The Werewolf and the Human

Werewolves aren’t real. I need to make that clear. I need to make that statement as clear as I can. There is no such thing as werewolves. There are no alphas. There are no betas. They are only Greek letters. Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, Beta being the second. That is all that it is. Omega, the last. If they were anything more, I would be concerned, but I am not concerned. What I was, was hopelessly lost in the woods. With a wolf. With a green-eyed wolf. Alone. That is where this all went wrong. I had to be dumb enough to stay. How I got in that position was a culmination of hilarious and well-timed accidents. However, I am sure that some would call it fate for people who believe in fate. And well, soulmates. You can love someone, don’t get me wrong. I believe that you can love someone with all of your heart. I believe that you can feel connected to someone, but that your one true love is out there and all of the other people you flirt with, date, have s*x with, all of that is just a distraction that seems unlikely. Why can’t we love someone else? Why is there only one person for us? Maybe it was the guy in med school that accidentally cheated on you. Just as a side note, how does someone accidentally cheat on you? It’s not like they can fall private part first into someone else. The med student’s excuse will be that he was drunk and lonely because you don’t drink as much as him. You weren’t there. He’ll put all of the blame on you, and maybe for a moment, you’ll believe the blame. Perhaps for a few moments, you’ll even stay, but in the end, he leaves you for the girl he fell into, or maybe another girl that he wanted to fall into, another girl that he did fall into, or one he had fallen into the past, the point is it won’t be you. Maybe it was the exotic pilot that took you to far-off places in the summer of your senior year of college, but then you realized that you had a life that couldn’t constantly revolve around him, and again, you lose a love. Maybe it was your high school crush that never paid attention to you. Maybe it was the person that had a crush on you, and you never knew. Maybe it was none of those, and it was just a chance encounter at a café. Am I, or any reasonable person, supposed to believe that none of those was your soulmate? And even if none of those were your soulmate, you would then have to ask yourself, how would you know that you found your soulmate. Maybe you get married to a guy. A good guy. He has a nice stable job. He loves you. He takes care of you, and you take care of him. You have the two kids and the suburban house. You two live a long and happy life together, but the truth is, he was never your soulmate. He was just a nice man that you liked and that liked you, but the universe did not divine you two being together. And if a soulmate, a person we are fated to be with, doesn’t exist, it would be hard for me to believe that fate exists. So, again, I say that fate doesn’t exist. Instead, what some consider to be fate should be considered to be just well-timed and hilarious accidents, because in the end, isn’t that all life really is?   That was what made me stand alone in that forest. Trees towering over me. Darkening everything around me. Every now and then, I would try to walk toward the wolf in front of me. She would howl softly or whimper away, and I would be stuck back where I was. I just wanted to help her. She was caught in a trap. It was tearing her leg up every time she moved, but eventually, I stopped trying. After fifteen minutes of pacing around the wolf, I sat down. There was nothing else for me to do until my friend got back. She was the one that was supposed to get the game commission out there, so they could help this poor creature. After thirty minutes, I started building a twig fortress, where I was sitting. Not much else to do. My phone had died at minute five. After minute forty, I had nearly finished one of the gun towers and was working on the second one when I heard some twigs snap that wasn’t from my fortress. “Jackie?” I called. There was no answer. “Jackie, is that you?” I called again. Again, there was only silence. That wasn’t like Jackie. Jackie was one to always have my back, and more than that, she always answered when I called. If anything, I was the silent one, but that was simply because I didn’t know how else to be sometimes. I got off the ground. “Jackie?” I called again—still nothing. The wolf had tensed. I saw that right away. She had gotten used to me. She seemed to tolerate me, if not downright like me. If I had been a crazy person, I would have even said that the wolf found it interesting that I was building a twig fortress. It seemed at that moment that the wolf was actually watching me build the fortress, trying to anticipate the building's design. When I noticed that she had tensed, I knew that I was in trouble. Things were about to go sideways fast. I took a step closer to her. Yes, she was an injured wolf. Yes, she was trapped in a wolf trap. Yes, she was young, but she was still a wolf. I was not. Also, in my craziness, I had a feeling that the two of us had a mutual understanding. I had no interest in hurting her, and maybe she had no real interest in hurting me. I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone. Then I saw it, orange. Bright orange. A man in all bright orange. He was carrying a hunting rifle. Holding it tightly to his body. He wore one of those hunting hats. The ones with the ear flaps. The ear flaps were up. It was early summer. I don’t remember what his face looked like. I have tried. I have spent hours trying, but I know that I never will. I have spent so many hours thinking about it. It just makes my head hurt, and turn, and twist, but it didn’t matter. His friend was shorter than him. I remember that. I remember that his friend was in camo. He was also fatter because I could see that his shirt kept trying to roll up his stomach, and I found that