He smiled through the tears but still didn’t acknowledge me. The room faded away and another memory played out. This time, I was in a strange rural area, surrounded by flat, dry land, the sky choked with brown dust. Roscoe was older and slightly thicker as he walked along a dirt path, his upper body and head covered in a ratty coat that almost resembled a hoodie. Dirty cloth covered his nose and mouth, but he couldn’t hide his eyes. Two irises glowed a dark orange and the whites had darkened to black, giving his shrouded silhouette a demon-like appearance.
Though he seemed less starved than before, I could still feel his hunger as he pushed onward with no destination in mind. He was looking for something, but he didn’t know what. It was close, and that was all he knew. That was what kept him going even when he wanted to stop.
The poverty and desolation coupled with the suffocating dust storms made me realize what time period we were in. Roscoe must have been around seventeen or eighteen, given the fact that he was approaching the final stages of his transformation.
He pushed on, but his legs trembled with each step through the howling winds. Ahead was a billowing wall of brown dust as a strong haboob sandblasted the plains. Visibility soon dropped to nothing, but Roscoe kept going, taking one trembling step after another before finally falling to the ground.
“Roscoe,” I shouted, kneeling next to him. I tried grabbing his arm, but he wouldn’t budge. Hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion overwhelmed me as I tried to speak, getting a mouthful of sand. I understood the spell I was under. Everythinghe felt during these memories, I also felt. Hopelessness nearly engulfed me until a large figure appeared feet away.
It was hard to make out at first, but as the figure approached, it took on the form of a feral werewolf clad in leather harnesses and feathers, his paw-like feet making easy work of the sandy terrain. He knelt next to Roscoe, holding a bladder of water to his mouth.
The young half-turn gulped it down and looked up at the startlingly huge creature, knowing he had finally found what he had come all this way for. The memory went dark, but another soon took its place. Roscoe was underneath the feral who had rescued him, barely lit by the moon.
He writhed in pain and pleasure as they both mated, and I could feel Roscoe’s transformation. It didn’t last long, and when it was over, two werewolves licked at each other. The face of a newly turned Roscoe looked more familiar now, but his fur was dark brown, and his feet were large paws. They spoke to each other in a series of familiar grunts, growls, and whines as they stared up at the sky.
These visions had one thing in common: they were tragic. As Roscoe grabbed the feral’s hand, I knew this wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I shouted. “I can’t.”
The scene faded to a cold and grainy black.
Chapter 31
Head Hopping
Adam
Ifroze, terrified, huddling in a small doorway. The man who just murdered two children put the revolver to his own head and pulled the trigger, sending blood and fragments of bone against the adjacent wall.
More blood than I’d ever seen soaked the old carpet of the single-wide trailer I’d somehow ended up inside. I wanted to throw up and look away, but the blond child was still alive, twitching and taking rapid, shallow breaths. I dashed to his side, though I was afraid to touch something so fragile. There was no way someone could survive something like that, right?
Sirens called from down the road, and the front door exploded inward as men in uniform stormed the place, their guns raised.
They crept through the small, cramped space toward the room I was in. I threw up my hands. However, they didn’t seem to notice me. Two officers stepped inside the room and examined the scene, one covering his mouth as if about to vomit.
“Multiple homicide victims,” he said into the radio, barely keeping his composure. He knelt next to the man still clutching the gun. “Possible murder-suicide but keep an eye out for anyone else in the vicinity.”
The blond boy moved again, and both officers knelt beside him, one of them checking for a pulse. He held the radio to his mouth again.
“Dispatch, we need an eleven forty-one.”
The room disappeared, and I was left sick and confused by what I’d just witnessed, not sure whether to burst into tears or run. This wasn’t some kind of bad trip or nightmare. This felt real. I even smelled the blood, the gunpowder, and the stale cigarette smoke. All I could do was go along with whatever this was.
An invisible force dragged me through the darkness until I was in a cold fluorescent-lit room full of medical equipment. The child I’d seen earlier lay unconscious in a hospital bed, kept alive by countless tubes and machines. The ventilator whooshed in time with the steady beep of his weak vital signs.
Keeping my distance, I looked around the room for a nurse or family member, but there was no one. The kid was in a coma all alone. The hands of the clock on the wall quickened as the light outside disappeared. Two nurses entered, both trying not to look at the boy too much.
“Thanks for helping,” the younger brunette nurse said, clearing her throat. She looked to be in her mid-thirties; the other one was much older. “I keep thinking about my kids. Every time I leave this place, I go home and tell them how much I lovethem.” She laughed and wiped her nose with a tissue. “They’re getting really sick of it.”
“Why don’t you check room 102 and see if Mrs. Allen needs anything.”
The younger woman nodded and quickly left, not looking back. The older nurse stoically changed the empty bag of saline for another before holding onto the child’s hand.
“You may not have any family, but we love you little Austin—”
It felt like a huge needle was being jabbed into my chest as I stepped closer to the child. This couldn’t have been my Austin. He was so small.
“You’re not alone, so come back to us.” The woman kissed his forehead and slowly walked out of the room, letting the door come to a soft rest against the frame.
