29 June 2010

Brute, Part 5

Look left for all of the "Brute" installments that you've missed. I'm told they're pretty fun.

Leandra and I pulled up to Avel's condo complex and the first thing I did when I got out of the car was press my cold fingers into my eyeballs. I was breathing fine, in and out, in and out, and at a relatively normal pace; but this was the first time in three weeks that I had willingly seen Avel, and I wasn't sure how I was going to react when we knocked on his door. Oh, that door. He had replaced the knocker with a lion-headed knickknack from the antique store. Leandra dropped the weighted handle onto the solid wood and I sucked in my breath.

Suddenly I felt the urgent need to hide. My hair swished around my neck as I flung it from side to side, looking for a place to conceal myself. My stomach skipped the happy butterfly sequence and went to the part where you just know something awkwardly unpleasant is going to happen and it tried to tie itself into a sort of Gordian knot mixed with a tiller's knot and a bunch of random loopy things. I felt sick and woozy and...excited? Oh, no.

The door opened, and Avel was standing there in plaid shorts and white socks, barechested and looking sleepy. I may or may not have gulped at this point. He looked at me while Leandra was filling him in, and I couldn't move. I was cemented to the floor in front of his door, and I couldn't remember why I hated him so much, and then he looked away and I realized that I hadn't been breathing either. My lungs filled with cool night air and when I got my attention back in order Avel was gone somewhere in the back of the condo and Leandra and I were standing on the tile of his entry.

She turned to me and whispered, "You ok?" I nodded, I think, and then laughed a little.

"I hate him," I mouthed. She nodded. Avel reappeared wearing black all over, and a ruby-sheathed sword hung off his hip. My throat constricted when I saw the sword, the reason I had first noticed Avel, and probably the reason Leandra and Jeremiah had met and fallen in love, since Avel and I had known one another first. The day Avel and I had met we were both in a thrift store in the seedy part of downtown. The sword had been stuck in the back near the pots and pans, and we had both reached for it at the same time. It was only later that we discovered that it sharpened itself, drew no blood when you were only defending yourself, and made a killer time-space continuum ripper. Of course, that was in the hands of Avel. When I wrapped my fingers around the hilt, all I got was a very pretty, flashy sword.

Avel brushed my arm as he and Leandra went outside. It was so silly; whenever he was near, my brain went kaput. All my intellectual capacities hit a negative line and I was useless. But never once had it occurred to me, before this moment, that he was doing it on purpose. Jeremiah had turned into a werewolf. Anything was possible.

It wasn't until we were in the car and seatbelted that Avel could speak without my brain doing jumping jacks in la-la land. The sound of his voice made me jump, and at first I didn't even know that he was talking to me directly.

"Huh?" I asked eloquently.

"Did you see which way he ran?" Avel repeated patiently. I shook my head.

"After he cleared the fence I tried, but he was smart and turned into a dark color. Next time let's ask him to be white." Avel rolled his eyes at me and Leandra kept staring straight ahead. We drove for about ten minutes without saying a word, and then Avel suddenly veered the car to the left, jumping the median and giving me a pretty impressive bounce in the seat. The top of my head whomped soundly on the ceiling and, even though Leandra was screaming, all I did was grunt. The car swerved and then stopped, and before we could do anything Avel was out the door and sprinting to the fence.

Leandra and I were in a little baby moment of shock, and we watched, open-mouthed, as Jeremiah suddenly came leaping over the fence, clearing it by a good three feet. Avel followed him quickly, his long legs eating up the ground between him and his brother. Dogs all over the neighborhood were howling and barking, and I heard a few cats yowling from across the street. Avel kept reaching for Jer's tail, but each time he put forth the effort, his brother flicked it out of the way. They were getting further and further down the road, and with Leandra still silent and wide-eyed in the front seat, I jumped into action.

"Move!" I yelled. Leandra was leaning over into the driver's side, and as I threw myself into the seat I hit the gas and turned the wheel as hard as I could to the left. Wheels squealed in the darkness as the tread took to the asphalt and spun the car around almost on a dime (it was probably more like a quarter, or a two-euro piece). The front door slammed shut; I hadn't even bothered to reach over to close it when I'd moved.

It's a good thing we weren't in Avel's car, a fancy little European stick shift that I wouldn't have been able to drive. Leandra's car was fast, though, and we caught up to Avel and Jeremiah in ten seconds. It gave me a strange joy to see Avel running after a wolf-dog, breathing hard and trying to keep the sword from hitting his leg. It was taking every ounce of his concentration and strength to keep up with a four-legged animal, and knowing that made me grin, relaxed.

Leandra rolled down her window. "What should we do?" she yelled at Avel. He lifted his hands in a small shrug, and when Leandra tried to ask again, he interrupted her.

"I have to catch him!" he said. Lea nodded, then turned to me.

"Drive faster," she said.

"What? Faster than what?" He pointed at her fiance.

"Faster than him! Go!" I pressed on the gas and lined her window up with Jeremiah's head, and I was absolutely terrified the entire time that I was going to lose concentration and hit him with the car. Leandra was leaning out the window with only her shins on the chair. She pushed the toes of her right foot into the crevice between the chair and the center console, and she stretched her left leg into the space under the glove box, for balance.

