literature

The Old Woman and the Werewolf

Deviation Actions

The-Ricemaster's avatar
Published:
2.1K Views

Literature Text

He was able to jimmy the window of the house open without raising too much noise. While the house was old enough to not have any kind of fancy alarm system, it was also old enough to be rather creaky and squeaky. In the right circumstances, that was just as effective as a regular alarm. The fact that he had been able to force an opening as quietly as he had was nothing short of a miracle.

He waited a minute or two before trying to crawl through the open window. He was still partially in his lupine form, and there was no way he was going to fit through that window as bulky as he was. The pain inflicted on him earlier by others of his kind was compounded by the new pain of changing back to a more human appearance. A few broken ribs lit up like fire and he gritted his teeth; bones reshaping and his mass rearranging all the while.

At last, he was small enough to crawl through the window. It was still a tough fit, made harder by the fact that he was trying to keep quiet. His aches and pains made it no easier, but he kept his mouth shut in spite of it. He managed to get through in the end, however, and pulled himself into a sitting position on a counter top.

He looked around the room he had entered. It was a kitchen, with counters and cabinets and a sink and an oven and a fridge. There was a small table in the middle of the room, and a bookcase behind it. A small arrangement of Precious Moments dolls were atop the bookcase, and a purple vase with a slightly wilted dandelion was in the middle of the table. The refrigerator was adorned with a collection of various newspaper clippings. All in all, it was a fairly quiet kitchen.

His side screamed at him as he slid off of the counter, and he winced in pain as he stood back on his own two feet. He'd taken a bad beating. It was his own fault though, he'd known not to go slinking around Williams's territory, knew that to do so would bring down the alpha's wrath on his head. He'd gone and done it anyway, though, thinking that he could slink out before he got noticed. Quite obviously, he'd been proven wrong on that account.

But he shook his head and tried to clear his mind of those thoughts as he began to open up the cabinets and drawers quietly. They were following him, and he knew it. At any moment he expected them to burst into the house and attack him all over again. But he knew he couldn't just keep running. He had to patch himself up first, get as many of his wounds bandaged and pop some pain-killers to take care of the rest. Only then could he keep fleeing.

As he looked through the drawers for anything that might help him, he thought he heard a noise behind him. It sounded almost like a fairly loud click. He paused and turned around, wondering what might have made it. To his great surprise, he found an old woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She had a cane propped up next to her, and was pointing a double-barreled shotgun at him. The thing that unnerved him the most about this though was the look in her eyes. She did not look at him with fear, as one might expect, but rather with a simple appraising glance.

"What do you think you're doing?" the old woman asked him in an even tone of voice.

He took a deep breath or two. "Let me be."

"That is not an answer to my question, young man," the old woman said, keeping the shotgun pointed at him. "What do you think you're doing?" He growled a little in frustration. The old woman frowned. "Don't get angry with me. You're the one who broke into my kitchen in the middle of the night. Don't act like you've got a right to be upset when I try to defend my home."

"I'm just trying to get myself fixed up."

"There are hospitals for that kind of thing," the old woman pointed out. She looked him over a bit more. "Looks like something tore into you real good. Find a girl that had a bit too much fight in her?"

He frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, so it's not like that at all, is it? Was she asking for it or something?"

He growled and ripped the door of the counter off in his rage. "You have no idea who I am," he said, anger welling up in his voice.

"Can it, fluffy," the old woman said, narrowing her eyes and keeping the shotgun trained on him. "I'm not stupid. I know exactly what you are."

"No you don't."

"Werewolf."

He paused at this, his anger almost subsiding in a flood of curiosity. How did this old woman know what he was? He'd not been in wolf form when she entered the room, he didn't think. Was she one too? After a moment or two, he knew that to not be the case. Her scent was one of regular human mixed with a bit of baby powder. Why there was baby powder involved he did not think he wished to know.

"Surprised I know?" she asked.

He slowly nodded his head, keeping focused on her.

She sneered a little. "Typical. You always underestimate people. You think just because you can grow a little hair and snarl loudly you've got an advantage."

He frowned and growled a bit more at her. "I can also grow teeth," he said. "And claws. If you don't want to find out about that, then shut up."

The old woman frowned in return. "You won't. You think I'm stupid? I know about your little code. 'The predator is noble.' You won't dare try to attack something that's clearly weaker than you like this. Then you'd be even more of an outcast and an outlaw than you might be now. Wouldn't you?"

