Julie changed last night-

-and it didn't go well.

We spent the afternoon moving my cage out of the loft and into the new space where her cage was.

The idea was to have us side by side in different cages as the moon came up, just to see what effect we'd have on each other.

Might have been a bad idea.

I was in my cage trying to read as the the time approached. She was pacing around, animalistic, shrieking that she was going to kill us all.

I didn't get much reading done.

Chandler, Alyssa, Cameron and Scott were all pacing around- Chandler had this long speargun, Alyssa and Cameron had shotguns, and Scott was nervously checking several clipboards, walking back and forth from the cages to the computers, I guess monitoring Julie's ankle bracelet. I saw Alyssa loading her shotgun with shells, and it wasn't the rocksalt. This was ammo. I was a little freaked out, I must admit. This werewolf chick was out of her head- unloading some real over the top exorcist-babble.

She was saying things like "Hey Thompson- what's the matter? Don't you WANT to change? Don't you want to be a killer?! You know what it is to kill. You've felt it- it makes you strong. Why don't you embrace it?! That's what I've done. And just you wait to see what happens!"

"Fuck you!" I screamed at her.

I couldn't help it.

All of a sudden there was a hand on my shoulder. It was Alyssa.

"Here," she said- handing me the iPod. Talk to Dan. It'll relax you."

Julie's voice pierced the moment- "Well isn't that sweet! Little impotent werewolf with his girlfriend that's fucking someone else. Yeah, that's it, check in with Casper the friendly iPod. "

I turned to her, angry, and actually felt a snarl come to my throat, which scared me, a feeling that subsided as Chandler's gun butt slammed through the bars and into Julie's face, knocking her to the ground.

Alyssa was not pleased.

"Goddamnit Chandler! There will be NO VIOLENCE while the subject is still human! We were clear about that!"

Chandler glanced to Cameron, who nodded, backing her up. Chandler turned back to Alyssa.

"I'm sorry, M'aam. It's just she was-"

"Forget about it." Alyssa waked back around to the door of Julie's cage, joining Chandler. "Goddamnit, she's out- we're going to have to-"

I put the iPod on, and closed my eyes. I needed to relax.

Dan- buddy, you there?

"Yeah, I'm here, pal, how goes the full moon fever?"

I don't know- I'm here in the cage, the moon's about to rise, and Julie's right here next to me-

"In the same cage!? Are you fucking nuts?"

No, different cages, Alyssa just knocked her out- it's just...it's just, she got to me.

"What did Alyssa say about your changing?"

She said- if I don't desire radical change, then I won't change- she read me this passage from one of her books, it said 'all situations are changeable, but you can't push the river.'

"Sounds like a fortune cookie to me."

Yeah, me too- still, there's some wisdom to it- you see, change is inevitable. Change will come. I can improve my life, but it's not going to happen overnight. You can cross the river if you build a bridge- you know? You just can't push it away overnight.

"Yeah, I hear you. Wait. What the fuck is going on out-?"


The tremendous BANG of Julie's cage door slamming open blotted out my ears for a moment, obliterating my conversation with Dan. The rest was kind of a blur. Julie, now a large werewolf, had thrown a large chunk of Chandler's torso up against the door of the cage knocking it wide open, and splattering Cameron, who was trying to close it, with gore. Alyssa cocked her shotgun, and ran around to the front of the cage.

The whole scene was kind of nasty.

Apparently, Julie had been knocked unconcious, or at least led everyone to believe she had been, and when Chandler walked into the cage to give her smelling salts, she began to change. I'm still a little amazed that they thought that two minutes before the moon rises was a good idea to climb into the cage with a werewolf, but Chandler was always a little cocky. Also, I might just be a little more attuned to the timing of that kind of thing than he was.

Whatever, now he was in pieces, and all hell was breaking loose.

As Alyssa raised her shotgun, the wolf slammed directly through the door of the cage, sending Cameron flying through Scott's computer desk. I couldn't see Scott anywhere. There was a deafening boom as Alyssa fired her shotgun, and a high pitched screaming as the wolf wheeled around on her, sinking it's teeth into her arm, and tearing it out of it's socket with a disgusting wet splashing sound.

Alyssa's body hit the ground just as a geyser of her blood shot at least 7 feet into the air. I heard screaming, and realized it was coming from me.

I tried to change.

It's the first time I ever tried to do it. All I could hear was screaming, crashing, the roaring of the beast and the multiple blasts from Cameron's shotgun, and I was staring at the moon. If ever there was a time that I should have changed, that I wanted to change, that I needed to change, it was then.

I stared at the moon though the window of the cell and tried to concentrate.

Nothing.

I stared at my hand.

Nothing.

I began clawing at my face and chest, drawing blood, trying to lure the monster out of me, but it was gone.

I was helpless, pushing the river, and had to sit and watch, as the carnage unfolded.

Julie, now a werewolf, had roared when Cameron's shotgun blast hit her in the back, distracting her from Alyssa, who was slumped in a corner, missing an arm, in a pool of blood. The wolf turned, and what happened next was difficult to describe.

It leapt at Cameron from across the room and blasted him off his feet. I saw his feet under the wolf, and heard the frenzied feeding, and then an arm just sort of skidded across the room. There was so much blood that it didn't really move that fast, it just sort of drifted towards the wall, away from where his body had been. Then one of his legs did the same, kind of twisting on the bloodsoaked floor like a piece of driftwood on a slow moving river. It kind of parted from his body and just slowly spun clockwise, away from his body.

The wolf rose from the kill and looked at me.

Like, stared at me, with those same piercing eyes that I remembered Julie having from when I first met her. Then, everything human was gone from her.

She howled. It was a long, victorious, baying howl of triumph. She looked at me once again, with a look of scorn, if an animal can truly possess such an emotion, and turned away. She took a running start, hurled her body at the front door of the apartment, smashing it, and was gone.

What seemed like an eternity of silence passed, and then I heard sobbing.

It was Scott, from beneath a pile of shattered wood. He'd been hiding under his desk when Cameron's body shattered it, and he stayed down. I hated him at the time, for his cowardice, but it was probably the smartest thing he could have done.

I yelled at him to check with Alyssa, who was slumped in a corner. He applied a tourniquet, and they left for the hospital. He unlocked the cage, but I stayed in there.

I just couldn't move.

After he got back, he told me that Julie was still wearing her ankle bracelet when she left.

So today, we have to find her. Me and Scott. The ex-werewolf and the bookworm. Alyssa is alive, but might not stay that way- she's in a hospital bed minus a limb. And she was one of the lucky ones.

So now it's up to us to find Julie. You know, before the moon rises again.

We're leaving now- according to the signal on the ankle bracelet, she's somewhere in Greenpoint.

It's been a while since I've been this scared, but I have an idea.

I gotta go now and load up the shotguns.

Christ, I hope it works.