American Wolf

"No! No! It's true! I think I got bit by a werewolf!"

Crossing his arms and giving his twin a look of utter disbelief, Matthew flopped back on his family's couch and sneered. "Yeah? When'd you get bit?"

Blue eyes a flashing with true fear and giving a constant glint of excitement, Alfred turned and twisted his fingers as he looked out the living room's window. After a bout of unusual silence, Alfred began, "It went like this, y'see..."

Splitting off from a couple of his friends after the school's football game after party, Alfred waved goodbye and decided to take the shortcut through the wooden path of the preservation that split his neighborhood from the one his school was in. Moon high and shining above him, the senior felt no fear as he began to whistle one of the song's he'd heard on the radio that morning.

Taking his first step onto the preservation's path, it felt pretty regular. Crisp wind rustling dying leaves off trees, the distant sound of kids laughing, shouting and thumping basses of car stereos a comforting sign that civilization was only a sprint away. Just a bit tipsy thanks to the couple beers he'd drank, Alfred's senses were numb enough he didn't notice the approaching danger until-

"AAAAH!"

A big, furry creature with canine's like a dog and fingers that were far too human were gripping his arm in a alligator-like clap and it took all of the senior's wits to not start trying to shake the thing off. What if it tore off flesh then? That would be even worse than those teeth digging into his arm now! So, with his other arm and one of his legs he began to hit and kick the creature until it gave a pained yelp and bound off in the other direction. Standing in the middle of preservation's dirt path as he caught his breath, Alfred's body was working double-time on making sure nothing else was going to get him before he sprinted out of the wooded area and to his home.

There, he threw open the front door and locked it behind him and doubled check every other lock and window in his home before going to the bathroom to patch up his arm.

"So, y'see?" Alfred implored his twin.

Staring at his twin's bandaged arm, Matthew scoffed. "Dude, it was a dog."

"No it wasn't!" his brother argued. "I told ya! Those fingers were human, man!"

Shaking his head, Matt got up and patted Alfred on the shoulder. "You were in the preservation, eh? The trees block the light and so you didn't get a good look. You were just mistaken, eh?"

"Was not!" Alfred snapped.

Snorting behind his hand, Matthew said to his twin, "It's late and I'm going to bed. If you feel the urge to start howling at the moon or chase cars, let me know, okay?"

"Yeah right you non-believer!" Alfred grumbled, stepping away. "It was too a werewolf and when you don't wake up one morning because I ate your face off while you were sleeping don't blame me."

This caused the other give a loud laugh before he went around his twin and walked up the stairs to his bedroom.

In the dim light of his family's living room, Alfred whispered to himself, "I know what bit me."

Over the course of the rest of October, Alfred tried to pretend for a while that'd he just been bit by a regular old dog while simultaneously doing ever bit of research that he could on werewolves.

First, he looked into the symptoms and found all sorts of things; some of them even becoming true for him over the month. First hair sprouted in his palms, then he started to rage over stupid things. Little things. A broken pencil end, not being first done with laps at football practice, Matt calling him stupid when he butchered his part for their speech in French. Then, as the moon drew closer, insomnia pulled him from what little sleep he was getting and some deep instinct drove Alfred out of his home and to the town cemeteries where he wandered around like a hungry ghost. Fingers brushing and grabbing at headstones as he moved through them.

Later, when the full moon was just a week away he looked into how he might get rid of his unwanted lycanthropy. What he found wasn't promising, a silver bullet seemingly the only way to fix his little problem.

The high school senior didn't want to be a werewolf, but he also didn't want to die. He was just a kid, really. No one so young wanted to think of dying let alone killing yourself for the sake of everyone around you.

One evening, the wolf's moon a day and a half away, he approached his brother after dinner and asked, "If I get a silver bullet and gun, will you shoot me?"

Matt gave him a look of absolute disgust. "Al, lay off the whole werewolf thing, eh? It stopped being funny three weeks ago!" And he walked away, leaving Alfred to finishing loading the family's dishwasher on his own.

"Mattie!" he cried with a true warble to his tone. "I mean it!"

But he was ignored and a moment later, he heard his twin's door slam shut.

Gulping back the heat that was clogging the back of his throat, Alfred finished putting the dishes away before taking his dad's car for a drive. He needed to clear his head, maybe runaway for a few days.

In the end, he came home. Alfred couldn't imagine not spending his last day with his family.

The evening of the full moon, Alfred hugged his parents extra tight before he said, "I'm going to bed, alright?"

His dad gave him a puzzled look, like he couldn't quite understand why his seventeen year old son was going to bed before the sun was even down, but didn't question him about it - probably assuming he'd simply finished a string of hard exams or reports.

(If only).

He'd poked his head in Matthew's room then. "I love ya, Mattie," he said to the back of his brother's head.

His twin snorted and spun around in his desk chair to throw a sock at him. "Get outta here, weirdo!" He smirked and Alfred did his best to laugh instead of sob.

Once in his room, he moved his dresser so it was in front of the door. Then he did the same with his desk. His mattress followed after - and then everything else until only a chair for him to sit and wait on was left.

Tears dribbling down his cheeks as the shine of the full moon streamed through his uncovered window, Alfred whispered, "I'm sorry."

All he knew next was a piercing total body encompassing pain and then–

All he saw was red.

Happy Halloween! What'd you think? Like it? Not like it? Was there anything in particular you enjoyed about this?

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