The Wonderous miracles of the Egregious Dr Wolf

Will and the Stranger

            Many strange things happen to people of all sorts all the time. This is a fact that no one you ever meet will deny. Children will go missing without a single piece of paperwork filed, people will see things in the woods and pray that whatever they witnessed won't notice if they pick up their pace just a touch. Doctor's offices will manifest and disappear in small towns faster than a spirit Halloween that opens on the 12th of October. Some things are televised and recorded, more or less produced for the media like Roswell alien abductions and such. Others are never heard of outside of the small rural towns they occur in. Some are told on middle school playgrounds and fall on willingly deaf ears, occasionally not even the gossip ridden youth desire to spread the stories. Especially when they have reason to believe that the thing that caused the horrific tales to occur may just be listening.

When Will was a kid he felt the world was only filled with the grey fog of grayer evenings after it rains. He would watch as the sky went from ashen grey to deep midnight black hoping to see the beautiful colors people always spoke of when discussing the lovely sunset. He yearned for the cotton candy clouds to glow with flaming oranges that never showed up right on camera, but he hadn't seen any of that yet. So, when summer came around and the world got warmer, he waited for the days of adventure and long nights spent catching fireflies in dubiously cleaned mason jars to begin. For the days spent with friends, wandering, and exploring and getting to know the world through worn sneakers and Band-Aids on skinned knees. But for a while they didn't come. He began to believe that maybe this marvelous myth of summer was just that, a myth made up by his peers.

In his neighborhood there were kids he could talk to, but they found him odd and never really spoke with him. Will would go for walks every day and get to know the sidewalks, stray cats, and cracks in the road. One day he noticed that a new person had moved into the house next door. He saw through the front window as warm light flooded through red curtains and the image of a boy around his age looked back at him. Will quickly looked away and picked up the pace a bit walking home. His mom had always told him not to stare and he didn't want to scare off the new resident. When he walked in his front door no one called out to say hello so Will presumed that his folks were out doing some odd business they were always up too. Will never understood realtors and what goes on with them. Last night he listened in on a conversation between his mother and father, his mother was frantic, more than usual anyways. She was going on and on about how a new realtor in the area would kill their business. And some doctor? What did a doctor have to do with selling homes! And right in their area of residence. The gall! Will imagined the scene, a man in a long white coat talking about room color and carpet type to a family, the house was healthy, and all its vaccines were up to date after all. Will giggled to himself thinking about that when a knock came at the door.

He jumped a bit running to look through the peephole. Heart racing in that manner that kids' hearts do after a lifetime of legends of robbers and murderers that would come in and do horrid things to you if you opened the door to anyone without extensive ID. He theorized about what manner of beast could be on the other side, a monster with 30 arms or a bandit with knives for hands, or that man he saw sometimes late at night. the one that stood at the edge of his bed and hissed out a low tone that Will processed as a growl. The one that would watch him some nights, and others just scratch at the corners of his room, whispering words he didn't understand, but the ones he could make out were pleas for mercy. Will shivered at that thought, shutting it out of his mind faster than he would shut the front door if it turned out to be any sort of beastly thing.

The stoop out front was occupied by a small boy, wild curly blonde hair crept out from his head. He looked lost but in a way that made you think he always looked that lost. He was pale with a spattering of freckles on his face right beneath a pair of thin framed, cracked glasses. Wills already racing heart skipped a beat when he realized it was the new neighbor kid. Swinging the door open with excitement he began to speak but the smaller boy beat him to it.