Howl

  Chapter 14 – A World So Mean

  I couldn’t have said how long I stood out in that parking lot, it could have been seconds, or minutes, or days. The time didn’t matter to me anymore. There wasn’t a such thing as time anymore, a minute was a minute, and an hour was a minute. It was all the same to me. What difference did it all make anyways? A lifetime could have been a minute, so in the next minute I would be dead anyways—right? Or maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know where I am. I’d tell you which state I was in, but I forgot when I pushed the memory of that boy out of my mind… what was his name?

  Which led to: why was I here again? I think they said I was a mental case when they brought me into the building, but I don’t remember. I hadn’t spoken to anyone, I may have even lost my voice completely—I would not know. I hadn’t uttered a sound since. Ironic how the last person I spoke to was the last person I had been speaking to for days. I was clutching this blanket covering me, and that was all I knew—its grey colors, the hard thing I was laying on, it could have been a giant rock for all I knew.

  His eyes were etched into my mind, and every time I closed them—every time I blinked they were right there staring at me—staring into my soul. A couple of ladies kept walking into my room—or maybe it was the same lady, but they kept asking what my name was. I couldn’t remember what it was, so I didn’t say anything—or I should say I didn’t want to remember, not that I couldn’t. Like I said before, everything that reminded me of—what’s his name—was pushed out of my mind, far, far, far, out of my mind.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been lying down, I suppose I must have passed out eventually… either that or I was barely conscious, because I didn’t remember much—at all, and what I did remember was like a dream. Being able to move for the first time all day, I turned over onto my back. The ceiling was white. I followed the center of the room with my eyes all the way to the edges of the room, where white met blue and then down to the brown oak door. It was an elegant door. Wherever I was, they had plenty of funds, I could tell just by a quick glance around the room.

  Taking my blanket and moving it to the side, I sat up on the edge of the bed. I was tired of lying down, I was tired of sitting, and I was tired of living. Craning my head away from the door I looked behind myself, there was one very small window. The sun was low in the sky, which either meant it was early morning or late afternoon, I couldn’t tell which, because I couldn’t tell which direction was east or west. I stood and walked over towards that window placing my hands on either side of the windowsill and peered out.

  There were pure nothingness, cacti, cacti, and more cacti. Clouds streaked the sky, and with the sun as low as it was, it cast brilliant hues of purple and gold. But, other than that, there wasn’t much of anything else to make a fuss over. This was it, just me and the sunset; there wasn’t anything else in the world… or anyone else. I tapped the window sill with my fingers, all of them either tapping in haste or rhythm, I couldn’t tell which just yet. I turned around and headed towards the door eager to find out what was on the other side of it—I was obviously supposed to be here for some reason. Even if I was abandoned, there was a reason for me to be here, and what better time to find out than now. The sooner I let them know I’m not completely loony, the better—then again, it didn’t really matter. After all what did I have left to live for? Nothing.

  I turned the knob of the door and pushed it away, it didn’t budge. I gave it a harder shove, but still, it didn’t move. I could have slapped myself; I was being stupid, the door opened inward. I pulled the door towards myself slowly until there was just enough light peeking through for me to shove an eye through the door and look out at the world beyond. I saw a hall… a white hall. It was completely deserted. It all felt like a ghost town where the entire town had been deserted, but the only difference was it wasn’t a town, it was a building.

  With the tip of my toe, I shoved the door open the rest of the way. Everyone was gone—or they weren’t there in the first place, I didn’t know. I stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind myself. Checking the door for any distinctive markings so that I could find my way back if need be; I noticed a few golden numbers on the door, 104. Satisfied that the numbers were etched into whatever part of my mind was left, I looked up and down the hall contemplating which way to go.

  “Miss?” I noticed a woman dressed in odd attire peek her head through a door at the end of the hall. She opened the door completely and walked over towards me her small cloak swaying behind herself. She wore leather pants, which I thought was strange among other things. “Are you alright?” she asked.

  I gave a slight nod. Physically? Yes, I was alright. I was perfectly fine and there was nothing wrong with me. Mentally? I wasn’t sure if I had lost my mind or not. I could have been in an insane asylum for all I knew—the place certainly looked like an insane asylum.

  “Do you have a name?” I liked her; she chose her words differently than the others had.

  I hesitated for a moment. “Lynn,” I lied and gave her my middle name. The first and last name had too many emotions tied to it, for now, this was all they needed to know.

  The woman smiled even larger than she was before. Apparently she was satisfied with the answer she received from me. “Great, Lynn. Are you a—how did you get here? Did someone bring you?”

  I paused. Did she not know what I was? Didn’t she know what I was here for? If she didn’t have the answer, and I didn’t, did I have a reason to be here? “Someone brought me; I am a wolf if that’s what you wanted to know.” Even if it wasn’t, who cares? They already thought I was crazy anyways. Why not add to it?

