"Make sure to have the cots far enough apart to let people walk through," Becky reminded Julie and Mallory as the two women rolled out a stack of the things on a pallet from a nearby store room into the gymnasium. The harried Red Cross staffer was being pulled in several different directions at once and didn't have the time to babysit the volunteers as much as she might like.
"No problem," Julie reassured the middle aged woman, and the staffer nodded before moving over to check on the soup and sandwich line just outside the doors. They'd decided to come up to Vegas and help out when the organization put out a call for volunteers, and were promptly put to work along with a few others to help set up cots along with tables for a sandwich line outside. People were already coming in to use the services too, the news was full of widespread reports of problems throughout the metro area. It seemed that demons, supernatural and otherwise, were coming out of the woodwork following Agent Markowitz's revelations on television news a few nights earlier.
"This is crazy," she muttered to Mallory just loud enough for the other woman to hear. "How much worse can it get, do you think?"
"Lord, don't ask," Mallory responded, watching Becky bustle off in the other direction. "You might find out."
She still couldn't believe that Markowitz had basically become a whistle-blower, and since then things had started to spin more and more out of control. Finger-pointing abounded, accusations of demonhood being flung at the most unlikely sources. The redhead supposed it was all some kind of vicious cycle, and that it would eventually calm down. Until then, she was going to do her best to pretend she'd never heard of Project Integration.
She was also unemployed again, which meant she was going to have to get in touch with Corbett sooner rather than later. If the Englishman was able to come through for her, she might be able to make a new start. Maybe someplace else, who knew? At least she didn't have to worry about the government coming after her.
"Think we'll have to stay here all night? Looks like they're getting a lot of business."
"I don't know," Julie looked around thoughtfully. Mal was right in her observation as the shelter seemed to be growing steadily busier. A section of cots already set up were starting to be put to use, and the noise level was picking up in the building as people talked amongst themselves. "I think we might, but at least we'd be doing something instead of sitting back at home watching tv and worrying about stuff we can't control." The full moon had come and gone for the month as well, so that was one issue she didn't have to worry about tonight.
"I hope my folks are ok, the ranch is kind of out in the boonies."
"I still need to call my folks," the redhead said. "They had to have seen this craziness on the news. I'm surprised Ma hasn't come stampeding into Nevada looking for me." She shook her head, setting her burden of blankets down.
"They're probably going to have people bedding down on the floor if this place keeps filling up," she remarked. A small family, a set of parents with an older woman and two children in tow, had just straggled through the doors, and Mallory watched as two of the center's workers helped them get the children situated.
"This town's getting crazier and crazier."
"Nothing about this town surprises me anymore," Julie replied as she took another cot off the pallet and unfolded it. "Think about everything that's happened. I just hope things start to calm down soon, people are scared enough as it is." There had been reports on TV of riots and looting, and shots of demonic visages straight out of the movies moving in broad daylight.
She noticed a tv camera crew enter the building, a reporter and camera operator escorted by one of the Red Cross staffers. "Looks like they're after another a PR opportunity. They ought to call for more volunteers, this place is gonna be packed soon if people keep coming."
Mallory looked, then looked away again. She was sick of reporters. Reporters and mudslingers and rumormongers. They were just circling like vultures, trying to pick the rest of the meat off the bones of the story.
The newscaster, Nancy Hollingsworth of KVBC, picked her way through the neatly lined cots, glancing around to find the most likely target for an impromptu interview. The last appeal for volunteers had clearly been a success, and she was looking for someone properly photogenic for the shotrt human interest piece she'd been sent out to film. Everyone else was getting bits and pieces of this story, why should her crew be left out?
"Over there, Kenny," she said, starting a broken-field scramble towards the place where Julie and Mallory were talking. "They're probably college kids from over at UNLV, we can get a few words with them and maybe some footage." Nancy put on her best television smile as she approached the other two women, patting her carefully-styled hair into place. "Excuse me, but would the two of you mind sparing me a few minutes?"
