It doesn't take me long to get to Callie's place. I don't bother knocking on the door and I just walk in.
"How many calves have you lost to the beast?" A voice in the living room asks. I kick off my boots and head in that direction.
"I haven't lost any this week. Neither have any of my neighbors. I think it's stopped hunting. Do you think it died?" I walk into the room to find Callie drinking a beer and the blonde woman from the bait shop sipping from a fancy wine glass.
"Took you long enough to get here!" Callie laughs as she gestures for me to sit next to her on the couch. "Storm this is Delaney, Delaney this is Storm."
"Nice to meet you." Delaney grins with insanely sharp looking teeth. "Same to you."
"Now then Callie, the beast is not dead. We'd have found its body if it was." I just sit and listen as the two women discuss this beast.
"Enough about the beast, I want to hear about you Storm. I see you're new to town." Delaney says, easily changing the subject.
"I actually was raised in this town but I left at eighteen." "Oh, my family must've moved in after you left." She says before taking a sip from her wine glass.
"Tell me more, I want to hear all about you." She says with that wicked sharp grin. "There's not much to tell, I grew up here, left, joined the marines, fought hard, got discharged, and came home." I don't want this strange lady knowing about me. There's something different about her and I don't like it.
"Callie, you should tell me about that buck." I say as I point to a twelve point buck hanging from the wall.
"No, I want to hear about you." Delaney's voice hardens into that of a demand. "I already told you all there is to know." This woman is testing my nerves. But I've had men screaming in my face, trying to get me to flinch. This is nothing. Yet that wolf scared me, I'm getting weak.
"You will tell me Storm!" The woman jumps up and has the angriest look on her face. All of a sudden her eyes change from light blue-gray to orange.
"Tell me!" Her voice is that of a growl and her sharp teeth seem to elongate. I stare at her defiantly, refusing to answer her.
Her body starts to morph and change into that of a wolf. I knew something was off about her!
All of a sudden she stops morphing, staying half wolf half human.
Fuck this. I'm protecting Callie from this creature cause she looks dangerous as hell.
In a quick motion I pull my gun out of its holster and click the safety off. With my arms outstretched, I aim my 9 mm towards the creature that was once Delaney.
"Don't shoot her! This is normal!" Callie yells. "I don't know what the hell you are, but you need to change back and start explaining." My voice comes out hard and low.
Her ears twitch before she turns and stumbles to the kitchen. I follow behind her, but I give her space. A cornered animal is the most dangerous.
I watch her with suspicion as her large, clawed hand grasps the door handle and opens it. I watch as she walks through it and bolts out into the yard.
There she fully changes into a large brown wolf, but she's not nearly as large as the wolf at the lake.
Her orange eyes glow brightly as she stares at me before she turns and takes off for the woods.
I lower my gun, click the safety on, and reholster it. "Callie, what the hell just happened?" I ask as she approaches me.
"It's the full moon tonight, werewolves have trouble controlling themselves during it. I guess you refusing to talk about yourself triggered her to shift. I just don't understand why she wanted to know so badly."
"Sense when have werewolves lived here?" "Sense you left. I'll explain it all for you." She says as she grabs a beer from the fridge and hands it to me.
"I have a lot of explaining to do so you're going to want to sit down for this." I do as she says and sit in the chair Delaney was previously sitting in.
"Not long after you disappeared a group of people moved into town. This group is what you'd call a werewolf pack. Now for a long time they kept to themselves and didn't bother anyone in town. That was until the pack leader's daughter was killed, after that the pack hit the bar hard. They drank our entire alcohol supply in one night! Once they were all drunk some of them started half shifting because they were too drunk to fight the urge to shift. The pack didn't hurt anybody but they sure scared a lot of people. After that their leader, called an Alpha, explained what they were." She pauses, looking at me to see if I'm listening. I nod my head before taking a swig of beer.
"But their Alpha only explained it to the people who saw the werewolves. So only the town drunks and me know about them. Besides who would believe a known drunk that the new townsfolk are werewolves?" "That makes sense."
"But Storm, you can't tell anyone that I told you this. I'll be in deep shit if word gets out to the rest of the town that werewolves live here." "I would never say anything, besides who would I tell? All my friends but you died." "You still have Alice."
"Alice? I haven't seen her in ages. Besides she went off to college. Right now she's probably in some city with some big nursing position." Out of everyone in our grade Alice was voted most likely to succeed in life.
"She actually lives here in town, she's working at Wild Goose Healthcare." Wow, Alice is really living her dream.
"Now before we get totally off subject here, why were you hanging out with Delaney?" I have to do my best to hide the suspicious tone in my voice.
"She and I bonded over losing someone. She lost her brother and I lost my best friend." Callie says and I can't help but feel terrible. Me leaving obviously left holes in the hearts of the ones I love.
If Callie took my leaving this bad just think about how Alice took it. I need to apologize to everyone.
"Callie, I am so sorry for leaving without a word." I say before I abandon my bottle and chair and go over to hug her.
As we hug tears start to form in my eyes. God civilian life is making me weak. "I'm so sorry." I cry into her shoulder.
The rest of the night we trade tears and stories. The whole time I don't touch my beer bottle, it'll just make me more emotional.
"I have to go now, before my mom fucking grounds me." I grumble as I rise up to leave. "If you don't want to live with her there is a house for sale out near Frog Splattin' Lake. It's been for sale for six years now, I betcha they'd sell it to you for cheap." "Thanks Callie."