Home

 

Joshua opened his eyes to the sound of his piercing alarm clock ringing through his ears. He turned the alarm off and sat up on the edge of his bed, it sure felt like he was home now he thought. Twenty four days he spent with Kumai and his people but it felt longer. It was a Monday morning and a fresh start back at school. Joshua couldn’t wait until they broke up for summer, it was already the end of May and so that meant Joshua didn’t have to wait long for the end of the school year.

As Joshua guessed it the school he left behind had continued without him and it seemed no one had even noticed he was gone, accept the teachers of course. This left Joshua with a lot of last minute work to catch up on. Someone else who had noticed Joshua’s disappearing act was Charlie, who at this time had been feeling sick over the weekend and was still recovering at home. This left Joshua plenty of time alone without the questions from Charlie, which he had no doubt she would be asking.

The day went by slowly, especially for Joshua after spending time away from school for so long. Nothing too interesting happened that day. By the end of the day Joshua was given a permission slip to take home for his guardian to sign. It was for a school trip for Thursday and if he didn’t have the permission slip signed when he turned up in the morning he couldn’t go. Apparently everyone else was already given one the week before.

Finally Joshua sighed with relief as he heard the last bell ring signalling the end of the day; Joshua thought he deserved a rest from the agony that was school work. When he returned home Joshua immediately showed his grandmother the permission slip, she gladly agreed to sign it saying that an end of the school year trip would be a good thing. Joshua also thought that a trip would be great way to end the year. After which he only had but a month and a half left of school. And then he could enjoy the summer.

Thursday morning Joshua woke earlier then he would normally, a few minutes before his alarm was set to go off in fact. Joshua hadn’t intended to and never believed in going to school earlier then needed, but seeing that he wasn’t spending the day in class studying meant that he was happy enough to go to school with plenty of time to spare. Sure enough Joshua was waiting outside the school talking with some class mates of his. These was ones he would hang out with when he wasn’t around Charlie.

It was already 8:45am now and many more students from Joshua’s year were gathering outside the school, the bus was due to leave at nine sharp. At this time Joshua had almost forgotten about running into Charlie after not seeing her for a month, until it crept into his mind. He had gotten away with it the first three days seeing as she was recovering from being ill all weekend but somehow he knew she would be in today.

It was now five minutes to nine and the two teachers that were leading the trip had arrived with the bus and began motioning the students onto it while they took the permission slips. Joshua reached into his pocket and held it in his hand ready. Just then Joshua heard his name being called out and right away he knew the voice.

He turned to see Charlie not too far; she was motioning over to Joshua from behind a crowd of school kids. Joshua tried to get away but being so small Charlie had caught up with him, making her way between the bodies quite fast. She grabbed Joshua by the arm and turned him around, Joshua knew there was no way around this now.

‘Hey you, I hoped you would be coming today.’ She spoke with such friendliness, like she had forgotten their fight before Joshua went away.

‘Hey.’ Joshua replied hoping she wouldn’t press on about his vocation.

‘I wanted to talk to you about something, mainly your disappearance for the last month. Where were you?’ Joshua knew she wasn’t going to keep quiet. He opened his mouth to speak but there were no words. How was he going to explain everything that had happened the last month? To tell Charlie that her crazy theory was actually right and that he was indeed a monster. It all sounded so surreal out loud.

‘Bekett!’ Joshua looked around to see his gym teacher looking back at him. He stood at the door of the bus with people’s permission slips in his one hand and it appeared that he had been calling Joshua a number of times. It seemed Joshua was in everyone’s way and the teacher was waiting for him to get on the bus. He looked back at Charlie, gave her a smile and spun around towards the bus. As he stepped up onto the bus Joshua couldn’t help think that he got lucky, but he wouldn’t be able to avoid giving Charlie an answer forever.

Joshua sat next to one of his other school friends while Charlie sat next to Jenifer a few rows in front, this meant Joshua would get away with not answering Charlie’s question for a whole bus journey. Soon they arrived; the trip was a complete day at the fair ground. The school students were allowed to wander off together with an all access wrist band that allows them to get on any ride for free. As soon as they got there they were lectured about safety measures, they were then given their wrist bands and a time they was to meet up again later.