"Here we go," Julie muttered under her breath as the news crew approached. She was more interested in getting the cots and blankets setup, but it wouldn't hurt anything to talk to the media for a few minutes. Glancing at her friend, she decided to take the lead and run interference for Mallory. If the other woman wanted to talk she would speak up.
The werewolf straightened and turned to face the reporter and cameraman, putting on her best smile, "Sure, we'd be happy to."
Mallory managed a smile, one that almost looked genuine, then wondered about the odds of her parents seeing her on television. The ominous silence of her phone for the last few days had become something she was losing sleep over, and she supposed it was going to be up to her to suck it up and call her folks' house and see how much of this maelstrom they'd caught on the news. Fun, fun.
"This won't take long," Nancy assured her, making sure that Kenny was able to get a good shot of all three of them. "I can see the two of you are busy, so I'll be out of your hair soon." She sidestepped as another Red Cross worker trundled past with a wheeled cart covered with plastic-wrapped sandwiches and cartons of apple juice. The cameraman adjusted the object on his shoulder, then counted down on his fingers. Three, two, one...
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Nancy said, smiling brightly for the benefit of her viewers. "I'm Nancy Hollingsworth, and I'm at the Southern Nevada Red Cross chapter, right here in Clark County. As many of you know, there was a state-wide call for volunteers to help victims of riots and looting in the area get to shelter and whatever first aid they need, and from the looks of this place that call was a rousing success." She paused for long enough to allow for a pan of the room, showing other workers and civilians alike moving in the background. Nancy allowed another beat to go by, then extended her microphone in the brunette's direction.
"Could you introduce yourself for the viewing public?" she asked. "How long have you been out here at the center tonight?"
"Sure," Julie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and focused her attention on the reporter. "I'm Julie Sanchez, and this is Mallory Quinn. We got here about an hour ago to help set up the shelter, just trying to do our part to help."
She glanced over the woman's shoulder at the people out at the sandwich line. How many had been turned out of their homes or hurt in the riots? "We saw the appeal on TV and thought we should help."
The camera panned in Mallory's direction, and she waved in an uncomfortable fashion, unable not to think about how television added ten pounds - or was it twenty? - to everyone in front of a camera. She hated the way her mind worked sometimes.
"Its a really important effort they're making here," she said, once the microphone was aimed in her direction. "A lot of people have been really afraid of what's been happening here for the last few weeks, and its really great that outfits like the Red Cross are trying to help ease the burden."
"Do you know if there's going to be another public appeal?" the newswoman asked, and the redhead shrugged. "Its possible. If they get many more people coming in, they might have to move some of them to another location. Its going to take a lot of work to help everyone." Julie was about to add a comment of her own, but she suddenly went rigid at the same instant as frightened cries came from the sandwich line outside. Every nerve ending felt as if it were on fire and she could sense the Change coming on her, but couldn't understand why it was happening. The full moon had come and gone, it was the wrong time!
A startled gasp from Nancy told her that the changes were already starting to become visible and she managed to turn her head toward her friend.
"Mal..." her voice already sounded different, lower and more of a gravelly tone from her normal speaking voice. She was fighting the Change, but knew she was only slowing it down. "Get them out of here..."
"Oh, boy. Uh..."
It was a little like static electricity, and Mallory felt the hairs on the back of her neck start to lift before she realized that Julie was growing a canine's snout right there in the middle of the Red Cross center. She turned towards Nancy and her cameraman, then said in a voice that worked for calm authority and almost managed it, "All right, interview's over, my friend's...my friend's not feeling so good right now."
When was the last full moon? The werewolf would never be so careless as to go out in public when there was a chance she might change, but wasn't the time for it past for now? "Julie?" Trying to offer her friend some kind of anchor to her human self, emphasizing her name. "Julie, what..."
