HOWL - Hunter's Moon

OFFICE OF DR. THOMAS, PSYCHOLOGIST

FLATWOODS, KENTUCKY - PRESENT DAY

“...and then I woke up,” Haylee finished with a sigh. “It’s like...straight from a horror movie, Doc. In retrospect, I know it’s just a dream, but…-”

“-You feel as though it’s trying to tell you something,” Dr. Thomas responded.

“Yes! Exactly! Is...is that weird? I knew it was going to happen, but...I mean, they said that the readings…” Haylee’s voice seemed to blur as Dr. Thomas’s mind wandered elsewhere.

Dr. Sarah Thomas was a shapeshifter. Dr. Sarah Thomas was also an excellent psychologist, not to toot her own horn. And Dr. Sara Thomas, evidently, had a patient who was experiencing hallucinations as attributed to her PTSD…officially, anyway. Unofficially, it was quite clear to her the girl was a psychic, and she’d experienced quite a number of them in her lifetime, before, whether or not the individual was actually aware of it. Most of the time, humans would just brush off things and situations like this as mental illness...hence why she got to meet quite a few. In Haylee’s case, however...the girl’s visions and feelings were so strong and so vivid, it was difficult to attribute them to anything but what they were...but Dr. Thomas did her best to steer Haylee in the direction of blaming her PTSD, which she very much had, anyway, on top of her visions.

Briefly, she checked her phone and noted that Haylee had fallen silent, patiently waiting to be told their time was up. Their time was not, in fact, up. They’d only started about 20 minutes ago, but her phone had chimed with a message from an old friend. One whom she contacted on behalf of Haylee. All she responded with was, ‘On my way.’

“...Are we done already, Doctor?” Haylee asked hesitantly and Sarah Thomas turned her gaze to the pretty 28-year-old woman who was sitting up on her couch. The tone of her voice was reticent, almost embarrassed, but the look on her face was pure curiosity. Her green eyes were honest and open with her feelings, set into a face of softened angles and high cheekbones and full lips and a pixie nose, all of that on top of slender curves and a delicate but solid silhouette. With naturally heavy, dark brows and rich milk chocolate hair that seemed to still be recovering from sun-bleaching in Syria...to say that Haylee Marie Quinn was pretty was like...like calling a perfect sunset after a perfect date with the perfect guy ‘nice’.

Dr. Thomas flashed a kindly smile and offered a chuckle. “Nope. I still have you for another 40 minutes, Haylee. Not to worry.” She briefly wondered what kind of fun she could get up to in another town wearing Haylee’s face...not in a creepy way, but in a fun way, like how many drinks she could get out of every guy in a bar. Many of her brethren would use their powers for malice and evil, but Sarah was quite happy where she was, doing what she was doing in putting on the faces of their deceased loved ones and counseling their grief. Haylee, of course, had originally been her patient for grief counselling, but now her needs were different...and she felt as though she owed Haylee to take her on, considering all she’d seen the girl go through in her relatively short life. With a half-smile, she adjusted herself in her seat, finding it funny how easy it was to grow attached to these humans, and how often she found herself worrying over their wellbeing.

Haylee seemed to relax and give a slight laugh as she laid back on the lounge, then briefly sat back up to punch at the pillow behind her head, though there was never any real need for it. She’d learned, long ago, it was a displacement behavior for her own frustrations in herself and her situation. Sarah made another quiet note of it on her pad, then recrossed her legs, the bottom over the other, this time, and leaned forward slightly.

“Okay, so...tell me about the dogs.”

This startled Haylee and she looked over at Dr. Thomas with a strange surprise, and then a sudden distrust. How flimsy human trust was… “Your mother...she told me you’d been having dreams about dogs lately?” This didn’t seem to settle well with her, but, she could tell, the distrust was shifted to someone else. Haylee frowned as she finally settled, throwing an arm up behind her head, the other resting on her stomach.

“I...I don’t…,” Haylee started, and Sarah waited until her eyes turned toward a framed painting on the other wall before jotting down a few more notes and hitting the record button on her phone. The more evidence she gathered for her friend before she got here, the easier her job would be.

“It’s okay, Haylee. Take your time,” she said smoothly and smiled, knowing she’d peek from the corner of her eyes at the good doctor before she got up the courage.

Haylee swallowed.

Sarah waited.

After a long moment, she sighed and sat up suddenly, bowing her shoulders and suddenly very tense as she leaned over her knees, pulling them to her chest.

“That’s just it, Doc...they’re not dreams. Mom calls them dreams because she doesn’t even believe me half the time...what I’m actually going through. I think...I don’t think they’re visions, either...But….but God...they’re so real! They’re SO real...I could just reach out and touch one, but...but I’m…” Haylee began to shake as she spoke and Sarah’s eyes widened briefly, her brows rising. Whatever Haylee had been seeing, she was acting as though she’d come into contact with a real thing...which was why she’d called Dove, of course...just in case it was the real thing.

She let Haylee lapse into silence for a moment before she cleared her throat. “Remember, Haylee...you’re in a safe place. You can tell me anything. I promise you...I’m only here to help.” When Haylee looked back up at her, tears in her pretty green eyes, she felt her heart break a little for the girl.

