Chapter 4 Chapter 4

Jolene

They start to sort us into groups according to location, and soon they have us matched up so we’ll be three and four to a car. We’re being returned to the wild.

The people, I assume they’re slaves of some sort, take us outside into the brilliant, late summer sun. I blink against the brightness. We are nowhere near town, but on some kind of enormous estate, high up in the mountains. It smells like pine, money, and power.

I inhale deeply and smile. This day turned into a cracker. I lost everything of value - my cell phone (RIP, you faithful friend) and my camera - the tools of my almost-famous trade - but if I’m really lucky, I might still find the SD card and footage of what happened last night. 

Middletown is a sleepy little town at the foot of the mountain, and there isn’t a whole lot of crime. Just a whole lot of werewolves, apparently.

I count twenty-six people, including me, which is roughly one percent of our town's population. Lexington said half already died. That’s a lot of people for such a small, boring place. People will have questions, and I, Jolene, will have the answers. 

I wonder if this Ultima wolf thing moved on, or if there will be more werewolves by the next full moon. I should probably start preparing my 'My First Shift' vlog now. If I can find this Ultima, maybe he’ll be open to an interview.

At long last, the cars start to show up. They’re non-descript sedans, the kind that scream "we are definitely not supernatural kidnappers." One by one, the little groups disappear into them and drive off.

As I get into my group’s car, I look up at the impressive mansion that seems to disappear into the mountain. It’s less a house and more a fortress made of dreams and debt. One thing is for damn sure, Alpha Lexington isn’t hurting for money.

**

The car drops me off right in front of my apartment complex. I practically leap out, clutching the orientation packet - my official ticket to the supernatural world - to my chest.

I live on the outskirts of the town, close to the forest. There’s nothing here but a shop on the corner where the bus stops and the faint, unsettling smell of pine needles and endless boredom.

This is seen as the wrong side of town, and all the places are a little rundown, but in a boring place like Middletown, there’s not really such a thing as a bad area. 

It’s the kind of place where people like to retire to, to live out the rest of their golden years in the freezing winter and sweltering summers, complaining about the youth and the cost of bran cereal. Too hold to move into assisted living, and still young enough to entertain the grandkids when they come for summer visits.

It’s not a bad place to live. If you are sixty-five.

I’d leave if I had the money. I feel like I’m dying a slow death out here in the boondocks.

That’s why I started my VidHub channel. There are strange sounds in the woods here. Sounds I now know are probably just wolves shifting, and city people always think it’s ghosts. Close, but no cigar, I think with a giggle.

I thought I was onto a banger with my ghost hunting channel - the woods can be eerie at night - but clearly, I got it all wrong. After six months of hard work and tears, I only have a hundred subscribers. 

Werewolves, though? Hell, proof of Werewolves - that is viral gold.

I dash into my building and run to my ground floor flat.

There are only four flats - two on the ground floor and two upstairs. I’ve lived in this same apartment for as long as I can remember. With my grandmother at first, and after she died, alone, surrounded by her comforting clutter.

She left me a little money, which I used to buy an okay camera and microphone. Thank you, Grandma. You accidentally funded my werewolf journalism career.

I work at the only law firm in town as a paralegal. It pays most of the bills, but not much else. Not enough for a mansion, certainly, and definitely not enough to move to a place with a little more life.

I hop into my dingy flat and throw the orientation packet on my grandma’s old settee, which smells faintly of lavender and ancient farts.

I haven’t changed anything since she died. I like her old furniture and the little knick-knacks that grandmothers seem to gather: ceramic cats, faded doilies, and a truly magnificent collection of salt and pepper shakers. It’s comforting in a way, a soft, normal blanket against the sheer madness of my new reality.

I cleared out her bedroom and turned it into a simple studio where I film some of my videos and do my editing on an ageing laptop that can barely handle a basic video file, let alone a high-resolution shift sequence. Other than that, the place remains untouched.

I skip from the living room, down the short hallway, to my tiny bedroom at the back. There’s one window that overlooks the courtyard we share with the other tenants - the usual boring collection of old people and overworked postmen.

Instead of playsets for families, there are benches, little stone tables with chess sets, and a small duck pond. The perfect, quiet retirement complex. I love it, but at the same time I hate it. I want more than this. I am twenty-two and living like I’m sixty. I want a proper life. Is that too much to ask?

My single bed is against one wall with a nightstand carrying a lamp and a photograph of my beautiful, long-lost parents. On the opposite wall is my dresser and a wardrobe containing a depressing collection of sensible trousers and neutral tops.

This is my entire life. Plain, boring, simple.

But not anymore. Everything changed. Everything. And I can’t wait to film it all.