2: G****e Search: Man With Ears and Tail

“HOLY SHIT!” I stumble backward, nearly tripping, pointing at him with a finger. “What the—your EARS—and that’s a TAIL—you have a fucking TAIL!”

“Fuck,” he mutters and then louder, “FUCK!” and I’ve never heard him sound like this, his ears are flattening against his head like a guilty dog.

“You’re a—you’re some kind of—” I can’t finish the sentence because I don’t know what he is, my brain is offering up words like monster and creature and none of them feel adequate for what I’m looking at.

He advances toward me, every instinct in my body scream run, and I back toward the door but he’s faster, his hand shooting out to grab my shoulders, and I can feel the heat of his palms through my blouse. “SHUT UP! Someone will hear you—”

“Don’t TOUCH me!” I shove him hard, and I’m running on pure adrenaline now, the kind that makes people jump out of burning buildings, and he actually stumbles back a step, surprise flashing across his face. “You—you—WHAT ARE YOU?!”

“You need to calm down,” his voice drops into this dangerous growl that resonates in my chest, and it’s not human, nothing about that sound is human. “Right now.”

“CALM DOWN?” I’m hyperventilating now my breath coming in short gasps that make my vision swim. “You have a TAIL! And EARS! And—and—” I can’t even make my mouth form words that explain what I’m seeing, so I do the only logical thing, which is turn and run.

I slam through his office door so hard it bounces off the wall, and I’m sprinting down the hallway, I can hear him curse behind me but he doesn’t follow me, Thank

God

I jab the elevator button frantically, hitting it over and I’m praying to a God I don’t believe in, please, please, please let the doors open.

They do, thank God or the universe or whoever is in charge of elevator timing, and I throw myself inside and I risk one look back down the hallway. He is standing in his office doorway, and the tail and ears are gone, just gone like they were never there.

“Holy shit,” I whisper to myself as the elevator doors close, and then again, louder, “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” My hands are shaking so badly that I drop my phone and watch it skitter across the elevator floor, and when I pick it up there’s a new crack across the screen joining all the old cracks.

The elevator is descending too slowly, each floor taking approximately one eternity, and my brain is trying to offer explanations like hallucination and exhaustion and maybe that Chinese food was bad, except I know what I saw, I saw those ears and that tail and those glowing eyes, and no amount of bad beef and broccoli explains any of that.

The lobby is empty except for Morris, the night security guard and he waves at me from his desk. “Burning midnight oil again, Ms. Voss?”

I try to act normal, which is impossible so what comes out is this high-pitched “Fine! Great! Just tired! Bye!” I sound deranged.

“You okay?” he calls after me. “You look like you seen a ghost.”

“Yep! All good! Have a nice night!” I bolt through the revolving doors and out into the dark freezing Seattle streets and I realize I left my jacket in my cubicle along with my portfolio, it has all my work and my only flash drive, but there’s no way I’m going back in there. Ever.

I walk fast, not really paying attention to where I’m going, and after about twenty minutes I end up at Pete’s Diner because it’s open twenty-four hours and I need to sit down before I collapse. I slide into a booth in the back and order coffee when the waitress comes over, and she gives me this look like she’s seen worse and doesn’t comment on my appearance, which is generous because I’m pretty sure I look like I’ve been through a war.

My phone is sitting on the table in front of me, cracked screen and low battery warning, and I stare at it for a long moment before I unlock it and pull up G****e.

“man with tail and ears”

The results are useless, just Halloween costume and anime cosplay

“man grows tail and ears real”

More useless results, Photoshop tutorials and conspiracy theory websites and I’m starting to feel stupid, like what did I expect to find, a Wikipedia article?

I try a different approach.

“werewolf real sightings”

This gets me mythology websites and movie reviews and CreepyPasta stories, and I’m about to give up when I see a result that makes me pause, a forum post and a Reddit thread called “r/Paranormal - Werewolf encounter” and suddenly my exhausted brain is alert again, my finger hovering over the first link.

The waitress returns with my coffee, and I mumble a thanks without looking up, and I click on the first website.

“Werewolves (Lycanthropes): Shapeshifters capable of human-wolf transformation.

Common traits: Enhanced strength, heightened senses, territorial behavior, pack hierarchy.

