Page 35 of Such Sharp Teeth

I hold Ian’s bottle of bourbon close to my chest as I climb the stairs. Reaper is there at the top, growling at me per usual. I’m really not in the mood.

So I growl back.

I don’t intend for it to come out the way it does. I had no idea I was capable of such a sound. It’s beastly.

It sends Reaper off whimpering.

I hide in my room before any more unpleasantness can occur.

I undress immediately, tossing my costume into the laundry basket, even though I’m tempted to put it straight into the trash.

What stops me from doing that is it’s what I was wearing when I first kissed Ian.

Shameful. Gross.

I’d continue to bully myself over my newfound mawkishness, but I’m distracted by my bandaging. It’s so itchy underneath. I relent, peeling back the tape so I can scratch.

I haven’t leaked much; there’s only a little drip of silver clinging to the disturbed skin. I use the gauze to wipe it away. Then I scratch.

It feels so good, I keep going past the point when I know I should stop. I keep going until I feel the sticky wetness.

Until I feel the fur.

I look down. I’ve ripped myself open. My skin falls away in oddly neat spirals. There’s no red, no blood. Only silver. I’m all oozy silver inside.

Silver and fur.

There’s fur under my skin. Prickly gray fur.

“Uhhhh, what the fuck?” I ask, holding my breath.

I try to mash the shreds of skin back into place and then restore the bandaging, but they keep slipping.

I’m panicking now.

This is next-level disgusting. This is a problem.

This is a big problem.

I manage to get the gauze back in place and tape it down. Then I add another layer of gauze, more tape, more gauze, more tape.

I sit on the bed for a minute, chewing the inside of my cheek and anxiously plucking fuzz from my sock.

“All right,” I say, my best attempt at a pep talk. “All right.”

I open the bottle of bourbon and my laptop.

I Google what should you do if you were bitten by a werewolf? Then I chug some of the bourbon.

The first link I click on leads to a surprisingly earnest article that recommends I get a cage for my monthly transformations and perhaps also purchase some meat snacks, like whole chickens. It also gives an unhelpful heads-up about the excruciating pain of the transformation.

Great.

I gulp some more bourbon.

I’m starting to suspect that werewolves can’t get drunk, which just might be the most unfortunate part about all of this.

I continue drinking anyway.