Howl

Chapter 17 – Wolf Beam

  I moaned as I tried to move. My limbs still worked, which meant my back wasn’t broken to my relief. But it still hurt like hell. I felt like my body almost snapped in half with the awkward way I landed… I landed on top of something. Max appeared above the small ditch shortly followed by Bernie.

  “Lynn! Are you okay? Can you move?” Max carefully tested the ground in front of him as he tried to get to me.

  My entire body was trembling with the shock of what just happened. I tried to lean over to roll off of whatever I landed on. It was hard and sharp whatever it was. I was lucky I didn’t stab myself. I managed to roll over, but instead of getting up gracefully onto my feet, I found they were like rubber and I actually fell to my knees.

  I felt a hand grab my arm supportively and pull me upright slowly. “There you go,” Bernie cooed as he scooped me up in his arms and handed me up to Max. Right away, he moved several feet back from the ditch and stared down at me. “Are you okay?”

  I pulled my hands close to myself to try to get them to stop quivering, but it did little good. My back hurt badly, but I didn’t think I broke anything, so I assumed I would be fine after the initial sting wore off. I nodded vigorously. “I think so.”

  He lowered my feet to the ground very slowly. I winced slightly as his hand touched my back. “Did you hurt anything?” He asked, searching me over with his eyes.

  “I may have scratched my back, but it’s fine.” I tried to wave it off like it was nothing.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Bernie called back from the ditch.

  I tried to look back toward the ditch to see what he was talking about, but Max was more concerned with making sure I was all right. He lifted the back of my shirt and I heard the breath escape his lips. I looked over my shoulder at him trying to gauge his expression, but he was just out of my eyesight. “Is it bad?” I asked quietly.

  He replaced my shirt and walked around to face me. “No, it isn’t that bad.” He shook his head. “It’s a bleeding wound and it will need to be taken care of, but it isn’t that bad.”

  I stared at what little I could see of him with the scant moonlight, and I could tell his face was drawn.

  “Come on. I’ll help you fix it up.” Max turned away from me and started out of the fields, but I wasn’t about to follow him. I at least wanted to see what I fell on.

  I tried to peer into the darkness at Bernie, but I couldn’t see anything that he was doing. The half-moon light wasn’t enough to see into a dark ditch. I edged my way closer to the edge of the ditch, using extra caution with the loose dirt. “What did you find?” I asked Bernie, though I could only vaguely make out the outline of his body. He was knelt down in the middle of the ditch where I had fallen.

  “Lynn!” Max grabbed my arms quickly making me jump. “Careful!”

  I turned to look at him. “I was being careful.”

  He moved me back several paces. “Stay here. I’ll see what it is.” Max moved toward the ditch and hopped down into it gracefully.

  I didn’t like this idea. I was standing so far back now that I couldn’t even make out the faint outlines of the boys. More and more I had to know what was there. I knew it had to be good if Bernie was silent for so long. He always had an answer for everything and now he was quiet. The distinct sound of creaking wood filled the air, followed by dulled snap.

  “What’d you find?” I asked into the darkness.

  “Gimme—a—minute!” Max yelled back. His voice sounded strained, and shortly after, I heard the reason why. Another dulled snap reached my ears followed by a low squeaking sound, which sounded like a cross between a rocking chair and a door opening.

  “What’s going on?” I pressed.

  “Lynn, he said a minute!” Bernie called back up to me.

  “I’m the one that found it,” I said softly to myself.

  I folded my arms slowly in front of myself as to not injure my back anymore, and attempted to calm myself. I was still shaking a little bit, and the air around me was chilly. In the ditch, I saw a flame light up. For a moment I wondered what it was coming from, since it seemed to be floating in mid-air, then I saw the faintly lit outline of Bernie and realized he must have had a lighter to see what they were doing.

  I stared at the tall stalks of cotton around me and my mind flickered back to the horror movies I’d seen. I was standing out in the open, in the middle of nowhere, where anything could see me. I could think of several horror movies off the top of my head that actually portrayed a field in some of their biggest scenes. Of course, most of the fields were filled with corn stocks, but did masked murderers really know the difference anyways?

  It was one of those situations where I felt I was damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If I were in a horror movie, I would be yelling at the character whether she were trying to hide in the corn or standing out in the open. Either way picks up the I’m coming for you vibe. And standing out in the open also gave plenty of opportunity to be snuck up on since humans don’t have the privilege of having eyes in the back of their heads.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me, that I wasn’t exactly human. I was a werewolf, and I could hear better than any masked murderer. I expanded my hearing and listened to the chilled wind as it blew through the cotton, rustling the leaves. That’s when I realized my improved hearing actually did me little good. I wouldn’t be able to hear if anyone was sneaking up on me, because it sounded like they were anyways thanks to the stupid wind.

