Patrick turned to the back yard considering how he wouldn’t need a flashlight this time (though he recalled that even if he did, it was sitting on the ground wherever he had dropped it the night before) when the sight of the woods before him suddenly gave him pause. All his impatience and need to hurry hurry hurry was put on hold for a moment as the pitch black edge of the trees spoke to him unexpectedly.
They were still menacing. They still told him to keep out—that he would be blind in them, subject to all the horrors of his imagination.
But he knew better. Those woods were his. The world that in this state of being told him to bug off was actually where he felt most comfortable—where he would find his second home. All he had to do was find out how to get there.
Patrick walked once more toward the trees. The sensation that came over him was odd; approaching a place that seemed so threatening, but in full confidence that there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of within—that he would be the powerful force in the world. It was like walking into the gaping mouth of some enormous, drooling, shark-toothed beast, knowing in your very soul that it would never dare bite down.
He walked into the beast’s maw without pausing at its border. The gnarled trees that were its teeth threatened to pierce but allowed him passage, its saliva of undergrowth and moss flowing around his feet. He followed the faint path of trodden earth down its throat, and when he was sure he had reached its belly, he stopped.
It was already too dark to see, but he closed his eyes anyway. He didn’t know if this would work. Was this something he could do at will? He visualized the picture of himself as he saw it in the mirror last night. The metal frame had rusted in spots and the glass was scratched and cloudy with age, but the figure in the middle was clear: the long snout, the brown fur, the strong legs, the dark eyes, eyes that saw so little but knew so much.
Just as a pang of worry caused his clenched stomach to drop a tad, he felt the feeling begin to spread over his body—that feeling that was warm and cold at the same time, both awesome and entirely frightening. His limbs moved and shifted even though it felt as though he was standing mostly still. He slumped down and landed on his hands, but it felt like he was still standing up. The jumbled sounds of the woods seeped into his head like a cloud and rang without pause, confused colors blooming in front of his closed eyes with every breath he took.
And then, everything came into focus.
It had happened much more quickly than the other times. Or maybe it just felt that way. Where before he could see only darkness, now the world was illuminated. The smell of moss and dry leaves and wandering skunks and opossums were all around him, and they filled him with a curious energy. The screeching sounds of the bats above—while once a shrill and terrifying cry—now were an anthem to his new self—his newfound life.
Though it probably didn’t show on his foreign face, down inside, Patrick smiled.
Part Two
~
Monster
Chapter 8
Just like the previous nights, the woods eventually began to blend and fade into vague memory. Events became choppy and unclear, and Patrick found himself lying on his bed as the sun was just threatening to poke its fingers up over the trees. He reveled in the quiet for several minutes.
It was like spending the day in an amusement park, he thought to himself. No… it had been like riding on a roller coaster itself. So much fun and excitement to happen all at once, and now if he wanted to go again, he would have to wait in line for another day.
Knowing he couldn’t possibly get to sleep again, he lay on his bed as the alarm clock’s big blue letters flashed 6:44, then 6:53… Patrick thought about how the night always tapered off into a vague dream. Maybe that happened whenever he became overly excited.
6:59.
It would make sense; he could remember only getting progressively more hyped and active as the night went on. Maybe it was the heightened emotional state. That would explain why the first and second times he had seemed to wake up when he reached the peak of his fear and confusion. The body kept moving, but the memory started to fade away as soon as it entered the mind. Maybe he could get better at holding onto it in time.
7:04.
The possibility of it all still being only a series of unusually vivid dreams ran daringly through his mind for a moment, but he quickly squashed it.
It is very, very real, he thought. In ways more real than this life. One could indeed argue that such a different and heightened set of sensations would suggest quite heavily that it was all the product of a sleeping mind, it being able to draw from the unused energy of lessened body movement and an unconscious brain to create vivid imagery and manufacture emotions far beyond the ability of a waking human...
But no one could argue that Patrick had gone to the woods and woken up in his bed. As he had faced the trees he assured himself that this was real in the way that he knew he only could if he were completely and assuredly awake. If he ever thought of such a thing in a dream he would immediately notice that the ground lacked texture, or that everything seemed a little blurry or ridiculous, or that he was in fact walking along the back of a giant dog. This assurance was only possible when he was awake. He had smelled the trees and heard the faint wind. He had turned his eyes to whatever he pleased and saw that the world around him was completely and accurately rendered.
He. Was. Awake.
He couldn’t recall coming back to his bed, but he had obviously done it, and in a different state of mind. He supposed it had been as simple as changing back and walking upstairs… but he didn’t remember a bit of it.
7:25. If he wanted to shower he would have to do it now. He looked at his hands.
No dirt. Weird. Maybe all the shifting skin and fur and whatnot shook most of the dirt off. He raised his arm to sniff under his armpit, thinking surely he must reek after so much activity.
Nothing.
That’s right, he said to himself with a real smile.
Wolves don’t sweat, dummy.