Joshua looked around throughout to see if he could find Charlie, but he couldn’t, so he quickly went off with two of his friends hoping he wouldn’t run into her again.

Joshua succeeded in staying far away from Charlie all morning, it was now turning lunchtime and Joshua and his friends were heading towards one of the rollercoaster rides. Joshua had already been on a few rollercoaster’s and he could be certain that he wouldn’t find Charlie standing in one of those lines. Joshua knew for sure that Charlie hated rollercoaster rides so if anything he was sure he was safe as he joined the long line. The only disappointing thing about big fairs was the waiting in long lines that never seemed to move.

Twenty minutes later Joshua was laughing with his friends and wasn’t aware of anyone else around him, the line had curved round so that it had rows of people and standing right next to him on the other side was Charlie.

‘Hey Joshua, I knew we would see each other eventually.’ She smiled at him; Joshua was just stunned that she was here.

‘I thought you hated rollercoaster’s?’

‘I do. I just thought I’d suck it up this one time because everyone wanted me to go on this one, plus I had hoped I would see you too and just look at my luck.’ Her smile grew wider and she seemed so pleased with herself. It was almost like she knew he didn’t want to talk about what had happened whilst he was away, and she was knowingly taunting him. Joshua could only hope that the line would miraculously move faster so he could get away, but that never happened; in fact it seemed to not move at all for a long period of time.

‘Joshua, I don’t know whether it’s because we had that stupid fight and for some reason you’re still mad at me or what. But we have been close friends for so long and we have never kept anything from each other.’

‘I’m not keeping anything from you.’ Joshua jumped in with just a little force to his voice.

‘Then talk to me. Your mom said you went away on some hiking trip with some friends from school. She also said you said it was a rite of passage, to discover your man hood so to speak. But I’ve been thinking about it and for the life of me I can’t image you going away with anyone from school, I mean I know you have friends but I also know that there wouldn’t be anyone you would spend a month alone with.’ Joshua noticed that the line was moving as they spoke. Both of their friends had already moved on without them, along with many more people who were simply walking passed them.

‘Well I did.’ Joshua didn’t sound too sure of himself. ‘A few guys asked me to go and I thought I would take up the opportunity, finally get out you know.’

‘That doesn’t sound like you Josh; it sounds a little suspicious to me.’

‘Well it is me.’ Joshua tried hard to keep cool.

‘Then who were the guys who asked you, Pete, Jordan?’ They were the names of Joshua friends who he hung out with at school and the ones he was supposed to be with at this very moment.

‘If you really have to know, yeah...I’m not hiding anything from you ok.’ Joshua took off making his way through the crowd, only he wasn’t heading for his friends, he was heading in the other direction. Joshua didn’t feel like waiting in line anymore and wanted to be alone, he’d wait for the guys to get off at the other end.

It would be another ten to twenty minutes before his friends got off the ride, so Joshua decided to get something to eat and drink at a snack bar nearby. Joshua bought himself a hotdog and chips, he then sat down outside where there sat some table and chairs. As he began munching into his food Joshua began feeling funny, but it wasn’t a familiar feeling. It wasn’t the beginning of an illness, and it wasn’t a stomach ache or anything physical.

This feeling was more of a gut feeling, like when you know something is about to happen. It was a sort of tingling sensation he had deep inside, like if he could feel a ghostly presence around him. Joshua looked around quickly to see if anyone else was acting like they felt something, but no one seemed out of the ordinary, so it was just him.

As he looked around Joshua noticed a small group of people, possibly in their early twenties, hanging about in the distant. The group consisted of three males and two females, all dressed a little like punks from the 90’s and who had noticed Joshua staring. They all stared back, smiles spread across their faces like they knew a secret he didn’t and just then as Joshua couldn’t take his eyes of them, he felt the deep sensation grow stronger. Joshua felt like he should know these people, only he had never seen them once in his lifetime, or at least he didn’t think so.

