Chapter Twenty-One: Laura's Story

(The Past Behind Us)

***

After having a silent stare-down for a minute, Dylan broke it as he asked Laura, "So, uh... why didn't you come?"

"Where have you been for the past two months?" Ryan demanded, suspicion in his tone.

"And where's the other guy that was supposed to show up? Max?" Allison grilled.

"We did come. One night early," Laura revealed, before adding bitterly, "That was our mistake."

"Care to elaborate on that?" Nora questioned.

"Sure," Laura responded drily. "If you'll let me in?"

At the pointed question, she looked at Ryan and Allison, weapons still raised and pointed at her.

"Guys, lower the weapons and let her in. If she and Max were here one night early, then she must know what's going on," Hayden hissed.

"Hayden's right. No harm in hearing what she has to say," Kaitlyn agreed.

"And it might explain what happened to Nick and Sarah," Abi added.

Ryan and Allison exchanged a look before lowering their weapons and allowing Laura to come in.

"Thank you," she muttered as she sat down in a chair, the rest of them sitting down on the seats in the same area Hayden, Dylan, Ryan and Kaitlyn had been in earlier.

"Like I said, me and Max came here one night early. We got lost, then we swerved off the road after almost hitting an animal. A local cop helped us back on the road before directing us to a motel to stay for the night," Laura explained. A rueful, bitter smile curved up her face, stretching the scars, before she went on, "We didn't listen and decided to push on to Hackett's Quarry. When we got there, no one was home. We decided to look around and I saw someone, or I thought I saw someone, in the storm cellar. I used some tools of Max's to break open the lock and we went inside. A few minutes later..."

Laura swallowed, pain flashing across her face as she forced out, "Something attacked Max—nearly mauled him to death. I dragged him up the stairs, but it just pulled him back down. Then... everything went black. And when I woke up, I was in a jail cell and watching the same cop that gave us directions drag Max into a cell, and then warn me that 'This was gonna get a little messy'. A few seconds later, I heard something explode and then growling before I fell asleep."

Laura paused for breath before she continued, "The next thing I knew, I was in an office, handcuffed and sitting in a chair, that same cop in front of me and interrogating me, asking me questions like my name, about my boyfriend, and why we were going to Hackett's Quarry instead of the motel. It's where I saw his badge and name tag—Sheriff T. Hackett."

"Sheriff... like Sheriff Travis Hackett? Sarah told me..." Nora interrupted, stopping herself as grief flashed over her face. Kaitlyn put her arm around her in comfort.

"Does Sarah live in North Kill?" Laura asked.

Nora nodded.

"Yeah, she's right. That's the guy," Laura confirmed, before continuing with her story. "I just wanted to known what was going on and why me and Max were detained, but he didn't tell me anything before taking me back to the cell. That's where I found out Max was alive when I heard his voice. He sounded okay and told me he'd woke up naked, that he didn't remember anything after he was attacked and that there was blood in his cell. We talked, trying to figure out what happened and what the deal with the cop was before he came back, gave Max clothes and took him out for his own interrogation. During that, I managed to find something helpful if we ever got the chance to escape along with a poem or something on the wall—'While the town of North Kill lay there sleeping, the hag in the woods started weeping. As the bodies decay, the wolves hunt their prey, and the sheriff continues his creeping.'"

"Hag in the woods... like that ghost story you told us earlier?" Hayden questioned.

Ryan looked unsure as Abi said, "Wait. Sarah mentioned something, before we were attacked, about how no one goes into the woods. That there's a cover up."

"She would be right," Laura agreed. "Where is this Sarah?"

"She..." Nora started, but couldn't finish.

Laura seemed to get it, giving Nora a sympathetic look before she went on, "That was when the cop came back. I tried to get us out or at least get us some answers, but he just left. I asked Max about the interrogation, and it sounded like mine except he'd asked Max about how he was feeling this morning. We talked about if the cop was related to Chris Hackett because of his name badge, and about why we're were in there and that we were going to get out of there. About last night and what we ran into on the road, about what attacked us. That was when I mentioned how I was surprised he wasn't more messed up... and Max told me he didn't have a scratch on him."

Hayden froze as she exchanged a look with Allison and Kaitlyn—that sounded exactly like what happened to Nick, with his bite. Hayden knew it was there, and judging by Allison's face she knew it was serious, and yet it had vanished within hours.

What happened to Max, what attacked him... sounded an awful lot like what had happened to Nick and Sarah.

Hayden refocused on Lauren's story as she went on, "Max then told me how he mentioned that just before we were lost how cool it was to see the full moon in the woods, then how the full moon could mean that whatever attacked us, what bit Max... was a werewolf."

Silence, then:

"Are you out of your goddamned mind?!"

