4)

I felt great.

At least I felt great after a shower and getting dressed in clean clothes. Then putting on a set of rubber gloves, and a quarantine mask with enough air freshener sprayed on it to make me feel lightheaded. As well as using an entire package of disinfectant wipes that ended up tossed into the trash, followed by the mop, and the bucket.

Not going to ask the Minute maids cleaning service to deal with that mess. I didn't even want to think of all the questions that could bring up, even the unasked ones, all of that could bring up.

But after that. I was full of energy, my eyesight was better than it had been since I was a teen. The flab was gone and the muscles toned. The fingers that I hadn't been able to fully bend since they had a car hood slammed shut on them were fully working again.

Basically, everything wrong with me other than still looking like someone on the wrong side of sixty was all fixed up. As best I could tell, I was in the best possible shape someone my age could be.

Even things that had just been gone were back. Like a few teeth I had been short on, and as I discovered in the shower. Something that had been cut off of me shortly after my birth was now restored.

That was going to take a little getting used to.

I was also hungry. Very hungry

Since I was pretty certain diabetes and cholesterol weren’t going to be a concern anymore. What was left of the one package of bacon a month I had been rationing out for the week went into the copper frying pan, in its entirety. Six slices of wheat toast with real butter. Four, hell, five eggs right into the bacon grease with a dash of pepper and a pinch of dried parsley.

All that and I was still looking for dessert. So it looked like a trip to the grocery store today.

Shoot. With all that howling last night there just had to be other werewolves in the area. At least more than just the girl. The first day after the full moon would be the key time to keep an eye out for a newborn lycanthrope, and someone buying up a bunch of food they shouldn't be eating at their age would be a major red flag.

Just about every cheesy urban fantasy novel had some goofball claiming to be rightfully in charge because someone had watched a wolf bossing around his mostly grown cubs and turned it into the myth of alpha wolves. So if that was how the real werewolves really did things, then I had no intention of having to deal with or play along with someone else’s power trip.

Best to just avoid them and opt out of any bullshit.

The big box store in this part of the state was a Redd’Smart and the closest one was about a forty minute drive away, the next closest one was an hour and a half away.

Being retired meant I had more than enough time to spend driving a bit out of my way, and winning the lottery meant I had a big black ford expedition to haul things around in.

Sticking my head out the window once I got on the highway did nothing for me but mess up my hair.

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Just thinking about all the food I could now eat again, without having to measure portions or read the labels, was making me hungry as I grabbed a cart. I also started planning on buying a couple of plastic bins to throw some bags of ice into to keep things cold for the trip back.

Which made me decide that it would work well enough to keep things cold long enough to give me the time I needed to hit the barbecue place I had passed getting off the interstate before I headed home.

That’s when I smelled the rot.

The smell was enough to make me wince and try to curl my upper lip up against my nose. How the hell did they let something get that bad without throwing it out? I looked around for someone in the telltale red staff apron busy cleaning whatever it was up.

Instead, I found a pale skinny young woman with a name tag saying assistant manager and the name Nicole looking back at me.

The smell was coming from her.

I gave her such a bad look it made her jump back and look around for help while covering her mouth.

She ran, well quickly walked, away. Not sure what is going on there, but I. Need. Food.

Tomatoes, lettuce, onions, potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, then on to the fruit.

Cherries, bananas, apples, oranges, grapes, the big black one with no seeds. A mango? why not.

I had made it all the way back to the meat and dairy before the rotting smell was back. Now even stronger.

This time there were three of them.

Nicole was in the back with a big, really big guy from the meat department tagged as Earl. With an older man with a tie who was name-tagged as a manager named Solomon.

Earl had a meat cleaver large enough to take the head off a cow clutched in one hand, and Sal, gonna shorten Solomon here, had a clipboard.

All three seemed nervous, but Sal was hiding it better.

“We don’t want any trouble.”

Okay? “Neither do I, I just want ribs.” I pointed to the meat cooler full of pig parts. They were on sale. “And I was hoping to hit the bakery for some donuts too.”

Nicole seemed confused, Earl snorted, and Sal looked very carefully blank faced.

“Your kind don’t normally shop here.”

I shrugged. “You had a sale” I pointed at the ribs again and took the chance to grab two, no, four slabs, “And I’m new to the area. I don’t know the local shops.”

He looked at the now overfull cart. “So it doesn't upset you being around us.”

Wish I knew what “Us” was. “Well, you know, I’m not happy about it, but it’s not like you’re doing...that,” I waved my hands around vaguely in their direction “on purpose. Just give me some space and I'll pay at the register and be on my way.”

Sal nodded “Fair enough. But please feel free to come by anytime day or night, there will be no problems from us. I will let the others know.”

Then he turned and waved away the other two. Others? Just how many of whatever the hell they are were working here? Or did he mean others as in other supernatural creatures, like say, the wolves back in Quinne?

At the register, I absentmindedly answered that "Nope." when asked if I had a Prepper value card, and "No." I had no interest in signing up for one.

As normal I paid in cash. Not because I was worried about the staff getting my name and other information off a credit card. I just always preferred paying in cash.

The big guy was waiting for me near the inside end of the entrance. The entrance with a forty foot gap between the doors to the outside and the door into the actual store.

For some reason, people were giving the hulking seven foot tall, and that's only a slight exaggeration, figure in the blood stained apron a wide berth. I would have done the same if he hadn’t waved me over.

The smell from him alone was almost as bad as the three of them together.

“The girl, Nicole, she was... is, an addict.” he handed me a card, “If she comes sniffing around looking for a hit. Please call me to deal with her instead of... dealing with her yourself.

I had no frecking clue what was going on here. But I took the card.

Earl Coventry, with a phone number and e-mail address. Dosers Anonymous. Sponsor.

Every day brings more questions. But I’m glad she’s getting help for whatever that was about.

The barbecued chicken at Slab’s grill was excellent, and there was no need for a doggy bag. But the ice cream I had in the back of the truck had melted a bit by the time I got home.

"Oh darn. I guess I'll have to eat the melty parts so it doesn't freeze up again all weird. Woe is me."