Seconds later the group took off and disappeared through the crowds of people, some of them were still staring and smiling as they went. This had left Joshua feeling strange about the whole incident. Joshua never let the situation effect his eating; he polished off the rest of his food enjoying every bite and it wasn’t long after that his friends were joining him. After waiting for them to also get something to eat, they all had the energy for some more rides.

Joshua was having so much fun that for the next few hours he had forgotten about his run in with Charlie earlier. He hadn’t seen her since until much later when they arrived at the Dodgems and Joshua saw Charlie heading towards him.

‘Josh...’ Charlie began to speak as she got closer.

‘Charlie not today ok. I’m not going to talk about this anymore and I’m not lying to you about it.’ Joshua had said almost cold-hearted before she could get a word out. As he spoke he continued to walk on, walking straight past Charlie and her friends.

That was the last time Joshua saw Charlie for the rest of the day and they both ignored each other on the bus journey home. Joshua now hoped that Charlie wasn’t going to bring up his trip again and would instead just forget about it.

It was about seven o`clock in the evening by the time they had been dropped off and Joshua wasted no time in walking back home. He would have left his car near the school but he didn’t want to risk it being stolen or vandalised while he was on the trip, so he had got his grandmother to drop him off that morning instead.

He could have got his grandmother to give him a ride home or one of his friends but Joshua didn’t mind walking and he felt like taking a long stroll home. Joshua enjoyed the fresh air as he roamed the streets, as he came out on the other side of the town centre Joshua began up a road which would soon lead him near his house. About five minutes later Joshua wandered past a shop which was still open late, as he did he saw a group of people step outside laughing.

Joshua felt a strange sensation inside of him, the same one he had earlier. Just as he looked across the street he noticed that those people coming out of the shop were the same group he saw back at the fair. They were talking and laughing when one of them turned and looked straight back at Joshua, he smiled and turned back around; they all then began walking down the street away from Joshua.

Why were they in his home town? Did they know him and that Joshua lived here? And why did they smile at him like that, on both accounts?

Joshua entered his bedroom after another ten minutes; as he let the door swing shut behind him Joshua yawned loudly feeling slightly warn out. Joshua couldn’t understand it but he felt like going straight to bed and was defiantly considering it. He walked to his window so he could close his curtains, it was dark outside. As soon as Joshua looked outside he saw a bright silver/blue light. He looked up to the sky and saw the source of the light beginning to peek through the clouds. Joshua began panicking as he now stared up at half of a full moon showing itself from behind the clouds; he knew what was going to come next.

Joshua quickly closed the curtains, after doing so he hurried over to his bedroom door and locked it shut. He then leant against the door and let himself slid down so that he was sitting on the floor. Joshua closed his eyes tightly and started praying, he couldn’t stop thinking about the other two times he turned, he was asleep for both of those times and he was awake now. Something else that Joshua thought about was what Kumai had said. He said that they could change anytime they wanted, whether there was a moon out or not, and that they could stop from changing also.

Joshua sat nervously as he hoped that he could stop from changing, he didn’t know what to do but to sit and keep replaying the thought ‘don’t turn, don’t turn’ over again in his head. It was then that Joshua could feel his body begin to change, his muscles tingled and his bones were aching a lot.

Suddenly the aching turned to pain and was timed by ten. It was like someone had jabbed a knife between his bones and were forcing them apart. He could most defiantly feel his body shape into something different.

Joshua could feel everything, the change in his hands, fingers and feet as the retracted and changed. Joshua felt a little pressure and pain as his bones moulded like clay, stretching longer and smaller, he felt dizziness wash over him from the experience.

For a moment he blacked out, but only for a moment. Joshua dared not open his eyes and eventually the feeling had stopped, he no longer felt his body changing and the pain was subsiding. Joshua slowly began to open his, even though he knew that he had turned he still didn’t know what to expect. Joshua looked around, he was looking at everything in his room and recognised it all, but the difference was that he was seeing it from a lower point of view. Joshua knew that his view was much lower than usual because of his new vessel, the new skin that he wore.