gross. Not that I have any right to judge considering my weight. Almost always pushing 210. I always promise myself that when I hit 210, it’s time to go on a diet, and I do, until I get to lower than 210, and then no more diet for me. The truth is that I just hate dieting; I hate cutting out all of the foods that I shouldn’t eat. I love the foods you shouldn’t eat, but who doesn’t? All the sugars and fats are the things that make life worth living. The two of them walked up to me. “Hello,” the first one I noticed said. I considered him the leader between the two of them, well, because I had to. “Hi,” I responded, looking at him the best that I could. It was hard for me to look directly at him. There was something wrong with him. He didn’t feel right. I couldn’t explain it. Not in a million years. All I knew was that I didn’t like him. “What are you doing out in the woods all by yourself?” he asked me. That question nearly attacked me with anger. I wasn’t doing anything illegal, well actually, we both were, but I’ll get back to that. “My friend and I went looking for something,” I said quietly. He was intimidating. He was intimidating in a way that felt not quite right. As if he was trying to be more intimidating than he was. The problem was that I am a person easily intimidated.   “Where is your friend?” he asked me. She had gone out of the woods for cell service to call the game commission. That was what she had intended to do anyway. What she was actually doing was beyond me. She could have been doing anything. I had no way of knowing what she was actually doing. I wish I had been able to figure out what she was doing. I wish that the two of us had a way of communicating with each other without the use of a phone, but we don’t, and we can’t, because nobody can communicate without the use of some kind of technology from that distance, even if it is just a string and a can. “Around,” I said, pointing all over the forest. I wasn’t sure where she was. Not completely. I had some guesses, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I had never been able to have a sense on her. We were never that close, and I don’t think I wanted to be that close to her or anyone. It seems weird to have a sense of where someone is at all times. “Where is around?” the man asked me, and a moment, just for a moment, I wondered and almost laughed while I was wondering about why the other man refused to talk. Was it simply that the other man didn’t want to talk, or was there something else? I laughed, thinking that the other man had forbidden him from talking before they got there. The guy told him that he wasn’t allowed to talk under any circumstance. “Around a couple feet away, I think,” I said, looking over my shoulder. The truth is, as I am sure that you are aware, I was stalling. My hope was Jackie would come in at some point. The game commission would come at some point. Everyone would come in at some point. I was going to be saved from whatever these people were planning at some point. That was wishful thinking, I knew that, but that was honestly all I had, that and a little girl wolf, who looked more scared than I did. He looked at me as if he knew that it was wishful thinking. “You think?” he asked me. I looked down at the ground. “She went to go scout out that area just a little,” I said, with the little might that I had not to show fear. “You know this is private property?” he asked me, and I wondered the same thing about him. Had he seen the sign that I had? “No Trespassing. Trespassers will be persecuted. Hunters will be killed.” Of course, I thought that it was a joke. I didn’t believe that there was any way that they could really kill someone for hunting. It wasn’t a good joke. It was in poor taste. However, this did make me wonder if the men in front of me could really own land where that joke was displayed. “I do,” I said, looking at him. His face just never got into my mind. I tried. I tried to get that idea in my head. I tried to make sure that face stuck in my head, burn it in my brain forever, but it fizzled out. “Then might I ask what you are doing here?” he asked. It was easy to tell that he wasn’t interested in my answer. The problem was I wasn’t going to leave. There was something there that I felt an obligation to do. With that obligation, I was assuredly not going to step aside. It didn’t matter that I was scared. It didn’t matter that I felt wrong. It only mattered that I help that wolf. There was something in me that connected with that wolf. I was not going to let anything stop me from protecting her, not my nerves, not my fear, and certainly not these men who seemed to think they were above nature itself. “It’s actually a funny story,” I said, laughing. He doesn’t laugh, and I quickly stop laughing. “Well, my friend’s car broke down, not far from here, so we got out to see what was going on. I kind of understand a thing or two about cars, so I volunteered to take a look. As I was getting out of the car, something blew out. It was a map of old Salem that I got while my friend and I were there. I was really into it. I had been looking at it almost the entire car ride.” That wasn’t true, well, not entirely. Some of it was true. The map was true. I liked the map. I loved that map. It was the only souvenir that I wanted. It was the only souvenir that I got. The truth was that I wasn’t looking at it on the car ride home. It was actually in the back of the car. On the back seat, to be more specific. “Is that what your friend is doing?” he asked me. “Looking for the map?