Kenny the cameraman, knowing a money shot when he saw one, pulled his focus in tighter on the unfortunate brunette. Right here, right now, they had one of those freaks right in front of them, and he was going to film every second of it if he could.
Julie barely heard Mallory as the Change continued.
With the way she was trying to fight it she was making the pain of the transformation worse, and the cries that escaped her lips gave way to a wolf's howls as the process made its way toward the inevitable conclusion. Her clothes began to tear as her body changed, patches of fur visible underneath, and the werewolf howled in agony as bones in her arms and legs broke and reshaped themselves. The changes left her unable to stand upright and the werewolf fell forward onto all fours, her hands already reshaping themselves to a wolf's paws.
"Oh my god!" A shocked gasp came from Becky, who'd rushed out into the hall to see what all the commotion was about. "What is that thing?!"
Jesus Christ.
This was turning into a nightmare, and Mallory grabbed for Julie's shoulder just as her friend completed the change, getting a fistful of coarse hair as she tried scruffing the werewolf. Not the brightest idea she'd ever had, maybe, but if she could get the newly-shifted wolf out of there before anything worse happened it would be worth it. Julie would know the difference between a friend and a stranger, even if this state, wouldn't she?
"Get out of my way!" the redhead snapped, talking to the idiot with the camera, who was gawping behind the damned thing like he'd woken up to find himself at the circus with no clue of how he'd gotten there. She shouldered past him, bumping him so that the camera swung wildly to the left, but he righted it as she tried hauling her erstwhile charge through the rapidly spreading panic towards the doors. "Look, Mommy, its a monster!" The little girl who'd yelled the words couldn't have been more than six, and her mother scooped her up into her arms as if the child might be eaten at any second. This was bad, bad and getting worse.
Nancy shook herself out of her stupor and quickly positioned herself in front of the camera, this was her big break and she wasn't going to let a little thing like physical danger get in her way. "Ladies and gentlemen, what you just saw wasn't a parlor trick or special effect. That young woman, who called herself Julie Sanchez, literally changed into some kind of large wolf before our eyes. Nancy Hollingsworth, KVBC News..." she cut the microphone feed and turned to Kenny. "Come on! We've got to keep after them!"
Network News here I come!
Outside was pure pandemonium as a gigantic pillar of light stretched into the night sky reaching into the heavens themselves.
Julie-wolf's ears were flat against the back of her head and she growled at the assembled crowd of people outside. The werewolf had allowed Mallory to herd her outside, the woman's familiar scent registering as one of her packmates, but this crowd had no such protection. She could feel the hunger in her belly, the urge to hunt and kill prey building inside her.
"It's a monster! Call the police!"
Great, the cops, that was just what the needed. Because law enforcement would know exactly what to do with a werewolf. If Mallory hadn't been so busy trying to drag Julie-Wolf along, she'd have rolled the eyes out of her head.
"MONSTER!" Someone she couldn't see took up the cry, and the pillar of light was so bright that the redhead had to squint as she pulled the unwilling shape-shifter along. She could hear Nancy Hollingsworth exhorting her cameraman to move faster, and she tried to pick out the familiar shape of her truck. What in the hell had gone on out here that she was now dealing with a four-legged version of her friend? If they could get to the vehicle, they'd be able to get out of here. Maybe.
"MONSTER!" " KILL IT!"
The cries continued, growing in number, and Nancy half expected torches and pitchforks to show up any second. "This is gold, you're getting all of it?" She muttered to Kenny, who nodded in the affirmative. They switched back and forth between the creature and her friend, and the frightened and angry crowd that was getting bolder by the second.
A gunshot rang out and Julie-wolf howled in pain, a red gash appearing on her flank from the grazing bullet's passage. She slipped from Mallory's grasp and twirled around to face the crowd, feet planted and teeth bared as she growled angrily. Her instincts to hunt and kill were battling with what was left of her human mind for control, and the werewolf side was getting the upper hand.
