The Skinwalker's Tale

forever.

THE SKINWALKER'S TALE

Christopher Carrolli

Brett Taylor has kept a dark secret his entire life—the fact that he is a shape-shifter. Now, his strange ability has reached a climax. The shifting from man to animal has become unstoppable, and a near tragedy unfolds as the shape of a wolf consumes Brett beneath the moonlight. The team must intervene to help him.

Tahoe Manoa, the Native American seer who aided Leah Leeds at Cedar Manor, has special knowledge of what is happening to Brett. He’d heard the skinwalker legends since childhood. But can he find Brett before his vision of a bloodstained wolf comes to pass?

Chapter One

Brett Taylor had been able to change ever since childhood. It was the dark secret he’d carried his entire life—the one thing that separated him from every other human being. He was a shape-shifter, a human capable of changing his physical being into the shape of another, usually that of an animal. At least, that’s the way it had always been.

Most often, he shifted into the shape of a wolf, though there were others. He rode an emotional rollercoaster just before the change would occur, the tension and friction exploding inside of him until the precise moment of metamorphosis. It was the shape of the wolf that provided him with the peacefulness, the tranquility his soul so desperately needed. The wolf was also the shape he shifted to best, the one with the most ease.

He remained certain of one thing; he was not a werewolf, if such a thing even existed. Whenever he shifted, he became the complete and utter manifestation of the shape, not a Half-man or a Were, as they were most often called. When he became the wolf, he was the wolf in every aspect, a howling king of the canines with no human trace of Brett Taylor. His former physical self would temporarily cease to exist as the transformation to the animal would become complete. Throughout his young life, he’d mastered various other shapes as well.

It was not something he’d ever understood. At some point, he’d stopped trying. Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv had known for most of his life. At the age of seven, he’d demonstrated his unique ability for them by shifting into a dog. That had been the moment when they’d discovered that the young boy they raised since birth was marked with a supernatural secret. They’d kept silent about this secret the rest of their lives.

They’d explained to him, at age ten, that they were his great-uncle and aunt and that they had adopted him. Their niece, Claudia, whom they had raised, was his mother. One day, Claudia vanished, leaving a note and her baby behind to be brought up by the same aging couple that had raised her. But Uncle Jack and Aunt Vivian had taken the best care of him, giving him the best in life, though they seldom mentioned or discussed his secret, freakish ability.

On the rare occasions when they had, they told him that he was special, that he was one of the many, though rare, people in the world with unique and unexplainable abilities. They instilled in him that what mattered most was what kind of person he was, not what he was capable of doing.

A good person has a good heart, Aunt Viv always said. And that’s exactly what you are. The gift of your heart is a far greater gift to the world.

That’s right, Uncle Jack had said. But the fact that you can change like you do is something that should stay your secret. It’s something the world just won’t understand.

He recalled asking them if that’s why his mother had left, because of what he was. Aunt Viv hadn’t disagreed, only hung her head to hide the heartbreak on her face. Aunt Viv had preached about having a good heart, yet ironically died from a bad one a few years ago. Now, Uncle Jack’s cancer had progressed; he didn’t have much longer. Brett was tending to him in his final days, having temporarily vacated his apartment to be with him full-time.

Now, he thought of all this as he sat on the front porch of Uncle Jack’s farmhouse, looking up at the stars that were spread through the summer sky in a brilliant display. Then, he turned his gaze out across the rolling green acres of land that would become his in the near and bittersweet future. Uncle Jack’s exit couldn’t have come at a stranger time, right when this secret ability of his had reached an unexpected peak, and he would need his uncle most. Up until now, his secret had amounted to sporadic occurrences when he felt the need to change building inside of him, and then the eventual metamorphosis would bring the expected release. Those occasions were sparse and scattered moments that came, passed, and were soon forgotten.

But around a year ago, after his twenty-fifth birthday, something changed.

The shifting, as he called it, had become more frequent. The rampant emotions he called chaos had displaced the miniscule urges he once felt in adolescence. Now, he’d even brought about the change at will, something he’d only been able to do once for Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv when he was seven. Recently, he’d initiated the change into the shape of the hawk. It was some months ago, before Christmas, when he’d searched for Tahoe Manoa in the Arizona desert.

As the mighty hawk, he’d swept through the desert in search of the old man until he found him. But little did Brett realize that when he did, the old man, a psychic paragon, had seen exactly what was in front of him—a shape-shifter. Tahoe became the only other person who’d ever been aware of his secret outside of Aunt Viv and Uncle Jack. He’d never even told the team: Dylan, Sidney, Leah, or Susan.