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said as if I was dumb. Mind you, I realize I asked a dumb question, but we had to do something, and I had to try something. “Yes, I told her that I would keep looking around here, and she told me she would take a few steps away from me and see if she could see it there.” “So, you don’t know how far away she walked?” he asked, looking between the wolf and me. I took another step closer to the wolf. “No, I can’t say that I do, but I believe that she has to be around here somewhere she wouldn’t leave me.” She wouldn’t have if I hadn’t told her to do it. So, this was not her fault in any way. “Honey, you should be more careful near that wolf. It could easily hurt you,” he said, taking a step closer to me. It wasn’t the wolf that looked scared that freaked me out. She reminded me of me. So, together we could find solace between us. We might actually be able to push through and survive together. “I don’t think it’s going to hurt me,” I said quietly. “It’s a dangerous animal,” he said, still taking another step closer to me. I looked down at this scared creature. This scared creature was not a danger to me. This creature wasn’t going to hurt me, not in any way. “She looks more hurt than anything else.” “She is going to be fine in a few seconds,” he retorted. I didn’t need a crystal ball to see what he would do to her if I stepped aside. “Well, I was told that I wasn’t supposed to leave this spot. My friend wanted to make sure that it was easier for us to find each other.” “I think that you might want to walk away from here,” he said, trying to push me a little. I didn’t move. My weight was good for something, and that was using it against people like him. I refused to move. He wasn’t going to get me to move simply because he thought that he should be able to, simply because he wanted to. “I don’t think that I should.” The dynamic of the conversation was quickly shifting, I realized that. I realized that we were finally going to start saying what was actually going on. “You don’t want to stand in the way of a man and his prize, do you?” His voice was sharp. It was deafening. I cleared my throat. It felt dry. “No, I can’t say that I do, but I think in this case I would be doing the irresponsible thing if I let you have this particular prize.” “It’s only an animal,” he said, biting his lip and staring at me. “So are you,” I said before I could bite back my words. I never meant for those words to come out. They were sharp. They were direct, and somehow, they didn’t seem like my words. They were the words of someone that would be cool in that type of situation. The words of someone that would be brave in that situation. I was neither. As evident by the next thing that I did, I balked, lost my nerve. “I mean, in a sense, we all are animals.” He laughed. I thought, for only a brief moment, that he didn’t see that I insulted him. He did. He knew right away. He knew, and he was playing with me. “As an animal, I have animalistic needs,” he said, taking another step toward me. We were quickly playing a game of cat mouse, predator, and prey, and I knew that I was going to be on the losing end. For the first time, I heard this wolf growl. I bit my lip and closed my eyes. If she could be brave, then so could I. “I am sure that I don’t know what needs you are talking about.”   He laughed. His laugh, sharp, harsh, painful. “I always like my animal’s doe-eyed.” Doe-eyed? I hardly ever saw myself as doe-eyed. “You have a wolf in your trap, not a doe,” I explained. I was trying to keep things as literal as possible. “Maybe I wasn’t talking about that animal anymore,” he said, stepping a little closer to me. I took another step closer to the wolf. My feet were now right by the wolf’s muzzle. I was honestly expecting to be bitten. This was a wild animal, after all. I could hardly assume that she would be calm enough for me to stand so close to her, but she was fine with it. Actually, when I glanced, and I only really did have a second to look, she wasn’t even looking at me. She was glaring at the man in front of me. She seemed to hate him as much as I did. She appeared to be as scared of him as I was. It was hard for me to believe this, but I truly believed she knew that I wasn’t a threat. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, and I know how crazy it sounds, but the truth is that yes, I believed that she knew that I had no intention of hurting her. “I certainly have no idea what you mean then,” I said, clearing my throat.  His friend looked at him for just a second, just a second, I thought that I saw remorse, but it was taken over by pleasure. A deep residing pleasure, a type of pleasure that one finds in the souls of the dark. “I think that something like you could be consolation prize.” I cleared my throat. I didn’t want to hear someone say that I was a consolation prize or something even worse. I was, but I didn’t want to hear someone say it. “Please, look, I think that in this case, I believe that the best idea for all of us involved is for you to walk away.” “We can’t do that,” the leader said, shaking his head. “I can’t let this be a waste of an entire day.” I tried to breathe in, but the air kept getting caught in my throat. “You didn’t waste a day,” I said, looking away from them. I can’t explain why but, I trusted that wolf with my life. At that point, I had to. We had to mutually trust each other enough to know that we weren’t the ones that were a danger to each other. Trust her? That sounded like I was crazy, and maybe I was just a little crazy at that moment. “You got to walk around in the woods.” “Our walk should be worth something,” he said, looking me up and down. I needed to do something. “It has been.” The guy walked closer to me. I kept my feet as close to this wolf as I could. She was my shield. She was my safety net. She was what was going to protect me. “Come, baby.” I glared at him but still refused to move my feet from the wolf. “No, I think that we have all made our positions very clear and, in this case, I think that we all should walk away starting with you two.” Did they walk away? Did they even pretend to walk away? No, instead, they both seemed to rush me. After that, everything is a blur. Until I was almost entirely out of it. There was one thing that I refused to tell anyone, one thing that I saw that felt like I was losing my mind. Three more wolves, at least maybe even more.