Chapter Text
James looked out the window on the unusually warm October day" ten more minutes ." That was the only thing that crossed his mind. His Astronomy teacher was going on another tangent about Halloween for the umpteenth time. James was officially bored, he kept twirling his pencil around his fingers. Someone's phone rang, it was the classic iPhone text tone, James hummed the tone to himself .
"Bring your phone here!" Mr. Gold said assertively , Mr. Gold had two rules for class; No Talking, and no cell phones out of buzzing. If you have a text on the screen he is going to read it out loud. The student whose phone had rung was towards the front of the class so it was a short walk of shame for her. She got up and handed him the phone. Before handing it to him she tried to plead with him."Please don't read my text." ignoring her He shooed her back to her seat.
He cleared his throat. "Forget Mr. Gold, sneak out of your classroom so we can hangout." He pushed his glasses to the edge of his nose and peered over them. "Well I guess you won't be meeting," He looked back at the phone. "Dylan, for your bathroom break." He laughed at his own joke.
Nobody joined him, but they all groaned at his joke.
"Alright that's enough." Me. Gold shushed the class. "Back to what I was saying about the moon." James instantly lost interest in what Mr. Gold was saying and went back to twirling his pencil.
James found Mr. Gold to be a boring teacher, he doesn't do anything fun for class, they barely used the telescopes that he brought for the class, and that was the only reason why James wanted to sign up for the class. In James's opinion Mr. Gold was average in every aspect he didn't have any features that stuck out to make him ugly and none of the other students talked about how hot he was. It's rare for anyone to really talk about him outside of class.
The only thing that stuck out was that he is Filipino but he was born in California. He never talked about home life or his time in California to the class unlike the other teachers that James has had. James figured that he lived on his own and didn't do anything fun outside of school.
"...Don't forget tomorrow is a super blood moon," Mr. Gold reminded everyone, he was walking around the room making sure no one was on their phone." Strange things have been happening during full moons lately so make sure you take a friend for Halloween." He Spoke in a clear and even tone, typically James wasn't paying attention to Mr. Gold but these words stuck with him like glue.
Before being dismissed James shifted in his seat, hitting knees into the chair-desk, forgetting that he had grown over the summer he wasn't good at judging distances of classroom furniture. A couple of students turned and looked at him.
"Did you need something," Mr. Gold coughed, it sounded like he had a cold. "Or are you disrupting the class?" He asked. James didn't want to get into an argument so he apologized.
"Any one coming to the star party night?" Mr. Gold glared at the students. The class started to buzz like a beehive but they weren't talking about the star party they knew it was the end of class.
Mr. Gold thought that if he held star parties for astronomy class that people would get interested in his class but the truth is only a handful of students showed up. James' friend Karen was one of them, but this time she didn't raise her hand. This was odd because she usually tried to get James to go, he tapped her on the shoulder. "Why aren't you going?" James asked softly. Karen moved a couple of loose blond strands out of her face to behind her ear . "I'm going to be busy with my mother." She whispered at him.
She seemed more irritated today than normal, But Karen was always touchy about her mother so James thought nothing of it. "Oh she doesn't want you out for two nights in a row." James realized. Karen and James had planned to hang out for Halloween since the beginning of October. Karen's mother put up a fight but James won her over with his charm.
"It's going to be a fun night." Karen giggled as she put down her pencil and packed up her items on her desk. They both couldn't stop laughing until Mr. Gold cleared his throat and stared at them.
"Looks like someone is a buzzkill." "James whispered to Karen when Mr. Gold looked away from them.
"And he wonders why nobody comes to his party." Karen whispered back, and they started laughing silently to themselves.
13
The final bell rang that released the students out of their last class, the students flooded into the hallway. James was happy, it was Friday and it was the night before Halloween. He weaved through his classmates to his locker which was towards the end of the hallway, he had a locker closer to the floor. He got on one knee and opened his locker, he stuffed all of his books into his locker and he made sure nothing was in his backpack that shouldn't be.
He most likely wasn't going to do his homework this weekend so he didn't bother to bring his books. As he was reaching for his Nintendo 3Ds, His phone vibrated and he got excited it probably was Karen that texted him. He rushed and shoved everything into his backpack, he slammed his locker door and pulled out his cellphone swiftly and unlocked it. The message read: Meet me at the fire station, and don't forget your bestiary. We are going to need it tomorrow.
With quick nimble fingers. He texted back: I won't forget it, NERD!
He walked into the back of the school to retrieve his bike. He walked to the bike lot, he unlocked his shiny red bike that he got for his birthday which took a lot of convincing to get.
He hopped on and rode from the back of the school to the front. He didn't feel like talking to anyone he just wanted to get home as soon as possible.
