Young Writers Society

12+ for mild swearing. Not sure if it'll become a romance, because I'm pretty sure this'll just stay my small moment of freaky brain-vomit. Please skip the nitpicks, and if you have something constructive to say, say it, without apologizing constantly for your honesty. Thanks!

It was one of those cold nights where you only realize how much you wish you were inside when you’re standing in a cold alleyway with frozen toes and trembling extremities. And that was where I happened to be, staring out at the fast-moving snow and wondering why the hell I’d gone out in the first place.

Oh yeah. Tim.

Tim, my stupid younger brother, who had decided to invite his whore girlfriend over for a make-out fest, and who had decided to lock all the doors so I couldn’t get back inside after going out Christmas shopping. Tim, whose whereabouts could only be some dark bedroom upstairs – here, of course, I shuddered – Tim, who was so dead when Mom got home.

Unfortunately, Mom wasn’t going to be home from her out-of-town conference for three more days, and as I came back to myself, standing in that cold alleyway with my eyes darting around like crazy, I figured I probably wouldn’t last that long out here. Why hadn’t I put a house key on my key-chain before I left for college? And why on earth had I decided to come back for Christmas break?

“Dibs!” shouted a sudden, squeaky voice, and something hit me going fast, knocking us both down into the nasty, melting snow. I screamed, but only until a small, cold hand closed over my mouth. “Shut up,” said the same squeaky voice. “Can’t you see I’m trying to kill you quietly, idiot?”

That was actually what quieted me down, and not the tiny hand that smelled like ice. Before I could try to figure out how honesty could possibly help him – her – it in this situation, or even begin struggling again, the small, cold something was lifted off me, and someone said, “Just because you yell dibs in that stupid voice doesn’t mean you get it all to yourself.”

I pulled myself up, falling over in the snow more than once in the process, and spluttering angrily the whole time. “Listen, I don’t know who the hell you are, or even what, but I am so not a…a…a….” I trailed off not because I’d forgotten what I meant to say, as I so often did, but because the two things before me were so distinctly weird everything ran out of my head crying.

A thin, gangly boy, about fifteen, was standing on his tiptoes, eyes clenched shut in pain, his choppy black hair held tightly in the fist – paw – of a…a wolf-thing, huge golden eyes and a thick pelt of brown fur. He was standing up straight, wearing a damned businessman suit, and the incongruity of the entire situation suddenly made me want to laugh.

“I told you she wouldn’t like that,” squeaked the boy, waving his little pale hands around and wriggling like a demented fish. “I told you, told you, told you.”

“Did not,” said the wolf-man, and shook the boy by the hair, who squealed in a frighteningly inhuman fashion.

“Did too!” he cried, trying to kick the wolf-man’s shins and missing by at least a foot.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“GUYS!” I shouted, now somehow more amused than scared. It was like watching a Buster Keaton movie with sound and color, only slightly less strange. “I’ve no idea what’s going on here, but I have to get back to my house, since the snowstorm is over, and you should probably crawl back into the depths of the earth before the police come and commit you to an asylum.”

The two of them looked at me, and the wolf-man released the man-child’s hair. Haughtily straightening his suit, aforementioned wolf-man pointed out, “The crazy illusions – and I will call Darren and me that only for the sake of argument, understand – are not the ones who go to the asylums, dear…he said, condescendingly.”

“What?” Darren – previously known as man-child or boy – said, frowning up at the wolf-man. “You can’t tag your own dialogue, man. It’s egotistical and weird.”

“Can, too,” snapped the wolf-man, his gold eyes still locked onto me.

“Cannot.”

“Can, too.”

“Cannot!”

“Can, too!”

“Dammit, guys, this is so stupid. I’d rather die than – okay, maybe not – listen to you idiots argue like…children. Aren’t you supposed to be vile and foreboding, Darren? And why the hell is the werewolf wearing a business suit?” I stomped my foot in the watery snow, and put a hand over my eyes, feeling rather giddy and not just a little bit insane.

Through my fingers, wolf-man looked like I’d hurt his feelings, but Darren grinned, pulling a can of beer out of nowhere and somehow managing to offer it to himself. “Oh please. This is much scarier than us chasing you through long dark tunnels and whispering about secret pacts of sacred bloodlines behind closed doors of liquid amber.” He could tell, as he paused for a breath, that I was going to say something, but he interrupted me before I managed to say anything to be interrupted. “Maurice here secretly likes chicken more than human flesh, but what would the other werewolves think if he suddenly went vegan?”

“That’s not vegan,” I said, tiredly, “and that doesn’t explain why he’s wearing a business suit. Don’t werewolves have a human form—and why has no one reported him for a being a circus freak?”

“He looks like that to you – and unlike all those dumb vamps in books who are like, Oooh, you’re special, let me kidnap you so I can figure it out and we can get married and then I can kill you, wheee! I don’t give a shit why – but to most people he just looks like a big businessman with a really stupid beard.”

“It is so cool!” protested Maurice – previously known as wolf-man – looking as if he might grab Darren by the hair again. The latter quickly moved out of hair-grabbing range, and popped open his beer can, taking a long swig.

“Fifteen-year-olds shouldn’t—” I started, but Darren was already talking.

“One, I’m two-hundred-and-seventy-nine tomorrow. Two, I like beer more than blood, and if you’ve got a problem with that feel free to offer me your wrist, neck, or whatever other vein you’re comfortable getting sucked dry from. And three, there’s a large company of bloodthirsty vampires and several very hungry werewolves galloping through the city right now, coming here because they like your blood type and – or – the taste of your flesh. I’d say you’ve got about two minutes to find that stupid dinky Prius of yours and get the hell out of here before you become a nice yummy dinner for twenty.”

I stared at the two of them, exact opposites in skinny jeans and silk dress pants. I wondered for a fleeting second if this was all some elaborate practical joke, if Darren’s bright red eyes and icy pale skin was an illusion, if Maurice’s brown pelt and huge paw-hands were some dumb suit.

And then, as the faint sound of shouting from not far away floated down the alley to us, and I shuddered a little under those two suddenly hungry gazes, I decided what the heck, why take the chance?

Ten minutes later, I pulled into the driveway, got out of the car, climbed the front steps. The lights were on in the house, and I knelt down on impulse to check under the rug. There hadn’t been a key there before, I’d made sure when I came back and Tim wouldn’t let me in—but somehow, as I brushed the soft-falling snowflakes from my hair and lifted the mat, there was a little gold-painted key, winking at me in the warm porch-light.

The door swung open and I stepped inside, kicking off my soggy boots and shivering. “Damn, why is it so cold in here?”

“Ooh! Ooh! Let me answer, let me answer!” cried an awfully familiar voice. I turned, praying to any god or gods there might be in “heaven” that it was just Tim impersonating some really gay guy.

But it wasn’t. There on the leather couch, with his black hair all mussed-up and red eyes glowing with something not entirely innocent, was Darren. When I glared at him, he sketched a sad face and said, “Bad day, honey?”

Oh, it was going to be.

I didn't feel like putting italics in. Hope you liked it!