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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. |
| I suppose I only have myself to blame for what happened. When you’re young, it’s easy to push yourself beyond your limits. If you’re in the military in any capacity, it’s a regular requirement. They want to see you pressed to your capabilities and beyond. How much more do you actually have when your body is at that point of one hundred percent, all-in? The only way to know is to go there regularly. When you’re down range somewhere, there may come a point that you have to dig deep inside yourself and pull out things you didn’t even know existed to accomplish the mission and get yourself and everyone home. How will you know how to get to that point if you don’t practice getting there? But as you get older, you begin to forget your age. It may be jumping to snag something off the top shelf, climbing behind the washer like you used to do when you were a kid to grab a sock, or just jogging down the street and back like you may have done in high school. You feel okay when things start out, your body feels fine and reports no problems: until you try it. Then it goes from no issues to broke in a blink, and you’re left on the ground clutching something that didn’t hurt while your brain screams at you “Dummy! Why did you try this?!” Last week I felt okay. My hip was just fine. I used to run four to six miles almost daily just for fun. It was a relaxing way to get out of the house that didn’t include finding a bottle of “forget-it” juice. And yes, I was getting a little bit annoyed watching Crash and Elouise out running off on their own and while I was cooped up in the house. Crash and Elouise are jogging partners. Crash will come out of the house, and start moving his considerable weight with her by his side, and they’ll go on long, slow runs just jawing and running. The kind of thing that I used to enjoy and now miss, terribly. So, I was determined to join Crash one day on a run. I wasn’t going to stick around for the whole run, after all, they go eighteen miles (damn mythicals and their supercharged biological systems), but I figured, a mile and a half would be just enough. When I brought the idea up to Crash his response was to laugh then say, “no.” “Come on! I won’t be a third wheel, I promise. I’m not going to interrupt you and your girlfriend,” I said. I tried giving Crash big pleading, puppy dog like eyes. He just rolled his. He was in his human form at that moment, shorts and a tang top, ready to hit the road on their morning run. “First, the answer is still no. Second, we’re not dating. Just friends.” “Sure,” I said with a wink. Crash looked to the ceiling with a ‘Lord, Grant me strength,’ look. “Answer is still no. Guys and girls can be just-friends, you know.” I patted his back, “sure they can buddy.” He grumbled then stepped out the door. The way it played out in my brain, they would make it to the stop sign, I’d catch up, we’d have a small conversation like I used to do, as I jogged about a half a mile, then turned around and went home. It wasn’t going to be that far. Besides, I felt good! I felt as though I could have made it the whole eighteen miles with them on that day. So, Crash stepped out the door to join Ellouise, I waited about five or ten seconds for them to get going, then opened the door as they neared the stop sign. They jogged their usual pace and I followed, making it much farther, Crash said later, than he ever figured I would have. It was about the second stop sign before my knee, hip, and back all started singing the exact same song: “STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE!” By the time I hit the ground, I had made it exactly a tenth of a mile. The ground rushed up as a cry escaped my mouth and stumbled. My leg was limp, with pins and needles running through the parts that wasn’t screaming in pain. Nothing in the leg was responding to my commands. It was like it was dead. “Come here,” Crash growled, then picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. “And shut up, you’re making a spectacle.” “Ow, bless your heart, you felt left out, didn’t ya,” Ellouise said. “I guess,” I said watching the asphalt move beneath Crash’s feet. “I just wanted to be normal for a morning.” Crash set me down on the step, and looked me in the eye, patting my shoulder. “But, you’re not,” he said with as much sincerity as he could. Then he and Ellouise headed back down the road continuing their jog. A few hours later, the leg throbbed, but less so. The hip throbs worse. The numbness and tingling shoot down my legs, both the good and the bad one, were worse. I probably won’t feel that good again for a number of weeks. What stung more than my leg, my hip or my back was to have Crash look me in the face and say that. I’m not normal. After a few minutes, I hobbled inside and just laid in my bed, staring at the Tuscan countryside mural