The Lycanthrope

Neighbor Tom called and asked if I could meet him at the Nugget in Sparks. He was getting off work at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center and had a drive equal to mine if I left straight away.

I left straight away.

We met up and headed for the Gold bar in the Nugget. After a beer, we concluded we should go to Reno and wander from some of the dives along Fourth Street.

Somewhere and somehow, we became separated. I waited half an hour before I gave up the ghost and walked the few blocks to CitiCenter, where I knew I could hop a bus to the CitiCenter in Sparks.

As I sat in the middle of the nearly empty bus, I watched as a man of African-American descent stepped aboard before sitting down one seat back and across from my position. He was sweating profusely, and his breathing labored, and I thought perhaps he had run to catch the bus.

Two minutes after the bus pulled away from the curb for the 15-minute ride to Sparks along the 4th and Prater route, I watched this man begin changing in appearance. He went from human to monstrous wolfman.

He rocked back and forth in his seat and began making pained grunting sounds but never looked around. It was as if he was unaware that the three other persons on the bus, including the driver, were witnessing his transformation.

I touched the pistol I had concealed in my beltline, knowing it would be useless if this were a case of lycanthropy because it lacked silver bullets.

Inside my jacket pocket, my cell phone dinged. It was Neighbor Tom wanting to know where I was and if I were okay.

“On the bus, headed back to my truck. I’m doing okay,” I answered.

Covertly I snapped a blurry photo of the changeling, with his yellow-glowing eyes and ever-increasingly elongating sharpening yellowed teeth.

Then the bus pulled up to the stop between 15th and 16th Streets, where the man got up and exited. The two remaining riders, me and a young woman, looked at one another but said nothing.

The driver shot nervous glances our way in the overhead mirror above his steering wheel but did not speak. Drivers are conditioned through training to take passengers as they are and do so without comment.

As a casual observer, I could tell he had never seen this before as his brow was damp with sweat and knuckles gripping whitely to the wheel.

The woman and I stood to make a quick escape from the bus. Hand-in-hand, we dashed into the Nugget casino and the safety of the slot machines and bright lights.

Neither of us said a word as we came to the first bar we saw, the one nearest the showroom, and ordered ourselves a stiff drink. Soon her boyfriend met her, and they left.

I still had to walk across a darkened parking lot, and I did not fancy the idea, so I ordered two more braces of courage before heading to my truck.