Chapter 4 - Revenge of the Autumn People - The Autumn Breeze

                               Chapter 4 – The Autumn Breeze

It was hot inside the Cage. Sweltering. I could hear the noise of the surrounding crowd outside building up by the minute and getting louder. It was already starting to go out of control. There was a fever pitch to the noise as a security team they led another man towards the door and opened it.

Flood lights blazed down. It is night.  How is it night already? And where am I?  I look out at the crowd. It is a blur of faces. Indistinct. I can see a few in the crowd now but I don’t recognize anyone. What did the bastards do to me? Why am I here? Did they dart me? Was I tranquilized? Something hit me. The crowd had begun to throw bottles and other trash toward the Cage.

Then the towering steel Cage rattles as the crowd roars with anticipation. Two of the four security goons are leading a huge man. He is wearing leg irons and chains, but he is no ordinary man. He is a monster. The team quickly removes the chains. He turns and gives me a feral grin.  I stare across the raked earth at Cletus Tylor. But Cletus is dead. Made an Abomination, a Super-Zombie by a demented maniac named Calvin Pryde.

I looked at him. I could see scars from past fights across his huge frame. I remembered how Calvin’s drug, Honky Kong, not only turned the strongest man in Winkler County into a gigantic rage machine but also helped Cletus rapidly heal from any damage I inflicted on him the last time we fought. His long dirty blond hair blew in the night wind. His jet-black eyes fixated on me.

I reasoned; the crowd didn’t come to see me. Not like this. They came to see two monsters. But, I’m not a monster. People often react as if I am, however. No one “made me” into what I am. I was born genetically enhanced. There are more people like me than you might imagine. The person-on-the-street would call me a werewolf. I blame Hollywood for that. But the plain truth is that I don’t resemble a wolf. I am a mutation. An apex primate predator that can morph at will. The “at will” part of my abilities have been giving me a lot of problems lately, however.

The last time I faced Cletus, I fought him side-by-side with Big Mary Zimbardo, another werewolf. Even the two of us together weren’t a match for Cletus. I knew I had to transform quickly or I wouldn’t survive this ordeal. I summoned “The Change”. It happened in a flash. I felt another brief sharp pain. This time on top of my head. “Damn crowd is still chucking bottles at us.” I thought.

“Werewolf “someone screamed.

“YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!” I shouted. My voice had already dropped an octave.

Cletus laughed at me. “You’re gonna’ look and smell like roadkill after I get through with you.”

I thought, “Wait a minute. He’s a jacked-up zombie. Since when do the undead talk?” Last time I tangled with Cletus he spent all of his efforts trying to eat me.

Still, I was pissed off that the redneck was trying to “talk smack”.  “Tylor, I’m going to break all four of your filthy limbs and then pop your freaking head like a zit!”

I raged as the transformation swept over me. Then I could no longer speak. My jaws elongated. I was a vortex of fur and fury…I spun and leaped onto the Cage bars howling at the crowd. Saliva dropped from my lips as I stared down at Cletus. I snarled. My eyes blazed golden.

“Werewolf…WEREWOLF?” A familiar voice was screaming at me this time. Again, I felt sharp pain. This time in my ribs.

Suddenly I woke up. I had been dreaming. Looking around I saw Alice. Her hands were over her mouth. The Widow Dorthy Biggs was beside her. “Werewolf, wake up!” She smacked me again with her oaken cane. I then became aware that Petey was restraining me. He had me pinned on the porch swing. My hands were furry, and my fingers tips were claws. I was in mid-transformation. Annie whined and then hopped up on the porch and began to lick my face.

There was another person on the porch. It took me a second to place his face. It was eight-year-old Billy Blande. Billy was not only our neighbor but also our paper boy.

His eyes were the size of saucers and as I made eye contact with him, he screamed “A werewolf…awesome!”

Petey tried to calm me. “Doc, you went out to nap on the front porch and had a nightmare. I found you struggling to wake up. You were in the middle of “The Change” but it was starting to reverse itself.

“Perhaps you should do your napping inside and on the couch from now on Kyle.” Dorthy said matter-of-factly. I could smell the worry on her however (werewolf nose…Bruno is never wrong about odors and emotions). This was the first time Dorthy had ever called me by my first name or called me anything else besides “werewolf”. Annie was upset as well. Petey let me up and I hugged Annie until she was reassured that I was fine. Except, it was obvious to me that I wasn’t.