on my wall, wishing that I was on those sandy beaches somewhere. Walking. Not paying any attention or having any care for anything. Not having to be in a world where I wasn’t normal. It took some time for him to return and pop his human head into my room. Sweat glistened off his brow, his hair was matted on his head. My mind flashed to a simpler time, when I was sprinting up the hill with another friend of mine in the service for fun, just racing to get to the top first. Friendly insults and names were thrown out at each other as the pavement pounded beneath my feet, the wind filled my lungs and I felt alive. Instead of like the half-baked zombie I feel like regularly. “You feeling okay,” Crash asked, bringing me back to reality. He only got a shrug in return. “You got to remember; you have a new normal now. That car accident changed everything about you. You can’t run for long periods like that. You can’t do a lot of the things you used to.” “I guess that’s what you meant by me not being normal?” I tried to hold back the bite of bitterness I felt when I said that. I wasn’t entirely successful. “Heh,” he chuckled nervously, then smirked, “I just meant you were never normal. I told you I’m a werewolf, remember? We met on that college campus and you kept hanging around me anyway. Well, till you dropped out, that is. Normal people don’t do that.” I smiled back, “I suppose that’s true. Normal people try to finish school.” “You’re still a good man, Jason. Normal is over-rated.” I stared back at the Tuscan countryside, gritting my teeth. My hip, my leg, my back they all throbbed at once in sequence as if to amplify the point. “You know,” I said, “it wasn’t even about trying to stay up with you and Ellouise. It wasn’t about being apart of your conversation. Life for me is a constant reminder that I’m different. That I used to be better than I am now. That I’m no longer whole. Sometimes, it’s just good to have a reminder of a time when I was better.” Crash grabbed my foot and shook it for a moment. “You were drunk all the time, too,” he said. I rolled my eyes and he just smirked. “It’s true. You were drunk so much and you ignored Sarah so many days.” “If this is you trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a horrible job,” I grumbled. “I’m just saying. I got an earful from her and you, then. You barely drink anymore. You help out so much more now instead of just running out the door with a ‘back later’ and disappearing. One time you were gone for almost three days. Even I was searching for you.” I nodded. “Friend made had home-made whiskey. It was A LOT stronger than he claimed. Was better that you didn’t find me.” He looked away, for a moment as silence filled the room. “I’m just saying,” he said, “You weren’t ‘better’ then. You could run farther, yes. But you weren’t better.” “I guess,” I said. “I just wish I could do normal things. It would help me keep some of my dignity.” Crash gave me a sad smile. “Trust me, you have far more dignity now than when you could have made that entire run with us.” That evening was supposed to be my turn to cook. Crash took over, giving us some monstrosity of a concoction that he swore up and down was Cajun. When I suggested we take some to Ellouise for testing though, he declined. Zack brought a plate into my room for me. Kris and Sean brought up my laundry, though I refused to let them help fold it. I’ll handle my own underwear, thank you. I had to use a cane for a total of one day. It’s still by my bed right now. A reminder that I’m not as young as I used to be. In your head you’re eternally eighteen years old. Capable of anything. But the reality is, you’re not. Your body has aged, it has a new set of limitations that even in those times that you feel the best you have to listen to. Otherwise, you’re just going to pay for it later. I suppose it’s not undignified to know your new limitations, to not press them in order to push some imaginary envelope. You can’t work out your way through an injury like mine. You can’t clean living your way back to being eighteen. This is what they truly mean when they say you can’t go home again. But it doesn’t stop the longing. The part of your soul that wishes you could make that jump you used to. To make that jog, to play basketball with your friends till dark. To reach for that intangible thing that was so easy to hold on to. It’s hard to say goodbye to who you were. |
