The Wulver's Stane

[Lamb]

He was too old to be worrying about a god damn donut.

Detective Creighton Bruer stared unblinkingly at the covered tray of pastries to his left sitting on the diner counter, cheek in palm and eyes glazed over. It was too cliché, anyway—a cop sitting on his ass stuffing his face with donuts. And it really didn’t look good for a man his weight to be eating deep fried desserts. The poor fat bastard that women scolded their kids for staring at, telling them when they thought you were out of earshot, “That’s why we can’t eat at McDonald’s every night. You don’t want to end up like that, do you?” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and stirring his coffee for the hundredth time since his cup was filled.

“Can I get you another cup?” a worn-down feminine voice called in front of him. His eyes slowly moved up to a middle-aged woman behind the counter with gradually running mascara and pronounced wrinkles.

“Thanks. I’m alright for now.” He said.

“You need anything else then before I go on my break?”

Creighton’s eyes wandered to the donut platter.

“I wouldn’t bet on your luck, Mr. Bruer. Now I’m not in the business of telling a man he’s dying. Quite the opposite, usually. But if you don’t drastically, and I do mean drastically, cut down on your sugar and fat intake, you will not see fifty-one.”

“No. Thanks.” Creighton forced out. He should have told that doctor that if he was so adamant about sugar reduction he should stop giving kids lollipops for checkups. But it didn’t do any good to argue with a doctor. He’d just charge you more; find some hidden expense like “thermometer sanitization” to put on your bill—something that was really just medical lingo for “Patient was a smartass”. He watched as the waitress walked away and downed a bitter gulp of black, sugarless coffee.

It was really just the way of things. He didn’t have a wife anymore, no kids. He lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in which he couldn’t own pets, and the most social interaction he saw was talking to suspicious street punks and drug dealers who were so unwilling to help their fellow man that he wanted to drag them down the street behind his car by their dirty, infected piercings. And now, to top it all off, the man couldn’t eat a god damn donut at the end of a fourteen hour shift. Creighton grumbled huskily to himself and reached a chubby hand, with considerable effort, into an all-too-tight back pocket. Out of the corner of his eye he caught someone leaning up to turn the volume up on the television.

“…ently have no suspects in the bizarre double murder case that took place just three days ago in a small Seattle apartment building, although the victim’s longtime roommate and fiancée Noah Gershwin has been missing since the incident took place on Friday. There is no word whether he is believed to be an accomplice or merely taken as a hostage by the killer, but traces of his blood were found at the crime scene. He was last seen heading home from work. If you or anyone you know has seen or heard from this man, please contact your local authorities an…”

A scream sounded from outside the diner loud enough to get the attention of the inhabitants inside. Many of them stood and moved toward the window, chattering quietly in alarm as they awaited another indication of distress, and Creighton hurriedly tossed a ten dollar bill on the counter as he haphazardly tried to maneuver himself off of the precarious swiveling stool. Another scream resounded from the street just beyond the diner and Creighton was quickly parting through the crowd, flashing the badge pinned to the inside of his coat as he went. He rammed the door open with a shoulder and charged at a brisk pace towards the disturbance, exhausted already before he was ten steps out into the street.

He looked around and determined the source of the commotion, two distinct screams leading him through an alleyway and into a handful of people fleeing on the streets. The area was secluded, hidden behind a building of momentarily indeterminate nature. Partially obscured in the shadows near the dumpsters out back, a figure howled. Creighton’s hand was going for his gun—and then his hand was gone. All of him was gone. His vision shifted, he was looking down on the streets now from a greatly elevated height, but his focus was solely in front of him. He felt weightless and heavier at the same time, and two powerful arms that looked nothing like what he knew to be his, or human, flew out in front of him and hit the asphalt. He expected to be down on the ground in the next instant, but instead he was launching off of the earth, springing off of these strange, hulking limbs and coming down so hard on the street in front of him that chips of it burst into his face.

At that instant he was snapping forward. His teeth—teeth, he was biting—grazed the edge of something that felt like flesh and the thing he had grabbed at reeled on him with a sallow, deadly visage. Its eyes were gaping holes of darkness, its skin scarred and teeth all exposed. Gray mist roiled like fire around select body parts and then shifted to different ones, wherever it touched giving the appendage a fluctuating translucency. Naked, haggard, covered in its own drool and face matted with its stringy, thinning hair, it opened its mouth and shrieked again. The sound threatened to burst his eardrums, but the only reaction he found himself experiencing was rage, and he opened his mouth to scream himself. What came was not a man’s cry. A bellowing roar tore from his chest and he was lunging again. Arms slashed. His teeth snapped again. The thing sprang at him with crazed, flailing limbs and a fist rammed his now massive jaw upwards, but he barely felt the pain, even as he caught himself against a solid metal dumpster and bounced back at his opponent. This time he didn’t miss. His jaws snapped closed and its head ruptured. It pulled free from his jaws, headless, spasming, running a few feet and skidding against a brick wall. It fell, mist pouring from its remains.

Creighton similarly collapsed, and when he hit the ground it was a human hand that caught him. His breathing was heavy, frantic, eyes wide. Questions didn’t even come at that point—he could only replay that bizarre moment where he had…changed…over and over again in his head. He pulled himself to his feet with a grunt and found that, when there, he felt incredibly strange. Breathing seemed easier. As he looked down, he realized, utterly stupefied, that his clothes were now hanging off of him. The cuffs of his sleeves seemed too long all of a sudden, and his shirt and jacket sagged down. He tried to dazedly take inventory of himself and quickly pulled off his shirt. He felt his stomach with his hands, jaw slack. It wasn’t his stomach. It wasn’t the stomach of a man who ate hot pockets every morning for breakfast and thought of exercise as walking down the flight of stairs from his second floor apartment instead of taking the elevator. He looked over towards the dumpster where he had hit to see it mangled, as though a car had hit it head on doing forty. Next to the dumpster was a fractured full body mirror.

Creighton didn’t find the reflection of himself. Suddenly he was looking at the body of a pro-wrestler with his facial features. He was covered in a muscular structure of gladiator proportions, pants sliding off from having lost the girth that kept them there. He stood there, grabbing at his face, trying to disperse this vision trick before him, but even in the stunned aftermath of whatever had just happened he could not deny the reality of it. He turned to look at the thing that had provoked him only to find it in decaying pieces. It was quickly dissolving away, evaporating from the street where it lay in the form of the mist that had partially shrouded it.

Creighton slowly looked back down at his hands.

[The Gypsy Queen]

Deoiridh had always been a fan of the sun. There was nothing quite like relaxing on cool grass with the sun warming her.

She licked her lips, suddenly aware of the pangs of hunger for the first time since… since it happened. She watched with sad dark eyes as passers-by in the park she was currently resting in jogged or played fetch with their dogs.