He paused, quite confused now. There was definitely more to this old woman than he had suspected. She knew the code of his kind, the one that he had been introduced to only a few months ago. He'd been taught that it was sacred and secret, the only thing that kept his kind as a whole from being no better than regular humans. And here she knew it, and used it against him?

For a moment, he considered killing her anyway. After all, who would know? She'd just be some old woman, victim of a particularly brutal home invasion. Perhaps the press would ramp it up as some kind of serial killing to attract more viewers. It wasn't the first time such things had happened. But, in the end, he decided against it. Other werewolves would know what had transpired, and they would hunt him down for his transgression.

"You're right," he said, taking a deep breath. "As much as I dislike it, I'll let you live. The predator in me doesn't find you worthy of killing."

To his great surprise, the old woman laughed right in his face. "'The predator in me doesn't find you worthy of killing'? You idiot. Did they tell you to say that? No, don't answer, I know that they did. I'm just surprised you don't realize how stupid that sounds."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, the growl already seeping back into his voice.

"Real predators don't go around picking fights with those they find 'worthy'. They feed on the old, the weak, and the sick. I'm 70 years old, I'm lame in one leg, and I can't read anything within arm's reach. I qualify as your prey, pup. Sad fact."

He didn't know what to do. This old woman was confusing him a great deal. "What's your problem?" he asked.

"My problem?" she asked incredulously. "You're asking what my problem is? You've really got a lot to learn." He opened his mouth to speak again, to ask her just who she was, but she shook her head and waved the shotgun at him. "Don't talk. Sit at the table. Nice and slow."

He paused for a moment, wondering just what was going on. What was this old woman up to? Just who was she? She motioned over at the table with the shotgun, clearly getting a little impatient with him. He held his hands up and did as she indicated, sitting down at the table slowly.

The old woman hobbled forward a bit, looking down at the cabinet door that he had torn off. "A nice mess you've left me," she said with a displeased voice. "Just can't control yourself, can you?"

"Sorry," he half-heartedly mumbled.

"Don't give me that," the old woman retorted. "You're not sorry at all. Don't say stuff like that unless you mean it."

He shot her a dirty look, quite angry with how she was talking to him. Who was she, that she thought she had the right to talk to him like this? Was she crazy? Was she some kind of survivalist?

"Don't give me that look," she said to him. "It's your own fault you're in this situation. Quit being angry at me when you got into this by your own volition."

He looked away from her, fed up with her attitude towards him. He wanted to shut her up, but the shotgun that she held in her hands kept him from doing that. Unlike the popular myth said, he was not solely immune to silver. The weapon that she had would be more than enough to put him out of commission.

The old woman kept her gun pointed at him as she hobbled to another chair. She slowly sat down in it, her body weak in spite of her hard-nosed demeanor. All in all, she did not look very imposing at all. Old and frail, grey hair unkempt from being slept on, a faded pink bath-robe haphazardly put on, she was very much the picture of the stereotype of her age. Yet the demeanor within her far outweighed it. And that alone was enough to intimidate him.

"What's your name?" the old woman asked him.

He frowned. "What does it matter to you?"

"What's your name?" she asked again.

"I don't understand why it matters."

"It matters because I have a shotgun and you don't. What's your name?"

He sighed in frustration. "Terry York."

The old woman nodded. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it, Terry?"

He frowned. "What's your name?"

"Now why should I tell you my name?"

"I told you mine."

The old woman laughed bitterly. "You did so after being threatened. That argument holds no weight."

Terry glared at her. "Why wouldn't you tell me your name?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm afraid that you'll hunt me down and kill me? That's a pretty good reason."

"What if I promised not to?"

The old woman snorted at this. "And why should I trust any kind of promise you might make? You broke into my house, after all."

"If I were to swear an oath of..."

"Stuff it right there," the old woman said. "I already showed you what I think of that idiotic code you and your kind hold yourselves to. Don't try to cling to it for my sake. I'd rather you half-heartedly promise me than throw your precious oaths around."

Terry paused. He was very much unsure of how to deal with this woman. She had quite a bit more to her than one might have suspected. "Look, I won't come back and kill you. I just want to be on the level with you."

"How quaint. The werewolf home invader wants to be on the level with his victim."

He sighed. "I'm sorry I broke in. I just want to patch myself up and be on my way. And I'd like to do it quickly."

