Hair in All The Wrong Places (4 page)

Colin panicked and swung the car to the right, but the tires lost traction on the gravel and the old, heavy vehicle lurched headlong into the creature. The front window of the car smashed, and metal tore as the creature scraped its massive claws against the hood of the car. The tires finally caught some traction, sending the car arcing across and off the road where it crashed through the trees and down a steep embankment. The creature clung to the hood of the car and snarled ferociously.

Colin could hear deranged screaming and realized it was his own voice.

The old Pontiac hit something hard, and Colin smashed his head into the steering wheel as the car flipped forward, and then everything turned a murky black.

The world slowly spun back into focus and looked a lot like mud. Colin lay facedown on the ground, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. Or was it a helicopter? He remembered a helicopter. Mercifully, his glasses were still on his head but one lens was cracked.

Colin rolled over onto his back, and a searing pain shot through his left arm. He vomited, mostly on himself.

He pushed to his feet with his right hand but fell back to his knees, the ground unsteady beneath him, and he wanted more than anything to slip back into unconsciousness.

What had happened?

Moonlight shone through the trees and glanced off the chrome rims of his grandfather's car, which was upside down and on fire.

I crashed my grandfather's car
.

With that particular realization, Colin thought of his grandmother's reaction and surged to his feet, stumbling toward the car.

I shouldn't be this close to a burning car
.

He turned and staggered away, clutching his left arm close to his body.

How did this happen?

Colin could remember driving, he was listening to a radio show …

He could hear a helicopter somewhere close, the low thump of the propellers resonating through the night air.

Then he'd hit something. No, something hit him?

Why can't I remember?

A low, guttural growl came from behind Colin, and everything flooded back to him.

The wolf! The massive wolf! Big teeth! Big, sharp-looking teeth. The kind that eat things. They were chasing it and then I hit it. My grandmother is going to be so upset.

Colin turned around slowly, watching as the area in front of the smashed car began to move. The moonlight was so bright here that even in his confused and injured state there was absolutely no mistaking what he was seeing.

The creature pulled itself up on all fours, its body covered with dark gray scraggly hair. But this was no wolf. Its body was more muscular, and it was the size of a small horse. Colin watched in stark horror as the creature put an enormous hairy hand on the Pontiac and pushed itself to its feet. It had a hand, not a paw! And feet! It reached its other hand up and rubbed its head. It growled again.

The creature's large ears twitched as Colin took a step back. Time slowed down as the creature whipped around its head and in two long strides was looming over him.

Colin cowered. He wasn't sure if he was actually cowering—he'd never done it before, he might be doing it wrong. He was shaking and sweating all over. The creature bent over and lowered its head level with Colin's. It was definitely some sort of a wolf. It had a wolf's head. A snout protruded from the center of its face and began sniffing him with huge nostrils as two dark golden eyes studied Colin intently.

What were you supposed to do when confronted with a wild animal? All he could think of was to assume the fetal position, but he thought that was mainly for bears. The creature's head whipped around as they heard a crash off to the right followed by the sound of an engine roaring. With the creature's attention focused elsewhere, Colin noticed that the animal was bleeding. Its chest and stomach area weren't as thickly covered in hair, and there was a bullet wound through its abdomen. Blood was matting the fur together.

“You've been shot,” said Colin.

The creature turned back to Colin and looked down at the wound.

Something crashed again as Colin realized that the helicopter sounded like it was getting closer.

Looking like it was trying to decide what to do, the creature finally dropped down to all fours and fixed its golden eyes on Colin who had backed up against a tree.

The animal closed its eyes and lowered its head. It looked tired, and Colin thought he heard it sigh. Time slowed again as the creature sprang forward pinning Colin against the tree with those dangerously sharp-looking clawed hands. Colin screamed in pain as the animal grabbed his left arm, opened its jaws, and sank its teeth deep into Colin's forearm. The pain he'd originally felt from his injured arm was nothing compared to what followed.

Heat rushed through Colin's body; it felt like fire was consuming him from the inside out. His bones felt too big for his body, and his heart was hammering against his chest. The creature released his arm, turned, and fled into the night as a truck crashed through the trees in pursuit. They never noticed Colin leaning against the tree doing his best attempt to not die.

What was happening?

Colin retched again, trying to vomit, but nothing came out. He doubled over in pain, his body convulsing as spasms wracked him so violently he thought his spine would snap.

I'm dying!

Suddenly, the world in front of him exploded in vivid colors; he could smell the mustiness of his grandmother's old car mixed with the smell of leaking fuel and the flames. As the helicopter flew overhead once again, Colin
heard a howl, and for a brief, insane moment, he thought he should answer. Colin's skin began to feel tight, and his brain felt like it was splitting apart in his skull. Without warning, his grandmother's car exploded, throwing flames toward the shining full moon as the world faded into a bright white nothingness.

C
olin was running. Well, he might have been Colin, he wasn't sure anymore. He ran low to the ground, moving much faster than Colin had ever moved in his life. Dry leaves crunched under his feet and foliage whipped against him as he ran. It felt so good to just run. Running was so freeing. An exhilaration that burned through his veins like iced water.

The darkness didn't hinder him in the slightest. Colin was aware of everything around him. He knew he was heading up hill; he could hear water in the distance, a stream maybe. He could smell animals in the forest, each one giving off its own individual signature, and he felt hunger. Hunger like he had never experienced before. It wasn't just the need for nourishment; it was the need to hunt. To feel warm flesh and bone crunch in between his teeth, to—

What's wrong with me?

