Werewolf Hollow

When you’re a mom, you get this sort of 6th sense for when stuff's about to hit the fan. Only problem is that sometimes, that 6th sense doesn’t kick in until AFTER all hell’s broken loose.

For me, it was with the ringing of my cell phone.

Normally, I’d have turned that sucker off. I was late, which meant my boss, the Biggest Jerk on Planet Earth, had already spent the last thirty minutes delightedly telling me just how much he hated me. I’d have reported him, but I was pretty sure he was sleeping with the head of Human Resources, and everyone knows anyway that Human Resources doesn’t actually care about anything but the safety of the company.

So: the cell phone would normally have been off, but it wasn’t, and that’s when the bad feeling kicked in, because it was my sons’ school number.

“This is Sylvia Lake, how can I help you?” I answered, robotic and anxious.

“Ms. Lake, we need you at the school now. There is a severe emergency going on.”

I thought back to this morning. Collin had told me he was feeling weird. I’d dismissed it, because I knew he had a huge math exam. I’d told him he had to go to school anyway. Dylan- his twin brother- had tried to warn me that he didn’t think Collin was faking it, but I was so sure I knew… and I still had to get Lucy to school, which meant I just did not have time to deal with any of that.

God, I wished now that I’d made time.

“Is it Collin?” My heart skipped a beat. “Is he okay?”

“Your question should be regarding the safety of the rest of the school, Ms. Lake.” His principal’s voice had been shaking, but I realized, now, that it was with rage. “You are required to inform the school district of any and all bites, Ms. Lake, which you failed to do, so I cannot be held accountable for what happens to your son.”

A whole other horrible feeling settled into the pit of my stomach, something I hadn’t thought about in… in years.

“Bite?” My voice came out as a whisper. “He hasn’t been bitten.”

“Clearly Collin Lake has been bitten, Ms. Lake, because he’s currently shut up in the boys’ bathroom mid-change!”

“Change? What change?”

“He’s a WEREWOLF, Ms. Lake, and there’s no use in denying-“

My world collapsed.

“Don’t you call a damn soul,” I snapped, already pushing my chair back and snatching my purse up. “I’m twenty minutes out. Collin is harmless. He has not been bitten. You do what you’re supposed to do, Mrs. Halsey, or I’ll have you arrested.”

“Ms. Lake, we’re not the ones responsible for the safety of your son anymore, and we need to consider the protection of the rest of the student body-“

“You call the FBIDWC!” I was shouting now. The entire office had gone silent, everyone staring at me with wide, scared eyes. “You do what you’re supposed to do, and you call the FBIDWC!”

“I’ve already called the Police, Ms. Lake-“

I swore and hung up the phone, sprinting for the door.

“Sylvia!”

I looked back to see the balding asshole standing at my desk, looking positively delighted.

“It’s life or death, Richardson,” I said, through gritted teeth. Be nice to him, and we might keep our job…

“Walk out that door, and you can consider this your resignation,” he said.

I flipped him the bird. “Have a day, Pete,” I said, before slamming the door behind me.

My next phone call answered on the second ring. I could only imagine how his heart must have dropped, because usually, he was the one calling me, and only for quiet checkups. I hadn’t called Agent Rudy Rodriguez in about a decade.

“Sylvia,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

“No. Collin’s changed.”

Rudy swore. “Did you warn the kids about this?”

I wanted to kick myself. Yet another item on a long list of failures. “No,” I said, miserable. “He’s probably terrified. He’s locked in a bathroom mid-change. The Principal called the cops.”

“Shit. They’ll have SWAT out there, and they’re not properly equipped for werewolves, let alone one in his particular situation. I’ll meet you there.”

“Thanks, Rudy.”

“It’s what I do.”

I hung up and ran a shaky hand through my curling hair. My beat up old car groaned as I tried to race around traffic, praying no cop cars would stop me. I didn’t have the time to deal with any of this; I needed to get to the school before they shot my completely harmless son because he was a werewolf.

Things had gone completely mad since the revelation that werewolves existed. Even as I drove, I saw enormous signs outside gas stations loudly barring all werewolves from any establishment.

It wasn’t hard, either, to tell who was a werewolf, because all legally registered weres had to wear a tag. Like cattle, they were required to loudly let the world know that, regardless of context, history, or generation, they were a werewolf, and the rest of the world could decide if they wanted to “deal” with them or not.

