It was late summer in Paxville, the hum of insects and air conditioners could be heard throughout the small remote town. Standing on the front porch of a two story house was a very odd creature, something you wouldn’t normally see in small-town America; a seven foot tall female werewolf. Dahlia, a timber wolf, had cinnamon-brown fur and a cream colored underbelly, she had a stocky build (at least compared to female humans), and wore a pair of acid washed jean shorts, and a black Die Hard t-shirt with a few holes in it from wear and tear. Werewolves didn’t need shoes considering her paw pads gave her enough protection, plus her claws would ruin any running shoe. Her brunette hair blew in her face as she typed a message into her phone. Considering it was a strict rule for Paxville’s residents not to bring attention to themselves, werewolves who were on social media needed to use fake names and profile pictures, or use an ‘eggshell’ account devoid of personal info. Her profile name was TrailTracerManga, and her profile picture was of one of the girls from Ginger Snaps, a cheeky little in-joke.
“Anyone coming to the camp-out tonight,” she typed. ‘Camp-outs’ we’re code for ‘howlings’ where all of the teenage werewolves in town would hang out in the woods, howl at the moon, drink, hunt, and hook-up.
The wind blew, making some wind-chimes jingle. Dahlia smelt something odd in the air; it was a weird scent… not a bad one though, it smelt like a prey animal.
The screen door behind her creaked open as her towering father stomped out onto the porch, “Do you smell that Dahlia?”
Her father, Mr. Panchak, was a hulking timbre-wolf who looked like he could smash The Incredible Hulk. Dahlia’s ears perked as she turned to her father, “Yeah, what is that? Deer? It’s a weird smelling animal.”
Mr. Panchak shook his head, “Humans.”
Dahlia had never smelt human before, she’d only ever seen them on movies or TV, “So what do we do?”
Mr. Panchak sniffed deeply and marched off the porch into their front yard, “I doubt they’re coming here looking for a fight. Might be lost travelers? Could be those humans who are rumored to move in. Either way, we stand our ground, and we get them out as soon as we can. They’re more scared of us than we are of them, and as long as we outnumber them we should be fine.”
Dahlia grin and folded her arms, resting them on the porch deck, “You really think they’re a threat? We’re so much bigger than them. Hardly a fair fight.”
Mr. Panchak just looked at his daughter with a grave look on his face, “You’re still young, you don’t know. But yes, just because they’re generally weaker, smaller and more fleshy than us means nothing when there’s an angry mob of them with guns and hatchets. They kill what they don’t understand, and the very fact that we exist upsets their whole understanding of the natural world.”
Dahlia shrugged and sighed, “They don’t seem too bad to me.”
Mr. Panchak was about to snap at her until he noticed a blue mini-van driving towards a house near the end of the street. It had been vacant for about a year now, an elderly werewolf couple, the Bullara’s, had passed on a few months back; the husband to illness, the wife soon after to old age. No one in town knew for sure, but some assumed some greedy real estate and land developer had snatched up the property and was hoping to flip it. These rumors seemed to be confirmed when a red headed woman in a black suit brought a human couple into the house about two months ago, the very arrival of these three humans put the whole town on lockdown; everyone stayed inside that afternoon.
Mr. Panchak growled lowly as the mini-van turned into the driveway, and as soon as it parked five humans hopped out of it. Two adults, two slightly smaller humans, a boy and girl, probably teenagers and a small girl. The husband, the alpha of the human pack sniffed the air and sighed, “Well team, this is the place.”
The whole family froze, like deer when they were in the sights of a wolf, as they stared down the street towards an isolated figure looking at them. It was a wolf, but stood on its hind legs, and had a human physique… it even wore clothes. The female teenager turned to the father, “D-dad… what is that?”
The father replied, “Looks like a wolf.”
The wife yelped, “That’s not a wolf. Everyone back in the car.”
As quickly as they came, the humans piled back Into the van. If humans ever did wander into Paxville, this was the standard procedure to deal with them, scare them, but be assertive enough to make sure they don’t get any bright ideas about fighting back, and leave an open enough window for them to flee from you. Now it was time to finish the deal, Mr. Panchak started marching towards the car as it backed up off the drive way. The teen girl yelled, “Dad it’s coming this way, hit it, hit it!”
The father obliged as he put the car in Drive, storming towards the werewolf. Mr. Panchak’s yellow eyes went wide as he ducked away from the oncoming car. The werewolf easily avoided the car but laid on the ground horrified and out of breathe, his heart racing in his chest. Dahlia leapt off the front porch, running to her father, “HEY! STOP!”
The car started to speed off, but then something strange happened, the mini-van started to die. The dash lights flickered as they went, and the engine wheezed to a dying halt. The whole family looked at the black dashboard in horror, “W-what happened?”
Unbeknownst to everyone involved, the van had become a victim of Paxville’s state of the art ‘anti-hitchhiker’ technology… which is basically blades left on the road disguised as speed humps that cut through any wires or hoses held underneath a vehicle. In most cases it’s to ensure that any nosy humans get stranded and towed before they even have a chance to accidentally wander into town. But some make their way in anyways, through backroads or dirt roads. This car unfortunately lasted longer than anyone would have anticipated.
Everyone started freaking out, “Oh my god we’re gonna die.”
“Mom, I’m scared.”
“We gotta get out of here, that things’ gonna come for us.”
“Mommy! Mommy!” All five human’s shrieked when they heard tapping on the driver’s seat window. Dahlia stood in front of the van with a scowl on here muzzle, “Hey you! Yeah, you! I’m talking to you buddy. You almost ran over my dad!”
Dahlia looked back at her father, who started to stand back up, she muttered to herself, “Maybe dad was right about humans?”
Four of the humans huddled towards the opposite side of the van while the father looked up at the towering werewolf at his window. The teenage son said, “Dad it’s gonna eat us.”
Dahlia knocked on the window again, “Hello? I know you can hear me. The way you all were shrieking before I know you’re not deaf.”
The father looked at his family and then back towards the window, “You speak English?”
Dahlia shrugged, “Well, yeah. Don’t tell me you think werewolves are big dumb beasts.”
The father repeated, flabbergasted, “Werewolves?”
Dahlia nodded, “Yeah, that’s what I am.”
“What do you want,” the human asked.
Dahlia replied sternly, “For starters, for you to apologize to my father.”
Mr. Panchak banged on the hood of the car, making an indent on the roof, “God damn it, filthy humans!”
The male timbre-wolf snarled into the window of the van, fogging up the glass, “I knew their kind were no good. Let’s get the car started and send them back where they came from.”
The father checked if all the van’s doors were locked, “Send back? But this is our neighborhood. That’s our new house. We put everything into buying it. We got into debt just to purchase that house.”
Mr. Panchak raised a furry brow, “YOU’RE neighborhood? Paxville has been home to twenty-four generations of werewolf. You might own that house on paper human, but this is NOT you’re neighborhood… or your town. This place is wolf territory.”
The teenage daughter chimed in, “Dad, let’s just go somewhere else, I don’t mind finishing up high school living out of a hotel.”
Dahlia added, “Dad… you’re not gonna make them leave, are you?”
Mr. Panchak snarled, “They just tried to run me over, doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?”
Dahlia’s eyes widened and she shook her head, “Ok, but they have nowhere to go.”
The werewolf father banged his paw on the car roof again, “That’s their problem.”
-----------------------------
Should we continue following the story of the Adler family in Paxville, or follow a different family?
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