Petoskey Highschool
Petoskey, Michigan
Friday, April 13th, 2018 – 3:30 p.m.

“Well, damn,” I muttered as I looked out the front doors of the school and at the pouring rain beyond. It was coming down in buckets, which was going to make walking home no fun at all. I hadn’t brought an umbrella, or even a jacket today since the forecast had called for clear skies all day long and it had been nice and warm when I had left for school.

The storm had come out of nowhere; it had been a beautiful day until lunch with no clouds in the sky and no rain in the forecast. That had apparently changed since it was raining cats and dogs outside. “C’mon, Feebs, I’ll drive you home and then head to work after dropping you off,” my brother’s voice offered from behind me as I dourly watched the rain. “I told you that you should have brought a jacket today.”

“Don’t call me that, I hate that name,” I grumbled in reply as I turned toward him.

“Hey, Runt, if I have to live with the name Robin Hood, then you can at least deal with being named Phoebe,” he teased as he placed a hand on top of my head. Unlike me, my brother was tall, six foot four, and one of the stars of the school basketball team. He was going to go to the local college and play for the Timberwolves after he graduated this year. I, on the other hand, hadn’t even reached five feet yet, but I was only fourteen so I was hoping that I still had some growing to do.

“I’m hoping that maybe I can get a nickname to stick,” I muttered in reply.

“Good luck with that,” Robin shot back before taking off the red hoodie that he was wearing and passing it over to me before picking his backpack back up. “Put this on, you’re gonna get soaked and catch a cold like that.” He wore hoodies all the time; he had them in a variety of colors and figured that with our last name, it was appropriate. Who could we laugh at if not ourselves?

I knew that he wouldn’t take no for an answer and I was secretly glad that I might be able to avoid getting too wet. I put down my backpack for a moment to pull the blood-red hoodie on, zip it up, and pull on the hood. It was like a dress on me, comically oversized, and it took a minute to roll up the sleeves enough that my hands could poke through to pick up my backpack again.

My brother stifled a laugh and I pouted as I muttered, “Yeah, I know, I probably look like that seventh dwarf. What was his name? Dopey?”

“Nah, it’s cute on you. C’mon, Red, let’s go home,” he offered with another laugh as he ruffled my hair through the oversized hood. Then he led the way through the parking lot, trying to shield me from the worst of the wind and rain until we were safely inside his beat-up Camry.

We were quiet for several minutes as he put the car in gear, drove us out of the parking lot, and then along a route that would take us home. “You’re quiet. Rough day, Red?” he finally asked to break the silence.

“It was school, so yeah,” I replied with a shrug as I thought about what he had called me twice now. He’d given me a lot of nicknames as we grew up, and this wasn’t as bad as most of them. It was certainly better than ‘Runt’, or calling me by my birth name.

“… Shit!” The curse cut off whatever he had been about to say in reply as something darted across the street in front of us. I only saw it for an instant; it was large, bigger than an average man, stood hunched but upright, and its silhouette didn’t look human.

Robin jerked the wheel to the side and slammed his foot on the brakes, trying to avoid a collision. It worked, somewhat. We didn’t hit the creature and it vanished out of sight as the car hydroplaned on the wet pavement and into the path of an oncoming truck. The last thing I saw before blacking out was the grill of the truck smashing into the driver’s side window.

I awoke in the hospital. I was there for four days recovering from the worst of my injuries, including a severe concussion and a broken leg. During that time, doctors and police officers had asked me what I could remember about the accident, but none of them believed me about the creature that had caused it and ran off. I was told that head injuries could sometimes affect memory.

I got out of the hospital just in time for the funeral, though I was wearing a cast on my left leg and needed crutches to get around. It was a closed casket affair; I guess that what had been left of Robin wasn’t a pretty sight. Not surprising, given the number of bruises, abrasions, and other injuries that I was sporting, and I hadn’t even been on the side creamed by the truck.

It was raining again that day, and I stood there for a long time with the rain mixing with the tears streaming down my cheeks. Even after everyone else had left, I just stood there sobbing as I stared at the fresh-turned earth on my brother’s final resting place. He had been annoying, overprotective, and often a pain in the ass, but he had also been my only sibling and I had looked up to him.

Had he seen what I had seen? Had I even seen it, or was the memory just made fuzzy by the accident like the doctors said? It didn’t matter either way when I thought about it. Whether it was real or not wouldn’t change what had happened.