She’d had lots of time to think after it had happened. She had just grabbed a bag of clothes, vomited twice more, retrieved her guitar from the attic, and left. Even as she walked away from her family home in Charleston, Arkansas, she’d heard the sirens as they pulled up.

She’d walked all night and most of the following day to Fort Smith, and her newly toned body didn’t even ache. But she’d had lots of times to think. And she’d thought about a lot of things to think about.

She’d come to the conclusion, based on the blurry memories of the actual event, that something had happened to her. She’d changed. She knew she must have, because little Duane wouldn’t even come near her for fear afterwards. She was sure she’d changed, physically, but it had happened so fast she hadn’t had time to register it and it hadn’t happened since. She also knew something strange had happened because of how she was afterwards.

It was like she was in prime physical condition. Toned, strong muscles, a flat belly, lean legs. She’d been in shape before the accident, but never like this. And even stranger, the scars from the accident were all gone. No spidery burn scars on her face and arms and legs, and her right hand was immaculate. It didn’t even hurt to move it.

Deoiridh held up her right hand to investigate it. Perfect, long, elegant fingers curled and uncurled at her bidding, moving with the smooth grace she’d so longed for.

It had been nearly a year since she was able to, and this hardly seemed the time, but she felt so many emotions… grief, anger, fear, confusion… she just had to.

After the accident, she hadn’t even been able to open her guitar case, much less play it. But now the case popped open easy as pie, and the smooth acoustic felt like air in her hands and smelled of home. She thrummed her fingers across the strings, making the instrument hum contentedly, and she nearly wept for the ironic joy.

She thought of her father, that blessed man, bleeding on the ground before her. She thought of the mangled corpse of the man that did it. The rage was fresh and she had focused on that, but not the grief. Now it was washing over her like a tidal wave, and she couldn’t breathe. Her father and cousin were dead. Dead and gone. She wouldn’t even be able to attend their funerals. Now, sitting alone on the grass in Creekmore Park in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Deoiridh wrapped her hands around a guitar for the first time in nearly a year and mourned the only way she knew how.

The guitar thrummed readily under her fingers, humming and purring like an old lover, a steady strumming beat. She sang softly, not meaning to entertain, only to grieve.

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done…

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say…

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do…

The music stirred her, something new and restless in her heart. Even as she grieved she knew already she could not stay. Something was dragging her slowly onward, already trying to pull her to her feet.

She opened her eyes and steeled herself. Setting her jaw and looking about as though to dare someone to do something, she resolved to have faith. This was happening to her and she had to believe there was a reason why. It was what her father would tell her.

[Pope Jako III]

Buck awoke from his resting place, which was currently a bench in a park in Fort Smith, he didn’t know what it was called nor did he care, he thought it was a park but it was more of a playground. Anyway buck awoke to the sound of music, something he hadn’t heard in a long time, life on the road didn’t allow such luxuries. He liked music, he liked music a lot actually, but as he listened he couldn’t help but feel sad this had to be one of the saddest songs he ever heard, “well there goes my good morning.”

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say…

Buck stopped what he was thinking this girl has lost someone, someone very close. Buck knew that kind of pain he knew what it felt like to lose someone close his own father and grandfather before him both died long before their time in the outback.

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do…

The song came to its conclusion and he knew his new course of action. Whatever this girl was up to he was coming along for the ride. “Well I’m not one to just barge into people’s lives but I think this might warrant a look see. With his course decided Buck packed up his things and made his way over to the girl standing defiantly against the sun set.

[Ushima]

Waking up to a slamming door was not how I picturerd waking up in the morning. "Damn." I cursed as I got up. Sleep was good, but didn't make me feel any better.

"Michael?" I looked to the doorway and found my aunt starring at me. She was happy to see me, though surprise was also written on her face.

"Rough night at work Auntie Maria?" I asked as I stretched and heared my joints popped.

"Yeah it was rough." I gave her a quick hug and kissed her on the cheek. "If I had known my godson would be here I would have entered more quietly. Want breakfast?"

"I would love breakfast." If my aunt didn't notice the subtle changes in my appearance she didn't mention it. I sat at the kitchen table waiting when I heard a door open somewhere in the house. "Yo Joseph!" I called.

"Hey Mike nice to see you man." My cousin and I bump fists. "What brings you back to our asshole of a town?" I can sense the dislike for the town in his voice.

"Forget get about me for a second. What the fuck happened to you?" Ignoring my aunt yelling about my use of foul language, which I love using, I grab his face and turn his head, looking at the bruises.

"I don't want to talk about it." He looked away from me and down at the table.

"Hey." He looks up at me and I flash him a grin. I forgot all about my problems for the moment, Joseph was family and that comes first. "I'll take care of it, don't worry." We didn't speak a word of it again as my aunt set plates of eggs and bacon down.

When we were done I took the shower first and when I was done entered the guest bedroom to find fresh clothes. A new pair of jeans, black socks, black long sleeve shirt, red t-shirt. I took two of my cousins steel chains and put them on my right side, one hung lower than the other. Aftering putting on a belt I grabbed my hoodie and shoes. "Lets go!" I yelled to my cousin and soon we were headed to the mall, him to get some stuff, me to go after whoever hurt him.

[The Gypsy Queen]

She didn’t know who he was and nor did she ask. It sounded ridiculous but he smelled right, like she could trust him. Like maybe somehow he understood.

So she started walking. He followed. They walked for hours, following winding Old Greenwood Road until Phoenix Avenue, and then following that.

She was going. She didn’t know where or why really, but she could feel it in her bones, some kind of forceful restlessness that dragged her onward even though she was beginning to bleed through her eco-friendly flip flops. She’d had to tie her green fabric belt tighter on her peasant skirt, she dropped enough weight last night to make it very loose otherwise.

But she felt light as a feather. Determination was hard in her veins, and she knew what she was going to do. She was going to the airport. She was going to get on a flight. And she was going to wherever it was her bones were pulling her to. The problem was she had no idea where that would be.
She imagined herself just closing her eyes and randomly pointing at a destination and hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The night fell as they walked and the chill began to creep over Phoenix Avenue as the airport finally came into view. Her left leg had that numb feeling of being a little overworked – she must have been favoring it out of habit.

She was visibly shivering by the time they reached the airport, feet wet and bleeding and notably jacketless. As they reached the entrance, she turned on her silent companion.

“ I have enough money for two tickets. You can come with me, if you want.” She said, voice soft and quiet, then turned and made her way into the airport.

It turned out the next flight with available seats was to New York City, and it left in fifteen minutes. She waited before booking the seats, to see if the blonde wanted to come along. It would be nice to not be alone.

[Pope Jako III]

Huh never actually traveled inside the coach of an airplane before. This could be interesting. Buck smiled and put his hand behind his head “I’m honored that you would want me along but, I have to tell you I’ve never traveled coach before.” At hear blank look he hastily clarified: “or first class or anywhere besides the cargo hold.” “And while New York is not on my list of places to go, I could perhaps put my journey on hold for a little while.” “Well then,” he said getting up, “first things first,” he said pulling out a med kit, “let’s do something about those feet.” He motioned to her bleeding feet.

