Just passing through

Lionel Bishop had been walking down an empty highway for the better part of four hours. There had been a scant few cars but no luck hitching a ride. He didn't really care for bumming rides from strangers.

It wasn't that he was afraid of what people were capable of, it just made him feel invasive, it wasn't his custom to go where we wasn't welcome.

The scenery and the weather made all the walking bearable though. It had been misty all day, it made the air taste cool and crisp. The tree covered hills were always a marvel to look at.

Two days ago Lionel had been living in Seattle. He had been working as a night janitor in a bank and slept in a shoebox apartment during the day. He had left work one morning and stopped in a local diner for coffee and a sandwich.

He was sitting at his booth staring out the window, his gaze lazily following the endless lines of people on the streets.

He spotted two men, wearing hooded sweatshirts under dark brown overcoats and tall black combat boots. The two were standing at a crosswalk waiting for a light to change. Lionel knew exactly who they where and why they were wandering the streets of Seattle.

They were hunters who always worked in pairs and they were looking for him. It had been years since he'd seen them last, but it didn't seem to matter where he went, they always seem to catch up to him.

The light changed and the two men walked away from the diner. Lionel paid for his breakfast then left hastily.

He had gone back to his shoebox of an apartment and packed everything he could in his old army rucksack. He spent at least an hour cleaning everything, making sure know one would know that he'd been there.

he turned off all the lights and locked the door. After that he started walking. He went east, not stopping until he was well out of the the city limits.

He stopped at a rest area where a kind older trucker had agreed to let him tag-along for a few miles.

Two days later he was hiking through the back woods of Montana.

He checked his watch. It was almost Seven 0'clock. The sun would be going down in a few hours. He was hoping he'd find somewhere he could rest for a while .

A few miles down the road,Lionel found a run down gas station. It was little more than a faded tin shack with a couple of gutted gas pumps out front.

He tried the front door it opened with a little push. Scoping around inside, the place was full of trash and a large chunk of the ceiling had caved in. He didn't smell any rodents or rodent droppings. He walked over the dirt and debris of the ceiling and went out through the back door.

Around the side of the building there was another door marked Bathroom. This door was locked. With a little more effort, Lionel broke the lock and entered the bathroom. The floor and wall tiles where stained with mold and grime, but the floors where clear enough and the roof was solid. There was a small slit above the door that let in light from outside.

It was about dusk, Lionel figured he could get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep then move on in the middle of the night. He laid his bag on the floor and used it as a pillow. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When he woke up, Lionel could see night sky through the slit in the wall. He looked at his watch, it was three minutes after midnight. He took a few moments collect himself. He walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

he made his way back to the road. It was quiet save for the sounds of his boots connecting with the asphalt. The stars were the only light out, but he could see just fine. He sniffed around, There weren't many critters roaming through the trees. A pity he thought, he was hungry and didn't know where the next stop-over would be.

It was around Two in the morning when a pair of headlights came up barreling up behind him.

A blue pickup passed him then slowed to a stop a few feet ahead. As he walked up to the passenger side, he could see an arm reaching over to crank the window down.

"Hey, do you need a ride?" The voice of a young woman called out in the darkness. "Yes I'd appreciate one thank you." Lionel responded. She pulled the handle on the inside to let him in. Lionel took off his rucksack and placed it in the bed of her truck. He slid into the passenger seat and she pulled back onto the road.

"I'm Lionel by the way Lionel Bishop."

"Bertha Fann it's nice to meet you Lionel. Where you headed?"

"As far east as you're willing to take me."

"I'm heading to New York, is that east enough for you?"

"What's in New York?"

"I'm attending NYU this year."

"Congratulations, New York is an interesting place."

"You've been there?"

"I've been to every major city in this country as least once."

"So what do you just drift around?"

"Seems that way, like I'm always just passing through."

"So do you wanna ride with me all the way to New York?"

Lionel shook his head. "Like I said I've been to all the big cities, You can drop me off in the next town." They sat in silence for a few moments before Lionel asked a question.

"So where are you coming from Bertha?"

"Spokane, what about you?"

"I was staying in Seattle until recently, Why go all the way to New York for school, plenty of good colleges in Washington?" He asked.

"My dad wanted me to go, they have one of the best engineering programs in the country."

"He's okay with his daughter traveling all the way across the country by herself?"

