When I think of Sarah. I remember she had an arm. I had to actually shag it somewhat in order to catch the ragged yellow frisbee. She had thrown a long lazy arc. She was laughing, for the first time since I’d met her.
Grandmother had put me up to it. She said, “Go to the park. There’s a little girl you should meet.” She knows me too well. So I go...I find her sitting near the edge of the park. She’s sobbing. So I approach. I put on my big dumb puppy face and lope over to her with my frisbee in my mouth.I even have a collar that proclaims that my name is Butch.
You know it’s amazing what a young girl will tell a lone wolf who acts likes a big dumb puppy. She told me about Dale. Well. First, she told me about her mom and how her mom just didn’t believe her about Dale. And then she told me about Dale, and what she said about him painted a pretty decent picture about her mom too. I’m picturing an older woman, who’s maybe lowered her standards more than she should have and attracted a good time Charlie and brought him into her home where he developed a taste for veal. I dunno, maybe he’s watched a little too much stepfamily porn on Pornhub or something. She told her mom of course, which killed her to do because her mom seemed happy for the first time in a long time. but Mommy didn’t believe her and smacked her hard in the face and now she doesn’t know what to do. Because Dale knows she told her mom and now Dale is just getting more and more brazen.
I make upset noises in my throat, because I am actually upset and then I drop the frisbee into her lap. “oh sure.” She says with a pained grin.” I pour my heart out to you and all you wanna do is play. Ain’t that just like a boy.” But she stands up and she tosses it and I catch it, and she smiles. And we spend the rest of the afternoon throwing and returning. Until finally she hears her mother calling from down the street. So follow her at a distance. I don’t really need to. By this point, I could find her on the other side of the moon. I get a look at the mom, not terrible looking for her age and then having seen the house, fade back into the woods
I watch. I keep an eye on the place from the wooded spaces in our subdivision that is close to our pack territory. Dale is a real piece of work, one of those poster boys for toxic masculinity. Got a Hawaiian shirt for every occasion. I see him casually fondle her butt as she passes him in the kitchen. it’s about all I can do to keep from frenzying right there. But I wait.
he’s out on the back porch one evening in his bathrobe and boxers drinking a heinie. I allow him to see me before I speak. I choose tonight because the bedroom lights upstairs are off. he keeps scratching his nuts, Or maybe he’s nerving himself to try something with Sarah with his woman actually in the house. Don’t know. Don’t care. I step into the light and as I do I pour my strength into my muscles.
“nice family you got.”
He starts and spills beer on his crotch. ‘What the? Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a neighbor. Hi. I’m butch.”
I don’t give two shits if you’re the fucking Dalai Lama. What are you doing on my porch?”
“Making friendly conversation. As I said. Nice family you got.”
“Not my family. just my girlfriend and her daughter.”
“Daughters are a gift I used to have two.”
“Oh yeah?”
“They died.”
“Oh.....Kay?” Dale, I can tell is not really sure where to go with this.
“it’s a terrible thing to ruin a gift like that.”
His brow furrows, he’s wondering what I know. he stands up, drawing himself up to his full height.
“I suppose so. What’s it to you?”
“ I dunno. I just wouldn’t be able to trust myself not to kill someone who did something like that. If I knew about it.”
He throws a punch at me, but he might as well be moving in molasses because I am expecting his punch. the key here is to not look like I’m surprised when I catch his fist in mine with a meaty smack. I have to admit though I want to laugh from the look on his face when I catch his fist and he is completely incapable of removing my hand from his fist. I reach out and take a good handful of his bathrobe in my hand and lift Dale off his feet.
I continue while I show him just a tiny sliver of my true face. “Why lord only knows what I might do if someone were to touch an underage girl and I found out about it.”
“Put me down you fucker!”
“See what I want you to understand is that there’s no decision making going into it. It’s like a protocol of cause and effect. Like gravity. If I was to hear about such a thing. I would make it my mission in life to come down on that “Man” like the wrath of an injured god.
And then I set his feet back down on the porch, perhaps a bit more roughly than I intended to.
“...Like gravity.”
He falls down onto the wicker chair and breaks it. Looks up at me and I think, sees me for the first time. realizes that I might be actively dangerous...and he smiles an ingratiating smile.
“Hey, mister.”
“Butch.” For some reason, I want this scumbag to know my name.
“Nothing like that is going on here.”