[The Gypsy Queen]

The flight to New York was not a long one, and the peanuts and soda were the first thing Deoiridh had eaten in over twenty-four hours. Fresh gauze adorned her feet, and she'd washed the blood from her shoes in the ladies' restroom. She only had so much now, and these were her only shoes. She'd also taken time to wash her face and freshen up a bit - a little all-natural deodorant, a change of clothes into jeans and a Bob Marley tee-shirt, and a quick teeth-brushing. She felt much better, but still exhausted.

She napped for the first few hours on the plane, dozing in and out of consciousness, incessantly awakened by half-formed nightmares about what had happened, her father's gaping mouth, the horrid smell in the house, what she'd become, and about the fact that she had no idea what she would do when they landed in New York.

The man to her left (she'd given him the window seat as it was his first time flying coach, apparently) was a source of some comfort, but when she finally gave up on sleep, she paused to consider him.

He looked cheerful and easy-going. Handsome, if blondes were your thing. He'd sounded kind of like the Crocodile Hunter, so she wondered if maybe he was from Australia.

It took her a few minutes to work up the courage to speak, which was odd, because she'd just spent all but fifty dollars of her money for two plane tickets to New York, with no idea what to do when she got there, with this man and she got nervous about talking to him.

She wished she hadn't had to check her guitar. It would have been some comfort.

" Um. What's your name?" she asked finally.

[Pope Jako III]

“Um. What’s your name?” Buck looked over he couldn’t believe he forgot to introduce himself. “HAHAHAHAHA! I’m sorry HAHAHAHA! Names Buck.” He managed to gasp between fits of laughter. I’m sorry I don’t usually barge into people’s lives by meeting them in a random park I’m Buck Irwin, what’s yours?”

[The Gypsy Queen]

The sudden laughter stunned Deoiridh, and she sat for a good minute doing a great impersonation of a particularly startled goldfish.

A little part of her had forgotten there was laughter still in the world.

" Deoiridh Hall." She answered.

This was about as much conversation as she had courage to start, but the plane was landing anyway, so the pilot advising the passengers of the descent saved her the awkward silence.

Her feet had swollen some in the hours she'd been sitting, so she trudged painfully into the John F. Kennedy International Airport, shuffling as quickly as possible to collect her guitar - she was anxious without it.

As she saw it drop from the chute she could only hope to receive some kind of sign as to what she was supposed to do now.

[Pope Jako III]

"Well i don't know about you but I'm a bit on the hungry side." Buck said motioning to what appeared to be a small restaurant next to the gate he held up his wallet and smiled "my buy this time?"

[Lamb]

It was nine o’clock in the Marsh household and the sound of pacing footsteps echoed in the marble kitchen as a man walked back and forth between the dining table and the island counter. Reagan, dressed in a cashmere sweater and expensive slacks, stood on the other side of the counter with her eyes on the small plasma television screen mounted on an opposing wall. Something was going on in the news, some dreadfully tragic story about a family in Arkansas, she thought. She couldn’t really seem to focus. She continued to nibble on her wheat bagel as her eyes stayed glued to the screen.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t normal.” Her son’s voice cut through her daze. She looked over to where he was pacing a trench in her kitchen floor. “You know that, right? This isn’t something you can just sweep under the rug, Mom, not something you can pretend never happened.”

“Don’t work yourself up.” She muttered distantly.

“What should I do? I-I mean we have to tell Dad.” He stopped at the counter to stare at her.

“Don’t bother your father with this nonsense, Deacon. Everything is just fine. No one got hurt.”

“No one got hurt? No one?” he threw up his hands. “Mom, I think you’re forgetting about someone. And how many of those have you eaten in the past few hours—six? I think you’re in shock. This whole thing is…maybe you should see a doctor.”

“For what?”

“For what happened out there.”

“I don’t know what you mean, dear.”

“Mom,” Deacon slapped his palms down onto the surface of the counter and stared her down, lowering his voice. “you turned into a werewolf.”

Reagan purposefully dropped her bagel down onto the counter and gave him a scolding look. “Really Deacon, now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“Mother.” Deacon gaped at her incredulously.

“There you two are.” A robust male voice came from the entryway. A man in his early sixties with small spectacles and gray hair swept back into a ponytail wandered into the room with his eyes down on a palm pilot. He looked up with a smile. “Thought I might’ve missed you at this hour.”

“You’re back awfully late.” Reagan remarked, purposefully avoiding her son’s accusatory stare. “Did something hold you up?”

“Oh, you know how it is with Dayton.” The man came to the counter and set the device in his hand down with a dismissive huff. “When he says he wants to sit down and talk business he means he wants to sit down and talk about anything but business. I swear if I have to hear about that man’s divorce one more time. It happened fifteen years ago for God’s sake. How you doin’, son?”

“Fine, Dad.” Deacon said hesitantly.

Reagan spared him a glance at last before setting her eyes back on the television.

“Well, anyway, oh—“ the man paused, raising his white eyebrows. “And another reason I was late. The main road was closed, I had to take the side road home. And that road turned out to be closed too, if you believe it.”

“But we just took that road.” Reagan chimed in.

“Oh? Did you two get held up by that horrible accident, too?” He looked between his wife and son expectantly.

Deacon tried to get his mother to look back at him, to no avail. “No. Must’ve happened after we got back…what was it?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. Someone just mowed down a pedestrian up there. Beats me what he was doing wandering all the way up on that road, but whoever hit him didn’t even stop. Gruesome. Took me an hour just to get home altogether.”

Deacon paled slightly, but Reagan didn’t seem to be listening anymore. Her face was turned out the window, eyes distant, for the first time in years suddenly yearning to leave this place. How odd. She’d always loved it here…

[Lamb]

If there was anything Creighton Bruer could do, it was get to the bottom of things. He’d made a pretty decent career out of it, after all. The first thing he had done was to attempt to investigate the remains of the creature he had killed, but it’s body had reduced itself to vapors before he could make a single real assessment. He didn’t know what he was looking at to begin with. With all of the evidence gone now, Creighton had only his own enormously transformed figure to prove that he wasn’t completely delusional. Today was one of his off days, which gave him ample time to launch his own private investigation. His actual job was the last thing on his mind right now anyway.

His second course of action was to get a professional opinion on the body he now inhabited. It couldn’t be healthy to drop two-hundred pounds in ten seconds regardless of how out of shape you were. The analytical part of his brain grasped at explanations for this phenomenon, but he was nonetheless dumfounded—and what, pray tell, happened to him to induce this? For a brief period, he was neither in this body nor the one he remembered as being his. He had been a different creature entirely. He was certain of this. Surely he couldn’t be crazy; look what it had done to him. When he walked into the doctor’s office (accidentally slamming the glass door into the adjoining wall in an unintentional show of newfound strength), he half expected the doctor to write him up as the first victim of some unheard of disease or disorder. But when his exam was over, the young doctor, casual as ever, waltzed in with nothing more than a smile.

