Page 37 of Wild Wolf
“I know this is going to sound absolutely bat shit crazy, but I swear, I haven't hadthatmuch to drink. A couple glasses of wine.”
I knew where this was going, and Daniels was right. I wasn't going to like it.
Tommy continued. "It was hunched over her. When it stood up, it was massive. Had to be 8 feet tall.”
"If you say werewolf…”
"I swear to God. I'm not lying. I'm not making it up. I’ve never seen a werewolf before, but this is exactly what I would imagine one to look like. It had wolf-like features but stood like a man. I shit you not, it howled at the moon, then ran off and disappeared into those trees.”
My skeptical gaze persisted.
Tommy raised his hands innocently. "I'm telling you. That's what I saw. Doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what I saw.”
"You smoking anything you shouldn't be?" I asked, half joking.
"I wish. I haven’t been able to find good weed around here in a long…” He realized he probably shouldn't admit that to law enforcement.
If you couldn't find good weed in Coconut Key, you weren’t looking very hard. I almost felt bad for the guy.
"What happened next?"
"I called emergency services. Then you guys showed up maybe 15 minutes later. Just FYI, you need to work on that response time. She was dead by the time I got to her, but just saying.”
"You touched the body?”
Tommy nodded. "I checked her pulse, but she was long goneby the time I got to her. There's no way anybody could survive an attack like that. It was brutal.”
"I need you to get with a sketch artist and describe the creature in as much detail as possible.”
He nodded.
"Did Elaine see the creature?”
"No," he said with a head shake.
I interviewed her as well, and she backed up most of his story, apart from the creature.
You had to be successful to live in a neighborhood like this. It wasn't like Tommy was some vagrant whacked out of his mind on cheap wine and hallucinogens. I didn't think he was lying. But maybe he didn't see what he thought he saw.
It wasn't long before Paris closed in with her news crew to interview him.
JD and I returned to the sheriff.
"Told ya you weren’t going to like it.”
"There's got to be a logical explanation for this. There's no such thing as werewolves."
"I think what we've got is someone taking their Halloween fantasies a little too seriously. Find out who.”
"We’re on it," I said.
JD and I followed the blood trail in the sand. It moved down the beach and disappeared down the path between some trees that led back up to the street. We tracked the large pawprints until they disappeared. There had been too muchfoot traffic on the trail during the day to make heads or tails out of anything else.
We canvassed the neighborhood, knocking on doors, talking to neighbors, asking if anyone had seen an 8-foot-tall werewolf running through the neighborhood. It felt ridiculous to ask, and the inquiry was met with much skepticism by all.
"What about strange cars?" I asked the woman in the house closest to the trail on which the suspect had fled.
She was in her mid-50s with short auburn hair, brown eyes, and black-framed glasses.
