I awoke with a jolt. It was still dark. How long had it been? Five minutes, or five hours? I turned to read the clock to see which side the coin had landed on. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust before the red blur of the clock face indicated it was 2:37. Closer to the latter, thankfully. I needed to get back to sleep. I flipped over, towards the cold side of the bed. Always cold without her. I thumbed my ring finger. Still there. Always was. “Silver looks good on you,” she once said. Once, I agreed. Not anymore.
I turned back over, facing the window. The city lights were flickering an unintelligible code, as they always—
Something was running. Somewhere, above me, through the bones of the house; the walls, the wires, cobwebs. Water. The shower, upstairs. Why? I thought. He’s prone to late nights, but almost three in the morning? And he’d been going to bed earlier lately to beat the morning gym rush. He is changing. I hardly see him. College next year. Soon he will leave and I will be alone. He will forget his dad and I will be alone. But I will always do anything for him. What is he still doing up? And waking me up—he’s in for a good—
How long had the shower been running? Five minutes, or five hours?
Parental instinct eliminated any hope of sleeping. I shot up like a trebuchet. Only few times have I felt so awake as I did in that moment, so alert and aware of stimuli and thoughts I had no desire to be invested in.
One of my deepest fears made itself known to me again.
When I was in college, I almost died. I was showering when I slipped and hit my head against the tub filler. I was out cold. Thank God for Taco Bell. The joke is that if my roommate Jesse “Pug” Miller (he resembled a dog, a pug, back then—you know, face kind of smushed?) hadn’t had to use our cramped apartment’s sole bathroom, ahem, to shit as bad as he did, he wouldn’t have kicked down the door and saved my life. I fell face first, perfectly covering the drain. I surely would’ve drowned if Pug didn’t get to me—have to shit—when he did. I guess I have a Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, two crunchy tacos and an order of Cinnamon Twists to thank for that.
I could’ve died, and now I feared the same for Michael.
I ran out of the bedroom. Light flooded in through the westerly window, and although I felt its presence, ominous and foreboding, I didn’t stop to look at the beaming, silver face of the full moon. I turned right down the hallway towards the staircase. I had to get up there quick.
At the foot of the staircase, I slipped and fell. Was there ice on the floor? I stood up with wetness at the small of my back and a puddle at my feet. I felt no pain, only fear, for my nightmare had been actualized: Michael had slipped and fallen in the shower, bumping his head, and the tub had filled up water had begun overflowing down the stairs. I could hear the shower running clearly now, and that meant the door was open, as I had taught him to do. Parents’ fears become their children’s. At least I wouldn’t have to kick down any doors.
I bounded up the stairs, five at a time. I hardly felt the dampness where the water had started dripping down the steps. I continued towards the light coming from his room. He’d be in the bathroom connected to his bedroom, face down in the tub, a pool of red water.
When I entered his room, I did not see water flooding in from the bathroom. But I did see a river of blood and the body it led to.
It was lying there on the carpet. The throat was gone. Blood trickled out of the opening, shining sickeningly in the dim light, and had begun to pool. I could smell it—metallic and stifling and nauseating. Despite the evident blood loss, the face was purple and black and swollen as if they had been throttled and smashed against freshly poured asphalt. That face, puffy and smushed—it resembled Pug Miller’s.
I had to remind myself to breathe as I had suddenly dropped to a knee. My vision went fuzzy. I felt my face turn white as the blood there was pulled down towards my feet, as if the blood drying in the carpet had a magnetic pull on my own. I looked at the body, the corpse in front of me, and took a deep breath.
It was not my son.
I looked around the room. The team photos from Little League seasons past, the childhood knick-knacks, the nightstand that was once mine when I was little, the baby blue dust ruffle with the clouds and the birds that could’ve been swapped out years ago, all tarnished, tainted by the blood of an intruder. An image I will not soon forget. For a moment, I hated that man, that body. Then the hate vanished. The shower was still running.
I stood up and took cautious steps towards the bathroom. I did my best to avoid the steppingstones of blood that led to the ajar door, even though my feet were covered in blood anyways.