“Well, checkup’s over Mr. Bruer. Everything checks out a-okay.” He announced, pulling up a chair to sit across from his patient.

Creighton stared at him with trepidation from where he sat in a chair in the examining room—one he would have found much too small to be even remotely accommodating just a day ago. “What do you mean everything?”

“I literally mean everything.” The doctor repeated, shuffling through his file before setting it aside. “And I can honestly say I’ve never said that. You are in the best shape of any man your age…hell, maybe otherwise too, that I have ever treated. I’d like to know what your secret is to tell you the truth.”

You and me both, son. Creighton thought in amazement. “That’s uh…that’s good.”

“It’s more than good. Medical schools should use you to show students what a flawless, ideal human being looks like.” He paused, leaning back in his chair for a moment. “Was there some particular concern that brought you in here today, Mr. Bruer?”

Creighton shifted, leaning forward and throwing out a massive hand. “Look, there has to be some mistake. I’ve suffered from diabetes for years. I’ve got a heart condition, asthma, recurring ulcers. My cholesterol is higher than the PCP addict I caught last week tearing car doors off their hinges; you’re telling me that you didn’t find any indication of that?”

The doctor offered a pensive frown and glanced over at the nearby chart. Clearly he was confused. “If…you’re worried about the effects of steroids—“
Creighton waved a hand, shaking his head in dismay. “I don’t take anything but insulin.”

“Well,” he turned, picking up the chart again. “We can run more tests if you’d like. But from what I’ve seen it seems like those issues were a gross misdiagnosis on your practitioner’s part.”

Creighton nodded, feeling it best not to suggest that this was a supernatural occurrence if it wasn’t obvious. He already felt crazy; he didn’t need to look it, too. “Yeah. Uh…run ‘em, then. Better to be sure I guess.”

“Alright. We’ll call you with the results.”

As Creighton left the doctor’s office, he couldn’t help but continue to stare down at himself. So there was no medical explanation for this change. If he had told the doctor beforehand that last night he weighed over four-hundred pounds he would have been redirected to the psych ward. Part of him was perplexed and somewhat wary of this new body, while the other part was frozen with fear—afraid to breathe too deeply lest this all be a temporary state. He should have perhaps mentioned the strange feeling in his gut. The one that made him feel as though he were starving, even though he had eaten less than two hours ago. Not to mention the one that told him to move…move east. Keep moving east. He chalked it up to strained nerves and decided on his next destination. As he turned the street towards there, however, he caught sight—and scent—of a bakery on the corner. It was morning. Morning meant fresh pastries. Morning meant donuts. He nearly slapped himself, but the fiery rage in his stomach remained unrelenting, insisting that he go in.

He slowly trudged in through the door and stared at the front counter. It was mercilessly lined with every kind of fresh, hot pastry he could imagine. He lumbered up towards the register like a zombie, staring at the food trapped behind glass panes.

“What can I get for you today?” the woman he had barely registered asked.
Nothing. He almost said out of habit. Nothing, that’s what he should say. Again the scenario of a fat tub of lard downing donuts in plain public view brought him shame. But then again…he wasn’t a tub of lard anymore. “A dozen.” He said before he could take it back.

“Of what?”

“Surprise me.”

-----

Creighton headed down the street feeling strange in clothes that were suddenly much too big for him. He had just murdered an entire box of donuts and his stomach wasn’t even distended. He hardly even felt full. Even in his old obese body half a dozen made him feel exhausted. He hadn’t even been tired since last night, come to think of it. He couldn’t make sense of this. Never mind that though, he had other modes of investigation in mind. He walked briskly to the building across the street and began climbing a set of rickety iron stairs up rows of apartments. He didn’t dwell on how miraculous it was that he could fly up three flights of stairs without even being winded, with mountains of energy to spare. Instead he focused on the goal at hand. He looked down at the scrap of paper in his hand and matched it to the door in front of him. He pounded on it with his fist. At first there was no answer, but he persisted, pounding again. “Kida,” he called gruffly. “Open up.”

There were some faint sounds inside, followed by a loud crack of something hitting something else, followed by plenty of cursing. After some fumbling with the locks, the door cracked open and a short, young, Asian-featured man stood staring up at him. There was a moment of awkward silence between them before the younger swallowed. “Uhh, I think you have the wrong place, dude.”

“Kida, you…” Creighton paused, considering his changed appearance. “It’s me, kid. Bruer.”

The man stared at him for a moment before blinking repeatedly. “Oh…okay, uhhh… Are you Detective Bruer’s…brother? Sorry, I don’t really know anything about—“

“No, you half-pint, it’s me.” He stared down intently, trying his best to look familiar.

“Right.” He said blankly.

Creighton rubbed his face with a hand. “You’re name’s Mattie Kida, you’re a sketch artist down at the precinct. Last week you helped me interview Laura White about the suspect in her son’s disappearance, you were drinkin’ a Dr. Pepper, any of this gettin’ through? I know it doesn’t look like me, but…take another damn look.”

Mattie blinked again, narrowed his eyes, then stepped back with a huff. “Holy shhhit. What th—how—you’r—hell happened to you, you’re—“

“Yeah, I know. Look, something happened to me last night.”

“I’d sure as shit say so!” Mattie fell back, taking in his appearance with disbelief.

“Alright, don’t lose your head, kid.” Creighton demanded. “I tried calling in, but the boys downtown said you were still out sick.” He eyed him up and down suspiciously. “I gotta say though, you don’t exactly look sick.”

“Yeah, well…” Mattie trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared, still awestruck at the man before him. “I’ve had a…rough…couple of days, why are you here? What…happened to you, wh—how do you know where I live, anyway?”

“I looked you up. Listen, I need a favor from you. Sorry it’s short notice but it’s important. Can I come in or what?”

Mattie looked around him. “Uhh…sure. Yeah. I guess, come in.”

Creighton ignored the fact that he was being gawped at as he made his way through the small apartment’s living room and looked around, whirling about and crossing his arms—something he hadn’t been able to do without rolls of fat getting in the way for some time. His eyes raked the surrounding environment and he noted that Kida’s apartment was more or less trashed. Soda cans were everywhere, pizza boxes and cartons of Chinese take-out littered every surface amid flattened and crushed paper fast food bags. Poking from every corner of the disaster were charcoal sketches and rough pencil drawings.

“It’s not usually like this.” Was all Mattie offered as he stumbled into the room, eyes still glued to Creighton’s transformed stomach. “The uh, the apartment I mean. Like I said, it’s um…been a crazy few days.”

“Relax kid, you’re not the first guy in the world to call in sick so he could throw a party.”

“Party?” Mattie’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Trust me, uh…well look, what do you need, huh?”

