The town was eerily empty. A newspaper fluttered by Joshua Montgomery as he walked, his bare feet protesting the strain of having to be walk from the forest to the town for a mile on hot pavement. He swept his hair away from his forehead as he picked up the newspaper, which had caught his attention with the snappy headline of, Rabid animal attacks middle school students. He glanced over it, by now too tired to read. Something about an animal that had gotten into the school and killed five students. Witnesses described something bipedal, large, brown and furry, with the head of a wolf, but no one had any clue what it could have been. Bear didn’t fit the description; it wasn’t bulky enough for that, even though it had been bipedal. A tiger or other cat didn’t fit, and besides, the only predators around here were coyotes, and the town was big enough that everyone knew each other, and no one had any wild animals for pets. Even if it had come from out of town, surely there would have been previous news about a loose predator.

Josh tossed the paper away, and continued his walk. His house was up the street, and he could see it now. A cop car sat outside it, likely looking for Josh…he pushed away the thought that they were looking for him as a killer, and settled that they were looking for him because he had gone missing.

When he got to his house, he trudged up the front steps and inside.

“Joshua?” A cop was standing feet from the doorway, looking very concerned. He then rushed to the thirteen year old, kneeling down to his level. “Are you okay?”

“Muh,” Josh muttered, shaking his head. “Tired. My feet hurt.” He felt like crying again. He sniffled heavily, and a strange smell came to his nose. Like blood. “What’s that smell?”

The cop sighed sadly, leading Josh to the kitchen. He ignored the young teen’s question. “Let’s get you off your feet.”

As they walked, Josh glanced to his living room, where there were two black bags on the ground. The smell seemed to be coming from there. Josh wasn’t stupid, however. He knew those were body bags. “My…where are my parents?” Josh asked, moving away from the cop.

The cop’s face, although trying to maintain a neutral demeanor, suddenly turned very sad. The sight of this thirteen year old kid, wearing torn up clothes and on shoes, who looked like he had spent weeks in the forest, this kid who was about to cry, made him lose that demeanor. “I’m sorry, Josh, but you’re parents…are dead.”

Although Josh had partially already realized it upon seeing the body bags, the words hit him forcefully. Now the tears, that he had been hiding for hours, finally came out of him. “But..what…what happened?!” He wailed, looking up to the officer for answers. “And that…the smell, is that…” Then he realized it. It was the same smell that had been on him, on his clothes. Blood. Death. Fearfully, he looked down at his own clothes which were stained with the blood of his classmates. And he was just now realizing this, he wondered as shock was starting to set in. Something…

Josh tore away from the cop, who yelled at him to stop. Josh ran to the living room, and took a good look at it.  Not only were there body bags, but there was blood covering the carpet, the furniture, the walls, and not only blood, but organs.

Oh God…did I do this too?! Josh wondered, staring at the scene with fascination and horror. Tears still falling, but ignoring them, he turned to the cop who showed up behind him. Josh suddenly felt so small compared to what was going on around him. The deaths, the cops, him, being covered in blood, knowing the smell, knowing that he could have killed his parents…

He threw his head back and screamed.

*     *     *

Joshua woke up in a hospital bed.

He jolted upright, looking around frantically. The room was empty except for him. He was hooked up to stuff, but he only recognized the IV drip going into his arm. His feet hurt, as did his head. He was wearing a hospital gown, thinking Oh man, someone undressed me! What had happened?

I must have fainted or something, he figured. It was the only explanation. After all, he’d witnessed quite a few horrible things in the past day. Or had it been days? He wasn’t too sure. He’d turned into a werewolf one day, woke up in the forest perhaps the same day or the next, and now was here, which could have been the same day, a different day, or maybe even a different week. Looking out the window, he could see that it was night. Then he searched for a clock. There was one sitting on a stand next to him, which had the date as well.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself. “If I went to school on the 14th and today is the 15th, then…” Then I killed everyone yesterday, woke up in the forest today, fainted today, and it’s now ten at night. As things clicked, he wondered just what the hell was going on. Everything had hit him so fast. All right, so he was a werewolf. He could get that. He’d killed people. Okay. He may have killed his parents. That wasn’t okay. But if he did, why no memory of it? He recalled killing his classmates, but not his parents. But if he didn’t kill his parents, then by the looks of it, that meant another werewolf, or something just as bad (or worse) had killed them.

This made things even more complicated. If he was a werewolf, then he could guess his changes weren’t just controlled by the full moon. His first had been incredibly random and during his math class during the day. So…what if his transformations were random, and he couldn’t predict them? If that was the case, then he was utterly screwed, and he knew it.

Josh banged his head against the wall. This wasn’t going to end well at all…

*     *     *

“How did my parents die?” Josh asked the cop, the same one from yesterday, who was sitting with him. Josh was eating lunch in his hospital bed. The cop had come to ask him some questions, and also give him some answers.

“Josh, don’t you want to-”

“No. Tell me how they died,” he said calmly, eyes boring into the cop. “Please.”

“We suspect it was an animal attack.”

“What kind of animal?”

“We don’t know. But whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t native, and sure as hell wasn’t a bear.” Or a cat or anything else for that matter. No one knew what it was.

“Was it the same thing that attacked the kids at school?”

“We think it was a different one. The one that killed your parents was bigger, judging by the footprints it left. But, honestly Josh, can we get off your parents for a while? I’m sure it hurts you to talk about them.”

