Chapter 7

For a couple of minutes I just stood still, my mind raced trying to process what has just happened. Holy fucking casserole, there was a huge ass wolf lying at my feet, all covered in blood. A wolf so huge, that if I laid on top of it, it could fit two more people. A wolf so huge, it could eat me and still be left hungry. And this very wolf was pleading for help with it’s INTELLIGENT bright green eyes! Damn, I’ve seen clever animals, but non had this type of intellect in their eyes, really. It was like looking into a soul of a real person but trapped in a wolfs body.

Then it suddenly hit me – the wolf was covered in blood, so it must be wounded. My vet instincts kicked in and I threw my cane to the side and dropped to my knees (as much as I could considering my capabilities) and started examining the wolf. It had a couple of broken ribs, a couple of holes along it’s torso, that looked like bite marks, I figured it got in a fight with a bear or something. It’s ear was torn in two, one of it’s hind legs was broken, but was was the worst of it – it had a huge stick in it’s side and I realized, that if I were to remove it, the wolf would die of blood loss. There was no way I could help the poor animal here and now, we needed to go to the clinic this instant.

“Jonathan!”, I screamed on the top of my lungs. “Jonathan!”, and again.

It was less then a minute when Jonathan flew out of the house with a panicked expression on his face.

“Evelyn! What’s wrong?”, he screamed, rapidly approaching me. “Are you hurt? Is it the baby?”, he screamed still running towards me. His eyes locked on my body scanning for injuries.

“Jonathan, I’m fine, but we need to go to the clinic now!”, and that’s when his eyes darted to the wolf. His pupils dilated, his breath hitched and he fell to his knees with hurt all across his face.

“Oh, god, Lena…”, he started touching wolfs body, just like me a couple of minutes before, examining it’s wounds. When his hands reached the stick poking out of the wolfs side, I decided to intervene.

“Careful, if you take it out, the wolf will bleed out.”, I gently placed my hand on top of his, trying to stop him and calm him down at the same time. I don’t know why, but he seemed genuinely concerned about this particular wolf, and did he call it by a name?… What the hell was going on?…

“Yes… Sure… Sorry…”. He looked at me with such concern in his eyes, that my heart clenched a bit. “What do we do? Can you help her?”, he asked with tears in his eyes.

“Yes, I can.” I said sternly. Inside I was less calm, but I had my poker face on. “We need to put her in a car and drive to the clinic right now, can we try doing that?”, I continued in a soft voice.

“Yes, ok, let’s do it”, he then suddenly picked the wolf up, as if i weighted almost nothing. Man, was he strong. I never knew Jonathan was this strong.

“Dianna!”, he called out to his wife, while rushing to the car. “Dianna, it’s Lena! We’re going to the clinic!”

Dianna ran out of the house and the moment she saw Jonathan carrying the wold, the look of strong concert crossed her features. I was slowly limping behind him, trying as hard as I could to keep up.

“Oh my god! What happened?!”, she screamed on top of her lungs.

“She just appeared out of nowhere and fell at my feet. She has several minor injuries, but we really need to take this stick out, and we can’t do it here, so we need to go to the clinic now”, I explained, as Jonathan continued to walk towards his truck. He then gently placed the wolf into the trunk, Dianna climbed right next to the wolf and started to caress it’s fur. Jonathan then helped me to get into the passengers seat, well, more lifted me up and placed me in there to save some time and we drove to the clinic, breaking some major speed limitations. I held on to the door, slightly fearing for my life.

Soon enough we arrived to the clinic. While Dianna helped me to get out, Jonathan picked the wolf up and went inside.

“Where too?”, he asked, and I pointed to the direction of an operating room.

“I will need your help”, I said putting on the gloves. They followed my example and also put some gloves on.

“Since the wolf in unconscious, we don’t need anesthesia, but the stick is too big and too deep for me to take it out and patch her up quick enough.” I was giving out instructions as confident as I could, but inside I was freaking out. Doc Evans was out of town, I had no more professional help to assist me, all the responsibility was on my shoulders. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I can save this wolf, I said to myself.

“Ok, Dianna, the drawer on your left, there are scalpels, clamps and stitching accessories. Get them now.”, She did what I asked with no questions asked.

