“I can be patient,” Veronica says. “But I want to see results.”
The woman wants my firstborn. She’s like a witch out of a storybook. But I refrain from saying that. Instead, I make some comments about achieving results and get the hell out of her office.
The truth is I am not under observation always. I am under observation sometimes, in some ways. I know where they watch. I know how they watch. And I know what they watch. Email, messages, social media. They have cameras, drones. Sometimes they tail me. But there are ways to disappear always. On forest walks, for instance, where nobody is around, and where technology is left long behind.
* * *
I am deep in the woods now, off the beaten trail where I will not be disturbed.
The red vial has been burning in my hand for what feels like hours. I’ve tried little shifts before. Tonight, beneath the blood moon eclipse, I have decided to take a more significant and pointed dose. Turning mice into chickens is one thing. But turning a man into a real beast for as long as he wishes to be… that would be a true triumph.
I think I can do it. And not like I did the first time I tried this in the lab. I’m not going to wake up in a pile of broken beakers this time. This time I’m going to maintain full control while in animal form, and take my human form again when I want to.
What I have in my hand now is one small drink for a man, but a giant step for our species.
I uncap the vial and wait. There is no turning back now. This is the point of no return. As with all my little self-experiments, there is nobody else who can be given the medicine besides me. And there is nobody who wants to take it more than I do. So why wait another moment?
Because something is happening high above in the celestial sky. I haven’t picked this evening by accident, nor was the location in any way random. An eclipse is due to turn the full moon blood red, and I want this to be the moment I make this transition.
Sure enough, the eclipse begins right on time. It’s something of a miracle that we can predict such things with so much accuracy. We little humans have done a masterful job of taming the wild outside us, and inside us. We have turned these once mystical events into predictable photo opportunities. I want to use the energy for something more.
Above the trees, the moon begins to turn crimson in soft streaking motions that grow fuller and darker with the rotationof the planets. I decided on this date because, frankly, I love drama, and because this moon is linked with the beast I wish to channel, the creature whose DNA swirls in the brew before me.
As the moon glows red, I tip the vial back and drain the contents into my mouth.
For a moment, absolutely nothing happens. Then I begin to feel a tingling sensation much like ones I have felt before when the formula wasn’t quite right. I hope I don’t melt. With as much I have taken in that dose, I might become nothing more than a human puddle.
I look at my hands in the moonlight, cast in red. I see them darken with hair that spurts forth from my follicles. It is the first of many changes that happen too rapidly for me to catalog personally. Fortunately I have a very old-fashioned camcorder set up, which is recording to a memory stick that I will be able to review later on a laptop with no internet access. My plan is to shift, then shift back. I don’t want to be in animal form for too long. I have work on Monday, after all.
At a certain point, I lose track of the changes, along with the concepts ofworkandMonday.It is right after my hands become so large and powerful they astound me, and right before my face erupts into a furred muzzle. Later on, when reviewing the footage, I am sure I will be slightly horrified at what it really means for a human to become a wolf.
In the moment, there are flashes of pain, electric bolts of lightning, and a growing sense of freedom.
I take to my paws and I run, all four feet propelling me through the wilds in a way no human form could ever hope to. Two legsnow seem laughably weak. These four powerful limbs of mine could do anything.
I am teeth on legs. I am hunger charging through the undergrowth. I am a creature free from the fetters of human consciousness.
I break through the trees and find myself at the edge of a cliff overlooking a great canyon. Above me, the moon is still red. I feel her pull. My head turns up, my jaws unhinge, and a howl comes from deep inside me, a primal sound belonging to the moon as much as it belongs to me.
CHAPTER 5
Lydia
It’s been three days since I saw my boss. Two of those days were the weekend, so that’s reasonable, but I’m surprised when he doesn’t come in on Monday. Surprised, and disappointed.
My first instinct is to assume he’s turned himself into a bug and can’t get back into his human form. Sort of aHoney, I Shrunk the Kidsmoment, but it’s actually himself who shrunk himself. I don’t actually think he did that, though it’s funny to think about. Simon is too smart to take stupid risks like that, I’m sure.
I walk around the lab, seeing if I can pick out any creatures who weren’t here on Friday. The Chimouse looks about the same. There are a couple of companions in there, but they were there to begin with for sanity’s sake. I don’t see anything else. The lab is empty of most creatures, thank god. I can’t say I approve of animal experimentation at the best of times. At least the drugs don’t seem to have a negative effect on the creatures as much as they did on him.
Did he melt himself? Has he run down a grate and into a sewer system? I bet that’s possible. But if that happened, his clothes would be left behind, and there’s no puddle of sticky man attire here either.
Something ticks in the corner of the room, near his desk. I turn my head toward the sound, instantly curious.
“Hello?”
I can hear rustling and shuffling. Maybe he turned into a rat. Or a raccoon. Or a fox. Something that likes to get into things and move them about.
I realize, after a moment or two, that there’s a printer on his desk that has activated and turned itself on.
