Were in the City Ch. 03

This story is going to take a few more chapters to build up to the hotter bits. I hope you don't mind. I like reading stories that use chapters as puzzle pieces to take the reader on a journey, so I write that way too.

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It snowed for a week after New Year's. Normally Jessie would have loved it, even if she had to shovel her sidewalk and driveway several times a day or battle chaotic traffic to and from work. The beauty of the falling snow, the fun of trudging through it, the laughter of kids sliding down the sloping sides of the nearby schoolyard, building her own snowman and making snow-angels even at age 31. It usually reminded her of happy times in her childhood and made her smile.

This time though there was no smiling. There was little to no sleeping, no feeling of safety or security. The world she thought she knew was turning up-side down.

New Year's Day she'd nursed her hangover for quite a while, trying to convince herself that what she thought she'd seen in the early morning hours had some kind of explanation other that what it was - a coyote that turned into a man ... or was it a man that turned into a coyote? Did it matter which way it was? She'd called work to say she was sick the next day, and did the same thing the day after that. Then it was the weekend and she stayed in her PJs for two more days.

Wasn't the shapeshifter thing just a made-up story? Google "werewolf" (and she did), you see liberal use of the words folklore and fiction. Google "werecoyote" (and she did), you get hits for a teen TV show and lots of references to legend and myth. Google "are werewolves real" (and she did) ... she went down the rabbit hole into a hell of a lot of websites that made her head hurt far worse than her hangover had done. She finally stopped surfing the net, knowing what she was doing was nuts and a waste of time.

She had a paranoid thought. She knew Google watched words people searched to detect events - like, for example, if the company saw a big uptick in searches for "earthquake" or "flu" then it was likely lots of people had just experienced an earthquake or were getting sick. What if somewhere, somebody was watching for searches like she'd just done? Would they drop by and blank her mind or something?

"Jessie girl get a grip for heaven's sake!!" she yelled at herself.

She desperately wanted to talk to someone about what she'd seen but as she thought about everyone she knew she realized it wasn't possible. She'd always kept some distance between herself and other people so she wasn't close enough to anyone to have developed a level of trust where they could have a real, serious conversation about this. No one she knew would believe her.

So what was she left with? Just the few things she could be sure of. Her camera was gone, and it had been ripped violently off the post - she'd checked that carefully. She'd seen at least two larger coyotes in the cemetery and seen images of them exploring her yard. She knew the man who had destroyed her camera had seen her and he knew she'd seen him. He'd given her a shush gesture - was he warning her, threatening her? Could she identify him if she saw him again - maybe, but she wasn't sure.

She could leave, but where would she go? Could she throw away her whole life and start over? No, damn it, she was not going to run! She was going to have to be careful and vigilant from now on. She'd make sure all the windows and doors were locked, and the security system on, when she was home. She'd get a couple more motion-detector lights set up around the house. She would no longer go for walks at night. She'd check the outside carefully before going from the house to the car and vice versa.

Since she was in Canada Jessie couldn't legally carry anything intended to be used as a weapon even if she wanted to (she'd Googled that too) ... and as she thought about it she knew she didn't want to. She wasn't trained to use or fight with any weapon. Besides which, if she was facing some kind of werewolf, and the myths had any truth to them, she'd need silver bullets or knives to take him down wouldn't she? She'd taken a couple of self-defence classes after she'd been mugged when she was 18 and knew her best defence was her brain - and she'd learned how to poke out an assailant's eye with her finger (yuck) ... that would probably work with a shapeshifter too wouldn't it?!

By the time Monday rolled around Jessie had talked herself into being able to leave the house again. She felt safe at the College where she worked in the library, surrounded by thousands of students and staff. Sleeping was still difficult though. She kept waking up, and looked out various windows 3 or 4 or 5 times a night, but she never saw anything. While there was snow on the ground she checked for footprints everywhere but saw nothing other than raccoon trails in the yard. That worried her - she never saw anything, or heard anything ... not even one coyote. It seemed they were now avoiding her area. There was intelligence behind that change, she just knew it, and it was one more thing that told her what she had seen that night was real.

Three weeks went by, the snow was washed away by heavy rains, winter settled into its dreary pace. Jessie was sleeping a bit better, only waking up a couple of times each night. She exercised at the college, walking the halls, rather than walking in her neighbourhood, but she missed fresh air and the friendly hello from other people and their pets as she passed them on the streets. She had started hearing the pack again when vehicle sirens flew by but the yips and wails came from far away on the other side of the golf course now. She still hadn't seen any of them.

The last Saturday in January was the anniversary of her mother's death. That day Jessie always visited her grave and placed a red rose there. Even though her relationship with her mother had often been difficult, she'd loved her very much and missed her. Jessie was haunted by what had happened to her mother - killed as she crossed a road late at night during a heavy rain storm by someone who had struck her down and then driven away leaving her mother to die alone. As far as Jessie knew the driver had never been found.

Late Friday afternoon when Jessie got home, having picked up the perfect rose for her Mom on the way and hoping to relax and get a good night's sleep, she saw a bright yellow Hummer in her next door neighbour's driveway and her heart sank. Shit! He only showed up a few times a year but when he did, along came his obnoxious friends, obnoxious habits, and his poorly-trained, nasty, large dog. Darren Barron (his name was the only thing even slightly humorous about him) was an awful man and he was horrible to his elderly parents who, luckily for them, were away on vacation at the moment. There were probably going to be loud parties during the next week before he went away again.

Sure enough, Friday night was awful. By the time the police showed up around 3am after what had to have been many noise complaints (including one from Jessie) she was sure the entire neighbourhood for blocks around was an exhausted mess. She managed to get a few hours of sleep and woke up to a bright sunny day.

After a long shower and several cups of coffee, Jessie dressed and walked up to the cemetery with her rose. She spent a while cleaning both her parents' memorial stones and talking to her Mom about her life, including what she'd seen New Year's Eve, shed a few tears and placed the rose down telling her Mom she loved her. As she stood up she heard a man yelling "Scrapper, get the fuck back here right now damn it! Scrapper, heel, you stupid piece of shit!" Jessie turned to look back towards her house and she saw Darren's big nasty dog running straight at her.

Suddenly she heard the most terrifying loud growls from behind her in the trees. Jessie froze. She didn't know if she should keep looking at the dog or look around at what was behind her. Scrapper didn't seem to care, he kept coming, probably too stupid to consider the consequences. She saw Darren run into the cemetery after his dog. She heard something moving behind her and a rush of air as two large coyotes flew past her, one on either side of her, straight at the dog. Scrapper, true to his name, launched himself at them and Jessie watched in amazement as three canines became a big ball of snarling, snapping, tearing fury.

Scrapper didn't stand a chance and Darren knew it. Also being too stupid to consider the consequences, Darren pulled the illegal pistol he carried from his belt and started shooting at the coyotes mauling his dog. Bullets flew everywhere, some ricocheting off memorial stones. Jessie felt something burn through her upper arm and screamed before she flattened herself on the ground. Darren ran out of bullets and Scrapper ran out of life at the same time. The coyotes backed up to circle Jessie, whining as she clutched her arm. She could hear sirens approaching - someone had called 911.

Jessie looked up into their eyes as they stared at her. "Go! ... Go, get out of here! They'll shoot you if you stay." She couldn't believe she was talking to them. One of them sniffed her arm and growled softly. "I'm ok. I am, it will be fine. For god's sake, get out of here!" The sirens were very loud. "Go! Now!". Finally, the two of them started to move away into the trees. She watched them until they disappeared. Her body started to shake violently. She lay back down on the ground and closed her eyes.