“Investigators tell us the victims of these violent and grisly murders could only be identified through dental records… no suspects have been reported” the reporter on the television said with fear and trepidation in her voice. Selena could not bear to hear any more, so she quickly smashed her thumb against the power button on the television. Her world felt as if it were in a frenzy, and the last thing she needed clouding her mind was more reports on the murders that had been talked about every single day for the last four months.
Months ago, two of Selina’s co-workers were found murdered in the subway station. At first the news reported it as possibly a wolf or cougar attack. Selena found that to be ridiculous as there was barely any wildlife in the city as it is, let alone a wolf or cougar in the subway. The following month a hot dog vendor was found mauled, they concluded that he had died while he was closing shop. Again, they spun it as a ‘Wild Animal Attack’. A situation like this would have never been on Selena’s radar until three months ago, when she received the call.
"Hello, is this, Selena Haulson?” the man on the other end of the line had said. That question had rang through Selena’s head for the last three months. After that question was,it was as if a siren had been screaming in her ear. White noise ensued as she would then be told that she was being summoned to identify her older sisters’ body. Selena gazed upon the newspaper on her desk, the headline reading: ‘Wild Animal Attack Hits the Hat Trick’. It made her sick. Her sister had become another statistic, another headline, another victim.
Barbra, her saint of a sister. A woman some would say the opposite of Selena, was an activist and a figurehead for several charities. She did not deserve this fate Selena thought, it was not fair but then again none of this was, for her or the other victims. Selena used her paid vacation, and her boss was graceful enough to grant her an extra month with pay. It was clear these were not random animal attacks, there was a pattern and Selena had been determined to figure out who had killed her sister. Barbra’s head was completely turned around, her neck broken. Half of her rib cage broke in and her intestines and one of her lungs ripped out.
One month after the death of Barbra, a family of four had been slaughtered almost the exact same M.O. The news then announced that the mayor had set a curfew until they could figure out this ‘strange phenomenon’. Unfortunately, no leads came about, and Selena’s trail was as cold as the police’s. Being reminded by the television was the equivalent of having a corkscrew slowly digging into her heart. The announcement of the curfew had only enraged Selena. ‘Why couldn’t they make the curfew sooner?’ she thought to herself. She thought of it selfish but all she could think was had they acted sooner her sister could have at least been spared.
Selena realized she had to mentally regroup as her smoke alarm was blaring out of control. “Shit, the bread! Oh god please don’t be…” Selena began and then stopped herself as she opened the oven. She was making her family’s home-made banana bread recipe or attempting to anyway; it had been burnt to a crisp. Before a tear could even leave her eye, she chucked the burnt bread into the sink. She had been so entranced with the memory of her sister that she took her eye off the ball. This made her believe maybe Henry was right.
Henry was Selena’s fiancé and with the way things were going, possibly soon to be an estranged fiancé. The banana bread had been cooked as dessert for the meal she had made for her and Henry. Chuck steak with mushroom gravy, twice baked mash potatoes and asparagus. This was Henry’s favorite meal. The dinner would be a gesture of gratitude and forgiveness in Selena’s mind. He had been working longer shifts and since the death of her sister Selena noticed they had been slowly drifting apart.
The goal was to hopefully have a peaceful meal and talk their issues out. Selena felt as though she was not allowed to talk about the murders. Whenever the conversations came to light Henry became incensed. “Selena, I love you, I really do, but we have to move on with our lives!” Henry would say in a stern yet pleading tone. “But this obsession is tearing both of our lives apart, I mean look, the police already said it was a wild animal. What more do you want?” That is what Henry said to her several days ago and it had been echoing through her head. What more could she want?! She wanted answers, she wanted to know what really happened to her sister because she was not buying what the police were selling to the media.
Tonight was a new night though. It would be a fresh start, a way for her to cope and heal and move forward. Move forward with Henry and build towards the life she had always wanted, that they both always wanted. Selena looked at her watch and saw the time. It was fifteen minutes past the curfew, and Henry got off work an hour ago. “Where the hell is he?” Selena said to herself while sighing in a muffled manner. The dinner was on the table, she made sure to put tin foil over the plates to keep the food warm. Her pacing became frantic, and she became anxious as ten more minutes went by. Then twenty, then thirty…. Then another hour went by.