Haylee nodded and sniffled before she continued. “Yeah…,” she mumbled, then cleared her throat. “At first, I would only see them at a distance...and I thought I must be hallucinating, you know? Just this blurry dog-shape...with these red eyes…” She curled tighter around herself before setting her jaw and turning her gaze to the coffee table on which sat Haylee’s abandoned mug of cocoa. “And then...one night, I went to take the trash out...because it was my turn. I got out there to the alleyway behind the house...and there was one standing there. It was still like...almost blurry, but I could see it. I could really see it. I was freaked out, but...I figured I was just having a bad trip, you know? And then...and then when it moved, it...it knocked over a trash can. That’s how I knew it was real. Staring at me with these...glowing red eyes...and it...it was hungry. I could feel how hungry it was. I dropped my trash and I ran back to the gate and I slammed it shut just in time. I could hear it barking as it banged against the gate and I could...I could smell it’s breath. Oh...God…” She shook on the verge of tears as she hugged herself tighter as Sarah stared, wide-eyed...hanging on Haylee’s every word...but she was silent.

“...And then what, dear?” she asked softly, gently. Haylee hiccupped and continued.

“...I went back in the morning. After it had gone. I’d…” At this, Haylee laughed, but it wasn’t a humorous one. It was full of derision and self-loathing. “I’d popped so many of those pills that night after I locked everything. And then...in the morning…” She became quiet again, but her tone was dead-serious. “I...went to clean up the alley...there was trash everywhere and just...it was a huge mess. Everything was clawed and torn apart...but the worst part? The absolute worst part?” Sarah still stared, waiting. She hadn’t realized her hand had crept up to her throat, or that it shook. Haylee lifted her hard gaze, tears dripping down her face.

“...The gouges in the wood...on the back of the fence gate. Solid. Hard evidence...that whatever it was...it was real. So real and so...hungry…”

Sarah’s pencil snapped in her hand at Haylee’s last word and she jumped, looking down at the crushed utensil in her palm. She hadn’t realized she’d been clutching it so hard, or how frighteningly real her story had been. It was quite clear to her, now, that what Haylee was experiencing wasn’t a hallucination brought on by PTSD or a vision or a dream...the things she was dealing with...they were very, very real.

Her phone graciously beeped again with another message from her friend. “Oh. Heh. Look at that. We’re out of time…,” Sarah said weakly, tapping a button to open up the message.

‘Meet me in 20 at our usual.’

She swallowed and forwarded the recording to Dove of Haylee’s story, then looked back up at Haylee as she stood.

“Sorry, Doc. I know I can get a little...intense…,” Haylee said lamely, offering a little smile. Sarah got to her feet immediately, setting her things aside.

“No! Hey, don’t worry about that, Haylee. Just...about your prescription…”

The look on Haylee’s face suggested she might have guessed this would come up in conversation, so she rolled her eyes a little and gave a short laugh. “Let me guess...you want me to take more?”

Sarah cringed inwardly, but kept her smooth, professional smile in place as she walked Haylee to the door of the therapy room.

“Ah...no, actually. I want you to ease up on them. If you can. Take them sparingly and only when you’re experiencing your symptoms when they’re...unrelated...to anything, okay?” She didn’t want to let Haylee know that the good doctor might know more than she was letting on. So she kept up the smile and before Haylee could respond, she pat her on the back briefly, then swept her into a hug. “You did good, Haylee. We’re making some progress. I’ll see you next week, okay?” Haylee began to protest as she was swept out of the door, but Sarah had little time and shut it behind her, flipping the lock.

Dr. Sarah Thomas was not cut out for dealing with these kinds of problems...it was why she had several friends on hand she could shunt the real problems onto. Speaking of friends, her phone began to ring. She picked it up and glanced at the frosted glass window of her door, waiting for Haylee’s shadow to retreat before she answered it.

“I listened to the video,” the hardline feminine voice said on the other end.

“Well? What do you think?” Sarah said shakily into the speaker as she turned around toward one of the windows, peeking through the wooden slats of the blinds, down at the parking lot. Haylee’s mother’s car pulled into a space close to the front door of her rented office.

“I think your girl has some problems...but I need more information. Bring her patient file with you.”

Sarah sighed and glanced down at her desk, which sat in the far corner. On top of all the other patient folders she’d pulled that day was Haylee’s file. She wandered over to it and tipped it open. Her photo, basic information, and original diagnosis stared up at her, though she knew that behind those pages were novels crammed with every vision, dream, and supposed hallucination she’d experienced in her lifetime. The sound of a car door opening drew her attention back through the slats and down at the parking lot, where Haylee was climbing into her mother’s car.

“Alright,” she answered finally, then flipped the file closed. “I’ll meet you there.” She disconnected as the car drove off, turned onto the street, then disappeared into traffic.

Dr. Sarah Thomas was many things. Astute psychologist. Talented shapeshifter. Gratuitous tipper. But Dr. Sarah Thomas was about to add one more thing to her list…

Dr. Sarah Thomas was in over her head.