Never Cry Werewolf (11 page)

The blood trail led to the kitchen, where I’d been before. What if it was the cook? Had something happened to that nice old lady? She could be hurt and I knew first aid. At the very least I’d assess the situation and then run and get Mr. Winters. I let out the breath I’d been holding and walked the edges of the blood-drop trail until it stopped at a giant silver door.

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The walk-in refrigerator.

Uh-oh. I so didn’t even want to know, but I had to check it out. I mean, it was ridiculous the stories my brain was spinning! It was probably nothing but a mess the cook somehow forgot to clean up.

I threw open the door and stepped inside. The cool air hit me like a snowball in the face. Hugging my bare arms around my chest, I looked around. Thankfully, I didn’t see any hanging corpses stuck between slabs of beef.

In fact, there wasn’t any hanging meat at all. Plastic bins, produce boxes, and industrial-size tubs of imitation nacho cheese sauce and “krab” salad filled the metal shelves that lined the walls. On the bottom shelf near some ugly-looking carrots, I found a white tub of meat chunks. Not New York steaks or anything but maybe pot roast, like the housekeeper had made for Dad’s birthday this year.

Those meat chunks were bloody, all right, and there was a little pool of red in front of the tub, like someone had pulled a few pieces out of it. I sighed, relieved that at least I wasn’t going to find the cook hacked up or anything. That’s when I realized that the blood trail didn’t lead in. It led out. Out to where the noise came from. Gross! Had someone killed the cook and dragged her outside?

I darted out of the walk-in refrigerator and sneaked toward the door, careful not to step in the blood again. As I passed the counter, I noticed the trays of cinnamon rolls rising near the ovens. That made me feel better. So the cook would be back soon, from wherever she’d gone. Listening more carefully now to the sounds coming from the main dining room, I could make out the laugh track of a television sitcom. She was probably vegging in her office while she waited to bake the rolls for the morning. Thank goodness she was all right. But what was up with the blood?

Slurrrggrrrfff!
I heard the weird noise again, so I slipped out the back door and slid up against the building wall, listening. And then I heard a worse noise than the creepy sounds—the click of the kitchen door shutting. The door that had been propped open and was
now locked tight
when I jiggled the handle.

Slurrrggrrrfff!
The sound came from near the Dumpster. It was like a wild animal eating something. Yikes.

I eased down the alleyway, still hugging the wall so whatever it was wouldn’t see me going by. I would just sneak away and it wouldn’t even notice. Swallowing to clear my screaming muscles, I focused on staying calm, staying alert, staying invisible.

Slurrggrrrrrrr!
The noise changed, going from a slurpy sound to a warning.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. My throat felt all cloggy. Would I be able to scream for help or not? My heartbeat must have been about a thousand beats per minute because I suddenly felt like I was going to faint or something.

Luckily, my subconscious is a total hardass.
Wait
, it said,
remember what your dad told you
about the woods—animals are usually more scared of you than you are of them. Suck it up and be
brave
. I jumped out from the wall and said, “Hold it right there! Drop the pot roast!”

Okay, so in retrospect it wasn’t the coolest thing to say. But the sound stopped. And a figure rose up behind the Dumpster. Everything was so dark at that end of the alley, I couldn’t see for sure what it was.

I took a step closer. “Shoo! Uh…whatever you are!” I called out.

Now I could see it was a person—a guy. The dude had his hands on the Dumpster’s lid now, like he was bracing himself. Totally creeped out, I started backing away.

“Stop,” he called out. Just then the clouds parted, sending down a pool of moonlight over top of us. And I found myself face-to-face with the meat thief.

Austin.

In the moonlight, blood shimmered dark around his lips. His chin, also stained, looked scruffier than it had earlier, like he needed a shave.

“Shelby.” He smiled, showing teeth whiter than I’d ever seen, way beyond the Zoom! teeth whitening Dad had let me get. And sharp, too, with pointy ends reflecting the pale light.

But they weren’t the only things gleaming. His skin, his neck, his shoulders, his bare chest. Wait.

