All characters and themes of Prowlers are property of Christopher Golden.
Almost Human
Chapter One
What if finding your past was more unreachable than seeing your future? What if you were a stranger to everyone: your friends, your mother, your father…yourself? What if your worst enemy was your own identity?
My whole life, I've lived a lie. My mother's lied to me since birth. My father doesn't know I exist, and I'm not even sure he exists. I have no siblings, no real friends. My sheer existence has no logic.
Clair Walker: living paradox.
Clair closed her eyes. High school is so trivial, she thought as she began to dose. Just a junior, she'd already been to 5 different high schools. Claire had been home schooled until 9th grade, and she had liked it that way. But she "needed to be with other kids," as her mother had said. And since she was now almost under control…she didn't have much of a choice.
"Walker, how about you?"
"Huh?" Claire peeled her eyelids apart and looked at her teacher. Mr. Sakine had been teaching AP Bio forever, apparently, but didn't look a day older than 200.
"I was wondering," the tiny man croaked, "if you knew the answer. But as you don't seem to be awake, I'm guessing that's a negative."
"Can you repeat the question?" Claire asked nonchalantly, glancing at her messy, unpainted fingernails with bored eyes.
"Oh I can, yes. But the question is, will I?" Claire hadn't even noticed him moving in, but he was now practically standing on her toes and she was usually pretty sharp when it came to that kind of thing. Her mind flash back to age 10, that summer when her mother took her to Maine to meet up with some family. She had been reading when she was a humming bird flit by at what had seemed like 100 miles per hour. Her mother was so mad that she hadn't seen it, especially since she had been looking in that direction. Claire couldn't explain things like that; call it some animal instinct that usually passed over most human genes. Then again, she didn't exactly have what one would call "normal genes."
The tiny teacher barely had to bend down to be eye level with the sitting student; nevertheless, he glared at her gray-green eyes as if he could take her in a battle any day. Claire doubted if he could even take her in a battle of intelligence, and he had to have been around the proverbial block a few more times than she. Claire bit her lip, trying to hold back the instinctive growl. If there was one thing she despised, it was being itested/i and this old man was doing it in the most obnoxious way a teacher knows how: the grammar superiority.
"Fine." She stared back into his eyes. They were oddly yellow-tinted, most likely from old age or years of smoking. "Will you, please, restate the question?"
"My question is," he answered, leaning even more, "can a new species survive if it is a mix of two existing species?"
She took a deep breath, leaned towards the disintegrating man, and answered a simple, "No."
"Ah," he said, withdrawing from the desk and turning away. "And why, pray, can't they?"
"Because they weren't supposed to be born." Claire released an almost inaudible snarl and turned in the direction of the voice. Jared Philips. Joy. "How can a freak of nature survive?"
"Yes and no, Mr. Philips," Sakine said. "Yes, they weren't supposed to be born; but no, they can survive just fine. It's the species that can't survive. And why is that Miss Walker?"
"Because they can't have offspring of their own." Claire mumbled. "Like a mule; a combination of a horse and a donkey. The just aren't able to reproduce."
Ring. Hallelujah. Claire stood up and took three long strides out the door before Mr. Sakine could get the words "see me after class" out of his mouth, before Jared could say something else to make her feel just so wanted, and before anyone could make her feel like crap, like…
The Freak of Nature she was.
Claire was fast. Really fast. But somehow Jared was able to catch up and stop her in the hallway before she could sneak to American History. He was tall, dark haired, and had the brightest blue eyes imaginable. Despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than bite the bastard's head off, he wasn't unattractive by any means. His hand gripped her forearm stopping her brisk walk, and spun her around. She had to admit that that was impressive. Not many could do something like that to her, let alone want to. Still, as awed as she was, she had to really try to suppress the harsh growl that rose up in her throat.
"What?" she spat at him.
"I need to talk to you." His voice was less harsh than before.
Claire pretended to not be intrigued. "Good for you. I'll have my secretary set up an appointment. How's two o'clock, the 30th of never, my office?" She had kind of a nasty habit of being really sarcastic, even when she didn't particularly feel pissed off. Call it a defense mechanism.
He narrowed his eyes. It reminded her of herself when she gets angry. "Just come with me. You're smart. You can miss one class."
Jared started to walk away, jerking his head in an indication that he intended for her to follow him. Rolling her eyes, she slowly fell into step with him. "Where are we going?"
"Don't know yet."
She raised a blond eyebrow at him. "Sorry, Jared, but I'm not going to be dragged to some dark alley somewhere."
He flashed her a cute half-smile. "It was just a thought."
She tried in vain not to grin back. "Fine. But can we make it quick? The bell's about to ring." It did. "Damn it. Now I'm late."
"Don't worry about it," he patronized. Jared looked through the window of a dark classroom's door. "Perfect." He pulled her into the classroom and even in the dark she could see that the walls were covered with inspirational posters featuring Garfield and Snoopy. An ad for a poetry contest hung on the teacher's desk. Claire tore it off and shoved it into the pocket of her green cargo pants.
Jared sat on the top of one of the desolate desks. "So," he said, looking at Claire as if she were the one expected to speak. Claire hated that.
"What?" she asked, becoming even more agitated. "If this is all a ploy to get me to make out with you, you're out of luck, buddy." There she was with the sarcasm again.
"Always the cynic one!" Jared teased. "And I don't see why. I mean, if you wanted to show how much you hate me, you could always just rip my throat out. And who said I even wanted to make out with-"
"Wait, wait, wait," Claire interrupted. "What did you just say?"
"Don't flatter yourself, Walker," Jared countered. "Sure you're hot, but there are plenty of nicer, hotter girls out there that I could make out with. Why would I want you?"
"No. What did you say before that? Something about ripping your throat out. Why would I do that?" Good job, Claire thought, just come right out and tell him you're a freakish werewolf. But all the same, Jared knew something about her…something she barely knew about herself.
"What are you anyway?" Jared asked, dismissing her question. Claire followed him with her eyes as he began to slowly circle her. "I mean, you're not human, I can smell it, but you're not a prowler, either." He sniffed the air.
Prowler…She rolled the word over in mouth before speaking it. "Prowler…" Something triggered in her mind, as if she'd her the term before. What was he talking about? How could he smell her differences? What was he, some kind of dog?
Come to think of it…not too unlikely.
Jared let out a short, harsh laugh. "Heh. You don't even know, do you?"
"Know what?" she asked, perplexed. This is what she had wanted to know her whole life. And here was this random guy, whom she didn't even like, about to explain it to her as if she were a three-year-old. "What are you talking about?" Claire's mind slipped back to all the childhood memories she had. Losing control at a friend's birthday party when she was five… the girl nursing an injured arm, screaming bloody murder…and again at the supermarket when she was 7… attacking her mother's date when she was 4… being home-schooled until freshman year…all the reasons she was forced to leave the other 4 high schools…
…Never speaking of her father…ever.
Jared smiled, checked the windows, and then moved to the back of the classroom. She started to follow, but he stopped her. "Stay there."
And then she watched as his false human skin was torn from his body, fur and claws spouting where normal hands, legs, and torso used to be. She could hear the familiar sounds of bones popping and lengthening, as his teeth grew sharper and his jaw extended. She could even feel the savage tension floating through the room's stuffy air.
Claire stared, wide-eyed, at the beast in front of her, something she couldn't have imagined existed inside any other body but her own. She didn't, couldn't hold back any longer.
She unleashed the monster, too.