Chapter 5 – Never Felt So Alive
Getting out of the shower, I was reluctant to put my old clothes back on, but they actually weren’t that bad. It made me wonder how they didn’t even have a single tear in them yet my body was torn up under them so badly. I was hesitant to ask Christopher right away for fear of what he might say. I didn’t like the idea of this werewolf thing at all. If what he said was true, I guess I’d be lucky though, because this was like a disease, but other people would have to endure pain and suffering every day, and I just once a month. It made it easier to endure knowing how predictable it was.
I turned the doorknob slowly and quietly, and tiptoed out into the hall. I didn’t know why I was tiptoeing, since Chris already gave me permission to go wherever I pleased, but it still felt like I shouldn’t be snooping around in other people’s belongings. I opened the door across the hall careful not to make it creek, and peeked my head in. This was definitely Christopher’s game room; right in the middle of the room was a foosball game. To the right were board games stacked up on a shelf, in the far left corner of the room were sports equipment, and an overabundance of cards stacked up on a card table.
There had to be at least ten decks of cards—most of them in new packaging—and all different sizes. There was only one small window in the room, and it made it seem dreary—that, combined with the deep, red walls. On the wall hung a small, round clock with a red edge, which matched the walls perfectly.
“How did I know I’d find you here?”
I turned around towards the door slightly startled at Christopher breaking the sudden silence. He looked neater now and in his usual state with stylishly wild hair and clean clothes.
I gave an unsure smile. “Just wandering around like you told me to do.”
Chris gave a hearty laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I asked getting annoyed with his laughing, “You’ve been doing that all morning.”
“What, you’ve never seen someone happy before?” He crossed his arms, readjusted his stance, and smirked. “Life can’t suck that much.”
I was offended. “My life doesn’t suck at all. What would you know about my life? Don’t judge me.”
Chris didn’t seem disturbed at all by my reaction. He maintained his smile without wavering. “Things are getting better now.”
I couldn’t help giving a sarcastic, mumbled laugh. I seriously doubted things would be able to go back to the way they were before. Ever. Things were changing—things changed—and I had no control over it. I had no say in anything that was happening to me, it was all completely beyond my control with no way out.
“Okay, I thought of something,” I announced. “Aren’t werewolves supposed to live extraordinarily long lives?” I continued before he could answer. “You’re not some kind of creepy, old pervert, are you?”
Chris was trying hard not to laugh. He bit his lip and leaned against the doorframe. “You have been brushing up on your fiction, haven’t you?” Chris shook his head. “No, werewolves don’t live extraordinarily long lives. You can expect to live the average human lifespan—and no, I’m not old, I’m nineteen… but I guess creepy is open to interpretation, isn’t it?”
“I guess so,” I said turning my back on him and searching about the room.
I could feel his eyes watching me from behind, and my mind wanted it to bother me more than it really did. I began to relax a little bit; I thought if he was going to do something, he would have done it by now. Looking around the house, I found the house of an ordinary teen boy—things were out of place and messy, but you could tell there was some effort here and there. There wasn’t anything that set an alarm off in my mind.
“Follow me; I wanted to show you something.” Chris turned around and strode out of the room not even waiting for me to follow. I dashed around the corner of card table to follow him. By the time I peeked out of the doorway, the only sign of him was an open door. I walked over to the open door and looked inside, and low-and-behold Chris stood there. But that wasn’t what caught my attention; it was the computer in front of him which was so old that it made whirring machine sounds. Chris stood over it waiting for it to start up. He turned towards me when he noticed that I entered the room. “It takes about five minutes to start up, but after that it’s good to go. Just click on the little internet icon on the desktop—it’s the one that looks like the world—”
“I am computer savvy, you know.”
“Oh, well, anyways, you need to search ‘The First Werewolf’. Oh, and I have dial-up, so if the computer starts speaking, don’t freak out.”
“Isn’t it speaking already?”
Chris shrugged. “That’s what happens when you get a free computer.”
I cocked my head to the side. “True.”
“You do that, and I’m going to make breakfast.”
I lifted a hand as to wave him away. “Okay.” I sat down in the computer chair. The computer chair was quite comfortable. The desk and chair were quite a contrast from the computer; both looked to be newly bought with the house, perhaps slightly worn, but not by much. Not long afterwards, the computer loaded completely and I moved the mouse icon over towards the internet icon and clicked on it. A little screen popped up on the computer and the computer began making phone-like dialing noises.
