III: South Peak
1.
Mary Lindell stared out from behind her desk at the falling snow outside the glass double doors. She hated the cold, and the winter, and the place. South Peak, as far as she was concerned, was hell frozen over.
She had to wonder how, exactly, she had come to be here. Not even a year ago she was bussing tables to pay for college, and now her years of higher education in the field of sociology and psychology had paid off with a desk job.
The irony was, of course, that she was the front desk secretary of a mental institution.
And of course, it had only been two years. The stress, it turned out, was too much for her, not to mention the student loans, and she’d dropped out.
It was Mackey that got her here, Mackey who had called her just days after she’d put in an application. “Mary!” he had said. “Mary, we could use somebody like you, with your experience! We have an opening, and it’ll pay three times what you’re getting now! You must come work for us!”
Hadn’t that sounded nice? Three times her current paycheck, how on earth could she resist? Except her current paycheck hadn’t been much, so of course the new one didn’t need to be much more; and now she was stuck in the lobby of a mental institution, taking calls all through the night, and when she’d commented on how odd it was for a secretary to work over nights, Mackey had stated simply, “The crazy house tends to draw the crazies.”
And the truth of it was she did get more calls than she would rationally expect during the late hours of the day. Of course she never talked to anyone; she stated where they were calling to and asked how she could help, and they almost always replied that they needed to talk to someone, and then she would connect them. So it was generally a very boring job, a very brainless job, and one that could easily be done by a machine. So, insofar as that was concerned, she was at least a little bit grateful that she even had a job at all.
The clock hung just above the double doors ticked to 4 o’clock in the AM, and Mary stood up. Break time, she thought, though why she needed a break from sitting down was a question she would never be able to answer.
2.
Outside, Mary regarded the falling snow with distaste, but bore it long enough to smoke a cigarette.
She looked across the parking lot, the scattered street lights catching on the snow and causing the world to look brighter than it ought by rights should. Everywhere beyond the immediate vicinity of the South Peak Mental Institution was forest, and though this was a recently built facility (or rebuilt, she had heard some stories, though she remembered no specifics), the area around it was prosaic at best. The main road was paved, but the few others that led to God knew where else were composed only of scattered rocks and dirt. This was hick country, and boy did Mary know it.
The parking lot itself was beginning to look just as white as everywhere else, but in a couple hours it would be plowed up before it got a chance to melt and ice over. Two whole floors of the building were dedicated to sane residents, and maintenance crews were almost always on call. Resident floor cleaners, resident snow plowers, resident secretaries; the only people who didn’t live there, it seemed, were the doctors and the psychiatrists; the people who did the work that the place was known for. But, she knew little of standard procedure in regards to insane asylums, or mental facilities, or crazy houses, whatever you wanted to call them; either way, she just pegged it to being remote and left it at that. As far out as this place was (the nearest town, Alcudda, had a population of 562, and was forty miles away), the parking lot managed to fill up every day. Now, however, only a few vehicles remained in the “designated resident parking area." The rest was empty.
Except, she noticed, at the far end of the lot, close to where the main road opened up to the facility. There a dark colored jeep was idling, and though the lights were on in the cabin, Mary was too far away to tell what the person on the inside was doing.
But there was at least one person in there, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he (no woman would ever idle their car in the parking lot of a mental institution, if Mary knew anything it was that) was looking right at her. A chill ran down her spine, and she dearly wanted to go back inside, but her cigarette was only half done, and God knew when she’d get a chance to run back into town to pick up another pack.
This she told herself, not consciously aware that she was blocking out memory of the coin-op cigarette dispenser in the resident lounge, which she visited every day. So it was for many of the non-crazies who resided at South Peak; a haze had fallen over them, though they had yet to notice it.
This was, of course, to the benefit of the people who ran the place.
“The crazy house tends to draw the crazies,” Mary told herself as she dropped the butt of her cigarette on the ground, crushing it beneath her heel. How time flies, she thought. Only a moment ago it seemed she had been worried about wasting a cigarette. Only a moment ago it had been just half burned, and since then she could not have taken more than a single puff, but sure as the clothes on her back it lay on the ground but a filter, the last of its embers choking in the cold, drowning in it, and she had her hand on the door, ready to make way for the body guiding it to go back inside.
Just as Mary made to return to her desk and her boring job, her eyes glanced upward. The snow was coming down as hard as it ever could, and would surely only get worse through the night; but somehow there was a break in the clouds, and she would not have noticed it except that, showing through them was the moon, so close to being full that she almost would have said that it was. But her first response was, “Two days.”
She didn’t understand how she could know that, had never cared much to know the specifics of the lunar calendar (did not, in fact, know that there was such a thing), but by the time she was back inside the slip of the moon had left her mind entirely, and she recalled only stepping out and smoking a cig and stepping back in.
The idling jeep and the two-days-away full moon may as well have never been there at all, and this was for the best. Because this was not the first time that she had seen that idling jeep, nor would it be the last, though that time was certainly coming; in fact, it was only two days away.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The Wolf -chapter 2
Adrian Quist did not get nervous. He had seen too much in his relatively short life to be worried over little things. Easy enough to understand so long as it was noted that nervousness and fear are not the same. Fear is, in many cases, just as important as courage. It tempers your actions, reminds you of your own mortality. Adrian feared for many things, but he never got nervous.
