“That’s, uh, good to know. So . . . what are you, exactly? Are you a werewolf, too?”
“I’m a weresquirrel, sir.”
“When the full moon rises, you turn into a squirrel?”
“Yes.”
“A squirrel with buck teeth with a big fluffy tail?”
“That’s the one.”
Weston wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or not.
“Do you shrink? Or stay full size?”
“Full size.”
“And you eat people?”
“No, sir. Not all therianthropes are carnivores.”
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you do when you change?”
“I hoard nuts.”
Weston chose his next words carefully.
“Are they . . . evil nuts?”
“Sir, I’m going to put your sarcasm down to you being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, so I’ll ignore it. Are you interested in getting help for your therianthropy?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Zela.”
“Let me check the meeting schedule. Okay, today, at noon, there’s an SA meeting at Saint Lucian’s church in Schaumburg, approximately ten miles northwest of you. The secret word to gain entry is Talbot.”
“What’s SA?”
“Shapeshifters Anonymous.”
“So I just go there, and they’ll let me join them?”
“If you give the secret word. Yes.”
“Do I have to bring anything?”
“Donuts are always nice.”
“Donuts. I could bring donuts. Will you be there tonight, Zela? I can bring some with peanuts on them.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, sir, but I live in New Jersey. And I also think you’re kind of a schmuck. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“No. Thanks, Zela.”
“Thanks for calling the hotline.”
Weston hung up, ending what was easily the most surreal conversation he ever had in his life. An hour ago, he’d been a normal guy with some odd bowel movements. Now, he was 99 percent sure he was some sort of therianthrope.
But what kind?
He went back to the sofa, picked up some of the hair. Long, grayish, fluffy.
Was he a weresheep?
No. He ate people. Had to be a carnivore of some sort.
So what gray animals ate other animals?
Wolves, obviously. Coyotes. Dogs. Cats. Were elephants carnivores?
The Internet told him they were herbivores, which was a relief. But then Weston thought of another gray carnivore.
Rats.
Weston didn’t want to be a wererat. He hated rats. Hoarding nuts was one thing. Swimming in the sewers, eating garbage and feces and dead animals, that was awful. He held his armpit up to his face and sniffed, seeing if he could detect any sort of sewage smell. It seemed okay. Then he checked the time and saw he had two hours to get to the SA meeting. So he hopped in the shower, dressed, and got on his way.
It had snowed during the night, making Naperville seem even more Winter-Wonderlandish. The cold felt good on Weston’s bare face. He attributed the slight fever to his condition: Google told him wolves had an average body temperature of 100.5.
His first stop was Dr. Waggoner’s, to pick up the silver cross. Weston didn’t want to keep it for himself, but it was evidence of a murder, so it was best to get rid of it.
The nurse handed it to him in an envelope.
“Are you going to put it on?” she asked, eyes twinkling.
“Not right now.”
But when he stepped outside, he did open the envelope to take a look. It was, indeed, silver. But all of the movies, all the books, said silver killed werewolves. Weston took a deep breath and dumped it into his palm. It didn’t burn his skin. Or was that only with vampires?
He was bringing it up to his face, ready to touch it to his tongue, when he remembered where it had been. Besides, it had already passed through his system without killing him. Obviously the legends were wrong.
He tucked the cross into his coat pocket and walked into town, toward the bakery. On his way, he passed a man dressed as Santa Claus, ringing a bell for some charity. Thinking of the cross, Weston approached and dropped it in the steel collection pot.
“Beware,” Santa muttered, voice low and sinister.
Weston wasn’t sure he heard correctly. “Excuse me?”
“There’s a killer on the loose in Naperville.” Weston could smell the NyQuil on Santa’s breath. “Not an ordinary killer either. Only comes out when the moon is full.”
“Uh, thanks for the warning.”
Weston began to walk away, but Santa’s hand reached out and snatched his wrist, pinching like a lobster claw.
“Naughty boys get what they deserve,” Santa intoned.
“Okay . . .”
Santa’s eyes suddenly lit up, burning with some internal fire.
“They will be torn limb from limb! Their heads severed from their unholy bodies! Burned to ash on sacred ground! BURNED! BUR-RRRRRRRRNED!!!!! ”
Weston pulled free, then walked briskly to the other side of the street, badly shaken. What kind of charity allowed cough syrup-crazed psychotics out in public? Wasn’t there some kind of screening process for volunteers?
He glanced once over his shoulder, and Psycho Santa was talking on a cell phone, still pointing at him like Donald Sutherland at the end of the first Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake. It gave Weston the chills.
The uneasy feeling stayed with him all the way up to Russoff’s Bakery, where he bought a dozen assorted donuts and a black coffee. When he stepped back onto the street, Weston considered taking another route home so he wouldn’t have to see Looney Claus again, then chided himself for being afraid. After all, he was a werecreature. What did he have to fear? If that Santa was really a bad person, chances were good that Weston’s inner therianthrope would eat him tonight during the full moon. Weston allowed himself a small smile at the thought of seeing a white beard in his toilet tomorrow morning.
So he steeled himself, and walked the regular path home. But when he passed the spot where Psycho Santa had been, he saw the volunteer was no longer there. Crazy Kringle had packed up his charity pot and left.
Weston walked to his apartment parking lot, hopped into his car, spent a minute programming his GPS, and headed for the suburb of Schaumburg. During the drive, he tried to get his mind around the events of the past twenty-four hours. But he wasn’t able to focus. He kept seeing Santa’s face. Kept hearing his threats. Once, in the rearview mirror, he swore he saw someone several car lengths behind him in a pointy red hat.
“You’re being paranoid,” he said to himself, refusing to drink any more coffee.
Just the same, he drove a little faster.
Ten minutes later he was at Saint Lucian’s, an unassuming Catholic church with a 1970s vibe to the architecture. It was orange with a black shingle roof, shaped like an upside-down V. Two large stained glass windows flanked the double entry doors, and a statue of someone, possibly Jesus, perched atop the steeple. There were only six cars in the parking lot, which Weston appreciated because he wasn’t good at remembering names, and no one would be short a donut. He parked behind an SUV and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. It was 11:46.
“Here goes nothing.”
Bakery goods in hand, he approached the double doors and let himself into Saint Lucian’s.
The church was dark, quiet. It smelled of scented candles, many of which were burning on a stand next to a charity box. Weston looked down the aisle, to the altar, seeing no one. Then he caught a handwritten sign taped to the back of a pew that read, SA MEETING IN BASEMENT.
He did a 360, opened a storage closet, then a confessional booth, before finding the door to the stairs next to a baptismal font. The concrete staircase wasn’t lit, but at the bottom he heard voices. Weston descended, the temperature getting warmer the lower he went. At the bottom he walked past a large furnace, down a short hall, and over to a meeting room.