The Silver Remedy

“Hello,” I walked to the front desk of the hospital. The smell and noises of hospitals just killed me. This one was particularly wretched. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it either.

I wasn’t supposed to work until that Monday, but another small bunch of bodies was found.

“Can I help you?” The woman was in scrubs and shuffling through papers.

“Yes, I’m Mara Porter. I’m the new coroner.”

“Hi, sorry. I don’t know where our receptionist is at the moment, but...hold on,” She held up a flustered, but polite finger, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. “Hey Rich, I got your new coroner up here...yeah..uh...huh ok,” she smiled and I tried not to listen to the conversation anymore, “Dinner’s still on for tonight. At this point I think it’s going to be more like breakfast. Ok, bye.”

“Date night?” I smiled. Everyone needs a friend in a new place, well some-what new place.

“Yeah,” She said bashfully.

“I’ll let you know if I think he’s nice enough for you.”

“Thanks.” She chuckled, “Melissa.”

“Porter,” We shook.

“My! My!”

We both turned around and saw a middle aged man walking up with a clipboard, “Ok, well nice to meet you Porter.” The nurse smiled and was off.

“My, my, my, my! You are,” He paused and looked me over, “A lot younger than I thought you’d be. The way they made you sound was like you were a senior citizen like me!”

“No. Just have a knack.”

“Well that’s what we need. Come,” He motioned to the elevator, “We’ve been finding a number of boys, some girls, not many though, all around the ages of 15 to 30 in the sequoias,” A ding let me know that it was time to get out and a light flickered ahead of us.

“And the drug tests?”

“That’s a really peculiar thing.” He led me to a body and my knees went weak, “They all came back with silver and Aconitum in their blood.”

“What?” I nearly shouted, my nose burned. It was the most toxic combination.

“Silver, but not enough to be completely toxic, same with the Aconitum. Enough to make someone sick, but not enough to flat out kill them like this. Each body had about the same tox screen--”

“Can I have the files? Please. I’m going to get up to date. If- if you could run the tests tonight I’ll come back fresh tomorrow.” I held a hand over my nose and tried to back away from the body.

I motioned no with my free hand and he shuffled off with his white lab coat following him. He came back shortly with a very worried expression on his face. I knew he wasn’t about to ask me, but tell me I looked bad and felt bad. I didn’t want to hear it. I was sick of hearing things.

“I’ll go home and look these over.”

“I will see you in the morning.”

“Bright and early.” I choked out and made quick pace to the door.

Gurney’s passing, ambulance. Chatter. Crying, moaning. Pain, pain, and more pain. My head was spinning.

After a while it was no longer about the bodies it was about the memories. Silver to the touch of a werewol--

It was just a single touch of my necklace. It was just a simple touch of silver and he was out the window off into the night. It was the last time I saw him. Either of them. He was so mad and it was at me. It scared me.

I pulled over to the Beacon Hills hiking trail and fell out of my car onto the ground. I stumbled up the hill on two legs quickly changing to four. I ran like I never ran before. I knew the shortcuts through the woods to his house.

I ran and ran and ran.

I arrived at the seared carcass of their old house. The woods were dead, like all of the animals knew their was a predator. Stopping and panting once or twice I looked up at the moonless sky. Howling, I hoped someone would hear me. I hoped he would hear. I hoped he’d know I was hear. I hoped to see him.

Nothing.

Giving a cry I walked with my tail between my legs to a spot next to a slow flowing creek. I sat down and drifted off to sleep.