Chapter 5
The man doesn’t move. I don’t move.
I remember his name. Randall Lowell. The werewolf, fresh out of jail. They arrested him thinking maybe he was the serial killer but let him go when they caught Benjamin Arrington. Of course, me and Chris never told the police what really happened when we got bitten—we made up some bullshit about walking Blackjack in the forest and getting ambushed. Only Dad knows the absolute truth, and he sure as hell didn’t tell anybody.
Randall stares at me, silently. A snake coils in my gut, some poisonous feeling I can’t name yet, and I’m not sure why I’m not screaming and charging the bastard who bit me and my brother. I’m not sure, either, why the gick, the cur, isn’t attacking me.
You fucking gick. Stop staring at me. Stop standing there and finish the job.
Randall’s raincoat rustles slightly as he crosses his arms. I flinch a little, as if expecting him to pull out a gun. He doesn’t even need a gun. He could just lunge into the body of a silver wolf and take me down any second, tear out my throat and let me bleed. It’s hard to glare at him—his eyes are so dark and empty of emotion.
Why aren’t you angry? Why aren’t you trying to kill me?
I don’t want to deal with this now. I don’t want to have anything to do with werewolves or the wolf inside me. What’s the matter? whispers a little voice, my twisted conscience. Are you afraid? Part of me is superstitious, as if Randall holds the key to open the last lock between Brock the Human and Brock the Beast.
I step away slowly, not dumb enough to turn my back on a predator. My heartbeat thuds in my ears. My blood burns through my veins. The scar on my left biceps throbs with freshly dug-up pain, remembering teeth biting to bone.
Randall watches me. He blows out his breath in a stream of white. Then he speaks.
“Bloodborn.”
What? What does that mean? I clench my jaw so I won’t ask, won’t do anything but walk away. I keep my legs tensed and my fists clenched, ready to either run or fight, but the gick lets me go. As soon as I’m out of his sight, I run.
It’s the only smart thing to do. Right? Get the hell out of here before things get even more fucked up. After all, the worst that could happen ranges from maiming to death. I’m not stupid. I know I got lucky last time, and Chris didn’t.
When I get home, I slam and lock the door to my bedroom, then hoist up my mattress. Hidden underneath, a battered old book. The silver letters on the cover are almost rubbed off: A History of Lycanthropy by Edwin Brood. I checked it out from the library—not the one in Klikamuks, because they banned that sort of book there. I had to go all the way to the Seattle library to find it. I bet it’s almost overdue now, but I’m such a slow reader that I’m not done with it, and I need to read the rest.
I flip it open to the index. “Bloodborn,” I mutter. “Bloodborn…”
Page 281. With a musty smell in my nose, I start to read, mouthing the words.
Werewolves who inherited the disease from one or both of their parents are known as natural born. Typically, they do not suffer from the violent initial stages of transformation common to werewolves who acquired the disease later in life via infection. These werewolves, bitten rather than born, are known as bloodborn. Most of the bloodborn do not survive their first few months, and hence their numbers in the wild should seem to be lower than those of the natural born. However, the disease has a propensity to spread through violent attacks by werewolves, particularly in more crime-ridden areas. On the outskirts of certain cities, packs of bloodborn roam and terrorize humans. As of this writing, efforts have been successful in reducing their numbers.
I don’t understand all the words, like propensity or acquired, but I get the gist of it. So I’m a bloodborn. What did Randall mean by calling me that? Was he amazed that I survived being bitten? Did he want to taunt me?
I growl and slam the book shut. Enough. I don’t want to know all the details about being bloodborn. I just want to smash something and be done with it. I mean, who cares? I’m a gick. End of story. End of my life.
~
I’m sitting on my ass flipping through TV channels because I’m bored out of my mind and Dad’s out working. There’s nothing but shit to watch on a Friday afternoon. I glance at the clock; my ex-classmates are getting out soon. Maybe I should go back to high school. Even its hellish halls have to be better than this.
On every channel, I see Others. A commercial shows mermaids swimming in the bow wave of a cruise ship, laughing, their boobs carefully covered by blond hair. Yeah, right. In real life, half-fish skanks aren’t going to be family friendly. Another commercial stars nearly naked frost spirits modeling diamond jewelry on their sparkling skin. Sex sells, I guess, especially with supernaturally sexy gick-ladies.
