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Chapter 9

Several hours later we broke through the undergrowth and onto another, this time dirt road. Bark looked at me, the rising sun glistening through the beads of moisture that had collected on her fur from walking through the wet brush. Her tail softly wagged back and forth.

“Which way now?”

I was having trouble remembering where we were, “This way I think... It looks like we over shot it by a little bit.”

We started down the road to the right as the wind drifted a low growl to my ears. I looked at Bark, who was focused intently on something. Her ears rotated like radar scanners, trying to find where it was coming from. The growl turned into a snarl, then disappeared as a bulky form lumbered over the top of the next hill. I barked a warning as I dropped to all fours and bounded into the ditch, Rebecca on my heels.
The black truck continued down the hill a ways before turning off to the left, leaving a cloud of vapor and soot in it’s wake. After it passed I could make out the reddish brown carcass of a tractor hiding in the trees close to where it turned.

“Come on, that’s their driveway.”

We cut into the forest, away from the road. My folk’s home was at the end of a narrow drive about a quarter mile from the road. Apparently they were home now, and I didn’t think it would be healthy for a pair odd looking wolves to just walk up the driveway and knock on the front door. I planned on looping around the the back of the property where we’d have to shift back, which brought up another problem.

“How are we going to get clothes?” I whispered to Bark as we hid behind the old wooden shed that sagged behind the house.
Up wind of us Cattail, my family’s faithful Caucasian Ovcharka, sniffed at something on the ground. He was enormous, probably close to a hundred and fifty pounds and extremely protective of the family. I had been good pals with him when I was home last time, I just prayed he remembered me. After that all I had to do was introduce him to Rebecca, and things should be fine. But before I could even think about getting past Cattail we had to shift back, and when we did we would be completely naked.

As if to answer my question for me my father ambled out the back door again and opened the door to the truck.
“Come Cattail, we gotta go to the vet,” he said. Cattail gave him a dirty look before ignoring him.

“Damnit, don’t make this unpleasant,” he said, his tone suddenly getting very stern. Cattail gave a huff and trotted over to the open door and bounded inside.
My mother appeared out of the house.

“Remind me to pick up some more milk while we’re in town and some more flour.”

She walked a few paces and stopped. She turned to look at something before sighing, “My son, where are you? What happened?”

Car doors slammed. Growling and the smell of diesel as the truck was brought to life again before rumbling back down the gravel drive.

As I advanced past the shed I saw what she had been looking at. There sat Winona, previously out of sight. Her whole front end was smashed in, and only a few fragments of her windshield remained. Other than that, however, she appeared to be perfectly fine. The entire cab seemed untouched. I shook myself from it. There was time to worry about that later. We had to get some clothes and shift back before they got home. The crash had crushed the front door untill perhaps a house cat could use it, but nothing bigger. Torn and buckled steel made crawling through the smashed out windshield another impossiblility. We’d have to break in another way, and that was better done with somone better equipped for climbing. There were the tools I had left here the last time I had left. If I could get to those getting into Winona would be a clinch....

I wondered if my siblings were still in the house. Something told me they weren't.

I ran to the back door, Bark close on my heels. I paused before trying the handle. Her hot breath could be felt through my fur. It was good feeling, giving me comfort to know that whatever happens, I won’t be alone going through it. I held my breath and turned the knob.
It was unlocked. A sense of relief swept me as we set foot inside the silent house. My parents had said that they kept a room for me anticipating my return for a short while after getting discharged. It took only a few minutes to find the small bedroom upstairs with my old quilt on the bed. A footlocker in the corner contained some of my old clothes and books and other things I had stored before I had left. The vice I had made in high school metals as well as several survival books and a few random tools and pictures.

“Well, it’s not much, and it sure isn’t female,” I said after I had rummaged through the trunk for a few minutes. Most of the clothes in it were old jeans, t-shirts and a couple of rather worn-out looking hooded sweatshirts.

“-but it’s all I’v got unless you want to paw through my mom or sister’s stuff.”

“Nah, that’s fine,” said Bark, picking a pair of jeans, a t-shirt (“I can fix anything....where’s the duct tape?”) and a sweatshirt with my high school’s logo on it.