  “Alright then, do you feel up to signing in?”

  I grunted. Signing in? I hardly knew where I was; let alone what I would be signing in for.

  The woman extended her hand, “My name is Bethany Martinez, but everyone calls me Bethy. I am the fight coordinator and tutor of this place.”

  “What exactly is this place?” I asked, “Looks like an insane asylum.”

  Bethy laughed. “No, it’s not an insane asylum. You’re welcome to leave whenever you like. It’s a safe house. A lot of werewolves come here for defensive training, that way you can defend yourself while in your human form. Others come here just while they’re learning to cope with being a werewolf. We’re located in the middle of nowhere—basically—that way we have plenty of space to transform. But, like I said before, you can leave whenever you like.”

  Not much of that registered in my mind, most of it I didn’t catch. It all sounded more like gibberish talk to me—nothing important that I would need to know for my non-existent future. “Oh,” I replied not knowing what else to say.

  “We’ll take you over to Gloria; she’ll explain things better than I can. I’ve probably confused you even more than you were before, Darling, I’m sorry,” Bethy said sweetly starting down the hall. I followed.

  “I must look pretty confused,” I said mostly thinking outloud.

  “Ah, I’ve seen some real nutcases walk into here, Lynn, trust me, you’re taking things well.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” I said softly. It didn’t feel like it, I was convinced I had gone insane.

  “You’ll get used to it, you’ll see.” Yeah, she thought I was talking about the entire becoming a werewolf thing, it wasn’t that. I could have walked in here a decent human being before… but that was before.

  Bethy took me around a corner that I hadn’t noticed before, but then again, there were a lot of things I hadn’t noticed. It was a short walk, I had walked longer before, she pulled open a door and I walked in without a second glance. Before I knew it, the door was closed behind me and she was gone.

  “Ah! I was waiting for you to wake up. How are you feeling?” A woman with puffy blond hair sat behind a red wood desk.

  “Fine,” I lied.

  The woman wore a fake smile, “That’s good to hear, I heard you
were quite a mess earlier. What is your name?”

  “Lynn.” These lies flowed so easily from my mouth. But if I was going to start anew, they were necessary.

  “You don’t have a last name?”

  I shook my head. What did she know about me? She couldn’t prove anything.

  “Alright then, have a seat if you wish,” she motioned towards the chair. I sat down hesitantly. “If it sounds like a good idea to you, I’d like to enroll you in all of the programs we have here until you get a little bit more acquainted with things. It might serve you well to be able to experience everything before making any decisions.”

  I nodded, “Yeah, whatever.”

  “We work hard, and we train hard, Lynn, there won’t be any tardiness or foul language used… I’ll send someone in the morning to accompany you to all of the programs.” The woman paused writing down some thing on pieces of paper which were not blank. She looked up at me again as if analyzing me carefully, “Any questions?”

  “No,” I said. How nice of her to rush me along so much.

  She nodded, “Everyone is eating dinner in the dining room, located to the right of your room, you can’t miss it, and it’s at the very end of the hall. You may join them if you wish,” she finished folding her hands properly in front of herself on the desk. I rose from the chair taking that as a dismissal. “Oh, by the way, I’m Gloria, head of operations here.”

  I turned towards her keeping one hand on the doorknob. “Don’t you have a last name?” I questioned smartly.

  “Do you?” she asked refusing to give an answer.

  Twisting the doorknob, I pulled the door open and slithered out. No one else was around; the halls were still just as empty as they were before. I thought how ironic, they matched myself, all alone with only one person traveling through. Walking through the halls I listened to the sounds of my boots clicking on the smooth, hard floors. I reached the end of the hall, I heard the sound of voices coming from the other side of the door, laughter and talking—a sure sign of high spirits. I was at a complete stop in front of the door, my hand was out I was going to go through the door, but my feet would not allow that to happen.

  I wasn’t that hungry and I really didn’t want to be around people. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want anyone to look at me—I knew they would, I was a mess. Looking down at my outstretched hand I noticed it trembling, and there was nothing I could do to stop it from trembling. I quickly lowered my arm.

  “Are you coming to dinner?” Turning around I saw a young man with curly, sand colored hair.

  My voice caught in my throat. Was he talking to me? Don’t look like an idiot. “Uh,” I managed, “Yeah.” He glanced down at my attire.

  “You must be new,” he extended his hand; “You can call me Max.”

  I grabbed his hand and shook it. “Lynn,” I said.

  Max smiled a small friendly smile. “Good to meet you, Lynn. It really isn’t that bad here when you get used to it, everyone here works like clockwork; we are all a team, so it’s really kind of nice.”

  “Yeah,” I said with softness in my voice.

  Max scooted around me and held the door open to the dining room for me to enter, it was almost like he knew I needed that extra push to get going, otherwise I probably would have turned in the other direction and ran all the way back to my own room and locked myself in there for the rest of my life.