“Ok, Jonathan. When I say to, you will take the stick out, but! Try not to change the angle and to it as fact as you can, ok?”, the look in his eyes told me that I had all his trust, but that gave me no strength whatsoever…

Dianna gave me the scalpel, and I made several incisions, to widen the hole, from where the stick was in, to make the extraction easier. I adjusted the lamp over the table, took a deep breath, looked at Jonathan one last time and said: “Go.”

He then took the stick out in a quick steady motion, I saw blood oozing out of the wound, and we started mending the wolf as quickly as possible.

We worked on the wolf for several hours, but I think we’ve got everything covered. Jonathan and Dianna obeyed me with no questions asked, and that was a really big help. Also I got the feeling, that the have done it before, since their movements held no hesitations, but I shrugged this thought off. Finally, when we were done, I let out a long breath. I was exhausted, I couldn’t feel both of my legs. The wolf was so huge, that I couldn’t sit on my beloved wheeled chair, and since I couldn’t place all my weight on both of my legs, I was mostly balancing on the healthy one, which now felt numb, while my injured one was sending massive waves of pain, but I tried ignoring it for the sake of the wolf.

We just stood there over the wolf. Dianna was quietly cleaning it’s fur with a wet cloth, to get rid of all the dried blood. Her touch was smooth, and I was amazed with how much compassion she had towards a wild animal. Again, I was doubting the wildness of this particular animal, because of the look it gave me during our short encounter in the woods, but I was too tired to think about that right now. Jonathan was patting the wolfs head, then he looked at me.

“Will she be ok now?”, he asked me in a hushed voice.

“I think so.”, I replied with a small smile. “She’ll be in distress when she wakes up, but by the looks of it, we did one hell of a job and she should heal properly in no time.”, I tried to reassure them.

“When will she wake up?”, Dianna asked.

“I don’t really know…”, I asked confused. “Let’s just wait and see, ok?”.

“Ok”, they said simultaneously. I smiled at that and put my elbows on the table and my forehead in my palms, trying to reduce some weight from my legs. I didn’t have it in me to walk to my chair yet. I was exhausted and felt like my life force was slowly but steadily leaving my body.

“Oh my go, sweetheart!”, I heard Dianna preach. “I’m so sorry! We totally forgot about your leg!”

I turned to look at her with a soft smile, the gilt was all over her face.

“It’s ok, don’t worry.”, I said. I lied, off course, but I didn’t want to seem weak. They already had enough of me in their life, so I didn’t want to be a burden.

“Don’t be foolish!”, Dianna scolded me. “Let’s get you on the couch, so you could rest!”, she hugged me right under my arms and guided me to the couch. It was only now that I noticed, how strong she was. Too strong for a woman. I wasn’t even walking, it just seemed that I was, but in truth, she was carrying me. She laid me on the couch, put a pillow under my head, another pillow under my legs to reduce blood pressure, then covered me with a blanket.

“Get some rest, you did good” she gently caressed my hair and I felt my body relax. It wasn’t even a minute later that I fell asleep.

***

I don’t know for how long I was asleep, but at some point my peaceful slumber was interrupted by excited voices of Jonathan and Dianna.

“She’s waking up!”, said Dianna. I opened my eyes and turned my head towards the table. The wolf indeed was waking up, she looked a bit panicked, but Jonathan held her by the neck with a strong grip and made her lay still.

“Calm down, Lena, you’re safe.”, his voice was calm but stern and I saw the wolf obey. I slowly sat down and prepared to stand up, to go check on her, but what happened next made my eyes widen in shock and freeze at my spot. Jonathan and Dianna stepped away from the table and the wolf then started shaking. I herd some cracking and popping sounds and the wolf slowly started shifting into a human. Yep, that’s right. The muzzle sort of sucked in, the claws on it’s paws decreased in size, the fur disappeared, the spine straightened up, and on the same spot where the wolf used to be now laid a perfectly naked woman. I think I stopped breathing, I didn’t blink and I all I could hear was my heart beating in a crazy race for survival. This was unbelievable. The wolf was gone, a woman took its place, and it was the same creature. A wolfman. A fucking wolfman.

Jonathan and Dianna weren’t shocked at all, in fact, they looked… happy? Yes, I think that’s the right word, because the moment the woman started moving and groaning, they rushed to her and squeezed her in a tight hug.

“Oh, my god, you gave us one hell of a scare!”, Dianna screamed, kissing her forehead.

“What the hell happened to you?!”, screamed Jonathan, while crushing her ribs in bear like hug.

“Ugh, my ribs! Uncle Jo, let go!”, the woman screeched, but smiled at him.