  There was a dull thud and I was getting ready to open my mouth to ask what the hell that was, when I heard Max’s voice call out to me, “Lynn, you should probably come see this.”

  I gave one last glance around the eerie field and then I made my way carefully over to the ditch. Max stood right in front of me, motioning for me to come closer. When I got close enough, I swung my legs over the edge, and Max grabbed my waist with both hands and helped lower me down into the ditch.

  Bernie stood in the middle of the ditch crouched down over something that just appeared black and shadowy too me. I walked toward him slowly. He glanced over his shoulder at me and then flicked his lighter. In front of him was a small, wooden doorway. It was elegant in its own right, with small floral designs carved into it. However, it was badly weathered and had to be at least several decades old.

  Max grabbed the corroded door-handle and pulled it open. To my surprise, the hinges actually held. Beneath the door was a large, cavernous hole in the ground. I breathed out heavily. “What the hell is this?”

  I grabbed for the lighter in Bernie’s hand, but he pulled it away from me. I glared at him.

  “You ain’t touching this fire, girl.” He leaned toward the black, massive opening and—to my surprise—entered, with only the scant flame to light his way. Judging by the way he moved, it looked like he was going down stairs. The civility of this whole discovery was frightening to me, like staring at some kind of alien crop circles. It made me wonder what or who created something like this and more importantly—why? Why did I fall into a hole in the ground that has been walked upon hundreds of times before? A well-walked on path?

  “Come on, Lynn,” Bernie called behind himself.

  I glanced back at Max, who watched me with his eyebrows pressed together with worry. Stepping closer toward the dark hole, I lowered myself into the tunnel until I felt my feet make contact with the steep steps. I kept my hands on either side of the dirt-walls as I moved down the stairs. There couldn’t have been more than seven steps before I reached an even floor. It was sleek and sturdy like marble or fine tile. The dirt on the walls turned into wood and the small bit of light coming from Bernie’s lighter was soon overpowered by a brighter light coming from deeper in the tunnel.

  I turned a corner, staying close to Bernie, and suddenly, I saw where the light was coming from. Who would have known that deep inside of the ground under a stupid cotton field was the most glorious room one could think of? The room did, in fact, have solid marb
le flooring. The walls weren’t anything to stare at, but the room was quaint. There wasn’t much to it, a desk, a chair—which I wouldn’t trust sitting on—and the walls were lined with papers and journal-like books. The room was brightly lit up with lanterns, casting a golden glow all over the room.

  Bernie let the flame die on his lighter and set it down roughly on the desk.

  “Did you light the lanterns?” I asked him.

  He turned toward me quickly and raised a mocking eyebrow. “No,” he teased. “They were already lit.”

  I shook my head. “Tonight, I wouldn’t doubt it.” I moved further into the room, and searched the bookshelves with my eyes looking for any titles that stood out, but most of the spines of the books were empty.

  “Bernie, why don’t you go get some flashlights so we can take a look at these books?” Came Max’s voice from the doorway.

  I turned my head toward him. I didn’t realize that he actually followed behind me to this room.

  Bernie snatched his lighter off the desk quickly, and presented it to Max. “That is what this is for!”

  Max shook his head and shoved the lighter back toward Bernie. “Books aren’t fire resistant, you know.” He pointed toward the door with his thumb. “Go get flashlights, please.”

  Bernie sighed. “Fine.” He lit the lighter and started out of the room.

  I turned my attention back to the books as I walked slowly by the shelves. I didn’t understand exactly why Max sent Bernie out of the room for flashlights. I thought the light in the room was just enough to make out the words. It wasn’t perfect lighting, but it was just enough.

  Max stepped in front of my viewing and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”

  He kept his eyes on me as he pulled a large book from the shelf. It kind of appeared like a folder the way there were free pages not evenly in the center, it was similar in width and height too, but it was definitely an actual bound book. He handed it to me and I pulled it from his hands slowly, studying his face, trying to figure out why he was actually handing me this book. He moved the hardbound cover from right to left, revealing the title page of the book, and a small paper tucked into the page.

  I picked the paper up off the page and closed the book tucking it carefully under my arm. Unfolding the paper I realized this was a type of legal paper… a will. I scanned through searching for a name of who this belonged to, but my eyes stopped searching when they landed on my name in the body of the will: Halle Lynn Fletcher.

  I tried my best to hide my shock and stared back up at Max giving a one-shoulder shrug. “What’s this?”

