Scratch That:, Judy Colella [best thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

Dogs. Deva liked dogs. Never had one, but always admired them. Unlike cats, they came in a surprising array of sizes, shapes and colors – not that she didn’t like cats, too. But they were, with a few bizarre exceptions, all the same size (not including, of course, lions and such). Their colors were pretty standard, too, being either grey, orange, black, white, or a mixture of all of the above. Oh, yes, and they could be striped or, like the Siamese, appear air-brushed. Sphinx cats, in her opinion, weren’t cats at all, but some alien species that came to visit during a past millennium, discovered catnip, and forgot where they parked the ship. But dogs. They were very, very cool.

Wolves, on the other hand, were a whole different story. Like the one glaring at her. It looked unfriendly, thought a distant chemical in her brain, as she glared back and tried to control her bladder. Not at all pettable. More…hungry, perhaps, than anything else. Undoubtedly on the verge of doing something painful to her, and no doubt fatal. What she wouldn’t give to have a stray London Broil in her purse (an item she had slung over her right shoulder – she was out for a walk, not a jog, after all), or a Taser. She gulped in an attempt to lubricate her dry throat while she still had one.

The wolf, which she thought was far larger than any wolf she’d seen on National Geographic or the Animal channel, didn’t look as if its ancestors had ever belonged to a Native American tribe; that, at least, would have been somewhat comforting. And it was taking a step closer, a low growl lubricating its own throat.

Don’t show fear. Deva stood a little straighter, and the wolf growled a little louder.

Don’t show aggression. Without sending her a warning memo, her knees stopped working, and she sat hard on the jogging path. “Ouch!” she whispered, wincing, then glanced up to see if the creature had come any closer.

It had, but wasn’t growling any more. Instead, it was giving her the same narrow-eyed stare she usually got from her boss when he thought she’d been playing games on the computer instead of working. She wanted to ask it what the hell its problem was, but the part of her brain in charge of survival told her not to be an idiot. One of the cells under I’m-In-Charge-Of-Survival’s orders whimpered something about running away, but was promptly smushed. So she continued to sit, terrified, unmoving, hoping that if the damn thing was going to eat her it would go for the quick kill first.

The wolf seemed to have a different idea, though, and after taking another step toward her, lashed out with one paw and made an almost gentle swipe across the upper part of her left arm. Tears of pain and fear sprang to her eyes, maybe one of which was shed for the brand new shirt that had just been ruined; blood began to pour from flesh as torn as the material, and she waited for the next swipe that would kill her.

It never came. In fact, the wolf turned, smirking…okay, it wasn’t smirking, but in the split second between the wolf hurting her and turning away, she thought she detected a smirking kind of attitude, and wasn’t sure if she was more outraged than relieved.

She watched, not moving so much as a skin cell, as the massive beast followed the path away from her for a few yards, then turned left and veered off into the woods (had it turned right, it would have veered off into a fence). She waited a few more minutes before getting to her feet and heading in the opposite direction, back toward her car. With any luck, she’d make it before she bled to death.

“Luck,” she muttered, stumbling a little. “If you had any luck at all, you wouldn’t have been attacked.” Glad that no one was around to see her talking to herself, and upset that no one was around to help her, she continued stagger-walking down the path until reaching the parking lot. To her relief, there was no wolf on its hind legs, leaning casually against the side of her car, tossing a coin in one paw, holding a cigarette in the other –

“Wow! Get a grip!” Deva shook her head, hard, took her keys from her purse, unlocked the door, got in after checking the back seat for random oversized animals, started the engine, and drove home.

**********

“Did you ever notice how women on television and in the movies always hold their coffee cups the same way? You know, never by the handle, but with both hands cupped around it like they’re too delicate to hold it like the rest of us?”

Deva gave her friend a crazy look. “What on earth are you babbling about?” She wasn’t in a very good mood, having gotten back a few minutes earlier from the doctor’s office where they’d checked her stitches. Two days had passed since her upper left arm had been torn open by that dastardly wolf, and the wounds, for some reason, didn’t seem to be healing.

“Just making an observation,” said her friend. “I was trying to distract you a little.”

“From what?”

The other girl waved in the general direction of Deva’s bandages.

“Look, Rochelle, I appreciate your concern – I really do. But right now, I’m kinda worried because my normally fast-healing self…isn’t. You can’t distract me from that, hon.” She shrugged her right shoulder and sat at the kitchen table with a weary sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Rochelle said, sitting across from her. “So did the doctor give you anything for the pain?”

“What pain? I mean, yeah, it hurt like hell right after it happened, but when I got up this morning, it didn’t hurt any more – at all.”

“That’s weird.” Rochelle thrummed her fingers on the green and turquois woven placemat in front of her.

“Not the word I’d have used, but I guess ‘weird’ works.”

“Mm. So now what? Do they have any idea why you aren’t healing properly? Or why it doesn’t hurt?”

“Not healing at all, they said, and no on both counts.”

Rochelle sat back and nodded, her lips compressed as she stared down at her hands.