| Sasquatch. The mythological beast of America. The creature that supposedly lives in the woods, often alone, who is mostly humanoid and covered head to toe in fur. This beast has large red eyes and sharp teeth in a mouth that if you look at it, is almost muzzle like. Sasquatch has been the subject of many documentaries and supposed “sightings” which are about as believable as all the “Elvis” sightings in the eighties and nineties. Now, this isn’t the same as Crash, who is a werewolf, a mythological creature that definitely does exist and time from time protects the citizens of our town and county from other creatures that definitely does exist. Sasquatch is pure fiction. Brought about, according to Crash, by a heavy dose of moonshine and a werewolf playing a prank. While I was away braving the streets of Nashville and trying not to die on the highway, Crash was back here busy with another problem. Someone in the town had been watching far too much History Channel. This person, who shall go by the name of “Bob” for legal reasons, began to be convinced that it was aliens who built the pyramids and that Sasquatch was real. Bob is a recently laid off engineer. Not the helpful kind that will explain how to better secure your wifi or assist you in finding the source of your vacuum leak in your car engine. Bob is the type of engineer with a God complex. The ones who are convinced everyone who doesn’t understand his technobabble is a drooling troglodyte only good for serving him fries at a drive thru. This is the type of person who began to believe in Sasquatch, and was going to prove his existence to everyone else. I still don’t know how the whole “glamor” or whatever the effect is called that myth creatures use to blend in. Apparently the crazier the things someone believes the easier it is for them to see. Or something. I’m honestly not sure at all and still get confused about the explanation, especially when Crash begins to bring in Calculus into it. I’m starting to believe he doesn’t know himself and is just doing that to mess with me. Now, Bob, who isn’t all that athletic or outdoorsy, figured the easiest way for him to catch Sasquatch on camera was to set up trail cameras all through the woods, right outside Crash’s place. Bob, being the out of shape, pasty skinned, skinny, ‘genius’ that he is, decided that since Sasquatch is mainly a night creature. So of course the best course of action would be to post the trail cameras in the woods near town during the day and wait. Crash for his part didn’t do anything. He sat on the back porch sipping a cup of coffee and watched Bob work in the trees. Occasionally he watched him through a pair of binoculars, but that was about it during the day. That evening though, Crash did pay a visit to the local thrift shop and purchased a few stuffed animals. Then Crash went home, shifted into his ‘night uniform’ so to speak, and had Zack snip the tags off the animals and attach them to Crash with glue. “Worth the pain,” Crash said with a smirk when he recounted this story. “Did hurt a bit when I pulled all the tags off.” The cameras it worked of an infrared light that it used to catch game and other things. This light acted as a motion detector, and turned the camera on to record whenever the beam sensed something near. Hunters and farmers use it for various functions around town. But for Crash these things light up with an “off-reddish” glow. So, this genius had lit up the woods for Crash like a Christmas light display on cocaine, and thought he was going to catch himself a glimpse of Sasquatch. On night one, all he had gotten was a few blurry images of fuzzy elbows, knees and feet, all complete with the tag of a stuffed bear attached to it. Bob wasn’t sure what he had on camera. But he was pretty certain it was ordered off of Amazon. Sean, it seems, is a devious guy at times. It was his idea to get close to Bob and set up the next prank. Bob was back in the local hardware store, talking to the guy behind the counter, who had this bemused look on his face. “I’m telling you,” Bob said, “I’m going to catch him on camera. I know what I saw! I know what’s in those woods!” “Yeah, sure,” the old guy behind the counter said. “I have aliens come in twice a week looking for plutonium 358 for their space modulator.” Bob scrunched his face and snarled, “I’ll show you,” he snapped and then grabbed a bag of things off the counter. Sean followed him to the parking lot and asked. “Dude, what are you trying to get,” he asked, then peered around as if looking for onlookers. “You’re trying to sneak a shot of something special aren’t you?” According to Sean, he first thought the guy was going for emphatic proof of a werewolf. Instead, Bob scrunched in the back of his Tesla, throwing things around and snarled, “Don’t you start either. I know what I saw!” “Me too, man,” Sean said. “I didn’t know what it was. I just know that it was dark. And furry.” Bob’s eyes grew wide and he turned to Sean. “Not furry, hairy,” he whispered. There was a crazed look in his eyes. “That thing is out there. I know it. Sasquatch.” It was at this point that Sean couldn’t help himself, he said. With ideas like this, I may invite him to my next family reunion. Sean gasped and held his hand to his mouth like a shocked southern belle. “You’re hunting him too?” “Finally, someone who knows!” There was literal tears in Bob’s eyes. “I don’t know who pranked me and wrecked all my trail cams, but