4

Incognito

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I hit the alarm angrily and groggily reached for my phone to silence it. Rubbing my eyes, I begrudgingly swung my legs out of bed, annoyed at the early hour. Another day, another battle with the alarm clock.

I went to the living room to confirm that everything that happened last night was not just a dream. Speaking of dreams, I didn’t get my reoccurring dream of that forest in Transylvania. Lucky me.

I found out that Claud had discovered TV. He was just watching random Channels. Just like actual wolves, he learns fast.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning too?”

“Yeah that’s pretty much right”

“Did you know that there are tiny people in this box?” Claud was really excited to share his discovery with me. They keep doing things inside that box to make us happy. How do you feed them?”

“Again Claud,” I said “They are not in that box. They were filmed, and are not in that box. They were filmed, so now they are just playing the recording of that film.”

“So I can’t feed them?”

“You Can’t.”

“What about me, can I be fed?”

“Yeah, you can. I didn’t know you were hungry” I said “What do werewolves eat?”

“Anything humans or wolves eat,” Claud said we’re a mix of both so we’re omnivores, just like you.”

“Alright, I’ll grab you something to eat.”

As I was walking towards the kitchen, I received a call from Mr. Matthews. He doesn’t call often so when he does, it’s usually important usually.

“Hello Matthew.”

“Yeah good morning.”

“Sure.”

“I have bad news.”

“Oh really?”

“Someone broke in and stole our specimen.”

“You don’t say.”

“You don’t really seem surprised. Did you know anything about this?”

“No, how would I? Do you really think that I was the one who broke in?”

“Nah… You don’t have the capability and intellect to pull that off. The person even put our cameras on loop repeating one footage for the security agents…”

‘Oh Elijah’ I thought to myself ‘I completely forgot about the surveillance cameras in the lab but he thought of it and even sorted it out. He’s my little genius.

“I don’t know what we could do to retrieve our asset,” I said “Do you know what we could do?”

“I’m actually at the police station currently.” Mr. Matthews said. “They’re trying to see if there’s a way to remove the loop and see what happened within that time.”

“Alright. I wish you luck.” I said “And also, tell my staff that I won’t be coming in today. I have a family issue to sort.”

“But you don’t have a family.”

“Fuck you sir.”

“Sure, I’ll tell them.”

Mr. Matthews was right though. I didn’t really have a family, my only remaining family was my dad and we were not really on speaking terms. He just abandoned us when our mom died so we had to sort ourselves out- me and my elder sister who died two years ago in a shipwreck. I fought my way to the position I am in now without major assistance from anyone, so now that I’m done with my trying times, I don’t plan to bring my dad back into my life because he was not there When I needed him the most.

I didn’t have any family issues to resolve, I just wanted to take Claud around town to familiarize him with everything that had changed since he was last alive. He looks exactly like a human, if I didn’t know better, I could easily pass him off as a human. Besides I think it would be funny to see how he reacts to other things seeing that he was just trying to feed the people on the TV.

“Hey Claud, get dressed,” I said “We’re leaving the house today, I’ve taken an excuse from work already. It’s not like I do anything important there anymore.”

“But I’m already dressed.” Claud said looking at his clothes. He was wearing. A plain black shirt and jean shorts, both having a reasonable amount of holes on them.

“Yeah,” I started. “But I think there’s room for improvement.”

I went inside and checked my cupboard. I picked a plain black shirt and one of my baggy jeans. Hopefully it’ll fit his size. I was not really thin so I can’t say it’ll be too tiny for him. I gave him the clothes and he started undressing right in front of me. When he took off his shirt and displayed his finely toned body, I couldn’t look away but I saw him taking off his shorts, I knew it was time. I quickly turned around to avoid seeing what my eyes wouldn’t like to see but I still turned at intervals to peep at what mystery could lie under those shorts. Who knows? Maybe werewolves had a different organ of reproduction. So I looked back to confirm. For the sake of science!

“I’m all dressed up.” Claud said. “I turned around fully and looked at him. My once baggy shirt and trousers looked like fitted clothes on his body. The shirt hugged his upper body so much that his muscles started bulging. His chest’s shape came out visibly in spite of the shirt he was wearing. “After you”. Claud smiled as he opened the door for me. I guess manners exist even among wolves. I grabbed my coat by the door and then we moved. I took him to an ice cream stand first and got one for both of us. He tasted it and exclaimed. “What type of sorcery is this?” Claud asked visibly surprised while taking another bite of the ice cream. “It’s not even Snowing but yet I am holding snow in my hand. How do you humans do this?”

“It’s called an ice cream cone.” 1 chuckled. “It is just something technology helped us create.”

“Hold this.” Claud said with his eyes directly fixed at something. I looked too and finally saw what he was glaring at. It was a squirrel. Wait, don’t dogs usually like to chase squirrels? Oh no.

Claud ran towards this squirrel with so much speed that everyone started looking at him and me. Damn, this was so embarrassing. I dropped the ice cream and ran after him. I never caught up. Jeez, why did I stop working out? I found him in an alley staring over a wall. So I’m guessing the squirrel ran on the wall and got to the other side.

“What… was… that about?” I asked him whilst panting. I did more running today than I’ve done in the past five months.

“Nothing really, Claud said “I just love Chasing squirrels.”

“Well, if you want to blend in with the humans and avoid detection, I started “You’re going to have to stop following your animal impulses”

“OH…” Claud said, looking remorseful “I understand. I’ll try.”

I was about to lead him out of the dark alley when I saw five figures in the darkness at the place we should’ve used to leave this alley. Damn, they must have seen me run in. I completely forgot how unsafe this part of England was. How do I get out of this without tipping them off that Claud isn’t a normal human being? I can’t expect Claud to approach them or try to talk to them because he still doesn’t know how human customs work. He might try sniffing their butts, you know, like dogs do to each other. That would be really weird. So I guess I’m doing this. I’m talking to five men in a dark alley. Sigh. Here goes nothing.

“Hi, excuse me.” I walked towards the men while Claud stayed there, back rested on the wall.

One of the men brought out a gun. I carried both my hands up gesturing that I didn’t want any trouble. I was more scared in this moment than I’ve ever been in all my life. My legs were literally shaking.

“Give me all the money you have with you there right now. Don’t waste my time.”

The men slapped me so hard that I fell down and hit my head on the wall. I stayed there kneeling down and clutching my Cheek. That slap hurt like hell. Then I turned around and saw Claud. His light-blue eyes now glowing. He growled silently, he was still in his human form though. I guess he finally understood that he’s not supposed to transform in public. His eyes were murder intent and full of rage. In a heart beat, he dashed toward them.