Which is why it stumped that he should be nervous on this night in particular. It was an admittedly nervous situation, and for more than a few reasons.
A woman, Adrian thought, could be the source of a man’s every problem. She could turn an otherwise steely and war torn brute into a blubbering, weeping mess of misplaced emotion. But then it seemed reasonable to think that was the price one paid for happiness; not to mention that women put up with their fair share of shit as well.
So it was that Adrian had come close to death on numerous occasions, faced the terrors of violence and rage, of hunger and homelessness, of being hunted in the streets by men of dubious intent. He had learned to discern the cracking of a twig from the falling of a branch, had learned to do so from distances most would consider impossible. And even though he was not eager to relive the experience, Adrian had managed to kill a full grown grizzly with nothing more than his bare hands and the knife his mother had given him ten years ago. So much of his life had been spent in discipline and measure, in taking calm, collected, calculated steps toward a clear cut goal that would invariably work out in his advantage.
And yet, after years in the wilderness and years on the street, almost all of which he had been alone, now he sat on the double couch in the house that didn’t feel like home, his hands juggling between them a slim bodied house phone, his heart preparing him for invariable disappointment. He felt weak and exposed, excited and terrified, all at the prospect of a single solitary phone call.
Katy wouldn’t be the first girl to come to this house. Many had passed through the archway before her; some had even come close to the connection he now felt with her. But always when it came time for the big reveal, they copped out. After the fourth failure, Adrian had resigned himself to bitterness and cynicism; that the unfortunate destiny of those who truly understand love is to never experience it first hand; that girls were dumb and he never really wanted one anyway.
Janet had been his favorite. Looking back, she had the personality of a rattlesnake, but good sex goes a long way towards redeeming otherwise intolerable personality traits. Her hair was a dyed red, in thin curly wisps, and her face was long and rat like. She seemed the type for chain smoking, and it was likely she would end up the manager of a motel in the middle of nowhere, staring over the bridge of her nose at the people coming through like alien monsters. Adrian had gone so far as to show her the room, but she had remained unconvinced. She left the house without a word and he never heard from her again.
Adrian learned from his mistakes. The statement, “I’m a werewolf” is not enough. There needs to be proof. There needs to be evidence. But more than anything there needs to be trust, on both sides. It wasn’t enough for him to trust her with the secret. She had to trust him enough to believe it.
He often considered the possibility of keeping the secret just that. The reveal would bring on such questions, and such awkwardness. So many negative stereotypes and preconceived ideas; so many, in fact, that Adrian himself had had not known which were truth and which were fiction until he had found out first hand. Once he had made the mistake of assuming that silver was just a metal. That myth, of all the myths surrounding werewolves, had to be bullshit. Of course a punk outside a steakhouse had the good luck of nicking him with a silver knife (fucking Irishmen), and Adrian was pretty sure the burning had never stopped. Even now, years later, the wound looked fresh.
Almost any questions she would ask, he wouldn’t be able to answer.
But it was a part of him. It was him. No long term relationship could exist with a secret so huge, at least not with a girl as smart as Katy.
As he paced around the room, Adrian glanced up at the faded painting hung over the fireplace of an old man with an extravagant beard. He uttered, “This is all your fault!” in mock exasperation. “For raising me like some kind of…” he wanted to say human, but the word felt heavy and dangerous in his mind, even in the silence of the empty house. He stopped and held his head, thinking I am human. The wolf is the part that I am cursed with. I mean, come on, werewolf translates literally into man-wolf!
An uninterested voice whispered with a sigh, Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Before Adrian could pull his mind back together and push that voice away, the phone rang and did the job for him. All concerns vanished as he pressed the little green button and held the phone up to his ear.
“Hello?!” he asked a little too urgently, pursing his lips too late. He palmed his forehead.
Silence on the other end.
Adrian coughed. “Hello?”
“…Adrian?”
His heart felt wired to explode.
“Katy, hey, what a surprise. What’s up? I was expecting to hear from you- um, I mean I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, but I was hoping I would and-”
“Well I wasn’t expecting you to hear from me either,” she stated, her voice low, “except that I couldn’t stop thinking about you…” she paused, and there was an awkward silence. Adrian’s knuckles were white as he gripped the phone, staring wide eyed at the floor like it had just recited scripture.
Adrian hazarded, “I just-”
“I just-” she said at the exact same time, and they lapsed back into silence with a muffled laugh.
“We’re acting like teenagers,” Adrian said.
She laughed nervously, “Yeah. I’m sorry, I just haven’t…it’s been a while, and-”
“Why don’t you come over?” he asked. “Because that first date was- it was really, um, swell.”
SWELL?! He screamed in his mind, Who the fuck are you, little Bobby American? Golly gee gosh mister, that sure was swell!
“Yeah, it was…” Katy said, her voice embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, I don’t do well over the phone.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, so are you doing anything today? If you don’t want to that’s okay, or if you think it’s weird or I’m weird or whatever, I understand…”
“No, no, it’s not like that at all, Adrian. I don’t think you’re that weird at all. I mean, no weirder than anyone else-”
“I really want to talk to you in person, so um, do you think you could? Come over, I mean.”
She paused. “I don’t see why not.”
“You know the way here?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember the way. It’s a pretty big place, are you sure your family won’t mind if-”
“Trust me, it’s okay. I live by myself.”