I have more. And those were easy to fix. I’m going to get Sasquatch on film. And it might just be tonight.” Bob lifted a box. Sean said it took great effort not to begin giggling. Bob was going to catch Crash on film with a drone. Not only was it a drone, but it was one of the loudest drones on the market. He was going to try to catch a creature on camera with some of the sharpest hearing in the world with a flying camera that sounded like two hornets’ nests having an all-out war. “Dude, here’s what you do,” Sean said. “You’re going to need some pigs blood. You can get it from the butcher’s. Smear your legs with it. Then rub mud over that. Afterwards, you stand in the woods, like this,” and he squatted down, “and give your best injured pig squeal. Sasquatch won’t be able to resist. He’ll come running thinking it’s an easy dinner, and you’ll catch him on your camera!” I really wish I had been there when Sean convinced him to squat down in the parking lot and give a couple of practice squeals with him. Sean said a couple cars did slow down and take a look, but none were brave enough to stop and ask what was happening. “I’m telling you dude, it will work, I promise,” Sean told Bob with a heavy hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t a bag and a stick shouting “kaluka ku”, but I still count this as a successful snipe hunt. “Do you know how much it hurts,” Crash said when he was recounting the tale, “to be in mid shift and to bust out laughing? That poor idiot was out there, shouting ‘Squee! Squee!’ as loud as he could, that trail camera buzzing all over woods.” “So, he caught nothing,” I said. “Oh, he caught something,” Crash replied. “Laryngitis and a cold. He’s lucky he didn’t get pneumonia.” “Surely after about a half hour, he figured it out and went home,” I asked. “Nope,” Crash said. “Despite multiple complaints, dodging the local constable who begged me to tell him to shut it down, Bob sat out there all night. Shouting ‘Squee!’ until his voice was gone.” “Well,” I said, “at least that taught him a lesson.” “Oh no,” Crash said. “One of the guys who believe that they already know everything. He just thought that he came at it from the wrong direction. He tried something else the next night.” Apparently, after spending all night in the woods, getting sick, and catching nothing but a few fines for being a public nuisance, Bob decided he’d had enough and was going to science the problem into submission. So first, let’s analyze the issue. The “deep woods” Bob was searching was a small patch of trees on the edge of town that allows Crash to move around the community without being seen. It’s not exactly deep, and can barely be called the ‘woods.’ At some points you can literally see houses from one side to the other. If sasquatch did exist, he wouldn’t live in such conditions. Hell, anything wilder than a squirrel wasn’t likely to choose the location. Of course, you can’t tell that to a true believer and a conspiracy nut with no family, no real friends, and literally nothing else to do with their life than to catch this beast on camera. Bob set up Trail cameras on literally every tree. Some cameras were set up on top of others watching each other, so if something tried the trick the previous night they would still be caught on camera. He had a dummy set out with his old clothing, smeared in mud and blood, playing a loop of an actual injured pig squeal. Several flood lights were set up on motion sensors, so if anything larger than a cat passed by it, the flood lights would kick on, the cameras would kick on, and he’d have it on video. Bob was ready. Crash was on the other side of the county, dealing with that whole ogre thing that I can’t talk about yet. So, he didn’t see it. But was told later that every five minutes or so, it was Flash! Flash! Flash! And of course the Squee! Squee! Squee! On repeat. More fines. More complaints. Threats of arrest. And an entire night of nothing. Bob, the genius “I know everything, don’t tell me anything” had set up the lights wrong. Every time a strong breeze blew through, a large leaf close to the system would blow by, and set off the lights. At this point, I think even the animals of the woods were ready to revolt against Bob. “Finally,” Crash said, “the complaints reached my desk.” “So,” I asked, “what did you do?” Crash smirked. “I dealt with it.” For legal reasons I am not allowed to divulge what exactly occurred or what was said. The record is officially sealed. Bob has put his house up for sale and is searching for a job out of state as of right now. The hunt for Sasquatch is over. If you tour a certain house for sale in our neighborhood you may find black fur stuck in a broken board or two in the walls or a strange claw mark here or there around the door frames, in the floors and walls. Don’t ask too many questions. And don’t wonder why it’s so cheap. |
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