Werewolf's Humanity

Turn, Turn, Turn, Part 10

Hatchet glanced around in his seat, but the only human in the waiting room sat behind a plexiglass-shielded reception desk. "What? Here?" he asked.

"No one's listening, no one can hear us if we whisper," he said, gesturing at the TV droning on and on with literal bad news. "Please, Robert. I need to think about something else for a few minutes."

Donnie and Patience, their own curiosities piqued, edged in closer to listen.

Hatchet grunted and folded his arms. In a whisper meant only for their ears, he conceded. "All right, all right." He took a deep breath and a moment to collect his thoughts.

"It was the first World War. I was some punk private barely out of training. After what was only my second-ever taste of combat, we 'liberated' some small French town I don't even remember the name of, and my unit wanted to celebrate. And by celebrate, I mean do some shit that made us no better than the Germans in the locals' eyes. My C.O., a degenerated swine by the name of Walsh, decided this one girl 'owed' him some 'gratitude.'"

Hatchet snarled at the very thought of it. "He ordered me to stand guard outside the house so he wouldn't be disturbed. Bad enough he was going to rape a woman, he expected me to be complicit. I refused. I threatened to bring the men in here to see him, and he just laughed as he pulled his pants down and dared me to do it. Said they would just come in here and cheer him on. Now, I knew how to deal with the enemy at that point. I had no idea what to do with a corrupt sergeant. Freaking stupid kid that I was, I pulled my gun on him. And that really pissed him off. He started cussing me out, threatening me every way you can imagine. And then he reached for his own rifle which he had thrown on the table beside him, and at that point, I did what I had been conditioned to do: eliminate a hostile. I emptied my clip into him."

"No way," Donnie muttered.

"Well, the girl took off through the back door, so there was no one to collaborate my story by the time the men came filing in. Not that a woman's word would have made a difference, I don't think. It didn't even matter that the corpse had its pants off or that his rifle was right next to him. I had shot my superior officer, so I was clapped in irons and carried back off to headquarters, where I had no doubt I was gonna be hanged after a 'fair' and 'impartial' court martial."

He snorted. "You know, now that I look back on it, it's kind of stupid that I chose to stay in the Army for so long after that."

"So what happened after that?" Sammy asked. "Did you go wolfside and bust out?"

"What? Kid, no. I was born human before Solomon bit me. Didn't you know that?"

Something in Sammy's brain short-circuited. Hatchet had always been, in Sammy's eyes, a werewolf's werewolf. He had taught Sammy so much about being what he was, it was hard to even comprehend the idea that the man, the legend, the Hatchet hadn't been born into this existence. His expression must have telegraphed his shock, because Hatchet shrugged after that. "Sorry. Guess if you knew about my past, you wouldn't be asking me about it right now, huh?"

"But that's jumping ahead. I was left to rot in the stockade for a week, then one day, two men in special forces uniforms came to claim me. I got a hood thrown over my head and loaded into a van. No idea how long or how far they drove, but when the hood finally came off, I was in a dining room with a bowl of steaming-hot stew and fresh bread and cheese in front of me. Hell, there was even a bottle of wine. I was too hungry to question it. I dug right in. Figured if this was going to be my last meal, might as well enjoy it.

"But when I was done, this big, old-looking black fella came walking in, two white soldiers behind him--one American, the other French. The black fella was, as you probably guess, Solomon. He sat down and asked how I liked the meal. I saw no reason not to be polite, and clearly this was a man of some wealth, which didn't seem that far-fetched in Europe. So I said it was fine and thanked him for it. Then he asked me why I was locked up. I said it was for shooting my superior officer. He asked me why I did that. I asked why it mattered, but he asked that I humor him.

"So I told him. And he just nodded, once, and said the French guy behind him was the girl's cousin, and they wanted to show their gratitude. Solomon said if I accepted a 'gift,' he'd arrange not only for my charges to be dropped, but that I would get transferred to a new unit. I laughed in his face. The two soldiers behind him seemed amused by that, and if our roles had been reversed, I probably woulda smirked at this ignorant human kid laughing in the face of an immortal werewolf too.

"I said it sounded too good to be true. Solomon just stood up, and said that it wasn't without its drawbacks. And then changed right before my eyes. I fell back in my chair and tried to push back, but the American--his name was Clancy--and Frenchie got hold of me and lifted me off my feet so I couldn't run. Two terrifying minutes later, there stood Solomon, this big, black, curly-haired, bushy-maned werewolf, the first I had ever seen. And he spoke with the same deep, scratchy voice he had humanside, and said his gift would be a reward, and a curse. Centuries of life, healing, and power, but I would have to spend it in the service of mankind."

"And you said yes?" Sammy guessed.

"Not in so many words. I laughed hysterically for a good minute and then said, 'What the fuck? Bite me.' And those are the words that added me to the ranks of the Chosen. And Solomon made good on his word. I got transferred to Clancy's unit, and he took me under his wing and showed me the ropes."

"Wow," Sammy said. That was history, right there. Maybe not the history he had expected, but the reality had somehow been even better than anything he had imagined.

"Wound up getting my revenge on the sergeant, too. Told the men in my unit the story of 'Little Willy' Walsh who got shot with his pants down by some no-name private for trying to rape a French girl." He chuckled darkly. "The story spread across the whole European campaign by the time the war was over. From what I heard, the story even got back to his wife stateside."

"Have you ever thought of writing a book?" Patience asked. "I mean, you'd have to market it as fiction and change some of the details probably, but those of us who knew it was real would find it fascinating."

Hatchet shrugged. "The Order keeps a record of every Chosen and their story. A few decades ago, some historian nerd finally cornered me and got it all on record. If you ever want to know any of our stories, there're secret libraries in Switzerland and somewhere in Canada where everything's kept backed up."

"Well, thank you for tellin' us yourself," Sammy said.