Silence. “Oh. Okay then. Well…I guess I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“See you,” Adrian said, then pressed the red button.
He plopped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, then burst out laughing. He jumped up from the couch and danced around, in his excitement throwing the phone into the air. It landed with a crash, but Adrian paid it no mind. As he laughed, he looked up at the painting and yelled, “HAH! I told you, I told you I could do it! And you doubted me for even a second.”
You-
“No, I’m in too good a mood to deal with your bullshit,” Adrian said aloud, his voice irate.
There was silence again, and Adrian glanced up at the wall next to the painting, where there hung a worn and rusting dagger and a compass whose glass face was scuffed to the point of being white. He sighed and turned away.
Adrian ran around the house, picking up trash and straightening the pictures on the walls. He had never been much for cleanliness, a fact he loathed at times like these. As he worked, he argued with himself.
“ ‘I don’t want to waste money on maids,’ ” he said in a mocking tone, “Smart move, Adrian! Way to think ahead there, with the smart investments!”
As Adrian worked his way up the stairs, a knock came on the door, and he turned so violently that he lost his balance and fell backward. Before he knew it, Adrian was laying on the floor at the end of the stairs, staring at the ceiling. His heart was pounding, and he thought, Great second impression! “Hi, welcome to my house, that’s a fireplace and that’s a tile floor and this is my ruptured spine!
He laughed and stood, brushed himself off, making sure he wasn’t actually hurt and just in shock, then sighed with relief.
Then he remembered the knock at the door, and checked his hair in the mirror in the guest sitting room. As pleased as he ever would be, Adrian stood in front of the door, the silhouette of a person cast on the foggy glass, composed his posture, took a deep breath, put on a winning smile, and placed his hand on the crystal door knob and opened the door.
No one was there.
His smile faded, and Adrian leaned out of the doorway, looking to either side of the porch. No one.
The winding concrete pathway through the yard was empty, the driveway was empty, and the only sign of other life was a man several hundred feet away mowing his yard. Somewhere a sprinkler was running. The birds were singing, and the sky was almost entirely cloudless. It was a beautiful summer day, and Adrian could not hear muffled laughter or heavy footfalls coming from some kid who decided to knock and run.
But even if that had been the case, it didn’t explain the silhouette. Not even Adrian could have been fast enough to move out of sight from that short a distance.
As Adrian turned to go back in the house, he looked down and saw, on top of the welcome mat, a box wrapped in brown paper. It was tied closed with red yarn, like the ribbon on a birthday present, and scrawled in huge black letters on the top was his name.
Adrian felt a shallow pang in the pit of his stomach. He looked around once more, this time as though prey being hunted by an invisible foe. He felt the wolf raise its hackles, and did not protest. He reached down and picked up the package, as someone might pick up a lit stick of dynamite, and made to go back in the house.
And then a car pulled around into view, a white Ford sedan that looked to have been used for several years. In the driver’s seat was Katy, a broad smile on her face.
Son of a bitch.
He ran inside and closed the door, hoping to god she hadn’t seen him, taking the package into the kitchen and setting it on the counter. He paced around for a moment before deciding to put it in a cabinet where Katy was less likely to see it. A knock on the door, and Adrian was half tempted to ignore it, for fear of being mind-fucked twice in a row.
As he walked, the wolf whispered in a knowing voice, Why are you so nervous, Adrian? It’s just a package, right? Surely nothing else.
“Exactly, that’s all it is. I don’t want to think about it right now, I’ve got things to do.”
Oh, you have no idea.
Once again Adrian put on his happy face, this time less enthusiastically, and glared at the form shadowed on the glass. Shorter by at least half a foot, and definitely feminine. He took a breath and opened the door.
Standing on the front porch, looking out at the yard, was a young woman with light brown hair down to her mid back, straight but not tied. She had on a multi colored T shirt, not tie dye exactly but close, tight-ish blue jeans, and brown shoes. Over her shoulder was slung a brown purse with many beaded lines running off its top. She turned around, and looked at Adrian over the rim of a pair of octagon sunglasses. She smiled wide and said, “Hi.”
Adrian coughed, shook his head, and said, “Hello.”
They stood looking at each other for a minute, then Katy asked, “Can I come in?”
“Oh! Yes! Sorry, I just, yeah come in.”
He stood out of the way and she stepped in.
“I never pegged you as a rich boy,” she said as she was led into the living room, “I mean this place must cost a fortune.”
“It probably did, but I don’t really know.”
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
Adrian motioned to the portrait hanging over the fireplace, “He left it to me, bought and paid for. Even had funds set up to pay mortgage for something like fifty years.”
“God damn,” she said, taking off her sunglasses and dropping them into her purse. “So’s he like your dad? No, nevermind, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s okay, really. Have a seat.” Adrian motioned to the furniture circling the fireplace. “He was the closest thing to a dad I ever had, yeah. You want something to drink? I don’t have much, but I can get something ordered.”
“Ordered?”
“Yeah, got a direct line to the liquor store down the road. I mean, they can get non liquor stuff too, that wasn’t what I meant. Just, the old man up there helped the guy who owns the place go into business, so it’s like a favor thing. Doesn’t cover food though, so I have to go out and get that myself, and…am I boring you?” Adrian asked, “I just am really nervous, and I tend to talk a lot when-”
“You’re fine, Adrian,” she said.
He took a deep breath and sighed. “Thanks. Anyway…drinks?”