“What are you thinking?” Deva asked. “You have that strange look in your eyes, like you’re trying to channel Sherlock Holmes or something.”

“How, er, you said this wolf was really, really big.”

“Yup. I said that.”

“Um, right.”

Deva was silent for a moment, her mind churning with apprehension at her friend’s sudden inscrutable behavior. Why was she being inscrutable in the first place? And if one wasn’t being inscrutable, was one being scrutable? She rolled her eyes at herself for asking herself such a groaner of a question. No point in speculating, now, was there…not about the inscrutable thing, but, well, yes, about that – “What’s going on in your head? Are you gonna go all Planet X on me here?”

Rochelle looked back up, surprised. “What does Planet X have to do with this?”

“I don’t know – Lizard People, then? What are you thinking, and don’t tell me you were going over your shopping list – ”

“Huh. That might not be a bad idea. I have no food in the house to speak of, and Carmine is going to be home in a little while looking for grub...”

“Rochelle! Focus! I know darn well you weren’t thinking about your husband’s gastro-intestinal demands.”

“True. Actually, I was thinking about something you might very well kill me in my sleep for thinking in the first place or at all.”

Deva frowned as she untangled her friend’s sentence, but when she got it, she leaned forward. “Friend. Girlfriend. Person I’ve known since the dawn of time. What were you thinking about?”

Rochelle offered a weak smile. “Nothing, really. Uh, not, um, I mean, it’s not, er, yeah, I – werewolves.”

At a second and a half past her slack-jawed reaction, Deva cleared her throat. “Werewolves.”

“Y-well, yes. But hey, at least I didn’t say ‘barracudas’ or something.”

“Why would you ever say barracudas?”

“I might, you know.”

“That’s frightening. A little creepy, too.”

Rochelle sighed. “No creepier than what happened to you, or saying ‘octopus’.”

“Are you saying I got scratched by an octopus?”

“No, octopi do not have claws.” She made a face. “What a nightmare that would be! A nasty, snarling octopus, all eight legs extended with long, sharp claws – ”

“Rochelle!”

“Sorry. I was saying you may have been scratched by a werewolf. Maybe. It would sure explain its size and crazy behavior.”

“Crazy is right. Werewolves, assuming they even exist, are supposed to, I don’t know, bite or maim you, not give you an almost playful scratch!”

“Maybe it was a werebitch.”

“You need help. And no, it was definitely male.” Her mind offered up the memory of the creature’s retreating hind area.

“How do you know? Did you turn it upside-down?”

Deva stared. She continued to stare until Rochelle turned bright pink.

“Right. I didn’t just ask that…sorry.” Rochelle stood, glancing at her watch. “Crap. I gotta go. Are you going to be all right?”

“I’m pretty sure I am. The doctor gave me some kind of coagulant or whatever that encourages scabbing.”

“Ah. Gross.”

“Not as gross as bleeding all over the place.”

“True.” Rochelle headed into the front hall where she retrieved her purse and keys. “Call me if you need help with anything,” she called over her shoulder.

“I will.” Not, thought Deva. Werewolves my butt. And if she’s right – what am I saying? How could she possibly be right?

A second later the front door closed as her friend went out, and Deva jumped up and went to the large calendar stuck to the refrigerator door with ladybug-shaped magnets. She found the date – the next full moon was in three days. “Am I seriously worried about this?” she asked one of the ladybugs, her index finger tapping the little moon icon. “She can’t be right!”

But what if she is?

“If she is, I’m SOL. I’ll probably go all snarly and eat the cop who gave me a speeding ticket last week, they’ll track me using dogs, and since they’ll never believe the werewolf thing, I’ll get thrown in jail, get wolfy at the next full moon, eat my cell mate, and…” She stopped, hearing herself, and took a slow, deep breath. The situation was making her insane. Well, more insane than usual, so she decided to go have a nice, long bath (the doctor told her she couldn’t take showers until the bandages were off), make herself some lunch, and go to the movies.

As she headed toward her room, her mind, being spiteful, showed a replay-recollection of the retreating wolf, and she shuddered, hoping that if Rochelle was right about the werewolf idea, the stupid thing didn’t turn out to be someone she knew. That elicited a loud, “Ew!” and a violent shiver.

She went into the bathroom where she turned on the taps in the tub. “Ew, ew, EW!” At this point, she began to doubt that even a movie would erase that image, so she concluded that a cool glass of wine…or vodka, maybe…would solve everything. Her smile manic, she got undressed and stared at her shoulder in the slowly-fogging mirror over the sink.

The bandages had begun staining red again. The medication didn’t seem to be working well or for too long, and she figured she should take another dose. But if she did, would the alcohol she intended to enjoy react badly with it?

Frowning, Deva turned off the water, tested it with her foot, then got in. Maybe she should check with the doctor first. Or maybe… she smiled, her mind drifting off as the relaxing heat of the bath overtook her. Maybe instead of wine, some lovely, warm, human flesh washed down with blood…

“Ack!” She jerked upright, horrified at what had crossed