"Jeremiah!" She yelled. "Honey, do you want something to drink?" Jeremiah looked at her while keeping pace, and she did a great job of looking benevolent. "I have some water and some orange juice!"

"Water sounds so good!" Jeremiah said just loudly enough for me to hear. He was breathing hard and his words were broken apart by about two seconds each, but it worked. He slowed down. I let off on the gas just as he altered his pace, and then suddenly Avel was upon him and both dog and man tumbled to the ground. Lea gasped, and I slammed on the brakes so hard that I'm pretty sure the back two tires of the car lifted off the road. Leandra was out of the car before I could even get my seat belt off, and I raced after her, grabbing her arm just before she could throw herself down next to the boys.

"Don't!" I said. "Let Avel..." Leandra stopped trying to wriggle out of my grip and stood back with me, watching Avel wrestle with his brother.

"Dude, calm down!" Avel said. His arms were around Jeremiah's neck, and Avel suddenly looked me in the eyes, then looked at the sword. I didn't even have to shoot him a questioning glance; I dropped Lea's arm, took a deep breath and darted for the sheathed sword. It slid easily out of its confines and felt clean and light in my hands. I circled the wrestling pair, holding the sword the way Avel had taught me, and slightly bent my knees, ready.

"Meli!" Leandra said. I shushed her and nodded at Avel.

"Jeremiah, stop!" Avel said. The authority in his voice even made me stand up straighter. Jeremiah paused, noticed me, and stayed still. I narrowed my eyes to get an angry effect.

"Don't make me hurt you, Wolf Boy," I said. Jeremiah whimpered. He struggled, trying to turn around so he could have a shot at Avel's neck. Avel tightened his grip and grunted with the effort. Leandra was staring at me with eyes so wide I marveled they didn't pop out of her face.

"Meli..." she said. That was it. Just my name. I dared to glance at her, and she looked terrified. Jeremiah struggled again, and she refocused her attention on him. I knew more than saw her hand move; I mean, of all the Leandra-esque things to do at that moment, reaching out to the guy with bear trap jaws and razored canines was at the top of the list, right next to begging me to put the sword away and trying to pull Avel off of his brother.

"Don't touch him!" Avel said. His voice sounded like a growl because he was putting all of his energies into holding down the wolf boy, and Leandra did jerk back. But only for a second. A moment later, she was reaching out her hand again.

With a bark and a snap, Jeremiah's doggy instincts took over and he nearly caught the tips of his fiancee's fingers in his teeth. Without thinking, I lunged. I had my left arm up, hooked pirate-style, and my legs were bent slightly less than expertly in the quad-killing fencing squat. The tip of the sword slid into the muscle of Jeremiah's shoulder before my brain really connected what I was doing with the feeling of a sword moving through someone's body.

When it finally did connect, I shuddered suddenly and almost dropped the sword. It was sick and worse than hearing a bone break. I mean, you watch movies now, and mostly what you see are machine guns and bazookas and people screaming about these tiny red dots of blood scattered like fireworks over their chest; swords are an entirely different story. Imagine sticking someone with a steak knife and being able to actually feel the seraded edge slice through individual muscles.

Jeremiah screamed, a strange half-howl that made me want to clap my hands over my ears, and in that moment I felt like my own shoulder had been pierced. It was the same second I made the mistake of looking down at the end of the blade, and the bile in my throat definitely made it to my mouth. The smell of blood hit me then, and I had to turn away. There wasn't anything else to do; the darkness was closing in, the smell of dead things was crawling up my nose... and Avel was screaming at me to look back.

I whipped my head back around just in time to see Jeremiah's fangs halt half of an inch away from my nose. He was jumping at me, completely ignoring the fact that the sword was still embedded in his sinew, and bits of saliva hit me like freckles. Leandra was screaming again, Avel was yelling, the cats were hissing, dogs were growling and barking, and I just couldn't take it anymore.

"Jeremiah!" I screamed. For effect I dug the sword deeper into his body with one hand and pointed in his face with the other. "Sit!" The sword flashed and Jer's skin rippled sickly, like it had just before he changed. I saw Avel's white teeth flash in the faint light suddenly coming from the blade. Gasping, Leandra stopped screaming and jumped to her feet.

"Meli! What did you do?" Jeremiah's teeth snapped shut and he dropped to the ground, had a brief seizure, and was still. Pretty sure I was gaping at it all.

"I...'m not... sure..." I said. I looked at my ex. He shrugged. "Avel doesn't know, either."

We all stood there, surrounded by the softly lingering scent of blood and sweat, the sounds of our breathing creating a calming rhythm in the lamplight. Jeremiah was breathing; we could hear wuffly doggy breaths coming in and out of the side of his mouth. Leandra stood with her arms crossed over her body, staring at her fiance's body. Avel coughed, hocked, and spit. Then, without ceremony, he knelt down, hoisted his brother's unconscious form onto his shoulders, and started walking away.

"Avel?" I said. Leandra and I looked at one another, totally confused. The car was right there... "Hey! Where are you going?" I jogged a couple of steps and looked up at him. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and he motioned at Jeremiah with a nod of his head.

