David ghosted his hands over each item in his prized collection, proudly displayed in the containment room. Aside from the large steel cage, they were some of the only things to be found in the basement. It had begun as a practical investment by Paul: several weapons guaranteed to stun and incapacitate a werewolf. David had taken the liberty of expanding the collection to incorporate other weapons used against other unhumans. He wasn't a fool; he hadn't deluded himself into believing werewolves were the only unhumans that yearned to maim and kill innocent people.

He had spent six years snatching up every weapon used against unhumans he could get his hands on: everything from the impractical, yet traditional, to the modern and efficient. His oldest piece was a length of hemp rope from the late seventeenth century that had actually been used to hang a witch. His favorite piece was a highly decorated Molotov cocktail jar similar to the ones sold in nineteenth century Walachia to flush out vampires from their lairs. His newest acquisition was a special rifle that used armor-piercing rounds with incendiary tips, used for ripping through the thick hides of werewolves. He desperately wanted to acquire some silver bullets, but they were generally reserved for the slayer units of law enforcement and of the FBI. But, even if David could acquire some, he wouldn't be able to touch them; so much as grazing against silver burned him like a branding iron. It was a werewolf's Achilles' heal. A bullet made from silver, successfully lodged in a werewolf, would provide a slow painful death for the creature; the silver would immediately start burning everything it touched in the werewolf, the werewolf's extremely powerful immune system would send everything it had after the silver, breaking it down into microscopic particles, trying to eradicate it – trying and failing. From there, the silver would enter into the werewolf's bloodstream and quickly find itself everywhere in the unhuman's body, sending it into shock and eventual death.

The stairs creaked behind him; he didn't have to look up to know it was his father; they lived alone and never really had company. Before his mother's death, people came over all the time. His parents had been very sociable and David of course had friends from cub scouts and peewee football and peewee hockey and peewee soccer. All of that changed after his mother's death. Paul and David cut themselves off from family and friends. The only one who even tried to squeeze into the private world of David Karofsky was Azimio, but that had changed since the Bully Whips started up. Not like David cared. "How was school?"

David shrugged. He didn't feel like telling his father that he had helped bring another people-eater into the world. His father was very unpredictable on the subject; sometimes he would try and tell David that they were "just people;" sometimes he would rail against the government for not doing more about them, more to protect people from them. David did want to talk to his father about what had happened at school today…he just wasn't sure how, so he skirted around the question he had in his mind What would you have done? And instead asked "Do you remember the first time you did anything…doctor-ish?"

Paul snorted at David's inelegant phrasing of the question. "Aside from the odd bandage here or there, I would have to say it was the time I had to sling your uncle Michael's arm with my blouse when he fell out of the tree. It wasn't too bad, just sprained, but from the way he was whining about it I could have sworn it was dislocated or broken."

David nodded. He vaguely remembered his uncle Michael, but, like the rest of their family, he had been pushed away to the point that contact was almost nonexistent. "What was your worst procedure?"

"The one I botched the worst or the one that was the hardest?" Paul sat down in an old, worn La-Z-Boy recliner kept opposite the cage. His father would sit with him during the change to make sure everything was all right.

"The one that was hardest." David flipped an old farming ax over in his hands, debating for the thousandth time whether he should polish it, or leave it in its original, rusty and dull condition. It had supposedly been used during the great zombie outbreak in Savannah, Georgia in the early 1920s, though its paperwork was suspect. From the corner of his eye, David saw how his father was eyeing the ax, a look of distaste clear as day. His dad didn't care for David's collection; Paul explained away his own additions to the collection as "utilitarian"; David's additions bordered on perverse.

When David had placed the ax back in its proper display case, Paul spoke. "There were a few truly horrific cases I've seen. I mostly do paperwork now, nothing too horrible, but back when I was a surgeon in the intensive care unit, I saw every nightmare you could imagine. There are a few cases I could say tie for second, but the single worst case I ever had to deal with was stitching up my own son from a werewolf attack."

Seven years earlier

Nancy's call had gone through successfully to Paul, but all Paul had heard was crying and the occasional yelp of pain. Of course it had sent him into a panic. He immediately called everyone he knew who could help: police, fireman, even EMTs. Anyone who could tell him of any car accidents, muggings, reported gunshots, anything that could help. He knew Nancy and David should have been on their way home from the movie theatres, so the police were able to follow the most likely routes between his home and the theatre. Half an hour after he had called the last person he could think of, he got a call.

There were already three police cruisers there by the time Paul arrived along with an ambulance. All of the red and blue lights practically blinded Paul in the darkness of the otherwise unlit road. They had erected a roadblock, but Paul, knowing individuals in nearly every public service department, had gotten through quickly. Almost forgetting to throw his car into park, he jumped out and immediately went towards the small cluster of officers. "My wife? My son?"

One of the officers he knew, a man he had gone to school with as a boy, placed his hand on Paul's shoulder. "Dr. Karofsky, we're doing everything we can to find them. But, there's not much we can do until the slayer unit arrives though."

"Find them? Where have they gone? Slayer unit?" Paul was too dizzy to think. He knew he knew all of the words the officer was saying, but his mind couldn't quite translate them in a way that made sense: a way that answered more questions than it asked.