Bare chest?
He was topless in an alley, snarfing down raw meat?

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“What, um, are you doing?” I asked, forcing myself to say something, anything. The hair on the back of my neck was still at attention, with some kind of follicle-deep sense of danger. I wrapped my arms around my waist, feeling an odd coldness.

He stepped out from around the Dumpster, and I instinctively moved back while trying not to stare at Austin’s toned chest muscles and abs. “Don’t be frightened,” he said, his voice taking on a soothing tone. “It’s only me.”

Probably thinking I was gawking at the blood on his face, he swiped at his chin with his bare arm.

Then he pulled on a black T-shirt he’d grabbed from behind the Dumpster. Casually, he said, “You’ve no reason to be frightened.”

“Um…this is a little creepy.”

He took another step forward, maybe expecting me to back up again, but I tried to be brave. My hands shook anyway, and my head filled with Charles’s story about the girl who was attacked. Holy crap.

“So, I’m just going to mosey back to the square dance,” I said, while in my head I flipped through the self-defense techniques my gym teacher had taught me that spring. My basic plan was to give him a swift kick in the groin and then run like hell.

Austin held up a hand, which, I noticed with a shiver, was dark with blood. “Please don’t tell anyone,” he said. “Graham will send me somewhere else, and the problem will only worsen. I need the serum in Mr. Winters’s office.”

I laughed nervously. “Right, the serum.”

“I told you.” He’d moved closer and was looking at me intently. His eyes flashed bluish silver, inhuman as they reflected the moonlight peeking through the clouds. “I’m Lycan.”

Crap. I took a few steps backward. “No way. You—you are, aren’t you?”

Austin Bridges III really is a werewolf!
He wasn’t a druggie. He wasn’t mental. And he wasn’t a liar. The one boy in camp I cared about had different problems altogether.

“Don’t worry. The full moon’s not for three days. I won’t change against my will until then. You’re safe,” Austin said with a small laugh.

“Uh-huh.” I tried to smile. “So, I’ll just be going now.”

“I know it’s quite a lot to take in.”

I glanced up the alleyway, mentally counting the steps to the clearing. “Look, I’d love to stay and be all Dr. Phil and everything, but I’ve got to get some ice for Ariel’s fake broken toe before they send a search party after me. You might want to go in and clean up the blood trail you left in the kitchen.”

He looked embarrassed. “I must have forgotten my manners being so famished.”

“You better do it before the cook thinks there’s been a murder. Oh, but the door’s locked now.”

“I’ll boost myself through the window again,” he said, shrugging. “It’ll be quicker if you wait here and I fetch the ice for you.”

Yeah, right!
I was supposed to wait in a dark alley for him? “Umm…”

“You can’t go back without it.”

“No,” I said begrudgingly. “I need the ice. But I’ll meet you around front…in the light.”

He shook his head at me, and then disappeared around the corner into the shadows.

Minutes later, I held the bag of ice for Ariel on my head, trying to dull the ache. I mean, I was glad that Austin wasn’t a junkie, but how could this be real?

“Not what you expected, am I?” Austin said as we walked back to the square dance.

“Yeah. Not exactly.”

We walked along in silence for a moment.

“So, what was with the pot roast? You, um, eat bloody stuff?” I said, trying to make conversation.

I had no clue what I was supposed to say to a werewolf.

He nodded. “Off my serum, I crave it. Pure protein. The fresher the better. The cooked variety merely lays about in my stomach—it doesn’t satisfy the wolf’s hunger.”

“The wolf
…you talk like he’s a separate creature, but he’s you. Right?”

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Austin’s eyes took on a serious look. “Yes and no. He’s part of me. But that doesn’t mean he controls me.”

I gulped air past the lump in my throat. “So, uh, what does that mean, exactly?”

“We’re two individuals sharing the same soul. We’re together yet separate. Just like me, the wolf has his own instincts, desires, and thoughts.”

“I don’t get it. I mean, a wolf is a wolf, right? How can he think and stuff?”