They were his were longtime friends who were like family, not to mention seasoned paranormal investigators. Before they’d all gone into Cedar Manor over six months ago, the team began to notice a wayward pattern in his behavior. Then, and now, he was having trouble focusing his concentration while dealing with the chaos, and maintaining a secret that was causing him to act irrationally. He would leave meetings and gatherings early and abruptly, and his behavior was rash, edgy, and unlike him.

They’d known something was up, especially Sidney. Then, they’d gone into Cedar Manor to help Leah confront the past that continued to haunt her. Brett had been operating the ghost-box-EVP technology, and Sidney had made verbal, ghostly contact with a demon. Sidney’s attempt to provoke the demon into identifying Leah by name had almost exposed Brett’s secret.

Who is it that you see in this room? Sidney had asked.

Brett remembered how his heart had sunk to his knees when the guttural voice responded.

Shifter!

No one on the team had understood the demon’s meaning, or use of the word, but Tahoe did. Brett would never forget the old man’s gaze as their eyes had met from across the room. Now, Brett recalled a conversation with Tahoe shortly before they’d gone into the house. He’d asked if the team was aware of his secret ability.

"Your friends need to know; they need to help you understand. There may come a time when you all need to understand."

He’d emphasized the word ‘need,’ and now Brett was beginning to understand why as the old man’s words became haunting reverberations in his mind. His secret had now come full circle, and revealing it to the team was becoming inevitable, but there was so much more he needed to understand. Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv hadn’t told him the complete story, especially about his mother.

For years, he hadn’t cared to know everything. He was happy just living his life with Uncle Jack and Aunt Viv, and the occurrences were not consistent enough to warrant great concern. Now, things were changing. He felt the selfish need to know more from Uncle Jack before he died, and this fact made him feel heartless, crass, and shrewd.

But it was the tale of his life that was slipping away with Uncle Jack. It was a truth he needed to know before it was too late. Surely, somewhere there would be some divine exoneration for this one selfish thought of his? He wondered as he looked up at the starry sky above. Then, he thought back once more to something Tahoe had said.

The ancients used to tell tales of such things. I used to think the old stories were parables passed down through generations...So, the stories are true, my friend.

Stories, Brett thought. So, Tahoe had known of some pretext for what he was. He hadn’t bothered the old man with questions about Native-American legends that were passed down to him. His only interest, at that time, had been helping Leah.

Now, he could hear the rapid pop-pop-pop of the Fourth of July fireworks exploding in the background. Their rapport was deafeningly near to his ear in this remote, rural area that seemed so far away from the rest of the world. He tried to segue his thoughts into how beautifully scenic it was here, how he’d loved growing up here, and how soon, he would dwell in this large farmhouse alone. But the more he tried to distract himself, the more Tahoe’s voice sounded in his head.

"There may come a time when you all need to understand..."

The reality of telling the team was easier said than done. After Cedar Manor had burned, the team found themselves with quiet and much needed down-time, responding to simple cases that needed only minor attention. Brett managed to keep a considerable distance these past six months, especially since dealing with Uncle Jack’s illness. He’d therefore managed to avoid attracting any more attention to his out-of-character behavior.

The conflict began to twist and turn inside of him. Lately, all of his emotions seemed magnified by a thousand, and he felt them just as surely as he would the pricking of sharp needles. At this point, there was no sense in ignoring what would occur once the emotions reached an apex, but it didn’t matter at this moment. Right now, he felt the need for a good run as the wolf to clear his mind, settle his nervous state, and quiet his emotional surge.

Ironically, escaping through that which was part of the dilemma in the first place always seemed to be the answer. He felt the insanity of a hamster running through a wheel, or more accurately, a wolf running through an endless landscape. Shifting had become as easy as changing his clothes, but still, he was always careful when he initiated the transformation on his own. There was always the possibility of witnesses; there could always be someone watching.

He was cautious of such a thing outside of his apartment when he’d changed into the hawk and flew in search of Tahoe. He’d been lucky enough that it was December, and no one had been outside in the cold; no one had been watching...

Here, at Uncle Jack’s farmhouse, on the open farmland where the nearest residence was a half of a mile away, and the entry to civilization was even farther, being seen was not an issue. He was alone, with the exception of Uncle Jack in his upstairs bedroom.

But, of course, there was one drawback to his ability, yet another reason to be mindful of the possibility of onlookers—his clothes did not shift with him. He discovered that when he was a boy. The easiest way to avoid being hindered by one’s clothing (and making sure one kept said clothing) was to remove all of it before the shifting occurred.

