2)

The only thing odd at first about being bitten by a werewolf was that the bite was all healed up by the time I got home about twenty minutes later. Once I had found the stream I had nicknamed the Sticks, it led me back to the house, which I had named Stately Wayne Manor after my middle name.

I had further justified it by putting up some bat houses.

Nothing else, like my current collection of scrapes and bruises that you seemingly collect from out of nowhere, or better yet the mosquito bites, healed up. Just the bite.

No one showed up looking for me for the next few days while I hunkered down in my house, but in a few nights, it was going to be a full moon. Which seemed like the day I would know for sure if I had gone and become a werewolf.

Meanwhile as far as the classical symptoms went. My ring fingers stayed the same length. My one silver ring, when I tried it on did nothing to me. Neither hair or pentagrams appeared on the palm of the hands.

The unibrow was already there but it didn't get any worse.

Also, no glowing eyes, craving for raw meat, inclinations to hang out in graveyards, or howl at the moon.

I was a little disappointed at the lack of glowing eyes, it would have made it easier to find my way to the bathroom at night, and aim without turning on the light.

Mostly I just felt tired, the same as before.

Still, I was a little worried about rampaging across the landscape and tearing into someone in the form of a savage beast. That sort of thing seemed like it would be a young man’s game.

It had turned out that a lot of the interior fixtures for the mansion had been sitting in the architectural firm’s warehouse for the last eighteen years. Already paid for by the dot com millionaire who had the place built before his fortune had gone bust, but they used the remaining non-refundable money to finish up the place well enough to protect it from the environment and vandals, or at least the interior. Before it was abandoned.

Since I was paying them to repair the place and finish the interior they gave me a bunch of pricey stuff I would not have chosen for myself just for the cost of transport and labor. A good deal really, but I think they just wanted to clear out the space in their warehouse. This was also a chance to get rid of it all in a way that could defend in court in case their original client tried to sue. So a good deal all around.

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One of these fixtures had included a heavy steel reinforced door for the wine cellar with a thick wall that was meant to protect a small fortune in wine that never ended up getting bought. I guessed that it should be more than strong enough for two hundred and some pounds of pissed off werewolf.

Unless of course, it would be a magically strong werewolf, or one that could turn a door knob. It’s not like a wine cellar is made to be locked from the inside.

I had looked up the nights of the full moon and at what time the moon rose.

Since I wasn't exactly sure what constituted moon rise for the purposes of being a werewolf I went in an hour earlier than the official time and sat down on a metal folding chair in some old clothes.

About a half hour later I went back out to pee and get a cushion for the chair.

I had chosen an old set of sweat pants and the shirt I had used to wear when I used to mow the lawn back before I had moved since I would rather they get torn up during some transformation. It would be better then having to sit around butt naked. Since the girl had been wearing some sort of nightgown that had up and vanished after she went all furry I was hoping my clothes would do the same, If they didn't, why waste anything nicer?

Plus if I got out, anyone seeing a disgruntled looking wolf wearing some sweat pants might just be just a little less likely to shoot me.

Yeah, I really was taking all this a bit too well and had accepted it as real right off the bat. I had learned over the course of my life that getting angry or trying to deny that something was really happening had never helped and neither did prayers. So if I had just imagined the girl turning into a wolf due to the onset of dementia, all it was going to cost me was spending a few hours sitting in a windowless room.