Chapter Fourteen

The owl cocked his head, eyes bulged at the reverting body of Darwin Foster. Rocking and weaving the large bird opened its beak as though a message was about to be conveyed to the woodland critters, but at the last second the owl sealed his bill and shuddered at the sight below.

Darwin opened his eyes as his skin continued to bubble and shrink. He could feel the caldron of hate and anger still stewing just under the surface of his persona. What had triggered his transformation was still there, waiting and lurking, for the right moment to force his change again.

The sun had set and the sky had gone black. Orion was prominent overhead and the stars themselves seemed to swirl uncontrollably, causing the now human stomach to turn and begin to convulse.

On all fours, Darwin’s gut seized and wrenched. The volume of matter in his digestive tract began to reverse directions but it was deep inside and slow to move. Darwin’s mouth opened in anticipation of the expulsion of acid and partially digested comfort foods. Like mercury climbing in a thermometer, the acid seared the lining of his esophagus bringing about instant heart burn. His fingertips clawed at the soil and his toes anchored in place, bracing for eruption which was now flowing into his mouth like the first wave of a tsunami.

With his stomach completely twisted, the pressure burst the meat dam lodged within his throat. A stream of chunky flesh-bits and sour fluid was strewn across the ground in three distinct ejections with only a brief rest in between.

Darwin’s body remained frozen in place, every muscle arrested as the dry heaves commenced. With each phantom wave and contraction, Darwin wished and prayed something would exit his mouth but nothing more did. After a series of false alarms, his nausea ended and he slowly lowered his head to the soil to rest. The smell of bile curdled the air.

The heat from his body remained strong even in the chill of the night. He felt different than any other time he had changed. Now he was tired, emotionally and physically. He had slipped into a black hole of rage and everything around him had vanished. He barely remembered transforming.

This had been a new experience; unrestricted ire that had engulfed him in seconds. He had lost control. Only one other time had he changed from anger; the incident in December with Jesús and the drug dealers. In that moment he was angry but had a purpose in his rage.

During the full moon, Darwin had no control over the change but the euphoria of the transformation eliminated any will to resist. Jesús had been different. The pain had brought on the change in combination with his anger. His mind ached for the transformation; he needed to kill.

Newman Induced Excited Delirium—that’s what flowed through Darwin’s mind as he lay on the earth venting his body heat to the blackness of the eve. Now Darwin knew it was possible to lose control in a way that felt a bit like a curse. The change had to run its course; there was no controlling the wolf or its actions.

He had killed, that much was certain. It was too dark to examine the vomit but he knew by the feel of what had passed through his mouth that he had consumed a quantity of meat. What kind of meat was a bit of a mystery but he was fairly sure it had been animals. He was still spitting up small hairs and bone fragments from his mouth.

“I never puke. What the fuck?” he croaked.

Sitting up, Darwin began to feel his disorientation pass. His blood still boiled and he could feel the wolf just under his skin, ready and waiting to burst through again. Emotionally on edge, Darwin attempted to keep his mind from the images he had seen, the truth that had set him off in the first place. He restrained himself from drifting down memory lane, but it was difficult. Darwin didn’t want to change again, a first, but he was lost.

Steve had been a werewolf and had most likely made Darwin. In his heart he wanted that to be true. Steve’s gift now flowed through his veins; how it got there, who could say?

A frigid chill rippled across his bare skin the moment he recalled why he had been in the forest in the first place.

“Mary!” he shouted from his resting position on the ground. The answer he was greeted with was only silence of the night. Not a cricket, owl, or a gentle flow of wind…the woods were simply dead.

Darwin hopped to his feet, sniffing the air filtering through the aromas. The blood on his own face helped to trick his senses. He found no trace of human blood though, a smell he was well acquainted with. Mary reminded him of a candy store, sweet and pungent with cherry and bubble gum hovering overtop of the chocolate. It was pleasant and hypnotic, the kind of odor you could sit and smell all day and never get tired of. Her smell was a combination of pheromones and good hygiene that had possessed Darwin early on. He was never sure if anyone else could smell the sweet candy, but then he had never really been concerned about it, either.

One thing was clear; the candy shop was now closed. The smell of bed sores and fecal encrusted garments radiated throughout the woods. The woods were now sour.

“Mary!” Darwin hollered again, his voice consumed by the sleeping woods. Darwin took another light whiff of the air searching for a trace of what he was looking for. A short, intense inhale of the air brought a quick snapshot of the scents present. A long draw in of air only confused the senses by bringing in more of the less prominent smells.