Rather than stay in like a trapped animal and wait until it all goes away Joshua decided to go outside to take a wander and test his limits. This was the first time Joshua was more aware of what he was and what he was doing, so he wanted to see what else he could do. After escaping through the window Joshua walked along the edge of town; he didn’t want to come across anyone because he still didn’t trust himself.

Joshua spent a lot of time on the edge of the forest testing how far he could jump and how fast he could run, among other things. Joshua was enjoying being a wolf, more then he thought he would, but now he was feeling hungry. Joshua thought that this would give him an opportunity to try out some of his special wolf abilities; he began to sniff in the air to see if he could smell anything. It had worked, Joshua could something, it was food for sure but he just couldn’t think what it was.

Joshua followed the direction of the smell, he didn’t know how he knew but he was sure of which way the smell was coming from. An ability to smell out food was one he loved the most. Joshua made his way into town, he realised that he wasn’t too far away from his own house and eventually he realised where exactly the smell was. It was coming from the shop he passed earlier, the only shop in town that opened late. It looked as if Joshua had arrived just in time because it looked as if they were about to close up. He made his way across the road and headed for the shop, as the last of the kids left the shop Joshua entered.

It was dead inside apart from the shop keeper, he was an old man who everyone knew and respected and he now noticed Joshua. A look of horror spread across the old man’s face as he stepped backwards so that he was right up against the back wall. Joshua wondered why he was frightened of him but then soon remembered what he was.

Joshua didn’t care and took off towards the other end of the store, his belly wanted food. As he did the old man quickly crept around from behind the cashier and hurried out the door. If you didn’t know there was a wolf inside you would think that the old man was having a heart attack. Joshua headed for the freezer section; there was something that intrigued him, a certain smell that made his stomach rumble.

In the freezer section there were doors above and below displayed more freezers with no tops. This made easy access for Joshua as he jumped up and rested his paws on the edge of the freezer, inside he could see what it was he was after. Within the freezer there were many pots of ice cream of different flavours. Joshua poked his whole head inside and with his teeth he took out a tub of chocolate flavoured ice cream. As he stepped off the freezer he let go of the tub and when the ice cream hit the floor the lid came off.

Joshua gladly licked up the ice cream from the floor and continued to lap up half of the tub; ice cream was one of Joshua’s favourite desserts. Just then a sound pierced his ears and now there was something else on his mind besides his stomach for once. The sound was a scream, a cry for help. It sounded like someone was in trouble, it was a young girl Joshua recognised. It sounded like it was Charlie.

Joshua could hear and feel that Charlie was worried and frightened of something, or someone.

He walked out of the shop and stopped, Joshua tried to listen hard to Charlie’s cries so that he can find out where she was. Joshua could her again and set off in the direction of her voice, he hoped that this would work like it had with the smelling of food.

Joshua took off down the road, eventually he turned down an alleyway that led behind the buildings. Joshua continued onwards between the bricked walls. He wondered just how far Charlie could be. Soon Joshua came out into a huge deserted car park. Looking around it was pretty dark with only a few street lamps that spread across the car park, Joshua could see a car over at the far end with its lights still on. In front was a group of kids, four teenage boys standing around in a circle.

Joshua turned his head slightly and listened hard, he heard the kids laughing and shouting. Joshua loved this ability, he was standing at one end of this incredibly large car park and yet he could hear these kids who were on the other side so clearly. There was someone else Joshua could hear, he concentrated again and it came apparent that it was a female voice, it was Charlie.

She was upset and extremely scared. Just then Joshua witnessed Charlie trying to escape, she pushed past one of the guys and began to run. It was then that Joshua also began to run towards them. As Joshua raced across the car park at a fast pace he watched as the guys chased after Charlie, she didn’t get far before she tripped over and fell to the concrete. She cried out loud as she looked up, the four men gaining on her.

The men got close to Charlie all grinning, but Joshua was also close and much faster. Joshua had beat them to her but he never stopped running, before they had got too close to Charlie he continued to jump over her. Charlie was still on the ground watching the wolf land in front of her. This stopped all four men in their tracks with surprised looks on their faces. Charlie also looked stunned at the surprise guess.