"If he wakes up it shouldn't be in a car," he said. "Besides, I should get him home and give him his medicine."

"What?" I said. Medicine?

"So it doesn't happen again," Avel said. He glanced at Leandra, who nodded. I stared at them both.

"Waaaaaaiiiiiiiiiit a minute," I said. I giggled, then composed myself. "Wait. Medicine: OK. Again: not OK." I laughed again as my brain clicked through its information. Avel's face was expressionless, and Lea was staring at the ground, a sure sign that she was hiding something. "This has happened before?" Avel cleared his throat, and Lea tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Lemme try again: THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFO-"

"Ssshhh!" Avel's hand slammed across my mouth, sending me backwards a couple of steps. "Of course it has. Now give me the sword back." I handed it to him without thinking about it, and suddenly he was gone. No joke. Poof. Gone. Leandra finally looked up at me and smiled.

"It's all right now!" she said sunnily. She practically bounced back to the car, which she started. I was so stunned that I didn't move for a good three minutes, but then I realized how cold I was, and how late it was getting, and I fell numbly into the shotgun seat. Leandra chattered on the way back to my car, but I didn't contribute.

All I could think about was whether Jeremiah's medicine was Pepto Pink and injectable, or Excedrin White and in pill form. When I got home I ate about half of Natalie's coffee cake before passing out on my bed in my jeans and bra. And that was that. No more doggyness, no more screams. And Leandra never, ever mentioned it, ever again.

12 June 2010

Brute, Part 4

I don't know what happens when other people suggest to their friends that they should kill their werewolf fiances with silver bullets, but Lea didn't react in a very happy way. I mean, I really wasn't serious. Of course not, that would be cruel. But Leandra didn't really get that part, so her reaction was that of a person being told to coldly create puree out of the love of her life. Oops.

Leandra was so shocked by the suggestion that she didn't even look at me. She looked past me, at a little aberration in the tile on the wall of the kitchen. I know this because I turned around, saw it, too, and stepped in front of it. Leandra blinked.

"Lea. Joking. We're not going to kill him," I said. She nodded dumbly. I picked up my glass and started to lift it to my lips, silently searching for a less bloody solution. I had no idea what to do. Usually in the stories this was the part when some expert werewolf hunter or crazy-cool vampire turned up to help the heroines out. Inadvertently, I glanced around the small room, and then smiled when I realized I was waiting for the door to slam open to reveal the black trench coat and rakish hat of someone not unlike Van Helsing.

Nothing happened. I'm pretty sure nothing happened for a while, because suddenly I blinked and Leandra wasn't standing in front of me anymore. And she wasn't outside with Jeremiah. Crap. Where...?

Something crashed down the small hallway, and I bounded (as literally as possible) around the corner. Leandra was extricating herself out of the tiny guest bedroom, which serves double duty as a storage area. She had changed into a white longsleeve shirt that probably was her fiance's, and she was carrying a couple of golf clubs. Oh, and she was wearing a monstrous silver chain -- the kind usually used in industrial zones -- around her shoulders like a scarf.

"What?" she said when she saw my face. "It's cold outside." I opened my mouth without realizing it and tried to say something that wasn't stupid. What the heck were they doing with a chain like that in the hall closet?

By the time I got around to verbally reacting to her appearance, all that came out was, "A little." Leandra stopped in front of me and stood up straight so she could adjust the chain.

"OK, here's what's going to happen. We're going to convince him he's a wolf. And then go from there. Yes?"

"Uh...yes?"

"No, you can't question the 'yes'! It's either a solid 'yes' or no 'yes' at all!"

"Ah," I said, not feeling entirely sure about the whole thing, especially since she felt it necessary to bring out the clubs. My golf lessons had involved tiny white balls, not wolves. Nevertheless, I held out my hand and she placed one of the clubs in it. I hefted it like I would a tennis racket, trying to figure out what exactly I was going to be using it for. The idea of hitting anything in the face with it was making me a tad queasy.

"I'll try first," Leandra said. She moved past me, holding her club casually in front of her, and exited through the back door. Should I stop her? I thought. Ha, was my answer. She wasn't going to be stopped. At least, not by me or anything else in the immediate vicinity. Her tennis shoes squeaked on the metal threshold and I winced at the sharp sound. It was a moment before I reminded myself that we didn't need the element of surprise. No matter what, Jeremiah was gonna be really surprised in the next few moments.

Holding my club just below the rubbery grip, I went to stand in the doorway. A cool night breeze blew my hair into my face and I choked again on the smell of bunny blood. Leandra only looked at me once more, just before she crouched down and reached out her hand toward Jeremiah's head. Her fingers clenched almost before they had a grip on the fur around his neck, at least, it looked that way from my point of view. I knew she had a good grip on him because Jeremiah flinched.

"Ow!" He said. "Hey!"

"Sorry, babe," Leandra said. "But you have to listen to me. You turned into a dog...wolf...thing. You didn't cook that rabbit; you killed a bunny with your teeth."

Jeremiah looked back at me. I screwed up my lips and nodded. He put his head back down and sighed, "But I don't feel like a wolf." He paused and looked down at himself, moving his paws experimentally. "I look fine to me."