Yes, it did. But considering he had so much more to worry about, he could talk about them for a while and not get too riled about them. For now. Josh nodded, and the cop, whose name, at least according to his little name tag, claimed Watson.

Watson, Josh though. That was creative.

“So how did you get in the condition you were when you arrived home?” Watson asked, pulling out a small tape recorder.

“I ran from school. I was scared, and just ran,” he lied. I killed everyone and burst through a window and escaped to the woods. He looked away, voice getting thick with emotion. Whether or not Watson could tell he was lying was beyond Josh, but his actions would hide that hopefully. “I don’t know. I guess I got exhausted and wound up in the woods.”

“Did you get attacked by the animal? Your clothes had blood on them from your classmates. Did you get close to the thing while it was…killing the others?”

“I don’t know,” Josh said quietly, looking at the floor. He didn’t want to talk about this. What he wanted to do was figure out why in the world he had turned into a werewolf, when he was going to do it again, and how he could stop it and save the lives of his next victims before they became werewolf food. He forced back tears. “I just woke up missing my shoes, in the woods.”

Watson frowned. It was clear he wasn’t going to get much from Josh right now, but the police needed as much information as they could get, especially in this curious case of the kid who had emerged from the woods looking like an attack victim himself, with little memory of what had happened. “All right then, Josh. We’ll pass over that for now.” He wondered what he could ask without getting Josh even more upset. “Do you want to talk more later?”

Josh nodded, just wanting Watson to leave so he could wallow in his own thoughts and figure this all out, or at least as much of it as he could.

Watson left a few minutes later, and Joshua laid back in his bed. Closing his eyes, he wished things could just be normal again.

But such wishes at such times as this were not when wishes came true.

Josh had dozed off five minutes after Watson left, but woke up shortly after when he felt his arm itching insanely. Groaning, he reached over sleepily to scratch at his arm. His eyes bolted open when he felt thick fur in the area.

Oh no.

Josh held his arm out in front of him, shocked to see that it was shifting. He was changing, shifting into his werewolf form, in the hospital of all places.

He held back a scream, tearing the IV out of his arm and ignoring the pain. Josh got out of bed, but toppled with the effort of trying to stand as his legs and feet changed into the digitigrade feet of his wolf form. His claws dug into the ground, making him whine. Again, there was no pain, merely the itching and pressure of his bones changing. That, and the melting away of his sanity, which was turning into…hatred, anger, a thirst for killing…

And then…

He was on his feet in one swift movement, scenting the air. So much sickness here, so much pain and death. This was no place to find a challenge, because everyone was handicapped or about to die. But he was imprisoned here, and he had to escape. Baring his teeth, he swung his heavy head towards the window, where the sun shined in. Then he looked to the door that led out into the hall. Risk jumping from four stories, or risk being bored and assaulted by the sick smell of ailing humans. He didn’t have too much of a choice. He had to get out of here either way.

Josh stalked over to the window, placing his pawhands against the glass and looking down. He could survive a two story drop, but he wasn’t so sure about this one. He jerked his ears back, his nose twitching. A knock on the door followed a second later. His name, but he didn’t quite connect it at that point. A growl rumbled in his throat, and he moved towards the door. His eyes flew to the doorknob as it started to turn.

As soon as the cop walked in, Josh vaulted from where he stood, using his weight to topple the cop, whoever he was. Not Watson, Josh knew that. Not that he cared. The cop struggled and managed to grab his gun. Josh felt something punch into his stomach, but he threw the feeling away. No pain, no worries. He opened his mouth and clamped down in the cop’s neck, tearing out his windpipe. He stood with the cop still dangling in his jaws, and glanced down the hall to where several nurses were staring at him in astonishment of this creature that had burst from the young patients room.

Joshua threw the cop into the wall, where the body hit and landed with a dull thud. The child-turned-werewolf started off towards the nurses. No challenges here, but he would tear through whoever was in his way. Best to save his energy for better kills, that was for sure.

The nurses scattered, screaming, and Josh let them go. He had other things to worry about, like how the hell he was going to get to a lower level when there were elevators everywhere, but he couldn’t seem to find any stairs.

No problem, his now sadistic mind hissed. We’ll take the elevator and give every on the first floor a bit of a surprise. Smiling with his many teeth bared, he stalked to the nearest elevator and jabbed at the down button with a claw. It lit up and the whirring of the elevator reached Josh’s ears. Still grinning savagely, he watched the elevator ding and the doors open. He stepped inside, and hit the button for the first floor.

It dinged again, and the doors slide open.

The brown beast stepped out of the elevator with a roar, glaring at the cops who were now huddled in front of him, ready to fire. Josh snorted, knowing the police would pose no threat, and neither would their guns.

He leapt upon them like a hellhound, claws and teeth slicing and slashing, spilling the blood he wished he could spill in a better fight, something that wouldn’t be merely a massacre…

*     *     *

He paced into the woods where he had gone after the killings at the school. Settling down, he wondered what he was to do now. Remain here, and wait for a challenge, or seek it out? But, then again, the cop had mentioned another killer, maybe another werewolf. He could seek him out. There would be a challenge. Yes, a true challenge. After all, he didn’t care what he fought, as long as it didn’t bore him like these humans did.

He grinned darkly, settling into the leaves. He curled into a ball, his tail pressed against his legs. Lifting his head, Josh opened his bloodied jaws and howled to the bright sky above.