He recalled creeping outside into the cold and in the buff of his birthday suit before he’d changed into the hawk. Then, he’d returned hours later, quickly running into his apartment through the door he’d propped slightly ajar. Once inside, he’d stared out of the window, watching. No one had seen him; he’d been home free.

No one had seen him on Christmas Eve either, when he’d enjoyed the splendor of the wooded, wintery scene provided by the snowstorm. He’d shifted into the wolf that night after leaving Susan Logan’s house, and in the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Day, he returned home, though wearing his clothes since he’d shed them in the woods.

Now, he felt the urge to shift swell inside of him. His emotions mingled in a heightened state, causing the tension to build and his breathing to become rapid gasps. His nerves jittered, and the sweat poured from him, but these were effects that he’d become immune to by now. They were part of the process, and he could feel that process occurring faster and faster.

He leapt from the porch where he sat staring up at the starry sky. The fireworks had reached their grand finale, and the constant popping grew louder and louder in his ears as his hearing sharpened to a crystal clear volume. He ripped the shirt from his chest and quickly unfastened his jeans as the surge of heat rippled over him. The heat that engulfed him during the shifting was normal; it often signified the change from man to animal.

It all seemed simultaneous, his spine bending him down onto all fours, the under fur that grew rapidly beneath him, the outer fur as it shot quickly from thousands of pores and covered him in tingling completion. He felt his face form into a snout, his ears morph into upward and pointed wedges. His hearing was the height of perfection, catching the cacophony of fireworks in thundering magnification. His vision had turned to night vision, and now in the darkness, arched eyes watched through a reddish haze.

The finishing fireworks exploded, forming a variety of different shapes in the air in a spectacular curtain call. The wolf tilted its head at the changing shapes, pondering them as though they were ironic messages. The need to howl stirred inside, rising up from the wolf’s lower innards and ascending upward. The howl let loose in a powerful call, a hollow cry both sharp and echoing as it pierced the silence that followed the last of the fireworks.

The wolf began to run at a galloping speed, chasing the dying streaks of fire that fluttered through the air, as well as the murmuring sounds of soft voices in distant conversations. Somewhere inside, Brett Taylor felt the thrill of the speed with which the wolf roamed and the unbridled freedom of secret abandon. The endless green stretched out before him, peaceful and remote in the mid-summer evening lit by silver moonlight.

The wolf reached a hill and sprinted up it with great speed, following the distant murmuring of voices responsible for the fireworks. At the top, the wolf arrived at a thicket of woods that led to a vast clearing, normally used for community pig-roasts, carnivals, and of course, fireworks. Deep inside, Brett knew this place, but in these moments, his thoughts as Brett Taylor seemed secondary, lingering latently beneath those of the shape he’d become.

It had been a gathering that was winding down, and the wolf watched from a distance of some three-hundred yards away. People were walking in different directions, leaving the scene they’d been enjoying throughout the long day. The wolf moved stealthily, camouflaging itself behind a bushy copse, where it could watch without ever being spotted.

Its ears perked upward as the murmuring voices became discernible...

Great fireworks, especially the ones that formed into those shapes. A male voice babbled.

Yeah, a female voice responded. But, did you hear that noise after the grand finale? It sounded like a howl.

The wolf turned its head in the direction of other voices. A persistent man spoke.

I’m telling you, Tom, I heard a goddamn wolf.

Another man disagreed.

Impossible, we don’t have wolves in Pennsylvania.

I heard it, a young boy said. I heard it howl. It was a wolf.

The wolf listened, blinking its eyes and protruding its pink panting tongue. It turned away from the sound of the voices. There was ground to cover, a free small world in which to roam through the night, and roam the wolf did. It was the soul of Brett Taylor that experienced the pleasure and the freedom of the run up the wide and steep hills, the lush green of the valleys, as well as the cool night breeze that invigorated both him and the wolf. The nearly full moon was a luminous spotlight for an endless rural stage.

The tranquil beauty and peacefulness provided by this particular change was the effect that Brett Taylor had secretly longed to achieve on more than one occasion. Now, the wolf could see that the sky had grown darker during the excursion. An inner instinct belonging to Brett signaled that it was time to return, time to shift back to the person that he was. Brett knew that during the change, he roamed as the wolf, howled as the wolf, and thought as the wolf. His consciousness as Brett Taylor slept somewhere deep inside, seemingly both aware yet unaware.

Soon, the wolf arrived back on the vast acres of Uncle Jack’s land, right up to the porch where Brett’s clothes had been scattered a few feet away. The wolf sniffed at the clothing, reuniting itself with a smell all too familiar. The scent sparked the change. He felt the hair quickly receding, the tingling sensation evaporating, and the numbness of his face as it contorted, yet he felt no pain. His breathing was less heavy, and before he knew it, he was on his knees in front of Uncle Jack’s porch.