"Jer," I said as I stepped down onto the cement step. "You really did, and you are. You just...can't tell." A cricket chirped happily. The blood was getting to me, I could feel more than see my vision going black, since it was already so dark. Leandra still had her hand on Jeremiah's neck. Suddenly, he jumped up, baring his teeth at us and growling. If I'd had any more water in me, I totally would have peed my pants.

"I don't believe you, you girls are crazy!" he yelled, breaking into a low growl and baring his teeth at us. I bent my knees, preparing for some sort of attack. "Why are you saying this?" he snarled. Leandra and I exchanged looks, speechless.

"Look at the steps, Jeremiah! There's blood all over them! How do you explain that?" Jeremiah took the tiniest of steps forward so he could see the concrete, which was indeed stained with bright blood like venomous nail polish. I blinked, trying and failing to figure out where that comparison came from. I don't even own red polish. Weird... Blinking again, I yanked myself back to the present, where Leandra and Jeremiah were yelling at one another. Every thing Leandra used to prove Jeremiah was a werewolf of sorts, Jeremiah scoffed at.

"I'm not!" He screamed with a note of finality and, with a grace usually attributed to panthers and other great cats, Jeremiah turned on his fuzzy doggy legs and leaped over the fence. He landed soundlessly on the other side and even though I knew we couldn't get to the fence fast enough to stop him, I sprinted after him and ended up slamming into the fence. Leandra tried jumping the fence but she was too short to get anywhere, and we looked at one another dumbly.

"Now what?" I asked. Leandra bit her nail and stared at the ground, looking like she didn't want to say what she was thinking because she knew I would make her do it. The downcast angle of her eyes told me that asking again wasn't going to make her talk sooner, so I turned back and partially climbed one of the trees in the yard. Obviously I was hoping to see the retreating form of the doggy fiance, but no luck. It was so dark that even lightly colored objects were a pain to keep track of. I got back down and stood with my arms crossed. Lea suddenly nodded.

"Ok. I know what we're going to do," she said. I waited. She hesitated. I raised my eyebrows and tried to look in her face; she looked away. And then she bit her lip just before saying, "Iknowyou'regoingtohatemebutwehavetogotalktoAvel."

I took half a step backwards and dropped the head of my golf club to the ground. It thumped dully and seemed to perfectly explain how I felt about the situation. Avel? She would say that we had to go see him. Idiot. When I think of Avel, the little voice in my head says, "Freeekimpher grumbleassolpher stupid Avel." There are several variations; that just happens to be my favorite.

Avel is...Avel. He was the last, well, involvement I had. Not quite boyfriend, not quite friend, that sort of thing. It had lasted far too long, and sometimes when I heard his name my stomach would vault into butterfly somersaults before I remembered that I hated his guts. I grimaced and looked at Leandra, begging her with my eyes to take it back even while knowing that she was right. Avel was the only one who would be able to talk to Jeremiah without causing terrible things to happen.

They were, after all, twin brothers.

05 June 2010

Brute, Part 3

Hold it. Whoa, yeah, OK, so in case you didn't notice, this is PART 3. That means you may have missed the other two installments of "Brute". I'll give you a few minutes to catch up. You're welcome. -m
Brute, Part 1
Brute, Part 2

Leandra and Jeremiah were in the backyard talking, and I watched them from inside the house with an eyebrow raised . I had left the glass door open so as to avoid any comedic accidents in the event that Jeremiah went berserk again.

The sun was gone now, leaving only a few pinkish remnants of light over the mountains. If I stood on the very edge of the threshold I could see the orange moon rising higher in the sky. Now that Jeremiah was sitting there being all canine-like, I made a face at the moon, feeling ridiculous for thinking it was somehow responsible for all this.

Bouncing on my toes, I watched Leandra pat her new dog on the head, smile, and say something in his ear. I didn't really feel like venturing out there, so I stood on the brink of inside and outside, waiting. The first thing I had done when I'd gone inside was grab my phone out of my bag on the couch. I was flipping it over and over in my hand; it was strangely reassuring to hear the plastic smack against my palm. The time for helping my sister move out was way past; I had already texted her and explained things. Sort of. I hadn't been very specific.

Leandra suddenly stood and came toward me. I moved aside and she brushed past me as she wiped her cheek with her hand. The look I gave her must have been sufficiently quizzical, because she made a face as she got some water from the kitchen.

"He licked me," she said as she wiped her hand on her jeans. I couldn't help it -- I started laughing. She glared at me. "It's not funny."

"No, of course not. I'm sorry," I said. I tossed my head to get my hair out of my eyes and straightened up a little, trying to look the very image of seriousness. But then the thought of Jeremiah slapping a wet doggy kiss on my friend's face made the smile come back.

"Stop it!" Leandra said, whacking me on the arm. She sipped at the cool water and hesitated a moment more before saying, "What are we going to do?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. What do you wanna do?"

"I...I don't know." She looked out to the yard and grimaced when she saw Jeremiah scratching his neck with his back foot.

"Well, what do you want me to do? Should I stay? We could call someone..." I looked at her from the corner of my eye, gauging her reaction. Leandra simply shrugged at everything I said and stayed silent. I leaned back against the door. If she wasn't going to want to call the police or animal control or something, there really wasn't much I could do. I looked at Jeremiah, who was sitting silently outside. "What's he doing?"

