Keen Senses

With my eyes closed, I inhale through my nose. I smell something bitter. Something that makes my mouth water. Metallic in my mouth and delectable. I smell and taste blood. The body must be close. I keep my eyes closed, afraid to open them and face the world around me. I hate this part of my job. Having to break the news to the families that are holding out for good news. This body has been lifeless for almost a week. The blood smells fresh but cold.

“Leah?”

Officer Jennings is right behind me. He sounds hopeful but scared. He doesn’t want to know the truth. But just like I must tell my other clients, Leroy Jennings is not exempt. His friendship means the world to me and the news I am about to give him will break his heart.

“The body is about a hundred yards ahead,” I say solemnly. I watch the color drain from his face.

“Take me to her. Please, Leah.” Officer Jennings begs, his voice cracking.

I take him to the lifeless, once beautiful body of his only daughter. Lizzie Jennings was once a bombshell. Though she was only sixteen, she looked to be in her early twenties. Poor Lizzie lay flat on her back on a pile of dried fall leaves. I don’t know if it is the impending winter or the screams of a father who lost his only daughter that sends a chill down my spine. I stay with Leroy until the coroner and buck up get to the scene. I don’t need to look at the body to know that Lizzie was attacked. I don’t have to see Lizzie to know that something or someone has cut her throat from ear to ear. I can feel it. I can see it even with my eyes closed. I have uncanny abilities. I can see, hear, taste, feel, and smell things that most people can’t. I have been helping the Detroit Missing Persons Task Force for about a year. I have helped save many lives, but I have also seen many families torn apart.

When the woods became congested with law enforcement, I made my exit. I placed my hand on Leroy’s shoulder and he grabbed my hand. We silently say our goodbyes and I head home. This murder shakes me to my very core because of how close to home it is. I live five hundred yards from the scene. I reach my cabin, pull the hide-a-key out of the flowerpot, unlock my door, then stick the key back into the soil. The chill I get when I walk through my door reminds me that I need to get some heat going. I grab two large logs from the pile of firewood in the back of my cabin, place them in the fireplace, and light them with my dad’s old Zippo.

“God, I miss you, Dad,” I say to myself as I put the lighter on the mantle. I take a moment to reminisce about my father. He left my mom and I when I was thirteen. I didn’t know why, and mom could only reply with ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’. I have not been the same since he left. I always did, and still do, think that its’ because of me. I was a bad daughter. Why else would my own mother kick me out when I was still growing up? When I still needed her. I have since concluded that I don’t need anyone. Apart from Leroy Jennings, I really have no one in my life.

I open a bottle of wine, the crappy kind you get from a gas station. Not entertaining the idea of using a glass, I drink straight from the bottle. Why not? It’s just me here. I take my hair out of its messy bun and let it flow down my back, tossing it a little to move it out of my face. I move over to my brown leather loveseat, take another swig of wine, and set the bottle on the table beside me. Letting my mind wander, I am reminded of the first time I met Leroy. It was about a year ago, the year 2020. I walked into the gas station in a daze, my face, hair, hands, and clothes were covered in blood. I did not remember at the time how that happened. The gas station attendant had called the police when he found me covered in blood. By the time I got out of the shower, a plump police officer with a terrible receding hairline was outside the door.

“Miss, you are not in trouble, I just want to talk to you. Can you follow me, please?” The officer said gently. I was confused. How did I get here? Why am I covered in blood? Why is this officer talking to me? I don’t think I did anything wrong.

I followed the officer to his cruiser, my damp hair framing my face. It was at least four inches shorter than it is now. The officer looked at me with a very concerned look on his face. There was something I could feel about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on at the moment. Then it hit me.

“Miss, I am Officer Leroy Jennings of the Detroit Metropolitan Police Department. Can you tell me your name?”

“You’re looking for someone,” I state. “Young girl, short brown hair…”

“How can you possibly know that? And why are you covered in blood? Are you hurt?”

“Follow me.” I take him to the woods, nearly a hundred and fifty yards behind the gas station. There, laying in the crispy grass of a mid-January day, was the girl. Fifteen years old, a look of pure terror on her face, throat slit from ear to ear, just like the girl I would find nearly a year later.

“Cora, you better get everyone to my location now. Beth has been found! And call a coroner!”

Leroy looks at me in disbelief. He thinks that I murdered her.

“Before you say anything, I live half a mile from here, in a cabin in the woods, and I was walking to the gas station to take a hot shower when I smelled the blood. I tripped over her while I was running.”

“Why are you living in the woods? It isn’t safe, especially for a young woman like yourself.”

“My mom kicked me out four years ago. I was sixteen. She was drunk and tried to accuse me of trying to kill her. I haven’t seen my mother since.”

I am pulled back to reality suddenly by a knock on my door. This startles me. I cautiously make my way to the door, but not before grabbing the fireplace poker to protect me. Something smells familiar.

“Tell me who you are!”

“Leah, open the door, please! I need to talk to you!”

“Mom?”

I wrench the door open and there stands my mother. She has not aged a day and I am reminded of how much I look like her. Her pin-straight black hair, the golden eyes that so much resemble honey. She is only a couple of inches shorter than I am. I get my height from my father.