“Werewolves aren’t like regular wolves, Shelby. We don’t always live or travel in packs like they do. We don’t share the same social hierarchy. We aren’t slaves to hunger like ordinary wolves. We are evolved beings. And when we change, we carry our human personalities with us. Even so, I’ve taken medication since I was twelve to suppress the wolf. It’s easier for me to live that way.”

“So, um, what about the wolf’s feeding habits? I mean, should I be worried?” I said, my voice unnaturally high and squeaky.

He stopped, catching me by one arm. “Now that hurts my feelings. The notion that I would bite a friend.”

“So maybe you wouldn’t, but would the wolf?”

“No.” He released my arm and we kept walking.

“So, did you change tonight? There’s no full moon.”

“The serum’s out of my body. I felt ill this morning, but now I can complete the transformation if I want to. It’s easier for me to, ah…feed in my wolf body. It’s far less revolting. When the full moon comes, I won’t have a choice—I’ll just change.”

I nodded, totally getting why Austin would want the serum so badly. I had so many questions, but I was still freaked out. It was hard to wrap my brain around the whole idea.

“So, are you going to tell him or am I?” I asked when the campfire came into sight.

“Sorry. What?” Austin paused on the edge of the field.

“Are you going to tell Mr. Winters the truth? I mean, so you can get your serum?”

Austin’s eyes got huge. “Are you daft? Neither one of us is. We can’t tell him my secret,” he said, his voice almost a growl. “The world catches wind of my family and we’re dead.”

“Oh.” I pressed the ice bag to my head again. “So what are you going to do?”

“That’s a question I’ve been trying to answer all week long,” Austin said.

“Right.” I lowered the ice bag and squinted at Austin in the dim light surrounding the volleyball court. He was telling me all this as if it were somehow my problem, too. Didn’t the guy know I had my own issues at the moment?

“Why did you have to tell me?” I said, hoping it didn’t sound too whiny. “I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.”

Austin’s jaw set firmly. “You asked. I told.”

My eyes widened. He just thought he could lay something like that on me and life would be sunshine and rainbows? “Well, I didn’t think the truth was going to be all supernatural,” I said.

He looked at me, his eyes cold and silvery again, and said, “You asked for the truth. I thought perhaps that meant you cared.” Then, without a backward glance, he disappeared into the night.

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A
s if the square dancing the night before had been a bad dream, the giant barn-gym was transformed the next day and outfitted with a black wooden stage and rows and rows of folding chairs. Campers clustered in various parts of the room, trying to plan their talent show entries.

I stuck with Ariel while people chose groups, and it wasn’t long before Price had worked his way over to us. Across the gym, Austin was sitting in a folding chair talking to two blond girls. I hadn’t seen him interacting with any other girls at camp, and for some reason, seeing him do it made me feel a little weird. Not possessive, just weird. Like I should warn those girls that at any moment he might bust out some massive fangs.

My brain was still sorting through the events of last night, trying to see how it could have been real.

I mean, if it were true, if creatures like werewolves lived among us, what other made-up things existed in the world? Seriously, any second now I expected Ariel to announce she was a vampire.

At that very moment, Austin looked my way. I gave him a half smile and then focused on the discussion my little group had under way. I didn’t know what else to do.

“Romeo and Juliet?”
offered Price.

Ariel smiled shyly. “Um, yeah…that’s an idea.”

“Maybe we could write a skit about the counselors? I know it’s lame, but it’d be easy,” I said.

Price and Ariel shared a look.

“What?”

“Everyone and his cousin’s gonna do that,” said Price. He frowned at the scratch paper in his hands. “That’s why I’m thinking about some kind of real theater stuff.”

Ariel nudged me and said, “He starred in his school’s
My Fair Lady
last fall.”

“Oh, cool. Well, whatever you think of, how about I paint the scenery or something?”

“I’d have a go at painting sets,” Austin said, walking up to us.

Price beamed. “Great. Now we just have to find a copy of a play.”

“Or Ariel could write one,” I suggested.

Ariel’s face went deep pink. “Uh…let’s walk over to the camp library and see what’s there,” she said.

“Let’s all go,” I said, getting up from the chair.