"We think they may have been taken by an unhuman of some kind." The officer tried to look Paul in the eye, to calm him with a sense of authority, but Paul's eyes were drawn over his right shoulder. There were three officers standing there, shoulder-to-shoulder, watching Paul as he watched them. His mind couldn't process words all that well, but it could process actions. They were forming a human barricade, something to keep Paul from passing them, or seeing what was behind them.

Paul shoved past the officer that had been talking to him and continued to talk: words that Paul was deaf to and couldn't really process even if he did hear them. All he could hear was the pounding of the blood in his ears. The small barricade of officers moved aside for Paul with only the slightest hesitation. He saw what they hadn't wanted him to see: blood. So much blood. Most of it pooled together in a purplish puddle, but some of it smeared off towards the woods. He had seen enough blood throughout his years to know everything you could ever want to know about it; how it travels through the body, how it clots, how far it could spurt from a pierced vein or artery, how much a full grown man could live without.

How much a woman and young child could live without. He said the words before he could even comprehend what they meant. "They're dead. No one…" His voice broke as he choked on the words. "No one could live with that much blood loss."

"It might not be from just one person." One of the officers came to stand beside Paul. "There may have been a struggle."

"Not just one person. Both of them: my wife and son."

"We haven't found the bodies yet, Paul. There's still hope."

Paul had already given up hope. Part of him had given up hope when he realized it was his wife dying on the phone that he had heard. "Six months: fourteen missing and dead people in six months. Not a single body recovered. There's no 'hope'. Not for me, not for anyone." A woman from the ambulance took Paul's hand and led him away from carnage. Away from his vehicle as well, he realized. They'll want to take me in, to get me counseling, Paul thought. It was one of the not-for-profit programs the hospital ran. They had crisis counseling for everything: rape, murder, divorce, death, suicide. You name it.

As they passed the rear of Nancy's vehicle, Paul absent-mindedly ran his fingers over a long gash in the hood of the trunk. He didn't look at the gashes, but could "see" them through his fingertips. Wide, blunt. Most unhumans with claws had sharp claws, like razors or a cat's claws. Not blunt and wide. That narrowed it down significantly. It had to be a werewolf. As he finished passing by the car, his fingers slid off the end of the trunk. Paul stopped short, nearly tripping the young woman that had been leading him by his other hand. Claw marks…why claw marks? Why on the trunk? One of them – his wife at the very least – had been killed by the hood of the car on the driver's side. Both of the driver's side doors were open. The werewolf could easily get at anything – anyone – inside the vehicle. Except the trunk. What was in the trunk? Paul turned to face his one last chance at hope, fumbling with his own car keys as he did so. Nancy's spare keys were on his key ring somewhere. As he found the correct key, he could faintly here a voice say his name, "Dr. Karofsky?" It sounded miles away, even though the speaker was just feet away. He unlatched the trunk.

There, at the back of the trunk, buried behind a duffle bag, a miscellaneous shopping Nancy had never brought inside, a coil of bungee cords, and other miscellaneous debris, was a small, cowering child. "David." Paul reached into the trunk, tearing his shirt on a pair of ice skates as he did so. He didn't care; he just had to get to his son. If he could reach David, touch him, hold him, then he could have hope again. He pulled David from the trunk to the shocked gasps of the people around him. David latched onto his father, terrified of letting him go. A tiny little voice whimpered in Paul's ear. "Mom's dead."

"I know."

"It bit me."

Paul tensed up. "Tell no one. I'm not losing you, too." David just nodded against his father's neck. Paul turned away from the ambulance and headed back to his own car. One of the officers said something about the hospital, about David needing a doctor. "I am a doctor. I'm taking him home. He's been through enough."

xoxoxo

The bite wasn't so bad; it only needed two stitches. The rest of the bite had barely pierced the skin. Did the size of the bite matter with a werewolf bite? How was the curse passed on, anyway? Was it blood to blood, like AIDS? Was it saliva to blood, like rabies? Was any bodily fluid acceptable? Unhumans weren't studied in medical school; who cared about them? There wasn't much bleeding though; that had to be good, right?

David had been quiet the entire time Paul was cleaning the area and stitching it up. He stared blankly ahead: jumping slightly each time the needle pierced his skin. "You can't tell anyone it bit you, all right?" David nodded. "If anyone sees the cut you tell them…" Paul thought about his shirt snagging on the ice skate. "You tell them you stabbed yourself on an ice skate getting in the trunk." David nodded, again. "David, please…say something?"

"Am I gonna turn into that thing?" Paul didn't know how to respond.

The Present

"So what's with all the questions?" Paul quirked a halfhearted smile. "You finally giving up on this slayer-crap? Thinking of becoming a doctor?"

David snorted derisively. "Yeah, that'll be the day. Nope. You guys get stuck helping everyone that comes your way, whether they deserve your help or not. I'm gonna take care of the ones that don't deserve your help, the ones that send patients your way."

Paul shook his head as he stood from the chair. He had been talking to David for years about him becoming a doctor. Before Nancy's death, all David had wanted to do was help people, after Nancy's death…not so much. "One of these days you'll figure it out David; it isn't what you are, it's what you do."