“You get drunk and accuse me of trying to kill you, then kick me out when I needed you the most, and think that I’m just going to let you in my house?” I say, heated and appalled at the same time.

“Please, Leah. I swear I will explain everything. It is time.”

Against my better judgment, I let my mother in, close the door, and offer her the loveseat to sit on. It is then that I really take her in now that I can see her in the light of my cabin. She is dirty and disheveled. She appears to be homeless, the way that her clothes are torn, red dirt under her fingernails. Or is that blood?

“Mom, how did you find me?”

“I followed your scent. My senses are not as strong anymore. Not as strong as yours are, that’s why it took this long to find you.”

“Mom, you’re not making any sense. Are you drunk?”

“No, I swear I have not had a drop. I am sober.”

I stare at her for a moment and realize she is telling the truth. She starts talking nonsense again and it is freaking me out.

“Mom, what are you talking about? What did you say about dad?”

“I said your father being what he is, and me being half, how could you not be like this?”

“Jesus, mom, you’re scaring me! Just spit it out already!”

“We are werewolves, dear. You, your father, and i. Well, I am half-werewolf.”

My ears start ringing and I am having a vision. I see poor Lizzie Jennings. She is running from something in pure terror. She is being chased by some kind of large black dog. No, she’s being chased by a wolf. A wolf with sleek black fur and golden eyes. The wolf knocks her down and slashes her throat with its four-inch, razor-sharp claw. The wolf drinks her blood. I snap out of my vision and the first thing I realize is that under mom’s fingernails is indeed blood. Lizzie Jennings’ blood.

“YOU KILLED HER?!”

“Honey, I couldn’t help myself! This is the last full moon of the year and the power is so strong!” She bursts into apologetic tears.

“Mom, you have to tell me why dad left. Now. Did you accuse him of trying to kill you as you did me?”

“No, Leah. It wasn’t like that! You see, three werewolves in the same household would not have been pretty. We wanted to keep our existence a secret and having that many of us in one house would have eventually given us up. We would have been killed.”

“Okay, I need a drink…” I grab the wine bottle and chug for several seconds before continuing. “So, why did you kick me out?”

“I knew you were getting close to your change. I knew it would be bad for the first couple of years. I had to let you go so that you could be free to experience your new powers without limits.”

I WAS SIXTEEN! And not to mention, I didn’t know what was going on with me! I thought you hated me. I thought I was a bad daughter!”

Both of us crying now, mom gets up from the couch and pulls me into a bear hug, sobbing into my shoulder.

“I am so sorry, Leah! You are not a bad daughter. You are my only child. My world! I didn’t want to let you go but I had to. I hope you can understand that.”

“I don’t understand anything right now,” I say, wiping my eyes. I am far from forgiving her for what she has done, but I am willing to sit down and talk to her for as long as she wants to talk.

“Please, please don’t turn me in. I feel so terrible. We have to get out of here. Out of the state. Just the two of us. We can track down your father and be a family again. What do you say?”

I look at my mom, in shock that she would actually bring this up. How could she murder my only friend’s daughter and then ask me to run away with her after having abandoned me four years ago? What in her right mind makes her think that I would do that? I pace the room several times before I dare answer her ridiculous request.

“Mom, if I go with you, I would be abandoning my only friend in his time of need. I can’t do that.”

“Leah, you are two weeks away from turning twenty-one years old. Twenty-one is when the change becomes complete. You will not be able to control yourself when you first change. What happens when you change and your friend comes over to find you hiding in a corner of the woods, ready to eat him?”

“Mom, you sound absurd!” I say with a laugh. Then I start to think. What if she’s right? My anger lately has really gotten out of hand. I thought I was just going crazy. I thought the stress of the job was making me lash out. What if the reason I am lashing out is that I am a werewolf? That does explain why all of my senses are heightened. God, I can’t think straight. I look at mom, then I look at the floor. I don’t feel the way I felt before. I don’t feel like she is lying. I can sense that she is genuine and that makes a part of me want to trust her.

“Please, Leah. I want us to be a family again. I want to be with you and your father again. I need you to trust me.”

Do I trust her? I don’t know. I am still hurt. I am still angry at her. However, I feel like if I couldn’t trust her I wouldn’t have let her in my house. I blink the tears out of my eyes and nod.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll help you find dad. But if you so much as give me a sliver of an inkling that you are deceiving me, I really will kill you.”

We both laugh. I abruptly stop laughing and she becomes worried.

“What’s wrong, Leah?”

“Well, I have to break Leroy’s heart again, mom. I don’t even know how to tell him.”

After careful consideration, I decided to call him. He doesn’t answer, so I leave a message. Just a few words, but I hope and pray they will be enough to cushion the blow. I say with a heavy heart “I got a tip on my dad…I love you.”

It kills me to know that I will never see him again, never talk to him again. I only hope that he finds someone to love once more. Nobody will replace his late ex-wife or his late daughter, but I can only hope that he finds someone who makes him feel as whole as he made me feel. I will never forget him.