Creighton narrowed one eye at his co-worker’s odd demeanor, but dismissed it for the time being. “I need you to do a perp sketch.”

Mattie groped around for a drawing pad and a pen, flipping through the book for a blank page. “Who am I interviewing?”

“Me.” Creighton sighed, sitting in an armchair.

Mattie looked up quizzically for a moment before wandering over and turning another chair to face his guest. “Okay.”

Creighton suddenly felt skeptical of the soundness of this plan, but Yamato Kida had a pretty good knack for this, if ensuing arrests were any indication. “Alright. It was a man. About…five-ten I guess. Naked.”

Mattie raised an eyebrow.

“Pale skin. Real pale, almost uhh…what’s the word, it’s like… it was like a corpse.”

“You’re looking for a corpse?” Mattie pressed, hesitantly lifting his pen.

“It wasn’t dead when I found it. Believe me.” Creighton paused. “Look, just listen and draw. It had wounds. Torn up skin all over, like it was just in a cat fight with one mean son of a bitch cat. The skin all around its mouth was gone, almost like it chewed it off. Something gouged out its eyes, but the wound must’ve been old. It um…it…it wasn’t totally solid. You know…it seemed to uh…well look, forget it, I don’t know how you’d draw that. Narrow, sunken face. Patchy beard coming through. Defined cheekbones and a widow’s peak. It had thin, stringy hair. Dark hair.”

Mattie was quiet for a minute as he pen went over the paper. “It? You keep saying ‘it’. I thought you said it was a man.”

“I don’t know what else to call it.”

Mattie kept drawing, shaking his head. After about ten minutes he handed the book over, shrugging and sweeping a hand through his black hair. “Looks like something out of Hellraiser. So what? What is this; you said I was sketching a perpetrator. Is this supposed to be who you’re looking for?”

Creighton stared down at the sketch and was momentarily at a loss for words. He merely closed his mouth, setting the drawing on the table and ignoring how eerily and wonderfully Mattie had captured the thing he had destroyed. “I ain’t lookin’ for him, kid, he’s dead.”

Mattie tossed his pen down. “Well now that that’s all cleared up…”

“Look, I said it was hard to explain, alright? Damn near impossible.” Creighton rubbed his temples and stared into the eyeless gaze of the sketch. “Something happened to me.”

Mattie sat back. “You mentioned that. Maybe you should give me some kind of clue.”

“You wouldn’t believe me. I hardly believe it.”

“I don’t believe that you’re really you looking like that, but hell.”

Creighton grumbled and nodded, rubbing at his forehead with his palms. “It was last night. I was sittin’ at the diner down the road from my apartment and I hear this scream. So I go out to see what’s the deal and…I don’t know how to tell you what happened after that.”

“Well…that’s when you saw this thing, right?” Mattie gestured towards the drawing.

“Yeah. I saw it, and…something happened to me. I…changed.”

“Changed?”

“Into…” Creighton looked up to see Mattie’s blank expression and decided hell, he had to tell someone. “into something else. I-I wasn’t even human for God’s sake, I don’t know what I was. And I went for that thing, I mean I really let it have it—almost like I couldn’t even help it. When it was dead, I was back…no, I wasn’t back to normal. I was this.” He lifted his arms.

Mattie’s face didn’t have its normal blank, skeptical look anymore. Now he looked frozen in his spot, hand stopped in the middle of scratching his beard. “You mean y—wait, did you just…? You weren’t…”

Creighton waited in silence as Mattie floundered, wondering what he was suddenly so uppity about. He rubbed his suddenly aching stomach and felt hungry again, unable to deny it any longer. He glanced around at the graveyard of take-out trash and his eyes briefly caught a hazy sketch lying on the floor. It wasn’t like the rest. It wasn’t a human figure or an object in space, it was something else entirely. A monster. Creighton’s brain snapped two and two together and he sat up straight, eying Mattie with both shock and suspicion. “Kida, why’d you say you called in this week?”

Mattie looked up, drawing his legs up into the chair to cross them. “I uh…I’ve been…sick…”

“You been hungry lately? Real hungry?” Creighton stood up and snatched a handful of receipts off of the coffee table to thumb through them. “Two double cheeseburgers and fries, a large pizza, a family size order from Wok King? These are all for one night. Seems like you’ve been eating a lot for a guy who I usually see force down half a ramen packet a day.”

“It’s just that I—“

“And now that I think about it, you look different, too. Yeah. A little bit leaner. A little more toned. Nah, Mattie. I don’t think you’re sick at all.” He tossed the receipts, grabbed the drawing off the floor, and leaned over him with it hanging in the artist’s face. “And I think you know exactly what happened to me.”

Mattie sank down and ran a hand along the side of his face. “I was hit by a truck.”

Creighton paused. “What?”

“A truck. On my way home from work a few nights ago. It ran a red light and took me off my bike at a crosswalk. Or it…it would’ve.”

“But it didn’t.” understanding donned on Creighton and he straightened up in amazement. “What happened to me happened to you, didn’t it?”

Mattie was silent for a long moment, staring into space. He suddenly shook out of it. “Sure, but…I didn’t see what you saw. I didn’t attack anything, at least I don’t think. It was just…I knew I was going to die, you know? I mean when you’re that close to the grill of a moving semi…I knew I was dead. And it hit me. Full on, hit me. I remember flying into the intersection, but I…I caught myself. With claws, God damnit. Dug right into the asphalt. And I saw…saw my reflection in a window pane… It was late. There weren’t a lot of people out, but someone screamed. It drew the attention of others, but, you know, I was…I was me again before anyone else saw whatever I was. And the truck was totaled. Fucking totaled. I just…ran. I ran home. And I haven’t left.”

Creighton took the story in and put his hands on his hips, breathing out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in. “Damn, kid.”

Mattie nodded, eyes distant. “Yeah. My bike’s all fucked up, too.”

[The Gypsy Queen]

" Okay." Deoiridh said, following Buck into a restaurant.

And then an odd thing happened.

She became totally ravenous. She tore through four sodas before the appetizer even came. And it seemed like Buck was eating a lot too. A real lot. Even as she considered a second entree and if it would be rude to order one, she thought that it was very odd that she was eating so much. She'd never been a big eater, especially after the accident.

Fortunately, this restaurant had a wide range of vegetarian choices. Even so, she was craving something more...

[Ushima]

"Is that them?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. I could see my cousin tense when we saw them. He turned to go but I grabbed him. "Hey come on, this'll be fun." We got some food and sat at a table close to my cousin's tormentors.

"Can we just go?" I didn't have time to answer as someone, a big guy, picked up Joseph by the collar.

"Look at this fool, couldn't stay away." The other guy's fist was flying but I quickly stopped it. "Who the hell are you?"

"Don't worry about that right now Tubby." I poked fun at his weight. "Please release my cousin." He did, but now his hand was free and went towards me. I moved out of the way and punched him in the face then kicked his knee. The big guy went down in pain, clutching his shattered knee.