“Just water is okay for now, I think.”
For now, the voice cooed. Interesting choice of words.
Adrian poured two glasses of water from the tap, then walked back into the living room.
“Anyway, the old man picked me up when I was almost nineteen. I have no idea why, adopting a kid that old is…well, it’s futile, you know?” He handed her a glass, then sat down across from her. “I don’t remember how it happened exactly, just that I was out one night, fell asleep, and woke up in this house.”
Katy sipped her water. “That’s…pretty serendipitous.”
“I know. There’s a lot more to it than that, obviously, but I mean it’s just life. Shit happens, you know?”
She smiled. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want to talk about it anymore?”
“That’s my way of saying we can change the subject to something more mutual if you don’t want to hear my life’s story.”
“We have plenty of time to talk about other stuff,” she said, her face alight. “You’re a mystery to me. Twenty six years old and single, that isn’t a huge leap. I meet you and you’re definitely unusual, but not so much so that you’re repulsive. And now you live in a mansion, funded by a dead guy you’re not even related to. I want to know how it all fits together.”
Adrian laughed. “It isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Just a streak of luck, really. The guy never had a son and always wanted one. I was probably hurt when he found me, and as time went on I guess we just bonded. I left for a while, didn’t find anything worth staying gone for, came back and he was ecstatic to see me again. He never liked any of his family, didn’t have much in the way of friends, so when he passed on he left everything to me.”
“How long ago did he…” she looked at him with sympathetic eyes.
“Two years ago. Heart attack.” Adrian touched his chest. “He could be a bastard sometimes, but that’s why I stuck around. I liked being told what to do for once.”
Katy shook her head, “So, hold on, who did you live with before…what was his name?”
“Louis Genedy. That’s an even longer story, and…”
Adrian sighed.
“…and it’s kind of why I wanted you to come over.”
Katy tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.
“Have you ever had a secret so tremendous that it seems like it’s part of who you are? Like, you have friends and you have family, and you’ve known them all for years, but for all the time you spend with them you can’t get past the sensation that they don’t understand who you are at the very core?”
He looked at her with pleading eyes, his heart racing. It was coming to it already, much faster than he ever would have liked. He cursed himself for ever thinking this was a good idea.
“Yeah, of course,” she said.
“That’s the way it is with me with everyone.” Adrian’s hands were shaking, and he set down his glass to make it less obvious. Somewhere in the back of his head, someone was laughing. “Every day. I wake up, and I’m living in a world where I shouldn’t exist. I go through the motions because that’s just how one does it, but it feels hollow and it feels wrong. Who I am on the inside, the deepest part of me… no one could ever understand.”
She spoke in a sympathetic voice, “You shouldn’t think like that, Adrian. People are more forgiving than you think. Secrets like that, you just build up tension and wind yourself up to think that no one could understand. But then you tell some people and you realize that a lot of us are the same way.”
Adrian felt a sickening fall in his stomach, and the voice let out a boisterous laugh that made him want to scream.
She leaned over and touched his hand, “Whatever it is you want to tell me, I’ll listen. I promise you, I won’t laugh, and I won’t leave. I’m here for you.”
Adrian felt as a man standing on the gallows, the noose around his neck. Time to take the plunge, he thought.
“When I was a kid, I lived with my mom in a cabin way out in the woods. If you asked where, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I was extremely sheltered, I mean I don’t remember ever leaving the place for very long except to get wood or go hunting or…what have you. Mom left sometimes and came back with boxes of stuff. When I asked her where she went, she just said, ‘The city.’
“When I turned sixteen, something happened. I woke up in the snow, my body was in horrible pain, and I found our house engulfed in flames.”
Katy put a hand over her mouth, “Oh my god…was your mom…?
“I don’t know. I never checked. Something told me to leave and move towards the city, so…I did. And I lived on my own in the wild for about three years. Of course I only figured this out in retrospect, out there you don’t have any real concept of time in large passes, or at least I never did. And that was my life… I wrestled with myself constantly, not sure if I should go into the city or not. And I guess, one night, one side finally prevailed over the other, because I woke up in the house of Mr. Genedy there.” He motioned towards the painting behind him. “And I’ve lived here ever since.”
Silence.
Katy spoke, “There’s more to it than that though, isn’t there.” This wasn’t a question. “That’s where the secret comes in.”
“…yeah,” Adrian admitted. He could dance around the subject no longer. “I want to show you something.”
Adrian stood up, and led Katy down a hallway with several doors. One of them stood out amongst the rest as being a very solid and very old oak, its brass handle worn and dented. Adrian wanted to throw up.
Next to the door was grey panel with a button, an opening, and a bar that was half lit in red. He pressed the button and spoke into the opening, “Open.”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the light turned green. A series of noises from behind the door, and Adrian turned the handle.
Katy gasped and stepped back, bumping into Adrian, who had his hands on her back but did not hold her for fear of her thinking he was trying to keep her there against her will.
The inside of the door was plated in half a foot of steel, metal bars retracted inside its lining, with holes in the door frame to match. Fluorescent lights flickered on inside the room, revealing it to be similarly coated in steel. But it was not this that had surprised Katy.
In places the walls were dented, but all over there were inch thick scratches. Long streaks where the metal had been tore through. Blood stained the walls where they were dented in, as if something had tried so desperately to escape that it had nearly tore itself apart trying to do so. On the inside of the room, next to the door, a panel of steel slid up to reveal a similar voice activated locking system.
