THEM (Season 1): Episode 2 by M.D. Massey Page A

extended. “Scout’s honor.”
    Bobby smirked. “You’re no Boy Scout, that’s for sure. Anyway, the thing is, wolves are stronger when the moon is full and we’re weaker when there’s not a full moon.”
    “You changed last night, and it wasn’t a full moon.”
    “Yeah, but it was still a mid-phase moon, and that’s enough to go through the change.”
    “And what if there was no moon out, or just a crescent moon?”
    “No change, man, no way, no how. Don’t care how strong your wolf is.”
    I chewed my lip and considered what he was telling me. “Are you stronger when you transform?”
    “Oh, most definitely. I mean, I’m strong now”—he flexed his arms for emphasis—“but I’m much stronger after I go through the change.”
    “So, if I was going to take out the Corridor pack’s alpha, I’d want to do it under a new moon.” I looked at Bobby for confirmation, and he nodded. “Good to know.”
    Bobby was chewing on a blade of grass as we walked along, and his forehead was wrinkled as he walked beside me. “Scratch, there’s something I can’t figure out. If you’re this mighty hunter, why don’t you know all this stuff already?”
    “Honestly, you’re the first ’thrope I’ve seen. Everything I’ve known about your kind up until now has all been rumint and speculation.”
    “Rumint?”
    “‘Rumor intel’—stuff you’ve heard but that you can’t confirm.”
    The kid nodded and kept chewing that blade of grass. “Okay, but if that’s the case, then why do you smell like you’ve been around ’thropes?”
    I stopped dead in my tracks. “Run that by me again?”
    “Yeah man, you smell like ’thropes. I caught the scent on you back in the warehouse. That was one of the reasons why I decided I could trust you. I figured maybe you were sent by my pack to track me down and help me get away.”
    I struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation for what Bobby was saying. “You sure I wasn’t just somewhere that a lycanthrope had been?”
    “No, man, I’d know it. The scent would be stale in that case, but this is fresh. One, maybe two days old on you, I’m sure of it. But kind of—I don’t know—off somehow. It’s hard to describe. You smell like a lycanthrope, but now that I’ve been around you for a while, I don’t think it’s wolf.” He leaned in and started sniffing all over me. “Nope, I’m sure of it. Not wolf.”
    I pushed him back with a hand on his forehead. “Do you mind? Personal space is sort of a thing with me.”
    The kid’s cheeks flushed, and he backed off with his hands in the air. “Sorry, man, I just haven’t been around a lot of humans recently. My bad.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked off to the side. “I just thought you’d want to know what it was, is all.”
    I sighed. “It’s okay, just don’t do it again without asking.” The kid nodded and the stupid grin he usually wore popped right back in place. “But if it’s not wolf, then what could it be?”
    He shrugged. “I dunno. Supposed to be lots of different kinds of lycanthropes. All I’ve ever seen are wolves though, but you have to remember that at five years in, I’m still pretty new at this.”
    “This is all pretty new to everybody, I think.”
    “Yeah, I guess so. But the rumor is, there’s always been undead and lycanthropes around—just not this many.”
    “Bullshit.”
    Bobby waved his hands with a look of incredulity on his face. “Look, man, I’m not saying I believe it. But you have to admit, all those stories had to come from somewhere. I mean, practically every culture on earth has some sort of folklore surrounding vampires and shape-shifters. If you think about it, it does kind of make sense.”
    I let that roll around inside my head for a while. If what Bobby was saying was true, then why the sudden increase in Them after the War? And if there was some specific event that caused the increase, could it be reversed? There was so much that I