Clinical Psychology wasn’t my forte, but I knew that I had just had a nightmare that had its roots in past trauma.

“One of the people on my paper route is a freakin’ werewolf!” Billy shouted.

Knuckle Butt heard Billy and came around our large Victorian house with Naydene, shovel in hand. My last landscaper, Curtis, had started an autumn garden in the backyard. Naydene had been helping him finish the job before she went on her late afternoon shift at Colorado Charlie’s Chicken Coop. Knuckle Butt said she had a flair for gardening and a “green thumb”. Right now, however, they were just turning over the earth in back. A month ago, Alice and I found a human finger bone in the basement of our old house. I had requested to be notified of any unusual find out back.

“What’s all the racket about?” Knuckle Butt said cheerfully.

“Doc fell asleep and had a bad dream.” Alice said, keeping a steady eye on Billy to see how he would react.

Billy seemed to be an all-American kid. He had a rather largish head that made him look a bit like a cartoon, curly blonde hair that he wore cut short in the back and bright green eyes. His striped t-shirt and overalls gave him a Dennis-the-Menace vibe. But Billy was a polite and well-behaved kid that showed up frequently in our yard after suppertime to play with Annie. Initially I thought Billy’s family was staying at the Rodeo Motel across the alley. It seemed to be where he lived. He also faithfully delivered a paper to our yard every morning before dawn.

“Billy!” Knuckle Butt said in astonishment. “What are you doing out here? It’s a little late in the day to see you about.”

“I was collecting for my paper route. Mr. Paloma won’t answer his door and Mr. Green walked past me twice. It was like he didn’t see me.  I heard Dr. Franklin screaming in the porch swing, so I came over to see if he was okay…and well…”

Dorthy took control of the conversation.  “Billy, Dr. Franklin was attacked by an Abomination a while back. Kyle, show him your shoulder.” When Dorthy told someone to do something, they usually did it. I complied with her and unbuttoned my shirt to reveal my shoulder.  The bite was a nasty one. Dorothy continued. “So, you understand that Doc isn’t well right now. What you saw was a symptom of the zombie bite. We must respect Doc’s privacy and not gossip about this.”

Might this be related to being bit? Maybe it wasn’t a complete lie. I was beginning to wonder how much of my problem might be psychological.

Billy was standing behind the porch swing. Rather than moving around the swing for a better look at my shoulder, he moved through the swing. Did I mention Billy was a ghost? Alice gasped and took a step back. Dorthy gave her a stern look, and she seemed to regain her composure.

Not everybody could see or hear Billy. It seemed that a lot of what happened around him was determined by his perceptions and level of awareness of the environment.

Billy inspected my shoulder. “Wow, that looks like some of the shark bites I’ve seen in National Geographics pictures. Did it hurt a lot? I bet it hurt like a bastard.”

“Billy”, Alice said. “Language!” Apparently, Alice had gotten over being intimidated by Billy’s incorporeal state. Alice could be a prude sometimes.

Sorry Mrs. Esch.” Billy looked remorseful and for a second turned nearly transparent, which, I guess, was his version of blushing.

Knuckle Butt reached out and gestured as if to ruffle Billy’s hair. His hand passed through the top part of the boy’s scalp. About a microsecond later, Billy’s hair ruffled itself. The result was a bit eerie.

Knuckle Butt told me that Billy had died sometime in the late 1950s.   Annie came near Billy and barked excitedly. She jumped off the porch and returned quickly with an old baseball.

I rebuttoned my shirt. Petey sat down next to me.

“Can’t seem to fire up the ole change again? Hey, Doc, you need to quit worrying about this.  You’ll give yourself the 'yips' and you don't need that.  Focus on something else for a while. This is just performance anxiety. Sometimes it happens to us.  Well, I mean, not to me, but to a werewolf of a certain age it is a common thing.  It even happened to my brother Mike once.”

“Not helpful Peter!” Dorthy said rather forcefully.  Alice stifled a giggle.

“Maybe I need a shrink.” I mumbled as I watched Billy play fetch with Annie on the lawn. It looked like the baseball was throwing itself as a strange man pulled up in a beat-up green truck full of weathervanes and steel poles. The autumn breeze started blowing from the west. It suddenly became much cooler.