Katy turned to Adrian, her eyes an ocean of fear. “What is this?”
Adrian was looking away. He did not register the fact that he had already given up. He was waiting for it to play out as it always did, for her to scream or to accuse, to slap him and stomp away and never be heard from again.
“Adrian?” she asked, and touched his arm. He flinched, surprised by the softness of her touch. He looked at her, and she had tears in her eyes.
“It’s where I go when the moon is full,” he said, hating every word, not wanting to spell it out, not wanting to admit the truth. “So I don’t hurt anyone.”
“Could…” she began. “Could you close the door?”
He nodded and grabbed the handle. Despite the fact that it must have weight at least a ton, it swung closed with ease. The bolts clicked into place, and the light on the panel turned red.
She walked away from him, and turned the corner, and Adrian put his hands over his face. He wanted to scream.
He heard the front door open, and crumbled to the floor. Tears were rolling down his cheeks despite himself.
The door closed after a few moments, but it was not the slam he had been expecting. Then footsteps coming around the corner.
Katy stood in front of the hall and spoke with apprehension. “Why did you tell me this?”
Adrian said in a defeated voice, “Because it’s what I am.”
Katy put a hand to her face and turned away, shaking her head.
“So you’re saying you’re a werewolf?” she said, her voice quivering.
He didn’t want to say it, but he had to. “…yes.”
“No,” she said simply. “This is bullshit.” She turned around, “If that were true then you wouldn’t need that room! You’d just blind the windows and not look at the moon!”
“That’s not how it works,” Adrian said.
“So you want me to believe…what, that you were some kind of Tarzan werewolf in the forest, hunting and surviving on your own for three years? And you just happened to end up in the city, taken in by the one nice rich guy in the world, who just so happened to have no heir and no friends, and just gave you everything? And you’ve been living here for two years by yourself, just going into that fucking room every month? I mean, god damn it Adrian, how stupid do you think I am?”
The laughing continued, louder and louder in his mind, and Adrian did not have the strength to fight it away.
He couldn’t bear to look at her.
In a defeated voice, “You said you would listen. I knew you wouldn’t.” And then, barely fighting back a sob, “No one ever does.”
Katy looked at him then, lowering her hand from her face. She looked around at the house, took a breath and walked over to him, sitting down on the floor, leaning back against the door to the steel room.
“Adrian…”
“There’s nothing keeping you here, if you want to leave.”
“I don’t know if you’re telling the truth,” she began, “but I made a promise. So…keep going.”
He looked up at her, confused.
“Convince me,” she said.
The laughing fell silent.
Which is why it stumped that he should be nervous on this night in particular. It was an admittedly nervous situation, and for more than a few reasons.
A woman, Adrian thought, could be the source of a man’s every problem. She could turn an otherwise steely and war torn brute into a blubbering, weeping mess of misplaced emotion. But then it seemed reasonable to think that was the price one paid for happiness; not to mention that women put up with their fair share of shit as well.
So it was that Adrian had come close to death on numerous occasions, faced the terrors of violence and rage, of hunger and homelessness, of being hunted in the streets by men of dubious intent. He had learned to discern the cracking of a twig from the falling of a branch, had learned to do so from distances most would consider impossible. And even though he was not eager to relive the experience, Adrian had managed to kill a full grown grizzly with nothing more than his bare hands and the knife his mother had given him ten years ago. So much of his life had been spent in discipline and measure, in taking calm, collected, calculated steps toward a clear cut goal that would invariably work out in his advantage.
And yet, after years in the wilderness and years on the street, almost all of which he had been alone, now he sat on the double couch in the house that didn’t feel like home, his hands juggling between them a slim bodied house phone, his heart preparing him for invariable disappointment. He felt weak and exposed, excited and terrified, all at the prospect of a single solitary phone call.
Katy wouldn’t be the first girl to come to this house. Many had passed through the archway before her; some had even come close to the connection he now felt with her. But always when it came time for the big reveal, they copped out. After the fourth failure, Adrian had resigned himself to bitterness and cynicism; that the unfortunate destiny of those who truly understand love is to never experience it first hand; that girls were dumb and he never really wanted one anyway.
Janet had been his favorite. Looking back, she had the personality of a rattlesnake, but good sex goes a long way towards redeeming otherwise intolerable personality traits. Her hair was a dyed red, in thin curly wisps, and her face was long and rat like. She seemed the type for chain smoking, and it was likely she would end up the manager of a motel in the middle of nowhere, staring over the bridge of her nose at the people coming through like alien monsters. Adrian had gone so far as to show her the room, but she had remained unconvinced. She left the house without a word and he never heard from her again.
Adrian learned from his mistakes. The statement, “I’m a werewolf” is not enough. There needs to be proof. There needs to be evidence. But more than anything there needs to be trust, on both sides. It wasn’t enough for him to trust her with the secret. She had to trust him enough to believe it.
He often considered the possibility of keeping the secret just that. The reveal would bring on such questions, and such awkwardness. So many negative stereotypes and preconceived ideas; so many, in fact, that Adrian himself had had not known which were truth and which were fiction until he had found out first hand. Once he had made the mistake of assuming that silver was just a metal. That myth, of all the myths surrounding werewolves, had to be bullshit. Of course a punk outside a steakhouse had the good luck of nicking him with a silver knife (fucking Irishmen), and Adrian was pretty sure the burning had never stopped. Even now, years later, the wound looked fresh.