The bathroom floor tiles were as cold and lifeless as the corpse I had just stepped over. Blood was everywhere. On the mirror, the shower curtain, the ceiling. It looked like someone had had their way with a bucket of red paint. It was most prominent in a trail headed for the shower. I followed it, creeping like a hunter tracking wounded prey but felt as if I had become the prey, heading straight into a trap. A voice in my head said Get out while you can.
I pulled back the shower curtain and found Michael curled up in a ball. His clothes were ripped, stretched, like he had decided to throw on some of my clothes from my mid-twenties. His eyes were wide open—frantic and bulging and animal. He was covered in blood. Ribbons of pink water dripped from his mouth. He breathed hard. Half of his teeth were missing, not gone completely but sitting at the bottom of the tub. They were sharp, serrated, predatory, like the ones that remained in his mouth. I leaned down to turn off the shower when, at that moment, two of the teeth—the fangs—popped out of his mouth as if held by weak glue. He was covered in tufts of fur, which had begun to shed and clump at the drain.
I turned off the water, and Michael looked up at me.
“Dad, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know, Michael.”
I reached out to him with my left hand. Instantly he recoiled and hissed. He wiggled over to the back corner of the tub. I’ve never seen so much fear in his eyes. He was staring at my ring. I pulled my hand back and saw that that calmed him. I took the ring off and slipped it into my pocket. The fear flushed away.
He told me when it started. He was at the gym. He got cut, or something scratched him. He didn’t feel well that evening. I remember that. It was about three weeks ago. He came home, said he felt sick and went upstairs. I only saw him when he came down the next morning. What I did not see, according to him, were the patches of fur that had began to sprout from his skin and his teeth falling out and jagged canines growing in to replace them.
“It was like someone else was in control of my body. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move the way I wanted to. But I remember everything.”
I wrapped him up in a towel. He was sitting on the floor, and I sat next to him. I wiped the blood from his face. We sat there for what felt like a long time, hiding from the problem in his bedroom.
“Do you remember anything from tonight?” I asked.
Michael shook his head, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy. I could see his normal teeth were growing back in when he spoke. “I felt myself changing, but then I was here.”
It seemed like he had something else to say, so I waited.
“With his throat in my mouth,” he finished.
“Nothing else? You don’t remember doing it?”
He started to cry again.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
The bedroom smelled like shit. That’s what they leave out of shows and movies. But I’ll tell you how it really is: the bodies aren’t just wet and heavy with blood—but with piss and shit, too.
Then, I felt like Michael. My body was moving in ways I couldn’t comprehend. My mind said no, but it was trapped inside. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.
I love my son. I would do anything for him.
“I can help you,” Michael said.
“Just get in some clean clothes,” I said. I rolled the body up in three towels, covering it from head to toe. The body was cold, stiff and difficult to work with. Like my boss, I thought. I put two Hefty bags around its legs and two around its head and torso. I rolled tape around the whole thing indiscriminately. It looked like a toddler’s worst attempt at gift wrapping. What a surprise inside.
It was hard work. Harder than you’d think. The guy definitely enjoyed his meals. When I was done, I was covered in piss and blood and had murder all over me.
We brought the body downstairs. For that, I did need Michael’s help. He was strong; we both knew that he was carrying most of the load. We managed to avoid turning on the lights for fear of seeing more blood. We had seen enough.
“How are we gonna clean everything?” Michael asked.
“Burn the house down,” I said. It felt wrong to laugh, but we both did. We needed it.
We loaded the body into the trunk of my car. I shut the lid. I had a fresh hoodie and shoes on already. I grabbed my keys and my phone.
“Stay here,” I said.
“No,” Michael replied. “I’m coming with you.”
“You’ve done enough already.”
“Yeah, like roping you into this.”
“I’ll finish the rest.” I stepped to the driver’s-side door.
I felt Michael grab—crush—my right wrist. He pulled and whipped me back around like a doll. “I’m not staying in this house by myself with all the blood I’ve spilled,” he said. He let go of my wrist, and I immediately felt as if my hand had become deadweight.