Hayden looked at Ryan as he demanded, "Werewolves? Seriously? What the fuck..."

At Ryan's incredulity, Laura snickered, which immediately caught his attention.

"What? What-what-what's so funny?" he demanded.

"I said literally the exact same thing," Laura revealed.

"Okay. Do you... you got anything better? I mean like... zombies? Aliens? Time-hopping Draculas?" Ryan asked dryly.

"Some nightmarish creature from folklore?" Allison suggested flatly.

Hayden, meanwhile, was silent.

Werewolves... that was what she'd been thinking, before Laura had arrived. And while it shouldn't make sense, it did, the puzzle pieces connecting together—the bites, the aggressive change in behaviour, how when Nick and Sarah transformed they'd looked almost like a combination of wolf and human, and the full moon...

Full moon, bites. Monster.

Holy shit—that was what Sarah had been trying to tell her. That was what she'd realised before she and Nick turned, what she'd tried to get out.

As Hayden processed it, Laura looked at Ryan and Allison and asked, "Ryan and Allison, right?"

"Yeah?" they answered in unison.

"You want answers... I've got answers. Interrupt me again, you're on your own," Laura told them flatly.

Dylan chuckled as Hayden kept her mouth shut—keeping quiet about how she had figured it out.

But now that she was thinking over it, Hayden was confused. If werewolves were part wolf... then weren't they acting like regular wolves? Why were they so... aggressive? More aggressive than a wolf should be? And why wasn't the werewolf that bit Nick and Sarah and any other werewolves they'd faced hunting or at least in a pack? Wolves were pack animals—so why were the werewolves hunting solo? It didn't make sense.

Just listen, Hayden. You'll get more answers, Hayden told herself as she looked at Laura as Ryan sighed and muttered, "Whatever..."

"Would it really be so crazy? With all the shit that we've been seeing, with Nick and Sarah? With the thing on the roof? Okay, it would really start to explain a lot of stuff," Dylan argued.

"Dylan—"

"I'm just trying to keep an open mind, okay? This is like your ghost stories. How is this so different to your ghost stories?" Dylan asked pointedly.

"That's a fair point," Allison admitted.

"Those—Those—Those are just... campfire stories. Like, there has to be a rational explanation for everything. For all of this," Ryan countered.

"Ryan, how do you explain Nick's and Sarah's wounds—wounds that looked deep enough to need stitches—healing so quickly in a matter of hours? Nothing med school taught me explains that," Allison debated.

"Or how Sarah and Nick freaking exploded and turned into those... creatures?" Nora asked pointedly. "How do you explain that?"

Ryan didn't have an answer to that as Dylan argued, "Okay, and you were not talking so rational when you separated my hand from the rest of my body."

"You told me to!" Ryan yelled.

"'And if it's bite with which you're faced, cleave limb from torso with great haste'," Laura muttered.

The seven of them looked at Laura in confusion as Ryan asked, "What?"

"You did the right thing," Laura answered.

"See, she's got a whole poem about it," Dylan said, before turning to Allison and adding, "And that amputation was what Sarah and Nick needed instead of antibiotics."

Allison glared at him. "I didn't know that at the time, I was just trying to keep them alive while not doing anything rash."

Dylan just shrugged as Laura stood up and lifted her eyepatch, exposing whatever was underneath to Ryan.

"There's more to all this than you think," she said, lowering the eyepatch. "Just let me finish. Then you can decide for yourself if you believe me or not. I don't care. But I think you should hear all of it."

Ryan looked at her, before nodding. At that, Laura returned to her seat, where she looked at Hayden and asked, "Bite or scratch?"

"Huh?" Hayden said, looking at her.

"Your arm. Were you bitten or scratched?" Laura elaborated.

"Oh. I... I was scratched," Hayden answered, before her blood chilled. "Is that... bad as being bitten? Will I... will I turn?"

"Well, there's that. Or, you can have it chopped off like my hand was. We have an axe," Dylan interjected, waving his stump. Hayden shot him a glare.

"No," Laura answered, and Hayden slumped in relief. "If you're scratched like I was, then you won't turn. If you were bitten... then you'd have to worry."

"Well, I wasn't. So I guess I'm all good," Hayden said, looking at the claw marks underneath the bandage. "Gonna leave a few scars though."

"Shit, you should need that rewrapped," Kaitlyn muttered, as she unwrapped it while Allison got up and snagged a towel that had supported Nick's head earlier, tearing it into strips and giving them to Kaitlyn as she cleaned the excess blood off as much as she could, then rewound fresh strips over the wounds.

As Kaitlyn re-bandaged her arm, Laura continued her story.