*****
When Science class came around, Patrick was very glad to plop himself down onto his seat for two reasons.
Firstly, he was exceptionally tired. When he had gotten out of bed that morning he finally felt the toll his romps had been taking on him. There was a sort of deep ache that had settled in his limbs and they were completely sapped of strength. It had also struck him when his first class started that he felt quite underslept. This made a lot of sense, seeing as his sleep had been minimal the last few nights, and now the constant flow of adrenaline had stopped and the excitement was seeping out of his body and leaving him more and more drowsy with each passing hour. It was a chore now to even walk between classrooms, and even more difficult was actually paying attention in class.
The second reason he was happy to sit was that he would be spending the period sitting next to Rachel. As she had explained that morning, her chemistry teacher had to take a personal day, and the faculty thought it as good an opportunity as any to hold the annual flu-prevention lecture. Patrick’s class was assimilated into Rachel’s, the chatty students crowding into the chemistry lab and sitting on chairs they brought over themselves. Patrick had never been in this room before, but it was the picturesque lab (if just a tad smaller and lower-tech than his old one), equipped with Bunsen burners, scientific scales, microscopes, and a plethora of chemistry-related posters plastering the walls. The periodic table of the elements made two appearances on opposite sides of the room, in both white and blue.
Patrick sat beside one of the long benches on the side of the room which had already been filled by the regular attendees of this class. He and Rachel watched the rest of his class flow into the middle of the room, surrounding the central island of four connected sinks and supply cabinets. Patrick saw a brief image of filling a bunt cake pan with batter.
Rachel, in her infinite sweetness, relinquished her high stool to a boy n
amed Owen who had seated himself next to Patrick. He was an innocent-looking kid who was very short for his age; at first Patrick had thought he might have been promoted from a lower grade, but his ever-perplexed face heavily suggested that this was not the case. From what Patrick could tell, it didn’t seem as though Owen was very confident or successful in his schoolwork, though it was obvious that he tried very hard. His comically thick-rimmed glasses (which looked old and scuffed enough to be hand-me-downs) and his tendency to slouch made Patrick think he looked like he would make a very good writer someday. Today, however, he had either forgotten his glasses at home or lost them, as he had already done at least twice in the short time Patrick had attended Hillward High.
Owen had been seated with his view obscured by the work bench at the front of the room, so he switched seats gladly.
“Now I’ll be able to see the whole blurry presentation, and not just the blurry top half,” he said as he positioned himself on the seat of power. Rachel chuckled at that.
Patrick of course knew why she really switched, and so did everyone else in the immediate area, but she didn’t seem to mind. Owen certainly didn’t have to ask.
Mr. Rolls had a lot of over-the-top tendencies that were easy to make fun of, but the absolute seriousness that Mr. Poulton carried with him at all times made him their very favorite subject. The greatest humor, they found, could be derived by the simple juxtaposition of the man onto almost any picture or into any situation imaginable. During the few minutes before English started they had placed him in his very own world-famous rock band, “Mr. Poulton and the Stern Looks”. Patrick had employed his best gravelly radio announcer voice to say, “And now, from the mega-band, ‘The Stern Looks,’ their number one smash hit, ‘Thick Eye Brows,’” a remark that started a bout of laughter that was only just barely stifled right before Mrs. Spotts had begun her lesson.
Rachel assured him that these lectures were always big wastes of time—filled with brilliant gems such as “wash your hands” and whatnot—and that they would have plenty of joke fodder when it was over.
Surely they would be talking about it all the way through lunch, Patrick thought, though his smile faltered a tad when Mr. Poulton finally entered the room. There was a particularly stern look on his face today; he looked a little like a nine-year-old on the verge of having a tantrum, and the fact that the din of the now crowded room didn’t even lessen an ounce when he walked in probably didn’t help his apparently sour mood.
This should have been funny, Patrick thought, but he certainly wasn’t laughing. Bad vibes were just pouring out of the guy, and seemed to be interfering with all humor production in the immediate area.
The area of effect apparently wasn’t large however, judging by the ridiculous and exaggerated fart noise that issued from the back of the room, followed by the bout of laughter. Mr. Poulton didn’t seem to react to the noise directly, but Patrick could imagine what was going on in that bald head.
Loath as he probably was to even need to do it, Mr. Poulton hushed the students as he hoisted his briefcase onto the station at the front of the room and pulled out a manila folder. He barked commands of “Quiet down,” and “Class,” as he pulled a few printouts from it and began to organize them on the surface in front of him. (Why he needed notes to remind him how one effectively avoids a cold was beyond Patrick.)
The increased size and irregular mix of the class was a chemistry of its own, and the reaction took a long time for Mr. Poulton to squelch.
Just before the class quieted down completely, Patrick turned to Rachel with a look of slight unease and said, “Our lead singer doesn’t look so hot today.” She met his eyes for a moment and shook her head slightly. The look on her face seemed to agree.
The teacher silenced the last incessant voices by simply starting his lesson.
