Hair in All The Wrong Places (9 page)

Becca smiled, punching him good-naturedly in the shoulder.

“Hey! Police brutality!”

“All right,” said Becca patiently. “Let's take a deep breath and try to trace our way backwards. Maybe it'll jog your memory and then you can explain how you did that.”

“That all sounds very complicated, but I'll do my best,” Colin smiled.

“What's the last thing you remember?”

Colin thought back to the field. It was like trying to see through fog. “I remember the crime scene.”

“That's a start. What else?”

“I remember Gareth Dugan.”

“And then?” Becca prompted.

“And then … nothing. The next thing I remember is being at the edge of town with you slung over my shoulder.”

“What about the floodlights? Do you remember the lights coming on?”

Colin could feel the migraine skipping along the edges of his brain. It was blocking his memories, threatening to return.

But they're my memories!

He could recall the lights coming on. “I remember the lights!”

The migraine seemed to stop skipping and backed away a little.

Colin continued as bits and pieces slipped back. “I remember Gareth turning and running back into the woods. There was a gunshot. Did Gareth get shot?”

“I don't know; you'd already grabbed me by that point.”

“Grabbed you?”

“Yes, Colin, you grabbed me, threw me over your shoulder like I was nothing, and then raced off across the field.”

Colin thought his school bag was heavy. Picking up an actual person had never struck him as being a good idea.

“I've never seen anyone move like that. You're a lot stronger than you look,” said Becca.

“I get that a lot.”

I never get that.

“Why were the cops staking out the crime scene?” wondered Colin.

“I don't think it was necessarily cops.”

“Then who was—”

Becca pulled a buzzing phone from her pocket. She
read something on the screen and stood. “I have to go.”

“Now? But we don't even know what just happened? Or why? Or with who?”

“It's my dad, it's an emergency, and it's too hard to explain. I'll call you tomorrow.”

Colin stood up. He looked down at Becca.

Am I
…
getting taller?

“Well, thanks for an eventful night,” said Colin because, frankly, he didn't know what else to say at this point.

Becca smiled. “Thanks for getting out of bed.” She kissed Colin on the cheek, and a strange look came across her face.

“What's the matter?”

“I don't know. There's something different about you. Something's changed.”

“I'm not wearing deodorant.”

“I'm being serious. You … tomorrow. We'll talk about it tomorrow.” Becca absentmindedly touched her lips and then turned and left the garage.

Colin stood alone next to the old couch and thought about how much of an idiot he was. He was having blackouts, hallucinations, students were getting torn to pieces and possibly shot, he'd lost his grandfather's car. It was all very serious stuff. The thing that really stood out for him was one single thought.

Becca Emerson just kissed me.

Realizing it was 3:30 a.m., he locked the garage door and climbed back out through the window, dropping to the alley floor with ease.

He didn't see the large piece of wood that broke
across his head or the person who swung it. The last thing Colin remembered before passing out (again) was being dragged down the alley dreamily thinking one single thought:
Becca Emerson kissed me.

Idiot.

When Colin woke up, he was chained to a heavy chair in a dark basement. Water dripped from pipes that ran along the ceiling. He'd seen this sort of scene in a movie once. He wasn't a fan of horror flicks, but he knew that it usually didn't end well for the teenager chained to the chair.

The only illumination came from a portable light hanging from one of the pipes above Colin's head. Despite the darkness, he found he could see fairly well. He sniffed the air and caught a familiar scent. Not a normal thing to do, but it felt right.

As he inhaled, pieces of the room looked brighter, clearer to him. Colin could smell gas, and sure enough, there were several cans stacked in a corner. There were other things: the smell of fresh timber coming from a stack of wood, paint from an open paint can, and something else. He sniffed hard, and there it was again. The smell from his dreams, the smell from the man in the fog yesterday. Making that connection, Colin could suddenly see the man. He was standing in the darkest corner of the basement watching Colin intently. It was
definitely the same man. He was wearing a long jacket with a hood, but Colin couldn't make out his face.

“Who are you?” said Colin.

“Who are you?” echoed the man. The voice was the same gruff rasp from his dreams. It was a vague memory, but he remembered it.

“I'm Colin.”

“And how are you feeling today, Colin?”

“Tired. It's been a strange couple of days.”

“Do you know what's happening to you, Colin?”

“I'm chained to a chair?”

The man had wrapped chains around Colin's arms, legs, and upper body; only his head was free. What struck Colin as strange was that his head didn't hurt in the slightest. He remembered getting hit with something heavy.

Maybe I'm in shock.

“You're not in shock, Colin.”

“Did I say that? Or did I think it?”

“You thought it. And then I heard it,” clarified the man unhelpfully.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I think I've done my worst already.” Sighing heavily, the man walked out of the shadows. Colin recognized him from his dreams. He looked to be in his late forties with light brown eyes and a muscular build. His hair was dark and greasy. “You don't need to be afraid of me, Colin.”

“You've got to admit,” said Colin, “there's currently not a lot of evidence to back up that statement. I mean, I am strapped to a chair in a dark basement.”

The man smiled and dragged a folding chair in front of Colin and sat down. “My name is Silas Baxter. Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah, you just told me. You're Silas Baxter.”

“Not my name, dummy. Do you know what I do?” Colin remembered the dreams again. “You hunt people.”

“Ah,” nodded Silas. “So you've had the dreams already.”

“What do you know about my dreams?”

“I know everything about you, Colin. I know that you've been moved from one family member to another since you were born. I know you live with your grandmother, and that you're miserable 95% of the time. I know that you ran away from home two nights ago and now you're having weird dreams and that your body is going through changes.”