On PBS, there’s Little Red, a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” only the werewolf isn’t the bad guy. In this pastel cartoon forest, Mr. Werewolf helps the little pigtailed human girl solve her problems with peace and love. All the gicks in this one are totally politically correct. Never mind that the original fairy tale was meant to scare kids away from the packs of outlaw werewolves that used to roam around Europe.
I flip off the TV in disgust, then lumber to the kitchen. Fridge’s empty. Great. My stomach rumbles in complaint. There’s an ancient bag of hash browns in the back of the freezer. I pop it into the microwave and eat it despite the sour, old-food taste, but my stomach still feels hollow inside.
I sigh. Time to make a trip to Klikamuks.
I bike my way downtown under the patchy cloud-and-blue sky and stop outside the Safeway. The automatic doors slide open and I’m overwhelmed by the aroma of chickens roasting on rotisseries. Mouth watering, I make a beeline for the chicken, eyes half-closed at the thought of sinking my teeth into juicy, tender meat—
“Whoa!”
I plow into some guy. I don’t like the looks of him, all squirrely and skinny, with a too-quick nod and laugh.
“Brock! Hey, man! I haven’t seen you in ages.”
The skinny guy… I know him. Josh Gunter, one of the people I used to hang out with. He’s taller now, an inch more than me, but only half as big, with zero muscles. I realize I’m glaring at his pimply face and force myself to relax.
“Hey,” I say, and it comes out rough, growling. I clear my throat. “Long time.”
“Yeah! I mean, I haven’t seen you since…” Josh laughs nervously. “Like, how are you anyway, man? How you doing these days?”
I shrug. “You know.”
He hesitates, scratching the back of his neck. “And Chris?”
“Still in the hospital.”
“That’s rough.” Josh’s gaze slides away. “My sympathies.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I pause. “You heard anything about Cyn?”
“What?”
“Cynthia Lopez.”
Josh still won’t meet my eyes. “Oh, your ex? Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Man, you haven’t been in school in ages.”
My stomach sinks. “Is she, like… dating anybody?”
Josh just shrugs and gives me this look of pity. He must think I’m pathetic, a high school dropout still trailing after the girl who dumped him while the werewolf virus multiplies within his blood, over and over and over.
“But hey!” Josh perks up. “There’s this sexy new girl from Hawaii.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Rumor is she’s not human at all, if you know what I mean. I’ll bet she’s a succubus. Seriously, though, she’s like porn-star hot.”
Never mind that I’ve always thought porn stars were too skanky for my tastes.
Or maybe he thinks I’m only good enough to date gicks, now that I am one.
I grimace. “I’ve got to go.”
“See you around,” Josh lies, eager to get away.
I watch him go, then glance back at the chicken. I’m not hungry anymore.
Cyn must have found herself a new boyfriend by now. A girl that smart and sexy wouldn’t stay on the sidelines for long. I was a moron for trying to talk to her again. I’m a moron for even thinking about her, but she’s like a song that won’t stop echoing in my head, or a perfume that won’t wash off my skin.
~
Saturday. It didn’t used to be so important, but now it ties my guts into knots. Usually both Dad and I head out, but lately he’s been “too busy” to go, so I have to drive myself to the hospital and explain this to Chris.
I take the pickup down the back roads, windshield wipers swishing away the rain. The forest is so green and wet it looks aquatic. I roll down the window a crack so I can breathe the sweet smell of dampening earth. I wish I were driving east, not west, away from the hospital and into the wilderness for a nice hike. But no, I’m taking the highway on-ramp, driving far beyond Klikamuks, all the way into the shining glass skyscrapers and grassless sweeps of pavement that are Seattle. God, I hate cities.
As I pull into the parking garage, the ceiling of the truck scrapes the low concrete. I grit my teeth. I should be driving one of those perky little sedans made for compact parking spaces. I should be one of those street-smart guys who knows the city and knows how to handle visiting his most likely dying brother.
I square my shoulders and tense my jaw. Ready, set, go. Armored behind my best Sunday suit and a blank face, I walk into the hospital.