Almost any questions she would ask, he wouldn’t be able to answer.
But it was a part of him. It was him. No long term relationship could exist with a secret so huge, at least not with a girl as smart as Katy.
As he paced around the room, Adrian glanced up at the faded painting hung over the fireplace of an old man with an extravagant beard. He uttered, “This is all your fault!” in mock exasperation. “For raising me like some kind of…” he wanted to say human, but the word felt heavy and dangerous in his mind, even in the silence of the empty house. He stopped and held his head, thinking I am human. The wolf is the part that I am cursed with. I mean, come on, werewolf translates literally into man-wolf!
An uninterested voice whispered with a sigh, Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Before Adrian could pull his mind back together and push that voice away, the phone rang and did the job for him. All concerns vanished as he pressed the little green button and held the phone up to his ear.
“Hello?!” he asked a little too urgently, pursing his lips too late. He palmed his forehead.
Silence on the other end.
Adrian coughed. “Hello?”
“…Adrian?”
His heart felt wired to explode.
“Katy, hey, what a surprise. What’s up? I was expecting to hear from you- um, I mean I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, but I was hoping I would and-”
“Well I wasn’t expecting you to hear from me either,” she stated, her voice low, “except that I couldn’t stop thinking about you…” she paused, and there was an awkward silence. Adrian’s knuckles were white as he gripped the phone, staring wide eyed at the floor like it had just recited scripture.
Adrian hazarded, “I just-”
“I just-” she said at the exact same time, and they lapsed back into silence with a muffled laugh.
“We’re acting like teenagers,” Adrian said.
She laughed nervously, “Yeah. I’m sorry, I just haven’t…it’s been a while, and-”
“Why don’t you come over?” he asked. “Because that first date was- it was really, um, swell.”
SWELL?! He screamed in his mind, Who the fuck are you, little Bobby American? Golly gee gosh mister, that sure was swell!
“Yeah, it was…” Katy said, her voice embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, I don’t do well over the phone.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, so are you doing anything today? If you don’t want to that’s okay, or if you think it’s weird or I’m weird or whatever, I understand…”
“No, no, it’s not like that at all, Adrian. I don’t think you’re that weird at all. I mean, no weirder than anyone else-”
“I really want to talk to you in person, so um, do you think you could? Come over, I mean.”
She paused. “I don’t see why not.”
“You know the way here?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember the way. It’s a pretty big place, are you sure your family won’t mind if-”
“Trust me, it’s okay. I live by myself.”
Silence. “Oh. Okay then. Well…I guess I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
“See you,” Adrian said, then pressed the red button.
He plopped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, then burst out laughing. He jumped up from the couch and danced around, in his excitement throwing the phone into the air. It landed with a crash, but Adrian paid it no mind. As he laughed, he looked up at the painting and yelled, “HAH! I told you, I told you I could do it! And you doubted me for even a second.”
You-
“No, I’m in too good a mood to deal with your bullshit,” Adrian said aloud, his voice irate.
There was silence again, and Adrian glanced up at the wall next to the painting, where there hung a worn and rusting dagger and a compass whose glass face was scuffed to the point of being white. He sighed and turned away.
Adrian ran around the house, picking up trash and straightening the pictures on the walls. He had never been much for cleanliness, a fact he loathed at times like these. As he worked, he argued with himself.
“ ‘I don’t want to waste money on maids,’ ” he said in a mocking tone, “Smart move, Adrian! Way to think ahead there, with the smart investments!”
As Adrian worked his way up the stairs, a knock came on the door, and he turned so violently that he lost his balance and fell backward. Before he knew it, Adrian was laying on the floor at the end of the stairs, staring at the ceiling. His heart was pounding, and he thought, Great second impression! “Hi, welcome to my house, that’s a fireplace and that’s a tile floor and this is my ruptured spine!
He laughed and stood, brushed himself off, making sure he wasn’t actually hurt and just in shock, then sighed with relief.
Then he remembered the knock at the door, and checked his hair in the mirror in the guest sitting room. As pleased as he ever would be, Adrian stood in front of the door, the silhouette of a person cast on the foggy glass, composed his posture, took a deep breath, put on a winning smile, and placed his hand on the crystal door knob and opened the door.
No one was there.
His smile faded, and Adrian leaned out of the doorway, looking to either side of the porch. No one.
The winding concrete pathway through the yard was empty, the driveway was empty, and the only sign of other life was a man several hundred feet away mowing his yard. Somewhere a sprinkler was running. The birds were singing, and the sky was almost entirely cloudless. It was a beautiful summer day, and Adrian could not hear muffled laughter or heavy footfalls coming from some kid who decided to knock and run.
But even if that had been the case, it didn’t explain the silhouette. Not even Adrian could have been fast enough to move out of sight from that short a distance.
As Adrian turned to go back in the house, he looked down and saw, on top of the welcome mat, a box wrapped in brown paper. It was tied closed with red yarn, like the ribbon on a birthday present, and scrawled in huge black letters on the top was his name.
Adrian felt a shallow pang in the pit of his stomach. He looked around once more, this time as though prey being hunted by an invisible foe. He felt the wolf raise its hackles, and did not protest. He reached down and picked up the package, as someone might pick up a lit stick of dynamite, and made to go back in the house.
