So, I started a new teaching job (I get my students Monday). I have been told that if there is no bloodshed at the end of the day, I have surpassed expectations. My classroom is in a wing of the school all by itself…about two hundred yards from the nearest living being. I am a 5'4" female. If I don't post to either of my stories in the next week, assume the worst.
xoxoxo
A lot can happen in two hours. A lot had happened during the two hours Alex had been missing. A fresh smattering of snow had settled over the old; snow plows had come down the streets, covering the sidewalks with thick mounds of dirty black, brown and white snow; some people had shoveled, some had used snow blowers; some cars had been moved out of driveways, some cars had been moved back into driveways.
David was the first one to arrive of the people Kurt had called. He'd ducked out of class without the teacher's consent when his phone rang, knowing Kurt would only call him during school if it were an emergency. From there, he'd left school and committed several traffic violations – enough to get his license suspended or revoked, if caught – in order to get to Kurt. "I'm glad you called me."
"You want to be a slayer; part of being a slayer is hunting unhumans, tracking them. I was sure you'd researched how to track people…and animals." There was a hint of a desperate laugh threatening to break through Kurt's voice: the early stages of a hysterical panic.
"Don't worry, we'll find him. He's a puppy…he looks like a dog-puppy. People like puppies; they won't hurt him."
Kurt placed the tips of his fingers over his gaping mouth, the color seeping from his already pale face. "Oh, god. I hadn't thought of people. I was afraid he'd hurt himself. I hadn't even considered people."
David pulled Kurt in close to his body, trying to calm him down and warm him up; the tips of his ears and nose were a shiny pink on the verge of turning red. "It's ok Kurt. Things always turn out ok for you. Your dad recovered from his heart attack and is healthier than ever. You were chased from McKinley only to go to Dalton and make some amazing friends who helped you fully realize how truly wonderful you are. Your three biggest bullies are now your brother and two of your best friends. Your breakup with Blaine led to you finding a new love and giving birth to the single greatest love of your life. Things will be o…k."
"What if my luck's run thin?"
"Then it's time for my luck to kick in. You're my friend…my best friend, if I'm being honest with myself; but, I gotta admit, I'd pick that overgrown squirrel monkey over you any day of the week and I'll be fucking damned if I let anything happen to him." He meant every word of it and Kurt seemed to realize this.
Kurt allowed himself the most tentative of smiles and hugged David again, just as Finn and Puck were driving up. Burt had been assigned, via phone, to drive up and down the streets looking for paw prints. Kurt didn't want his dad traipsing through people's backyards. Even though it was Kurt's baby and Finn's nephew, David found himself taking the lead. "All right, we know he entered the street right here." David gestured to a spot in the snow where tiny prints disappeared under a snow pile left behind by a plow. "Carol, get on the phone to animal control, the police and the fire department. I know it's a risk, but hopefully they'll help; this is a baby we're talking about here." Another thought struck him, "Try out local animal shelters as well. Alex very well could have wandered right up to someone, wanting to play with them, and gotten carted off to the shelter; he's friendly like that. Finn, I want you to take this side of the street and head right, Puck, same thing but go left. Kurt and I will take the other side of the street. I'll head right; Kurt'll head left. If you find paw prints, call the rest of us."
The boys all broke off into their assigned directions. David had sent Kurt and Puck in the same direction for a reason; Puck could comfort Kurt, prevent him from panicking, while remaining objective. Puck wasn't the touchy-feely type. Both Finn and David would both be too tempted to get off track worrying about Kurt. David needed to completely focus on the task at hand and was fairly certain he'd sent himself in the proper direction. Every now and then, something buried deep within him seemed to be more aware of his surroundings than David could naturally be. It usually happened during sports; he could sense movements before they happened, react more quickly than was natural. Right now, he was noticing things he shouldn't have noticed, such as the way one of Alex's paw prints had been smeared just the tiniest amount clockwise, like he was contemplating turning right.
There were other things he was picking up that he couldn't even name. His father had told him once that the thing about people only having five senses was complete bull. Aside from the common knowledge senses (smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight), there was also balance, temperature, kinesthetic, time and, depending on whom you talked to, several others. David wondered if it was one of these other senses, or maybe one science hadn't really even classified yet, that was telling him the general direction Alex had gone. Supposedly, birds and several other types of migratory animals had a magnetic sense telling them where they were or where other things were. Maybe werewolves had a 'magnetic sense' telling them where other werewolves were? Like homing pigeons? Or could homing pigeons only find their mate? He'd read something about it once, but it hadn't interested him.
Either way, it wouldn't be the first time some of the werewolf had leaked through into his daily life. Back when Kurt and Blaine had cornered him, tried helping him (outing him, he had thought at the time), he had gotten flashes of memories of being trapped behind the bars of his cage. They weren't his own memories; they were the werewolf's. The memories had been accompanied by a sense of anger, resentment and a touch of panic, reflecting his feelings at the time. Generally, he tried to quash those brief insurgences, but now, with time against them, he allowed the tiny spike of extra awareness.
When David had woken that morning, the snow had already hit two inches, not enough to cancel school, but enough to make the drive there pretty damn shitty. It had continued to come down steadily throughout the morning; it was up to probably five inches now. And it didn't help that everyone had more or less shoveled by now, making the snow higher in many places, obscuring or destroying any tracks that might have been made. The temperature was David's greatest concern. It hovered around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-6.7 degrees Celsius); the wind wasn't too bad, but it, like the snow, was continuing steadily.