"He said the stars were really pretty and told me to go grab some blankets so we could lay out and look at them," Leandra said. She sounded pretty miserable. I hid a smile by focusing on my confusion.

"Oh," was all I said that time. This was followed by an eloquent, "Ummm." Leandra looked me in the eyes and then patted me on the arm.

"You should go home," she said. I raised my eyebrows, thinking she was just trying to be nice.

"You're sure?" She nodded and looked out at Jeremiah, who was still waiting.

"He won't hurt me or anything. We'll just stargaze a while and then I'll go home, too," she said. I pursed my lips, thought for a sec, and then decided to do as she suggested.

"Call if you need me, lady," I said as I walked out the front door. I didn't hear her answer.
---

Teia was amused my my late arrival, as she proved when she bounded into me when I got home. I barely had time to keep my keys from stabbing her in the stomach.

"You deserted me!" she said dramatically, throwing her head to one side and pretending to be distressed.

"Hardly," I said, struggling to breathe in Teia's death grasp. "Leandra had some problems. Problems worse than you being physically unable to throw away junk." Teia dropped her arms and grinned mischievously.

"Junk you gave me," she said as I moved past her into the kitchen. Natalie , the other little sister, was standing in front of a mixing bowl holding a whisk in one hand and a spatula in the other.

"Because you asked for it!" I yelled. Teia laughed and I heard her thunder up the stairs to her room. It was probably mostly empty by now, and I did feel a slight twinge of guilt as I plopped into a chair by the counter, watching Natalie navigate a recipe. Just as she was leaning past me to grab an egg sitting in the spoon holder by the sink, she made a face.

"You smell weird," she said.

"Gee, thanks."

"And you're covered with black hairs. Stop leaning on the table!" she added suddenly when I put my elbows up. "Out! Out of my kitchen! You're going to get fur in everything!" I stuck my tongue out at her and went to flop on the couch in the living room, but I only made it to the floor.

Laying there on my back, I stared blankly at the vaulted ceiling and decided that stretching would feel really good. I straightened out and lifted both of my feet, keeping my legs straight as long as possible. When my feet were nearly touching the floor behind my head, I held them there and marveled at how wonderful it felt. Teia came pounding down the stairs.

"That looks comfy," she said sarcastically and giggled.

"Shut up and try it yourself before you judge me," I said. "I am comfortable." She shook her head and went into the kitchen for a moment. I heard the fridge door open and close, and then she was back, but moving toward the front door.

"Meeting Isaac," she said. I dropped my legs and rolled over, mouth open to question her, but the door slammed shut and she was gone. I rolled again so I could see Nat and I propped myself up on my elbows.

"Do we know Isaac?" I asked, though I knew the answer. Natalie shrugged and shook her head. "Didn't think so."

I had just made it back down to my room when I heard my phone start to ring. Every happy thought inside of me that had been thinking about reading and then going to bed jumped off a cliff when I glanced at the caller ID. Leandra. I knew I shouldn't be rolling my eyes at a time like this, but hey, I was tired, and, I remembered at that moment, I hadn't eaten dinner.

"Hey," I said as I flipped the phone open. "What's up?"

"Oh, god, Meli, you have to come back," Leandra said. I immediately ran back up the stairs. That was real terror in her voice.

"What? What's wrong? What happened?" I scrambled to find my keys. Where had I put them? The table? No, not on the table. Crap. Maybe in my...no. Shoot. OK, keys, call to me, I thought.

"I...I don't know! One minute we were just lying there, talking, and the next....oh, Meli." I found the keys were they always are -- on the hook in the front closet.

"What?!?" I yelled. Leandra was obviously not thinking very quickly. She was speaking quickly, but only in groups of three or four words at a time. And then she just stopped like that, and everyone knows that when someone stops before telling you something that made them call you with horror haunting their words, well, you just know it's not gonna be good.

"He killed a bunny!" I stopped suddenly on my way out the door, my fingers on the handle. I thought for a few seconds, sure that Leandra had said something else. My phone had to have messed that one up. Either way, I was much calmer and prone to patience, and since I couldn't come up with anything else that she might have said (Killed the money? What? No.), I asked her to repeat what she'd said.

"We were on the grass, and I had my hand on his back, and then...and then....he jumped up and he killed a little baby bunny!" I almost dropped the phone I was laughing so hard. Needless to say, it's a good thing she couldn't see me at that moment, because, oh man, did I lose it. Completely.

"Did he save some for you?" I asked. I heard her gasp.

"Meli! That's disgusting!"

"Hey, now, I'm just sayin'....if the man wants to put food on the table...." I said.

"Could you come over? Please? It's getting worse."

"What do you mean?" I asked, swallowing my laughter as I heard her new, quieter tone. I used her pause to yell at Natalie that I was leaving again and shut the door.

"Can you just come?" I nodded even though she couldn't see or sense it and started my car.

"Ten minutes," I said. Leandra thanked me and I flipped the phone shut and dropped it in my cup holder between the front seats. I don't usually speed too terribly, but I shortened the ten minute drive to Jeremiah's place to about six minutes, which is impressive, I think. Just as I pulled up, I mused that maybe by "come over" Leandra had meant to her place, but I shook my head at that one, because of course she wouldn't have left him yet. I got out of my car and found myself walking very, very slowly up to the door.

