Howling Changes

“M…egan?” he struggles to speak as he tries to push himself up, but he slips and falls again. Michael on his third attempt gets to his feet and reaches for the phone to call for help but the line is dead, he backs out of the room still in shock from seeing his dead girlfriend. As he backs out, he bumps into something. As he turns around he starts to hear growling along with heavy breathing, looking up he sees the creatures face. Michael frozen in fear is unable to move, he stares up at this creature in front of him, the creature lowers his lupine head growling and snarling at him, bloody drool drips from its huge mouth, its breath reeks of decaying flesh. It opens its mouth revealing huge razor sharp teeth. In a blur of movement it lunges forward biting down on Michael’s head, it eyes glow bright red as the blood pours into its mouth, it violently jerks side to side until Michael’s body falls freely to the floor. This creature spits out the head and bends down giving what sounds like a guttural laugh as he prepares to enjoy his next meal. The sound of shattering glass startles it, a second creature crashes through the front window. This creature is different from the other, for one it is bigger with black fur covering its body, and its eyes are not red but a bright golden yellow. Landing on all fours it looks at the body of Michael then up to his killer taking a deep breath then roars, he charges crashing into it knocking it to the ground The brown creature struggled to get its feet under itself; the black creature had its weight on top of it making it difficult. Ripping and clawing at its attacker, he tried desperately to get free, swiping at its head with his clawed left hand. He misses as he goes to swing it back his arm is caught by the black creature biting down on his arm; he howls in pain, the black creature just glares at him with pure hatred. With a sickening crunch, the brown creature’s arm falls to the floor. The black creature throws his head back opening his mouth and roars his rage; he opens his mouth even more and brings it crashing down with all his might, biting down on its throat and with a quick jerk rips its throat out, leaving him gurgling gasping for air. The black creature stands up licking the blood from his muzzle. He paused looking at the carnage left behind. He slowly walks over to Megan’s lifeless body and stops, and falls to his knees. Steam rolls off his body, as he starts to shrink. Within a few seconds there is no longer a huge creature kneeling here but a young man well built in his early 20’s, with short black hair. He reaches down to Megan’s head and shifts himself to place her head in his lap. Taking his right hand he brushes the hair away from her face and closes her eyes, “I got’em for you sis, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. We….should have been here.” Sorrow fills his voice. He looks over to Michael’s body as he holds his sister, and then fixes his eyes on the naked man in place where the brown creature had been. The young man’s rage boils “They’ll die for this; I will kill every last one them.” His voice comes out almost as a growl, his claws slowly start to protrude from his fingertips, as he speaks a figure appears behind him, her slender naked body gracefully walks up to him. She has almost a spring to her step. She places her hand on his shoulder, “No, we will kill them, she was my sister too.” She bends down kissing Megan on her forehead, then looks at her brother “John, come on there is nothing left we can do here, we have to go. We need to go see Carl.” Walking swiftly they, head to the car she left down the street, “Where does he want meet, Brandy?” his rage still polluted his voice. His eyes still a golden yellow show his rage. “His office, I think.” She replied. John got in and started the car, Brandy at 23 was a beautiful girl light olive skin her hair was dyed black with blue highlights cut short in the back and on the left side and longer on the right, she wasn’t blood related to John, his family had adopted her when she was 11. Driving seems surreal, a dream. John glares at the road shaking his head not believing his sister was dead “We failed her, we should have been here.” “She knew why we left and that we had good reason, John we couldn’t have known this would happen.” Brandy said softly as she stared out the window looking out at downtown White’s Grove. They grew up here, not much has changed in the few weeks they had been gone. As they pass the theater, the memories flooded in of the three of them before any of this, of the night that changed everything. The night her and her brother were turned.