New Neighbours

Liza bit back a retort. Twenty minutes, twenty minutes, she'd been stuck here listening to her new neighbour prattle on about everything from the neighbourhood watch scheme to Mr Von Graf's bat problem. She had met Luca Von Graf yesterday. Mrs Lopez was right when she'd described him as tall and pale, fella looked like he hadn't seen daylight in years. Of course Mrs Lopez, who had insisted Liza call Raksha, had said Mr Von Graf worked nights; but even so...
Liza couldn't quite get her head around the Lopez's; the husband, Wolf, was a massive slab of a man. Six-three, six-four? Certainly a good head and shoulders taller than his wife, who easily topped Liza by five inches. And what sort of a mish-mash of names were Wolf (German, obviously) and Raksha (Indian sub-continent somewhere, Liza guessed) and Lopez (as clearly Hispanic as Wolf was Saxon). Raksha Lopez had no sooner introduced her husband, than he lolloped off - and there really was no other way to describe his lazy yet insanely fast sort of walk.There was something distinctly off about the Lopez's, Liza decided. The whole neighbourhood gave off a bit of vibe. Of course she'd only just moved into the area, but well, between Mr Von Graf's fish-belly white skin and his wife's dead black hair (dyed, obviously. Nothing sucked light in and looked that matt without coming from a bottle). Oh, and the lipstick; Agrippina Von Graf clearly favoured the dramatic; scarlet lippie, in the 'burbs? Honestly.
And then there was that Mr Calixte, down at number 14. Nice enough chap, but Raksha Lopez had waxed lyrical for a good ten minutes on how he played the drums in the middle of the night. And when she wasn't complaining about that, she'd been slating the three girls that lived in number 7. What were their names again - Petronella, Persephone, and Pruscilla. What weird names. Sounded a bit like the sisters from Charmed; weren't they all P names too? Liza's head was starting to hurt. And for some bizarre reason Raksha Lopez had followed up every mention of The Sisters (Liza could just hear Raksha using the capital letters) by questioning if Liza had any guys living in her house. Like it was any of her business!
Frankly the entire street was starting to give her the creeps. And there was a full moon tonight. Maybe she'd see some of the Von Graf's dreaded bats.
The moon, when it finally crested over the hills beyond the town, was fat and heavy. Perhaps it was something to do with the latitude, but Liza couldn't ever remember seeing the moon look so large. Putting aside her unpacking, she decided to take a glass of wine outside and enjoy the warm night air.
She tried snapping a few pics of the moon on her phone and sent them to her sister with a generic 'wish you were here' caption. Just as she pressed send she heard a rustle in the bushes. She turned her phone towards it, in the hope of catching whatever animal (fox? badger? probably just a cat, she guessed) on video.
A long snout poked out and a pair of yellow eyes stared at her. Too big for a fox, far to big for a cat, she decided. She trained the phone on the eyes. A large dog trotted out. No, it wasn't a dog, she realised, but a wolf. She stepped back in stunned shock. Liza hadn't even been aware they had wolves in this part of the country, and certainly not ones bold enough to venture into urban areas. She swallowed, and tried to inch back towards the house.
The wolf looked at her. Actually looked at her. It cocked its head and gave a slow blink, as though considering something profound. Liza found herself backed up against the wall of the house. She shuffled awkwardly towards the door.
The wolf stretched and yawned, and then, with what could only be described as an acknowledging nod in Liza's direction, it lolloped across her lawn and leapt the fence into the Lopez's garden.
Moments later, Liza swore she turn a door open and Raksha's hall light flick on.


Word Count: 694
Prompt: Surprise
Contest: No Dialogue Contest

Written as a counter-piece to

STATIC

Meet the Neighbours  (ASR) New neighbours is bad enough, finding out their werewolves... - Dialogue 500 contest entry #2248308 by ~MM~