“Sulphur,” Darwin uttered to himself. He was close to the springs which they had been on their way to when he fell into the abyss. No other smell was present; at least nothing to latch on to. For a moment he thought he smelt a jawbreaker, but only for a moment.

Darwin began running through the trees, still in his primal wear with an edge of wolf to his prowl. He continued to take quick snappy whiffs of air as he moved with a light growl in his throat. It was a struggle not to change with his fury hovering just under his human façade. If he wasn’t worried about his control, he might have allowed himself to do what came naturally.

He might harm Mary. On top of that, he may have already harmed her but he was more certain he hadn’t. She knew nothing about Darwin and he didn’t want her first experience with the wolf to be frightening. If he found her he would tell her right away what happened and who he was…he owed her that much.

When Darwin arrived at the springs there was no trace of her or anyone. The water steamed as it always had. Mary was not there; no clothes, shoes or even a foot print. It looked as though Mary had never made it to the springs.

Darwin swatted a black fly attempting to take a chunk out of his flesh. The agile insect darted away from Darwin and then dived back for another assault, too fast for even Darwin to crush with his lycanthropic skills. A second, and then third fly joined in on the bombardment distracting Darwin long enough for a blitzkrieg of smaller insects to begin the attack on his lower regions.

He spun and swatted, growing angrier with each passing second. The only solace he could find was in the warm mineral waters that glowed in the darkness. Giving in, he allowed his body to fall limply into the pool, submersing most of his exposed body from the preying bugs.

Drifting in the water Darwin looked up into the sky through the tree tops. Orion’s busty belt was still clear along with a couple of unidentified flying objects, probably satellites. With only his face exposed to the air the flies remained at bay. Between the heat of the water and the smell of the sulphur they chose to remain outside the biosphere of the spring.

With his ears submerged, Darwin listened to the drowned out world through the trickle of hot water that poured from a crack in the rock-face that bordered the pool. Every few moments a breeze would create a momentary rift, cooling his face and allowing the enemy combatants a window to make their assault, but soon the dome of heat would reassert itself and the bugs would be forced into retreat.

The night was long and Darwin knew he should return to New Haven as soon as possible, but the longer he remained in the water the more soothed and enervated he became. The weight of the water began to restrain his body, zapping the power from his limbs and closing his windows on the world. Rapidly he shut down and he was soon asleep in a universe that no longer made any sense.

“Are you packed?” a voice asked from the other room. “We’re going to miss our plane!”

“Just a minute…I’m looking for something!” Darwin replied with annoyance on his tongue. Darwin was watching himself search the kitchen for something. He was having an out of body experience. Hovering nearby, he kept an intrigued eye on his own actions but was finding it difficult to stay focused.

Where was he going? Why did he need something from the kitchen?

“Are you going to help me or are you just going to peep me?” Darwin asked to himself.

“What are we looking for?” Darwin replied to his clone.

“We’ll know it when we see it,” was the response given as cupboard doors and drawers opened and closed.

“I’m leaving without you! I don’t want to be late!” the voice in the other room yelled.

It was Steve! The voice was now recognizable and brought panic in Darwin. He wanted to run into the other room but he was compelled to stay and rifle through the kitchen. For a moment he stopped and hesitated, leaving the countertop and turning to the door. Even from the kitchen the real Darwin could see the light from outside flooding into the next room; the front door was open.

“For Christ sake, get back here! We can’t go anywhere until we have it.” The illusion demanded.

Unable to stop, Darwin returned to the counter and continued moving and shaking every item he could grab, still unsure what he was looking for. Each object passed through his fingers and instinctively he knew it was not what he sought. The task at hand now consumed him but he was still aware of the sounds from the next room though he could not discern the speech anymore.

“It must be here,” Darwin-the-image insisted, “Did you check inside the Easter Bunny?”

“Yeah, no…I’ll go look. Where is it?” Darwin asked, not stopping his haggard search.

“In the oven!” the visionary Darwin proclaimed.

Frantic, he ran over to the old style gas oven and ripped the door open. Inside the flaming interior was a lone cookie sheet with globs of burning dough surrounding a milk chocolate oddity.

Indeed, a chocolate Easter Bunny sat in the center of the cookie sheet, gleaming at the surprised onlooker. The confectionary grinned a sharp set of jagged teeth that appeared to be made of eroded Pez. The candied eyes had caved into the cacao creature leaving gaping holes that continued to expand rapidly. Heat from the fire wore down the exterior like napalm on a civilian casualty. Holes in the chocolate skin appeared as small blemishes, but continued to grow by the second.

