SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

In response he pulled her closer and rested his head so that their faces touched. He was asleep in minutes. His dreams were all nightmares, but he didn’t remember a one of them when he woke the next morning.

* * *

They did their best to sleep, still shivering whenever a breeze pushed through the broken down walls of the church and slithered to their corner where the fire crackled and glowed.

Mark had more trouble with the idea than George, who was now curled up and snoring softly to himself. Cullie continued to hang on, whimpering occasionally and from time to time trying to turn over in his fevered rest. Mark couldn’t understand how the man could do anything at all except scream in pain.

He drifted for a while, not quite asleep and not fully aware either. He might have actually been taken by dreams if it hadn’t been for Cullie’s sudden screams.

Mark sat up, blinking sleep from his eyes, and looked over at the pew where Cullie had been resting in relative peace. Cullie was still there, but hardly resting. The man’s body was contorted, and his mouth was wide open as he gulped in air and started yelling again. With no idea what was going on, Mark stood and rushed to his friend’s side.

And stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the bones in Cullie’s body stretching. It wasn’t one to two random bones, but damned near all of them at the same time. Cullie’s hands and feet pounded at the pew, beating a furious tattoo. His eyes were rolled back into his head and showed only whites. His chest was expanding in a series of uneven twists that looked painful and had to feel even worse.

Mark had been unfortunate enough to suffer from several growth spurts in high school. He remembered them well because they hurt almost constantly. He’d been taken to three different doctors when he complained of pain in his legs before his parents accepted that the aches and pains he felt were nothing but the usual discomfort associated with growing bones. He was just sensitive enough to feel it more than a lot of others because his growth spurts were always extreme.

Whatever he’d felt couldn’t hold a candle to what Cullie was going through. Mark could see the bones in his rib cage changing, growing and stretching in ways that must surely feel like the Holy Inquisition had chosen him for a year’s worth of confessions.

“Cullie?”

Cullie groaned, the sound coming from deep inside his chest and accompanied by the sound of bones creaking, flesh stretching. It was when Cullie opened his mouth again that reality sank through the numb surprise. Cullie’d grown fangs, and it looked like his face was starting to change shape.

“Oh, fuck me, Freddie.” Mark stumbled backward; shaking his head in denial of what he knew was happening. Cullie was his friend, true enough, but his mind looked past the ruined form in front of him and pushed images of what he’d done to the girl that had been a wolf on the that dreadful night. More importantly, his memories insisted on reminding him that his friend had orgasmed when he’d torn the flesh from the screaming wolf-woman. He’d moaned deep in his chest and messed his pants at the thought of what he’d done.

Mark kept thinking about that, too, as Cullie kept changing. This wasn’t the seamless, sudden transformation of the other werewolf he’d seen change. No, this was a slow and almost random thing. Cullie’s body was trying to recover from heavy trauma at the same time, and the changes seemed less organic than with the others. Maybe his body had to get used to the idea of becoming something inhuman before things went smoothly.

And all Mark could think about was the physical pleasure Cullie’d received when he tortured the pregnant woman. He kept going back to that no matter how much he didn’t want to think about it. Because, really, he was starting to realize why he’d been left here with George and with what should have been their dead mutual friend but was instead their changing mutual friend.

“George. George?” Mark almost stepped into the fire as he kept backing up and finally tore his eyes away from Cullie’s agonized transformation. Sweet Jesus, he’s growing skin again. He’s healing and when he’s done, what’s to stop him from getting off that fucking pew and tearing us both apart? He knew the answer of course. Not a damned thing would stop Cullie. If he got good at the whole shape changer thing, he’d be nearly unstoppable, and he’d start killing whenever the mood struck him. Cullie, who’d always been a little weird, always been the one to talk about what he’d like to do to this girl that made him hot or that guy that pissed him off, Cullie who’d blown a fucking wad while he had torn the skin from a pregnant woman, would heal faster than ever, be stronger than ever, and never leave a single bit of evidence that proved a human being had been involved in a murder.