Sheep's Clothing by Gary Lewis (free ebook reader for pc txt) 📕

"Oh, I'm just getting warmed up. You should have a few, yourself."

"I don't think that would be a good idea tonight," she said as she looked toward the woods in the darkness. "Actually, are you sure you're going to be okay? We don't need any bullshit way out here."

"Believe me, I'm bullshit free," Vance swiped his hands outward. "Zero calorie bullshit here." Sarah laughed while Terry just looked back and forth at the two of them.

She patted Terry's knee and looked at him. "You'll get used to it."

"Anyway, so we're all chilling out on top of the tower, looking out at the night sky," Vance tried to continue as he busted out laughing.

"Oh no," Sarah said, covering her face completely in her lap with both hands before gradually rising back up. "Not this one."

"And Davie says 'I've gotta go down and pee.'" Vance tried to hold back the laughter that erupted from his lungs. "And Sarah's like, 'I can do it from up here,' and climbs down to the top of the ladder, hanging off that bar up there," Vance said, leaning back to point to the top of the tower.

At that moment, Vance heard a loud, wooden knock from behind where they were seated. Sarah and Terry jumped up in opposite directions from the fire.

"What was it?" Vance asked as they looked around at one another. He couldn't tell if the noise was their commotion or if they were responding to the sound. "Well?"

"I saw something over there," Sarah pointed into the darkness of the woods as Vance peered in that direction, then toward Terry who stood wide eyed, his back to the fire.

"I jumped because she did," Terry said.

Vance reached behind his waist, drawing his revolver slowly from the holster he'd fastened to the back of his belt as he raised his left hand to silence the others.

"Y'all stick close to the fire," he said.

"Did you have to bring that thing?" Terry asked.

Sarah's waving hands glowed at the edge of Vance's peripheral vision. "Remember that David and Jan could be out there." It angered him a little that she thought she needed to remind him firearm safety. But then, he did get pretty loud earlier. It was only natural for the two of them to be worried about a drunk guy with a gun, he thought.

"It's alright. I'm in control." He turned to nod his head up and down twice, making sure to give both Sarah and Terry a calm but firm eye contact.

When he saw their shoulders begin to relax, Vance crept into the woodline, staring beyond what was visible as he listened intently. Only the sound of crickets played their foreboding melody, a reminder that the hour of the sun would not return for quite some time. In the absence of light, the trees looked dark gray, timeless as stone statues that stood in silent witness to this place.

Vance gradually lowered his gun, resting it snuggly back into its holster. "What did it look like, Sarah?"

"I don't know. It was dark." Her lack of attitude told him that she must truly be afraid. Walking backward with an occasional glance behind, he eventually turned back to the fire.

The three of them started to sink back into their places around the glowing red embers that recently blazed with a fury that had since burned its way down into brightly lit coals eating away at the black remnants of wood, leaving white ash behind.

"Who's next for firewood?" Vance asked a bewildered Sarah and Terry, who looked at each other and then to him. "Of course. Who else?" he sighed with a slight smile.

"What could be taking them so long?" Sarah asked.

Vance casually shrugged before tossing a few nearby sticks on top of the glowing embers.

Terry cleared his voice to speak up. "I heard you say Davie earlier."

Vance looked at him and flexed his eyebrows in confusion. "Did I?"

As Vance tried to conjure the word from his recent memory, Sarah broke his concentration. "It was what Tony and Vance used to call him," she said with a light smile, leaning her head down, half turned to Terry. It had been a long time since Vance heard her voice sound so soft.

He chuckled at her. "Must be what happiness sounds like in Sarah-ian."

She tossed the twigs she had been anxiously snapping apart in his direction and laughed. "Shut the hell up."

"Is that what you called him too?" Terry asked Sarah.

"Nah," she said. "I called him a nosey little prick."

Vance let out a sigh. "Sure ain't the same without Tony here, though." He continued rolling the burning coals around with a stick as the fire took on a new glow.

"Sorry that I never got to know him better," Terry lowered his stare just below the flames.

Vance looked over at him. "He was the kinda guy, you'd get in trouble and he'd take the fall for ya. No questions asked. He'd give the shirt off his back, just to..." Vance sunk deep into the stump that he sat on as he shook his head side to side.

"This is really happening?" Sarah asked slowly as her eyes drifted into the rising embers in front of her. The bright, fiery glow danced across her face from the other side of the fire as her blonde hair shined with an orange hue. "Someone," she said. "One of us... is a monster." The fire crackled more loudly. "A werewolf." The fire reawakened with fresh heat as she continued to speak to it, while Vance and Terry listened. "And killing the rest of us? But why? How can this even be real?"

Vance considered his next words for a moment as the tongues of flame brought back memories from not so long ago. "It's true, Sarah. I saw it too."

"What?" her and Terry asked together.

"See... My dad, he was going to lose the place. Back taxes."

"The barn?" Terry asked.

Vance looked him in the eyes and shook his head. "Everything."

The fire snapped loudly as it began to cast a waving eerie glow