her to watch the place. I could tell from the look on her face that no human, no werewolf for that matter, was going to hold her back. Kris, Sean, and Zack were all riding together. Elouise was going to drive herself up. Three vehicles heading north, into unknown territory for must of us. But a location that Crash seemed to know like the back of his hand. He didn’t even bother to GPS it. The trip took far longer than it should have, but I think that’s mostly because Crash wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for what was coming. By the time we finally got to the outskirts of a small mountain town somewhat near Canada, Crash made a phone call. “I’m in the area,” he said after the other person picked up. “Just send me the pin where the grave is.” After that, there was some snarling. Then shouting. Then Crash began to growl, and I grabbed his arm to remind him that we’re in public. After all, some ancient gas station on the side of a forgotten highway is at eight in the evening is not the time and place to begin sprouting fur, which he was very close to doing. “Public,” is all I said. “Don’t forget, public.” He looked at me, snarled again, then kept talking. The conversation, which I didn’t hear a lot of, seemed to be going a little something like this: Crash wanted to just visit the grave, pay his respects, get a hotel room, then head back. The voice on the other end demanded to Crash that he come by, and bring everyone. Which he emphatically did not want to do, but somehow the voice on the other end was able to get him to cave eventually. Which, without saying everyone but Elouise knew what that meant: we were all going to see the Rodriguez family. Crash won’t tell us what happened. What they did to him or why he stopped talking to them. The only things I was able to pull out of it was that A) Roam was terribly sorry for how everything went down, and B) If given the chance, he would have made the exact same choices all over again, to hell with the consequences. Which seemed to be the crux of Crash’s anger. I know I don’t talk about my military experience much in this. I’m not about to start now. What I will say is this: that every time I was given a mission in the military more complicated than “go sweep the motorpool” we would be given detailed plans on how to accomplish the objective, what it was, things like that. We were never tricked into doing any sort of mission and there was no ‘because I said so’ type orders. So, if that’s what happened to Crash, it’s somewhat reasonable why he’d still be upset. But if you ever ask Roam about it, all you’ll get is “it’s not my story to tell.” The convoy of vehicles twisted around a couple more mountainous roads until we dipped down into a valley of sorts. Trees pressed all around the road ways, making every twist and turn a bit more exciting than I would have liked after hour six of a four hour drive. Taking a gravel path, we rolled down winding our way through the trees until we arrived at what can only be described as a compound. A fence cut through the trees of the dense forest in both directions. Barbed wire topped it, with cameras set up every fifteen feet in what they believed to be innocuous locations. There was a cattle gate of sorts with more barbed wire. The gate was open, and closed behind us after all the vehicles rolled through it. The land was cleared for the most part. In the back was more trees. Elouise took two big sniffs and asked Crash how many cattle they had. To which he said, “I don’t know. At least a dozen. Two bulls, and smells like at least ten heifers between them.” I looked back at Elouise and we both said at the same time “show off.” The house stood towards the back. Well, one house did. There was another house that was just as big on the other side of the property it seems. That one had crops growing beside it of some kind. Since I’m not the kind of guy who can tell a corn plant from a tomato plant, I do know they were green, short and not weed. That’s all I can tell you. A man came out from behind the house, wearing a fedora, and had a rope tied to the side of his hip like a whip. He had a goatee, a smile, and a familiar mediteranian complexion. “Roam,” I said with a smile. “Or should I say, Indy!” He laughed, and gave me a hand shake that he pulled into a hug. “Not today,” he said. “This is just a rope, not a whip.” “Close enough,” I grinned. “Where’s the rest of your pack?” “Strays went into town,” he said. “Tanika is inside working on dinner and handling security.” “Security,” I said sarcastically, “I didn’t notice a thing coming in here. Very inconspicuous operation you got. I guess guard towers would have been over the line?” Roam smiled. “Who needs guard towers when you have cameras and guns? Come, let me show you inside.” Elouise pulled me back for a moment. “Hey,” she said, “You never told me Crash was involved in all of this.” “He was at one point,” I said. “He’s done with whatever they do here.” She pulled me inside her car and shut the door. Then she started the engine, and began playing the radio. It was some pop song on station, with bright colorful choruses and catchy beats designed to be sung in stadiums. “I think we can talk,” she half whispered. “Is he involved in what I think he is?” “His ex-girlfriend, the one we’re here to pay respects to, was. He wants to go to the grave site, pay respects, and leave.” Elouise looked around for a moment, and gritted her teeth. “I’m all for leaving as soon as possible.” “What’s got you so upset? We just see a stone in the ground, he cries, we go home.” She pointed, at the house. “Cause we’re not here to see a grave. We’re being thrown into something. I can tell. Crash may have a blind spot cause they helped raise him or whatever, but something else is happening here. I don’t like it.” I gritted my teeth and looked out the window. She’d said everything out loud. Everything I’d been thinking. “Well, two things, first don’t forget they’re werewolves so we can’t like this anywhere else, and two, right now we’re two weirdos listening to your favorite song after everyone else has gone inside after a six hour trip.” “I still don’t like it,” she snarled. “Me either,” I sighed, “me either.” Then I opened the door and and followed everyone else into the house. |
