He shook his head so slightly that it was hardly visible.
“I thought the whole town was under my control… but nothing was. I hate everyone in this town, and I’m used to being hated… But after standing over that old guy… It was just pathetic. I was pathetic. I always thought I was becoming more and more wolf, but the wolf was just becoming less and less me… I don’t want to kill anybody. I don’t want to lose control of myself. If you can’t control yourself, then you’re no better than all the other blind idiots…”
Patrick considered this for a moment.
“If you had the choice, would you give it up?” he asked.
Dean took a moment to answer, as though the choice was difficult to make, or at least the answer was difficult to say.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Would you?”
Patrick found that it was indeed a difficult question. There was no physical pleasure he could imagine that was greater than that of slipping through the woods as his other self, basking in the array of incredible sensations. Dean and Mr. Vincent both had problems controlling their violent urges, but the fact of the matter was that Patrick didn’t really have any. In fact, the longer he spent as a wolf the clearer and more controlled both worlds became. Was there a chance that he was simply different, and could possess this power without abusing it? If so, he certainly didn’t want to give it up. But there was always the chance that he was wrong, and that his violent tendencies would simply come with time and maturity. Ultimately it was the image of the tired, frightened man in the recliner that swayed his decision.
“Yeah. And I think we can make it stop if we find the thing that took Rachel. You felt that way too, right? That’s why you didn’t want me snooping around.”
Dean nodded his head. “I didn’t know anything, but I felt like the more I knew, the closer it was to being taken away. It came so suddenly, why wouldn’t it leave just the same?”
“So you don’t know anything else about the crow or anything?”
Dean’s face changed slightly, and he appeared to be considering the question.
“Yeah…” he said vaguely, as though the importance of the crow was only now coming to him. “I remember seeing the crow the first time I changed. I don’t know what happened to it after that point, that night was too amazing.”
Patrick felt a twinge of embarrassment as he remembered the panic and terror he had experienced on his very first night. He had been so scared that his mind fell apart after only a minute or so and he crawled back to his bed in a daze.
“It showed up every once in a while,” Dean continued. “I saw it around, and it would just stare at me, but I ignored it. I even snapped at it a few times… I tried to push it out of my head as much as possible.”
“I think that that crow was a person—either that, or it was helping a person—because when we were fighting, something went into Rachel. She changed… on the inside, though. You felt that too, right?”
Dean nodded.
“But before she changed,” Patrick continued, “the crow grabbed that pendant off the body and took it over to her. I think whoever was dead in that coffin took Rachel’s body. Do you remember what she said to me before she disappeared?”
“She thanked you.”
“Right. I think we’ve been tricked, and now it doesn’t need us anymore. So why can we still change? And whose body was it?”
“Why don’t we go see?” Dean asked, finally looking up at Patrick. Some of the shadows left his face when he raised his head, but he still looked absolutely menacing in the moonlight.
“I don’t know how, but it cleaned up when we left. I went back to the spot and everything was gone—the coffin, the hole, everything. And there isn’t a single track or scuff in the dirt. You can’t even tell that anyone had dug there.”
“Then what can we do if we don’t have a single trail to follow?”
It hit Patrick suddenly, as most good ideas tend to do. And like most good ideas, it came with an almost painful sense of “why didn’t I think of that before?” His hand went to his back pocket and he pulled out a long piece of green fabric. He held the scarf up for Dean to see.
“What’s that?” Dean asked.
“A scarf,” Patrick said, staring at it as if it were some magical artifact that had fallen unexpectedly into his possession. “Rachel gave it to me the day before it happened.”
Dean scoffed—a sharp, contemptuous outtake of air—and looked out the window.
Patrick held the scarf up to his nose and breathed in deeply. It hadn’t been in her hands for several days, but still smelled richly of every scent that identified her: her hand lotion, the candles she lit in her room, the plethora of different types of wood that dominated her house…
And he could barely imagine how it would smell through his other nose.
“We can use this to find her,” he said. “Her mind may have changed, but her body should be mostly the same. As lame as it sounds, we can do it if we both work together.” He paused. “Are you in?”
Dean stared out the window for several moments longer, then turned back to Patrick. By the look on his face it was honestly hard to tell what his answer would be. They stared into each others’ eyes for a long moment, then Dean nodded his head with what appeared to be some effort.
“Good,” Patrick said. “We can start tonight.”
Part Four
~
The Woods
Chapter 20
It was well past dinner when Patrick got home, and probably a couple steps into “worry territory”. His only hope was that the pretext of a study meeting with an adult—as opposed to a very long walk alone or with other irresponsible teenagers—was enough to assuage any fears his parents might have regarding his tardiness.
When he opened the door he found that all the lights in the house were off. A quick jolt of panic struck him as he imagined the possibility that he had spent more time with Mr. Vincent and Dean than he had realized and actually managed to stay out until his family had gone to bed. (This would certainly get him in a great deal of trouble now that his perfect track record had been marred.) After a moment of observation however he saw a centralized glow coming from the living room and heard swelling music along with many faint shouts. Whatever movie they were watching, he must have walked in on the quietest part, he thought spitefully, his heart now beating just a little too fast.