  “Halle,” he said and then stopped and stared at me. I tried to think of something to say to get to the point of what the hell was going on. He couldn’t know that this was me. No one here knew what my real name was. I didn’t even mention my last name that I could remember. “I know this is you.”

  I shook my head quickly. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t try to play dumb. I know you are Halle.”

  I slammed the book into his chest. “You don’t know anything about me.” I turned away from him and set the paper onto the desk, where I stared it down hoping it would disintegrate.

  He returned the book to its place on the shelf. “I saw the name over Bernie’s shoulder while he was marking off the list of rescued werewolves and I put two and two together.” He smiled, as if taunting me further. “You could have been a little more creative though, and used something other than your middle name if you wanted to go all incognito.”

  I turned back toward him. “Fine! You got me, okay. Now, what the hell does this have to do with that?” I pointed toward the paper.

  He walked forward and stopped when he reached the edge of the desk. “This is your grandfather’s will.”

  “That isn’t possible.” I stared at the lit candle hanging from the wooden beam directly above the desk, watching it flicker and sway. “He died before I was born.” I took in a deep breath of the musty air. “You can’t put someone in your will if you don’t know them.”

  “Maybe your parents told him about you and he put you in his will just before he died.” He spread the paper out on the table, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it.

  “No. According to my parents, he died years before I was born. This—” I pulled the paper from his hands. “—Isn’t possible.”

  “Did you see the date on it?” Max poked the paper with his index finger.

  I stared down at the indicated location. “April first, nineteen-ninety-five.” I shook my head. This paperwork didn’t make any sense. It was like it was meant for a different person. I looked up at Max and clicked my tongue in my mouth. “That is exactly two months after I was born.” I folded my arms in front of me trying to keep myself from shaking. “Maybe it’s someone else with my name. It’s possible.”

  “And the same name as your grandfather too?” He raised his eyebrows. “I think that’s just a little too coincidental.”

  I didn’t want to believe a paper. This countered seemingly everything I knew, and I didn’t have an answer to make this paper invalid. No one could have placed it there as a hoax. I just didn’t have any answers, and to know that my life could possibly be more screwed up than I thought, freaked me out. Then again, my grandfather didn’t really have anything to do with me. It was an entire other generation. “Does Bernie know about all this?”

  He looked at me incredulously. “Of course. He’s the one putting the info into the werewolf database.”

  I let my arms fall to my sides and walked toward the bookshelves again. “So what the hell is this place? Why is it here?” I touched the books in front of me, lightly shuffling through them, and looking briefly at the few titles on the spines that there were. Most were just dates.

  “I have no idea—”

  Bernie stumbled loudly into the room. I didn’t notice how dim the lighting actually was in here, until he brought in the flashlights. He handed one to me and Max.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “I don’t think we should tell anyone about this place.” Max looked sharply at me and then at Bernie.

  Bernie stared back at Max incredulously. “How the hell are we going to hide a hole in the middle of a path?”

  I shrugged. “Put a piece of wood over the opening and cover it with dirt.” Both boys turned to look at me. “We can just shove it aside when we need to get in here. People can walk over it, and they’ll never suspect a thing.”

  Bernie sighed. “Care to elaborate on the whole they’ll never suspect a thing bit?”

  Max shook his head. “They’ll hear the hollow sound if they walk across it.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Not if there’s enough dirt on it.”

  Max contemplated it, then slowly shook his head again. “No… People are going to notice a pile of dirt in the middle of a walking path.”

  “Well we can’t just bury it up.” I glanced at the many books on the shelves, saddened by the thought of not being able to actually browse through this vast collection. “Who—working out there in that field—would actually care if they stepped on something that sounded slightly different?” I crossed my arms. “I know when I’m out there with the hot sun beating down on me, I could care less if I stepped on a freaking snake.”

  Max sighed. “If Gloria finds out that we’ve been keeping this to ourselves, she’ll have our heads. It’s her property.”

  I snatched the will off the desk. “Max, this could have something to do with me. If it does, then Gloria has no right to go through this stuff. I need to find out… We shouldn’t tell anyone until we at least know what the purpose of this place is.” I looked curiously at the bookshelf to my right. “Do you guys even know what this stuff is?”

  Max pulled another book from the shelf and flipped through it quickly. “They’re mostly journals, with non-fiction—or fiction mythology—books mixed in… this one looks like it has the earliest dates in it, so it’s one of
the first journals here.”

  I snatched the book from his hands and scanned the page quickly. It was entirely written in cursive, frustrating my quick reading skills. “Who wrote all these?”

  “It doesn’t visibly say who wrote it… anywhere logical.” He quickly scanned the shelves with his eyes. “Which leads me to belief that this isn’t the first journal.”