Transformation triggers: Full moon (myth), emotional stress (documented), physical contact with mate (rare).”

I stop breathing when I read that last part, physical contact with mate, and I scroll down quickly, looking for more information, and there’s a whole section about them.

“Mate?” I whisper to myself, and the word feels wrong in my mouth and no, absolutely not, there’s no way I’m anyone’s mate, especially not Mr Blackwood’s because that would be a joke of the highest order.

I open another tab and click on the forum, and the post is from six months ago.

“SIGHTING REPORT #4,592: Downtown Seattle. Large wolf-like creature dismissed as coyote by authorities. Witnesses reported creature walked on hind legs briefly before fleeing.”

I slam my phone shut so hard the people in the booth next to me look over, and I realize I said “No” out loud, and then “Nope” and then “Not happening” and I sound completely unhinged but I don’t care because this can’t be true, none of this can be true. I kissed my boss, my horrible awful terrible boss who apparently has a tail and ears.

The waitress comes back, and her name tag says Sharon, and she’s probably in her fifties with tired eyes and bleached blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, and she refills my coffee without asking and says, “Honey, you look like you’re having a crisis.”

“Do you believe in werewolves?” I ask, and I’m not sure why I’m asking this random waitress.

Sharon doesn’t even blink, just keeps pouring coffee and says, “My ex-husband was one. Bastard never did dishes, blamed it on ‘wolf instincts.’”

I stare at her, waiting for her to laugh and tell me she’s joking, but she just caps the coffee pot and walks away, “You’re joking, right?”

She looks back over her shoulder and shrugs. “Of course I’m kidding sweetheart.”

Wait does it mean I have to quit?

I think about my first day at Lunar Corp.

Lunar Corp was one of the biggest tech companies in Seattle, specializing in marketing solutions, and they had two thousand employees spread across fifteen departments, and somehow, miraculously, they wanted me.

I was hired as a Junior Graphic Designer on the Marketing Creative Team, which sounds impressive until you realize that there are twelve other junior designers and no you are not special and my salary is 52,000$ a year, which barely covers rent in Seattle, especially after I factor in student loans and credit card debt.

My typical day starts at seven AM when I arrive at the office and the first thing I do is coffee runs for the senior designers who treat me like their personal assistant. Then there’s the team meeting at eight where Dante, my supervisor, presents my ideas as his own and takes credit for my work.

I spend nine to noon actually designing, getting interrupted constantly by revision requests and Dante asking me to fix his computer problems, and then I have exactly fifteen minutes for lunch which I eat at my desk while answering emails.

The afternoon is more of the same,more revisions and at five PM everyone else leaves, heading home to their apartments and families and normal lives, and at five oh-one I’m still at my desk because there’s this unspoken requirement that junior designers stay late, proving their dedication or their willingness to be exploited, I’m not sure which.

Some nights I leave at seven or eight, other nights I’m there until eleven or midnight, and it all depends on whether my bosses decides to tear apart my work and demand something new by morning.

And now I know why Mr Blackwood never seems to leave the office, why his lights are always on no matter how late I stay, why he moves so smoothly and quickly and why his eyes sometimes seem to catch the light wrong.

Because he’s not human.

I check my phone and see it’s almost one thirty in the morning and I need sleep and to pretend for a few hours that none of this happened.

I leave cash on the table and I walk out into the drizzle and catch a bus that takes me across town to my neighborhood which takes another twenty minutes, it is the kind of area real estate agents call “up and coming” but really means “not actively dangerous but don’t walk alone at night.”

My apartment building is a pre-war structure that definitely didn’t pass its last safety inspection, and by the time I’m climbing the four flights of stairs to my apartment because the elevator’s broken again, I’m ready to collapse.

Inside my apartment, I don’t even bother changing out of my work clothes, just kick off my heels and collapse onto my bed.

I set an alarm for the next day and then I let my eyes closed.

I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep when my phone starts ringing, the sound cutting through my dreamless sleep, and I fumble for it on the floor.

I manage to grab it and squint at the screen through eyes that feel like they’ve been glued shut, and what I see makes my heart stop and then start again, pounding hard against my ribs.

“BLACKWOOD, R. - CEO”

The ringing stops and I breathe out, and then immediately it starts again.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​