"Julie, no!"
Mallory made a second grab for the shifter's neck, got a handful of shedded fur and nothing else. She couldn't tell who in the crowd had a gun, there was too much of a mob to discern that, but they were almost at the truck. The pillar of light was still blazing, coruscating straight towards the heavens like Jacob's Ladder, and it was so bright it hurt to look at it.
Fuck. The portal. A portal, a rift, a hole in the universe leading to God-knew-where. And her hair was now standing half on-end just from being so close to it. Mallory reached blindly for Julie-Wolf again, managed to get hold of some brown fur that was actually still attached. There was a low-pitched hum emanating from the portal, almost like radio static, and it made her teeth ache as she grabbed hold of the door handle and yanked on it, opening it hastily.
And then it was dark again, only the streetlights and headlamps of cars illuminating the parking lot, and everyone seemed to freeze in place as the supernatural light show ended. Leaving only the sharp smell of ozone in its wake.
Julie-Wolf blinked at the sudden change. The energy coursing through her that had compelled the transformation was gone, and the urge to hunt diminished. In this state though she was still a wounded wild animal, and a badly frightened one at that. Not at all interested in having anyone touching her, she angled her head to try and snap at Mallory's hand as the redhead tried to encourage her along. Fortunately for Mallory the head couldn't turn enough to get to the hand, and the werewolf's jaws closed on empty air.
The sudden absence of the pillar also gave the crowd pause, collectively unsure whether to continue going after the freak or stay where they were. Their eyes still had to adjust to the new conditions either way, and the next gunshot was wide off the mark.
"Get in the truck, Julie." Mallory's voice was all gentle solicitude, but she had retrieved her .38 from the glove compartment and was pointing it at the most likely suspect to cause trouble. Call it adrenaline rush, but she could see everything almost too clearly. And she was so done with this shit. "I'm gonna take you home to get some clothes."
"She's one of them too!" someone in the crowd yelled, clearly trying to get the momentum going again, and the redhead pulled the gun's hammer back with her thumb and fired a shot in the general direction of the voice, going wide on purpose. Yeah, maybe I'm one of 'them', she thought acidly. Maybe I'll start with you, whoever you are. "Julie, honey, get in the truck. You're not yourself right now. Come on, let's go."
"This is unbelievable," Kenny muttered, and Nancy Hollingsworth nodded in silence. They were still rolling, the red light on the camera like a small homing signal, and Mallory just knew her Ma was watching this back home in Kansas. She was going to be a television star. Marvelous. She risked another touch to her friend's shoulder, making careful contact in case the werewolf tried to bite her again. "C'mon, baby, you're okay. You're...you're okay."
The werewolf whined in response, clearly not thrilled with the idea of the small confines of the truck cab. Julie-Wolf's head turned back and forth between the crowd and the truck, before reluctantly jumping into the cab.
Nancy managed to get a look at the truck's license plate number and whipped out a pen to scribble the information on her hand. She was so following up on this story, she could almost see the White House Correspondent's slot on a national network in her grasp. The crowd was still muttering, but the redhead's gunshot seemed to have put a sense of fear on them and they didn't try to come any closer to the truck.
Mallory closed the passenger door gently, trying not to rattle Julie's nerves anymore than they already had been. "Turn that fucking thing off," she said, pointing the gun at Kenny's camera, and the man took the object off of his shoulder as if it were his child. "Asshole."
She stalked around the front of the vehicle, then climbed behind the wheel. The .38 was set on the dashboard, within easy reach, and she started the engine to point the vehicle towards the exit of the parking lot. If one person tried to stop her, she was going to run them down.
No one did.
"You're gonna be okay," she told the werewolf, unsure if her friend was even able to understand her in the state of shock she was in. "I'll get you home, and everything's gonna be okay." Words she hoped were true.
The NPCs of Nancy Hollingsworth and Kenny were written by both Stargazer and Tim.