"Like I said before, there are hospitals for that kind of thing. And they might be a lot safer than this place."

Terry took another deep breath, trying to get his composure. "They ask questions though. And too many questions can get people killed. Not just me either."

The old woman was quiet for a moment, thinking over what he had said. "You've got brains in your head after all," she said at last. "I guess I have to give you credit for that."

"Enough to tell me who you are?"

"Can you guarantee that it won't get me killed?"

Terry gritted his teeth. "I can promise you that I won't let your name slip to those who might kill you."

The old woman snorted. "Good enough. I'm Jean Wilkerson. I was born in 1925 in Dallas, Texas. I've seen the Great Depression, three wars, and more than my fair share of the supernatural in all my years. I've got just enough gumption left to hold my own against whatever life decides to throw at me next, and there is not a thing on this green earth that I am afraid of. That's who I am, pup."

Terry tried to think back and remember if he might have heard of this woman anywhere before. But nothing was really ringing a bell for him. He shook his head and groaned a little. The pain was getting to him. His ribs were biting into his side something fierce.

Jean looked him over. "How bad is it?"

He looked up at her with an almost incredulous look on his face. "What do you care?"

"The question is not 'what do I care?'," Jean said to Terry. "The question is 'how bad is it?'."

He took in a deep breath and winced. "Broken ribs. I think they cut my back open pretty good too."

Jean frowned at this. "You had your back to them? Were you looking to die?"

Terry glared at her. "I was looking to run."

"Oh, so you're a coward."

"No," Terry growled. "I'm just smart enough to not stay and fight a battle that I know I'm going to lose."

"Never mind the fact that you were dumb enough to get yourself into the battle in the first place," Jean muttered. "If I quit pointing this shotgun at you, will you let me patch you up and not claw my throat out?"

Terry nodded his head. He couldn't afford to be stubborn or dishonorable right now. He needed to get patched up so that he could move on and evade those who might be hunting him down.

Jean slowly lowered the shotgun and pointed it away from Terry. She propped it up against the table and slowly got to her feet. The first thing she did was hobble over to the doorway and get her cane. It was hard to believe that a woman such as her, who saw fit to insult a werewolf, was so weak and frail. Yet it was so.

She made her way over to one of the cabinets slowly, leaning on her cane most of the way there. Terry made no move against her. He had already promised not to hurt her, and even if he had fleeting respect for the werewolf code of honor that he had been so newly introduced to, he had quite a fair bit of respect for an old woman who wasn't afraid to act like that towards something she was probably fairly aware could kill her.

Jean got out some gauze and medicinal tape from the cabinet, then hobbled over to Terry. "Take off your shirt, so's I can work on you better," she ordered.

Terry started to take off his shirt, but a sudden stiffness in his side made him pause for a moment. "Hang on," he said, gritting his teeth a moment as something shifted inside of him.

"Ribs setting?"

"Yeah. Think so."

Jean nodded. "Seems to be the case. Can't fault you for that, at least. You can heal yourself up from your scrapes. Must be the Lord's way of compensating for you being dumb enough to get into so many in the first place."

Terry grunted as the stiffness intensified for a moment or so, then slowly exhaled as it went away. The pain from the broken ribs was gone now, though it had been replaced by a severe soreness. Still, that was quite preferable to what had been there before. He finished taking off his shirt. While his body could fix its own broken bones, flesh wounds were much too minor. He had to patch those up himself.

The old woman looked him over, shaking her head. "They tore you up good," she said as she took the gauze and began to bandage him up. Terry winced at the touch on the gashes in his back, but he kept his mouth shut and did not voice his discomfort.

"So how do you know so much?" he asked instead, trying to find out more about Jean.

"What makes you think I'm going to tell you that?" the old woman asked. "You seem to think you're awfully entitled for someone who broke into someone else's house."

"Sorry," he said. "I just didn't think it was all that common for regular people to know as much as you do."

"It's not," Jean replied. "But don't think I didn't notice you use the words 'regular people'. Just cause you're not regular doesn't mean you're any better than us. You got it?"

"Fine," Terry said, not inclined to argue the point at the moment.

"Good," Jean said, nodding her head with what appeared to be quite a bit of self-satisfaction. "Least you've got some sense in you. That's more than I can say for the pups I've encountered before."

"You mean this isn't the first time someone's broken into your house?"