“I’ll check in the bus later,” she added, grabbing an adjustable wrench and my vice grips. She winked, moving the clothes to her mouth befor walking back out the door and heading towards the bathroom.

I closed the trunk and shut the door before sitting back on my bed. How strange it felt to finally be home. If this still could be considred that. I had been gone so long that it didn’t feel like home anymore, just another house where people I knew lived. Laying back against the pillow I stared at the ceiling. The last time I had slept in this bed had been over four years ago. I had been your average person, a normal human being. Now, almost five years later the same man (if I could still be called that) lay here again, sprawled out in all his furry goodness.
How did I change back? Bark said it was like trying to forget you had a limb. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it was like before I had any of this canine to deal with. How I had seen things, thought things, felt things. I tried to completely forget what it was like to wag my tail or see everything through smells. Slowly I could feel things reverse themselves, my fur went away, tail shrank and I could no longer feel the air currents with my whiskers, or even my muzzle I realized, that was gone too.
The room got very cold all of a sudden and I opened my eyes. I was human again, and a completely naked one at that. Cold air drifting off the window nipped at my exposed skin as I sat up and started getting dressed. When I was done I met Bark in the hall.
She was wearing my shirt, but had my jeans in her arms, wearing a pair of her own. I was surprised that she also was wearing her familiar brown collar.

“Hey,” she said, dumping the jeans in my arms, “I see you managed to figure it out on your own. Here’s your jeans back, but I like your shirts too much to let you have them back at the moment. The bus is pretty much still intact, your going to have to replace the engine and a good chunk of the front suspension, but the entire cab behind the windshield is still good. I’m surprised it held up like it did, what did you do, design it with the intention of getting into a wreck?”

I smiled at the thought, “Yeah, actually, I didn’t want things to be moving around if there was an accident. How did you get your collar back? I thought we left it in the woods...”

“Oh,” she said fingering the leather, “this is an old one. See? It doesn’t have that huge gash in it.”

Oh.

I started down the stairs after dumping the jeans on top of the trunk. My stomach growled.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Let’s go raid the ‘fridge and see what we can find. My folks won’t care.”

“I already looked, there’s a left over ham, as well as a container of spaghetti and meatballs that smells couple of days old. I notice your family likes cheese, but the salami in that drawer is bad, don’t touch it.”

“Taking an inventory already?” I asked, surprised.

She shrugged, “Sorry. The canine instincts were going you know and we haven't eaten in over a day. I didn’t touch anything, just sniffed around a bit on my way out to the bus.”

I had to forgive her, I would have done the same. She sat down at the small table they kept in the kitchen while I went to rummage around. The moment I opened the refrigerator door however, there was a problem.
The smells that pour out! All of the delicious odors, I wanted to experiance them so badly!
My skin itched, and short bristly fur began to form. No! I tried to recompose my self, forget about the smells, the food, and forget I even had that part to me. When that failed to work I threw up my will not to change and put everything I had behind it. The transformation cut through it like a hot chain saw through butter.
My muzzle pushed out, and despite my attempts to use the refrigerator for support I fell to my knees. My pants grew painfully tight in places, before splitting loudly apart. I gasped as they gave way, my tail finally free as my legs continued to change shape.
Then it was over, the kitchen growing suddenly very quiet. I looked up at Bark, who was still seated quietly at the table, a hint of a smile on her face.

“Pretty powerful, isn’t it?”

“No shit,” I replied trying to stand, “I can’t be like this when my folks get back. The moment dinner is served or the dog walks it’ll be chaos.” I shook my head, “What the heck am I supposed to do?”

I sat down across from Bark, who was still smiling slightly.

“Well, I could probably pick out a nice collar for you...”

I was repulsed at the idea.

“Hell no! Fuck that, I’d never wear that dumb thing.”

“Your wolf seams to despise it even more than mine does,” she said with lightning in her eyes. “That means it would probably work.”

I hunched down low over the table and snarled.

“Like hell. And you had better not try anything smart either, or you’ll regret it.”

She threw her hands up in surrender, “Ok, fine. I suggest you try to get yourself looking human again though before your parents get back. Don’t worry, I’ll fix us something to eat.”