Selena was never one for being clingy or wanting to seem needy. But after everything she had been through and given the fact Henry was well over an hour late past the city-wide curfew, the circumstances were different. She was blowing his phone up worse than an insecure date on prom night. Fifteen different text messages and twelve calls later there was still no response. Doubt began to ensue in her mind. “What if he finally had enough? What if he finally was done with me? What if he met someone new?
Someone who wasn’t such a burden, someone that wasn’t so… damaged. These thoughts were being voiced inside of Selena’s head at what felt like a million miles an hour. Her shoulders postured up and down rapidly as her heart rate sped up and her breathing became more frantic. Anxiety, doubt, speculation, worry, anger, all were beginning to not only consume her mind, but her heart and soul. In a fit of rage, she chucked her cell phone with as much strength and aggression as she could muster. It cracked loudly against the brick fireplace.
With hot tears running down her cheeks she bolted to the bedroom, slammed the door and jumped into bed. Her face buried in her pillow muffled her cries. As she pounded her fist into the other pillows on the bed, she went to grab one to throw in a fit of rage until a strange texture entered her palm. Selena raised her head with the pillowcase slightly sticking to her cheek from the mess of tears.
Her palm lifted and stringing in between her fingers was stringy hair. The hair was dark brown, Selena was blonde. “That bastard! how could he- a metal clanking noise hit the floor under the bed. Each hand slamming into the bed as she crawled across the bed and leaned her head to look under. On the floor was a pair of silver handcuffs. Henry had been complaining as of recent about their sex life lacking. But handcuffs were never even mentioned, let alone used on Selena.
Selena Richards, the woman who once felt on top of the world, with a loving fiancé, a large house with a gated community, her dream job, and her sister always having her back. Now felt more alone than ever before with her sister dead and her beloved Henry missing or having an affair with God knows who. Her arms clenched tight around her body, as she sat on the edge of the bed, she began to rock back and forth, tapping her foot aggressively against the floor, grinding her teeth in hopes to drown out her thoughts. Suddenly a loud thud came from upstairs. The commotion instantly snapped her out of her anxiety and fear induced trance. Another thud followed by the sound of glass breaking.
With haste Selena went to the kitchen to grab a knife and made her way to the stairs. Each step she took made a slight creek in the oak wood floors; Selena was almost tip toeing just to avoid making any noise. After every other step a crashing sound erupted from the upstairs bathroom. Her heart was racing along with the crashing sounds there were yelps, growling noises, almost like an animal in pain. Her hand inching closer to the doorknob, the door began to bend outward as if something was running into it. The door was not more than a few inches away, but Selena was in a level shock so horrific it made time sit still.
Finally, she lunged her hand forward and ripped the door open. Spilling out of the door was Henry. “Henry what the HELL IS GOING ON?!” Selena’s voice boomed.” You son of a bitch! You think I would not find out?! The late nights? The HANDCUFFS? Whose hair is in our bed Henry? And what in god’s name are you doing in the bathroom? It sounds like you were fight- “. Selena nagged on until she was interrupted. “SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Henry bellowed with his distorted voice.
As he began to slowly crawl to the wall to pull himself up, Selena had noticed his appearance. The shirt torn in the front; blood blotched his once white button up shirt. His ear almost deformed and his hands with giant talon like nails protruding from his fingers. Henry’s neck stiffened as he slowly lifted his head and what Selena was witnessing was horror on an insurmountable level.
His jowls oozed with a thick yellow tainted saliva, the whites of his eyes began to vanish, and Henry’s shadow began to cloak Selena in shade as he grew in height. A screech of terror attempted to emit from her mouth, but it was as if her voice box was frozen solid. Her eyes grew in fear. The wall had massive lacerations emanating from Henry's Claws.
Selena stood petrified as she witnessed the man she had loved for years, was in fact no longer a man, but a beast. A fiend. Henry was seemingly a Werewolf, and no matter how much Selena’s now fragile state of mind wished she could awake from this bad dream, she could not. Reality was in front of her, and it stood at seven feet tall, greased, and mangy fur erecting from the epidermis, claws that would put a grizzly to shame.
