“What the hell happened to you?!”
“Uh,” I said, stepping into the house and scratching the back of my neck. “I don’t really know. It was a weird night. Can I shower first and get some not-torn clothes on? For some reason I’ve got ketchup all over me.”
“That doesn’t look like ketchup,” my roommate said, closing the door as I walked into our small apartment. He swiped at a red patch on my torso with his finger and lifted it to his nose. “It smells coppery.”
I scoffed. “What are you saying? That it’s blood? It’s probably that metallic paint that uses copper to make it shiny, then. Some art kids brought a bunch to the party. They were painting t-shirts in the kitchen.”
“Okay, man, whatever you say. This stuff doesn’t look shiny though…”
“Look, hash out your conspiracy theories while I clean up, okay?”
Ten minutes later, I walked out of the bathroom in fresh clothes, rubbing my hair with a towel. My roommate was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop, furiously clicking away.
“Hey man, do you have any bites on you?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I do, but I was in the woods all night. Of course I’m going to have bites on me! I didn’t exactly keep a bottle of bug spray in my back pocket.”
“Hear me out though—this looks so similar to a werewolf attack.”
“Yeah, and now I won’t be able to touch silver.” I rolled my eyes. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s rice in the pot.” I helped myself to a generous amount and then opened the drawer and pulled out a fork. OW!
“Allergic to silver, are you?” My roommate was smirking.
I shoved him. “It’s the damn static from your carpet. Why do you need a carpet in the kitchen anyways? Whatever, I’ll just eat with my hands.” Sitting down at the table again, I dug into the food.
“Okay,” I said to my still smirking roommate. “So yesterday I went to the woods for a smoke—no one wanted to come with me so I was by myself—and some guy comes over. He offered me something—it wasn’t weed, I’m sure of that–and then I was running. Whatever it was must’ve given me a lot of energy. It was some weird stuff. I heard the dogs from Sanders’ farm howling too. They must’ve gotten agitated with all the noise from the party. UGH!” I broke off my story and turned to my roommate. “Is this all just vegetables? Where’s the meat?”
My roommate sat dumbstruck. “I’m a vegetarian,” he finally said. “Uh . . . you’re a vegetarian . . . ”
“Oh.” I straightened my back. “You know; I think I’ve had the wrong idea about that all these years. How will one person turning vegetarian help the animals? They’re so tasty too: soft, juicy, bloody—”
“Okay! Okay! I get it! Just continue your story! You heard howls that totally weren’t from a werewolf.”
I swallowed a bite of rice and continued. “Yeah, so I’m running through the woods and I must’ve tripped at some point because I woke up face down on the floor of the woods. Those squirrels are more savage than you think they are. Did you see what they did to my shirt?” My roommate was laughing now. “Come on, man,” I said. “You don’t still believe that dumb werewolf theory, do you? What are we, twelve?”
He bit his lip and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m chaining you up next full moon, just in case.”
Photo Credit: Meagan Casalino