“Good.” and I smile. It is not a pleasant smile. It is a smile meant to convey the message that I don’t believe him.
“Good night neighbor.” and then I step out of the light
Sadly, Sarah bears the brunt of this visit. He yells at her the next night about talking about family matters with strangers, and he describes me. but she’s never seen “me” so she doesn’t know what he’s on about. I see him out the window raise his hand as if he means to smack her and then thinks better of it.
there’s a lot of storm and stress about it. But the next weekend at the park, she and I throw the frisbee around and she seems much happier. Dale seems to be keeping it in his pants.
I don’t forget things. Ever. In this case, I Stupidly deprioritize her situation in the face of other things going on in town. I’d made a mental note to have Sam Cain put some spirit on her for babysitting. but it got lost in the shuffle. and besides the problem was handled wasn’t it?
So as you can imagine, When I read about her suicide in the newspaper, it’s more than a rude shock.
I go around there like a shot but he’s not there and neither is his car.
I roll the dice and knock on the front door. her mother answers.
“Hello ma’am”
“Hi there, and who are you?”
“My name is Butch. I’m looking for Dale.”
“Oh, YOU’RE Butch.” She looks up at me with eyes shrink-wrapped in tears already. “He told me about you. I hope you find him. he said he was going up to Clearlake. He’s camping.
“Oh, I will ma’am. I will find him.”
She shuts the door in my face. There doesn’t seem to be much more to say.
I go get into my RV and drive about 45 minutes to Clearlake Campgrounds When I get there, there seems to some kind of bizarre weekend warrior convention going on up there. Dudes dressed up like military. some dudes dressed up like Ninjas and a whole spectrum of survivalist mooks.
The problem here is that I put out a pretty strong alpha signal so, many of these mooks, will sense that, and attempt to pick a fight with me in order to broadcast their own alpha signal. They see some dude dressed like a biker and it just gets them all worked up for no reasons. Just wandering around I am forced to have 3 fistfights before I even clap eyes on Dale, dressed up in some camo get-up.
He takes one look at me and dashes off into the woods. Obviously, I can’t change to urhan and go after him. But I do attempt to give chase across the campsite and end up losing sight of him immediately. Mainly because it seems like everyone is trying to get into my way and up into my very alpha Grille.
Lucky, I’m a goddamn werewolf, right? I pick up the sweet stench of Dale’s fear and start tracking him further into the woods. it isn’t hard. he’s left a trail that an Air Force Officer could follow. I see a large natural rock turned on one of its corners and slightly balancing. You see these every once in a while It’s balanced but it probably has been here longer than white men.. His trail leads around the side of the rock, and I can smell him close.
And that’s when I get nailed.
He’s got one of those combination several thousand candlepower xenon flashlight/stun gun deals that you can get via mail order. I come around the side of the rock and I’m totally blinded and then he lights me up pretty good. and then he’s stabbing me, Like Guillermo del Toro in “The Hunted”
Seems like Dale figured he was GOING to fondle Sarah no matter what I did, and so he was going to have to have a plan in place to deal with me. And I guess he just waited until he felt like he was ready to deal with me. I piece this all together as I am falling languidly to the ground
I’m on the ground and I have to admit, bleeding from a half dozen wounds. But I’m fairly hard to kill even in my human form. What’s really rattled my cage is the stun gun and being totally blind. Dale, thinking he’s certainly killed me climbs down to finish me off and that’s when I knock the wheels out from under him. I change shape into my Gauru. form Which heals most of the problems immediately.
And before he has actually processed what is happening. I have grabbed him in my powerful paws and I shake him like a rag doll. he weighs virtually nothing in my hands. I can barely form human words in this form so I over-enunciate in this form. I get my shiny werewolf eyes down to his level. I cannot stay in this form too long because I’m liable to head back up the path and kill everyone at the campsite in my death rage. So I look him in the eye and say, “Like protocols of cause and effect. Didn’t I tell you?”
And then I fold him up small in my giant Gauru hands and throw him.
I honestly didn’t know he go that far but he went over a middling distant cliffside and all the way down to the rocks below. I shift back to hishu form and look down at his broken lifeless body.
“Like gravity,” I say as I survey my handiwork.
Sorry, Sarah... You deserved better looking out from your mom and from me. All I can do is avenge you and the real bummer is, I can only do it once.