"The next few weeks were long. The cop kept us fed and let us take showers, but aside from that we barely saw him. Max and I, we talked... a lot. As much as we could about what happened that night. It was like trading conspiracy theories. We talked about the cop, the camp, the accident, the woods, the thing in the basement, what happened to Max. We just kept... going over it all again and again and nothing was making sense. All we knew was that we needed to get out of there. One plan, one we both agreed on, was just try and get on his good side, to have him like us enough to let us out. If that didn't work, we'd try to figure out a way to escape. So we tried that and it didn't work so I tried to get us out by saying that we knew Max was a werewolf and the next full moon was close. That didn't work either. And while Max was convinced that he was a werewolf, I wasn't. Not entirely. I said that just to see if it could get us out or at least have the cop explain what was going on."

Laura sighed. "The next full moon, I was convinced. The cop let me out of my cell and handcuffed me to the radiator and a chair in front of Max's cell so I could see what would happen when he turned. And when I saw it happen..."

Laura trailed off, but neither of them asked what had happened. They'd seen it for themselves with Nick and Sarah.

"I go too close, and Max scratched my face, and my eye. The handcuff broke and I managed to get out and able to treat my injuries. Then, since I had some freedom, I decided to figure out what the cop was hiding. The station was abandoned—no one else was there—and I managed to find a cease and desist letter, a half melted badge, a calendar marking the next full moon and a birthday, one of the syringes he used to knock me out that I took for myself, a birthday card and on his computer I found a file of a podcast episode about Hackett's Quarry. At that point, I was exhausted and went back to my cell, hid the syringe and tried to get some sleep for the rest of the night."

Laura shrugged. "I must have, because when I woke up it was dawn and Max was human again. The cop was there, searching me for anything I could have hid when I had my freedom. Later on, he showed Max what happened last night on video and then talked to me. He explained, although vaguely, and that we—including me—would end it, whatever it was. To get my help because I would do anything to help Max and that would get him what he needed. He gave me a poem that explained about what was going on. I said a part of it earlier, but the full version is, 'When full the moon above shines first, the beast internal shall outward burst. One by one, leads lambs to slaughter, it stalks your breath but shuns clear water. And should you yourself be cursed, armed with silver, end the first. When moon is full before its wane, rend the beast that cursed you slain. No longer shall you face your blight or fear the dread of the full moon's light. And if it's a bite with which you're faced, cleave limb from torso with great haste. Perchance you'll save your cursed soul, before infection takes its toll.' It wasn't much, but it explained somewhat about the werewolves and about how to cure those who were bitten—kill the one that bit you. It has to be silver, has to be full moon."

At that, they all exchanged wide-eyed looks, hope bursting inside Hayden, Allison and Nora.

If they got silver and found and killed the werewolf that bit Nick and Sarah tonight... they would be cured. They'd be human again. Nora would have Sarah back, Allison would have Nick back and so would Hayden.

Hayden would have her brother back.

Hope still thrumming through her, Hayden listened as Laura went on, "By that point, I just wanted to cure Max, but the cop claimed it wasn't so straight forward, that he was trying to protect us in the storm shelter. I asked him what the plan was and he said I could help with my veterinary studies—that science could fix it instead of silver killing the first werewolf under the full moon. I didn't know if it could, that what the poem said sounded like the only way I could cure Max, but I did believe him about the werewolf stuff. And that we were getting out and fixing it ourselves. That I was going to cure Max."

Laura's face hardened. "A few weeks later, that's when I found out the truth when Chris Hackett came to the station about us and argued with the cop—that not only was he a werewolf, but the one who bit Max."

Hayden's eyes widened. "Holy shit."

Laura nodded. "Holy shit indeed. And that had everything make sense, about why Chris' car was at camp, and why the cop didn't kill him because that was his brother. And that if I killed Chris, that would cure Max. That was when we made a plan to escape, earlier today—the day of the full moon. It worked—I used the syringe to drug the cop, took his gun and keys, freed Max and we went into his office to get our stuff back. When we did, I heard a woman crying and it lead me and Max to a door, where we found supplies, the keys to his cop car, and a shotgun and silver shells the cop was using to hunt werewolves, that I took to use. To kill Chris Hackett and cure Max. With the keys, we stole his car and drove to the camp."

Looking at them, she finished, "And I made my way here. To the camp. Left Max at the island. Seemed like the best place for him, surrounded by water and all. That's it. That's the story."

At the lingering silence left behind, Laura snarked flatly, "Don't all jump in at the same time."

"Sarah figured it out."

All eyes turned to Nora, her eyes wide and face ashen as she revealed, "She figured it out like Max did, just before she and Nick turned. That's what she was trying to tell me. She was warning me and—holy shit, her bracelet. Shit, her bracelet!"

Nora held up a chain-link bracelet, explaining, "This is silver. It was a birthday gift from her mom a few years back—she never took it off. But it caused her pain, and that's why. The silver burned her."