| Each of us, in our own unique family serves a number of functions. I suppose in someways, I’ve become the “werewolf whisperer”. On more than one occasion, I’ve been called to talk to Crash after he’s had something hard happen. Usually, he’ll bring me a beer or a cup of coffee and pull me out to the back porch. We’d stare at the sun or moon and just talk. We’re kindred spirits, in a way. We’ve both seen our fair share of crap, but that’s not what makes me and Crash unique. To be fair, everyone of our little pack here has had their own portion of it. I just choose to not reveal all of the things that gets loaded onto everyone’s plate. We’re here for a reason, after all. We stick together, through fussing, fighting, teasing, joking, pranking. Through all the tears and all the laughter, we hold each other up with heavy hands and weary arms. In the end, isn’t that what a pack is supposed to do? This dour mood though was a bit worse than most. Crash had somehow gotten time off during his more busy season. A week. He’s got a solid week to do with as he pleases, but he just hadn’t yet chosen to do much of anything other than sit around the house and mope. Normally, Crash would run through the woods to relieve stress. He’d cruise around in his car. He’d play video games with me or the other guys. He’d work on his car in the garage and blast music into the night. He wouldn’t sit around the house, staring off into the distance, still in his human form, with his own chinstrap mustache growing out into scraggly, divorced dad length. I watched him flip that envelope over in his hands hours on end, staring down at it as if it contained the wonderful and terrible answers of life. He had yet to open it. Kris threatened to open it for him once, attempting to snatch it from his hands. That didn’t go over too well with Crash, who shouted at him. And, to Kris’ credit, he didn’t back down but shouted back. Names and insults started being thrown around of all kinds. Me and Zack pulled Crash back, while Sean grabbed Kris and had him back upstairs. Everyone had approached Crash in our own ways to talk to him about that letter. But, Crash ignored, brushed off, or insulted just about everyone. I figured it was time to try a different approach. It was his first day off. He was, of course, out on the back porch staring into the woods. Not shifting, not heading out there. Just gazing at it as if it called out to some part of him that couldn’t call back. There was a coffee cup near him sitting on one of the shelves we have stacked out there with our haphazard “not good enough to go inside” organization technique. The coffee looked barely touched. There was one way to get through to him. I hoped so, anyway. It would either work, or get very messy. I wasn’t quite sure yet which. But sometimes it takes a good swift kick in the ass to get someone moving when they get stuck in life. I set my pistol next to his coffee cup, and sat down in a rocking chair. “It’s loaded if you wanted to.” He gave me a dark look, then stared back into the forest. “You’ve been moping this entire time. Angry, snarling at all of us. I’ve seen this before. Have gone to my fair share of funerals for this. So, I figured instead of dragging it out, why not get it over with? At least I won’t have to go to another Last Roll Call. Those are painful.” “You’re not funny,” Crash growled, and continued staring. “I’m not laughing,” I countered. “See? Your jokes aren’t even funny to you.” He continued to stare out into the woods. “That’s no joke,” I said. “You’re continuing down a path of emotional and spiritual destruction. You want to die? Just get it over with and hurry up. Don’t make us sit here and watch you torture yourself.” “Jason, I know you’re trying to help. You’ve been in the middle of most of my werewolf situations. I don’t tell you to get out of it unless it’s something serious. This is serious. Stay out of it. You don’t want to be involved.” “After everything we’ve been through,” I snap, “that’s damn nice of you.” I stood and left the room, leaving the gun sitting next to his coffee. “I’m sick and tired of you humans messing around in shit that doesn’t involve you! Listen to your fucking betters and stay the fuck out of it!” I stepped towards Crash, and stuck my finger in his face. “You ever talk to me that way again, I’ll skin you for a fucking rug.” “I’m about to bite that fucking finger off.” Before I could tell him I hope he chokes on it, Kris stepped forward, and pulled me back. “You’re an asshole,” he shouted at Crash. “We’re all trying to help you. We’re here. You called us a pack remember? That’s your words, not ours! Don’t you go pulling this lone ranger shit. Tell us what the hell is wrong!” I’ve seen Crash in about a thousand different ways. He’s rescued me from more deadly situations than I can count, good deal more than half of them being my own fault, and now, here he was, looking tiny. Kris is smaller than me by a margin, and Crash shrank back and sat down in a chair. He made a double fist and began biting on the knuckle. “I…I can’t.” I knelt down in front of him. Anyone