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  A Month with Werewolves

  By K. Matthew

  Text copyright 2012 by K. Matthew

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author.

  No civilian had ever been inside the Blackfoot Werewolf Reservation before. They called it a reservation, but it was more like a relaxed concentration camp where werewolves were separated from the rest of society to live out their lives peacefully until a cure was found for their condition.

  I had little interest in the subject until I was offered a chance to investigate the reservation for a journalism piece. Since no civilian had ever been allowed inside of the reservation, my report would gain worldwide recognition. It would be my big break, skyrocketing a career that I had been working hard at for the past five years.

  As I pulled up to the reservation, I took a deep breath. The outside of it looked like a prison, with a thirteen foot high parameter fence surrounding the one thousand acres of land. There was a small compound that I had to go through before I could get to the reservation itself. I would stay there for my first night, learning how the place was run before they took me inside to live out the rest of the month with the werewolves.

  “Identification, please,” a security guard requested as I drove up to the gate leading into the compound.

  “I'm Taya Raveen, journalist for the National News Network,” I replied with a smile, handing the guard my work badge and driver's license.

  His body language emitted nothing but coldness towards me as he gazed down at my cards with a deadpan expression before handing them back to me. “If you'll hang a right at the next turn and follow the road, you'll come to the Visitors Center. There are signs leading the way. You can park your car out front, then go sign up for a Visitor's badge at the front desk.”

  I nodded politely before putting my yellow Volkswagon Bettle in drive and continuing down the road. If it weren't for the signs pointing the way, I probably would have driven right past the Visitors Center. All the buildings in the compound looked the same, small and tan on the outside. The only distinguishing characteristic was the Visitors Center sign next to the door.

  I pulled into the parking lot and made my way inside to the front desk. Another less than excited security guard took my identification again before handing me a plain white clip on badge with the word Visitor printed on it in bold.

  “Take a seat,” he said, gesturing towards a set of four black leather chairs that faced each other in front of his desk.

  “Thank you,” I responded courteously before flopping into one of them and pulling out my camera.

  There wasn't much to see in the Visitors Center, so my picture-taking was short. Just a few framed photos of wolves on the walls, gazing down upon me with very human eyes. I imagined that they were images of the werewolves in their wolf form. Out of boredom and curiosity, I stood to examine them more closely. This was a part of the process that I wouldn't be seeing since I would be pulled from the reservation before the next full moon.

  A door at the back of the Visitors Center opened, and a man stepped through it wearing a pair of starched khakis and a white button-down shirt. He looked young, in his late twenties, with slicked down blonde hair and a pair of round framed glasses.

  “Ms. Raveen?” he asked, not even bothering to look at the clipboard that the security guard offered to him.

  “Yes.” I turned, preparing to extend my hand as he approached.

  “I'm John Edward, lead coordinator. I will be your guide today.” He shook my hand firmly, giving me the warmest smile I had seen since entering the compound. “Are you ready to begin the tour?”

  “Yes, thank you.” I nodded, preparing to follow him out of the door from whence he had come.

  “Did you have a nice drive up here?” John asked as we walked through a small maze of identical buildings.

  “Yes. It's beautiful country.”

  “That it is.”

  My eyes wandered while we walked, wondering how long it took employees to memorize the layout of the compound with so few distinguishing landmarks. Surely, there was a map that they gave new hires to help them find their way around.

  “It's a rather confusing place,” I commented.

  “It can be, if you're not familiar with it,” he admitted, leading me to the door of one of the buildings and then facing me to begin his speech. “This is the Containment Center. Whenever a detainee is brought in, we hold them here until after the full moon to make sure that they are actually infected. It can be a long process for some, but there's unfortunately no scientific way to determine if someone has the lycanthropy disease, so observation is key.”

  Inside the first room was a small desk with a security guard. This man appeared to be friendlier than the last two, his eyes lighting up as we walked through the door.

  “Hey John,” he greeted in a voice that suggested he didn't get a lot of visitors.

  “Hey Johnny,” John replied.

  My eyes darted to the security guard's name tag. It must be interesting to have the same name as someone else, I thought, happy that my name was unique, even though I wasn't a big fan of it.

  “How is our detainee today?” John asked.

  “He's holding up pretty well. Would you like to see him?”

  “That's what we're here for,” he said politely.

  “Then come on through.” The security guard waved us towards a metal detector, taking my camera so that I could pass without setting it off.

  We walked down a short hallway that opened up into an area that consisted of three large jail cells. In each one was an uncomfortable-looking bed, a sink, a toilet with a half-wall in front of it, and a shower without a door.