“This is a lecture on flu-prevention,” he started quickly and without emotion, leaving hardly any time for a breath between sentences. “Flu season won’t start for a few months now, but due to the absence of Mrs. Driver and our inability to get a substitute this has become the most convenient time.” (Patrick thought there was the tiniest bit of contempt at the ‘substitute’ part, but he may have been imagining it.)
Mr. Poulton began with the tendency of the student body to underestimate the effectiveness of following a few simple rules, but was forced to stop halfway in order to silence two boys in the back corner whose conversation simply couldn’t wait until the end of the period.
“Boys,” he said, his voiced raised just a hair. Without skipping a beat he continued, but when he finally got around to listing the various prevention techniques on the dry erase board he had to stop once more. He had been in the middle of writing “Wash your hands frequently,” when the two boys in the corner started up again.
“PLEASE STOP TALKING,” he said loudly and flatly, staring at them menacingly for several seconds afterward. This time they got the idea, and there was silence for a few moments as Mr. Poulton finished writing down the list. He then began to talk about proper bathing habits.
These were the warning signs of a nuclear meltdown, but apparently there were still a few kids in the classroom with malfunctioning sensors. When an incoherent remark from the other corner of the room was muttered just a little too loudly, Mr. Poulton nearly lost it.
“Can I please have silence while I am teaching a lesson?” he all but yelled. “I don’t see how this is different from any other day!” He regarded the room at large for a long and completely silent moment, the general discomfort growing exponentially with each passing second.
Patrick suddenly got the image of young circus-goers taunting a trained bear. He may look indifferent while he balances on his large ball, and he may be on a leash, but what would stop him if he suddenly decided to hop down and tear a few heads off? Mr. Poulton certainly looked like he could hold his own in a Battle-of-the-Bad-Moods with a bear, and how those cotton candy-faced kids in the room couldn’t see that was a great mystery. (On another day Patrick might have entertained this whole image, but under the circumstances it didn’t seem very funny.)
Mr. Poulton finally continued and went uninterrupted for a good ten minutes. Patrick thought they might finally be out of claw’s reach, as long as the other guys in the class didn’t keep dancing with fate.
Bibbles the Bear was talking about the importance of eating well when Patrick sensed some movement to his right. He looked to see Owen reaching into his book bag and pulling out his binder. This lecture was literally of no real academic importance, but Owen worked hard at school, and seemed to have suddenly realized that he might somehow benefit from taking notes. He took out a fresh sheet of paper and started writing down the list that was on the board, squinting his eyes into the tiniest slits and leaning forward as far as he could to make out each item.
This little action reached to Patrick and there was the tiniest wrenching in his gut. Owen worked twice as hard, if not several times as hard as all the other ‘most likely to succeed’ kids he’d known throughout his life. From what Patrick had glimpsed of his math homework on a few occasions, it was completely littered with calculations and practice problems and odd little formulas and notes—the signs of a whole lot of effort. It was tough for him, but from what Patrick had seen he hadn’t missed a single assignment so far. He made a mental note to ask Owen what he wanted to pursue as a career.
The lesson was incredibly boring, though the knowledge that the jaws of the fez-wearing bear at the front of the room would surely snap shut on the next person to make a sound did keep at least some of the students on edge. It seemed that they might be in the clear until Owen leaned over to him and Rachel and whispered almost silently.
“What’s the third one down say?” He was gesturing toward the board, where Mr. Poulton had listed the dozen or so rules to Not Getting Sick.
By the time Patrick had processed the question and overcome his bafflement as to why Owen thoug
ht this transaction an appropriate risk, Rachel whispered back to him from Patrick’s left.
“Sleep,” her answer came quickly, almost too quietly to even be called a whisper.
Owen apparently hadn’t heard her, or even done a good job of reading the single-syllable word off her lips for the absence of his glasses.
This was absolutely ridiculous. Mr. Poulton had said it about five minutes ago. Why did he have to do this right now? Patrick shouted in his mind, wishing desperately that he could shoot the thought straight into Owen’s head, AFTER CLASS!
Owen thought the information vital however, and regarded her with a deeply questioning look.
“Sleep?” he mouthed, and as he did so he put his hands together and tilted his head sideways over them in a mock-sleep gesture.
“MR. WHEELER, LUNCH DETENTION!” Mr. Poulton’s voice resounded in the quiet room.
Shocked, Owen instinctively shot his hands down into his lap. His high seat of power had suddenly become the highest and most vulnerable branch of a bare tree in the middle of hawk country.
Before there was time to think or react in any real way, Rachel was speaking.
“I was just telling him what was on the board.” Her tone was assuring and confident.
Mr. Poulton shot his gaze at her.
“That goes for you too, Ms. Alexander!” he said without sparing even a second.
What little nervousness had settled in Patrick was immediately snuffed out like the last little glow at the end of a cigarette being stomped flat and smeared into the mud by a heavy boot.