passing and saw it would have sworn I was proposing. “You’re a good person.” I said. “You’re a good werewolf. A good friend. You’ve been good to all of us. You rescued me.” “And me,” Zack said from behind Kris. “and us, dude,” Sean replied. “You know what you did,” Kris told Crash. “It’s time you let us rescue you.” I placed my hand on his knee and stared up at him. He placed his hand on top of mine, and gritted his teeth. A moment later, there was a knock, before the door just opened. “What am I interrupting,” Elouise said, “did I miss the proposal?” “Who called her,” Kris asked. “I did,” Zack responded. “I called her when those two began shouting.” “Now, what in the world is all this about? And don’t you go tellin me it’s ‘werewolf shit’ cause you know I’ll shove that fuzzy tail where the sun don’t shine if you try that.” Elouise said. Crash sighed, then looked at all of us. “You’re not leaving unless I talk, are you?” “Nope,” Elouise said. “And neither are you.” Crash nodded and silence filled the room. Just when I thought we were going to be at a standoff, he began to speak. “I did things,” Crash said. “Things I’m not proud of. People are dead because of what me.” There was silence for a bit. “One thing about Ghosts, is that they tend to ignore the why. They only care about the what. They’re assholes like that.” He smiled and shook his head. Then he slipped the envelope out of his pocket. It had been opened. Inside was only three sentences. “She finally died. Held the funeral. Thought you’d like to know.” “Who died,” Kris asked. “Sophia Rodriguez,” Crash said. “She was my first love. She came close to getting me killed so many times,” Crash replied, with a half-smile. “There was this one time that we had both shifted and ran through the woods to this farmers house. We snuck onto the property and was about to grab a couple sheep, when…” he stopped and the smile died on his face, melting back into a frown. “We had a lot of adventures together.” “So,” I asked, “what happened?” “That’s just it,” Crash said, standing. “She’s died before.” He stared out into the woods. “I don’t know if it’s real this time.” We all looked at each other for a moment, and didn’t say anything. Elouise started it. She walked over and embraced Crash, then literally picked me up and forced me to embrace them both. Zack hugged, and so did Kris. Sean came over, and joined the hug last. The moment lasted for half-a-second before Sean gave us the loudest cartoon sniff he could and wiped an invisible tear from his eye. “Moments like these are so beautiful! I love you guys.” Sean’s silliness broke the tension. Our laughter was one of relief as we stepped back out of the group hug. Kris smacked Sean in the head, and Crash laughed. It was the first laughter we heard from him in a long time. He wiped a tear from his eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you everyone. I love each and every one of you.” Before any of us could respond, looked at Elouise and said, “give me a minute to change, and I’d like to go on a run with you.” We all began to filter out away from the back porch. Crash clapped me on the shoulder, startling me. Even as a human, he’s freaking quiet! “Thank you,” he said again, looking me in the eye. “Thank you.” “I’m always here if you need me.” I told him. Crash nodded. “I will,” he said. “Over the next week I’m going to need everyone.” There was a weight to his words. A heaviness that said what was needed would be far more than usual. I understood that. If I knew what insanity and horror would have come from it, I know I still would have said the same thing. With a smile as warm and comforting as I could make it, I said, “whatever you need from us, you got.” |
| Thing about prank wars is that around here you never know how they’ll start or how they’ll end. It could be something as simple as Zack spraying “cologne” on my towel in the shower so it smells horrible. Someone putting saran wrap on the toilet bowl. This time the prank war started with a simple shopping trip. But, holy crap did I pay for it. Prank wars isn’t something that should be attempted by everyone. You have to know your friends, how far you should take it, and when you should call it quits. I’ve seen simple barracks pranks turn into fist fights because people didn’t know each other as well as they thought they did. You never know when a small prank is too far for a stranger or someone you barely know. We’ve known each other for some time now, and although you’d think I’d have brought these small pranks in with me, they were doing it far before I ever came to live here. Crash never does anything mean. He doesn’t make calls to make you think your mom is dead or anything like that. He doesn’t do anything that will damage your stuff or your equipment. He has done the whip cream in the hand while sleeping thing though. So, you spray a little whip cream in someone’s hand while they’re deep asleep, then you tickle their nose with something, like a feather. They’ll swipe at their face and smear the cream all over themselves. It’s a small prank but it’s funny, especially when that person is an old broke veteran who can only curse at you while you run away giggling. I did remember that prank, but it’d been some time ago. Maybe I was just feeling mean, but I had a bolt of inspiration in the grocery store in the shape of poppers. Those white papery little things that pop when you throw them on the ground was perfect for the mischief I had cooked up. My idea was this: you take a bunch while he’s out and line them up underneath the feet of his toilet seat. When he sits down, they’ll pop. He’ll jump, shout and I’ll laugh. Perfect innocent prank, right? That’s not exactly