Hairwolf

He howls, long and loud, elated over his find. He sounds just like a wolf. But isn’t. He’s wearing clothes and looks like a man, but isn’t. This could only mean one thing. Her shadow-made is a Werewolf.

She watches as he slides his long black claws down the glass. They’re shinny and glisten in the brilliant moonlight. Curiously, he taps at the glass, unfamiliar with it. As if this material is new to him. Maybe it is new. Maybe in this state, everything is new. Including her. Stretching across his brow is a thin dark band of fur giving the appearance of a mask. The bottom of his nose is leather, much like that of a canine. Fur covers a large portion of his face, but then there are

patches of skin, such as on his cheekbones and portions of his neck.

He sniffs her scent in the air. He’s intrigued at the sight of her but wants more. He wants her. He studies the clear material dividing them. There has to be a way in. His claws search

for an entry point. He hasn’t noticed the gap at the top of the window yet, but that’s just a matter of time. She needs to do something. She reaches for her necklace but remembers it’s gone. She’s feeling very trapped and doesn’t like this feeling.

He continues tapping at the glass with his claws, testing its strength. She’s right there, just beyond the thin invisible barrier. Now if he could just get through it.

He HOWLS. She SCREAMS. He likes that. He howls again. She screams again. The nightmare for her is real but to him, it’s play. Playtime with his prey. She can’t look away, but can’t look at him either. She’s trapped and has no way out. His constant taping at the glass sends chills through her body. “Get away from me! Leave me alone.”

She notices his claws are slowly climbing up the glass towards the opening. He’s going to

figure that out in no time. And then he’ll know to just rip the glass from the door. She has to do something. She lunges at him, slapping the glass. He jumps back. It worked. She did it. He’s watching her, curious. She slaps the glass again, “Get away from me. Leave me alone. Go!

Ominous won’t quit. He’s not intimidated by such a little thing. He wants in. He wants her. He claws frantically at the glass, spurred on by her shouting. She slaps at the glass, threatening him, “get away. Get away from me.”

Her screams echo throughout the cab, but barely make it out. They’re muffled, badly.

FROM SOMEWHERE a woman’s voice calls out to her, frantic - “That’s it! On the count of three, you’ll be here with me. One. Coming back now, Stefanie. Two. Almost here...”

Flashes of light punch through the darkness of the cab and Stef’s mind, erasing her present into the past. With it, current images morph into the present ... The floorboard becomes a room. The window, decorative walls. The moon, a faulty ceiling light fluttering above. Darkness fades as the voice guides her back. “...And three. You’re here with me. Stef. Stefanie?”

Stefanie, now a woman in her late thirties, jumps from the couch, kicking and ready to fight. It’s present day. She’s with Lillian, her best-friend and temporary therapist. She grabs Stef gently and reassuringly. Stef, wet with sweat, leaps from the couch disorientated. Her long dirty blonde hair straps across her wet face. She looks like hell and feels worse. She steadies herself, reaching for the back of a chair as the familiarity of her surroundings settles in.

“Stef . . .” Lillian says, watching her like a hawk.

Stef drops back down, recapturing the events, replaying them back up to the point of extraction. But instead of feeling relief or safe, she throws her arms out in frustration... “Damn it, Lillian.”

“What?”

“Sh!” Stef gestures, trying to force out more detail from what she can remember. Lillian, dumb-founded, attempts to make sense of what happened as well as why Stef isn’t reacting the way she should be, which is freaked out. What she just experienced is not an everyday thing. Why isn’t she upset? Why isn’t she mortified? It doesn’t make any sense to Lillian. Stef is showing none of this. If anything, she’s trying to remember more, not less.

“Why did you pull me out?” Stef asks, unable to reconnect to the event.

“Excuse me … you were about to get your ass kicked. I had to pull you out.”

“I told you, no matter what, do not pull me out.”

Lillian jumps up, “I had no choice. You were flopping around like a goddamn fish on a hook. Jesus H. Christ! What the hell was that!? What was it?”

Stef paces back and forth, reluctant to answer. She crosses to a cabinet door near Lillian’s desk and opens it. She reaches in and retrieves a jar of trail-mix. She spins the top and takes a handful. She then sits in Lillian’s desk chair and shrugs her shoulders in defeat. Lillian can’t believe her

behavior. But all that’s put aside for the moment as she zeros in on the Egyptian Ankh around

Stef’s neck. She doesn’t comment about it, although she may.

“Goddamn horror movie and you’re eating peanuts. What the hell was that thing?”

“I know what it was. What I need to know is who it was. We went through all of this.”

