Werewolf - Chapter Three

Chapter Three
Running to Nowhere

As I got outside I was completely confused, my mind in what must have been a state of shock.  Panicked by what I’d found and what had happened.  Worried about the men that were still in my house and whether or not I’d killed one.  Would they come after me?  Would they track me down?  My head was full of questions though the main one was who were they and why had they killed Linda to get me?  My mind wondered profusely as I ran and I didn’t stop, my subconscious or my instincts whatever you want to call it took over.  I paid no attention to where I was going.
It took only moments of my leaving the house for the rain to have soaked through my shirt and the t-shirt beneath.  Putting the jacket on that I had grabbed didn’t really help since it was a thin flimsy thing more suited to the end of summer than the end of autumn.  It too got drenched but at least it held a little back from me – very little.
Barely aware of the cars that were driving past, I think one or two might have peeped their horns at me, no doubt wondering why a sixteen-year-old boy was running through the rain.  This would have been particularly odd to see on some of the more major roads I must have run along, roads with little to no housing or buildings of any sort around.  Why would anyone run along there in the rain, why would anyone run along there at all?
It wasn’t until my hand reached for the door handle that I became aware of my surroundings and the destination that my subconscious-come-instincts had carried me.  Seemingly they had decided it would be best to head to the train station.  I looked up at the large glass doors in confusion for a moment before someone trying to get in behind me shoved me through to the inside.  They were barely wet from their walk from car to train but it seemed they wanted to keep it that way; no doubt seeing me made him want to get out of the rain even more.
Looking up at the timetables I searched for some place, any place just somewhere to escape what I had left behind at the house.  I considered jumping on whatever train left next but then I caught sight of a destination.  Clarkson.  There was a fifteen-minute wait but if I could get to Clarkson I could get to Dawn Croft.  I almost wept there and then at the idea of having to tell Nate what had happened.  The others…  What would the others think of me?  I had run away from a fight.  Werewolves didn’t run from fights they could win but I had frozen at the thought of killing those men.  Even if they had killed Linda I couldn’t have killed them.  Nate would know what to do.  Or Leon.  Leon would back up my decision.  Wouldn’t he?  
Eventually I decided that I had no other choice and made my way to the ticket window and bought myself a one-way ticket to Clarkson.  The man on the other side of the little glass window looked me up and down, undoubtedly wondering why I was dripping wet.  Apparently he hadn’t been outside for an hour or two.
I put my ticket in my pocket and made my way through the minimal crowd of people that were hovering around the train timetables towards the platform I needed for my train.  There was still ten minutes before it would arrive so I sat on one of the cold, hard metal benches and just began staring into space.  It’s amazing how that can help to pass the time.  Of course in public places like this it gets you a few funny looks but luckily there weren’t too many people here right now and even fewer were heading to Clarkson so it wasn’t like I was being watched by a lot of strangers.  I can’t remember what I was thinking about right now.  Maybe what I’d seen, or maybe I was just remembering Linda.  All I know is in no time at all I became aware of the approaching train, I must have missed the announcement over the speaker system.  Standing from the bench my bag swung down and hit my leg and some how that snapped me out of my subconscious and it occurred to me that I had my cell phone with me.  I hadn’t called anyone.  I’d not called the police about Linda.  I hadn’t even called Nate or Leon or anyone.  Nate would have called by now.  He would probably be wondering why no one had answered.  Reaching into my bag I pulled out my phone and saw that the screen was cracked.  Flipping it open nothing lit up like it should have so I pressed a few buttons and still nothing happened.  What the hell had happened to it?  It was working earlier.  I used it back at school.  Thinking back I remembered landing funnily when I slipped back at the house, my bag had ended up beneath me.  It must have broken then.  I slammed it shut and threw it back into my satchel and let out a long heavy sigh before stepping up to the edge of the platform where the train stood stationary.  
The train looked fairly new, silver outside with enormous windows stretching the length of each carriage.  It looked too big for the amount of people that were getting on it, though there had been quite a lot of people exited the train when the doors had opened.  Inside the carriage was fairly spacious with seats down either side of a central walking aisle.  The seats were huge, on the verge of being armchairs and apparently, with the departure of so many here when the train stopped there were not many people left to travel.  Including myself and the other guy who got on with me I counted only five in this carriage, two at the far end sat together chatting, another sat closer to the middle on the right side; was he watching me?  The guy who had gotten onto the train with me made his way down the train and stopped a third of the way; he took a seat by the window on the left.  I quickly slid into the first chairs inside the automatic doors of the train and shuffled over to the window, getting my ticket out and placing it on the table in anticipation of the conductor.  Once again I allowed myself to drift off.  