Eventually, I felt a large hand on my shoulder and my heart clenched when I turned to find my father there instead of Robin, holding the umbrella that I had dropped some time ago. “Come on, Phoebe, you’re soaking wet. Let’s go home; you don’t want to catch a cold.”

He walked behind me and held the umbrella as I hobbled along on my crutches. In truth, I didn’t care though, I felt too empty inside to care. If he had just driven straight to work instead of driving me home first then he would still be alive. This was my fault.

When we got home and Mom offered to make something for dinner, I told them that I wasn’t hungry. Instead, I went to my bedroom and fell upon the bed, anguish tearing its way from my chest in breathy sobs. Eventually, I fell asleep while clutching the tattered remains of my brother’s hoodie. As I drifted off, his final words to me played back in my mind. “Rough day, Red?”

North Central Michigan College - Cafeteria
Petoskey, Michigan
Monday, October 10th, 2022 - 5:45 p.m.

“Mom, I can’t,” I said quietly into my phone, followed by a long sigh. “I’ve got midterms to study for and papers due.” Yeah, I was complaining, but it really was crunch time and as a freshman, I was still getting used to how much harder college was than high school.

“Phoebe Angel Hood! Your grandmother is sick and shaken up after being attacked by a wild animal! You can take time out of your schedule to go visit her and make sure that she’s doing alright!” I winced at my mother using my full name. I hated that name, nobody except my parents called me Phoebe anymore.

Of course, they couldn’t visit Grandma, they had decided to move down to Florida after I graduated high school, since I was ready to leave the nest. I guess that I couldn’t blame them. It had been four and a half years since Robin died and I still saw things that were a painful reminder of his absence. I imagined that it was even worse for my parents. With the house that I grew up in being sold, I was faced with two choices, live with my grandmother in the woods along Lake Michigan and an hour's drive away from school or find a cheap apartment off campus. I had chosen the latter.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Grandma or anything like that, but I was a city girl. The last thing that I wanted was to be living out in the woods away from civilization, and the commute would have been murder and cut into my study time. I had driven straight out there last night when she had called me in a panic after being attacked by a wolf while harvesting the vegetables from her garden, but that had been an emergency and it was Sunday, so there were no classes to worry about.

She had been bitten on the leg and scratched up a bit, but had managed to fend the lone beast off with the shotgun she kept with her when outside the house. Her wounds, even the bite mark, hadn’t looked deep or too serious and she had promised that she would come into town today and get tested for rabies. The call from my mother was to ask me to check on her again since she wasn’t feeling well and hadn’t come into town after all.

“Geez, Mom. Fine, I’ll go check on her, but I’m going to have to skip my Psych lecture tonight,” I told her with a frown. Not that missing a three-hour lecture on psychology was a bad thing; it was usually a snooze-fest, but I would have to get someone to let me copy his or her notes so I could study for the midterm. “I’ll talk to you later, Mom.”

I disconnected the call and put the phone back in my purse before hurrying to finish my meal. As I was doing that, my best friend and roommate, Carrie, gave me a sympathetic look. “You need me to make copies of my notes for you, Red?”

“Yeah, thanks, Carrie. Mom wants me to make sure that Grandma is doing okay.” I managed to get out between bites of my grilled ham and swiss on rye. I quickly finished it, followed by the last of my fries, occasionally washing the hurried mouthfuls down with my bottled water.

Most people who knew me called me Red now, only my parents or my professors ever called me Phoebe. No, not because I’m a ginger, my hair is black. You see, I had this habit of wearing red hoodies, in honor of my brother. I wore them, and the last nickname that he had given me, as a badge of honor of sorts. I had like a dozen in my closet, all of them the color of blood. It works well with the whole Goth/Punk thing I’ve got going on style-wise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all depressing or anything, I just like the style.

I still had the one from the day my brother died too, and it was still way too big on me. I may have grown out, but I hadn’t really grown up in all those years since his death. I was petite, barely five feet tall; though I guess, I had a nice curvy figure. As I said, I grew out, not up.

Once I finished my meal, I excused myself for a moment to go buy a coffee travel mug with the Timberwolves logo on it, which I filled with some hot chicken soup from the soup line. Then snatched a few pastries as well before paying and returning to the table that I had been sharing with my roommate and said my farewells to Carrie. “See you when I get home tonight, Care Bear, not sure how long that will be though if Granny is sick. I might have to stay the night out there.”

“Do what you gotta do, Red. I’ll copy my notes for tonight’s class for you,” she replied, hugging me.