Patrick walked down the hall and into the living room, where his family was watching a movie he didn’t recognize. Everyone craned their necks to verify his presence, and his father, remote ever at the ready like a revolver in a holster, paused the movie.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said before anyone could speak. “I didn’t mean to miss dinner, we just went a lot later than I thought. Sort of lost track of time.”
“That’s alright, Patrick,” his mother said assuringly, though her slightly concerned expression and eyes that seemed to probe a tad too much were anything but assuring. “There are some leftovers in the fridge, on the top shelf.”
“Thanks Mom,” he said, and walked to the kitchen.
Patrick was beginning to realize that when depression or fear or even simple nervousness washed over him he was rarely hungry, but after regaining at least some small amount of confidence he was always left feeling like he could eat a small horse. He opened the fridge and located his meal. There was some sort of bean soup in a Pyrex container and an ear of corn in a plastic bag, but the real star of the meal was sitting on top of the soup, wrapped in tinfoil: a massive piece of tri tip steak, undoubtedly done medium-rare, as he had recently begun to prefer it. Patrick’s mouth nearly watered at the smell of it, and he thought he would probably just end up eating it cold.
“So did you guys get a lot done?” his mother’s voice came from behind him.
Patrick turned around, still holding the bundle of foil in his hands. The booming bass from the TV had masked her already slipper
ed footsteps.
“Yeah, we spent a ton of time on it, he really helped me understand things a lot.” Suddenly it occurred to him that spending such long amount of time alone at a teacher’s house was undoubtedly peculiar, and he added, “I think he really helped all of us.”
“How did you get home?” It looked as though she might have been trying to ask casually, but it didn’t come out that way. It was her face, Patrick decided; there were too many lines in her forehead for it to have been casual.
“Mr. Vincent drove me. He dropped me off at the top of the driveway.”
There was a long and very uncomfortable moment where they only stared at each other. His mother looked at him expectantly, either thinking of a way to suggest that he might be lying or attempting to communicate it with her silence. Either way, it was hard to look at her, and judging by the way she kept wringing her hands at her sides she was having a difficult time as well.
“I swear Mr. Vincent dropped me off,” Patrick said, adding a fake touch of pain to his voice that made him feel positively nasty. “You can call him if you want.”
His mother looked at him for a moment longer, then her face relaxed into an expression that was both ashamed and warm.
“Of course I believe you, Patrick,” she said, and her posture seemed to relax as well. Her shoulders drooped a little and she leaned on the kitchen table. “Have him drop you at the front door next time.” She forced a smile. “Bring your food in there, if you want. We’re not too far into the movie.”
Patrick returned her smile as best as he could.
“I think I’ll just go to bed after this,” he said. “Haven’t been sleeping too well recently.”
“Okay,” his mother said. She smiled again, though the worry or guilt or whatever mix of the two was still in her eyes. She turned and walked back into the living room.
Patrick wasn’t sure which made him feel worse: the fact that she had doubted his story, or the fact that she had ultimately believed him.
The knowledge that he would be indulging in a long “walk” tonight didn’t help either.
*****
When one o’clock rolled around and every bedroom had fallen silent, Patrick snuck downstairs as slowly and quietly as humanly possible. The whole process took him at least five minutes, as he decided not to take even the tiniest risk of his door knob making the slightest noise as he turned it open and shut, or a board creaking as he descended the stairs, step by agonizing step. He reached the front door and put on his shoes, still hardly daring to breath despite now being an entire floor away from his family.
His perfect stealth was fueled by the consequences that would surely come from being caught: apart from getting in more trouble than he had ever even fathomed (he had popped the clean, untouched bubble of perfect behavior and was now a potential target for the newly oiled and broken-in Discipline Machine), he doubted that his parents would ever be able to trust him again. Though his suspicious behavior was occasionally the cause of some stress (such as earlier, in the kitchen), the disconnection between them had begun to mend. But Patrick didn’t think it could withstand another blow.
The front door didn’t threaten to rattle if opened too quickly as did the back one, but he didn’t take any chances and opened it perhaps even slower that he had his bedroom door. When it was finally shut behind him he tiptoed down the steps and jogged lightly across the gravel. None of the upstairs rooms had windows that opened to the front yard, so Patrick ran freely to the road, the only danger now being insomniac neighbors who happened to be looking out of their windows at this very moment—a concept which he found pretty unlikely. Out of sight of the house he was finally able to relax a little.
He had arranged several pillows under his blankets to make it appear as though the bed were occupied. It was an old trick, but he found that it looked quite convincing nonetheless. It wasn’t likely that one of his parents would make a special trip down the hall simply to peek into his room unless he had somehow been heard leaving, which he was all but certain was impossible given his excruciating care. And even if pigs flew and someone did find the need to physically enter his room to verify his presence, there was no chance that they would see a body-shaped lump under the blankets and immediately assume it must be some sort of dummy, stomping over and yanking off the covers like an angry warden in a prison break movie.
