“Here’s our cabin!” Maria called out, waving back to her companions as they came across the isolated log cabin in the forest clearing. Unlocking the door with the key from the registration building, she led the three other women and two men into the cozy-looking main room with the open log fire. Soon, the six of them were checking out the three bedrooms upstairs, where they unloaded their backpacks and change of clothes. Maria Carter and Carly Meeuwenberg soon found which they were having – it was the only one with the twin beds.
“I had wondered if you two were an item,” Sammy Cornetto teased them. Carly and Maria gave him mock, indignant looks.
“Not at all, Sammy – but I did notice that they were giving two of the rangers puppy-eyed looks,” Karl added, chuckling.
“Hey! They were rather dishy-looking,” Carly protested. “And I would rather have a normal human for a boyfriend anyway. The more mixed couples there are between our kind and regular folk, the better!”
“That’s my way of thinking too,” Maria took off her baseball cap as she collapsed into one of the lounge chairs. She looked pensive for a moment. “It’s a pity Kevin couldn’t accept the facilities of this reservation, instead of teaming up with Danielle – I mean…Roxanne.”
Sally gave a small nod, as she first brushed a hand through her near-platinum blonde hair, and then rubbed her calf muscle. The silver bullet had been taken out from her leg. It still felt a little sore, but she would fully recover in time. “Thanks for accepting me and my friends in their place. What Roxanne and Kevin did to you, Maria and Carly, betraying your trust…”
“What’s done is done. At least Kevin is alive – and in a secure facility for lawbreaking werewolves. Hopefully, he’ll come out as a reformed person.” Carly waved her hand, indicating her wish not to talk again about the past. “You, Alice, Karl, and Sammy are our packmates now. And we want to make this night a great one for Sammy, given that he’s going to change for the first time tonight.”
“The last few weeks would’ve been harder for us, if Dwayne Wyatt hadn’t confessed his sins to the police. Roxanne’s death really broke him,” Alice observed. “The werewolf attorney Sharon Barlow learning about our situation and stepping in, helped things all round too - with the police dealing with us after we changed back into human form the morning after...you-know-what.”
“I understand Dwayne confessed to accidentally killing Roxanne.” Maria raised an eyebrow at Karl. “But you told us that…”
Karl smiled. “Let’s just say that Dwayne convinced himself, without any pressure from us, that he was better off giving the police that part of the story that he did – rather than risk Sally unleashing her wrath at him again…”
They all laughed. Sammy nervously looked at the lounge clock. “One hour before moonrise. I wonder how many other people might be changing for the first time, in the reservations that are already up and running around the world?”
Sally reached out and rubbed her hand over Sammy shoulder. “Hard to say. But we’re here for you. I’m not leaving you…”
“Thanks, Sal.” Sammy took her hand. His lips twitched upwards as he admired the pretty, athletic blonde lady he was now falling for. “If nothing else, I guess this will make me a better tracker in my investigative work, becoming a werewolf.”
“I’m sorry you had to give your cat over to your neighbor. Most cats don’t like us…dog people,” Sally added.
“Don’t worry. He’s in good hands. At least I’m alive as a werewolf, instead of dead as a human, thanks to you,” Sammy observed. He fingered the special plastic armband around his forearm, which – like the other werewolves, he, Karl, and Alice were now permanently required to wear. “I don’t even mind this,” he added.
Karl and Alice shared a secret smile. Their maker, their pack-sister, was no longer lonely. In fact she was the happiest they had ever known her to be. With the end of Roxanne – plus the company of their new friends, as well as the strengthening of her own bonds with Alice and Karl, Sally was at ease with her life. The recent establishment of the Werewolf Civil Rights bill meant that it was illegal for werewolves to be discriminated against - and so Sally had just secured a new deputy head job at an adult training center close to her home, where the staff were welcoming and who would treat her as a person, not a creature. And Sammy was turning out to be a good man, a worthy brother-to-be. As the one who had passed the lycanthrope condition to him, Sally had promised to tutor him in the ways of the werewolf race. Sally and Sammy were not yet mates – but Karl and Alice were certain that their friendship would soon become more intimate.
As the time arrived, the six friends walked out of the log cabin, each wrapped in a white blanket. Throughout the hunting reservation in the hill valley, Karl and Alice knew, there were many other log cabins. Other groups of people now stepping out into the evening air as the sun set, to be soon followed by the full moon rising on the opposite horizon. When the moment itself came, the six of them cast aside their blankets, to reveal their naked human bodies now starting to darken with the onset of growing fur. Sammy Cornetto glanced down at himself, seeing his form undergoing the same metamorphosis as the others. Despite the pain of his contorting limbs he exchanged a smile with Sally.
“Let’s take these off.” Karl removed Alice’s spectacles and wrapped them in her blanket, as she giggled at her forgetfulness. They kissed – and then the parting clouds allowed the moon to shine upon her children in the darkening sky. With a gasp of pain, mixed with pleasure, Alice, Karl, Sally, Sammy, Carly, and Maria all entered the change – their bones cracking, their muscles, ligaments, and forms shifting almost fluidly, even as their skins were engulfed by the rolling carpets of fur now cloaking them. Human hairs receded partway into their skulls and merged with their emerging fur – whilst their tailbones burst out from their expanding spines. Six pairs of ears stretched upwards and turned pointed. Muzzles stretched forwards from now-furred faces, giving room to teeth lengthening into fangs. The hands that were changing into half-paws now sported claws nearly an inch long.
Panting as he half-rose from the ground where he had fallen, Sammy Cornetto drank in the night around him. His altered vision was better suited to seeing in the dark. His newly-grown whiskers and leathery nose allowed him to smell far more than he had as an ordinary human. The wolf people around him sniffed at his lupine scent – then, in turn, they licked his face. Sally helped him up, and Sammy found that he was now comfortably standing on the balls of his feet, just like his new brethren. He growled with delight – the pain had disappeared, giving way to an incredible sense of being alive; and of being strong, complete. He wagged his new tail with excitement.
One by one, his new sisters greeted him by nuzzling his jaw. Sally also lovingly stroked his black fur. She grinned as she glanced down and inspected his new sheath. Then Karl stepped forward and patted him on his shoulder. “Welcome to…the pack..., brother.”
“Thank…you, brother…of mine,” Sammy barked back.
Howls from the other transformed werewolves in the reservation rolled across the forests. Layer upon layer of lupine voices were added – turning the primal sound into a majestic symphony of nature. Instinctively, the six friends all threw back their heads to howl as well.
“Time…to hunt,” Maria instructed the pack. She and Carly led their brothers and sisters into the nearest stretch of the forest, their noses and twitching ears primed for scenting prey. Soon they picked up a trail and they jogged forward together to locate the deer they could detect. Alice and Karl held half-paws and grinned at each over, both fully at ease at being as one with the night.
“Together…,” Alice growled, feeling the wind ruffle her ginger-brown fur and face whiskers.
“…always,” Karl completed their oft-repeated private vow.
In the future, they, Sally and Sammy would help the still-human Nate Anderson with his circuit of speeches to boost positive human-werewolf relationships. Instead of the usual convention, Sammy would adopt his wife’s surname as he took Sally for his proud bride. And of course, Karl and Alice would become another happy-married couple as Mr and Mrs Hurtz. Carly and Maria would find happiness with the human men of their choice, also. And, within the next year, the Hurtz’s and the Yellers would appear together on the ‘People’s Talk’ – firstly to help reassure the human race that they were not evil monsters, but also to reach out to other werewolves and make the world better for them.
But for that night, the hunt - and simply being together as a pack - was joy enough for them all.