“We did not go through that! You did not say anything about that.”

“I told you things were going to get very dark and strange. You didn’t want to believe me. Look, you fast-forwarded me through the break-down in the kitchen. Why can’t you bring me back and let this play out?”

It suddenly dawns on Lillian what this is really all about. It makes absolute sense now. “Oh, Stef. I’m sorry. Of course. What else could it be?”

“...What? What are you talking about?” The expression on Lillian’s face says it all.

“That’s not... No! Wrong diagnosis, Lillian.”

“You’re ten years old, chased by someone you knew and most likely trusted and then attacked in a pickup truck. It’s okay. I understand now.”

“No. You don’t. I wasn’t attacked. Not like that, anyway. And it was a rack body.”

“Rack ... what?”

“It wasn’t a pickup. It was a rack-body. A flatbed with wooden racks.”

Lillian comments sarcastically, “Oh, you remember that, but not who it was. This is so textbook. They write chapters using events like these as lessons.”

“You don’t have lessons for this,” Stef says adamantly.

Lillian leans back, knowing who’s right. Stef can deny all she wants, but Lillian knows the truth.

“Stop it, Lillian! I know what you’re thinking.”

Stef takes her bag and jacket from the chair and heads towards the door with, “I have to go.” She’s

very disappointed, not to mention exhausted.

“Where you going?”

“Home.”

“That’s it? Okay, have it your way,” Lillian says, checking herself in the mirror. “You can run, but you can’t hide.” She tries to flatten the barely visible wrinkles on her white cotton blouse but is not satisfied. She crosses to the closet and opens the door. After a brief consideration, she pulls out a green silk blouse on a hanger and loops it around the door knob.

“I’m not running or hiding,” Stef says. “I’m going home to pack and then I’m going to work. And you can wipe that – you know what’s wrong with me because you’re a therapist – look off of your face. I’ll be off Monday. Let me know when we could do this again without you

pulling me out of the session.”

“Oh, no. I ain’t doing that shit again,” Lillian says removing her shirt and dropping it into a laundry bag. Stef crosses to her, impressed by the stunning bra she’s wearing.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Victoria Secret. Like it?”

“I love it.”

“Let me get a professional,” Lillian says, putting on the green silk blouse.

“No! We don’t need a professional. How do you do that?” Stef asks, noticing the blouse. “I can only wear a handful of colors but you – it’s like there’s no rules. Your skin goes with everything.”

“Black usually does. And you can keep kissing my ass as much as you like – I’m still not doing it. Not without a professional by my side.”

“Come on, Lillian.”

“No. I can’t. I won’t! I’m not qualified.” Lillian crosses to her desk and address book.

Stef follows, ready to protest. Lillian fingers through the pages with, “I know someone that’s a

specialist. She owes me big time. It’ll be our secret, and on the house.”

“Will you stop with this. I wasn’t raped. I let you hypnotize me because we’re friends – and you owed me fifty bucks. I figured, what the hell, maybe I’ll find something out. But you stopped short of me doing that. I can’t go to anyone else. You’re the only person I trust. You have to do this for me. If you don’t, I’ll never get to the bottom of it. I have to know who it was and who else was there.”

Lillian considers her plea. Her sincerity. But it really makes no sense at all to her. “Hear me out,” Lillian says. “Your foster parents took you in when you were five, right? Then shortly after they separated. . .”

“. . .It was actually several years later,” Stef corrects.

“Right – you were ten. The next thing you know you’re being chased by someone and attacked in a flat-bed. Now my guess is you’re either protecting that person or this shit was so horribly tragic that you’ve made him into a monster just to deal with it.”

“Not even close. Why can’t you trust me with this?”

“Because the alternative is you were attacked by a friggin werewolf. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you want to know who he was. The fact that you were attacked doesn’t bother you. The fact that it may have been a werewolf, doesn’t bother you. What bothers you is you don’t know his name. See where I’m going with this?”

“I never said he was a werewolf.”

“Oh come on. Really? An animal dressed like a man that howls … sounds like a werewolf to me.”

“Oh, you’re funny. Look, you have to do this. I need your help.”

“I am helping. I could do more damage than what’s already done. You don’t know what

you’re dealing with. I don’t know what you’re dealing with. Listen to me. Listen to me. I wouldn’t

let you get in a car with a drunk driver and I wouldn’t put you through that shit again without a specialist. So, no, no and hell no.”

Stef reaches for her necklace. “See this? This was my mothers. I didn’t know I lost it that night. But here it is. How did I get it back?”