Soon, the noise stopped and the internet search popped up on the screen. I typed in “The First Werewolf”. It took a little longer than it would have had I been using a better computer, but it loaded eventually and a bunch of different pages popped up. The very first page read “Legends of Werewolves”. I clicked on that link and opened it in a new window, then I clicked the next link, which I was sure was what I was supposed to be looking at.
The legends of werewolves loaded first, so I started reading that one. They were all categorized in little sections, werewolf appearances, defenses, offenses, symptoms, even what werewolves do while in their werewolf stage. The information I read on the page shocked me, “werewolves like to eat freshly buried bodies” and “they can be killed by silver weapons”. All of the information on that page scared me, so I quickly clicked onto the other page.
The very first werewolf to start the chain of werewolves was Fredrick LaBruce, 1883 – 1967 though he lived an extraordinarily long life it was not under ordinary circumstances. Born in England in the spring of 1883, Fredrick was an ordinary child; he was the youngest of three siblings. By the summer of 1885 Fredrick and his family moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts. During his life there he encountered a wolf which mauled him he was hospitalized for a number of months before being released. No one has the exact dates, but they are estimated to be between 1890 and 1895.
After Fredrick’s release from the hospital he never was the same, he ate raw meat and basically became the wolf. People began calling him “Wolf Man”. Soon he disappeared into the forest every couple of weeks and his condition only worsened. When a terrible creature began terrorizing the local farms the resident’s owned they began calling him “Werewolf” coming from “weir” meaning “to wear” and it translating into “to wear a wolf’s skin” or “one who wears wolf’s skin”.
With Fredrick’s family becoming ashamed of him, they moved out to the new found “Montana” in 1910. When his parents’ curiosity grew they followed him into the forest one night, they never returned though, and more of these “werewolves” appeared. Eventually Fredrick’s three siblings mysteriously disappeared. The rest of the town quickly disappeared from civilization as well .The new found town in northern Montana was named “Wolf Point” for its dangerous sightings of these werewolves. But, eventually the locals from a town down south tamed the city back again.
Since then, there has been many werewolf sightings starting there and spreading about the world. Fredrick was found dead in the forest in “Wolf Point” May 2nd1967. To date, Wolf Point has had the most “werewolf” sightings in history, which causes great alarm. Wolf Point i
s certainly a place to be avoided, many times people have tried to lock the place up and cut off whatever is there from the civilized world.
“That is one of the only true stories about werewolves.”
I turned towards the door to see Chris standing there wearing a cute little apron. “Adorable attire,” I teased.
“Hey, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, I just made you breakfast!” Chris moved towards me and glanced over at the computer screen. “Did you see who wrote that?”
I looked back at the screen. At the bottom of the article was the name: Garret Benson.
“It’s a shame the only true article about us is written by such evil,” Chris said.
I shook my head curious about what he meant. “Such evil? What is this, a cheesy, 1930s horror film?”
“Halle, let’s just put it this way, this guy is dangerous, and it’s really important that you stay away from him.” Chris’s voice dropped to a severe one.
“Okay...” I clicked on the other window that I had open: The Legends of Werewolves. “So, does that mean these aren’t true? We don’t eat dead bodies... do we?”
“No, we don’t, and thank God for that… Breakfast is ready, by the way.”
I saluted him. “Yes, Sir.”
I rose from the computer chair and followed him out of the room. I made sure to be a good guest and close the door behind myself. I always tried to be a good person, do as I was told, and make a good impression on others. If there was anything I couldn’t stand it was other people hating me for something I didn’t do. From time to time there are those people that hate you just for being you, and those people I didn’t care about, but if I did something it would be on my conscious forever and I would not be able to live with myself.
The passageway to the kitchen was actually an archway decorated with gold and royal blue tiles. We walked through and Chris walked over to the kitchen counter where sat two plates full of food. By the time I reached the center of the kitchen the smell of both food and flowers filled my nostrils. Take a quick glance around the kitchen I noticed various bouquets of flowers around the room, including one in the center of the table.
Chris turned towards me holding both plates in his hands “Have a seat.”
I sat down in the nearest chair, scooted closer to the table, and crossed my legs properly. Chris sat a plate down in front of me and the other at the other end of the table. A glass of orange juice was positioned to my left on the table and the silverware to my right. Chris sat at the opposite end of the table. I had never seen a breakfast more luxurious, bacon, eggs, waffles, and pancakes covered the plate. There were two pieces of bacon, two eggs, one scrambled and one poached, and one waffle and one pancake, the pancake was crumbled into little pieces and the waffle was neatly cut into six small pieces.