"I don't mean that. I mean that I've tangled with werewolf pups like you before, and they were somewhat lacking in the sense department."

"I'm not really a pup, you know," Terry said irritably.

"You've barely been a werewolf any length of time, from the looks of things," Jean replied. "You know just about as much as a pup, I'll take it. Maybe even less."

Terry grumbled, not really wanting to admit that this was true but not exactly able to deny it either. He'd not really been a werewolf for long enough to get a feel for the whole thing, and quite a few of the others he had talked to had referred to him as a pup. He'd just not expected to hear it from this old woman.

Jean managed to get Terry all patched up. "That'll have to do you," she said. "Just get rest and you ought to be able to go out again in a week or so and do the whole thing over again."

Terry put his shirt back on. "Thank you," he said. He made to get up, but he noticed the counter laying there on the floor. "You need help fixing that?"

"I'll just call a repairman," Jean said as she hobbled back to her chair and her shotgun.

"I'll pay for it."

"Not going to take your money," Jean replied. "I'm not going to have you doing something for me that I could do myself."

Terry sat there for a moment or two. "I could come back and fix it myself."

Jean paused at this, turning around slowly to look the werewolf in the eyes. "Did you get hit in the head as well, when you got into this scrape?"

"No. I just tore up your cabinet cause I was still kind of full of adrenaline. I should fix it."

For a moment the old woman simply stood there and stared incredulously at Terry. Then she shrugged her shoulders. "If you want to. Just don't mess up things more than you already have."

Terry nodded and got to his feet. "I had better get going then."

Jean nodded. "You had better. If any of your kind come..."

There was a sudden pounding on the front door. Terry tensed up and hid behind the fridge, frightened by this. Jean glanced over at him with a somewhat annoyed look on her face.

"That's them," Terry said. "I can smell them." He could too. It was the scent of the Williams pack, leaking through the wooden door. It smelled of determination and intent to harm, practically reeked of bad things. He began to shift back into his lupine form a little, stressed under the fear of what they might do to him.

Jean rolled her eyes and began to hobble towards the door. "Stay in here. Keep quiet."

Terry reached out as though to try to dissuade Jean from answering the door, but she ignored him and hobbled out of the kitchen. He stayed where he was, too afraid to follow after her. He heard the old woman move through the house until she got to the door, mumbling as she fiddled with the knob. The pounding on the door stopped when that happened. There was the slow sound of the door opening.

"What do you want?" Terry heard Jean ask whoever was there. "It's almost one in the morning."

"Our apologies, madam," said a gruff-sounding voice. "We are looking for someone who may be in this area. Have you seen anyone?"

"I've been asleep, why would I see anyone?"

"So you're saying no?"

"I'm saying that I've been asleep, so how would I see anyone?"

There was a noticeable sigh from whoever was at the door. "Madam, we're just trying to find someone. He may be dangerous. We need to bring him in."

"Who are you? Cops? If you ain't cops, then I'm not helping you. I don't get mixed up on bad business like this."

There was a pause at the door. "Madam, please just let us in. It is imperative that we get this individual and bring him in."

"Now how do you know that he's in my house?" Jean said. "Just a moment ago you were asking me if I saw him, now suddenly you're so sure he's here? What kind of investigation are you running?"

"Madam, for your own good, please let us into this house." This was said with a noticeable bit of a growl, as though whoever was talking was letting a lupine form show through a little.

"Oh no you don't," Jean said in a tone of voice that meant business. "You don't dare threaten me while I'm in my own house, and disguise it as being for my own good. Get out."

There was the sound of someone trying to shut the door, but another sound of it thrown back open even harder. "Madam, I have been patient with you up until now. But we will get in this house and we will get this individual. Do you understand me?"

"So you're going to harm an old woman to do it? Where does that fit in with your code?"

There was a pause for a moment or two. "Beg your pardon, Madam?"

"Your code. 'The predator is noble.' How does harming an old woman fit in with being noble?"

"How do you know of the code?"

"That's not important right now. I'll tell you if I feel like it. What's important is how does harming an old woman fit in with that code."

"Madam, if one of our kind told you this code, then you need to tell us who it was so that we can bring them in."

Jean sighed. "Look, fluffy, I'm not telling you anything. I don't have to. You can't do a thing to make me talk. So why don't you go on?"

There was a noticeable growl from the front door. "The code merely says that I cannot fight you. It does not say anything about pushing past you."