About two blocks from Kurt's house, David lifted his head and turned it to his left. He followed his instincts, not even sure what they were saying, and continued into someone's back yard. There were little paw prints there. Alex-sized paw prints. Next door, in the neighbor's backyard, there was a metal post with a twenty-foot chain dangling from it. There was a relatively snow-free circle surrounding the metal post in about a twenty-foot radius. A dog had been chained up there for a good part of the morning. At the edge of the naked circle, closest to where David stood, the grassy mud that had formed beneath the snow lay exposed. Two parallel trenches were dug shallowly and messily into the mud. The dog had been straining on its leash, trying to pull free. It had dug its paws into the mud for leverage, but the chain had held fast. David continued following the path of Alex's paw prints.
Occasionally, he'd lose the trail, but the trail always picked up not too far away. During the times that there was no trail to follow, those instincts and senses he couldn't really grasp would clue him into where he needed to go next. It was both a blessing and a curse that Alex seemed to be sticking away from the streets; on the one hand, if he stayed in people's yards, his paw prints were easier to spot and to track. On the other hand, that meant he'd spent the past two hours (at least) almost belly-deep in cold, wet snow. The longer Alex spent cold and wet, the more likely it was that he would get sick. The mere act of being cold and wet didn't make you sick, contrary to what old-wives would have you believe, but it would put a heavy strain on his internal resources and his immune system making it easier for the diseases already inside him to take hold. He was just a puppy; he didn't have the amped up super immune system of a full-grown werewolf, yet.
xoxoxo
He was just too tired and cold to keep going. He didn't even really care about finding shelter away from the dreaded white stuff anymore. He barely even noticed the wind. He was so cold he didn't think he'd ever be warm again. Warm was a memory. This morning, being curled up in bed with his Daddy, was the most wonderful thing he could think of at the moment, but he'd grown so accustomed to the cold that the thought of 'warm' seemed almost unreal.
Almost worse than the cold was the way he couldn't get his body to stop shaking. His paws and teeth and his whole body shook and shook. His muscles had long ago become tense from the violent shivering. He felt pain radiating all over from the tenseness in his body that he couldn't control.
He just needed to lie down for a little bit. Just a little rest, a little nap, and then he could keep going, keep trying to find his way back home.
There were some bushes next to a front door. Not his front door. Not his home; that would have been too easy. He didn't see any other animals around, though he could smell something. He didn't even care about that anymore. If the other animals didn't want him around, well, then they could just deal with it. He limped under the bush and got as close to the back of it as he could. At the back of the bush was a corner where the front of the house met the stairs. Alex curled up in that corner. Between the stairs, the wall and the bush, most of the wind couldn't get him. It was still cold and wet back there, but at least it wasn't as cold or wet as it had been away from the bush.
xoxoxo
The four boys had split up over an hour ago. David was still following Alex's trail; the longer he followed it, the more apparent the trail became: fresher. Alex had gotten pretty far. That had to be a good thing. Theoretically, if he kept moving he'd be better able to keep his body temperature up. But the farther he got from home, the more likely he was to find trouble. Kurt lived in a cute little suburb of Lima; but that suburb was boxed in by major thoroughfares. Alex had done well so far staying out of the streets, but if he came to an expressway blocking his intended route, would he skirt around it, or take his chances? And if he did take his chances and if a car or truck barreled down on him, would he flee or would he stand his ground?
David had a cat when he was younger. One time, it had sat in the street in front of David's house. A car came down the street slowly, blaring its horn at him. The cat just watched the car until it was less than a few feet in front of him, then jumped straight up, landing on its hood. His cat had won that game of chicken.
It didn't win the next.
Was a baby werewolf, who, for all intents and purposes, was still a newborn, smarter than a six-year-old tabby cat? David wasn't comfortable betting in either direction.
David stopped dead in his tracks. The wind had stilled. David had been walking with the wind coming at his back for about fifteen minutes, bringing with it the scents of things that he had passed. The longer he allowed the werewolf some modicum of control of his senses, the stronger the senses bled through; not only could he smell things better, but his mind was translating the scents into tangible concepts, the same way our eyes translate light into images. His nose was creating "images" of the world around him.
He closed his eyes and allowed the scents from every direction to waft towards him. Through his olfactory senses, he could "see" the trees that lined people's backyards; he could "see" the sedan with the leaking radiator; he could "see" the roasted chicken dinner that was being slow cooked in someone's kitchen; he could "see" the small, scared, ball of fur hiding under a boxwood. David jogged over to the moderately large green plant and dug through its branches, snapping a few in the process. There, on the ground, under the plant, was Alex. Alex looked up at him with drooping, sad eyes. Before he even reached a hand out to the pup, he could see how horribly the shivers wracked through his body. He tried to be delicate pulling the baby through the bush, but he was so elated to find him that he perhaps wasn't as delicate as he should have been. Alex didn't even whimper as a branch broke off across his forehead. David held Alex as close to his torso as he could with one hand, while unbuttoning his Bully Whips jacket with the other. Tucking Alex inside his coat, he closed up the fabric around him, cradling him in his arms.