The pooling bunny attempted to clear its throat and speak but only a dark brown bubble formed from its mouth. The mass grew for a moment until it burst, splattering sweet liquid throughout the interior of the oven. The speckling quickly smoldered and burst into flames accelerating the demise of the sweet.

Another gurgle and spurt, and finally the rabbit spoke its message. “The wall,” It said with its final breath before igniting into a puddle of burning sugar.

Darwin watched as the flames began their advance out of the oven in search of more fuel for the flames. Instinctively Darwin kicked the oven door shut with a loud crash that shook the whole kitchen, but arrested the advancing fire.

The wall?

Perplexed, Darwin looked around while his counterpart continued to rifle though a drawer stuffed with tea towels and other homeless objects. At first it wasn’t obvious; the kitchen was merely a kitchen. The walls were covered in a flower pattern wallpaper that was unremarkable. A reproduction of American Gothic hung on the wall. It was slightly crooked.

The kitchen had nothing on the wall or anything about the wall that seemed important. As suddenly as he had concluded that there was nothing on the wall, it hit him. It was plain as day and so obvious. The shiny metal bar…

Eyes opened, Darwin found himself sucking in some of the hot water through his nostrils. Startled he bolted upwards, coughing a little as he cleared his airway. It took a few moments for him to realize where he was. Ripped away from his dream world, he felt as though his mind was still caught in the slumber. The disorientation was unnerving; he knew where he was but at the same time he wasn’t sure. What he could see was only familiar but not clear.

“A wall,” Darwin mumbled to himself.

Images crumbled in his mind and the world he had been to was quickly becoming a forbidden lesson. The more he concentrated, the more the pictures and words became distorted until finally it was all gone. Darwin had lost his dream world and now he sat in his pool, more calm than before, but still on edge.

Darwin looked around his watery home, wondering where Mary had gone to. His mind now somewhat rested, he began to prepare himself for the long walk home. He would change to make the trip, there was no other choice. If he found her, as the wolf he could help her. Biting her was a possibility, or biting her and then reverting to human form in front of her could also work. She might be a werewolf already, Darwin knew there was a chance he had infected her just as he had Cindy.

His mind raced in scenarios derived in fantasy and reality.

“Maybe she stubbed her toe on a rock, and then she changed?” Darwin surmised to himself. “She was undressing. If she didn’t know she was a wolf…the anger from a sharp rock slicing into her foot could have pushed her over the edge. Anything could have!” Darwin concluded, releasing a mountain of tension from his shoulders.

Darwin stood up, relieved he had potentially solved the riddle of Mary. Darwin released the plug inside his mind that held the wolf in and began to will the change upon himself. His finger nails began to lengthen and his muscles began to spasm. The world around him changed spectrum and everything sharpened to crystal clarity. Where his human eyes could only see a few feet into the trees, his wolf eyes allowed him to view several hundred yards.

Darwin upturned his face to the sky and howled at the night as his canines pushed their way forth. Only partially transformed, more of his senses began to heighten and suddenly he became aware of an odor that he had not noticed before. The smell could easily be confused with sulphur, but it wasn’t, it was something else.

There, at the far end of the pool, Darwin finally saw it. A small, brown paper bag sat on the rocky edge. Curious and puzzled, he slowed his transformation, which was a little like trying to stop urinating after you had started. His change continued but at a reduced pace; it would not stop.

Darwin picked up the bag and peered inside and found the new smell. It was egg he could smell. Two egg salad sandwiches wrapped in wax paper along with four chocolate chip cookies at the bottom of the bag. He didn’t have to open up the bag fully to know what he smelt. After all these years he still hated egg salad; rotten egg farts or not.

As his snout began to broaden he again took a whiff of the mystery lunch bag. His mind spun like a toy top through his childhood memories, flickering in and out of focus…wavering back and forth. Inside his mind the show sounded like a movie projector. He saw Zack for a moment—then Teddy, the school, his first transformation; the images began to blend into one, indistinguishable moment in time.

Then the image jammed and reddened, the sound contorted like a record album being played in reverse. Time stopped in that shower room, the Ridgemount High School torture chamber. Darwin was forced to watch again as he killed Steve.

The fire had engulfed the room by his foot. Newman had set the trap, but it was Darwin who had finished him off. Knowing this set his mind into a frenzy once again.

Again Darwin’s curse took hold.