"If you do that I will call down such hellfire upon you that you will think the Lord himself was angry with you."

"What can you do? You're just an old woman. I can see it in you. Your leg betrays you. Your sight betrays you. And something grows inside of you that soon shall take even what little you have from you. What can you do?"

There was a pause for a moment or two. "Tell me something, fluffy. Does the name of Avery Williams mean anything to you?"

There was a very noticeable breath from the front door. "Alpha Williams? You know of him?"

"I do. I knew him back when he was nothing, just a pup. We've grown apart since then, but I guarantee you that if he ever found out that I had been inconvenienced by one of you, he would do everything in his power to make sure you suffered for it. You don't believe me, ask him about the name Jean Wilkerson sometime."

There was another pause at the door. "So, the one beneath your roof is under your protection?"

"You got that straight," Jean said. "He's coming back in the morning to help repair some damages. And if he's not here, or if he shows up looking even the littlest bit more banged up than he was now, I'll be calling Avery. And I hate to think of what he will do to you then, if you harmed someone under my protection. Do I make myself clear?"

Another pause. "Very well. We shall call off our hunt, ancient one."

"You do that. Now get. Let me sleep."

There was the sound of the front door shutting and being locked. Terry took a deep breath. Jean knew the alpha of the Williams pack? Knew him well enough to know his actual first name? What manner of woman was she? Not very many actual werewolves knew the first names of their alpha. Fewer humans did.

Jean hobbled back into the kitchen and looked over at Terry. "You heard all that?"

Terry nodded. "Yeah."

"So, you can go now. But I expect to see you here tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock sharp. You hear me? I don't want to have to make that phone call for nothing."

Terry paused for a moment. "How do you know Alpha Williams?"

"What makes you think that you get to know the answer to that question?" The question seemed to be a harsh one, but Jean's face was not as hard as it had been. She seemed to be lost in thought, as though something in her long life was calling out to her and being remembered.

"It's just... well... it's rather unique."

She nodded slowly. "That it is, isn't it? Suffice it to say that not everyone is a werewolf all their lives, and that lives tend to get tangled up in each other."

Terry shrugged his shoulders. "All right then." He looked over at Jean, but he did not simply look at her. He looked at her as he imagined the werewolf at the door had done so, searching for her weaknesses. He saw her poor eyesight well now, as well as her bad leg. But he also saw the third thing, growing and spreading insidious tentacles through her.

"You're looking at it, aren't you?"

Terry was quiet for a moment, as though ashamed he had been caught. "Yes."

"How bad is it?"

He tried to think of a good answer to that question, but nothing really came to mind. "Bad enough that I don't think there's much a doctor could do."

Jean frowned. "Year or so. I figure that's how long I've got."

"You knew you had this?"

The old woman shook her head irritably. "No. No, I didn't know I had this exactly. But I had a feeling that something was up. I look over my shoulder and I start to see everything catching up to me. And it's coming rather fast, too. When that happens, the end of the road tends to not be all that far behind."

Jean sat herself down slowly in the chair, shutting her eyes and sighing. Terry walked to the backdoor. He turned and looked back to the old woman. "Will you be all right?"

She laughed. "Pup, I've been through times when there was barely enough for biscuits at supper, and that was the only meal there was. I've fought the law so many times I've lost count. And I was there during your kind's last big Purge, all the way back in 1945. I've been through all that and come out all right. I think I'll survive another year just fine. Now you best be getting on home. But be sure to be here tomorrow morning."

Hearing Jean say that she had been through the Purge was somewhat unusual. There weren't supposed to be but a handful of werewolves that had survived that, let alone any humans in contact with them. Terry almost asked her about it. But, he figured it was better if he didn't press his luck. "I will, Mrs. Wilkerson."

"That's right. Respect your elders. You may just have some sense in you after all. Now go on. I need to get back to sleep."

Terry nodded and let himself out the back door. He almost shifted lupine for a moment, but stopped himself. Instead, he vaulted over the fence and walked to the front of the house. He made his way home down the sidewalk, under the illumination of the streetlights.
You never see old ladies taking on werewolves with shotguns. I aimed to rectify that.
© 2010 - 2024 The-Ricemaster
Comments26
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
juju712's avatar
Very original!!
I really like the double side of the characters, especially the woman, as she doesn't deny her weakness, that make her strenght even more impressive.