He rode through the city weaving through people. He didn't care that they changed the law years ago so people couldn't ride their bikes on the sidewalk. He stopped in front of a dirt road that led to a one story house in the middle of the woods. He pedaled as hard he could, the wind enveloped his body cooling him off, his leg muscles started straining. James was too tired to pedal so he cruised his bike to the front door of the house. He left it outside; he wasn't planning to go out before it got dark.
"Anyone home?" He yelled out, as he slammed shut the front door.
"Yeah I'm in the back room.' A high pitched voice shouted back at him . It must have been his sister. He realized that he wasn't going to be able to relax, so he kicked off his high top shoes. He cursed to himself, this dampened any chance of him listening to music loudly.
He slipped on his house shoes. James slid over the carpet through the living room and into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and pulled out a juice box out of the side of the refrigerator. He didn't care how old he was; he loved juice boxes. James sat at the table and drank down his juice, he pulled out his phone and unlocked it. He hopped on to Twitter and to check the trending section. He saw that #Fullmoon was trending. He instantly started to perspire, people came up missing every full moon, it had been happening for years. He had been raised to never be outside on a full moon, his parents were making an exception for Halloween and allowing him to go out and that was only because of Karen.
James slid his way back into the living room and turned on the TV trying to keep the bad thoughts away. After watching some cartoons for a while, he couldn't shake the idea that these disappearances were not the cause of something supernatural. This made him want to get his bestiary to get to the bottom of this. James' mind started racing, James went into the room that he and his sister shared to get his book.
James opened the door, and he saw that his sister was stretching across his bed "What do you want?" His sister asked, as she quickly pulled her phone from her ear.
"Who are you talking to, Sam?" James asked a question of his own. "You know mom and dad don't like us talking on the phone after 8 when they are gone he didn't allow her to answer." James stated matter of factly, he didn't care too much for rules but he likes messing with his sister.
"Like you weren't supposed to be calling your girlfriend last night and I am older than you anyway, you are 14 and I am 18, so I make the rules while our parents are out of town." Sam responded coolly, he hated when she talked about Karen like that.
"She isn't my girlfriend, we are just really good friends." He said.
"Okay, so talking on the phone everyday for more than two hours only means you guys are good friends, yeah right" she said..
That had struck a nerve with James. He silently grabbed his bag from the side of the bed and went back into the living room.
He sat down on the couch and opened the bag carefully. The bag held all of his drawings and books on mythical creatures in it. He shuffled through it tentatively to not rip anything in the bag. James pulled out a plain black leather book, which had the name bestiary on it in gold lettering. He opened the book, it still smelled like fresh paper, to a section that he already booked marked. The title read; Werewolves; He skimmed to a highlighted section Werewolves are Known to transform during the full moon, but they can transform at any time they choose, though they are physically weaker when transforming before a full moon. They are powerful beings even without the aid of the moon. The full moon is a blessing and a curse for werewolves depending on the closeness of the moon affects how much control that they have over their bodies and minds.
As he was putting the book back in the bag, James recalled that tomorrow was supposed to be a super blood moon. He closed the book, he knew if werewolves were real he would find out tomorrow but it was going to be risky.
13
James was sitting at his parents desk, he was sketching a drawing of a werewolf out on a piece of paper. He liked drawing supernatural creatures. He was really concentrating on his drawing when a tap on his parents' window made him roll back in the leather chair he was currently sitting in. James rolled his chair slowly back to the desk.
He peaked through the blinds and saw Karen. He opened the window.
"What do you want?" James whispered through the window.
"Pop the screen out." Karen demanded, the moon was bright, he could perfectly make her out. He popped off the screen letting a cool fall breeze in. "Why do you have me do that for?" He said through chattered teeth. She threw a duffel bag on his parents desk.
"The gear came in," she sounded excited." Our hunting gear."
James quickly grabbed the bag off the desk and he noticed that it was heavy. He put it on the ground and bent down on the carpet, and slowly unzipped the bag.
It was everything he wanted. The first thing he pulled out a dusty grey leather jacket. He turned it over, and silently screamed. It had an embroidered logo of a werewolf skull and crossbones on it, James designed it himself. "You even got our logo on it, you are the best Karen." he stood up and said out the window.
"Yeah I know I'm the best." she said smoothly. He looked out the window and noticed that she had it on. He squatted back down and pulled out a solid black headlamp, he stood back up and turned off the lights to his parents room and turned on the headlamp to the lowest setting, it emitted a low focused light to the desk it weakly illuminated the desk. He turned it to its highest setting. It was really bright, almost as bright as a full moon. "This headlamp kick ass." James was stoked about tomorrow.
"Yeah, you're right," Karen giggled, she stepped up to the window. "I'm going to get going, remember to sleep." She started walking away.
"See you later." James walked out the window. "And no promises." He yelled out.
He switched into his pajamas, he had repacked his bag. James was still smiling really hard, but as soon as he laid in his parents bed. Then he started dreaming...