The night’s darkness was pierced only by the moonlight, and it was even darker out here in the country. There was no need to scramble to hide his nudity this time. He pulled his jeans up over his legs and then found the ripped remains of his tee-shirt.

Damn, another one.

His body was covered in sweat, soaking through his jeans at the thighs and buttocks, and trickles ran down his neck from his dampened hair. He slung the tee-shirt over his shoulder and searched around in the dark for his shoes. Once he found them, he carried them in his hand as he climbed the porch steps, back into the house.

* * * *

Once inside, he looked at the oven’s digital clock in the enormous kitchen where Aunt Viv had once baked homemade pies and many of her famous concoctions. It was 11:15; over two hours had passed. He felt the sudden guilt of leaving Uncle Jack for such a length, even though the dying man had safely dozed in a drug-induced slumber all evening. He proceeded up the stairs to Uncle Jack’s bedroom.

He opened the door slightly and peered inside. Then, he tiptoed over to the bed and stood over Uncle Jack while he slept, watching his chest slowly rise up and down in a consistent rhythm. The man of eighty years looked older. His appearance had aged by at least a decade from the cancer and subsequent treatment. His once full face was sunken in, his body an emaciated wraith of what it once was.

Brett was relieved every time Uncle Jack’s chest moved up and down, thankful that he still breathed. Uncle Jack had refused to be in the hospital when the moment arrived. He’d been receiving round-the-clock hospice care, here in his home.

Brett turned away and tiptoed back through the door, careful not to wake him. He needed a shower, and within minutes, he felt the hot massaging torrents washing away the angst, the pressure, and the thought of losing Uncle Jack. Then, he stood in front of the mirror, blow-drying his shoulder-length hair and thinking about everything.

He thought of cutting his hair and shaving his goatee. It took an eternity, washing his hair and drying it, and the long hair caused him to feel so much hotter in the summer months. Most of the time, he wore it in a ponytail. It was cooler that way. But he was getting older, and at this point in his life, the need for change was enveloping him in many different ways.

Thoughts of explaining and describing what he was to the team—not to mention demonstrating his ability for them—had becoming burdensome to even think about. The prospect of revealing the inevitable truth to them consistently nagged at him. They knew something was amiss with him. It was only a matter of time before they confronted him about all of his strange behavior.

He pictured their reactions in his mind. He thought of himself enduring Sidney’s endless stream of jokes and wisecracks, listening to Susan as she analyzed him to death, and both Leah and Dylan would probably scold him for keeping the secret so long. He’d known Dylan the longest; he’d have a harder time explaining his secret life to him. He wished that Tahoe was here right now.

That’s it. He would start by explaining how he’d discovered Tahoe so quickly before they’d all gone into Cedar Manor. After all, he’d used his ability as an investigative tool. Maybe he would approach it from that standpoint. But, they knew him well. They’d be able to tell that a great deal was bothering him right now; they knew about Uncle Jack.

He sighed in frustration, standing in front of the bathroom mirror as myriad thoughts unwound in his head. He even wondered how the team would react when they discovered that he wasn’t limited to shapes like the hawk or the wolf. In his life, he’d changed into a dog, a snake, and even mastered the art of being the fly on the wall, though that one had been dangerous. He’d often wondered if the range of metamorphosis was an endless one, one that he hadn’t fully discovered.

He closed his eyes while trying to clear his mind and abandon all thoughts. The sapping of energy as a result of the shifting was taking its toll as his muscles ached, and his eyes fought to focus. He would look in on Uncle Jack and then settle into his own bed. Tomorrow, in the light of day, he would rethink everything.

Brett tiptoed back into Uncle Jack’s room and stood over him just like before, watching him breathe and realizing that he was fine—for now. He turned and walked away from the bed, thankful once again that Uncle Jack would sleep peacefully through another night. He was near the door when the soft waking voice stopped him where he stood.

Hey, you, where do you think you’re going?

Brett turned and smiled, realizing that Uncle Jack had been either pretending or only dozing. He walked back over to the bed.

Uncle Jack, how are you feeling?

A stupid question, but he felt the need to ask it every time. Uncle Jack just looked at him with smiling eyes, fully recognizing the denial that he must’ve worn like his trademark goatee.

It happened again, didn’t it, Brett?

Yeah, I ran for awhile, but I needed to. It wasn’t long.

Uncle Jack’s eyes narrowed in on him. He’d always known what he’d meant by a run. He’d been referring to shifting into