And then a car pulled around into view, a white Ford sedan that looked to have been used for several years. In the driver’s seat was Katy, a broad smile on her face.
Son of a bitch.
He ran inside and closed the door, hoping to god she hadn’t seen him, taking the package into the kitchen and setting it on the counter. He paced around for a moment before deciding to put it in a cabinet where Katy was less likely to see it. A knock on the door, and Adrian was half tempted to ignore it, for fear of being mind-fucked twice in a row.
As he walked, the wolf whispered in a knowing voice, Why are you so nervous, Adrian? It’s just a package, right? Surely nothing else.
“Exactly, that’s all it is. I don’t want to think about it right now, I’ve got things to do.”
Oh, you have no idea.
Once again Adrian put on his happy face, this time less enthusiastically, and glared at the form shadowed on the glass. Shorter by at least half a foot, and definitely feminine. He took a breath and opened the door.
Standing on the front porch, looking out at the yard, was a young woman with light brown hair down to her mid back, straight but not tied. She had on a multi colored T shirt, not tie dye exactly but close, tight-ish blue jeans, and brown shoes. Over her shoulder was slung a brown purse with many beaded lines running off its top. She turned around, and looked at Adrian over the rim of a pair of octagon sunglasses. She smiled wide and said, “Hi.”
Adrian coughed, shook his head, and said, “Hello.”
They stood looking at each other for a minute, then Katy asked, “Can I come in?”
“Oh! Yes! Sorry, I just, yeah come in.”
He stood out of the way and she stepped in.
“I never pegged you as a rich boy,” she said as she was led into the living room, “I mean this place must cost a fortune.”
“It probably did, but I don’t really know.”
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
Adrian motioned to the portrait hanging over the fireplace, “He left it to me, bought and paid for. Even had funds set up to pay mortgage for something like fifty years.”
“God damn,” she said, taking off her sunglasses and dropping them into her purse. “So’s he like your dad? No, nevermind, it’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s okay, really. Have a seat.” Adrian motioned to the furniture circling the fireplace. “He was the closest thing to a dad I ever had, yeah. You want something to drink? I don’t have much, but I can get something ordered.”
“Ordered?”
“Yeah, got a direct line to the liquor store down the road. I mean, they can get non liquor stuff too, that wasn’t what I meant. Just, the old man up there helped the guy who owns the place go into business, so it’s like a favor thing. Doesn’t cover food though, so I have to go out and get that myself, and…am I boring you?” Adrian asked, “I just am really nervous, and I tend to talk a lot when-”
“You’re fine, Adrian,” she said.
He took a deep breath and sighed. “Thanks. Anyway…drinks?”
“Just water is okay for now, I think.”
For now, the voice cooed. Interesting choice of words.
Adrian poured two glasses of water from the tap, then walked back into the living room.
“Anyway, the old man picked me up when I was almost nineteen. I have no idea why, adopting a kid that old is…well, it’s futile, you know?” He handed her a glass, then sat down across from her. “I don’t remember how it happened exactly, just that I was out one night, fell asleep, and woke up in this house.”
Katy sipped her water. “That’s…pretty serendipitous.”
“I know. There’s a lot more to it than that, obviously, but I mean it’s just life. Shit happens, you know?”
She smiled. “Is that your way of saying you don’t want to talk about it anymore?”
“That’s my way of saying we can change the subject to something more mutual if you don’t want to hear my life’s story.”
“We have plenty of time to talk about other stuff,” she said, her face alight. “You’re a mystery to me. Twenty six years old and single, that isn’t a huge leap. I meet you and you’re definitely unusual, but not so much so that you’re repulsive. And now you live in a mansion, funded by a dead guy you’re not even related to. I want to know how it all fits together.”
Adrian laughed. “It isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Just a streak of luck, really. The guy never had a son and always wanted one. I was probably hurt when he found me, and as time went on I guess we just bonded. I left for a while, didn’t find anything worth staying gone for, came back and he was ecstatic to see me again. He never liked any of his family, didn’t have much in the way of friends, so when he passed on he left everything to me.”
“How long ago did he…” she looked at him with sympathetic eyes.
“Two years ago. Heart attack.” Adrian touched his chest. “He could be a bastard sometimes, but that’s why I stuck around. I liked being told what to do for once.”
Katy shook her head, “So, hold on, who did you live with before…what was his name?”
“Louis Genedy. That’s an even longer story, and…”
Adrian sighed.
“…and it’s kind of why I wanted you to come over.”
Katy tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.
“Have you ever had a secret so tremendous that it seems like it’s part of who you are? Like, you have friends and you have family, and you’ve known them all for years, but for all the time you spend with them you can’t get past the sensation that they don’t understand who you are at the very core?”
He looked at her with pleading eyes, his heart racing. It was coming to it already, much faster than he ever would have liked. He cursed himself for ever thinking this was a good idea.
“Yeah, of course,” she said.
“That’s the way it is with me with everyone.” Adrian’s hands were shaking, and he set down his glass to make it less obvious. Somewhere in the back of his head, someone was laughing. “Every day. I wake up, and I’m living in a world where I shouldn’t exist. I go through the motions because that’s just how one does it, but it feels hollow and it feels wrong. Who I am on the inside, the deepest part of me… no one could ever understand.”
