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Matt is sleeping. He dreams of getting a show at the Rivoli with Jay. Like he does every night. This one is different however. There’s a brown wolf.
It’s staring at him from the audience. No one else seems to notice. Jay doesn’t even notice. It walks up to the stage and jumps onto it. It turns its head and opens its mouth, but Matt doesn’t see what happens next before he wakes up.
He smells wolf hair. It’s that time of the month again. He’s grateful that Jay isn’t a terrible monster that rampages through the city. He’s just a hairier version of himself for a day.
—
“I don’t want to have a video game day, Matt.”
“Aw come on Bird! We have nothing better to do!”
“Yes we do! Look at me! Why haven’t we fixed this?! You can go out and find someone!”
“I’ve tried!”
Jay didn’t believe Matt. After all, Matt benefited from not breaking the curse. Jay couldn’t leave forever. He would have to fit his whole life around hiding away from the world almost every month. Which he was already doing.
He didn’t really need to break the curse anyway. Nothing changed about him. He was still Jay McCarrol. He could do everything he could normally do, with some slight difficulty.
But he just didn’t like being a wolfman. That was all.
“How about you try again? Maybe you’ll find a witch that can fix me.”
“No!”
“I’ll rip off your face if you don’t.”
—-
Where would one find a witch? Were there even any in Toronto? Maybe he’d have to go to another province. Maybe they all lived in Quebec.
He asks people if they’ve seen a witch. No one ever says yes. He starts asking people if they’re a witch. Again, no one ever says yes.
Matt goes to the park and sits for a while. He remembers coming here when Jay first became a wolfman. He swears he still sees Van Pelt sometimes. No one on the crew believes him. He never appears on camera either. But he’s there.
A strange woman with pitch black hair comes up to him. A black dog walks next to her. She’s wearing a robe with a bunch of vials and a large black bag. Probably just a crackhead trying to sell him shit. But he’s got a feeling he should listen to her.
“I’ve heard you’re looking for a witch. What do you need one for?” She says. Her voice is cold like ice. Somehow.
“My friend turns into a wolfman whenever there’s a full moon that day. He wants me to fix it.”
“And how did he gain this ability?”
Matt recounts the events of that fateful Halloween night. Jay becoming tiny, switching bodies, Van Pelt. The woman watches with a stern expression. Matt thinks he’s annoying her.
“Well, bring him this.”
She reaches into her bag and gives him a strange concoction in a spherical bottle. It’s red, and Matt can swear he sees wolves running inside it. It’s warm to the touch.
Matt wants to thank her, but she’s gone. He asks if anyone saw her, but no one knows what he’s talking about.
—
“What the f-ck is this?”
“It’s going to fix you Bird!”
Jay stares at the bottle in confusion. The story Matt tells is even more confusing. For all he knows, this is just warm water with red food dye Matt found somewhere.
He goes against his better judgement and drinks it. It tastes like nothing he’s ever tasted before. It tastes good. He wants more. He’s a bit tired though. Maybe he’ll just fall asleep right here. He falls to the ground.
—
Jay dreams of wolves. They jump out of him. They all run off into the distance, never to be seen again. He doesn’t know if this is a good thing or not. But it feels right.
Jay awakens on the floor. He looks at his hands. They’re normal human hands. That’s a relief. He’s still a bit disoriented. Wait, he’s not at the house anymore.
He’s in a strange sort of void. A path forms. He decides to walk on it. Wolves follow him. He doesn’t mind them.
He finds a strange arena. The wolves all take spots around it. There’s hundreds of them. He’s a bit worried that they might want to eat them, but that thought goes away quickly.
A giant wolf appears. All the wolves bow their heads, like it’s their leader. It leans down to smell Jay. It opens its mouth.
“Do you want to sever the wolf from yourself?” It says in a booming voice.
“Of course I f-cking do! Where am I anyway?”
“The pack thanks you for this decision. We will watch over you for eternity.”
The giant wolf eats him. Jay falls into a void and transforms into a bird. He flies off. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he’s ok.
—
Jay awakens in the lower bunk. He’s human again. A wolf’s amount of hair seems to have been shedded. Matt is staring at him with wide eyes.
“Dude, what the fuck happened to you?! You were mumbling really weird shit!”
He tells Matt about the experience he had. He honestly doesn’t know if it was real or not. They ponder what the wolves meant. They decide it probably means nothing.
He should be happy about not having to deal with this every month, and he is. But he keeps thinking about what the big wolf said.
They will watch over him for an eternity.
—
Matt brings Jay to the park to find the lady. But they can’t find her. Jay still thinks she’s not real. Maybe she isn’t.
Jay swears he sees a wolf.