"That was awesome." My cousin said as I pulled him up off the ground. I was going to go after the others but they cleared out quickly. "Fuck it I'll get them later." The drive home was driven in a much happier mood then when we started.

~

It was on a walk I took after dinner that my time in Weest Seneca went down south. Those guys from the mall were out, drinking apparently and recognized me. I was grabbed and thrown to the ground and the blows started coming. Pain, again ran through me. I felt my bones snap and reassemble themselves as I took my feral form once again.

I stood amongst the bodies, starring in horror at the body parts and pools of blood everywhere. "Fuck." I ran back to my aunt's. "Hey Joseph, I'm leaving buddy."

"Where you going?" He asked.

I paused at this. "New York City I think would be nice. Call my parents and tell them I'll be there and not to worry." I exited and made my way out. "I'll call soon." I yelled over my shoulder.

~

The flight was quick. I left my car at the airport so my aunt could pick it up later. For some reason my hand never left the handle of my 9mm. I knew the guy working from security. He was an old friend of mine and I told him I was in some deep shit, he didn't ask about the rest. I thanked him for that.

The only thing I had was a backpack with clothes, my cellphone, passport and wallet. Feeling my stomach call out I decided to get something to eat. I quickly found a restaurant, took my hoodie off revealing my black muscle shirt and tattoos, and placed it on the chair behind me. I ordered two chicken sandwhiches and a large coke. Downing it quickly I asked for the check and paid but didn't leave right away.

I starred at the tv as the news shifted to footage of local news from Buffalo. "Oh fuck." I said, hopefully not to loud. The news anchor started speaking.

"Last night there was a brutal attack at Caz park in West Seneca. Six teenagers were savagely dismembered, this attack has a connection to the one two days before at a Buffalo High School dance." There was a speaker box next to me and I hit the button for tv seven. I could here the news report better now as it was coming through my speakers and I turned it up a little.

"At the Caz park scene all the bodies have been identified. Though there was a blood sample at the scene not belonging to the victim." Thats the part I hated about being eighteen, they could release my infrormation to the public. "Michael Stone is wanted for questioning." They showed my picture on the tv, my height and weight, then listed off my tattoos as identifying marks. Even mentioning the bullet wounds on my leg.

"Damn it all to hell." I pounded the table, not in anger but frustration. Letting out a deep sigh I stood up from the table. Grabbed my hoodie and put it on and zipped it up. Leaving the restaurant I focused only on the sound of the chains on my jeans. Blocked everything out as I went and picked up the rental vehicle I would use for the day. I knew that if I'd want to take a plane again it would have to be soon before my ID got around or my passport frozen.

I straddled the Harley motorcycle. It was dark red and black leather. Reving the enigine a bit I took off quickly. I had atleast a day to spend here so I went to ground zero. I promised myself to go there atleast once to pay respects.

[The Gypsy Queen]

The TV was on CNN in the restaurant and provided some relief from Deoiridh's own perceived lack of social finesse, talking about what appeared to be a nationwide rash of grisly murders and disappearances, one of which occurred in Buffalo. When that came on, Deoiridh watched a man in a black muscle shirt stand and leave.

There it was again, that almost familiar... smell. She couldn't think of any other way to describe it. It was sort of like Buck but not really. It stirred that restlessness in her bones, both calming her and exciting her.

Whatever it was it made her leap to her feet and rush out after the man in the black muscle shirt. She wasn't at all focused on him, but she noticed him all the same. Outside of the restaurant, she plopped to her butt and yanked her guitar out of its case, fingers already strumming before it was properly in her lap. Her fingers flew across the strings in the immortal likeness of Oasis. She didn't know what made her play "Wonderwall," but she felt like she had to.

Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now...

Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall....

And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how...

She hoped whoever it was she felt like she needed to play for heard her.

[Pope Jako III]

Buck walked up to Deoiridh, still munching on his brot, “you know I’m pretty sure they arrest people for that around here, hehe. “but you know that man, he… he smells funny, sounds crazy, I know.”

[Lamb]

They both knew it was crazy. They didn’t even know where they were going, but neither could they deny that it seemed like the thing to do. Creighton tried telling himself that it was merely part of his investigation into the matter—that he had to see what it was that was pulling his gut in this direction. He didn’t even think about what his colleagues would say when he never showed up for his next shift or what would happen to his apartment when his rent was late. But hey, why shouldn’t turning into a goddamn animal take top priority on your list of worries? He looked down at Mattie where they stood at their arrival gate, whose eyes were off watching some young woman strumming on a guitar down the way. “Sharpen up, Kida.”

Mattie looked up. “What are we doing here?”

“You think I know more than you do?”

“Well look, we were trying to shake this feeling, right? It doesn’t feel gone to me.” Mattie shook his head and collapsed into a chair in one of the rows of waiting seats and sighed, blowing a chunk of hair out of his face.

“Yeah. I’ll give you that.” Creighton looked out over the runway and rubbed the back of his neck. It had felt different on the plane. Almost like the further east he got the more at ease he felt. But now that they had stopped, the pulsating urge was back, same as it ever was. Wherever they were going, they weren’t there yet.

“We’ll both be fired if we don’t turn back you know.” Mattie piped up again.

“Yeah?” Creighton eyed him.

Mattie shrugged. “I need to eat.”

Creighton sighed, nodded as he looked toward a restaurant near the gate. “Alright. Let’s fuel up before we decide what to do.”

The two of them walked out towards the restaurant in search of food. Creighton went in first, ignoring Mattie as he lagged behind to fish a five dollar bill out of his pocket and drop it gently into the musician’s guitar case outside. He smiled as he half-glanced at her and turned back inside to follow the smell of cooking food, brushing off the strange feeling of familiarity he had felt with her.

----

Reagan sat wringing her gloves in her hand, wondering how on earth she’d ended up here. What would her family think, her having uprooted in the middle of the night and outright fleeing the city the way she had? There would be a padded cell waiting for her when she got back home. Provided she ever intended to go back. She blinked, tucking her gloves into her coat pocket. Of course she did. Of course she would, wouldn’t she? Never see her husband again? Her children? It was unthinkable. But then what was she doing here? She didn’t understand it one bit. Perhaps she should call them…

No, she decided. They probably didn’t even know she was gone yet. She didn’t want to panic them and she didn’t know what to say if she did speak to them. That she was at JFK airport all the way down in Queens without a clue in the world as to why or to what end? They would call up her daughters and drag them out here to try and talk sense into her. She couldn’t have that. She merely sat at her terminal and watched the people walking by. Where to go from here? She hadn’t even left the state in thirteen years.

