Chapter 6: Once Bitten

“Matt! Matt!”

He opened his eyes as the biker shook him vigorously, rolling over to face her. They were in bed together, buried beneath the ruined sheets, the mattress covered in claw marks and stains. She seemed alarmed. Her eyes were wide, and she looked as if she had been about to burst into tears.

It must be morning, sunlight was bleeding in through the curtains, and he felt movement at the foot of the bed as Smoke glanced up at him. Memories flooded his head as he struggled to wake up, remembering his night with the werewolf as he examined the broken hinges where the bedroom door used to be.

“What’s up?” Matt asked, yawning widely. She seemed taken aback by his aloofness, her hand leaving his shoulder and her expression becoming confused.

“Matt ... are you okay? For a moment there I thought that...”

“I’m fine,” he replied. He tried to sit up straight, realizing that he was covered in scratches and bruises, every muscle in his body ached as if he had run a marathon.

“Actually,” he grumbled, flopping back down onto the torn up mattress. “Let’s downgrade that from fine to alive...”

He felt her arm around his chest, and she buried her face in the nape of his neck, hugging him against her as he winced. They were both nude, she must have ... turned back into a human?

“Oh Matt, thank God. I was so afraid, I thought ... I thought that I might have killed you. What happened last night?”

“You’re a werewolf,” he announced awkwardly, and she averted her eyes as if he had just accused her of something terrible.

“If I had told you, you wouldn’t have believed me. I’m so sorry Matt, I was supposed to be gone long before the full moon, but-”

“Your bike.”

“Yeah...”

She seemed embarrassed and ashamed, as if she had been caught doing something horrible. He couldn’t stand to see her that way. Whatever had happened, he was sure that it wasn’t her fault.

“Hey,” he said, reaching down to turn up her chin. She had tears in her eyes, her cheeks flushed perhaps with embarrassment, strands of her unkempt hair falling over her face. “I’m fine, no harm done. I might have a few scars to remember you by, but it’s cheaper than getting your name tattooed on my arm, right?”

“You ... aren’t afraid of me? You don’t want me to leave?”

“Hell yeah I was afraid of you, but it’s hard to stay afraid of someone when they’re ... well, I had to reevaluate a few things last night. You might feel better if you talk about it. I already know your secret, so tell me how and why.”

“You won’t be mad?” she mumbled.

“Cross my heart.”

She collected herself for a moment as Matt watched, then she began to tell him her story.

“I was born in nineteen sixty-five. I don’t look it because I don’t really age in the way that normal people do, not anymore, but I’m fifty-two years old. I contracted lycanthropy when I was a teenager. I don’t know if it’s a disease, a virus, or a magical curse. All I know is that whenever the moon is full, I transform into this savage, violent creature. That’s why I drive out into the wilderness once a month, away from population centers. It’s so that I can’t hurt anyone.”

“That’s why you’re so strong,” Matt mused, “and why you told me that you were on a schedule.”

She nodded.

“You don’t seem shocked.”

“Well, I was kind of forced to come to terms with the whole werewolf thing last night,” he replied. “Let’s just say that I’m intimately familiar with the concept. So how did it happen? How does one contract lycan...”

“Lycanthropy. I was maybe eighteen or nineteen when it happened. Even after all these years, it’s still fresh in my mind. Like it was only yesterday. It’s so mundane when I think about it,” she said, laughing bitterly. He gestured for her to continue and so she did.

“I was kind of like you when I was your age. I liked nature, liked being on my own. I decided I would walk the Appalachian Trail, I thought that I could handle it. Even if I hadn’t encountered ... well, even if everything had gone as planned I doubt that I could have completed the trek. The trail is a hiking-only route that passes through fourteen states, about two thousand miles long. It’s sort of America’s answer to climbing Everest, a coming of age thing, a way to prove yourself. Most people walk the trail for a few days at most, but I was one of those hardcore hikers. I wanted to do the whole thing. I had a rucksack full of supplies, and I was going to restock at the various trail towns along the route. I had a tent, all of my orienteering gear, and a can of bear mace just in case.”

Matt could guess where the story was going, but he let her continue. Perhaps she would glean some kind of catharsis from sharing it with him.

“I was camping in the woods one night, off the beaten path so that I wouldn’t be disturbed. I had made it to North Carolina, and I was headed to Tennessee. I had set up my tent in Great Smoky Mountains national park, and there was a full moon that night.”

She laughed again, hugging the sheets against her chest as she reminisced.

“I felt safer because there was more visibility, can you imagine? I remember thinking that it was a bear at first, huffing and sniffing around the tent. I got the mace ready, and when it found me, it tore through the fabric like it was paper, the tent collapsing on top of us. The thing was savage, I knew that it would kill me if I didn’t act quickly. It closed its jaws around my leg and tried to drag me out from under the tent, that’s when I hosed it. I knew where its face was because I could feel its teeth scraping bone. If you know what pepper spray does to humans, then you can imagine what it does to animals with a keener sense of smell. The thing let go of me, howling in pain, and it vanished into the night leaving me wounded in the forest. Being bitten by an animal is one thing, but accidentally spraying your wound with bear mace is quite another. I was too far from the trail, nobody could hear my cries. I was losing a lot of blood. When I finally calmed down and closed my eyes, I didn’t think that I’d ever open them again. When morning came, the pain was gone, and my wound was healed. I couldn’t understand it. I thought that maybe it had been some horrible night terror, but the trashed tent and the dried blood proved otherwise.”

“So it’s transmitted like rabies, through bites?” Matt asked.

“Oh God Matt,” she yelped suddenly, “did I bite you? Oh no, oh please, please tell me that I didn’t bite you.”

“You didn’t break the skin I don’t think,” he said, running his fingers over his neck and checking for wounds. “Plus, I feel like I’ve been beaten with clubs and none of my scars have spontaneously healed. I think I’m in the clear.”

“I could never forgive myself if I put you through that,” she sighed, her lower lip trembling.

“Finish your story,” he said, trying to keep her mind off it. She nodded and took a moment to compose herself before continuing.

“The first time I turned, I ... hurt some people. You’re not conscious when it happens, it’s like you fall asleep and someone else takes control of your body. You wake up in a strange place not knowing what you did the night before. It’s a horrible feeling, not knowing if you’ve killed someone, not knowing where you are or how to get home. The news reported it as an animal attack, but I knew better. From that day on, whenever there was a full moon, I’d make sure that I was away from people. Locked up somewhere, or out in the woods where I couldn’t do any harm.”

“And that’s why you ended up at my diner.”

“Yeah, I wanted to be out in the wilderness when it happened. I didn’t plan on meeting you, didn’t plan on putting you in danger. It was selfish of me, you’re so young, so naive. I could have killed you, or worse ... bitten you. It was a moment of weakness. I just wanted to pretend for a while, wanted to spend a night with someone without having to answer a thousand questions about why I couldn’t stay with them. I wasn’t even going to tell you my name, you’d never see me again, and I’d be gone before the full moon. What would it matter?”