Waiting for Moonrise

Reba traveled often for work. I knew that going into the relationship. But this trip was different, it wasn’t right. She was going to be away from home on her thirtieth birthday — on a weekend no less.

I called her boss to find out where she was so I could fly out and surprise her. For months I’d saved up to buy her the diamond bracelet she always eyed as we walked past the jewelers, and I wanted to give it to her on her birthday.

Her boss was confused. “Isn’t she home with you?”

“She takes these two-day trips all the time. You mean it isn’t for work?”

Her boss stammered a bit and said, “She takes those two days for…medical reasons.”

“What?” I asked.

“You know…bad cramps and such?”

“But that’s not when…,” I muttered to myself.

“I’ll pretend this conversation didn’t happen, since she’s the best salesperson we have, and I don’t want to have to let her go. Hope you find out what’s going on.” With that, her boss hung up.

I looked at the calendar on my screen. Her two-day work trips for the past eighteen months were regular…every twenty-eight or twenty-nine days. I added the date of her last menstruation and let the online calendar work out her expected cycles.

That’s when I saw it: she was always at peak fertility during her travel. Was she hiding from me to avoid pregnancy? She was on the pill, and I’d assured her that even though I want children someday, I would defer to her wishes.

It was time to do something I’d never felt the need to: I would look up her phone’s location. She — or at least her phone — was near the airport amidst the cheap hotels and long-term parking lots.

Her gift secure in my pocket, I left determined to find her. In the large circle that marked her phone’s location were three motels, two storage places and a long-term parking garage.

I eliminated the long-term parking first. As soon as I walked into the structure, I had no bars. That meant it wasn’t likely she was here. I drove through the motel parking lots slowly after that. No sign of her car. Just to be certain, I asked at the desks of all of them.

I went to the first of the two storage facilities. The gate required a code or keycard to open. I stopped beside it to walk around and look for her car, when the stereo in my car dinged.

It recognized the Bluetooth from her phone and asked if I wanted to connect. She was here…close. I tried calling her. I thought I heard her phone ring, but it could’ve been my imagination. When it went to voicemail, I hung up and tried texting.

After waiting for what felt like an eternity, I decided I had to do something. The fence was tall, but climbable. There was a section where the razor-wire top was missing. I hoped anyone seeing the car would see the “Moore’s Locksmith” signs on the doors and decide I was meant to be there.

Hoping for the luck of not being seen, I climbed over the fence into the storage yard. I stood silent for a moment, half-expecting a guard dog or security officer with a gun. When nothing happened except the sky darkening a bit during sunset, I walked to the drive between the storage buildings.

Her car was there, in front of a small unit. The unit door was locked by a deadbolt, easily picked. I opened the door to a scene that I was not prepared for.

Her clothes, shoes, phone, and overnight bag were stacked neatly near the door. At the rear of the unit, she sat naked, a chain bolted to the floor connected to a metal collar around her neck.

“Reba! What’s going on?” I asked. “I’ll get you out of here.”

The only other thing in the unit was a key hanging from the wall. It was easily within her reach, but I grabbed it anyway.

“No! You have to leave, Alex. You shouldn’t be here.” Her eyes shone in fear, and something else. “It’s starting, you have to go!”

I started to move to unlock the collar when she bared her teeth — fangs — and growled with an inhuman voice. “Go!”

I startled and stepped backward into the security guard I’d been worried about. “What’s going on here? Is this your little perv hideout? Don’t move. I called the cops.”

I turned to see that he had a pistol aimed at me. “No! I’m trying to free her.”

“Give me the key and kneel over there, facing the wall.” He snatched the key from me and pointed to a spot near the door.

Not wanting to get shot, I did as he said. When he moved toward Reba, I heard a snarl that didn’t make sense. I turned to see the open collar hanging from her neck as her face lengthened.

Her fine features turned rough, then canine. Her entire form changed with a sickening sound of bones changing shape, long fur growing from her entire body. The security guard stood in shocked silence for a moment before firing a shot at her, hitting her in the shoulder.

“No! That’s Reba!”

She responded with a yip followed by a deep growl. The security guard ran, dropping his pistol as he fled.

She was a large wolf, wild gold eyes fixing on me, blood dripping from the wound. She let out a low growl and stalked toward me, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the pistol.

“Reba, I know you’re in there. It’s me. I brought a birthday present.” I pulled out the box with the bracelet and opened it and set it on the ground facing her.

She sniffed at the box, then moved until her teeth were inches from my face. My body shook in fear as she sniffed at me and whined.

Something caught her attention, and she stepped over me, growling at the open door. I could hear the voices of someone talking on a radio.

Two police officers stepped in front of the door, their weapons drawn. “Sir! Call your dog off, or we’ll shoot!”

“She’s not—”

I was interrupted by her lunge at the officers, knocking them out of my sight. The sound of gunfire, yelps, growls, screams and finally silence kept me frozen where I knelt in the unit.

An unmistakable howl called out. I walked to the door and looked out to where the full moon rose over the city. I saw no hint of the police other than fired shells and some blood that shone black by the moonlight.