We both got in the car.
I drove us quietly and aimlessly for about ten minutes. To the west, the moon continued its downward journey.
“Where are we going?” Michael asked.
I hadn’t given the idea any thought. I was still trying to wrap my head around what I was doing, how we’d gotten here. “The lake. We can bury it there,” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was saying.
“Isn’t that the other way?”
When we got to the next stop sign, I made a one-eighty, turning us south. I had to reach across my body with my left hand to turn the wheel. I winced as my right hand bounced painfully.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked.
“I think you broke my wrist back there,” I said.
“I hardly touched you.”
“Gotta get used to it. The new strength. That’s what comes with it.” Michael looked at me nervously. I knew he wanted to say, With what? I smiled and said, “With going to the gym so much.”
He smiled, too. Then, he started to laugh, a big bellowing laugh. The kind that only comes a few times a year if you’re lucky. “We don’t even have a shovel, do we?”
I wanted to laugh, but the blue and red strobe lights in the rearview mirror stopped any chance of that. The car was quiet again.
I pulled over. My heart was like a kickdrum. I could almost feel the car shaking with each thud.
“Don’t say anything,” I said to Michael.
I saw the officer approach us. I rolled down the window and—
“Good evening, officer! So sorry, I must’ve been speeding, wasn’t I?”
He just stood there, with his hand awfully close to the gun on his hip.
“This is my son, Michael,” I continued. “I’m taking him up to enlist, you see. At the army base.”
“At four in the morning?”
“Wanted to beat the traffic.”
“You’re going south, sir,” he said. “Isn’t the base the other way?”
He had me there. Right when I thought I had a decent cover story.
There was a deafening silence.
The officer peered into the car. He stared at Michael for a long moment. Michael did not meet his gaze.
The officer turned his attention to me. “Step out of the car please, sir.” He backed up a few steps so I could open the door. I thought about flooring it, and maybe I should have.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door. The officer spoke some code into his radio, but my thudding pulse in my ears drowned out what he said. I stepped out.
“Turn around, put your hands behind your back, sir.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“You’re being detained. I’m gonna put you in the back of my cruiser and then I will detain him as well.” He nodded towards Michael then looked back at me. “Turn around, sir.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Detained for what?”
“You’re acting suspicious. I need to search the vehicle.”
“This seems like a violation of my rights—”
“Enough. Turn around.” The officer stepped forward, reaching out towards my elbows. Instinctively I raised my arms to protect myself and held the officer away. For a moment the pain in my wrist ceased as I was filled with adrenaline, but I once again felt my right hand go limp. I yelled out. The gap was closing. The officer pushed me against the car and would soon spin me around and cuff me, but I fought and held him tightly by the shoulder with my left hand.
First, I felt the hairs at the back of my neck stand and then the car shake against my back. I saw a blur of motion overhead. The officer looked up and began to say something but was cut off by his own screaming. That’s when I felt the pain in my hand. My left hand.
That crunch. That hideous crunch of bone and snapping tendon may never leave my mind. The jaws of the beast went through my hand like a knife through jelly. My hand was stapled to the officer’s shoulder by fangs that hurt to look at. The officer continued to scream, and I thought my eardrums would burst. As my brain shot out frantic, useless hormones and worked futilely to provide me respite, I looked up and met the beast’s eyes. One look into them could stop the hearts of weaker men. They were of such a horrible milky yellow, so vile and unfamiliar, but I knew exactly whose eyes I was looking at.
The beast unlatched its jaws from the officer’s shoulder. It and my hand were obliterated. My hand resembled a blood orange that had gone through nine innings of baseball, but the officer was worse for the wear. His right arm was hanging on by maybe a strand of sinew.
The officer fell to his knees. The screaming stopped when the beast punched a hellish paw through his neck. Silence. The beast raised the officer with a single arm and tore through his chest with the other. It ripped the dead officer in half and discarded the body like two balls of paper.