I tilted my head to the side in thanks, grabbing my fork, “You certainly are the chef.”
“Well, I’ve have had practice.” Chris shrugged and drizzled pancake syrup over his waffle and pancake. The syrup oozed over the edges and pooled onto the plate before he righted the syrup bottle.
I raised my eyebrows. “Someone has a sweet tooth this morning.”
Chris returned the raised eyebrows. “Are you commenting on my eating habits?”
“If I am?” I asked taking the pancake syrup from him and making a point to put a small bit on my pancake and waffle.
“Then that would have to be fixed.” Chris shoved a piece of the pancake in his mouth.
We were quiet for most of the breakfast, and we didn’t really say anything to each other. I just glanced up at Chris every once in awhile, but he always caught my gaze and I looked away quickly. He had a certain charm about him, I couldn’t quite place it, but it was one of those charms that just made you want to keep looking at him and never stop until you take in every detail. Maybe it was the flawless way that he moved, or his immaculate appearance. Even when he just came out of the forest fresh from transforming from a werewolf he looked perfect.
Chris was the first one done eating; he grabbed his plate and set it in the sink. I watched him innocently. “I’m going to go dress my wounds, we have about an hour—give or take a little—until school, so as soon as you’re done eating we’ll take care of your wounds, we don’t want them to get infected.” His eyes flickered toward my stomach. “Looks like you got it pretty good.” With that, he walked out of the kitchen.
I sunk lower in my chair; did he think the scratch was that bad? It didn’t look that deep. Then again, I didn’t really inspect it that much; after all, it wasn’t exactly what I’d call “eye candy”.
I finished up breakfast and put my empty dishes in the sink—Chris certainly was a good cook, he might have even rivaled my cooking abilities. I wondered where he got it from; someone had to teach it to him. I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, where I found Chris sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table reading some sort of novel. He was wearing reading glasses, which surprised me even more than the fact that he even owned a novel to read. I leaned on the back of the couch and attempted to read over his shoulder. But, he laid the book down on his knee and looked up at me. “I didn’t see you,” he said closing the book and setting it down on the table. Now I saw the title, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it was a classic.
“You read?”
Chris laughed. “Yes, I do read, I went to school for a reason, I’m not about to sit around and let my brain cells fry…” He blue eyes started down at me. “Is that a problem?”
“No, definitely not, I think it’s great,” I said sitting on the couch next to him.
“Are you ready to get your cuts fixed up now?” Chris nodded towards the first aid kit sitting on the table; I just noticed it.
“Might as well,” I said with distaste, slightly apprehensive about anything that burned, I didn’t want to seem weak and defenseless to him.
Chris left his glasses on making him look smart, which was another reason why I trusted him. He rummaged about the first aid kit pulling out a small bottle of something, bandages, and bandage tape. He pulled out a single cotton swab from the first aid kit and dipped it in the small bottle, and then he paused and looked up at me. “You don’t mind if I do it, do you? I am going to medical school next year.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I scoffed. “If you haven’t gotten training yet, you really should refrain from saying that to people until you can say you completed to medical school’.” I teased him.
Chris raised an eyebrow. “You don’t mind if I do it then?”
“Go ahead,” I said and lifted up the front of my shirt just enough for the wound to be exposed. Chris dabbed the cotton swab gently on the wound, it did sting a little bit, but I managed to suppress the pain. He grabbed a bandage off of the table and pressed it to the wound then grabbed the bandage tape and taped around the bandage carefully.
“There, all set,” Chris said and started putting the items he used back into the first aid kit.
I lowered my shirt back down and watched Chris with great interest. He wasn’t so bad after all. I loved that he was a bookworm. People who read books were more intelligent than others, or I should say, they matched my IQ better than those who hated reading. It really made me angry when people acted like reading wasn’t a cool thing to do. There were plenty of those types of people at Wolf Point High.
Chris closed the tin first aid kit, walked over towards the edge of the room, and picked up a backpack swinging it over his shoulder. “Come on, it’s time for school,” he said motioning for me to follow.
“I don’t have my backpack,” I said just realizing that.
He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and then tossed me something. “Here.” It was a pen.
“Yeah, but—”
“You’ll be fine. 99 percent of the time you don’t need half of the school supplies th
ey make you bring,” Chris said as he made it was to the front door.
I got up off the couch and followed after him not wanting to be left behind. “But I need my notebook—I always take notes.”
He held the door open for me like a gentleman. “You’ll be survive.”