  “Aren’t they in any kind of order?” I pulled out a book to the right of the empty slot on the shelf, and flipped it open quickly and looked at the date in the top right corner on the first page. It was dated 1921. I looked back at the one I took from Max, it was dated 1872. “No. Apparently not.”

  I replaced the 1921 book, but decided to keep the 1872 book. If I didn’t take one of this with me to read, I would go insane. I couldn’t stay out of this. I pointed my flashlight toward the exit to lead me out. “Come on, let’s hide this place before it gets any later.”

  Bernie started out ahead of me, but Max didn’t make any movement to leave. “Are you just going to take that with you?” Max’s eyebrows rose accusingly.

  I scoffed. “Yes, I am.” Turning, I followed Bernie out through the dark, winding passage. When we emerged from the makeshift door, I saw the broken wood all around. I turned back toward Max. “Looks like whoever covered this place up last used wood.”

  Bernie jumped out of the ditch with ease. “I’m pretty sure we have some plywood sheets by the silo.”

  “We have a silo?” I walked toward the edge of the 3 foot ditch.

  “Yeah.” He nodded to the left. “We are pretty much entirely self-sustainable… I’ll get the wood.” He departed toward the location he motioned toward. I followed the direction with my eyes, but I didn’t see anything except darkness and cotton.

  I turned my attention back toward Max. He busied himself with shutting and securing the makeshift door. “You need to get your injuries tended to.” He glanced over his shoulder very slightly.

  “I will… in a minute.” I opened the journal to the first page and glanced through the first few pages. I was never good at reading—or writing—cursive and the text in this book was sloppy and worn making it very difficult for me even comprehend a single sentence.

  “You are bleeding you know,” Max pressed as if to force me to do as he said.

  “I have six pints of blood. Plus it’s not that bad.” I looked up from my book at him. “Any idea what a wolf beam is?”

  He shook his head.

  I tried to further decipher the words around it, but couldn’t make out enough to understand. “It sounds like some kind of cheesy child’s poem.” I gave a weak laugh, and then put the book in front of Max’s face and pointed to the sentence. “Any idea what this says?”

  His eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he attempted to decipher the words. I figured I must have looked about the same as I was attempting to read it. “My ancestors…” he started. “… Were blessed in the soul by the wolf beam… but not I.” He stopped reading and looked up at me.

  I pressed my eyebrows together. “So it’s a blessing then?” I moved to stand behind him and read over his shoulder even though it did me little good. “Keep reading.”

  “Uh…” He stared back down at the book. “It doesn’t say anything else about the wolf beam. It just goes on to explain how miserable he is without being blessed and that he doesn’t know much himself.”

  He handed the book back to me and proceeded to climb out of the ditch, where he stopped and stared at me for a moment.

  “What?” I snapped.

  He shook his head. “Just contemplating if it would have been easier to lift you out of the ditch if I were inside it.”

  I set the journal down on the dirt above the ditch, preparing to lift myself out of the ditch. “Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m incapable of climbing out of a ditch, you know.” I pressed my hands down on the ground by the journal and steadied myself to swing my legs over.

  “That wasn’t what I meant.” He grabbed my upper arms and helped to pull me up over the edge. “I meant you’re hurt, and you could hurt yourself more.”

  I picked the journal up off the ground and hugged it loosely in my arms. “I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to hurt myself.”

  He let his head fall to the side slightly. “Seriously, Lynn?”

  “Stop being a Barbie,” came Bernie’s sardonic voice.

  I turned my head toward the cotton fields and sure enough, there he stood carrying a large piece of wood awkwardly on his back… well really more the back of his neck. He had it carefully balanced on his shoulders since it was too large and heavy to carry with his arms. Max rushed toward Bernie to help move around the wood.

  I stepped back, making sure I was out of their way. “I can’t believe you said that. I am not a Barbie.”

  Max took the wood from Bernie and worked to get it placed over the ditch, while Bernie stood beside me catching his breath. His skin was slick with sweat; I could see it shining even in the scant moonlight. “I said you are acting like a Barbie.” He patted my shoulder roughly. “The point was, don’t act like something you’re not.” His dark brown eyes flittered up to my face. “You are blonde, aren’t you?”

  I smacked him playfully with the journal.

  After getting the wood in place, Max walked toward us, but spoke directly to Bernie, “If you would, start getting the dirt onto the wood—”

  “Oh, man, I forgot the shovels.” Bernie shook his head and covered his face behind his hand dramatically.

  “—I’m going to help Lynn with her wounds.”

  I started to open my mouth to protest, but Bernie waved a finger at me. “Don’t be a Barbie.”

  I let out a frustrated sigh, and headed out of the cotton field.