I'm getting depressed.

Maybe it's the weather, but I'm a little bored in this cage.

Hmm.

Still, I suppose I deserve it.

I've been reluctant to talk about it much, cause I really feel awful about it, but basically, I killed about 65 people last week.

I never should have gotten on that bus.

It was a packed, post-Thanksgiving Chinatown bus, and by the time we were on the road to New York, it was about 12:30. Normally, it takes about four and-a-half hours to get to New York, and I guess I was just in denial that I couldn't make it back in time. Even if I did make it back by 5:00, it would already be getting dark, and I'd be at Port Authority, right off Times Square, which could be even worse. I entertained a brief fantasy of getting off the bus, running into The Lion King, and showing those fucking puppets what a real beast looked like, and was again was snapped back to reality when I saw a little boy- about 8 years old- sitting in the seat behind me, playing with an etch-a-sketch. Was I going to kill that kid?

Fuck.

As I sat on the bus, it got darker and darker, and I started to look at the faces of everyone. There were college students, old Chinese guys, Grandmothers, babies- it was too much to process. At one point I wondered what it would be like if I changed into the wolf and bit a Chinese baby. Like, didn't eat him or anything, just gave him a little bite.

If that happened, this city would be dealing with a tiny Chinese werewolf baby running around, which is in equal parts adorable and terrifying. I briefly wondered if the tiny Chinese werebaby would preternaturally know Kung Fu, and transform into a three foot high chubby wolf ninja, whirling, biting and snarling, as it hucked Chinese stars into people from 80 feet away before leaping onto their heads and knawing through their necks. I quietly chastised myself for being racist, and with that negative thought came even darker ones.

I had anticipated what I might have to do, and with the close call with my family the night before still fresh in my mind, I had made some preparations. In my carry-on bag, I was carrying four thin razor blades and a pair of handcuffs.

I squinted out the window at the signs on the freeway, now difficult to make out in the dusk.


"New York City: 45 miles."


I wasn't going to make it.

As the sun began to shrink in the sky, I slipped the razors and cuffs from my shoulder bag to the pocket of my sweatshirt, and excused myself to walk back to the bathroom wondering if I would ever again hear music. Weird thought, I know.

Now it's an undeniable fact that the sloshing, smelly restroom of a moving bus is not an ideal place to spend even a few minutes of your life, so you can imagine how unpleasant it is to wrap your head around the idea that it is there where you will be spending the FINAL minutes of your life.

As I moved towards the back of the bus, I was walking rather unsteadily. My eyes were full of tears as I tried the door.

Locked.

You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.

I rattled the door.

"Hey- excuse me?"

No answer.

"Uh- anybody in there?

I knocked, to silence. I wiped the tears from my eyes, turned to the old Chinese couple in the seat next to the bathroom, and said "Is anybody in there?"

They nodded in the affirmative, obviously not able to speak English, and the man made a comical gesture of a man drinking from a bottle. Great. He then took his index finger and spun it around his head to indicate that the person currently in the restroom was either drunk, or crazy. He nodded with glee.

I responded with what I had intended to be a sigh of frustration, but turned out to be a long, low rumbling growl. The couple started back in their seats- shocked.

"I'm sorry-" I said- "Aghhh!"

A jolt of pain went up my spine, and I felt the onset of the power panic. It was starting.

Soon.

I turned to the door, felt my jaw buckle, and with a voice fueled by rage beyond that which I am normally capable of said "I need you out of there- NOW!"

As I said the word "Now, " which sounded more animal than human, my fists and forearms smashed literally THROUGH the upper part of the door, shattering it inwards on itself, raining debris down upon the wino who was slumped on the toilet.

That's kinda when all hell broke loose.

It seemed like every passenger who didn't see what was going on was getting up and turning around, only to see every single passenger who DID see what was going on getting up and running directly towards them.

Screams filled the bus.

Oh, and hey- do you guys remember that entry when I wanted to see what my hands looked like when I changed? Well, I know now. I had smashed the entire top one-third of the door in on itself, and as I reached into the bathroom, I grabbed the wino by his lapels with a pair of hands that I did not recognize as my own. I could feel my fingers growing, and my nails getting longer as I pulled him off the toilet, through the hole, and literally threw him about nine rows of seats towards the front of the bus.

The bus was swerving like crazy, and as I felt another car hit us, I threw myself over the top of the shattered door and into the bathroom doing almost a full flip as I landed on my backside, with that sloppy, blue, bus toilet water splashing everywhere.

There was a horrible screeching of tires and I remember desperately getting the handcuffs out of my sweatshirt and affixing my arm (which half-resembled a paw at that point) to the steel handrail, which was securely attached to the side of the wall. As the change came, there was shrieking coming from the bus, and I remember being jolted incredibly hard against the wall and then spinning, free form. Whatever had happened, the bus was now in the air, and was spinning, for an amount of time that seemed to go on forever, yet ended instantly.

Car crashes are weird like that.

When the motion stopped, there was no doubt about it. I was a werewolf, chained to the inside of an upside down bus, railing and howling at the world. It was the fire that snapped me out of it.

Now, I'm not saying that I was per say, *rational* when I saw and felt the fire, but there was a certain animal instinct to GET OUT.

With one swift pull, I broke the handcuffs, and smashed out of the bathroom door, standing on the ceiling of the bus, which was upside down and littered with bodies. Sensing motion, I turned to my left, and saw the little boy I had seen earlier. The one with the etch-a-sketch. His face was frozen with fear, and I could see by the twisted position of his leg that it was badly broken. With a snarl I didn’t intend, I opened my jaws and walked over to him, poised to feed.

Just then, I smelled the gas, and it was time to go.

Grabbing the boy by the lapels of his jacket, I got up on two feet and ran for the windshield- smashing through it just as the fireball enveloped the bus, blasting us more than 40 feet away into a grassy patch just off the ravine that the bus ended up in.

I had grabbed the boy because I had wanted to- well... let's be honest here- eat him, but as he rolled away from me, I realized that not only was he still alive, but I was on fire.

I know I should have stopped, dropped and rolled, but in my frenzied state, I didn't make any decisions. I was already running away as soon as I even knew I was on fire.

I took off from the wreckage, leaving the boy behind, and managed to leap into a river. I don't know which one, I don't know how I found it, I don't know much, other than I was happy to not be on fire anymore.

Being on fire is weird like that.

I hope the kid made it- and I still wonder about my motivation. Did I save that kid because there still was something human in me? Or was I just reluctant to have my next meal burned up in the fireball?

Who knows.

Either way, I crawled from the river, still a wolf, but badly burned and beaten, and collapsed on the riverbank.

It was there I woke up the next morning, naked.

I really gotta get some stretch pants or something.