“How could you possibly know all this? It's impossible.”

“I know that you have a tiny scar on your knee from when you fell off the monkey bars in fourth grade. The monkey bars were painted blue.”

“That's very specific.”

“It's funny what you remember. Most people can't remember what they ate for dinner last night, but they can remember the stuffed toy they went to sleep with when they were a kid.”

“Mr. Snuffles,” said Colin.

“He was a pink elephant.”

“He was light red! And how do you know all this?”

“I know all this because you know all this. I've known
all this since I bit you the other night.”

The explosion. The car crash. The werewolf.

“You! You were … you are a werewolf!”

Colin felt stupid saying it aloud, but in his current situation, he figured it couldn't make matters any worse.

“In turn,” said Silas, “you now know all about me. Not only me, but the entire blood strain of werewolf that courses through my veins. Or rather, our veins.”

Colin struggled to make sense of his words “Am I going to turn into one of those things? Into a werewolf? It sounds stupid that I'm even saying this. Werewolf.”

“There are all sorts of things that go bump in the night, Colin.”

“Great. That's great. So now I'll be spending my life going bump in the night too? That wasn't really one of my career goals.”

“You don't have any career goals.”

“Stay out of my head!”

“I can't. You and I are connected. Forever.”

“Why did you bite me? Why can't I hear your thoughts? In the dreams, you kill werewolves. Does that mean you're going to kill me?”

Colin was breathing heavily, and his vision was turning foggy. The dark parts of the basement swam in color as scents washed over him in waves. Somewhere close by—it may as well have been in the same room for how clear it sounded—he heard a cow
moo
.

Silas placed a large hand on Colin's shoulder. “Calm down, Colin. This is all perfectly normal.”

Colin laughed like a crazy person.

Normal?

The smells subsided again, and he took deep breaths.

“Well, no. Not normal in the conventional sense,” conceded Silas. “But if you're changing into a werewolf, then what you're going through is perfectly acceptable. Yes, you could have picked a better town than Elkwood. This isn't the best place for werewolves, you know.”

“Did you kill Sam Bale?”

“No”

“Did I kill Sam Bale?”

“I don't know.”

“Can't you just read my mind and find out?”

“I can't read your subconscious. The night that boy was killed was the same night I bit you. You probably don't remember anything after that.”

“Just bits and pieces. I think I killed a deer.” Colin felt nauseous and hungry all at the same time. “I ate a deer.”

“When I bit you, it forced your body into an immediate change. Normally it doesn't happen like that.”

“Oh, great. So I'm a weird werewolf?”

“It's not unheard of. It's just uncommon. Usually your body will change slowly towards the next lunar cycle, but yours is becoming erratic. Your visions, the hallucinations, they're all fairly rare.”

“Rarer than a werewolf?”

“Good point,” admitted Silas.

“If you hunt other werewolves, are you hunting me?”

“Maybe.”

The cold sincerity with which Silas said the word gave Colin chills. “I don't know that you're not the werewolf that killed that boy. I had to run clear across the county
last night before managing to lose the people chasing me,” said Silas. “I tracked a werewolf here from California. The wolf I tracked is new, but he's already killed several times. I tracked him along the coast to Elkwood. I was closing in on his scent last night near the town hall when I was attacked and pursued by that team of operatives. That's when I ran into you and bit you.”

“Yeah, about that biting thing. Why did you bite me again?”

Silas smelled embarrassed. It smelled like citrus, like a freshly cut orange. “I'd heard rumors of a town like Elkwood, but I didn't realize one actually existed. I thought I was going to be captured or killed, and I wanted to preserve my bloodline. What I do, the reasons I do it, I needed to pass that on. It was sheer luck that you were there.”

“Yeah. Lucky me.” Colin squirmed in his chains; there was no give at all. “What do you mean by
a town like Elkwood
. And operatives? And who's this other werewolf?”

Silas looked confused.

“You don't know what this place is? Colin, Elkwood is a—”

Silas looked past Colin.

“Elkwood is a what? Hello? Silas?”

“Do you hear that?”

“I don't hear—”

“Shh! Listen. Forget everything else and listen hard. Focus behind you.”

Colin listened. He heard Silas's rapid heartbeat. The house was creaking as the wind lightly blew outside.
Cows mooing. He strained to hear beyond that but—

It came at him in a deafening rush. Vehicles! At least two of them. A mix of voices over the static of a radio sliced through his hearing.

“The Baker farm,” said a female voice.

“Lights—”

“—weapons ready,” confirmed a male.

“We have to go,” whispered Silas. “Now.” Colin's ears rang.

He grabbed the chains holding Colin to the chair and ripped them apart. Links bounced and clinked across the concrete floor. Colin just sat there trying to process the strength it would take to rip a chain apart like that as Silas did the same thing to the restraints around his legs. Silas grabbed Colin by the shirt and pulled him to his feet.

“Follow me,” said Silas.

Colin followed him up the stairs and out of the basement. Colin found he could see quite clearly despite the dark. The smell of building materials was strong as the pair passed from one room to another. Colin realized the voice on the radio was correct; they were at the Baker farm. The Bakers were living in a small cottage at the other end of their property while this farmhouse was being renovated. Silas pulled Colin into a crouch in the living room, and crawled quickly toward the large bay window. Peering over the window ledge, Colin didn't need to be able to see in the dark to make out two sets of headlights bouncing down the long dirt driveway toward the house.