*1It was dusk and the park was almost empty. 2
Buddy glanced over the top of his newspaper and squirmed against the hard wood slats of his bench. He watched an elderly black man hobble away, his cane scuffing against the cobblestones of Birch Park’s sitting area. The man stopped at the intersection of Birch and Sloan streets and waited at the light. When the signal changed, he made his way toward the west end of the city. 3
A wail from the left drew Buddy’s attention. He looked over and saw a young Hispanic woman strapping an infant into a stroller while holding the hand of a fussy toddler. They headed in the same direction as the black man, but walked down Birch. He looked around again. He and the girl were the only ones left. 4
She was sitting in a bench facing Buddy’s a few yards away and had been sitting on the bench, engrossed in a paperback book for the past few hours, almost as long as Buddy had been sitting there watching her. After two hours passing and no one coming to meet her or calling her, and not seeing her look around for anyone, he knew she’d be the one to go after. 5
She was beautiful, too. He’d gotten up and milled around, walked close enough to see her but not close enough for her to notice him. She was young, probably a student at the city college, with pale skin and dark brown hair in short, thick curls. She had thick, pouting lips that she’d bite or run the tip of her tongue over every so often, and sometimes she’d look up and Buddy saw her big, dark eyes. She wore a tight short-sleeved black button-down shirt and jeans. 6
A loud whooping sound made Buddy look left. A squad car for the city police idled on the sidewalk. A young blonde policeman looked out from the drivers side. Buddy scratched at his beard stubble and played with the frayed strings in the hole at the right knee of his jeans. He reached into his pocket and squeezed the handle of his sheathed hunting knife. Cops made him nervous. He suspected that they had the power to read his mind and see the other girls, beautiful as they tearfully plead for their lives, screaming when he stabbed them and then sleeping finally after his calloused hands crunched the bones in their throats. 7
He looked down at his scuffed boots, trying to get his mind blank. He heard another whoop of the siren and saw the girl get up and walk towards Birch Street. The cop drove in the other direction. When the car was out of sight, he got up and walked towards the intersection, then stopped a few feet away from the girl.8
The light changed and the girl crossed Birch. Buddy waited a few seconds and then followed, slowly. She was walking alongside a tenement building on the other side of the street and Buddy saw her stop and look back at him just after he’d stepped onto the sidewalk. He paused and knelt down, pretending to tie his shoe, watching her resume walking and then stop at an intersection. 9
He started to walk after her again when he saw a shadow move down the intersecting street up ahead. The cop car came into view seconds later and, when he got closer, Buddy saw it was the same blonde officer who’d been patrolling the park. The cop car proceeded down the street and the girl made a right turn, disappearing behind a corner. Buddy chuckled and ducked into an alley that ran parallel to that street. It was the alley behind Carmine’s, and it had a door leading right into his room.10
He zipped through the darkness and came out on the other side of the tenement. He looked up and down the sidewalk and thought he was alone until he saw the girl cross the street. He pulled his knife out of its sheath and wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle, pulling his coat sleeve down to cover his hand. 11
He jogged across the street, seeing the woman look up and in his direction while she stood on the sidewalk. 12
“Miss? Miss, excuse me!” he asked, breathless and urgent. She took a step back when he approached her, but he remained a few feet away from her. “Have you seen a little boy around here? He’s got brown hair, he’s about seven, wearing jeans and a red t-shirt. Have you seen him anywhere around here recently?”13
“No, what’s wrong?” she asked, her dark eyes wide and her brow furrowed.14
“He’s my son. He’s … well, he’s slow and we have to watch him all the time. I just…” he started to breathe faster and his voice broke on the verge of tears. “I went to the store for five minutes to buy some milk and when I came back… I guess I forgot to lock the door. He was… gone,” Buddy pressed the sleeve of his concealed hand to his face and pretended to sob. “God, I’m sorry to bother you…”15
“No,” she soothed, leaning towards him and putting an arm around him. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you--”16
