When I saw Avery, I wanted to die. He looked at me with those familiar green eyes, accusing, vicious, not a bit of the hurt and confused inner Avery showing, but I desperately hoped the old Avery was still there. That hope was all I had.
It is so long since I was infected. What bothered me the longest was not remembering the face of my attacker, only the fear of flight and the excruciating pain that followed afterward. As my human bones cracked, twisted, grew in unnatural ways, I let out a bellow of pain and fear that came out a strangled yelp. For an undefined time, there was nothingness. I awoke shivering and naked on the edge of a swamp that borders my parents’ property. I managed to get home before I was missed, that first time. I was lucky. I thought it must have been a nightmare. It was, but it didn’t end with dawn.
The next time I changed, my body gave me warning signals, and I fled deep into the forest before the transformation was complete. I didn’t want to take any chances that I would hurt my family. I was so desperate to retain my humanity that I managed to blend it with the other self. It was like clawing my way into someone else’s dream, but I did it. I roved far and wide during that lunar cycle, taking great pains to take only wild creatures and never to roam too near to livestock or humans. I ended up over twenty miles from home and had to call my parents collect from a payphone. I huddled behind some trash cans until my dad came with the car. Luckily, no cops saw me.
My parents decided it was time for a Serious Talk with me and sat me down in the living room (after sending me upstairs to put something on besides the car blanket I’d worn home). I didn’t even let them start. I told them what had been happening. My mom burst into tears and started to run out, but my dad gripped her by the shoulders as if trying to comfort her by holding her still. He gave me a dangerous look as he ushered her into the kitchen. My hearing, much better of late, couldn’t tune out her words. She thought I was acting out because of the troubles (that was what she called their vicious shouting matches) they’d been having lately, that maybe their problems (like Dad throwing paperweights across the living room and denting her piano?) were affecting my mental health. “I’m not crazy”, I wanted to shout, “Now please come out here and listen to me, because I have to leave you and I want to let you know I love you now so you won’t wonder if it was your fault that I left. I’m not coming back.” I couldn’t say any of these things. I wrote them a long letter in the sanctuary of the upstairs bathroom, pretended to go to bed, gathered what few things I felt I needed, slipped the note partway into my mom’s jewelry box, and slipped out under the feverish sun. I could still hear them arguing as I reached the end of the driveway. I felt like Lot’s wife as I stepped into the road. I knew if I looked back, I would never be able to leave, so I swallowed my tears and struck out for the safety of wilderness. First, I stopped at my best friend Avery’s house. This was one encounter that had to be in person.
The seven moon cycles since I told my best friend I must never see him again have done nothing to obscure the words between us or blot out the way his face looked when he realized I was serious.
“Kyle, why?” That was all he said. It has echoed through my every moment – my every human moment – since. I wish I could have answered him. I walked as far as my shoes lasted into the woods to the north, then waited for the next lunar cycle to put some real distance between myself and my home. I must not think of it as home, I kept reminding myself. In this split existence, I have no home.
I built a shoddy lean-to that lasted me a few cycles, then moved further to the northeast. At the juncture of a river and a small stream, I finally decided I was far enough from those I loved and began work on a more permanent shelter. It has taken all my human time since then, and is still not quite finished. Many cracks need to be filled in before winter, which is imminent. I am glad for the clothing I carried in my teeth during that first long journey, but I’ve been taking as many furs as I can to supplement their warmth.
I thought I was far enough from my family and Avery. Two days ago, I heard a voice I thought I was cursed to never hear again. I fell from the peak of the roof and was only saved by a large pile of pine boughs which I’d been feeding into my 24-hour bonfire. Avery watched, bemused, and I thought with a little chill that he wasn’t Avery anymore.
“Kyle, you forgot this,” he said too calmly, and handed me a tiny book I recognized too well. Its weight in my palm was enough to destroy my last connection with sanity, and I wept like a child. When I opened my eyes, he was gone. The book contained the solemn and horribly misspelled vow of friendship I’d made when we were about eight. He’d said “I’ll keep it forever, because I know it will always be true.” I didn’t want to remember, but I was simultaneously afraid to forget.
Two days later I could feel the change upon me. I waited for it like a person who’s been standing in the surf for hours, who knows the final wave is going to crash down and then they won’t ever breathe again, yet who stands and waits for the fatal slam like a crazy statue. My tide was coming in.
When my jaw had fully lengthened and all but the dullest aches had subsided from my limbs, I set out hunting, not really seeing or smelling my prey, but automatically attacking and feeding without enthusiasm or taste. A savage roar snapped me out of my reverie. A wolf with a black cross etched dimly into her chest fur was challenging me for my prey! I lowered my head and showed her my teeth, hoping I wouldn’t have to truly battle. She flung herself forward with a viciousness that surprised me, and her teeth dug a deep furrow in my shoulder where my neck had been a second before. We fought desperately, our strength nearly matched, until she put a forefoot wrong and I snapped the bones between my teeth. She cowered back, and I turned back toward my meal. She flung herself off-balanced at my throat. I dodged to one side and snapped at her neck as she stumbled by. Even then I would have left the fight, but she turned as if to tear at my ears, and I sought a firm grip on her neck above her thick mane. I lost contact with my pale, weak bipedal self. I killed her there, over a worthless rabbit. I left her carcass and went back to my meal. When I turned back, no wolf lay there, but a female human. The part known as Kyle slammed back into my consciousness and tried to scream, but all that he could coax from my throat was a desperate whimpering groan. I – both parts of me - howled in mourning, regret, and fear.
As I poured my hearts out in song, another voice joined in. My hackles rose and I turned to face a long-faced cinnamon brown wolf, with green eyes that chilled me more than any winter’s night. He recognized the woman that lay between us only too well.
“Avery, no,” I tried to plead, but of course I couldn’t speak. I curled close to the ground and gave no fight.
As the red mist closed in around my head, I saw Avery more clearly than ever before. I now knew my attacker’s face.