Leandra met me there; her hair was running loose and looked a little static-y, and the free strands made her wide open eyes look profoundly stricken. Without a word she led me through the small home and to the back yard where, illuminated gently by the moonlight, I could see tufts of white fur scattered all over the grass. Jeremiah was lounging in doggy form against the step, and he was gnawing on something.

The smell of blood suddenly hit me, and I dry retched a little. When my second grade class had gone on a field trip to the Natural History Museum downtown to watch a lamb's heart dissection, I had swooned -- yes, swooned -- and barely made it out the door before fainting full out on the disgustingly decorated, unpadded carpet of the Hall of Life. Blood and I aren't friends.

Jeremiah heard me (probably smelled me, too) and looked up at me, grinning with teeth covered in baby bunny blood. "Hey, Meli," he said. Weird to hear your name coming from the murderous fangs of your friend's fiance.

"Hi, Jer. Uh... whatcha got there?"

"Dinner. Cooked up some rabbit." I glanced at Leandra with my eyes squinted, hoping for an explanation. She looked at me with a look along the lines of "I told you so" and then motioned for me to pay attention. As if I wanted to miss any of this.

Leandra knelt down near his head, so that he still had to look back at us a little, and said, "Jer? Honey? Is your fur keeping you warm enough?" Jeremiah looked at her with so much confusion brimming in his eyes that my jaw dropped as I began to comprehend.

"Fur? Oh, you mean my jacket? Sure, it's fine. Still pretty warm out." Leandra stood and looked me in the eyes. The light from the kitchen door swathed her face in a slightly yellow glow that almost made her brown eyes look gold. I doubt she could see me very well. I stared at Jeremiah for a second, trying to piece things together, and then I shot my hand out and yanked Leandra inside with me. I pulled her into the kitchen and made a lot of noise by pulling a cup out of the cupboard and turning on the sink for water.

"He doesn't know he's a monstrous, furry brute of a fanged killer thing!" I hissed, trying to get all of my feelings into one sentence. I think I succeeded. I didn't even hesitate before adding, "He killed a baby bunny!" Oh, yes, I said it. And without laughing, too.

"I know!" Leandra said. "What did you think I meant?" I took a few big gulps of water, trying to calm myself by filling my belly. I stared out the window.

"How can you not know that your body popped itself out of human mode and into wolf mode? How? It's not possible, I tell you! It's not!" Leandra put her hand on my arm, and I stuck my nose in my glass again, briefly wishing that Jeremiah believed in liquid stronger than caffeinated coffee.

"SShhhh! He'll hear you!" Leandra said, throwing a glance toward the back door.

"'Oh, you mean my jacket?'" I mumbled, imitating Jeremiah's voice. "Oh, it's very warm. Hi, guys, I'm a black-eyed killer from your nightmares, if you don't mind please would you set the bunnies loose?" I flexed my fingers in front of Leandra's face and made wild hand motions to emphasize key points of my tiny monologue, but she ignored me. At least, she pretended to.

"Shut up! We have to figure out what to do," Leandra said. She pinched my arm and I snapped out of my little reaction just in time to stave of the hyperventilating. I put the glass down and lowered my arms at the same time, as though pressing my irrationality into the nether regions of the house.

"Well," I said, weighing my words. "Do you have any silver bullets?"

03 June 2010

Brute, Part 2

(Better read "Brute, Part 1", otherwise you're going to be so totally confused.)

Leandra and I had almost not looked at one another during the two minutes we had been on the ground next to Jeremiah. I had been able to hear her alternately sobbing and screaming, but I hadn’t looked at her face. So I took this moment of calm to glance into her eyes. I’m pretty sure that I looked like a bug with eyes wider than my oversized sunglasses, but I couldn’t have looked more terrified than Leandra looked at that moment. The sick person came out in me again as I bet she was trying to figure out how to beg her way out of paying for the rest of her wedding dress.

Leandra’s eyes were open so far that for a second, I thought that my brain was playing tricks on me. I could see so much of the white of her eyes that I immediately thought of a spooked horse. Her makeup was almost nonexistent now, not that she had been wearing a lot to begin with, but now, instead of being around her eyes, it was smeared on her cheekbones and the front of her shirt.

“Is he…?” Leandra said, leaving the sentence half-alive in a forgotten mind-attic. I looked back at Jeremiah, shaking my head. His chest was still moving; it was moving so obviously that in a normal situation I would have teased my friend for not noticing, but I didn’t even think of doing so.

“I wonder if we should move him?” I said as I stretched out my hand to touch his arm. The neighborhood was quiet except for some cars driving down the street and the mumbled conversations of people a few houses down. How no one had heard the screaming and joint cracking, I have no idea. I guess people just don’t like to get involved. Jer’s arm moved when I poked it, but nothing else happened. Leandra, seeing that I could touch him sans probleme, reached out her own hand and placed it on his chest. She looked up at me and grinned, her brown eyes alight with hope.