  I entered the dining room; they were all dressed in an almost identical style of clothing as Bethy was wearing. They looked like some kind of cult or something; I thought it was really creepy. At least most of the clothing they wore was different colors, otherwise I’d be really freaked out—at least they had that sort of individuality.

  Max pointed towards a table full of plates. “You’ll just go get your plate off the table and then go sit down, they just put the already finished plates like that for convenience, I work in the kitchen though, so you can always sneak more.” I caught Max’s wink at me. Was he flirting, or just being nice? I couldn’t tell.

  “Okay,” I said, starting over towards the table. Max followed quickly, grabbed a plate off the table along with a soda from under the table—there was a big bin full of sodas and drinks that I hadn’t noticed before—and headed down the many rows of tables. I grabbed a plate and managed to dig a bottle of water out of the bin below the table, obvious to all of the eyes that I knew were watching me. If they would have let me, I would have taken the plate back to my room to eat it alone. These people were completely and utterly creepy.

  It was like I entered a new school with new students. Max’s saying how every thing worked like clock work had to yet to be proven, the people didn’t look very friendly. Or maybe it was just because I didn’t want to even think about friendliness or happiness. Either way, I wasn’t particularly a fan of this place. It was just weird.

  I followed Max’s path through the tables collecting obvious stares from those I passed. I noticed he sat down at a table filled with other students, I wasn’t sure if I would have been imposing to sit next to him or not, but I followed anyways. There were hardly any other tables open anyways. What did I have to lose? I had lost everything already.

  Seeing me heading for the table, Max turned to the other people at the table. “Guys, this is Lynn, she’s new here.” He pulled out a chair for me to sit down. I sat my plate and drink down on the table and sat down in the seat attempting to disappear from sight—but that didn’t happen, and I knew it wasn’t about to either.

  “Hello, Lynn, welcome!” Some girl sitting across from me said cheerfully. “I’m Elisa. This is Bernie, William, and Georgia.” Elisa motioned towards the others at the table. They made different “hello” gestures. It looked like Elisa and Max were the most outgoing ones at the table, everyone else seemed unsociable. But that was fine, the less talk the better.

  I grabbed a fork and shoved a small piece of food in my mouth. I couldn’t exactly identify what it was. It looked like it might be some sort of rice or something. I really couldn’t be sure what exactly was on my plate, it looked slimy, and fried.

  Max let out a cough to clear his throat. “So, where are you from?”

  I waited a moment before replying. I thought about lying and saying I was from somewhere else but I didn’t see where telling them where I actually lived would harm me or anyone in anyway.

  “Montana,” I said picking up the bottle of water and taking a swig from it.

  “Ah, from the north!” Bernie said, which I thought was weird him being so silent and then loud suddenly.

  I gave a slight nod of my head.

  Elisa pointed with her thumb towards Bernie, “He’s from Idaho.”

  I nodded giving a sheepish grin. “Ah, the potato state.”

  Bernie grinned with a mouth full of food. I raised my eyebrows before turning my head back towards my plate of food.

  “Max and I are both from Texas,” Elisa said with a matter of fact tone. I wasn’t sure if she was saying that as a way of claiming him as hers, or just saying that for a fact. It was hard to tell, she was not an easy person to read or understand. She came off as a quiet individual and one who kept to herself mostly, but I knew her for about one half of the ten seconds that I’ve been here and she could have been one of those catty people for all I knew.

  “Oh, Texas is cool,” I said not knowing what else to say about that.

  “Have you been there?” I gave a small scowl. Uh-oh, I gave the wrong impression already, I’m such an idiot.

  “Uh, no…” Max and Elisa both looked at me as if waiting for more of an explanation of why I said I thought Texas was cool, but they weren’t going to get one.

  “Oh,” Elisa said when she discovered that I wasn’t going to give any details about that.

  I couldn’t eat anymore; there was no reason to stuff myself. I tried to force myself to talk to other people, I tried to humor them, I tried to force myself to eat, and I couldn’t do it anymore. My life official
ly sucked more than I could have ever imagined it sucking. Rising from my seat suddenly, I grabbed my half-full plate and barely drank water and started heading out.

  “It was nice meeting you, Lynn!” Elisa called after me. Whatever, I replied back silently in my mind.

  I was glad that my room was so close to the dining room, the last thing I needed was an even farther way to travel with my weak limbs. Mentally, I felt like I had been run over by a semi… twice! I was only too glad when I reached the door to my room I threw myself onto the hard bed landing a little bit more roughly than I meant to, but it didn’t make a difference anyways.

  Hanging my head over the edge of my bed I began to sob. The tears flowed freely from my eyes and I let them. Through my now blurred eyes, I saw the large tears fall from my eyes to the ground quickly sopped up by the Berber carpet. They flowed as quickly as blood from a freshly cut wrist. I wiped my eyes quickly pushing that comparison out of my mind.