Page 7 of Bewitched By the Werewolf
There’s a number of people out walking around, entering shops carrying small canvas tote bags. I check them out as well as I go, hoping to spot something strange and unusual that might indicate werewolf. Most werewolves, when in their human skin, look just like everyone else. It’s hard to tell the difference. I’ve learned to look for eye discoloration, as well as elongatedcanine teeth, excess body hair though that can be normal for some people. It’s not so much in the appearance as it is the behavior when in human form. Aggression, agitation, abnormal habit of sniffing things and people. I’ve been told by a few other paranormal hunters they believe that even in their human form werewolves could have claws. Again, not helpful, since many people get their nails done in strange ways including long pointed claws.
I don’t see any of the physical indicators of werewolves but that by no means denotes the lack of werewolves in this town. They could just be better at hiding it than those who have been spotted before. I was pretty sure a few times I spotted one mid transformation but couldn’t get evidence of such. This town is my last chance to prove what I saw all those years ago was real. My last chance to prove to myself I’m not crazy.
When I get to another street, I make another right and figure it’s not much of a stretch that if I make two more rights I’ll end up right where I started. I pass the fire station, city hall, a dentist. Nothing out of the ordinary. It all looks very average if quaint.
Just as I predicted, two turns later, I’m right back in front ofDottie’s. This time I do go straight towards the lake, passing a motel on my left that I note a few cars in the parking lot. Usually unknown towns, even ones on the map, don’t have very active motels. This one seems to be well maintained and have half their rooms occupied.
Why would a town not on any map, with no stop lights, be so well maintained and occupied?
There is definitely something going on in this town and if it has anything to do with werewolves, I’m going to find out.
After only a minute of driving I see the lake appear ahead of me. There are some houses lining one side of the lake, some on stilts right over the water. To the other side is what looks like apublic park and camping area. One RV already parked in a slip, their awning extended, and patio furniture placed underneath with a bar-be-cue nearby. I spot an elderly gentleman exiting as I pass. In small town fashion he smiles and waves as if we’ve known each other our whole lives.
Small towns creep me out. Maybe it has to do with all the neighborly love or lack of personal space, either way it’s weird. I plaster on the same sickly-sweet smile I gave Luca at the gas station and wave back. It’s always best to befriend the locals. They’re less likely to call the cops on you that way.
Huh. I don’t recall seeing a police station. Maybe this town is too small to have cops. Wouldn’t that be great?
I find a spot as far from others as I can. It backs up to the forest and is the last in the row of camping areas. The houses are on the opposite side of the lake and beyond the camping area is just beach and woods. Perfect. Unlike others I park my trailer with the door facing the woods. Anything I’m looking for won’t be in the water. I want to have a direct path to the woods when I go out at night.
Once I’ve parked and unhooked my trailer I get set up with my internet and exterior cameras. Checking on the equipment I’ll be installing in the woods for surveillance. Night vision motion sensor cameras mostly. All of which I can bring up on my phone at any given moment. I love technology. It’s made the paranormal hunting game more advanced beyond grainy wobbly recordings and blurred polaroids. If I catch anything on camera, that shit is going to be in 4k high def. There will be no question as to what you’re looking at.
I stare out the window into the trees and bushes beyond. Just another unassuming national forest with a hidden town inside it. Whatever secrets it has, I’ll pry them out with a crowbar.
Chapter 4: Ryder
Hunter and I may live in the same house but we rarely spend our off time together. I think it’s because we spend so much of our work time together. We like our space, or I should say I like my space. As such, I haven’t had a chance to ask him about the lights in the cabin last night. He’s an early to rise kind of person and by the time I was up and having breakfast when normal people do, he was already long gone. I’ll just have to bring it up later when we have our weekly meeting where we go over whatever needs going over. Since nothing major rarely happens in Snowberry, a once-a-week meeting is all we usually need.
The entire day I’m walking around with a prickle up my spine and no explanation as to what it is. Shifters have a sixth sense for things like this. I can tell there’s something, it’s not bad, it’s notgood.But I have a feeling it’s going to change things around here.