Half an hour later I was still in my room, fuming. A collar! Like I would ever voluntarily wear something like that in private, much less in public! The very thought of parading around with one like... like someone’s pet bore at my very bones. If she wanted to wear one that was all very well. I didn’t care, but she’d better not come around pushing that at me!
I took several deep breaths to relax. She was just trying to help, and I still needed to look human. It was somewhat harder to change this time around, and by the time I opened my eyes again Bark was standing in the door. She had an old stained apron on and a face that betrayed no expression. I felt rather embarrassed laying there stark naked in front of her.

“Do you mind?”

“Food’s ready,” she said, but didn’t move.

“All right,” I grunted and got up to get dressed. No sooner had I turned my back to her however than I was being strangled by something cold and metallic. There was a click that would only be one thing, and the frigid steel instantly felt like scalding hot oil. I grabbed the chain and pulled as hard as I could, screaming in agony. I was thrown violently onto the bed, and someone began trying to shove my face in a pillow. I launched myself back, flinging my assailant across the room. But I couldn’t follow through. There was something inside of me that seemed to be growing numb. Physically everything checked out ok, but it was like there was some mental part within that began to grow weak and fade away.
My moment’s hesitation was all it took. My enemy was on me again, plowing into me and knocking me down. As I fell something stung my arm... the edge of the night stand? I groped out to try and use it as a weapon, but couldn’t find it and the room began to swim and twist violently. My limbs quickly grew too heavy to move, and before I knew it my world just seemed to dissolve.

There was a dull burning around my neck, like hot sand after it had lain in the summer sun for a few hours. I opened my eyes to Bark’s concerned face.

“I’m sorry, I was afraid you were going to either hurt me or do something to yourself.”

“What they heck are you talking about?” I groggily asked. Where the hell was I? She reached down and there was another sting in my arm. When her hand returned to my field of vision it held a needle and the bottle we had drunk from that first night.

“You bitch...”

She grinned, “It took about the equivalent of Megan doing the like for me to find out. I wasn’t stronger than her then though. I think that made things easier on Megan's part.”

For some reason I didn’t feel that upset. I would have never let her do it before, but now... I didn’t know. It burned and I would definitely rather not have a stupid choke chain around my neck, but I realized it was a necessary evil where as before I didn’t care. Besides, I could trust Bark... I hoped.

The sound of crunching gravel could be heard outside.

“Shit, help me find some pants, quick!”

She shoved the pair that had lain on top of the trunk into my arms and dug out another t-shirt as I scrambled to put them on. We dashed down stairs again and barly made it to the kitchen table when the back door opened. I was in luck, no one could see anything under my shirt. Bark however was her usual self, there was no hiding the leather strap or the fact that her jeans were covered in golden fur as my youngest brother ambled into the room.

“Whoa, your home,” he said rather nonchalantly before turning to where Bark sat with half a meat ball in her mouth. “Who are you?”
He didn’t even wait for an answer before dumping his backpack on the floor and shuffling on to the rest of the house.

I couldn’t see who entered the kitchen through the rear door behind me, but I heard the rest of my family come up the stairs and stop at the door.

“Uh..he-ho” waved Bark past a mouth full of hot meat ball. She pointed to me.

“Hey gang!” I smiled as I got up. “Thanks for salvaging the bus. This is Rebecca Huston, I take it you already know her somewhat. She tagged along after her company downsized. I guess I made the dairy state sound like the land of jobs and tax breaks.”

My mother laughed, the initial shock of finding a stranger in her home wearing off. She gave me a hug before shaking Bark’s hand. Mother was a warm person, someone you couldn’t help but like. If you ever got on her bad side though it was like dancing with a bull shark.

“Welcome home...” she smiled, “to the both of you. When we received that call last night that your bus had been found wreaked I was worried sick, but I knew when they said they couldn't find a body and the cab wasn’t that smashed up that Steve probably got thick headed and started walking. Are you both ok?”

I nodded.

“I think we’re both fine ma’am, thank-you” said Bark, “I apologize for us helping ourselves to your food-” My mother cut her off with a wave.

“Not at all, that’s what it’s there for. I’ll make us a real dinner tonight to celebrate, I think I still have some venison that your brother shot...”