She spoke in a sympathetic voice, “You shouldn’t think like that, Adrian. People are more forgiving than you think. Secrets like that, you just build up tension and wind yourself up to think that no one could understand. But then you tell some people and you realize that a lot of us are the same way.”
Adrian felt a sickening fall in his stomach, and the voice let out a boisterous laugh that made him want to scream.
She leaned over and touched his hand, “Whatever it is you want to tell me, I’ll listen. I promise you, I won’t laugh, and I won’t leave. I’m here for you.”
Adrian felt as a man standing on the gallows, the noose around his neck. Time to take the plunge, he thought.
“When I was a kid, I lived with my mom in a cabin way out in the woods. If you asked where, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I was extremely sheltered, I mean I don’t remember ever leaving the place for very long except to get wood or go hunting or…what have you. Mom left sometimes and came back with boxes of stuff. When I asked her where she went, she just said, ‘The city.’
“When I turned sixteen, something happened. I woke up in the snow, my body was in horrible pain, and I found our house engulfed in flames.”
Katy put a hand over her mouth, “Oh my god…was your mom…?
“I don’t know. I never checked. Something told me to leave and move towards the city, so…I did. And I lived on my own in the wild for about three years. Of course I only figured this out in retrospect, out there you don’t have any real concept of time in large passes, or at least I never did. And that was my life… I wrestled with myself constantly, not sure if I should go into the city or not. And I guess, one night, one side finally prevailed over the other, because I woke up in the house of Mr. Genedy there.” He motioned towards the painting behind him. “And I’ve lived here ever since.”
Silence.
Katy spoke, “There’s more to it than that though, isn’t there.” This wasn’t a question. “That’s where the secret comes in.”
“…yeah,” Adrian admitted. He could dance around the subject no longer. “I want to show you something.”
Adrian stood up, and led Katy down a hallway with several doors. One of them stood out amongst the rest as being a very solid and very old oak, its brass handle worn and dented. Adrian wanted to throw up.
Next to the door was grey panel with a button, an opening, and a bar that was half lit in red. He pressed the button and spoke into the opening, “Open.”
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the light turned green. A series of noises from behind the door, and Adrian turned the handle.
Katy gasped and stepped back, bumping into Adrian, who had his hands on her back but did not hold her for fear of her thinking he was trying to keep her there against her will.
The inside of the door was plated in half a foot of steel, metal bars retracted inside its lining, with holes in the door frame to match. Fluorescent lights flickered on inside the room, revealing it to be similarly coated in steel. But it was not this that had surprised Katy.
In places the walls were dented, but all over there were inch thick scratches. Long streaks where the metal had been tore through. Blood stained the walls where they were dented in, as if something had tried so desperately to escape that it had nearly tore itself apart trying to do so. On the inside of the room, next to the door, a panel of steel slid up to reveal a similar voice activated locking system.
Katy turned to Adrian, her eyes an ocean of fear. “What is this?”
Adrian was looking away. He did not register the fact that he had already given up. He was waiting for it to play out as it always did, for her to scream or to accuse, to slap him and stomp away and never be heard from again.
“Adrian?” she asked, and touched his arm. He flinched, surprised by the softness of her touch. He looked at her, and she had tears in her eyes.
“It’s where I go when the moon is full,” he said, hating every word, not wanting to spell it out, not wanting to admit the truth. “So I don’t hurt anyone.”
“Could…” she began. “Could you close the door?”
He nodded and grabbed the handle. Despite the fact that it must have weight at least a ton, it swung closed with ease. The bolts clicked into place, and the light on the panel turned red.
She walked away from him, and turned the corner, and Adrian put his hands over his face. He wanted to scream.
He heard the front door open, and crumbled to the floor. Tears were rolling down his cheeks despite himself.
The door closed after a few moments, but it was not the slam he had been expecting. Then footsteps coming around the corner.
Katy stood in front of the hall and spoke with apprehension. “Why did you tell me this?”
Adrian said in a defeated voice, “Because it’s what I am.”
Katy put a hand to her face and turned away, shaking her head.
“So you’re saying you’re a werewolf?” she said, her voice quivering.
He didn’t want to say it, but he had to. “…yes.”
“No,” she said simply. “This is bullshit.” She turned around, “If that were true then you wouldn’t need that room! You’d just blind the windows and not look at the moon!”
“That’s not how it works,” Adrian said.
“So you want me to believe…what, that you were some kind of Tarzan werewolf in the forest, hunting and surviving on your own for three years? And you just happened to end up in the city, taken in by the one nice rich guy in the world, who just so happened to have no heir and no friends, and just gave you everything? And you’ve been living here for two years by yourself, just going into that fucking room every month? I mean, god damn it Adrian, how stupid do you think I am?”
The laughing continued, louder and louder in his mind, and Adrian did not have the strength to fight it away.
He couldn’t bear to look at her.
In a defeated voice, “You said you would listen. I knew you wouldn’t.” And then, barely fighting back a sob, “No one ever does.”
Katy looked at him then, lowering her hand from her face. She looked around at the house, took a breath and walked over to him, sitting down on the floor, leaning back against the door to the steel room.
“Adrian…”
“There’s nothing keeping you here, if you want to leave.”
“I don’t know if you’re telling the truth,” she began, “but I made a promise. So…keep going.”
He looked up at her, confused.
“Convince me,” she said.
The laughing fell silent.
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