Then the sounds started. His knuckles cracked and popped, and his thumbs shrank back from the rest of his fingers. I took a step back and then another. Other joints began popping in earnest. It sounded painful. My heart began to beat rapidly, and I eased another step back.
From this distance, his eyes appeared closed. His ears shifted higher on his skull, which had started to change its shape. His skull grew larger, longer than it was high, his nose and mouth extended with it. A grey down began covering his skin growing into thick fur.
Through it all, he remained silent, twitching and jerking as his body rearranged itself.
Unable to move, I watched his slow transformation from human to large canine. He shook out his fur when it completed.
I gaped at the creature. What did I just see? Oh, my god… Oh, my god…Oh, my god…
When his head swung in my direction, eyes glowing eerily from the distant lights, my paralyzing shock left me and I ran. Scared of what I’d just witnessed, I gasped for breath after four strides.
The park entrance beckoned in the distance. Thanks to my second sight, I watched him rapidly closing in on me. I would never make it.
Rather than being attacked from behind, I spun to confront the big, grey beast bearing down on me. One well-placed kick to its throat… that’s all I needed to get in before it could maul me to death. Yeah, I was going to die. I braced myself.
As soon as I turned, the beast slowed to a trot. Within ten feet, it slowed to a walk. My breath still tore through my throat in ragged terrified gasps.
A yard away, it sat on its haunches and I stared at him poised to run again. His intelligent blue eyes watched me. For several long moments, neither of us moved. A debate raged within me. What did it want? Do I run or do I wait to find out?
Holding his gaze, I started slowly sliding my left foot behind me. Before I could shift my weight onto that foot, he stood again. I froze, heart hammering.
He kept his gaze locked with mine as he began slowly circling me. I pivoted, following his progress. We made a slow dance of sorts. He stopped circling when he had positioned himself between me and the north side of the park - the way home - and then began to stalk forward, backing me toward the pond. My breathing spiked again. I didn’t want to go back to the darker area of the park.
Just about to bolt back toward the well-lit bus stop, he sat down again halting his advance. I stood with my back to the pond, but could see we hadn’t yet made it to the darkest shadows. In the relative dark, stars faintly sparkled in the night sky just on the outskirts of my peripheral vision.
He yipped once at me, nearly giving me a heart attack, scaring the breath right out of me.
Having a uniqueness of my own, I didn’t doubt what I saw. My mind screamed werewolf even as it denied the possibility. Werewolves were legend, myth. Found in stories dating back before the 1500’s and even in the popular childhood tale ‘Red Riding hood’. Never had anyone reported seeing one, unlike the elusive Bigfoot.
Standing in the shadows of the park, I tried to come up with a better, more logical, explanation for what I had just witnessed.
I managed to pull in a ragged breath, and as if that breath had been the signal he’d waited for, he trotted around me to his pile of clothes. There he morphed back to the man he’d been before. Without perversion, I watched him dress still too stunned and afraid to look away. I thought about running away, but couldn’t ignore the fact that he and I shared a connection. Unique life sparks. I feared what that meant for me.
When he finished dressing, buttoning his shirt slowly, he looked up at me and met my wide gaze. I tried to calm down. Was he like a real canine? If he smelled my fear, would he attack? I’d been afraid since he’d changed into his fur and he hadn’t attacked me, so I supposed he wouldn’t now either.
My rationalizing thoughts fled when he paced toward me with his hands in the pockets of his kakis. I tensed to bolt.
He removed one hand from a pocket and held it up, palm out, signaling I should wait. Right…
“My name is Samuel Riedel, but calling me Sam suit’s me just fine. I know what you just saw seems unreal, but it is real. And showing you was the only way for you to believe.”
Believe I’m crazy, I wondered. Done and done. Calm down, Gabby, I thought to myself as I tried a few steadying breaths.
“Why did you show this to me? What do you want from me?”
I fought hard to keep my breathing under control. My mind continued to race.
Sam smiled and nodded toward a bench set near the edge of the water before walking toward it. Sitting in the dark with a man who’d just changed into a dog large enough to pass for a pony, didn’t inspire any feelings of safety in me. I stayed where I stood, in the not yet dark shadows by the evergreens.