"If that is silver, it would," Laura confirmed.

"How did Sarah figure it out?" Allison asked.

"She loves wolves almost as much as Hayden does and read a little about werewolf myths—it's the whole reason why she's studying veterinary science," Nora revealed flatly. "I think if the curse didn't make you hyper-aggressive and allergic to water and want to murder those you care about and have you literally explode, she'd probably be thrilled right now."

At that, looks of understanding came on the others before Dylan turned to Laura and asked, "Wait. The island? Like... like our island? Like, the one in the lake?"

"Yeah. Why?" Laura asked back.

"'Cause Jacob, he went back there looking for Emma and he hasn't come back yet. Neither of 'em has," Dylan revealed. "Oh shit..."

At that, Allison cursed, "Fuck," as Nora let loose a string of expletives and Hayden hissed, "Shit, I forgot about Jacob and Emma. Shit."

Laura paused, before assuring, "Well, as long as they didn't go poking around where they shouldn't have they're probably fine."

Nora snorted in disbelief at that as Dylan said, "'Poking around where he shouldn't have' is Jacob's middle name. This is very bad. Oh..."

Hayden rested a hand on Dylan's shoulder to ground him as Nora commented, "It's Emma's too—she can't leave shit well enough alone, having to look around and record it for her followers."

But the usual bite in Nora's words when she talked about Emma was dulled with worry for the blonde.

A pause before Laura revealed, "After you saw me at the pool, after I shot Chris—um... I went back to the island expecting Max to be back to normal. But... he wasn't. He was still a werewolf. At seeing he wasn't cured, I got back to the boat and to camp—and met up with you guys."

Standing up, Laura said, "So the werewolf I killed can't have been Chris."

"That wasn't a werewolf, it was Kaylee Hackett. Chris' daughter," Ryan revealed, anger in his voice as he stood up.

"Whatever I shot... that was no girl. Unless, I guess, it turned back after I shot it. When I went to the island," Laura replied back tersely.

"Wait, so... how come Max didn't kill you then?" Dylan questioned.

Kaitlyn nodded. "Yeah, if Nick tried to kill Hayden, his twin sister, then how did you get out of there alive?"

Laura hesitated, before she answered, "He tried."

That was when she revealed her arm, exposing a bloody and now familiar bite mark on it.

"I got away. I need to end this."

The reaction was instant after the reveal of Laura's bite.

Ryan instantly grabbed Laura's gun and pointed it at her while Allison nocked and drew an arrow, pointed straight at her head, and Nora held her axe tightly, as everyone took a step back, eyeing Laura warily.

Laura, however, sighed and said, "We don't have much time."

"And how much time do you have before we have to worry about having another werewolf attacking us?" Allison retorted, drawing the string back farther. "Because I won't hesitate to shoot if it means the rest of us getting through this alive."

Instead of answering, Laura's eye was fixed on Allison's arrow—or, rather, the arrowhead. "Where did you get those arrows?'

"I found them in the camp shed," Nora answered for Allison. "Sarah and I took them so Allison could use them against the wildlife if they gave us any trouble."

Allison nodded. "She's right. And while this arrowhead might not be silver, I've been itching to fire an arrow all night. You turning into a wolf monster and killing us all sounds like a good reason."

Laura rolled her eye. "That arrowhead is silver. That whole quiver is full of silver arrows. Aside from my gun, you're the only one who has an actual weapon that can kill werewolves."

Allison's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

Laura stuck out her non-injured arm. "Test it out on me. If it hurts me, it's silver."

Looking at Laura unsurely, Allison lowered her bow and lifted the arrow from the string before pressing the tip to her arm.

Laura hissed before pulling back, as to Hayden's shock there was a faint imprint of an arrowhead burned into her flesh.

"Now do you believe me?" Laura asked irritably as Allison stared at her arrow in a new light.

"As I was saying," Laura said. "We don't have much time. For me or for Max... or for your friends if you want to save them. If we want to end this, it has to be tonight. Before it's too late."

Hayden, Allison, Dylan, Ryan, Nora, Abi and Kaitlyn eyed each other, because Laura was right.

If they had any chance of saving Nick and Sarah, it had to be tonight.

Before they ran out of time and it was too late.

***

Well, this was a long chapter of information!

This was just the flashback with Laura and Max condensed and the conversation leading up to Laura revealing her bite. And yeah, Hayden and Nora realised that werewolves was what Sarah was talking about after Laura said it—it just took a while for the rest to catch on

And Allison finally knows her arrows are silver thanks to Laura! Those are gonna be VERY useful soon...

But yeah, not that much happened, but next chapter should be a little more exciting! And the next half should be exciting as well!

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!