Collin and Dylan were special. A part of me had hoped that if I never talked about it, then that would mean the possibility of their turning would somehow become 0. That the percent chance of their rather particular cases would somehow pass them by, and they could spend the rest of their lives in ignorant bliss.

I should’ve known better, but I was 18 when they were thrust into my life, and I’d done nothing but make one mistake after another since then. This one was just the biggest yet.

Rudy was waiting for me outside the school, and much to my relief, the SWAT team had not been called. The police were now being held back by perhaps the fastest deployed team of FBI agents I had ever experienced in my life, and several FBIDWC- the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Department of Werewolf Control- were holding a barricade at all entrances of the school.

Rudy moved fast.

He was already walking to my car as I slid out of the rusted seat, the door screeching as I slammed it shut, the whole thing threatening to fall apart right then and there.

“Sylvia,” he said, and I was surprised when he pulled me into a hug. There was a lot more pepper in his curly hair than there had been a decade prior, and a whole lot more lines in his olive skin. He pulled back to look me up and down, expression grim. “Everything’s fine. Collin’s still in the bathroom; I’ve got Agents holding down the hallway.”

“He won’t be able to come back here,” I said, the two of us beginning to move toward the main office.

“No. Probably not. I advised Mrs. Halsey to follow official protocol, but she’s decided to ignore all of it. Currently, the entire school’s holed up in the gym.”

I rolled my eyes. “She skipped literally every single legally mandated step, didn’t she?” I felt like I could breathe again. Collin is safe.

“I think if I mentioned any new rule, she’d break it just to break it,” Rudy said flatly.

Mrs. Halsey- the Principal- was waiting for us in the office alongside three other teachers and an ungodly host of angry mothers.

“There she is,” someone said triumphantly, as if I’d been running from the law. “Arrest her! She’s put all of her children at risk!”

“If anyone’s getting arrested, it’ll be Mrs. Halsey,” Rudy said blandly. Ignoring the gaggle of disbelief and outrage that followed this, he flashed his FBI credentials. “Rudy Rodriguez. I’m the Executive Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Department of Werewolf Control. I requested specific steps be taken, Mrs. Halsey, all of which were blatantly ignored.”

Mrs. Halsey- a middle-aged woman with heavily dyed hair and that specific hair cut that you just knew meant she was going to be trouble- turned scarlet. “I did what was best for the children!”

“You did not,” Rudy said gravely. “You’ve endangered them severely with your actions and, on top of this, you've wasted tax payer dollars while doing it.”

A mother stuck out a quivering finger at me. “She’s the one who’s let an unregistered bitten child into the school!”

“He’s not been bitten!” I snapped. “One call- literally ONE stupid freaking call to the FBIDWC would have confirmed that!”

Mrs. Halsey seemed a little taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“Regardless of what you would have discovered had you followed protocol, it’s important to state that you did not follow the legally mandated response plan laid out for every and all school districts within the Los Angeles legal charter,” Rudy said, putting a hand on my shoulder to silence me. “You are required to lead with a call to the FBIDWC, of which there is a chapter located within minutes of here. We are trained to inform you of exactly what steps you are required to make per case, including who to call and how to care for your students. In the event that this had been an unregistered wolf bite,” he continued, when Mrs. Halsey started to interrupt, “your move to take all of the students into the gymnasium was the equivalent of a one-room buffet table.”

“You think a couple of steel doors are going to stop an enraged, unchecked werewolf?” I added, because I couldn’t help it. “They rip through cars. The entire student body would have been trapped in a single room with a werewolf! You’d have gotten half of them killed, and the other half turned!”

She turned pale, and this time, no one said anything.

“The FBIDWC would have also informed you that we are fully aware of Collin Lake’s case,” Rudy continued. “He and his brother are fully registered in the system as extremely rare cases of Violent Congenital Infection of the Caninus virus. There are only fifty such cases in the United States alone.”

“We should have been informed,” Mrs. Halsey said, flaring back up.

“No,” I said. “It’s not covered by the Right to Information Act.”

“It was decided that cases such as theirs should not be shared on the off-chance that a transformation never even occurs,” Rudy explained. “The Werewolf Discrimination Amendment covers this.”

