The Fanged Ones by Jessica Singleton

This is a story that was written some time back.  It was actually written in 2010 and then copy righted in 2011 under the Break the Mold file.
The title of the story then was The Fanged Ones.  I did not have a title for it.  Here is the just of it.  

                    Fang
                      By;
            Jessica  Singleton

This feeling crawls inside of me until I am craving for breath. I feel like I'm begging and all it takes is for me to be released from the inside of myself.  I flip inside out and I am truely myself in that moonlit hour. 

She kept a wolf house on the old back road out of Tulsa Oklahoma.  She took in wild dogs and gave them a cage to live in.  It was like a kennel for stray beast.  Her day job was working at a nursing home for elderly men and women.

She spent her nights  running the hills by her ranch home.  To let it all out.  To feel the cool night air seep into the back of her lungs and take her breath away all at once.  It was freedom. It was everything.  To sweat it all out.  To release all the pain and regret from the past.  Gripping the ground with her feet and climbing up one more step to push it all out in the open.

One night a man came to her gate.  He almost did not catch her but she had just finished her run and was checking the mail box.

The man looked rough like an old drunk that cleaned himself up in a clean shirt.  Sometimes you can look into a mans eyes and you can see that at one time, there was a past there.
You might not know what it was or if it will return but you know something is there.  Hidden in the darkest shadows.

She walked up to the gate and smiled at him. 
" Can I help you mister? "

" In a matter of speaking.  "

"' What can I do for you ?"

"  I hear you take in wild dogs . "

" I do that yes. "

" Good. See I have a problem.  My son found a dog one day when he and his friends were out camping in the woods.  It was not a normal house dog.  It was a wolf.  That boy of mine means the world to me.  I love him more then anything.  Well that damn dog got out and made a mess of my neighbors house.  Now the law wants it.  They want it put down.  I know this is a lot.  But I want you to keep the pooch for a while.  "

" Well, I do not mind but if the cops show up here  and they have a warrent , then my hands are tied and I have to turn it over.  I do what the law says. Do you understand my postion? "

" Yes, fair enough.  I guess any time is better then no time.  Thank you. Do you charge ? "

" No the state gives me grants to help animals here. "

That is when she noticed the old  man's hands.  They were weathered maps from times before.  That man's son could not be a child.  Something did not add up but she just wanted to take the dog and be done with it.

After the paperwork and the dog being locked up.  The older man left her home.

Two nights later the moon sat full in the sky like a fat lady laughing at the world.  When she went out to check the dogs, one cage had been ripped open.

That new dog was gone.
Within two days, the newspapers talked of a killing in town.  But the killing took place in the country near Pawhuska Oklahoma.
A buffelo had been ripped from gut to neck by something with claws.  Something shredded that buffelo like strings made for kites. Nothing ate it. That is what puzzled everyone. Why slice it up in that many pieces if for no other reason then to spill blood?

One week later, this younger man showed up on her property.
He looked like a boxer.  He had the most beautiful eyes.  Like a wolf.

He was taller then her.  He smiled and he liked her.
They talked about him buying a dog.  She was not allowed to sell wild animals to city people.  Wolves were not allowed in city limits.
He ask her out.  They dated for a few months.
Then he disappeared.  One night that dog showed back up.
It had that scent that smelled like after shave.
But it was faint.  It could just be on the mind and lingering from a time before in the air.

Two days later another full moon.  This time from her kitchen window, she saw it happen.
THAT wolf morphed into a man.  A beast of a man.  He tore from his cage and he took one look in her direction and he lowered his head.
Then he turned back into his human form.  He could not hurt her.  He loved her.
It was the boy that the old man was protecting all that time.

She went outside to him.  He ask her to take him to the hospital.
She drove him to the city asylum.  He went in to the other creatures.  He turned to her and said,

" You are not so different from us.  You have to be released too .  You take it all in.  What life throws at you.  You bottle it up.  Then you run and release it.  Some of us lock ourselves up like this so we can be our true selves as well.  I would have never hurt you. I love you.  Know that much. "

She looked around and everyone there was a different form of beast or creature.  Some were octopus, Monsters, odd bats that were too big to be just animal or dinosaurs , wild cats and some were wolves.

She could not believe her eyes.

But there was nothing to be said.
She looked down and she saw his claws and she put her hand into his.
She wanted him to know that it was okay.
She needed him to know that he could trust her.
He turned his head and he nugged her face with his like dogs do when they mark their own.


                        The End