Enter the Wolf

I could hear my pulse thudding in my ears, feel it throbbing behind my eyes and at the base of my throat. I staggered, feeling half-drunk, over to my bike, a ‘56 Trailblazer. I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t ride, I just needed to get out of the town limits, maybe even out of the county just to be sure. I could make it that far. I kicked the rusty red Indian into full roaring life and carefully maneuvered out of my parking spot, concentrating on breathing steadily. I probably went faster than I should have but I made it out. Just barely though. When I brought the bike to a sputtering halt two and a half miles outside the county line I was shaking so bad I needed to hold on to the bike to stay upright. I managed to push it into the bushes and, barely, to remove my coat, pants, and boots. My shirt I could afford to lose.

I stood shaking and panting, half-undressed, in the small dark clearing in the woods on the moonless November night. I slowly cleared my head, she was still there of course, and then closed my eyes and surrendered. Every breath I took drew greater quantities of air into my lungs, which flooded my brain with oxygen. I threw back my head, my unseeing eyes turned toward the stars. I could feel new energy coursing through my veins, fueled by alcohol and anger. I fell to my knees as a shudder that felt like a trembling of the earth itself shook me from head to foot. I doubled over, planting my palms firmly on the ground as the nausea roiled up from my gut. I felt the sweat break out cold on my face and neck as I clenched my teeth, sucking in great gulps of air so cold they made my teeth ache.

A spasm tightened the muscles of my back, feeling like the stabbing of a knife, making my arms shake and drawing out a gasp. I wouldn’t scream, I hadn’t screamed for close to fifteen years, but I groaned quietly through my teeth which were now almost locked tight. I had no idea how long it would last, it tended to differ in length and speed for reasons I had yet to discover. But it always started in the same place. There was a loud cracking noise and I could feel my spine shifting; lengthening, and rotating my pelvis a quarter of the way around. I felt my skin prickle as the hair, the pelt, started pushing its way through, accompanied by more cracking noises as more of my bones shifted; arms and legs shortening in some places and lengthening in others, ribcage expanding with a crackle like the snapping of so many twigs. My head was always the worst; from the nose down it lengthened, feeling as though a baseball bat were pushing its way through my face from the inside, my jaw snapping in about five places and giving me a major hangover quality headache for about eight seconds. After all the bone-shifting the rest wasn’t so bad, unpleasant but bearable though the teeth did hurt a bit.