Jeremy Bushnell - The Weirdness

His first instinct is to panic. He wonders whether the white wolf is just catching its breath, getting ready to come back at Billy twice as hard. For that matter, it occurs to him, the dark wolf formerly known as Elisa might also opt to eat him. But before his imagination even really gets around to detailing these gruesome visions, he notes that he might be safe after all, for he can see that the other wolves are undergoing a transformation as well: they’re also twisting and shrinking, also becoming human before his eyes.

Elisa is the first to return fully to human form, and she sits up, cracks her neck with a sudden, swift jerk to the left, and folds her arms across her tits. She heaves a sigh, gathers up her clothes from a loose pile on the floor, turns around, and begins to get dressed. As Billy’s skull snaps back into shape he thinks: You cheated on Denver. You cheated on Denver and it wasn’t even really with another woman, but with an animal. You’re a monster . And yet, even as he’s hating himself, he sneaks a look at Elisa’s ass, and allows himself to enjoy its admittedly fine qualities.

And then he looks over at the other wolf, and sees who that wolf has become.

It’s his roommate. His missing roommate. Jørgen. Big, hairy Jørgen, rising, naked, in all his wide-bellied Northern European resplendence.

Despite everything, Billy grins: Jørgen is here, and he’s all right, or at least as all right as one can be, in Hell. Jørgen spots Billy, and grins back, and lifts him up into a great embrace. Both of them are still naked, so maybe this should be awkward, but Billy decides to think of it as Greco-Roman and just roll with it. It’s not the only thing he needs to just go with at the moment. Fuck, he doesn’t understand a single thing that’s happened in the last hour. He’s still half operating under the principle that maybe he’s dead, and that this is the beginning of some kind of long review of every person he’s ever met in his entire life.

When he’s released from the crushing hug he gets a look at Jørgen’s ear, which looks, well, which looks like someone bit the fuck out of it. He remembers doing it; he remembers liking it, in the same way he liked fucking Elisa. And he remembers what Elisa said, in the gloom of last night’s bar, after she weighed him in her mind: There’s a part of you that wants to be powerful and that doesn’t give a good goddamn about anything else .

“Shit, man,” is the first thing Billy says. “I’m sorry about your ear.”

Jørgen touches it absently. “It will heal,” he says, after a moment.

“I’m so — I’m so glad to see you,” Billy says. “How long have you been stuck here?”

“Almost two weeks,” says Jørgen. “I think. Telling time here is — difficult.”

“I’m sorry, man,” Billy says. “If I’d known, I’d—”

Billy tries to figure out what exactly he could have done.

“So you two know one another?” Elisa, now dressed, says. Introductions are made, a little awkwardly. Elisa won’t quite look Billy in the face, and he wonders what she thinks about what they did. Whether she enjoyed it. Whether she feels sorry. Whether she would do it again. They didn’t even use a condom, Billy realizes. But reflecting on what just happened , reminds him of the fact of the moment, that all three of them, a minute ago, were all turned into animals — godforsaken animals . Billy gets an upsurge of raw existential confusion, rising like a wave of nausea. His legs go weak.

“What the fuck,” Billy says. He uprights the chair and sits down on it heavily. “I mean — what the fuck?”

Elisa and Jørgen, who are managing somehow to come across to Billy as actually calm , exchange a look.

“I understand your distress,” Jørgen says, finally. “Follow me, and we will talk. I have a room. My clothes are there. I will dress, and I will try to explain.”

“Okay,” Billy says. He breathes hard, tries not to hyperventilate. “Okay. Let me — let me get my clothes.”

But his clothes are ruined. He tries to see if he could salvage them, but they’re totally shredded, not even enough left to make a loincloth. He takes a second to mourn his army jacket, which he loved, mud-and-shit-covered though it had become during the day’s indignities. Deep in the pockets of his burst pants he finds a wadded-up napkin. He knows the words that are written down on it and he opts to leave it behind. He also finds Laurent’s card. The guy is an asshole, but Billy folds the card into his sweaty palm nevertheless: he has a feeling, right now, like any ally might be a good ally.

His socks are gone but his sneakers are intact at least, and he’s seen Die Hard enough times that he knows that it’s probably a good idea to put them on.

“Elisa says there’s no way out of here,” Billy says, as he and Elisa follow Jørgen down the hall.

“She is correct,” Jørgen says.

Billy falls into a worried silence that seems shared by the others. Eventually they reach a door with a broken lock, and Jørgen pushes it open. Inside it looks like any other hotel room: king-size bed, tiny desk, bad art. Billy wonders whether the end table contains a Bible.

Jørgen gathers the sheet off the bed and offers it to Billy, who throws it over himself like an enormous drape. His legs still feel weak, and he collapses into the armchair in the corner. “Okay,” he says, and the questions rush out of him. “Where the fuck are we, and why are we here ? Is this Hell? Are we dead? Did we live terrible lives and we’re now dead and stuck here forever? Oh, and, also, am I the only person who is going to mention that we all changed into fucking wolves a minute ago?”

“That is not exactly right,” Jørgen says, zipping up his jeans.

“Did you see us a minute ago?” Billy says.

“Yes, my friend.” Jørgen gathers up an undershirt, pulls it on over his enormous, squarish head. “But we weren’t changed a minute ago . We were never changed. We were born this way.”

“But,” Billy says. He looks from Elisa to Jørgen and back again.

“That doesn’t make sense. I’ve never turned into a wolf before.”

“I have,” Elisa says.

“As have I,” Jørgen admits, scratching his blond beard. “Many times.”

Billy grips his head. “We’ve been roommates for two and a half years ,” he says. “How could I not have noticed that you were on occasion turning into a wolf ?”

“I was out at night a lot,” Jørgen says, looking a little pained.

“You were in the music scene,” Billy says. “You told me you were going to shows!”

“Yes,” Jørgen says, remorsefully. “Yes, and for this? I apologize. I had intended to tell you the truth earlier.”

“I would have liked that,” Billy says. “You’re saying that you knew that I was … like this, too?”

“I did,” Jørgen says. He shakes his head sadly. “I knew it the first night we met, the night the toilets exploded.”

Elisa arches an eyebrow at this.

“I could smell it in you. I thought we could learn things from one another.”

“But you didn’t learn anything from me,” Billy protests. “I mean, I didn’t have anything to teach you. I didn’t even know that I was … this. Whatever it is that I am. That we are. How is that even possible? How could I be, like, a wolfman and not know it?”

“You didn’t know it,” Jørgen says, settling his weight down onto the edge of the bed, “because someone — a person, or a group of people — hid it from you.”

“Explain,” Billy says.

“I cannot fully explain,” Jørgen says. “I do not have all the answers. But I have pieced some things together. You remember last year, when I went home, to Norway?”