Jonathan shyly pulled away and scratched the back of his neck, but soon regained his concerned expression.

“Kiddo, care to tell us who did this to you? And why were you alone? Where’s Max?”, Jonathan’s voice was full with love and worry for this woman. They obviously were acquainted, and did she just call him “Uncle”? Am I still dreaming? I exhaled slowly, then rubbed my eyes with both hands, then opened them again – they were still there. I then pinched my arm, and nothing changed, except that I think I just bruised myself.

“The rogues.” Said the woman. “They appeared out of nowhere. I think there were 5 of them, Max fought 2 of them off, but the third got away, so I told him to follow and try sniffing out as much as he could. I stayed with the 2 other rogues. I killed them both, but one managed to poke me with a freaking stick, then I decided to go to you, cause you know, the new doc lives with you now, who by the way looks like she’s going to freak out any second now”, she said with an amused smile looking me right in the eyes. It was just then I realized, that at some point she turned to look at me and I saw the same bright eyes that the wolf had. The room went quiet as a grave. Jonathan and Dianna turned their heads towards me and eyed me cautiously.

“Sweetheart…”, Dianna said quietly and gently. “Breathe, darling.”, she said with a warm smile and took a small step towards me. I turned to look at her slowly as in a daze. I let out a long breath and then inhaled through my nose. Than exhaled through my mouth again. That should calm me down, right? My mind was blank, my eyes huge.

“Evelyn…”, this time it was Jonathan. He also took a cautious step towards me. “How are you feeling, darling?”, he said softly.

“I-i… I-i… Uhm…”, damn, where are my words? But what can I say? A wolf turned into a woman and nobody except me was surprised. I turned to the butt naked woman right in front of me, and she still had that amused smile on her face, her eyes held a spark of laughter, she was clearly enjoying the sight of me looking like a complete fool.

“Just rip off the band aid, uncle!”, she said and smirked again.

I felt the couch dip on both sides of me, Jonathan was now sitting on my left, and Dianna on my right, both were holding my hands. I looked first in his eyes, then turned to her.

“Sweetheart, we are werewolf’s, and you just saved our nieces life.”, said Dianna and gave me a worried look.

“Werewolf’s…”, I whispered totally shocked. I mean, wouldn’t you be?2

“Yes, dear, werewolf’s.”, confirmed Jonathan with the same look in his eyes.

“Werewolf’s…”, I repeated again.

“Yeah, girl, werewolf’s!”, chimed the woman on the table. “You know, the ones like in the movies, people that shift into wolfs.”, she laughed. “Priceless…”, apparently it was my facial expression.

“There are some scrubs in the closed for you to get dressed…” I whispered quietly, to which Dianna chuckled, Jonathan looked down with a hint of redness to his cheeks, but the girl started laughing hysterically.

“Are you fo’real?”, she screamed, wiping tears from her eyes “We just told you that you live in a were town, and you just send me to get dressed?”, her laughter was so contagious, that I started laughing with her.

“Werewolf’s!” I screamed out in between of my laughter attacks. I probably looked like crazy, well, at least that’s what I read from both Dianna’s and Jonathan’s faces each time I turned to look at them, and each time it seemed to fuel my laughter outburst. But the girl seemed to genuinely enjoy my reaction.

Soon I got tired of laughing and an uncomfortable silence settled in once again. I was yet again staring at everyone wide eyed.

“Sooo….” I began, but stopped, because I didn’t really know what to say.

Dianna patted my hand and started talking veeeeery calmly.

“Sweetheart. I know, that this might seem strange to you and even crazy, but believe me, this is real. We are werewolf’s.” I looked at her suspiciously and strangely I believed her. I mean, I just saw with my own eyes, how this woman emerged from a wolf’s body.

“You are werewolf’s…”, I repeated like a parrot.

“Yes, dear, we all are werewolf’s.”, said Jonathan in a soft voice.

I looked at him for a few seconds, and then it hit me – did someone say “a town of wolfs” or something?

“Wait…”, I said a bit confused. “What do you mean by all of you?”

“Girl, this whole town is were, basically you’re the only human here!”, said the girl happily swaying her feet from the table and smiling widely.

“Everyone?”, I continued with my parrot routine. “Everyone, like Riley and Doc Evans?…”

“Yup!”, she said popping the P.

“Wow…”, was all I could say.

Wow indeed. A whole town of werewolf’s, and I’m the only human… That should be interesting…