The light turned a strange shade of red, and my dad let out a not-so-under-his-breath, “Shit!”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, the car is low on gas,” he answered, trying to cover for the fact that I knew he was lying about not being able to see the light.

“It had nothing to do with the light changing colors?”

“James, look. It…well, you see, God. Just like your mother. You can tell when I’m full of shit instantly. The facts. OK, you’re not going to believe me.”

”Will you please just tell me what is happening? I’ve thought you were dead for the past 13 years, my best friend Rob, or someone that looks just like him pulled a fucking Houdini act in front of my own eyes, and there is some crazy glow in the sky that you know something about. Please do tell!” I argued.

“James, first of all, it is so good to see you again. I will make up for all of it. But you have to listen to everything I say, and I need you to keep it to yourself. Fifteen years ago, the Air Force started a highly-guarded surveillance of China, Korea, Russia, and Vietnam. I was in charge of developing top-of-the-line spy satellites, I mean, they’d still be advanced today, so you can only imagine back then. This was ‘need-to-know basis’ kind of shit.”

The light became a darker crimson, and dad dug the gas pedal into the floor of the sedan. Why he chose an old Subaru to jack, I’ll never know. The speedometer only went to 85mph for Christ’s sake.

“So, when the satellites were launched, we were seeing all kinds of interesting items. Secret bunkers, nuclear facilities, all sorts of stuff that would give any military commander a raging hard-on. But after a few days of singing each others’ praises, we started picking up stranger signals, not from China. Not from Russia. Not from this blue dot, if you get my drift. Orders from the Pentagon came down to immediately classify all information. We did, but not before I sent a message back. That’s when I, well, ‘died’. I’ve been locked up underground ever since. Forgotten about. Brainwashed.”

Rob was back now. I almost didn’t notice. I don’t even think he noticed. My dad and I hadn’t looked away from the light for a second.

“It took me a long time, but I finally broke out,” he continued.

“So, how does the light…” I started.

“I had kept an extra transmitter hidden from my superiors, and buried it under our old house. Well, as soon as I broke free, I dug it up, snuck into the old abandoned place, and resent the same message I’d sent so many years before.”

“Jesus,” I somehow muttered. “What on Earth did it say?”

Iron — exactly what I needed. The sanguine snack helped satiate my hunger, but now that my stomach started to rest, I was able to focus more on the fissures and burns on my skin, which would had been painful enough to begin with, even if they didn’t have a new coat of fur protruding through, and engorged muscles stretching the shit out of them.

The buzzard who seemed so ready to devour me just an hour before pulled up just in time to scrape any remaining flesh from the bodies. I didn’t leave him much, but I’m guessing he didn’t often get fresh human sashimi.

My gait was much faster now, and I was able to work into a run, following alongside the road, but remaining in the shadows so as to avoid being spotted. It was going to be a long night, or at least I figured as much. I had no fucking clue where I was, and even less of an idea of where I was headed. After a 25 minute marathon, I saw the sign:

Bishop City Limits
Elevation 4,147ft Population 3,410

Bishop. It was Rick. What the fuck did Rick want with me? I hadn’t even spoken to him in almost a year. He better hope the sun comes up before I get to him. I mean, I’m still going to kill him. But at least if the new day starts and my fangs and fur recede, his parents may still be able to identify his body when I’m done with it. He won’t look pretty, but they might be able to squint and see it in his eyes or something. Whatever. Fuck him. And fuck them for making him.

I decided to have some fun and draw up a comic. Enjoy.

Click to enlarge I’m assuming.
Note: This technique will not increase the size of your peen.

The first full moon of the month would be out tonight and I’d be given a break from this hell. A sunset never felt so long, and my mouth never felt so dry. No doubt I would have died out here, without my belt I was only at the mercy of natures lunar cycle. And because of this well timed event, the world would now be at the mercy of a pissed off and thirsty as fuck beast.

Standing upright I closed my eyes and tilted my head back letting the last of the suns orange glow bathe the cracking skin of my face. Then I felt it. My eyes opened and I knew their color had already started to darken, my arms and legs felt heavier for a moment then much lighter. As I bent down the sand felt almost cool and refreshing between my fingers. The air smelled better, more textured, and less harsh and hot than before. I reached over my shoulder and tore the shirt from my back. I took a deep breath in through my nose and could smell the asphalt of a road to my East, my road home. I sprang from my rest into a full gallop toward the road, my body changing at my will to better suit running on all fours. My arms grew, my shoulders raised, my spine and skull re worked to allow my look forward. The feeling never got old, the taste of the air was sweet, the rushing of it through the hair now covering my body was exhilarating, and the sound of it whipping across my now extended face was magnificent. And then another sound joined in to the symphony. A low humming in the distance let me know a car was coming from the North, fast. I turned my stride South East, I would cut them off, my thirst would be quenched.

I was big now, I had absorbed much of what the moon offered and I had grew with it. Anger and joy pounded through me as the distance between the road and myself closed. The hunt, the feeding, the trap.

They never knew what hit them, I leapt from my run right into the side of their SUV, smashing my back into the broadside of the vehicle. It sailed sideways and began to roll one way from my collisions, then simultaneously hood over hindquarters from the vehicle’s forward momentum. I sat on the side off the road watching them tumble and cartwheel, smelling their blood and licking my lips. My maw will be quenched with their flesh.

…
I sat on the floor in the middle of my living room blinking at the wall as if any one of the times I opened my eyes I would again be in the back seat of the car. In the rearview mirror James would be staring me in the face perplexed as I about what was going on. When almost 10 minutes when by and the wall had not become the inside of a car I began to throw up.
…
Dad drove the Subaru like a maniac as if being chased. I looked over my shoulder out the rear window expecting to see head lights roaring up on us but the streets were empty. I thought I was speechless but my mouth proved to me otherwise.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, more to myself than to anyone else.
“Listen..” Dad replied but I cut him off.
“Where the fuck have you been? Who was the in my car? Where is Rob? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?”
“James, listen. Do you see the light in the sky?”
I leaned forward to check, “Yeah. Do you?”
“No. How big is it?”
“A little bit bigger than the sun or moon. What do you..” He returned the favor and cut me off.
“I can’t see it. And if it’s that big we don’t have much time. We need to get you to the basement.”
“Basement? Basement of what?”
“The old house, James.”
…
I got up from the floor and ran for bedroom, under the mattress I kept a hand gun. A round from the gun was going to kill someone today, it might end up even being me.
I nearly kicked the front door off the hinges as I left, no need to lock up, not when you might blink and end up somewhere else at any given moment.
I reached my car to find it on fire. I was less than surprised.