“Shut up, bitch!” he cut her off with a his, clenching an arm around her waist and pressing the knife blade against her throat. She squeaked in surprise but then pursed her mouth shut, her pupils pulled downward to her throat. “You’re not gonna say anything or do anything I don’t want you to, understand?”17
She nodded, her eyes bulging, tears welling up in her eyes as she made tiny whimpering noises. He started to walk back to the alley, pulling her along and not moving the knife. Buddy slammed her hard against the brick wall, stunning her still, then pinned her by her arms. 18
“You’re being very, very good,” he rasped, then forced his tongue into her mouth and ran his hands hungrily over her chest. He started biting her neck and shoulder hard, and then felt her moving, writhing… changing. 19
She was thrashing against him, but it wasn’t so much defensive as it was spastic and uncontrollable. Buddy tried to grab her and slam her into the wall again but he couldn’t hold onto her. It felt like her muscles were squirming under her skin. And, though it was too dark to see her clearly, her skin felt more like fur. 20
“What the fuck?” he spat, stumbling backwards. He could hear muted snarls and whines and then he saw two yellow eyes in the shadows.21
Buddy ran out into the open street and when he looked back, he saw something huge and gray lumber out of the alley on two legs. Wolf eyes stared at him and a red tongue licked huge, sharp wolf teeth. It went down on all fours and its wolf muscles bulged as it prepared to pounce.22
Buddy tore down the sidewalk, swaying and gasping, pumping his arms furiously to gain speed as he could still hear the thing snarling and barking behind him. He chanced a look over his shoulder and almost fell over when he saw an empty street behind him. He looked straight ahead and his eyes were assaulted by the bright beam of a flashlight. He skidded to a stop and fell to the ground hard, not even registering the pain, just looking up at the dark form in front of him holding the flashlight.23
“Fuck! There’s some fucking … wolf … beast … thing … back there!” he bellowed in short gasps. “Shit!” He tried to steady his breathing and his eyes adjusted so that he could see the blonde man’s police uniform and the brick wall of the dead end he was standing in front of. 24
“You again?” Buddy asked, confused, and then almost started laughing.25
“Woah buddy, you gotta calm down,” the police officer smirked. “What seems to be the problem here? You still looking for your son?”26
Buddy blinked a few times and stared up at him. The man was still smirking, shining the flashlight towards him.27
“What… who…” was all he could manage before he heard the snarl again. He whipped around and saw the dark-haired girl slowly walking towards him. Her eyes were bright and yellow. Her black shirt hung open, revealing her large, pale breasts. Buddy watched as her skin and clothes darkened and melded into the gray of fur and her muscles twisted and bulged over a frame that looked like it had elongated. Her pretty face turned into a wolf’s snout and teeth and large, pointed ears. 28
“Shit! Shit!” he shrieked, skittering towards the cop. “Shoot it! Shoot that fucking thing!”29
“Aww, but I love her,” the officer cooed. Buddy looked up at him, shock eating away at all of his other responses. The cop was still holding the flashlight and in its light, Buddy could see his brass nameplate. It read “Officer Sangur.”30
“Like blood?” Buddy asked, feebly, going numb. 31
When the cop grinned down at him, Buddy could see his long, pointed canines gleaming. Red eyes flashed and he whispered,32
“Yes.”33
Then he shut the light off. 34
***35
When they were done with Buddy, the girl was just a girl and the cop was just a cop. They were both covered in blood but they smiled at each other and stared down at the thing that had once been Buddy Marlow. She had torn chunks of flesh and muscle out of him while Sangur gulped down the blood that gushed from his wounds. She’d torn his jugular out first so that he couldn’t scream, just feel. 36
Sangur slipped his arm around the girl’s waist and nuzzled her hair, whispering,37
“God, Selena, I get so fucking turned on when we do this.”38
“Oh, baby,” she purred as he licked the blood off of her face and neck. She unbuttoned her jeans and stepped out of them, then unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his ankles. He ran his hands down over her thighs and pulled them up around his waist, pinning her to the wall and sucking the blood off of her exposed breasts. Selena scratched at Sangur’s back, tearing through his shirt and leaving jagged red claw marks in his flesh. She stared down at the thing that could be called a body only in the loosest sense of the word and when she came, her wolf-like howls rose up to the moon.
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