  John led me inside one of the unoccupied cells for a better view. “This is where the detainees stay until we are certain whether or not they are infected. Now I know that it doesn't seem like much, but please remember that we don't get a whole lot of government funding for this project. Detainees are given three square meals a day, providing them with all the nutrition that they need to remain healthy. If they become ill, they are treated by our resident doctor, and they are also given books to keep them entertained during their detention, as well as the ability to watch the two provided televisions.” He gestured to two small televisions mounted outside of the cells on the corners of the walls. Then he pressed a panel on the wall to demonstrate how the detainees could operate the televisions from inside their cells.

  “Are they allowed time outside of their cells while they are waiting to find out if they have the disease?” I asked while snapping a few photos of the bathroom area. It was barely enough to give the detainees privacy.

  “Yes. We have an outdoor recreation area that they are allowed to use one hour out of every day. I'll take you to it later.”

  I nodded, following John out the sliding glass door and down to the cell at the end where there was a young man sitting on his bed reading a book. He glanced up at us for a moment and then went back to reading as if we weren't even there.

  John lowered his voice when he spoke this time, “This is Christopher Abbot. He was brought in about three weeks ago. He had his first confined shift yesterday. A bit later today, the medical team will come collect him for further processing before he is released into the reservation.” He raised his voice then. “You came at a good time. You'll get to see Chris's introduction into the Blackfoot pack tomorrow. That should give you some good material.”

  I nodded, staring into the boy's nervous looking blue eyes, which avoided us at all costs. He was attractive, with shaggy sandy blonde hair and a tan c
omplexion. The longer I gazed upon him, the more I could feel my cheeks growing warm, and I was never happier when John indicated that he was ready to move on with the tour.

  The next building that he took me to was right across from the first. It was about the same size, though it was divided differently, with a viewing area in the front separating an expansive room in the back. It looked like a typical interrogation room that you would see in the movies except for that the walls were marred with deep claw marks.

  “This is the shifting room. We bring the detainees here during the full moon to monitor their shift. If they turn, then we leave them here until the next morning, at which point we continue with their processing. If they stay here all night and do not shift, we release them back into the general public the following day,” John explained.

  “How often have you detained someone by mistake?” I asked curiously, imaging how ticked off the innocent person would be to have been put through such a process.

  “It's only happened a handful of times. Most of the time, the werewolves are easily enough to detain. The ones that have been turned through a bite usually give themselves away when they end up at the hospital or the doctor's office for it. Werewolf bites are almost always severe enough for the person to be forced to seek medical attention. For those that don't contract the disease through a bite, after their first shift, they typically are reported by a person who has either seen them shift or has witnessed them in wolf form. Werewolves are about four times the size of a normal wolf, so there's no question about the difference.”

  “Interesting. Are more werewolves detained in cities or in the country?”

  “Most of the ones we've detained have lived in small country towns. There have been a couple we have detained from the city. Most of those stories you've seen on the news. We estimate that the majority of free roaming werewolves probably live in rural areas however, secluded, and as far away from civilization as possible to avoid detainment. Shall we go inside?” He gestured to the door that led to the containment area, which was made of thick steel.

  “Yes, please,” I replied before snapping a few pictures of the viewing area.

  “As you can see, we use a one way mirror to do our observations.” He pointed to the long panel that we had been gazing through in the other room.

  There wasn't much to see. Just a table and a chair, typical of a regular interrogation room. I imagined that it must be horrible to be locked up inside, waiting for the full moon to rise with no indication as to when it was coming. This must be one of the scarier parts of the processing.

  When I was done taking pictures, we moved on to the next building, which was a small medical facility. There were two examination rooms, one used for staff and the other for the detained werewolves. The two set ups were almost identical except for that in the werewolf examination room, all the supplies and tools were removed. John said that it was for the protection of the medical staff.

  Behind the examination rooms was a much larger surgery suite. It looked well equipped to handle most of what the reservation had to throw at them. John stood behind the operating table with his hand resting on the thick blue cushion.

  “When someone is detained under the suspicion of possessing the lycanthropy disease, they are brought to the medical facility for a full-on evaluation of their physical health. After it is distinguished that they have the lycanthropy disease, males are brought here for a vasectomy and females are given birth control.”

  This shocked me a bit. I had never read about werewolf pregnancy prevention in any of the reports during my research. Giving the males vasectomies seemed a bit extreme.

  “Why not just employ the use of condoms?” I questioned curiously.

  “We did that in the beginning, but the werewolves have a tendency to mate after they shift. In that situation, condoms obviously aren't effective. We find that giving the males vasectomies has been the easiest and most cost effective way to control reproduction. Since the reservation was established, we've only had two live births. Both infants were born werewolves, and both of them died early on. It's in everyone's best interest if we prevent that from happening again.”

  “Why did they die?”

  “Well, the first one we left with the mother. During its first shift, some of the other wolves killed it. The second one passed away from illness.”