“I can feel his heart!” she said. I just nodded, still slowly trying to decide what to do. No one had come to help. It was the two of us and a broken, unconscious body.


“Jeremiah?” I asked. I leaned above his face and spoke a little louder than I usually do, which is probably too loud anyhow. Leandra copied me, adding a “Honey?” to her query. “Jer?” I repeated. And then, suddenly, he groaned, and I could have sworn that I saw his lips move. I leaned closer, so that my face was just above his, and tapped his face with my palm. Leandra finally seemed to wake up; she raised herself up a little and moved to the other side of Jeremiah’s body by throwing one leg and then the other over his very, very quiet form.


I began to doubt whether I had seen him move or not. Leandra took my place above his face, yelling at him, moving his head, and covering his face with kisses. Yeah, definitely not an approach I would have undertaken. Everything that had been moving so quickly was suddenly still….too still. I looked up into the sky, noticing for the first time that it was evening, and a couple of stars were out, laughing and twinkling. Allowing myself a very short sigh, I looked over my shoulder. I don’t know what I was hoping to see. Maybe a firefighter or policeman or, at the very least, a walking, talking staple gun to prove that I truly had gone insane.


But the only thing I saw was the moon, slightly orange and hidden behind some clouds. Nothing interesting. I looked back at Jeremiah and Leandra. The soft light made everything look like it was spun out of springtime, and I was waiting for the baby bunnies to hop out of the corner of the yard, from under that aspen tree with its pristine, creamy bark.


Sighing, I heaved myself back into position. “Lea…maybe we should call someone?” I asked. Finally my brain was working quickly enough to come up with that solution. But to my surprise, she shook her head.


"No,” she said. “He’ll be alright. He’ll be up in a second.”“Leandra—“


“It’s OK, I’ve got him,” she said, and for the first time I wished I had kicked her out of the yard. This was probably worse than traumatizing. What could be worse than watching your fiancĂ© die? I couldn’t come up with anything.


“Here, let me,” I said as I slid my arm under Jeremiah's shoulders. Leandra was trying to pull him up by tugging on either side of his shirt. His arms were splayed, and because every joint was out of place he had become a horror film version of Gumby, bendable in every way. Jeremiah’s head lolled sickly backwards, making me think of a million Catholic crucifixes full of broken figurines. With my arm just below his head, at least it didn’t look like it was going to fall off.


As I was pulling him up, grimacing because I could feel him sagging down and I knew it was because nothing in his body was truly connected, Leandra squeaked. My eyes darted up, searching her face.


“What?”


“He moved! I felt it! He’s OK!” I didn’t really react to what she said; I just sort of looked back into Jeremiah’s face, which was oh-so-terribly-close, and wondered, yet again, what the heck was happening.


That’s when his entire body snapped together, throwing itself out of our arms like a rubber band. We both screamed. The force of the movement of Jeremiah’s body tossed us to the ground like dishrags; I felt my ankle crack, and my head hit the grass with a dull thump that was, without question, going to hurt for a long time. Leandra was on the ground nursing her right arm. She had been forced back so that it almost looked like she was purposefully reclining on the soft grass. I stared at her for a millionth of a second, then turned to Jeremiah’s body a few feet away.


It shouldn’t have surprised me that something weird had happened. I mean, seriously, he was writhing on the grass and his joints burst from his bones. Was I really expecting him to flutter his eyelashes and wake up, smiling, to us slapping his face?


Either way, I so was not prepared to find myself on my butt in my friend’s future back yard, staring at her fiancĂ©, who was baring his teeth at me and growling. In the one split second that it took for his joints to heal and pull together, he had grown paws, a fine layer of brownish-black fur, and the build of the crazy child of a Rottweiler and a wolf.


That said, you can imagine my further surprise when Jeremiah, as impaired as he was by rippling black lips and razor canines, lifted an eyebrow and asked, “What in the world is wrong with you people?”

02 June 2010

Brute, Part 1

The sun was nearly too warm to be comfortable, but every once in a while the breeze picked up off of the pool and it wasn't too unbearable. I was in long jeans and a t-shirt made of thick, unbreathable fabric, but I was determined to get some sun. Try spending a freezing winter indoors with nothing to do but shovel snow and fear for your hail-battered car, and show me a sunny day where you don't try to milk it for all it's worth.

I was sitting -- well, lounging, really -- in a cushioned deck chair at a house one of my best friends was watching for some friends. Leandra studied teaching in college and had a job set up, but it wouldn't start until August. So here she was, stuck in a mansion with a private lake of a swimming pool, and nothing to do but use the grill and giant flat screen in the theater in the basement. Of course, I couldn't let her die of boredom on her own, and I offered my entertainment services. This is why I was lounging.

I lifted my head and pulled my hair out from under my back. The dark, wavy mass was a great pillow, and I readjusted it so that the back of my head was cradled by a large coil. Leandra was inside talking on the phone to her fiance. I could just barely hear the murmur of her voice through the glass doors. Jeremiah had called about wedding music or something. Who knows. I was outside, I could feel the sun weaving between my toes. Listening wasn't really that high on my priority list.

"Meli?" Leandra was at the door, the phone still to her ear, the mouthpiece end held in her hair. I "hmm?"ed and squinted up at her. "Jeremiah wants to know if you can design something for the place settings. You could just come with me later today," she suggested. I shrugged.