Patrick reached the road and the searing yellow light of the streetlamp fell over him, making him feel vulnerable. He hurried to the right side of the street where it wasn’t quite as bright and walked briskly toward the school. All the landmarks were the same, but nighttime offered an odd parallel: the sky was almost black, nearly erasing the outline of the trees, and so many details that were normally perfectly clear and friendly were now bathed in shadow, plain black sheets of obscurity covering the whole world around him. Walking to school at night felt so out of place—wrong somehow, like it could only be happening in a dream.
All the while Patrick strained his ear for any approaching cars. Both Animal Control and the police would undoubtedly be on the prowl tonight, so he would have to be extra careful. An unconscious or dead wolf transforming into a sixteen year old boy would raise some very odd questions, Patrick thought.
When he reached the school he couldn’t spot Dean anywhere. Just as he began to wonder if the guy had backed out he saw the vague shape of a massive animal sitting in the shadow of the marquise. He had expected to find a wolf here, but the menacing image was still incredibly unsettling, and his insides jumped slightly at the sight.
Patrick jogged over to the marquise, which read, “OCTOBER 14 TEACHER CONFERENCE,” and on another line, “STAY SAFE NEVER WALK ALONE.” Dean looked at him calmly and made no effort to move.
Patrick reached into his back pocket and took out the scarf. Its green color wasn’t quite as vibrant in the muddy light of the streetlamps, but the distinct smell was certainly still intact.
“Alright,” Patrick said, unsure of what else he might say and feeling a little silly for it, “let’s do this.”
*****
They decided that the woods surrounding town were relatively vast and would take an incredibly long amount of time to comb through, so they opted to search the town itself first and get it out of the way. They were aware that this was incredibly dangerous, but it simply had to be done. Especially after the evidence that Rachel’s “captor” had returned to the woods behind Patrick’s house at least once to clean up unfinished business.
The two of them spent several nights searching every nook and cranny of the town, Patrick learning its layout in the process. He held the scent of the scarf in his memory, waiting to catch the tiniest whiff of it on a tree trunk, or a mailbox, or in some dark alley.
Patrick doubted that the thing inside Rachel’s body would risk being seen after her disappearance, but surely there had to be a trail somewhere. It had vanished in a gust of wind, sure, but it couldn’t just teleport out of the town completely without the tiniest interaction with something physical… Could it? Patrick didn’t know, but he knew he wouldn’t be comfortable until they covered every bit of ground possible.
The two of them didn’t search nearly as thoroughly as Patrick had searched to uncover the crow’s mystery (doing so would have simply taken years), and as such they felt that they had covered the majority of the town after only a few days. Patrick was glad, too; hanging around a town full of people who would love to see you dead was proving just as dangerous as they had expected. Some nights it felt like there were cop cars around every corner, and though they were easy enough to hear and avoid, their presence was unsettling. On top of the cops they had seen people parked in cars in seemingly random areas of town, lying low in their cabs or truck beds like snipers in some weird war. “Probably just stupid hicks who jumped at the chance to shoot something like us,” Dean had said. At a distance it was hard to tell if they were toting tranquilizer guns or normal ones, but given the
circumstances it was becoming harder and harder to believe that anyone would still want to handle such a wild and ravenous wolf humanely.
Patrick had for some reason avoided the open grounds of the high school for as long as he could, but finally decided one night that he had put it off too many times. As he trotted between the dark buildings toward the school’s single big green field (which was always lit by enormous overhead lamps, the types of which he was surprised the school could afford), something Dean had said on the first night kept running through his head.
Patrick had changed and the two of them were getting ready to split up when Dean looked at him and spoke directly into his mind, in that way that was so natural yet so invasive.
“Remember,” he said, “I’m not doing this for your girlfriend. I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it because of that thing.”
For what seemed to be no reason at all the memory played itself again and again as Patrick snuffled around toward the field. He wondered if what Dean had said was true or if he had just been acting tough.
Patrick slid through the dark space between the biology classroom and the supply shed and surveyed the brightly lit field. Sheer white light poured out over the green grass and illuminated the bleachers.
His heart quickened when he saw a black shape out in the middle of the field.
It was hard to tell exactly what it was, but it had the unmistakable look of a human slumped onto the ground. Either that or some black animal. It wasn’t moving.
Patrick studied the perimeter of the field closely, looking for any odd shapes that might be “snipers”. (The thought of snipers in the case of a dangerous wild animal seemed ludicrous to him, but he supposed that it had gotten genuinely serious to such a point that they were necessary.) An enormous circle of light was really the last place he wanted to be under these circumstances, but it didn’t seem a likely place for him to show up, and thus he doubted anyone would take the time to stake the place out. He couldn’t see anything in the bleachers or along the fence or even in the shadows of the commentator’s box (which he was pretty sure hadn’t been used in years, judging by the state it was in). There were no signs of people at all, and so far the rifle-toting residents of the town hadn’t been very subtle in their hiding places. (They probably hadn’t been counting on a wolf with a human consciousness, had they?)