Charlie was sat up and watched as the fierce beast leaped over her head and now stood within her reach. She couldn’t take her eyes of the wolf; she thought about how beautiful this animal looked even though it was an image for something real dangerous. The wolf was completely covered in beautiful shiny black fur.

There was something that stood out; upon one of the wolf’s front leg there was a sharp cut. This was one which Joshua got back in the woods when testing his skills. Charlie watched the wolf growl at the four young men who were now just as terrified as she had been, maybe even more.

Joshua growled some more which made the guys squeal like pigs and begin to run back to their car. Joshua chased after them. He could have reached them within seconds but being ten times more aware of himself Joshua knew he didn’t want to kill these guys, just scare them off. Joshua chased them all the way to their car and as the last guy rushed to get in Joshua bit his leg; he felt the skin tare and blood run down the guy’s leg as he dug his teeth into him. Joshua didn’t want to kill anyone, but causing them great pain was just as satisfying.

Charlie had plenty of time to get up and rush off home while this was taking place but something kept her on her a*s. She watched the wolf return, her heart started beating faster the closer the wolf got to her. She didn’t know what to expect, all she knew for sure was that this wild wolf was coming towards her. The wolf got right up close to her, approaching very slowly and casually, Charlie never took her eyes of him and although she tried she couldn’t move either.

When the wolf reached her he stopped and just looked at her, this scared Charlie more but soon the more she stared into the beast’s eyes, the more Charlie’s fear began to subside. She started to feel more comfortable with the wolf being so close, her fear turned into warmth. She now felt safe and she knew the wolf wasn’t going to hurt her.

Charlie looked into the wolf’s eyes and suddenly she felt like she knew him. The crystal light blue colour of his eyes hypnotised Charlie, who couldn’t figure out why he seemed so familiar.

‘Joshua?’ Charlie said in an almost whisper, like the wolf was going to answer back. But for some reason Charlie never meant to say that, it was like she had said it unconsciously. Then something else happened, Charlie could have sworn that as soon as she spoke the wolf smiled back. But that wasn’t possible, was it? And then she watched as the wolf fled into the night.

Joshua woke up with the sun shiny bright into his eyes, he looked over to his alarm clock and it wasn’t set to go off for another thirty minutes. Joshua sat up and rubbed his face, he tried to recall everything about last night and sure enough he remembered. Joshua smiled to himself, in his opinion the night was the most successful as it could have been.

He looked to the left of him and suddenly realised why the sun was so bright. The curtains were open and the window was broken, nearly all of the glass had been smashed. Joshua thought back to the early hours of the night and thought he must have done it himself, being that the bedroom door was still locked.

Just as Joshua was about to move to get out of bed there was a knock at his bedroom door, his head snapped to look at the door and wondered who it could be. His grandmother never came in unless he had slept over his alarm. There came another knock, and another. Joshua quickly got up, seeing that he was naked again he grabbed a pair of jeans from his bedroom floor. After putting on the jeans Joshua unlocked his door and opened it to find Charlie standing on the other side.

‘You’ll never believe what happened to me.’ Charlie said enthusiastic and as she stormed inside Joshua’s room, making herself welcome. ‘It was incredible...’ She turned on the spot to face him again; when she did she noticed something odd about Joshua’s bedroom.

She studied the window that was completely broken and then looking around she studied the rest of his room. Lying on the floor was a pair of torn jeans and a ripped t-shirt both in a pile. Joshua followed her gaze and saw what she was staring at; it must have been from when he changed Joshua thought.

‘What’s that about? And the window?’ Charlie asked pointing to the clothes and behind her to the window. Joshua looked down at the fabric and then back at Charlie he was going to try and answer with a lie but he was cut off when he saw Charlie staring at something else. She was looking straight at him and as he followed her gaze again he noticed that he had a small cut on the top of his right arm.

Charlie said nothing but looked at him weirdly, she made him feel like he was a stranger and Joshua knew there was no way around this. He wasn’t up for trying to dodge the subject of being a skin-walker when the evidence was so clear. Joshua felt like it was time to tell her, at least then he would have a friend in all this.

‘I need to tell you something.’ Joshua speaks.