Colin realized he was standing on a rainy street in a gloomy part of a city. He was watching and waiting. A dirty looking man in raggedy clothing left a store with bars on the windows and glanced up and down the street. Colin looked down at his hands and realized they weren't his own. He was seeing through someone else's eyes.

The dirty man made his way to a beat-up car, and Colin could literally smell him from across the street. Through the fresh rain, through the putrid stench of exhaust from the city itself, he could smell the filth on the man. The blood. The dirt under his fingernails. It made his stomach turn. And then Colin moved. It seemed like such a small motion, but one moment he was standing still, and a moment later he was next to the dirty man who turned and looked at him. Panic spread across that grimy face.

“No! Not you! Please—”

He was running again. Through the night, across a field. The night was overcast, and fog floated low, creating an ominous ceiling effect, but it didn't matter. He felt the moon up there somewhere, and it felt comfortable. Like a mother watching over a baby.

And then he was in an apartment. The furniture didn't match, and the walls were stained yellow from smoke. It had to be smoke; the apartment reeked of it. A mirror hung crooked on the wall, and the reflection Colin saw looking back at him was not his own. This new, not-Colin's jaw was angular, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in days. His hair was tousled, and his eyes … there was something haunting about his eyes.

A woman in an ill-fitting bathrobe and badly colored hair screamed at Colin. “Don't you take him! He's a good boy. He is a good boy.”

Colin's voice was deep and raspy. “He's a murderer. I'm sorry. I don't want to do this.”

“Then leave. I'll take care of him. I'll keep him out of trouble.”

“I'm sorry. It has to be this way.”

Colin pushed his way past the woman who fell sobbing to the floor. Opening a door adjoining the living room, he found a boy, maybe eighteen or nineteen, huddled naked on the bed. Covered with dirt, his hair was matted to his head, the boy didn't even look at Colin; he just stared at one of the walls.

“You're him, aren't you? The one they talk about?” the boy whispered.

Colin didn't say anything; he reached for the boy and—

—was back in the field, only this time he was close to a farmhouse. It was a large house, and Colin felt like he recognized it. Leaping the low wall that ran around the property, Colin paced back and forth across the garden.

This is Becca Emerson's house.

The information came to him distinctly. He could smell her. She was up there in one of the rooms. That fresh soapy smell mixed with the odd perfume she wore that smelled like Twizzlers. And he could hear her breathing, she was asleep. Her heartbeat was steady.
Thump. Thump. Th
—

Colin was lying in bed. A big bed in a dark paneled wood room lit with candles. Two older women and a man
with a stone-faced scowl stared down at him. They were dressed strangely, as if they were from the past. This was a different time completely. He raised a hand and looked at it. It was pale and dainty. He had a woman's hand! He looked down at himself. He had women's breasts too! The scowling man made a grunting sound.

“I've never seen anything like it,” he said. “She's feverish, but the injury she sustained last night is gone, like it never was.”

“What do you mean?” Colin asked in a voice that was definitely not his own.

“Don't panic, dear. Try not to move. You're ill,” said one of the ladies.

“What happened to me?”

“You were attacked,” said the man. “Some sort of beast. A monstrous thing if I ever—”

Colin was standing at the end of a long dirt road next to a battered old mailbox. At the end of the driveway, he could see a shack of a house. He was surrounded by fields of corn and beyond them, vast rocky mountains. He looked down at his hands. They were large and worn. Farmer's hands.

An old man rode up on a horse and reined it to a stop. “Fletcher,” said the old man. “It's happened again!”

“Not another one,” replied Colin in a deep baritone.

“The same as before. It's impossible. Tore the thing to pieces.”

“It makes no sense. Nothing could do that.” But Colin didn't really believe that, or maybe the man whose eyes he was seeing didn't believe it. He felt nervous.

“That's the fourth cow this month. I've never seen
anything like this. The claw marks are … they're not natural!”

“I'll keep watch tonight.”

The old man pulled on the reins and turned the horse around. “You kept watch last night and a whole lot of good that did us!” The old man spurred the horse into a gallop and raced off down the dirt driveway toward the house.

Colin felt relief and then guilt and then—

He nestled quietly in the undergrowth. He couldn't remember why he was doing this. He knew his name was Colin. He remembered Becca. He remembered school. He remembered … nothing else really. Just shadows. He remembered the deer because it chose that moment to step into view. Colin crept lower. The deer was at least twenty feet away, and it'd be hard to cover the distance, but Colin was hungry, so very hungry. The deer's heartbeat was racing; it knew something wasn't right. It would bolt! Colin leaped at the deer clearing the twenty feet as if it was a single step. He plowed into the startled creature and clamped his enormous jaws around the deer's throat and rippe—

He was caged. He growled and snarled and clawed with massive, hairy hands at the bars. It was dark and stormy, and he was out in the open, surrounded by rocks. He threw himself at the cage bars, but the metal was too thick. Chanting was coming from men wearing hooded robes who surrounded the stone circle, swaying back and forth to their song. Colin wanted to tear them to pieces.

No!

This wasn't him. He wasn't this caged thing. He grabbed one of the bars with both hands and pulled
with all his strength, and the bar gave way. The chanting stopped as he grabbed another bar and ripped it from its holding. And then another, and another, until Colin squeezed through the bars to feel the heavy rain dampening his fur as he stretched to his full height; he must be over seven feet tall! Colin could see the men running away through the dark night, and he could smell their fear. He liked a good run. Dropping to all fours, he raced off in pursuit, kicking up dirt as he—