I wondered if it was safe to try to get out of the facility. She may still be Reba, but she was dangerous. I had just about decided to leave when she jumped down from the roof of the facility and stepped to me in the unit.

“Reba, I’m sorry.” She limped, bleeding from multiple wounds. “If I hadn’t come, you’d be okay.”

She nudged my hand with her nose and whined. I fell to sitting against the wall, and she curled up next to me, her breathing labored. I pulled out my phone and searched for an emergency vet in the area.

“Yes, is there any chance you could come to the Right-Price Self-Storage? There’s a…wolf here that’s been shot multiple times…. That’s right, a wolf. No, right now she’s half-sleeping with her head on my lap but her breathing sounds wrong.”

I finished up the call and set down my phone. “I’m sorry, Reba, but I need to go open the gate and wait for the vet. Wait for me.”

I stood and walked to the door. She whimpered and tried to get up but failed. A large bloodstain marked my leg where her head had been. “Just wait here, please.”

I walked to the gate and found it open, the police car stopped just inside it, the red and blue lights still flashing. The officers were nowhere to be found, nor was the security guard.

When I returned to my former spot, Reba pushed herself against me as hard as she could and licked my hand. The vet called out from the gate, and I yelled to tell her where we were.

Reba growled when the vet moved close. I spoke in soft tones. “It’s okay, Reba, she’s here to help. I’m right here, you’re going to be okay.”

She seemed to understand, and the vet began looking over her injuries and treating them in turn. It was while she was stitching up a gash caused by a shallow hit that Reba snapped and whined.

Her body began to shift again. Once more, the sounds of bones changing shape, the whimpers of pain, and I watched as the partially stitched wound lost the hair around it and stretched as her shoulders moved back to a normal configuration. The vet sat staring with the suture still in her hand, stunned.

When Reba was herself again, she began to cry. “I’m sorry, Alan, I’m sorry.”

“Not right now, Reba. I think the doc has a few more stitches to do?”

“I—I’m a vet, not a…she’s…but….”

“Please finish up.”

The vet nodded and finished what she’d been doing. “I was going to call fish and game to have them come pick up the wolf, especially when I saw that,” she said, pointing at the chain and collar. “But I think I know what that’s for now. I won’t say anything; no one would ever believe it anyway.”

I nodded. “I didn’t know until it was too late. The cops and the security guard…I don’t know what she…I mean, she wouldn’t, she’s not like—”

“I’m not like that,” Reba sobbed, “but the wolf is. How bad did I hurt you?”

“Y—you didn’t.”

She sniffled and sat up, looking pale and tired, then grabbed my leg where blood had soaked my trousers. “Your leg.”

“It’s your blood,” I said. “You came back and laid on my lap.”

“I feel dizzy.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” the vet said. She started to say something else, but her voice was drowned out in approaching sirens.

I helped Reba into her clothes, and we sat waiting for whatever was coming for us. Animal control, more police, and an ambulance all pulled into the storage facility, most of them heading for the office. One of the officers came into the unit, looked at the blood, the fresh bandages on Reba and the med kit sitting next to the vet.

“What happened here? Did the dog get you too?”

“It was a wolf,” the vet said. “Based on size, an adult female grey wolf.”

“We’ve got one officer says he was mauled pretty bad and the other had his hand chomped. They said they shot it several times, and the security guard said he had as well. Any idea where it went?”

“No, I scared it off,” I said. “It was already injured and limped off that way.” I pointed to the far end of the row of storage units.

“This was after it attacked the other officers?”

“Yeah.”

The officer looked around the storage unit and gestured to the chain and collar. “What’s this all about?” His hand rested on his pistol.

“It’s mine,” Reba said. “The unit, the chain, the collar…it’s all mine. Do you have a problem with the games I play with my husband?”

The officer swallowed hard and tried to look anywhere but at us. “No, no…you’re condults—I mean adults consent—consenting adults…you know what I mean.”

With that, the officer relayed where the wolf had gone — as best he knew — on his radio. “Do you need an ambulance?” he asked.

“No,” Reba answered. “My husband can take me. I’ll just leave my car here tonight. If you could, though, get the key for my collar back from the manager? I don’t think he approves.”

“If I manage to, I’ll get him to leave it in your unit, if that’s okay.”

“Perfect,” she said.

We waited until the officer left, paid the vet and said our goodbyes, and I helped Reba to my car. “Hospital?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Moonrise is in another fifteen or so hours. Two moons, every time. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to get you home, feed you, give you some rest, and be there for you when you change and when you change back.”

“But what if I hurt you?”

“You won’t. You didn’t. There’s still enough of you in there to realize who I am.”

It was as I was pulling into the garage that the thought hit me. “What about the people you bit? Will they turn into…?”

“Werewolves? No. It’s a recessive gene. My great-grandmother had it, and one of my aunts does.”

“That’s why you don’t want to have children?”

“That, and I don’t want to accidentally eat one of them.”

“We could adopt. And we can work out a better place for you to be safe.”

“Can we talk about this another day? I hurt all over and I’m not looking forward to all these bullet holes moving around when I change tonight.”

“Sure.”

I helped her into the bed, ordered takeout, and watched silly movies next to her while she slept, waiting for moonrise.