what happened. By the time Crash came in that morning, it was far later than his normal hour. The sun had already risen and the birds were chirping out their morning songs of territory. He looked exhausted. Was still ‘in the fur’ so to speak, his ears splayed down like a whipped dog. He growled a ‘hello’ at me as he walked right on by and headed to his bedroom, with his bathroom and toilet seat that I had just booby trapped. He closed his door. Then I knew he went to sit on the toilet. Cause I heard a muffled pop, a not-so muffled yipe, a thump, then a crash! I raced into his bedroom to see what had happened. His bathroom was a mess. I won’t say what had happened, but I will say, being a good sport I helped him clean it up later, and that I, quite literally, scared the crap out of him. A several hundred pound werewolf is covered in their own filth, has dented the roof in their bathroom and knocked several things over from your prank. Do you, A) apologize quickly B) move as fast as you can to a different zip code and change your identity or C) give them a quick witted sarcastic line, then try to run, giggling the entire way? Any guesses on which one I chose? He glared up at me from the floor, wet, smeared with some of his own filth, and covered in toilet paper, potpourri and various other chemicals and cleaning stuffs that he knocked over. I gave Crash a quick glance, gave him my best glare and said “I thought you were house broken. Bad dog!” He grabbed me, slammed me into the wall and snarled, “Very funny!” Then he stormed off to the other bathroom with the shower as I giggled the entire time. I knew retribution would be coming. But I never thought he’d get help. All of that happened the week prior. It was independence day this week. My guard was down. Besides, I never figured Elouise would be in on the gag. We had been invited over to her place for holiday festivities. Kris and Sean stopped by said hello, grabbed a plate then headed back to their place, talking the whole time. They was in the middle of a streaming thing with another friend of theirs who was playing some new game. Zack had a shift, so Crash volunteered to bring him a plate. That left me and her alone for a moment. Elouise’s house looked better than it did during the whole rougarou real estate fiasco. She had a new TV set up on a new stand. The stand was cheap, the television wasn’t. Cause, you know, priorities. There was red, white and blue ribbons lining the kitchen and living room. She was in her human form wearing a tang top that said “MILF” and beneath it “Man I Love Fireworks” with cutoff jeans. “I’d rather be barbecuin, but you know with the weather and all.” She was right about the weather that day. It had been raining off and on since the day prior. “How long do you prep for a barbecue,” I asked. This was my version of a southern test question. Which of course she aced. She arched an eyebrow and said, “honey, I start prepping the day prior. I get the coals going a good fourteen hours or so before we eat, get the meat on at least twelve hours prior and cook it low and slow.” Yup. That’s the right answer. “Now, the only thing I got that’s any fancy are these spicy corn breads.” She brought the plate over let me take one. I wasn’t paying much attention to them, being more concerned with the movie she had started. It was some Michael Bay, big explosion actiony thing, with lots of lens flares, American Flags and slow motion shots of people standing up or standing in place. “Now careful,” she warned. “They’re hot.” “Yeah, thanks,” I said, and popped it into my mouth. I’ve had spicy cornbread before. Usually it’s made with jalapenos. For real spiciness, occasionally they’ll pop a habanero in there. She went a step or two above that little pepper. There was diced jalapenos. There was habaneros. Seeded and diced, prepped properly. There was also a slightly small, pepper that was genetically modified to be a bit hotter than either of those two. The pepper she had chosen to bless her spicy cornbread with had taken a man from South Carolina about ten years to develop. It has a sickle like tail at the end of said pepper which was used to give the little bastard it’s name: the Carolina Reaper. The moment I put the cornbread in my mouth, I recognized my mistake. Someone had taken a coal from the very depths of hell and shoved it into my mouth. “Now,” Elouise said, without a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “you ain’t going to insult the cook by spitting that out, are you?” I wanted to so bad. But my pride forced me to shake my head in a no fashion, chew and swallow as quick as I could. Then, with tears streaming down my eyes, I swallowed hard, and gasped “water!” She brought me a tall glass of ice tea as I tried to ignore the burning sensation in my stomach. A sensation that I knew was going burn it’s entire way through, and perhaps was going to burn it’s very way out of my body and through my very soul. I guzzled down the tea to the sound of her giggles, and then the sound of Crash coming through the back door laughing the entire way. “Hot enough, I hope,” he laughed. I tried to yell “You sneaky bastard,” but it only came out as a gasp before I took more tea. “Sneaky werewolves got tricks,” I eventually growled to the sound of both their laughter. “Now, we’re even,” Crash said as he laughed and patted me hard on the back. “Of course we are,” I said. “But you do realize, I’m going to get you back.” And I will, too. Though, it will take me a while to come up with something to top that spicy cornbread. But as they say, revenge is a dish best served with pimento beans and onions. |
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