The five ferals sat in a semi-circle around the fire, each one staring at us expectantly.
“So, what now?”
“I guess we’ll see if they wanna talk.” Roscoe reached into the box and grabbed a bottle of beer before holding it out in front of him. “You guys, uh… wanna trade?”
The wild werewolves turned to each other before looking back at Roscoe with blank stares.
“This might be tougher than I thought,” he said, setting the beer on the ground next to his leg.
“I thought you knew what you were doing.”
“Well, they didn’t kill us, so I guess I didn’t fuck that up.”
“This is just instilling all kinds of confidence,” I whispered, eyeing the ferals as they sat rigid, their glowing eyes following our movements. “I’m getting creeped out.”
One finally stood and reached into a pouch that hung from a crude rope belt he wore. He pulled out a small bundle of herbs wrapped in some kind of frayed fiber and offered it to Roscoe while pointing to the bottle.
“Oh! I think I remember this stuff,” he said excitedly, his tail patting the ground as he flicked the cap off the bottle and exchanged it for the herbs.
“What the hell are we going to do with that?”
“Smoke it,” Roscoe answered, wetting his lips with his tongue while untying the twine. “Ah, damn. Don’t have a pipe, though.”He sat the herbs on the ground next to him, then reached into the box again for the package of Swiss Rolls.
Roscoe waited as each of the wolfmen took turns drinking from the same bottle. They didn’t seal their lips around the end; instead, poured the contents directly onto their tongues. Their neck fur pricked up as the beverage fizzed and foamed, filling their mouths while dripping from the corners of their thin black lips.
Roscoe held up the cakes, and another feral stood and eagerly walked over, thick saliva starting to rope from his mouth. Roscoe made a gesture as though he were smoking, and the feral picked up on it right away, reaching into his own pouch before pulling out a long pipe decorated with colorful gems.
In a friendly exchange, Roscoe took the pipe, and the wild werewolf grabbed the snacks before rejoining the others.
“This is goin’ great.” He held the pipe in one hand, pinched off some of the herbs, then stuffed it into the bowl. “Yer gonna love this shit.”
“I’m not smoking some strange weed from these guys. I don’t trust them.”
“All the more reason to get high,” Roscoe said, picking up a small stick and poking the end into the campfire. “Trust me. I’ve done this a lot.”
“You don’t even remember your last name. How would you even remember that?”
Roscoe pulled the flaming stick out of the fire and put it up to the pipe to light the herbs. He drew in deep then coughed before turning to me, his pupils tiny as each eye stared in slightly different directions.
“That’s some goooood shit,” he said with another cough, his voice pitching a bit higher. He held the pipe in front of me. “You like weed, don’t you?”
“I know what weed is.”
“This is just like that, kinda.” He shoved the pipe into my hand. “C’mon. Stop bein’ such a mud in the stick,” he said, his words slurring to the point where I could barely understand him.
“This could be dangerous.”
“Pipe the smoke, ya nerd.”
“Christ,” I muttered, grabbing the pipe. This was a terrible idea, but Roscoe wasn’t going to let up. Plus, he wasn’t making sense anymore. After a moment of hesitation, I took a draw, which was a lot more potent than anything I’d breathed in before. The smoke tasted like burnt sage mixed with nutmeg. It irritated my lungs, sending me into a similar coughing fit Roscoe experienced earlier. “Oh my God, I can’t…”
The world started to melt into brilliant colors all around, and time slowed to a crawl as Roscoe waved his hand in front of me in a slow motion trail.
“Feels great, doesn’t it?” Though Roscoe just spoke to me, that wasn’t his accent. That wasn’t even his voice. “It’s always quite riveting the first time, but you start to grow accustomed to the feeling. It reminds me of DMT, but better.”
“What the fuck’s you talkin’ about?” I said, barely able to control my tongue. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” Roscoe replied, his words becoming clearer and more astute than they’d ever been. “Sit back and enjoy the trip, buddy.”