"He was pretty insistent about it actually. See I was supposed to attend last year but my mom was diagnosed with stomach cancer, I ended up staying home all last year so I could stay with her while my dad worked."

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry." He quickly stated.

"No it's okay, I haven't really talked to anybody about it. My mom died a month ago, after the funeral my dad told me to reach out to all the colleges I applied to and explain the situation and see If I could attend in the fall. When I straightened things out with NYU he handed me his truck keys and a check for five thousand dollars. He told me to go register for school and find a place to live and then he'd start sending me money for tuition. I was actually kind of mad at him, he was really quiet and just acted like he couldn't get rid of me fa-"

She stopped and glanced over at Lionel who was staring out the window. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to ramble on like that." She said trying to break the tension.

"You're dad probably just wants to be alone in his grief, don't be to hard on him." He looked over at her, even in the darkness she could make out the lines of his face, he looked apologetic."I lost both my folks when I was younger, I know what you're going through."

"Oh, Thank you." She said.

Lionel leaned forward and sniffed the air. "Around this next bend there's a Truck stop and they have a 24-hour diner." Lionel said bluntly. She looked at him with a raised eye. "You can smell that from here?" She was confused.

Her confusion turned to bewilderment when they moved around a line of trees to see a turn-off sign and a row of Bright copper colored lights illuminating a large truck stop.

"Would you mind if we stopped, I haven't eaten since this morning?" He asked politely. She obliged his request and they pulled into a parking spot and got out of the truck. Bertha watched Lionel for a moment as he grabbed his bag out of the back of her truck and slung it over his shoulder. He was definitely weird, but she didn't feel like he was a threat to her at all, but she figured it was safer to part with him here.

They entered the diner and slid into a booth across from each other. Their waitress was a woman probably in her late thirties wearing heavy blue eye shadow.

"What Can I get for you two?" The waitress asked politely, as she pulled out her order pad.

Lionel held up two fingers at her.

"I would like two cokes and three cheeseburgers and a double order of chili cheese fries." Lionel looked over at Bertha, giving her the floor. She looked up at the waitress. "Can I have a grilled cheese and some ice water."

"Okay, It'll probably be a few minutes on all those cheeseburgers though." The waitress responded, clearly weirded out. She walked away, leaving the two of them sitting there. "Bertha looked around. Other than two truckers sitting at the bar drinking coffee, they were the only people in there.

"So Lionel." he looked her in eye at the mention of his name. "What's your story?"

"Like I said, I was staying in Seattle up till a few days ago."

"But most people don't just pack up and leave, even if they're drifting, sounds like you're on the run."

"I am on the run. There were a pair of hunters after me, if I'd stayed it was only a matter of time before they found me, so I had to move on.

A realization dawned on Bertha. "You mean like bounty hunters?, so you're running from the law and I just helped you avoid getting captured.

Lionel chuckled. "Not those kind of hunters, Werewolf hunters."

Bertha thought she must be losing her mind. She blinked her eyes and shook her head. "I'm sorry did you just say the word Werewolf, what are you talking about?"

"I'm a werewolf." He said as plain as day.

She stared at him. She didn't see a trace of humor or sarcasm in his face. He believed what he said. Now she was starting to panic inside. Before she could form a thought, their waitress came over with a tray of drinks. She placed a glass of water in front of Bertha and two cokes in front of Lionel.

"Your food should be right out." She sauntered away. Lionel downed one of his cokes in a gulp and began sipping the other one.

"I know you think I'm crazy."

"I wasn't gonna say that."

"It's understandable, it sounds like something someone who's crazy would say."

"I don't know what to say"

"Well tell you what, I can see you're uncomfortable so how about this, We sit here and finish our meal then you gas up truck and keep driving to New York, and I'll stay here and try to find a ride. Is that a deal"

She nodded her head a little relieved. "Deal."

"So you're a werewolf, how does that work?" She asked, curious to hear his answer.

"As I understand it there are two ways of becoming a werewolf. Either you're born one or you become one, I'm the latter."

"How did it happen?"

"I was in Bathelemont France fighting on the western front, what you would now call World war I. I remember waking up one night in the trench because a rat was gnawing at one of my fingers. I heard something skulking around up somewhere in the fields. I thought it might be an ambush by the germans. I grabbed my rifle and slowly climbed up the ladder to peek out. I saw something that looked like a dog in the distance. I stepped out on the empty field to get a better look and I-"

The waitress sauntered over carrying three plates. "grilled cheese and burgers and chili cheese fries." She laid the plates down on the table. "You folks enjoy, let me know if you need anything."