“Thanks, Care Bear,” I replied, returning the hug before putting on my hoodie and putting my purse and the pastries in my backpack before shouldering it. Once both were on comfortably I grabbed the travel mug of soup and left the cafeteria to go find my car and make my way west out of town and toward my grandmother’s house on the lakeshore.

I turned off Highway 31 North onto the access road that would lead me to my grandmother’s home, glad that the sun hadn’t set yet. Maybe I would make it to Grandma’s house before night fell. I hated driving that road at night; there were too many little turns and no lighting, and it was downright creepy in the woods at night. The road wasn’t the best either and could give a bumpy ride in a small car like my little red Fiat.

I drove as fast as I dared and managed to make it to the rustic home on the shore of Lake Michigan as the setting sun painted the sky in bright golds, oranges, and reds. It was a nice view with the sunset reflected on the surface of the great lake, and I paused a moment to appreciate it as the sun sank below the horizon. It was when I was retrieving my backpack and the mug of soup from the car that I heard the howl of a wolf.

A shiver crawled its way up my spine and then back down again and both my breath and heart quickened inside my chest. I hurried to shut the car door and rush into grandma’s house, fumbling a bit with my keys as I rushed to get inside. “Granny?! It’s Red! I came to check up on you and brought you some soup!” I called once I was safely inside and my breathing had calmed enough to allow it.

She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, as a quick search of the ground floor revealed so after taking off my combat boots, I dropped my backpack on the couch and made my way upstairs to the bedrooms with the mug of soup. “Granny?! I hope everything is okay!”

Her reply was coughing which I could hear from outside her bedroom. I opened the door with my unburdened hand and stepped inside, where Grandma was on the bed looking very pale, sweating profusely, and visibly trembling. “Granny?” I asked in concern as I approached her bed.

The mug fell from my hand as she snarled at me, her eyes wild. She was trembling and seemed to start growing before my eyes, sprouting hairs that quickly became a full coverage of fur as her nose and mouth stretched into a muzzle filled with sharp teeth, her ears changed and migrated to the top of her head, and her trembling hands grew wicked claws. What the hell? This was… this was impossible.

She was laying in the bed and partially tangled in her blankets so her attempts to get up were hampered by her struggles against the blankets entrapping her. I backed away step by step, my eyes locked on her in terrified fascination as I babbled nervously, “M-my Granny, w-what b-big teeth you have… W-what big ears you have… W-what h-hair you have… haven’t you heard of waxing? I… umm… brought some soup and p-pastries if you’re hungry. ”

She was hungry, but not for soup and pastries. A blood-curdling howl turned into a snarl as she tore free of the blankets and lunged at me. I had managed to back into the hallway by this time and quickly slammed the door and took off running down the stairs as she hit it with a bump. I barely made it to the bottom of the steps when the beast that had been my grandmother smashed through the door with a crash, reducing it to splinters.

I tore into the kitchen, searching for a weapon to defend myself. Silver, that’s what the folktales said to use. I opened the drawer with the good silverware that Grandma kept for special occasions. I figured that fending off what seemed to be a werewolf counted. I had barely gotten one of the silver steak knives in hand and dropped to hide behind the breakfast island as the wolfish creature that had been my grandmother burst into the kitchen.

I knelt there trembling in fear on the floor, my heart beating wildly in my throat as I heard the snuffling sound of the creature sniffing the air. It got closer, practically above me, and I had to clamp my mouth closed to keep from screaming. It moved again, to my left, sniffing its way around the island and I moved to the other side, clutching the knife tightly with a white-knuckled hand. I tried to keep the island and some distance between us and had to get to my feet and dart around again in a rush as it skidded past me and slammed into the fridge.

There was nothing of my grandmother in the eyes of the creature that got to its feet and growled at me across the breakfast island. “G-granny, I know you’re in there. You d-don’t want to do this,” I pleaded.

Her reply was to lunge at me once again, clearing the island in a leap as I tried to back away and she slammed into me, knocking me to the floor. Red-hot pain lanced through my arm as her jaws latched onto the wrist that I had been trying to shield myself with. We both screamed in pain, hers more primal and angry than my own and I felt a warm wetness running down my punctured arm and dripping upon my stomach from where the knife I had been clutching in my other hand was now buried deep in the werewolf’s chest.

The jaws gripping my wrist released it as she howled out her agony. That howl became a wheezing cough as her breathing devolved into a labored pitiful whimpering. Then the beast that had once been my grandmother shuddered once and then went still as it collapsed atop me.