I have no idea how long the train stayed in the station but the sudden movement brought me out of my daze once again.  I considered what I should do.  I still hadn’t called anyone.  Maybe one of the other passengers would let me use their phone?  Of course even if they did they wouldn’t let me leave them to use it, the ensuing conversation they heard might cause some difficulties.  I scanned the passengers over the top of the seat across from me.  The chattering pair were still deep in conversation whilst the man who had gotten on with me had his back to me and from the looks of it was reading something; his head down.  As my eyes fell onto the fourth passenger once again I would have sworn under oath that he was watching me but when I blinked he was looking out of the window and there was no sign he’d moved.  Had I imagined it?  I didn’t have time to consider it as the door opened behind me and the conductor entered.  He was an ageing man, probably nearing fifty though he might have been younger.  His hair was almost all white, or at least what I could see, he wore a cap that was obviously meant to match his uniform for the train company he worked for.
“Ticket please.”  He said as he looked at me.  I simply slid my ticket across the table towards him.  He checked it and slid it back.  “Thank you.”  That was it.  He carried on down the train and went to the next passenger whose ticket he’d not already seen.  I looked out of the window at the scenery flying past.  There wasn’t much else to do.  I hadn’t thought to bring a magazine or my PSP, it hadn’t been high on my list of priorities and besides it’s not exactly like I was in the mood for anything like that anyway.  Fraught with worry, my mind racing in confused panic about what had happened, what might happen and worse, what might have happened.  I lost count of the times during the journey I had to force back tears or even wipe away a stray tear or two from my cheek.  The image of Linda lying there in her own blood kept sneaking back into the forefront of my mind and soon I found myself with my head buried in my arms on the table in front of me.  I don’t know how long the train had been travelling, somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour I would guess but I could be wrong.  My head was buried in my arms on the tabletop and I suddenly heard my stomach growl viciously.  Until then I hadn’t even realised that I was hungry but as soon as I heard my stomach it occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten since mid-day almost six hours ago and like I said before; we werewolves need to eat a lot to keep ourselves going.  I looked at the doors at either end of the carriage and found a sign on the door directly beside me showing that a shop was open in that direction of the train.  
Getting up from my seat I went through into the next carriage, passed straight through without looking at any of the passengers I passed on my way and went through the doors at the other end to find a small counter with a middle aged woman standing behind it dressed in a uniform like the conductor had worn.  She looked at me as I stopped and gave me an expectant smile, waiting for me to tell her what I wanted.  Looking around it was primarily candy bars, chips, cookies and stuff, nothing really substantial but it would have to do.  Telling her what I wanted she collected the items; a bag of cookies, some pretzels, a large bag of chips and a bottle of soda, she placed them on the counter top and tallied up the cost.  I paid her with twenty dollars I had in my wallet, got my change and picked up the stuff in a hefty armful and turned to leave only to find someone standing unnervingly close behind me.  How had I not sensed they were there?  I hadn’t heard them, hadn’t smelt them, and hadn’t seen them.  I doubted my own werewolf senses.  Was I really that shoddy a werewolf I couldn’t sense someone standing directly behind me?
I mumbled an apology because I’d nearly bumped into the guy and then I hurried around him and back towards the carriage where I’d been sitting, letting the peculiar glances from the serving woman go.  I hadn’t even made an excuse for how much I’d bought but then again I didn’t much care at that moment in time, too much had happened for me to care about something that seemed so trivial.  It wasn’t until halfway along the carriage that I realised the man who I had almost walked into was in fact the man from my carriage, the one I had thought kept looking at me.  Looking back over my shoulder I made sure he wasn’t following before I hurried through and back to my seat in the next carriage.  Telling myself I was just paranoid I dropped into my seat and let my snacks fall onto the table, though I kept hold of my drink.  Can’t have that fizzing up on me, I was wet enough as it is.
The pretzels went first, then the chips by which time half my drink had gone due to the dry mouth those kind of foods can give you.  By now the strange guy from back at the shop had still not returned which seemed slightly odd, but once again I forced myself not to think about it.  One too many horror movies and thrillers really could screw with your brain.  Trust me.  He could easily have just found a seat in the other carriage, after all the train was practically empty.
Tearing into the bag off cookies I pulled one out and crunched down on it just as an announcement came over the trains P.A. system in the voice of a posh sounding woman.  “The train will be arriving at Clarkson Town Station in approximately twenty minutes time.  We hope you had a comfortable journey and thank you for travelling with the RailEx Network.”  Finally.  I was almost there.  Within the hour I would be at the only place on earth I felt I would be safe at that moment.  Of course it also meant that I would have to tell Nate and Leon about Linda and what had happened but they’d know what to do.  They’d fix everything and get everything sorted out.  That was something I was sure of.
I munched on the cookies cheerfully, well as cheerfully as it’s possible to get in the situation I was in.  Maybe cheerful isn’t the word.  Contentedly?  Sounds better, I munched contentedly on the cookies, itching to get off the train and get to Dawn Croft as soon as I could.  Oddly, whilst I’d been unaware of the distance from Clarkson it hadn’t really been bothering me, but now I knew it was so close, the train just couldn’t arrive soon enough.  
Nearer and nearer we got, until eventually I could see the buildings around us as we entered the town itself.  Almost there, I was only half way through my cookies so I rolled up the packet and stuffed it in my satchel before jumping to my feet and heading to the door off the train even though it was still moving.
