A forest green Nissan Sentra idled at the side of the only road that force fed the outside world to Wolf Lake.
Inside, Amanda read and re-read the diary, the lone clue of how everything at Fielder College came to be.
The first-hand account of Zoe Whittaker’s enamoration of werewolves. Incriminating evidence of her involvement in the death of Miles Drake.
If this was to be believed, Zoe would turn into a snarling beast come the next full moon.
There had been hundreds of werewolves involved in the siege. Most had been girls at Fielder, tranqued into oblivion until they reverted with the passing of the moonlit fog.
The rest were visitors, to either the Lake or the school, and were sent on their way during the cover-up.
How many were still infected, she thought? Do they even remember what happened to them? How many more had they made in the meantime?
What if I’ve been infected?
The heater did nothing for the chill in her heart.
“’Kay, Truthin Advertyshing: Phi Lamda Theta.”
Pheobe tossed back the last gulp of her fifth Guinness. “Lemme think,” she giggled, working thoughts through the plentiful buzz in her right brain. She rose to wobbly knees, folding her arms back in a provocative pose. “The mosht fun ish at Phi…uh, Flicka…Cunt.” Her composure was lost in time with Laura’s, and they gasped for air through insane laughter.
Laura caught her breath, pointing at in Pheobe’s general direction. “That washn’t the worst. Nope, nope.”
Pheobe nodded drunkenly, then quickly shook her head. “Yep, it wash.”
Laura laughed as she popped open her sixth. “What ‘bout the shafe shex shpot?”
A blank stare was Pheobe’s response. Her eyes opened wide. “Yeah! That really shucked!”
“Go for it all…but go with protecshun!” Laura raised her beer high as they chorused the tagline, and was met with a drunken toast from her roommate.
“Fuck protecshun,” Pheobe slurred. “Just go fuck shomone!” She rolled back onto the bed, arms flayed out in joking surrender.
Her raven-haired roommate crawled onto the bed toward her, an inebriated mockery of the half-assed safe sex ad they put together. “Just go fuck me!” Laura laughed, bracing herself astride her roommate.
Neither knew how it happened. Through the blur of alcohol and amnesia, some memory of the past struck them full force. They didn’t recognize the source, nor did they care to know the reason. They locked eyes, pierced each other’s souls.
Then they made love for the rest of the night.
Mary had adjusted well to her new home. Maybe too well.
She spent her days indoors, steeped in an impenetrable funk.
Nightfall came, the plunging of the sun below the horizon like a starting pistol for Mary’s spirit.
She explored with her husky guards for as long as she desired, always returning with a fresh handful of wildflowers. Her mother had come to love the scent, as did Evelyn down the way, and they journeyed together every night before coming home to play with the dogs.
Her father busied himself with home maintenance, and nursing his bite wounds, inflicted by the dogs he had raised from pups, whenever he came too near the venturing trio.
Pain. That’s what life was to Zoe Whittaker. Pain, and loss.
She mourned from within, every day cancering herself slowly but certainly into oblivion.
Try as she might, the reason was lost to her, lost amidst pills and sorrow for its own sake.
She sat on the edge of her bed, hunting unsuccessfully for sleep. Her alarm clock burned 2:14 into her brain. Thank God for sick days, she thought.
A half-empty bottle of pills rested on the nightstand. Zycronol. Prescribed in her name.
She reached for the glass of water by the bed, knocking the bottle over with her free hand. Wearily, she seized two pills, sighing as she popped them into her mouth.
The lip of the glass touched her lips. She hesitated, debated, before allowing it no further ground.
Drearily, she sloughed to the sink, and purposefully spit the pills into the basin.
Her thoughts turned to sleep, and the lucid dreaming exercises she’d tried. Her weary body had almost reached the bed when she spied the ajar blinds.
She opened them to the fullest, unveiling the clear night sky and the bright waning new moon.
Something about it comforted her enough to become drowsy. She flopped into bed, asleep and dreaming before she hit the pillow.