Lionel rubbed his hands together. "This smells good." He remarked. Bertha didn't touch her sandwich, she watched wordlessly as Lionel devoured three double cheeseburgers and his double order of chili cheese fries in less than ten minutes.

He finished his meal with a long swig of coke and the leaned back into his seat.

"So what did you see?"

"What?"

"When you stepped out onto the field what did you see?"

"Oh," He paused to think a bit. "It was hard to see anything the only light came from a piece of the moon that wasn't covered by clouds. but it looked like a large dog was wandering around a couple hundred yards away."

As soon as my feet hit the grass it noticed me," He snapped his finger. "It turned around and started running in my direction. As it got closer I realized it wasn't a dog, it was a wolf the size of a lion. When it was standing close enough for me to get a good look at it, it stood up on it's back legs and walked towards me slowly, like it was trying to scare me. I managed to fire off a round from my rifle before it knocked the gun out of my hand and tossed me to the ground. My memory is hazy after that. I remember it tearing a chunk out of my neck, and my men emptying their guns into it, and few of the bravest ones ran up and stuck it with their bayonets. After that I remember waking up in the surgeon's tent a few days later wrapped in bandages. I heard later from the man who stuck his rifle in it's mouth and blew the back of it's head out, that after they carted me away, that the wolf's body shrunk and twisted and turned into a man. They told me they were all petrified at what the'd seen, they buried the body and refused to speak of it again."

Bertha took a few sips of water and thought about his story. If he was just a crazy person, that seemed like a well thought out delusion. She wondered if he had some kind of way of proving his story. Then an idea came to her.

"Did it leave a scar?" Without a word he pulled the zipper of his leather jacket down a few inches, showing a black t-shirt underneath. He hooked his index finger around the collar of his shirt and pulled it down at an angle. There was a jagged patch of discolored skin that started on his neck that ran down his collar bone.

It was a grizzly sight, but it didn't prove anything, it could have come from anywhere, and there was another thing that didn't add up. "If this happened to you during word war I, you'd have to be at least ninety to have been in that war. "Ninety-three actually." He responded.

"So becoming a werewolf makes you immortal?" Lionel shook his head. "No, nothing quite so dramatic. We just age at a fraction of the rate of a normal human. Although it does come with a few interesting attributes."

"Like what?" She asked. Lionel looked around and began sniffing the air.

"See our lovely waitress, someone's been beating on her. Her lip was busted this morning and she's hiding a black eye beneath all that eye makeup. The cook who made your grilled cheese, he has liver cancer and I don't think he knows it yet. See that that truck driver in the blue shirt sipping his coffee? He has herpes."

"That's impressive, but for all I know, you just made all that up." She said.

He looked her in the eye and gave her a sniff. "You stopped menstruating three days ago."

Her eyes went wide and she winced. "Why would you say that!" She threw out, feeling invaded. "Am I wrong?" He asked.

"No, but that's not something you bring up with a total stranger." He just shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't what else I can do to prove my point."

"You could change into a wolf." She said coyly. He looked at her with a serious expression, then looked away. "That's not a good idea." His tone went from playful to stern in an instant. She figured it was best to change the subject.

"What about these hunters who are after you, what's their deal?"

"All I know is what one of them told me, they claim to be a holy order splintered off from the knights Templar, their mission to kill what they deem unholy abominations."

"And one of them just told you this?"

"He did right before I killed him."

"You actually killed one of them?"

"Two, remember they hunt in pairs. Yea back in '52 they thought they had me cornered in an old textile mill, some people are pretty cocky till you stick a broken pipe through their stomach, the other one spilled the beans pretty quickly after that, then he went through a third story window."

It was hard for Bertha to imagine this soft spoken man killing anybody, but anything seemed possible right now.

"They're the reason I've never joined up with any packs. You're a lot easier to find that way."

"So you've spent years, just moving from town to town, city to city, do you ever go back home?"

He shrugged. "My family's long gone, there's not a home to go back to."

He leveled her with his gaze. she looked down at her hands. " I need to go to the bathroom." She eeked out hardly above a whisper. She slipped out of the booth and looked around for the bathroom.

"I'll take care of the check, it's the least I can do." He reached into his Jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of bills in a money clip. He yanked three twenties out and laid them on the table.

