Jack Tracey.
Chapter
Four
Ashley stared, shocked more than she thought she could be in that moment. Jack Tracey, the mysterious man who had requested to sit in her particular section at the diner, was in her house. The one who’d confused her more than anyone else in all her years of living.
Ashley wasn’t exactly certain why the man was there or how he managed to get into her house, but the moment that she saw him, she knew that he was real, and not just wishful thinking. He was the kind of person that should be well out of Walland by now. People like him never stuck around, even if they stayed in her memory long after they were gone.
The fact that he was here seemed stranger than having a wolf prowling her living room.
Well, somehow, that was arguably less strange than Jack Tracey showing up.
But even more strange than the fact that Jack Tracey was currently in her trailer, or the fact that the giant wolf was also there, and the fact that her father was currently missing, was the fact that Jack Tracey spoke at that very moment, interrupting the peace and quiet that Ashley had gotten so used to in her face off against the wolf.
“Stop,” Jack Tracey breathed, and Ashley didn’t need any more instruction from anyone to do that very thing. The last thing she wanted to do at that moment was shoot, and to be honest, Jack Tracey appearing at that moment was a relief. She didn’t have to make a decision.
Ashley blinked at his command, hardly knowing what to say at that moment or what to think. There was something so strange about Jack and how he crossed the trailer, acting like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn’t in the slightest danger as he approached the wolf, his hands outstretched with something metallic placed between them. Ashley was left squinting at the strange metal object for a moment, hardly knowing what to think of it. Jack walked up to the wolf and clasped the object around its neck.
Ashley watched in stupefied silence as the man stood over the wolf with calm patience.
“Are you going to be a good boy now?” Jack asked the animal, and Ashley almost giggled.
But she reminded herself that this wasn’t the time for hysteria, so she clamped down on that and watched Jack while he watched the wolf. Had she somehow lost her mind, she started to wonder? Was this all a psychotic break?
Or had she been hit by a car on her way home, and this was the unconscious part of her brain, trying to get her to force herself to wake up from the nightmare?
Ashley blinked but the wolf was still there, and so was Jack. The only difference was a large iron band sat around the wolf’s neck. A moment later, the wolf began to shake.
No, not just shaking, because shaking was an understatement. This wolf began to quake, acting like something was rumbling within it from beneath its very skin. At that moment, there was something hollow about it, something dull about its eyes, almost like it wasn’t a wolf anymore. Almost likethe wolf was merely a suit that something greater was wearing. Ashley didn’t know what to do. She barely knew what to say to people most of the days of her life, and that was when things were normal. When wolves and strangers didn’t appear in her home, doing weird things that left said wolf shaking violently.
A few seconds later, a wolf didn’t stand in her living room anymore. A man stood in its place. A very familiar man. She had spent all of her life with that man. She’d called him father. A man that she trusted more than anyone else. And, as he collapsed to the ground at Jack Tracey’s feet, Ashley could only think to do one thing. She ran up and ran towards her father, but Jack Tracey caught her. She pounded at his chest in frustration as she tried to make sense of it all, especially the fear that blossomed within her stomach. He had done something to her father, that much was clear. But what had he done to Ned?
“What did you do? How could you do this?” Ashley demanded, her body shaking with every question as she tried to understand what was happening. And yet, there was so little to actually make sense of at that moment. A strange red moonlight flooded the room, casting its glow over the handsome man standing in her living room. And the wolf that had been there was now her father.
She couldn’t make it make sense.
Ashley looked beyond Jack to her father. He looked so shell-shocked. Like he hardly knew where he was or what he was doing. Ned seemed to have no idea that moments before, a wolf stood where he once did and that, worse yet, he wore the same iron collar around his neck.
In Ashley’s mind, that made one thing certain, her father had been the wolf. But that still didn’t make any sense. Her father couldn’t be the same wolf that had attacked her. She knew him. She had known him all her life. He wouldn’t do that to her.
Ned may have been a strange man, one who most of the town had their own suspicions about, but he wasn’t a monster. Not that Ashley knew of.
Her father was a kind, generous man. One who had cared for Ashley her whole life without expecting anything in return. The same man who was worth sacrificing the one opportunity she’d had to get out of this town. It didn’t make sense for him to be the wolf that had nearly attacked. It didn’t make sense for him to be anything but himself.
But, despite all of Ashley’s doubts, Jack Tracey was calm as he peeled her hands off his chest, stepping back from her with a sort of calculated coldness, almost like he hardly thought anything of the situation. It was almost like the possibility of a man turning into a wolf didn’t affect him in the slightest. As if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Even something that he saw every day.
Ashley could only look at Jack in confusion, unaware of how a man could react so boldly in the face of what was very obviously impossible. She frowned up at him, unable to think of the right words to ask the questions that he couldn’t possibly have the answers to. Could he?
“Don’t panic,” was the first thing Jack said to her.
Don’t panic. Like it was normal for a wolf to turn into a human being. Don’t panic was all he had to offer when the situation seemed to call for major panicking. Panicking was the only possible reaction to this situation. Wasn’t it?
A situation in which men turned into wolves. Or have wolves turned into men? Ashley wasn’t exactly sure what the answer was, what had happened, or about anything at all, just then. All she knew was that she needed to get out of there fast.
If you learned one thing in the Deep South, it was how to tell when something was a complete and utter shit show. The best thing to do was get out of that situation. And this? This wasabout as shit as a shit show could get. What was going on in her home was an impossibility. What was happening in her home was complete and utter nonsense.
By very definition this was the shit show to end all shit shows.