"Sure. Swirlies?" I asked. Everyone liked putting swirlies on everything. I pretended to hate them, but there're very few things cooler than a well-designed vine swirlie. Takes talent, that.

"I don't know," Leandra said. She put the phone back in place and slid the door shut. Seeing her on the phone made me want to check mine, too, and I dropped my arm down to feel for it in the shade under the chair. After a couple of tries I felt it and pulled it up, though that was after scraping my knuckles on the concrete.

I pushed a random button and tried to angle the screen so I could see the screen. No messages, no calls. I sighed for no real reason and dropped the phone face-down on my stomach.
---

A couple of hours later we were at Jeremiah's house, which is, not gonna lie, probably the smallest house in the universe. For such a young guy, he was doing really well. Owned a tiny house in a cute neighborhood filled with children on training wheels and smiling, waving parents, had a pretty fiancee, a solid job...

I had followed Leandra to Jer's house, since I was supposed to be helping my sister move out that night and would probably have to leave before Leandra was done smooching Jeremiah. She was out of her car and trotting up to the house before I even had my car off. Since it was her fiance, I only rolled my eyes once. Twice would have been pushing it a little, I think. Reaching to the legroom area of the shotgun seat, I tugged on my bag, which got caught on a lever underneath the seat. Then I had to lean over even further, fumble around to find the lever, and slide the cloth away from danger. I'm pretty sure I strained an oblique muscle leaning that far.

Tossing my phone and keys in the bag, I got out, made it halfway to the house, and then remembered that I hadn't locked anything. Thinking of the happy families walking the friendly sidewalk, and of my collection of what they would probably consider devil music, I hastily searched for my keys in the recesses of my bag. I'd rather not come back outside to a bonfire in my backseat.

I was only just turning away from my car when Leandra burst out of Jeremiah's front door, screaming something worse than bloody murder. I mean, I had no idea she had that kind of lung capacity. Seriously. Luckily I had good enough ears to hear my name being screamed, and a good enough sense of appropriate reactions that instead of congratulating her on the horror film audition, I sprinted across the trimmed green grass and flew past her into the house.

The entry opened into a small den area, and straight across from it was a small eating area, which led to the small back yard via glass and screen sliding doors. From inside the house, I could see Jeremiah on the ground in the back, writhing with his hands clenching and unclenching in claw-like grips. Leandra was still screaming, but it was mostly for me to keep moving. I threw my bag on the couch, ran through the open back doors, and slid to my knees at Jeremiah's side.

It was... hideous. You know those sci-fi movies where someone gets a bug or an alien under their skin and it sort of rolls around looking like a freak bulging muscle? They scream and scream, but the only thing the other characters can do is stare in fascinated horror. This was one of those moments, and it looked like Jeremiah had allowed entry to about a million tiny rolling muscle bugs. The effect was a rolling ripple effect over his entire body, even his face. He wasn't screaming, but his mouth was wide open, and it looked like his vocal chords were trying very hard to come up with something like a scream. Every muscle was strained, every nerve was obviously being stabbed in the extremities.

"What happened?" I yelled at Leandra. I tried putting my hand out to hold down Jeremiah, but I wasn't strong enough to do anything. Leandra was crying now.

"I don't know! We were just talking! I didn't do anything!!"

"Was he eating something?" It was the only thing that came to mind, though I didn't think Jeremiah was allergic to anything; I didn't even think an allergic reaction could be this powerful.

"N-No! I don't think so," she said. Jeremiah's mouth suddenly snapped shut, so he was just writhing with his mouth pinched closed. Leandra reached out to do something, but one of his flinging arms knocked her hand away. "Should we call--" she began to add; but I stopped her.

Jeremiah had begun to stop writhing, but it was only barely noticeable. The boiling effect his muscles were going through subtly went from rippling to waving, and when he stopped arching his back, I gasped. Leandra silenced and we both watched, more than horrified, as Jeremiah's finger, wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints all came out of place. It was like the muscles had each decided to take his bones somewhere else, and they all jumped at the same time. I thrust my arm right in front of her face the instant it happened.

This time, Jeremiah screamed. Leandra and I were shocked to stillness. Looking back, I'm glad we didn't call 911 or something; even then, neither of us were retaining enough of our wits to get that far. Maybe it's sick to watch your best friend's fiance roll in agonizing pain in the middle of his manicured lawn, but I couldn't move, much less think or help. What in the world do you do in these moments? Unless you have combat training and experience working in a war hospital, I don't really think there is anything you're capable to do.

When his joints broke, Jeremiah finally screamed -- a tortuous cry straight from the depths of you-know-where. For the first time, I was actually afraid of what was happening. It hit me that all this rolling, screaming, and muscle-moving was not something that you hear about on the news. I had never gotten home from work and turned on the tube to hear about scientists who were steadily working towards a cure for Rolling-in-the-Grass-Screaming Syndrome.

And then, suddenly, Jeremiah's body went limp. It just flopped down and was still. I stopped thinking about the TV and everything and grabbed Leandra's elbow. She reached for my arm at the same moment, and we kneeled there, holding the other's arm, waiting.