She looked up at the flight roster above her head and wished that one of the names would stick out to her in some way, but they didn’t. Maybe she really was crazy. She would have to be, wouldn’t she? She had half a mind to forget this nonsense and catch the first flight back home. She stood quickly and gathered her things, deciding to make her way back down to the ticket desk. At least it was better than sitting here trying to alternately convince herself that she was and wasn’t insane. She barely registered the time that passed by as she moved through the line. When she got to the front of it she was taking out her checkbook without knowing why. The young woman on the other side of the counter mysteriously handed her a ticket with a smile. Reagan blinked, opening her mouth as she looked down at it. It was a ticket to Bradford, U.K with American Airlines. One stopover in Brussels. It was an eleven hour flight. Why would she have handed her this? “Uh, miss…” Reagan attempted.

“Yes?” the woman leaned over to her and smiled obliviously.

“I…why did you give me this ticket?” Reagan held it out.

The woman frowned briefly with a confused expression and glanced down at it. “I’m sorry, did I get you the wrong one? You did say Bradford, didn’t you, Ma’am? …Or did you mean Bradford Pennsylvania?”

Reagan stared. Said? She hadn’t said anything, had she? She was sure she hadn’t. But she was already folding the ticket into her coat.

“I can change it for you if you’d like.”

Reagan slowly backed away, shaking her head. “No…no, I…this will be fine.” She quickly turned away, rubbing her head. Truly she must be insane. Why was she leaving the country? She couldn’t. But nevertheless, she headed for her gate. Her flight left in an hour and a half.

[Ushima]

I sat on the bike and just starred into space. This place was a sad day in America's history, and unfortunatley like most of that history it involved blood. But there was nothing I could do really, just sit here and say a prayer for the departed. "Sad isn't it?" I didn't look at the person who spoke to me. "Michael Stone?" This caused me to look at them.

"Yeah?" My hand went behind my back as I starred at the large man before me.

"Hand off the gun lad, I ain't turning you in." He was a large black man, scars on his face made him stand out. "Names Brick." It was then I firsted noticed it, a distinct smell and sense of familiarity. "Noticed it eh? I'm like you." I relaxed and took my hand off the pistol. "Go to England."

"Why are you helping me?' was curious.

"Why wouldn't I? Anyway I'll see you over there, I have some things to do here first. Til then." We shook hands and I hopped back on the bike and returned to the airport.

[The Gypsy Queen]

As the last chords of the song fell of the strings, Deoiridh felt it again. That rolling scent of familiarity. She looked up towards Buck, wondering if he felt it too. She stood, hands still on the neck of her guitar, and watched as a pair of men, both in prime physical condition, entered the restaurant, the smaller of the two pausing to drop a dollar bill in her guitar case and offering her a small half smile.

It hit her like a tidal wave, the aching restlessness stilling for a half a moment as she relished in the feeling of familiar, of nearly home. She couldn't just let them walk away, so she snatched the dollar up.

" Excuse me," she started nervously, voice trembling just so. " I wasn't... I mean, I appreciate... I was just playing... just cause, you know?" She hoped her accent was dripping through too badly. Belatedly she offered the dollar back, raising her dark green eyes to meet the smaller man's again, hoping maybe he had the answers, or maybe he knew where she was going, or why.

[Pope Jako III]

“What my friend here means is that she was playing for herself not for charity.” “And unless I missed my mark, you’re gonna walk into that restaurant and order a shit-ton of meat just like we did. Am I right? By the way the brots are delicious.” “Oh and before I forget my names Buck.”

[Ushima]

One thing I was thinking was how I was going to get my gun throught security again. But realizing it's unimportance I stand in line to get a ticket. I was feeling hungry again but I knew I could ignore it for now. "Guess two sandwhichs won't cut it anymore." I mumbled to myself.

There was some slight confusion with the woman in front of me and her ticket, then I noticed the smell. "Like Brick." I stepped foreward when the woman left. I was about to get a ticket to somewhere close to Manchester, but I said Bradford.

"You two?" I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Just give me my damn ticket." I paid and walked to security.

"Give me the gun." I recognized Brick's voice.

"Thought you said you were busy and wouldn't be leaving on any flights today?" I asked him.

"I'm not, though I can tell you want to keep that with you." I didn't argue and passed it to him. Then he walked away. I started cursing in my head and walked through security. I saw Brick on the other side.

"What the hell man?" I took my weapon back.

"I work here." He smiled.

"And you made me pay? Asshole." I walked to my gate sat down and called Joseph.

~

"Hello?" I heard my cousin's voice.

"Hey man how's it?" I asked, pretending to sound cheerful.

"Good I guess. Your parents know where you are so when you coming home?" I grimaced at this, but I knew I had to tell him.

"Look I'm leaving the country ok? Don't tell anyone unless you're being waterboarded." I heard his protests and questions. "I got some stuff I need to take care of so don't worry."

~

I hung up and sighed then that smell assualted my senses. I turned to my right, it was that woman who was in front of me. "Hey." I smiled. "England huh?"

[Lamb]

Mattie looked around to try and find where Creighton had gone off to when a voice stopped him and he turned on a heel to face the girl he had passed earlier. “Excuse me,” It was undeniable when she was standing this close to him. There was something about her that was… “I wasn’t…I mean, I appreciate…I was just playing…just cause, you know?” He watched as her hand extended to him with a bill in it.

Mattie stared at her blankly for some time before practically vomiting a painfully awkward response. “Oh! Oh, uh, I-I wasn’t trying to uh…I mean…what I mean is…” he floundered, making some nonsensical gestures. “It’s not that I thought you were, you know…or maybe I did, but see I di—uh, I don’t—I mean there’s nothing wrong with being…you know, uh—“

“What my friend here means is that she was playing for herself not for charity.” Another voice sounded, and Mattie turned to look up at a male companion he had missed. Shit. He thought. Here comes the boyfriend to beat the hell out of me for mistaking his girlfriend for a panhandler…Where the fuck is Bruer when I might actually need him? Mattie gradually winced away, but the next few words stopped him. “And unless I missed my mark, you’re gonna walk into that restaurant and order a shit-ton of meat just like we did. Am I right? By the way the brots are delicious.”

Mattie’s first reaction was relief that he wasn’t about to be destroyed. The next was immediate confusion, and then shock. He just spoke as if he knew exactly what was going on with him and Creighton. No one could know that.

“Oh, and before I forget, my name’s Buck.”

Mattie looked around as he realized how embarrassingly long he’d been gaping at him and shook out of it, haphazardly stammering the only appropriate reaction he could think of as he repeatedly glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Uh, I-I’m…Mattie.” He paused. “Wait a minute, did you just say… ‘just like we did’?”

----

Reagan was staring ahead of her in a state of mild shock as she wandered away from the ticket counter. There wasn’t a single explanation for this. She knew she hadn’t asked for this ticket. She was sure…But then the whole thing was just a blur. Why would she have, anyway? She didn’t even know where Bradford was. And England? She’d vacationed there before in her early twenties, but…well why would she return there? She’d never even thought about it before, and anyway those trips were to London with her then-fiancé David for mere sight seeing. She clutched her coat to her chest tighter in her fingers and glanced over to a teenage boy on the phone. He looked like the type she would usually cross the street to avoid. When he hung up she quickly looked away.

