Don't Fear the Reaper

Rubbing his hands together to gain warmth has become a small break to his bare hands, he thought they were starting to freeze over from grabbing the metal handlebars of his bike. "If I knew it was going to snow this bad, I wouldn't have brought this damn bike with me", the young man quietly complains in his thoughts. In the freezing cold of late January, the black asphalt roads would be too slippery for his bike's tires to get any sort of traction. Not to mention, the wooded path he has to take will be much to dangerous especially at night where you can't see anything. Even the bright aura that the full moon was giving off was not enough for his eyes to break through the darkness. However, he was left with a choice: walk home or wait enough and pray to god that he didn't actually miss the last bus.

The young man's eyes darted down the road and then to the opposite side, into the heart of the local forest. Thinking to himself, "It's already about to be 7:30. The last bus gets, or got, here at 7:15. Please tell me I didn't miss the bus by 5 minutes." But unfortunately, he did.

He missed it because he commited one fatal flaw that any worker can do, he ate off of a food truck. This particularly truck comes around noon everyday and it has gained a reputation of giving people explosive diarrhea. Today, the young man had forgotten his lunch because he was running late to work. Everybody in his specific department had told him that eating off the truck was a bad idea but, nevertheless, he shrugged off their warnings and got a burrito supreme with extra hot-tangy sauce. While the food was good going down, it soon returned and it came back with a vengeance.

Right before he leaves his lumber mill job, the young man uses the last couple of minutes he has to use the restroom. However, this time, he had to use the restroom 15 mins earlier and stayed there until it was time to punch out. The few unlucky coworkers that walked on became frightened by not only the putrid smell but by the fact that this young man was moaning and wailing like a banshee! "Oh god!", the young man begged, "It won't stop coming out of me!" In his heart and also in his mind, he knew this was not any ordinary shit but the the worst kind of shit. The type of shit where your slowly start to build up heat and begin to lightly sweat. Then like a force of nature, you get the sudden urge to remove your clothing.

"Oh man, I need to take off my shirt."

Indeed, it was the dreaded "Get-Naked-Shit"!

Before his shirt touched the floor, the young man was reverted into a dumb beast and was completely butt-naked. There is something innate in the human brain that when they are battling a poop, taking off your clothes just seems like the right thing to do. Perhaps it's the adrenaline, the pain or the stank, getting naked just makes you more comfortable and gain the willpower to fight.

Either way, that's why he's late for the bus.

"I shouldn't have eaten that burrito", laments the young man as he begins to realize that he will have to unfortunately walk home.

There wasn't anything particular scary about this forest. The only thing it really had it going for it was the wildlife and the young man knew this. The most scariest thing he can come across is drunk driver speeding down the road. He remembers a conversation he had with a coworker about a month ago.

"...by the time they found her, she was unrecognizable. Her face was frozen over from being faced down in the snow. They said she must've been hit by a car and rolled off onto the side of the road. Maybe into some ditch or something."

"What makes you say that? Are you sure she wasn't just got lost?", asked the young man.

"No...no the police said that most of her bones were broken. What was it? I think ultra-trauma?"

"That ain't a thing."

"Well whatever it was, she was fucked up. They said no animal could've done that much damage to her. But I don't believe that, Margaret was going around saying that they found her back ripped up like some kind of animal got her."

His coworker was skinny man with funny squared-glasses. The way he spoke made it obvious that he wasn't from around those parts. That was something that they both have in common, two strangers in a winter wonderland. He mentions a couple of times that he was from California but he doesn't look like that's where he crawled from.

"Not even a bear?"

"Not even a bear", his coworker said while shaking his head. "We are in the middle of winter, all bears should be hibernating. No... whatever killed her had some gusto to it, you know?"

Thinking about that conversation, the young man reflects on the person they were talking about. Her name was Sandra Reed, she also worked with at the lumber mill. The young man has caught a glance of her a couple of times, to him, she was cute. Reed had gone missing about two months ago, it was reported by her parents when she did not return home after work. A trucker driver stopping for a bathroom break found her corpse laying face down a couple of feet away from the usual route she would take after work. The official report read that it was hit and run but everyone had a theory.

"Werewolf", thinks the young man in fear.

The night she had gone missing happened to be a full moon. Her remains were broken in such a way that something big and heavy must of impacted her.

"That's stupid", thinks the young man trying to calm himself down, despite his legs saying the opposite and walking a bit faster. Lucky for the young man, he would always bring a small battery-powered radio with him. He decides to turn on the radio and turn to his favorite station, at least the smooth sound of classic rock can keep his anxiousness away.

"Ooooowhooo! It's Jack Wolfman here and you are listening to 94.7, the last radio station playing classic rock in the Denver! Tonight, you better watch out boys and girls cause it's a full moon out."

The young man looks up at the night sky and says to him, "Shit. I totally forgot."

"So you know what that means right! Oooowhooooo! It means that the werewolfs are out tonight!"

Suddenly, all the comfort that the radio has brought him has faded and only dread has entered his soul. In the distance he can hear the faint sound of wolf howling.

"Give us a call if you have had an experience with a werewolf! Alright, we already have our first caller. Yes, hello, can you hear me?"

"Uh, hello, is this, uh, Jack Wolfman?"

"Why yes it is, so do you have an expiernce with a werewolf?"

"Um, I don't know if it was a werewolf but it was big, mean, and hairy!"

"Really?! Did you happen to see it's face or anything, did it look like a person?"

"Uh, yeah... I managed to catch a glimpse, it kind of looked like your M-"

"Well it looks like it's just not werewolfs we have to watch out for tonight! we also apparently have to watch out for homunculi, boys and girls. Now for some music, for the creeps and crawlers out there, here is "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult", says Jack Wolfman as the beginning riffs begin to play, "Also if you have a serious werewolf give us a call, otherwise, I, Jack Wolfman, will personally find you and punch you in the face!"

Again, the young man can hear the sound of wolf howls. However, for some reason this time it sounded off. He couldn't accurately tell why it sounded wrong but he knew, it was like a howl he's never heard before. "Maybe it's just the dense forest", the young man thinks, "It creates a lot of echo." He thinks this because the music he is listening to is also creating a reverberated sound because of the shotty speakers.

While he is in brisk-paced walk, he thinks to himself, "It is kind of strange that this song is playing. What better song to die to-".

This time, the howl couldn't be more than a hundred feet away from behind him. However, this time he stops dead in his tracks, there was no way in justifying what he just heard. He figured out what was wrong with the howl. It wasn't an animal's noise. It sounded more like a person trying to replicate a wolf's howl. He could hear it clear, the strain of the human voice box. Almost like a cry for help from a person who's been screaming for hours.