Bertha walked into the ladies room and stood in the front of the sink. She wondered if maybe there was something wrong with her. She found herself actually believing his story. She'd never had run in with someone who was completely out of their mind, so it wasn't like she knew what to expect.

His story was unbelievable, but his sincerity and the clear loneliness he carried on his shoulder had drawn her in.

She turned the tap and ran her hands under the cold water. She scooped some up into her hands and splashed it on her face. Hoping it would clear her head and shake some of the exhaustion out of her eyes.

She walked back out to dining area to see their booth was empty. She went around to the other side of the store and bought some gas. she walked outside to find Lionel standing by the front entrance opening a fresh pack of Pall Malls. He pulled a cigarette out with his lips and held it there as he talked.

"I appreciate you driving me this far, I really do, you should go ahead and get out of here, just to remember to pull over and rest if you get tired and keep your doors locked if you do." Half of her felt relieved that she was getting out of this mess unscathed, and part of her felt a little sad that she wouldn't have his company for the rest of her journey.

"Well it was nice meeting you, good luck out there, hopefully those hunters don't find you." she said. He flicked open a wind-proof lighter and lit his cigarette. "It was nice meeting you too, good luck in New York."

"Well, goodbye." She blurbed out before she turned and made a beeline to her truck.

She pumped her gas while staring of into the distance. Stretched beyond the lights of the station, she could make out the silhouettes of tall pine trees and a good slice of the highway before it dipped into the darkness. She glanced back to Lionel, he was leaning against a wall smoking his cigarette.

She began to turn her head, but she noticed something that made her stop. Just above the burning cherry of his cigarette, Lionel's eyes were glowing. They were two yellow orbs focused on her. Like when you shine a flashlight at an animal and it's eyes reflect the light back at you.

It only lasted seconds, but she was frozen there for minutes. Her mind raced. Human eyes didn't react that way and even if they did, from where he was standing there wasn't a light source hitting his eyes to create the effect, it was like it was something he was doing voluntarily, or instinctually.

Finally she turned away. She replaced the nozzle back into the gas pump and jumped into her truck. She fired it up and pulled out onto the highway without looking in her rearview.

Over the next few hours she tried to come up with an explanation for what she saw, but she couldn't come to a reasonable conclusion.

The further she drove the less it weighed on her mind. She stopped two more times for gas and by morning she was firmly out of the state of Montana.

When she saw the sign stating she was now entering the state of South of Dakota, she had all but forgotten what she'd seen the night before.

She also realized just how exhausted she was, she stopped in the parking lot of a supermarket, so she could get in a quick nap before heading back out on the road. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. As her minded wandered off to sleep, a low gust of wind brushed against the truck, it almost sounded like a howl.

NEW YEARS DAY 1999

Bertha Fann now Bertha Mitchell was on a road trip back home to Albany New York with her husband. They had driven out to Washington to spend the holidays with her dad and his new wife. She wanted to fly but her husband was deathly afraid of flying, so they compromised, they would drive the whole way and he would do all the driving.

They had left her dad's house the day before and celebrated new year's at a roadside motel room.

Driving through Nebraska they decided break for lunch. They stopped at little main street diner in a small town outside of Omaha. It was after they'd eaten and while her husband ran to bathroom she heard a voice call out.

"Bertha?" a man's voice called out. She turned her head around and saw a young man approach her. She didn't recognize him really. She figured he was probably around twenty, so he was too young to have gone to school with her. He stood next to her table and didn't bother sitting down.

"I didn't think I'd ever run into you again." He remarked. "I'm sorry friend, I don't remember meeting you, where do you know me from?" She asked, perplexed.

"You gave me a ride once a long time ago, you told me you were going to college at NYU."

The memory of that night came right back to her. "Oh." She whispered She nearly shouted in surprise. He nodded his head. "That was years ago, how did you recognize me?" She asked. He tapped his nose with his index finger a couple time. "Everybody has a scent, and yours in on a man in the bathroom, is he your husband?"

She hesitated still trying to wrap her head around what was happening. "Uh, Yes, yes he is."

"Well congratulations."

"Oh, thank you, we've been married almost five years."

"That's not what I'm talking about. It was nice to see you again, be safe." He nodded and walked away. She scrunched her face, confused by his words.

She watched him walk out the front door and through the window she saw him cross the street and disappear around a building.