Twisted Tales for Twisted Minds

Mira

20 years ago, on this day, a wild dog rampaged through Bossier City, killing a dozen people before it collapsed and died. Many things about the case are still undisclosed, such as who owned the...

Mira turned off the TV as she took her last bite of cereal. On cue, the pounding on the back door of the trailer ricocheted through the Spartan rooms. Graham was here to walk her to school.

The door crashed open to the bedroom as her father bellowed. "Get your ass outside and tell that boy to quit hammering on my door!"

She managed to chuck the bowl and spoon into the sink before the next hand slammed on the door.

"Mira!"

This time her dad chucked a flop at her, although it didn't make it far enough to be anything more than pitiful.

Not that he'd hit her. He was scared enough that one day his baby girl would wolf out and rip out his throat. He was even more terrified of Graham, as rumors had he already shifted, which was uncommon of the wolf stock in this almost concentration camp of a trailer park.

Mira slung her backpack on and was out the door, pinned securely under her best friend's shoulder, to face greater fools in a world gone mad.

It was nearly a mile trudge to their high school, and while President Bush's No Child Left Behind policy was still a favored platform in education after decades of use, no one wanted to make it easier for wolves to sit in the same rooms as humans, allow them to work together, and not be discriminated against by the contents of their DNA. So, the buses stopped, but skipping school was truancy.

"Cheer up; we've only got two more years of this shit." Graham was probably the happiest wolfstock on the surface, but it hid a restlessness and resentment that everyone had over having their lives taken from them.

Mira's dad had been a foreman for some utility company, and mom didn't work, but because mom had wolf's blood and dad wouldn't leave her, she now worked at a supermarket while dad drank his life away.

Graham? Both his parents were to blame, so he felt no guilt.

The trees that lined the sidewalks hid cars careening around the corners, but the truck could be heard long before it caught up to them. Half a dozen of their classmates—the preferred humans—could be heard yelling at people and telephone poles alike.

Graham shoved Mira to the treeside, away from them, as they threw an open container at the wolves. The stench of cheap beer wove through the shattered glass, spaying their ankles with a faint foam.

"Oops, missed the dog bowl!" hooted Devon Matherne.

Mira and Devon were inseparable before the world found out about monsters living among them. It didn't matter that most wolves didn't know their ancestry and wouldn't ever have a reason to turn. Their families instilled loathing in their children, and this dumb beer stunt was the result.

Graham nearly took off after them, but Mira held his arm in her grip. "No! You do anything, and who will walk with me to school, then?"

There wouldn't be many choices. Most adults who lived in their community chose sterilization over putting their world on blameless babies' shoulders, after all. Graham and Mira were the last of their generation. No more would be born, stuck between the packs and humans, thrown away as trash.

Graham rolled his shoulders under her grip on his arm. "I can't take it anymore. I hear there's a wolf pack up around Bradley Arkansas that's having a retreat at Cypress Black Bayou, and they take on halflings like us."

"Halflings!" Mira snorted. "We aren't Hobbits."

Graham looked her over before tucking her back against him and resuming his walk. "Yeah, you're a Hobbit. A tiny girl with big feet I don't know how anyone sees a wolf in you."