Around five minutes I stood there impatiently, tapping my foot and fidgeting pulling on my jacket that I had taken off for the journey, messing haphazardly with the unzipped zipper until finally the train station platform came into view through the window in the door.  Gradually we came to a stop and after a few seconds the door slip open so I went down the steps and dropped onto the cement floor of the platform with a dull thud.  About to walk away I was suddenly jostled by someone behind me and I saw the guy who had gotten on the train with me in Clarkson get off, odd since in all the years I’d been getting this train I hadn’t once seen anyone else go from home to Clarkson.  I stepped aside and that’s when I saw that the suspicious guy from the train, who even now I was sure had been watching me as well as having followed me to the onboard shop was climbing down from the train further along at the other end of the next carriage.  If he had looked at me it probably would have, in my own mind, confirmed the fears that he was following me but he didn’t look at me at all, simply reached back inside the train for his bags and exited the station, followed closely by the pushy guy from home who had just knocked me aside whilst he was getting off.
I went through the train station, only small in comparison to the one I had come from, tiny in fact with only two ticket booth windows and a small magazine stand that sold newspapers, magazines and snacks for the journeys.  There were three old wooden benches stretching the length of the room and a single screen showed the expected destinations of the next few trains along with the times of their arrival here.  Though it wasn’t much, it was comforting just to be in the place.  Knowing I was so close to home meant that I could relax some; though at the back of my mind I was still struggling to control the pain I was feeling.
Hurrying through the station I reached the outside and could see the grey clouds gathering, apparently the rain had followed me from home but as I looked around there weren’t many people and with it growing dark I really did not feel like waiting around for a bus, besides which no buses went straight to Dawn Croft anyway.
My paranoia got the best of me as I saw someone who seemed to be skulking away in some shadows around one corner of the station so I dashed off across the small parking lot and made my way through Clarkson.  It’s not exactly a big City, in fact it’s not even a city, it’s more like one of those towns you see on TV with very few buildings over four stories high.  It was built around a bunch of farms and grew and grew until it was now big enough that they get away with calling it a Town.  It did have a Mall nowadays, something that wasn’t there a couple of years ago, and a multiplex but other than that there was nothing of any real note in the damn place.
As I reached Main Street I could see that there were very few people out-and-about, then again I’ve already said that it was starting to get dark.  This kind of town normally you feel safe but with days like we live in it had taken it’s toll on everything.  Though that wasn’t to say the streets were empty, a lot of cars were driving by and the cafés and restaurants I passed were bustling with people inside.  I kept my head down and tried my best to ignore them.
When I eventually turned off Main Street and turned onto a less busy road it began to rain, heavy.  Like as heavy as it had been before I’d gotten on the train.  I was still wet from before so it didn’t really bother me but still, if there’s a God he knows how to kick a guy when he’s down.  I quickened my step, knowing that I was getting closer.  If my phone had been working and I’d called ahead, I’d probably be there by now, warm and dry and trying to tell Nate what had happened without breaking down into tears.  
Walking along the street I tried to figure out in my head how I was going to tell him what had happened.  The weird thing was I wasn’t so worried about telling him Linda was dead.  I could tell them that and I’d probably shed a few tears when I did and they wouldn’t mind, in fact they’d no doubt comfort me in their individual ways.  What bothered me most was that I had to tell them that I hadn’t finished off the men who had attacked me.  As far as I was concerned that just showed them all how weak I was, something I’d been trying to change their minds on for the past two years.  See as the youngest they’re all concerned about me.  Pack mentality and all that, kind of like real wolves.  They all take care of me.  But when you mix Pack mentality with human emotion it means that they’re all worried I’m too young and too weak for stuff like hunting.  Now they could all say they were right, I wasn’t ready for any of it yet.  How sick is it that I was more worried about that than I was about telling my own brother that my live in carer was dead and that the guys who had done it had attacked me too?  I guess you think of the weirdest things when you’re in shock or whatever they call it.
The rain hammered down on me, luckily flattening the frizzy mess of blonde that had formed after the previous down pour and soon I found myself with my hair slick around my face, my clothes clinging to my body.  I was literally dripping wet.  The last house had disappeared a mile or two back and I was walking along a road illuminated purely by streetlights.  There were no cars and no buildings within sight and that’s how I knew I was getting closer to my destination.  I turned up a dirt road and after about five or ten minutes of walking it came into view, the decorative gates of Dawn Croft set into a wall of red brick, a wall that went all the way around the acres of land that came with the place.  It was beautiful, an enormous old mansion, three stories high.  It looked amazing.  Thank god it’s not one of those gothic places because at that moment it would have been kind of creepy to see.  The dark stone building had creeper vines growing up one of the front walls, beside the porch.  I say porch but it’s as big as the living room back home with cream columns holding up the porches own roof.
Reaching the gates I typed the code into the keypad and they swung open slowly so I made my way up the gravel drive way, the gates swinging shut again after a few minutes.  Walking in silence, the only sound was the crunching of the gravel under my feet as I made my way across the last few yards between me and the only family I had left.  Though as families go, you couldn’t really ask for more than the Pack.