This creature bellowed a ferocious roar into the face of Selena. To Selena his breath reeked of rotting meat and sour cabbage. “Henry please talk to- “before Selena could finish pleading to the man she once knew as Henry, the creature slashed forward tearing through her pants and lacerating her thigh.
Selena now seeing her own blood and feeling ungodly levels of pain had now snapped back into reality. She was no longer stuck in a whirlwind of emotions. Love had been replaced by fear, and now fear replaced by the will to survive and anger. No longer stood Henry, but now a beast and nightmarish creature with horrendous intent. Selena made haste and ran out of the bathroom and bolted down the hall to her bedroom and locked the door.
Her heart almost pounding through her chest, Selena ran to her bed and proceeded to rip one of her pillowcases. She used this torn cloth to tie around her leg to slow the bleeding. In a moment it felt as if time had slowed down, Selenas mind and heart was hit heavy in a moment of Clarity. “It was Henry…” she muttered to herself in a whimpering manner. “He wanted me to drop it…because it was him!”
Selena with scorching hot tears running from her eyes picked herself off the bed and surveyed the room. “Okay how the hell do I deal with a Werewolf?” Selena reached for her pocket only to realize it was empty, remembering she had broken her phone earlier in the evening in a fit of rage. She then limped to the window and opened it.
Upon opening it Selena realized there is no way that she could jump let alone shimmy down the side of this house. “HEEELLLLP , SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! CALL THE POLICE!” Selena’s voiced echoed through the cool night air, when suddenly a loud crack came from the locked bedroom door. Followed by the eeriest sounds of nail and sinew scratching down the wood of the door. A distorted voice came from outside the room. “Selena! Pllleaaaaase…. Please…it’s not… it’s not me.” It was as if Henry and the creature were both conflicted and pleading. Henry was eventually going to bust through the door, her only option was to fight.
In the corner of her eye, she caught the glimpse of light reflecting off something silver. “The handcuffs!” Selena said with some hope. She laid on the bed and kept the handcuffs in her palm hidden beneath the pillow. Selena was going to use herself as bait. “Come and get me my LOVE!” The creature busted through the door, no humanity or soul left to be found in red vascular eyes. His ears perked up, the creature went all floors and galloped full speed at Selena.
He leaped onto the mattress and hovered over his prey. “I love you, Henry!!!” Selena yelled out with a battle cry as she swung the ratchet of the cuff into the neck of the creature once known as Henry. The blood tinted with green began to spray like a geyser. Another swing, and another, penetrating the neck, and the wound getting bigger. Henry yelped and screeched as he began to convulse violently and rolled off the bed.
Selena brought herself back to her knees as she readied to pounce off the bed to finish the job. As she leaned over, she no longer saw this fiend, this murderous creature that took the lives of so many people, including her sister. She once again saw the lover of her life. Henry. She climbed down the bed. Selena then caressed his face, gently as he reached for her neck to pull her close. Selena reluctantly let him as she was now overcome by emotions and was sobbing uncontrollably. Henry managed to mutter something out while blood gargled from his mouth. “Not… wasn’t… me.” Henry began to violently convulse again, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and suddenly Henry stopped moving. Selena felt his body go instantly cold, and his skin become grey.
It was over, all the months searching for her sister’s killer had culminated tonight. The killer was there all along. Henry was the creature in the night, the one who broke curfews, the butcher of humanity. Selena had found justice for her sister, at the price of killing off the one person she had love left for in this world. Suddenly a loud knocking came from downstairs. “Oh, thank god” Selena said loudly. She limped out of the room with haste and the knocking continued. “Someone heard me yelling thank god... HEY STAY THERE I'M COMING… I NEED HELP”
Selena made it to the front door. “Please be the cops,” Selena thought to herself. Her blood covered hand slapped with a wet noise on the door handle and she twisted and swung the door open as fast as she could. What was behind the door is all that was needed to kill off the last bit of hope in Selena’s heart. In front of Selena Haulson were monstrosities that emanated terror that she had seen only once, but now saw two more times in what was left of her life. In her mind everything began to flash before her eyes, especially Henry’s last words “Not Me”. Selena realized what he meant now.
It was not Henry that killed Selena’s sister Barbra. But the two Werewolves that stood before her. Selena now accepted that she would soon be at peace…
“Barbra”
THE END