My brain and body were in a state of confusion. Something inside had misfired and gone haywire and set off a chain reaction that led to…nothing. I felt nothing. No urge to fight or flee, no dogpile of thoughts wrestling for dominance, even the pain in my now nonexistent hand felt faraway and unimportant. There was no fear and no calm. I simply was. And the beast was before me.
It stood upright, like a human. What would’ve been a massive human. The size, the muscle mass and height, would’ve had me quivering and shutting down had I not been in my state of…whatever it was. The paws were like boxing gloves with knives sticking out of them. The beast was covered in fur from head to toe where it was not covered by the clothes—despite them busting at the seams—that Michael had been wearing.
It had the head of a wolf, snarling and murderous with the taste of blood.
I took a step forward. “Michael?” For a moment, the snarl relaxed. I saw it. Recognition. I got closer. The yellow eyes turned away, glancing back and forth the way the eyes of anxious puppies might.
It was him. It was Michael.
The siren whined through the night, perhaps still miles away. The snarl returned, and I felt the ground shake as Michael got on all fours and galloped away. Into the trees he went. I yelled out for him. Then I was moving, my legs careening back and forth. I felt unstable, yet my pace could’ve rivaled the world’s best runners. It was no use. Michael had been gone before I got off the starting blocks. But I carried on chasing after him perhaps another two-hundred yards before I felt my heart stutter, and I collapsed.
I propped myself up against a tree. And it is here where I write to you now. You might be wondering how that’s even possible, with, you know, two useless hands. Well, the police found me. I’m orating the whole thing to them, and they were so kind as to type this out for me.
Kidding. I can see their cruisers’ red and blue lights flashing from here. There is quite the presence now. Soon they will start their search into the woods, following the blood. And they would find me. But I will not be here.
A short time ago, as I was sitting here, I felt a subtle movement, a little pop. In my right hand. The pain that had since returned there vanished, and I found that I could move my hand around as if nothing had happened. And my left hand? It did something that might be described as the opposite of melt. The disgusting globule of blood and bone began to wiggle, expand and take shape. It felt like a massage, as if a being from some unseen dimension were molding a hand out of Play-Doh. My hand. My new hand.
Remember when I said that only few times have I felt so awake, so aware of my environment and my thoughts, an awareness that I could’ve done without? It’s happening again. Every blowing leaf is a rock concert, every bootfall and crunch of dead twigs is almost too much to bear. The static. Their radios.
(Dispatch, code 952, please report…)
(Code 9 on Cumberland…)
(Code 30, 10-91e…)
(Over…)
(Code 12?…)
(Negative, hard negative…)
(Copy that…)
Michael. Where? How? He’s changing. Oh, how long the days. My son, my sweet boy. Take me back. Take us back. I’ll close my eyes and maybe—
Burning. Searing pain. On my leg. In my pocket. My ring. My silver ring. I reached into my pocket and felt as if it were full of lye. It will hurt more than you’ve ever been burned, and you will have a scar. I pulled the ring out and felt its molten kiss on my bare palm before I threw it into the night. In the moonlight I saw the burn it left, smoldering and caustic.
Maybe if I never went upstairs, none of this would’ve happened. My fear, a folly. I would’ve woken up to a clean house. No fangs, no fur, no bodies, no blood. Michael would be gone, at the gym. He would come back as I finished my first cup of coffee. I would ask him how it went, and we would say, “Good.” I would ask him what he wanted for dinner later. He would ask, “Can you make spaghetti?” I would say, “Of course.” He is changing, but he will always be my sweet boy.
I am changing. The thoughts race no longer. The bootfalls do not stomp me down. I am not calm. I am not afraid. I am no longer cold. The scar on my hand is gone. The fur is growing in. My teeth are falling out. The moon is falling. My son is gone.
I have to find him. He’s alone and—no, never. The bond of a father and son lasts forever. I have to find him. He’s my son. I don’t know how this happened, but it did. Someone has to know. You must know. Heed my warning. I will turn soon.
We are out there.