THE THING IN THE WOODS

TRAIN CRASHES AND WILTED LEAVES

It is amazing how easy it is to get used to the fact that your best friend is a psycho serial killer werewolf, his new routine goes like this, Matt now only sleeps four hours or so, wakes up by seven, cooks a healthy breakfast, listen to his father’s complains about wanting something fried and covered with chocolate, he smiles and then his dad does too, the things are getting better and better between then and he’s happy except for the part where he has to keep pretending he was wrong. By seven forty five he’s putting on his cozy red hooded sweater to fight the ruthless weather and awaits for Seth outside, he gets in and Matt drives off his porch. In the way school he asks Seth what he dreamed the night before, he tells him about his nightmares and how they are getting more disturbing and vivid every day, Matt sighs trying to convince himself it is a good sign.

In class everything is normal, Seth keeps throwing kisses to Nichole when the teachers aren’t looking, and she keeps smirking like a fool sending more. At lunch Ashley discredits Harris’ pedagogy, Tackler –her douche new boyfriend- nods and says something about sports, Nichole reads a book until Seth comes over with their trays and then everyone eats in silence, most part of the team use to sit with them, including Pete, they make some jokes, some tables away Luke stares at them with longing –Matt rejoices in his insides, then he feels guilty and pity for him- the jocks go back their table, some stay when the cheerleaders join them.

After School Matt goes back home, and tries to get some sleep, Blake calls and yells at him for being late, he damns and gets out of bed, walks to Seth’s, takes him forty minutes or so to convince his friend to go into the woods, sometimes he needs for Blake to call him at the phone and howl to him over the speaker –Yup that’s the way they were doing it before Matt joined- though it is complicated, Seth’s lapses start right after and is there is always the risk that he might kill someone in his way to the woods. By the time they reach the cabin someone knocks Seth out, he faints and they try to chain him, when he wakes up breaks the chains, shifts and try to kill everybody, just another day in Matt’ life, it is starting to get boring to be honest, but it has been good to clear up some of Matt’ doubts, like that werewolves can actually shift every day –of course he already knows that- but on full moon it is almost impossible for them to fight back the inner wolf, that’s why none of them helped Blake the night Matt’ fell into the lake, he’s the only one who has full control over his body and his skills, and he had the job to chase Seth down the forest while the others awaited locked down in the cabin.

Another thing he learned is that full moon makes them stronger, they couldn’t explained well –actually Matt’ didn’t understood- but is pretty much like steroids or something like that said Todd, Stile’s thinks is more like heroine, Seth is out of control most of the time, but he hadn’t reached the levels he did the full moon night which in Matt opinion is a clear hint that his friend is starting to fight back inside, or at least that’s what he’s trying to make himself and the others to believe, the only one who seems hopeful is Blake –which is weird considering that he’s like a grumpy cat, yeah he gave him that nickname, Pete and him joked about it a couples of times until grumpy cat heard them and they ended up flying out the cabin through the window- and Matt could be grateful about it, it really looks like Blake wants to avoid killing Seth no matter what, but of course Seth wouldn’t be a furred fang’s ball if it wasn’t because of Blake.

But saving Seth means that Blake will eventually die, and Matt wonders how he can be so calm and indifferent about it, is he lying? Well that doesn’t make any sense considering that he could easily not tell Matt about it and make him believe that Seth couldn’t be fixed, he just want Seth to help him and then he will let him murder him as if it was the commonest thing in the world –there is something fishy about all this-, Matt still wonders what they meant by Storm, he knows it was a metaphor for something else –he checked the weather forecast- what is it? a war? Against what? Vampires? The tooth fairy? It doesn’t matter, he needs to know the truth to understand what the hell is going on and how he can help Seth before it’s too late, lately he sees Seth more like a pet than his best friend, how to train your werewolf, she should write a book about it.