“Hey,” a voice said, loud enough to be directed at her. “England, huh?”

Reagan looked around and her eyes landed back on the tall boy, her frame freezing for a moment as she tried to decide what to do. He didn’t seem dangerous…usually young people who looked like him were, she supposed, but there was something so damned…recognizable about him that she couldn’t just ignore him. Reagan slowly looked down at her ticket and opened her mouth, trying to think of what to say. She could lie, really. Tell him that it was just a trip to see some family or that it was some sort of holiday venture—anything to make her look less crazy—but somehow she was certain that he wouldn’t believe her if she did. She slowly slipped the ticket back into her coat and nodded, sitting down with a flustered expression. “Uh, yes.” She nodded. “I…Well it just…seemed like the way to go…” there was a long pause and she turned her head back to look at the boy again, admitting aloud for the first time what she had refused to come to grips with in her own head. “I don’t even know why. You’d…probably think I’m crazy. But I’ve never even been there. I’ve never so much as heard of that city.”

[Ushima]

"To be honest, neither have I." I chuckled to myself, took my hoodie off and put it in the seat next to me. "I was going to go to Manchester, maybe catch a soccor game. Though Manchester has nothing on Inter Milan." I laughed again. "I'm getting off topic. But I know where you're coming from, I just said Bradford, never heard of it, just said it." I slouched in my seat.

"But let me take a guess. Something "weird" happened and you left home? Same here." I put extreme emphasis on weird. "Things seem to be going bad for us. Don't even know the exact number of people I've torn apart." I took a photo out of my wallet and handed it to her. "See that girl? Names Amy, was Amy. Its a scary thing dancing with your girlfriend then the next thing you know you're holding her body in your arms." I shed a quick tear then quickly recomposed myself. "This trip to England better be eventful."

[The Gypsy Queen]

Deoiridh hunched her shoulders just slightly, feeling painfully awkward. Her first instinct was to sink back behind Buck, and let him handle everything. But it wasn't that this person, this guy, was threatening. Just the opposite. Everything about him chimed like a familiar bell in her, the same as Buck. Both of them inspired a sense of ease in her, relieving the aching restless chords in her bones.

So she stood there, blinking awkwardly, listening to the conversation. It gave her a moment to observe this person. He wasn't much taller than her, and appeared to be of Asian descent. He was, however, in great shape.

Really great shape.

Deoiridh took a deep and sudden breath, turning her head to give Buck a hard look. He too was in fantastic shape. So was she. She had become so rather abruptly when whatever it was happened.

Buck was familiar, comforting. A breath of home in a world that had become abruptly dark and unfamiliar. This new person sounded in her like an old favorite song, one she had quite nearly forgotten but was remembering now.

Did they also... change?

[Pope Jako III]

Buck looked at the guy that was currently doing a good impression of a gold fish. Buck couldn’t help but chuckle, “hehe well your friend just headed to the restaurant so why don’t we all go say high to him, besides I still have a plate of ribs that need to be dispatched.”

[Lamb]

Reagan stared quietly at the boy next to her, saying that he too was inexplicably drawn to her apparent destination. She knew she should walk away from him—what a likely story. He could be out to scam her somehow, following her halfway around the world…well, she wasn’t sure how likely that was either.

“But let me take a guess.” He continued. “Something ‘weird’ happened to you and you left home. Same here.”

Reagan continued to stare, unable to think of anything to say. Something “weird”? Certainly that was an understatement, but what could he know about it? And how? Either he was good at reading people or…well there was no alternative, was there?

“Things seem to be going bad for us. Don’t even know the exact number of people I’ve torn apart. ”

Reagan balked, clutching her purse slightly tighter to herself. He was some sort of maniac. But then wasn’t she, too? She kept telling herself that it was not a man she had destroyed out there on that road—that it was no blood on the soles of her shoes and not astounded terror in her son’s eyes. She told herself that it was all blown out of proportion. But she knew it wasn’t. Her eyes dutifully followed the boy’s hand as he produced a photograph and placed it into one of her rigid hands. It occurred to her for the first time, as she held the photo of a pretty young girl at arm’s length from her face, that she didn’t even need glasses to see it. In fact she had forgotten to bring them altogether. How silly, she couldn’t even read without them. But…she’d been reading all night. She listened cautiously as he explained what had happened and stared harder into the photograph. She didn’t want to imagine what could have happened if her…episode had not been directed at that man on the road and instead towards Deacon…she quickly handed the picture back to the boy, who looked momentarily lost in despair.

“This trip to England better be eventful.” He said at length.

Reagan looked ahead of her and nodded hesitantly, too dazed to fully grasp that he had just explained to her his eerily similar circumstance. “I’m…sure we’ll find an answer.” She replied quietly. But she wasn’t.

----

“Uh, okay.” Was all Mattie could find it in himself to say as he stared up at Buck. He clumsily spun around and walked into the restaurant with a hand on his face. This was too much crazy for one day. He searched the room for Creighton and found him taking a seat at a table, to which he rushed over and flailed dramatically. “Uhhh, I think we have company.” He spouted.
Creighton looked up with a raised gray eyebrow and leaned to look behind Mattie suspiciously. “Who are they?” he demanded as he caught the two in tow.

“I don’t know. I mean, I kind of do, look, there’s something going on here. We’re…er well, I don’t think…that we’re the only ones like this.” He tried to make a subtle gesture towards the man and woman and failed, knocking over a glass of water on an adjacent table with his jerking hand motion. As Mattie pounced on it to try and upright it, Creighton’s eyes immediately went to the two young people that had followed his companion in.

“What are you talking about, kid?”

“I’m talking about not being the only two fur-bound, fifty-thousand calorie a day consuming freaks on this planet.” Mattie said in a harsh whisper, holding up a mostly empty glass.

Creighton looked again towards the pair and stood up, glance shifting between them and Mattie. “…Who are you?” he asked outright.

[The Gypsy Queen]

Deoiridh followed the smaller man, just a half a step behind Buck. After listening to the hushed conversation, she found herself staring at the breadsticks the waitress placed on the table. She licked her lips, stunned from her hungry fantasy by the question posed by the larger man.

" Who are you?" he asked.

Deoiridh blinked and pulled her guitar up, almost as though she expected it to shield her from the man's penetrating stare.

" Um. I'm Deoiridh..." she said quietly, looking toward the breadsticks again. " Are you.. going to eat that?"

[Pope Jako III]

“Well I’m buck and this is Deoiridh and apparently we are also, what was the term? Fur-bound, fifty-thousand calorie a day consuming freaks.” “Oh ya! In case you’re wondering good hearing is a fringe benefit I guess hehe.” And you two would be who?” “Oh ya! Where the hell did my ribs go?!”