  “I see,” I replied thoughtfully.

  “That's pretty much it for processing,” John told me as he led me out the door.

  We walked towards a fenced-in courtyard, which I could only assume was the outdoor recreation area. It had a small track and some pull up bars. After John confirmed its purpose, he led me to the cafeteria where I would be having my meals and then took me to the parameter fence to show me the security measures that had been implemented.

  There was a room filled with television screens where security personnel monitored the parameter of the reservation. John explained that, during the full moon, armed guards were stationed alongside the thirteen foot high fences to ensure none of the wolves tried to escape. He told me that any wolf that came within ten feet of the fence was tranquilized. That went for when the werewolves were in human form too.

  When the tour was over, I was allowed to roam freely around the compound. To my surprise, my badge worked on most of the doors that were for authorized personnel only. I returned to the Containment Center to interview Chris Abbot, but it appeared that they had already removed him for surgery. Oh well, I'd have plenty of time to talk to him inside of the reservation.

  After I was done taking pictures of the compound and documenting my findings, I went to the cafeteria for an early dinner. I had been so involved in my work that I had completely forgotten to take a lunch. It was important that I didn't miss a thing though.

  Apparently, John decided to either take a late lunch or an early dinner as well. He waved me over to where he was sitting once I collected my tray of salisbury steak, powdered mashed potatoes, canned green beans, and some sauce that was so dark it almost looked like tar.

  “This place will never win a Michelin Star,” John said, noticing my less than enthusiastic expression towards the food.

  “Looks like typical cafeteria food to me.” I slid onto the bench across from him.

  “Wait til you taste it. Typical would be a blessing.” He grinned at his own joke. “How's your report going?”

  “Well.” I cut into an excessively soft piece of steak, my once ferocious appetite suddenly waning from closer observation of the food. “I'm going to interview some of the personnel here after dinner. One thing I was wondering though, where do they conduct research for a cure to the lycanthropy disease and how is that research progressing?”

  John gave his mashed potatoes a grave look, and I couldn't tell if it was because he detested the food, or because he knew I wasn't going to like what he had to say next. “Off the record,” he began, “it's hard to come up with a treatment for a disease when you can't find its source.”

  “I thought you said that the disease passed through a bite.”

  “A bite, or sexually transmitted. But there's nothing any different from their blood than there is with ours. No extra pieces to the puzzle that would give the source of the disease away. The only time they change genetic code is when they shift, but the truth is that most infection happens when they're in human form. The largest cause for the disease spreading is sexual contact. Most of the time, it happens before the person is even aware that they're infected. Kind of like HIV.”

  “So are you saying that the government has given up on trying to find a cure?”

  “No.” John shook his head. “But research is carried out away from the compound. We take blood and tissue samples here and send them away to be studied. When one of the werewolves die, their body is sent away as well. For all the years we've been doing this, we've never even been close to finding a cure. I don't think it's a top priority of the government. One thing I do know is that government funding has been dra
stically cut on the research side. In the beginning, they had a team of scientists working to find a cure. Now, they're down to only two.”

  “It sounds like they have given up.” I thought for a minute, wondering how hopeful for a cure that the people inside the reservation would be. From outside, it sounded like they might as well plan to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives.

  “Think what you will.” Johns fork made a loud clank against the plastic plate as he stabbed a green bean. “You might want to mention in your report that government funding appears to be sparse, but don't mention where you got that information from.”

  I nodded, returning to my food and my thoughts. When we were finished eating, John went back to work, and I went on to interview some of his co-workers. Everyone seemed relatively happy, giving glowing descriptions of their job and the compound. I was certain that they had been coached on what to say. Most employees were when it came to media coverage.

  After I was done with my interviews, I returned to my room to compile my report. My findings were favorable. To be honest, I couldn't think of a much better way to handle the werewolf problem. They seemed to be treated fairly, but I had to remember that this was only a small piece of the puzzle. The compound was just a gateway to the reservation. Detainees lived a strict month of confinement, which I could only imagine was frightening and miserable. After that, they spent a lifetime on the other side of the fence, a one thousand-acre prison.

  My only real complaint about the processing of detainees was the vasectomies given to the males. That would definitely end up in my report, since it was something that hadn't been discussed anywhere else in the media. If one looked at it from a realistic standpoint though, it only made sense that they would go about birth prevention in such a way, considering that there was no cure in sight. That was the secret hidden message behind giving the males vasectomies. There was no cure, nor was any progress being made towards one.

  Lack of proper government funding was another issue I planned on tackling. There needed to be more people researching the disease. Perhaps it wasn't a widespread epidemic, but the werewolves were being held captive for fault not of their own. It wasn't fair for them to have to live this way without any sign of hope.