“Discrimination,” a mother snorted. “Please. There’s no discrimination. If they just stay in their packs and their towns, then everything’s fine.”

“My son wasn’t a confirmed werewolf,” I snapped back. “He had no choice in the matter.”

“It doesn’t matter if one has a choice or not, nearly none of them do,” another mom countered. “The point is, they are what they are, and they are a danger to the rest of us normal, sane people. They should do what’s right and remove themselves from civilized society!”

“'Civilized',” I sneered. “This is exactly why no one was told anything.”

“So we were just expected to wait and see if he’s dangerous?” Another mother countered.

“He is not dangerous,” Rudy said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Cases of Violent Congenital Infection- sometimes referred to as Vertical Caninus Transmission- don’t always result in a werewolf. They never ever result in a violent werewolf.” He looked at me. “Is she free to tend to her child, now? I can answer any questions you may have.”

Mrs. Halsey pursed her lips, but nodded curtly. “He’s in the science building, near the gymnasium. You’ll know it from the heavy presence of FBI Agents.”

As if that’s my fault, I thought sourly, twisting on my heel and taking off. You were supposed to be the one calling the FBI. The number’s plastered everywhere; reporting a werewolf attack the right way is the only way to avoid unnecessary fatalities and attacks.

I found Collin in the bathroom. Mrs. Halsey was right on that front; there were FBIDWC Agents all over the building when I arrived. They relaxed visibly when they saw me storming over, and I received no trouble approaching the bathroom.

Dylan was in there, a piece of information no one had thought to give me. He was sitting on the tile outside of one of the stalls, looking scared and pale. At 11 years old, he was a nearly identical match to his twin; his dark hair fell into his hazel eyes, and when I entered, he jumped up in fear, only to realize it was me.

“Collin,” he nearly sobbed. “Collin. It’s Mom.”

The door banged open, and a furiously furry mass of gray hair barreled out and straight into me, sending us both to the floor. Collin was suddenly almost as tall as I was, and covered in a mass of gray fur.

“Honey,” I said, my throat squeezing. Guilt flooded me, and all the anger washed out at once. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”

“What’s happening to me?” Collin sobbed. Claws dug into my back, and I winced, though I didn’t say anything.

He was taller, wider, and awkwardly shaped. Stuck between human and werewolf forms, he had become lopsided; his clothes had been partially shredded in the change, and fangs hung awkwardly over the top of one of his lips.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it, though he didn’t know that yet.

“I should’ve told you,” I said softly, trying in vain to brush some of the fur out of his eyes. “I should’ve told both of you.”

“Mom, what’s going on?” Dylan paled. “Am I going to turn? Did we get bit?”

“You would know if you’d gotten bit,” I said wryly. “And I’m not sure if you’ll turn, honey.”

“How the hell does that work?” Collin sobbed. “Mom, what am I?”

I blew out through my nose. I didn’t even know how to start on this.

“It’s about mom and dad, isn’t it?” Dylan asked suddenly.

I blanched.

In reality, neither Collin and Dylan were actually “mine”, so to speak. They were “mine” in that I’d take a bullet for them any day (but apparently not tell them life shattering, important information like “you might turn into a werewolf”- but that wasn’t the point). They were "mine" in the fact that they called me "mom" all on their own, because we were family, regardless of the fact that it wasn't me who had given birth to them. They were “nine” because they were my babies, because I had raised them and loved them… and because it’d been my sister who’d birthed them.

“Yes,” I said softly. “This has to do with the death of… of your mom and dad.”

“I knew it,” Dylan said, looking at me. “I knew you weren’t telling us something.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell us?” Collin sobbed.

“It w very obviously a bad idea now,” I said, “but I was just… I thought if I didn’t say anything, and nothing ever happened, then you just… wouldn’t ever need to know.”

“Mom,” Dylan said, ever the serious of the two. “What happened?”

I held out my hand. “Come on. We need to leave school grounds. I can tell you guys after we pick up your sister.”

Collin’s eyes widened. “Oh, God- is Lucy going to change?”

I snorted. “No. Lucy’s not going to change. Could you imagine? A five year old werewolf?”

Both of them shuddered. “She’d tear the school apart,” Dylan muttered.

“And all for a slice of pizza. Come on. We’ve got an escort.”