Everywhere I go I’m on high alert, checking faces, distinguishing scents, looking for anything out of the ordinary beyond Roman the elf staying at the motel. I catch a whiff of mint again atDottie’sbut can’t place it. It’s a faint lingering scent, it’s pleasant but unappealing. Dottie was uncharacteristically unhelpful during lunch. Not in the sense that she didn’t talk, I think it would be a cold day in hell whenDottie stops talking. She just talked about nonsense, pointless things. Non-stop. I couldn’t get a word in edge wise. From the moment she walked up to me to the moment she left I never spoke. It’s like she was trying to fill the space so I couldn’t speak. She was animated and excited about something but not the drivel she was droning on and on about.
I wonder if it has something to do with my sense of unease and trepidation?Sooner or later I’m going to figure out what I’m sensing. It’ll drive me crazy until I do, and as sheriff it is my job to pursue anything that could affect the non-humans I protect in Snowberry.
I walk a circle around the main part of town to get a sense of the mood. There are no sour scents or agitating sounds. Everything appears normal, but appearances can be deceiving. I walk back to city hall where both the sheriff and mayor’s offices reside, mine to the right and Hunter’s to the left. I don’t bother checking in at my office and head straight to Hunter’s first. Donna, his assistant and Dottie’s partner in gossiping crime—an unpunishable crime unfortunately—greets me as I enter.
“Afternoon Sheriff Evans.”
“Afternoon Donna. How are things?”
“Besides the troublesome elf, everything is as it should be two weeks prior to a blood moon.”
Which means there’s excitement and chatter, as well as early birds arriving for the eclipse. Some shifters like to make a trip out of it. Being able to stay in a town primarily consisting of non-human residents with hundreds of uninhabited acres for running, is extremely appealing. Especially to older shifters who have nothing but time on their hands and young spry shifters who are too energetic and unruly to shift in highly populated human cities. The population will slowly increase leading up to the blood moon two weeks from today, nothing we haven’t dealt with before.
Donna brushes a strand of light brown hair behind her ear and puts on her flirting face. She’s a mere and at least a hundred years older than me possibly more but doesn’t look any older than late forties maybe fifty, but like a spry fifty. Mere’s live longer than shifters so in our strange way of aging we look similar in age. Me a fifty-five-year-old shifter who looks thirty and her a nearly two-hundred-year-old mere who appears in her forties. I don’t really know her specific age since she won’t tell me how old she really is. Doesn’t stop her from flirting with me every time I come to see my brother.
Like shifters, mere’s have a human form they can shift into. Currently, Donna is in her human form appearing like any other human. Any non-human looking at her wouldn’t know by appearance alone she’s a mere. They would have to scent her or read her aura to confirm her species while in this form.
She’s attractive enough, but her scent doesn’t call to me. Not like a mate’s scent would. I’m no monk but I don’t see the point in starting a relationship with a female who isn’t my mate. Shifters are one of the few non-human species who have true mates. A partner made just for them, their other half. Their scent the most enticing and delicious thing a shifter will ever smell, enough to make them crazy with lust, protectiveness and possessiveness. Our mates are ours and no one else's. Once a mate bond is formed, it never breaks until death. We are shown our mates, we don’t choose them like other species do. A male would be crazy to deny a mate once found. It’s been done, but very rarely. I personally would never ignore my mate once I found her.
I give Donna my best attempt at a smile which isn’t much. She knows I’m not interested yet that doesn’t stop her from trying. Mere’s don’t have mates, they’re more of a group or pod when it comes to partners and generating offspring. I don’t share.
“Is my brother in his office?” I ask, trying to move this along.
“Yes, he’s waiting for you. Go right on in. I’ll be here when you’re finished.” She winks at me, and I just shake my head in amusement. It’s the same thing every time. I don’t mind though, it’s all in good fun.
Striding past her desk I pass my brother’s second assistant Levi’s desk as well. Why the mayor needs two assistants, I have no idea. One is more than enough for me. As a matter of fact, I would prefer to have none, but Edith is responsible for handling the phone lines and that’s something I definitely don’t want to deal with.
I don’t knock before I enter, he knows I’m coming. My brother’s office is large and filled with fancy furniture, far more impressive than mine. I guess who ever designed the offices figured the sheriff wouldn’t be spending as much time behind his desk as the mayor. As he, or she, shouldn’t. A sheriff should be out patrolling and with the people most of their time. I may be a man of few words but I’m good at my job.
