A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Read online

  A Werewolf’s Saga

  Books 1, 2, & 3

  Changes

  The Pack

  &

  Redemption

  Michael Lampman

  © 2015, 2016 by Michael Lampman

  All Rights Reserved

  Get caught up on the entire series with;

  A Werewolf’s Saga

  Changes

  The Pack

  Redemption

  The Wanderer Awakens

  Darkness Rises

  The End Times

  The Puppets and the Strings

  A Werewolf’s Saga, The Beginning

  The Dawn of Humans

  The Rising Son

  Changing Tides

  Coming Soon

  Reemergence

  Power and Pain

  Or go to www.AWerewolfsSaga.com to learn more.

  Changes

  A Werewolf’s Saga

  Michael Lampman

  © 2012-2016 by Michael Lampman

  All rights reserved.

  For more information go to www.AWerewolfsSaga.com

  Made in the U.S.A.

  My Journal

  I’ve seen many things in my life. I’ve come a long way from what I once was. I would have never thought that things would happen the way they did. I was simple back before everything began. I was basic. I was just a normal guy that tried to make his way through what I thought was just a normal world. I was quiet, maybe a little shy. I was calm. I thought I had everything figured out. I never tried to let things bother me, and was never one to hurt a fly. I was never one to want to pick a fight. I had what I thought was a good life. I had love. I had a home. I had a well-paying job. I loved what I did and I loved everything in my life. Nothing mattered more than what I could do, or what I thought of at the time. Nothing happened as planned, but I do think that things happened as they were meant to be. Life is like nothing that I thought that it would have been. Nothing is now the way I expected it. This thing that I am is nothing of what I expected to be.

  Life is so simple—when that is what you are—simple. You get up every day, go through life’s journey, and do what you are expected to do. You do what the world wants of you, all the while trying to find some time for yourself. Simply—you make your way through life, make your living, and make your home. That’s what I was always told. That’s what I’ve always believed. It was nothing but a simple world, with a simple existence. Nothing else ever seemed to matter. Boy, how wrong I was to believe in all of that now? Man, how crazy I was to think that way.

  And now, here I am. Here I stand, being this—this thing. I’m here being this—this creature—that wants nothing more than to devour the world. What am I? What did it mean? What do I do now? Where do things go from here? How did this happen? How do I live? How do I stop it, stop me, from killing again? These are all of my questions. This is now my life. Things do change. Things have changed. I have changed. As I search for those answers, I find it important to think back to the time when things were normal. I think it’s important to try to remember that time, before everything started. I think it’s important to try to remember who I was—the man that I tried hard to be. Therefore, I began keeping this journal, trying to remind myself of my humanity. Hoping that it would help me discover what I am now, by trying to discover whom it was that I was back then.

  This is what I think now. This is what I remember. This is my story.

  1

  He poured the last of the liquor from the jar. Unlike the now empty jar, the pain stayed fully inside his chest. With each drink, it only grew stronger. It flared. It raged. It tore his heart and burned his mind. He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t take the pain. He couldn’t take what God had made him endure, but he wasn’t ready yet. He needed all of the courage he could get from the drink if he was going to do what he intended—what he needed to do. So, he took another gulp. The juice went down with ease. It no longer burned. The pain was so much stronger than it could ever be.

  “Excuse me?” a male voice called from behind him. It startled him. It made him turn.

  A large cloak danced up the dirt of the road. He couldn’t see his face. With the tears still flushing his eyes, he barely saw even this.

  The cloak moved right in front of him and stopped.

  He stood there in front of his home—yes it was now only his—she would never see what they had made ever again. She was never going to live again.

  “What do you want?” Collins threw the clay, now empty cup, at the cloak’s feet. He meant to sound tough, but instead his voice just cracked. It sounded as weak as he truly was if not more. In a way, he hoped to make whoever was behind the cloak angry at his actions. Maybe, just maybe, he would be so kind to strike back at him and do what he was finding it hard to do.

  Hands came out from the cloak. They shook—yes, he did see this even within the tears—and reached up to the hood covering his face. The hood fell back with his hands.

  A very old looking man, his face wrinkled over with a heavy age, appeared where the hood had been. The white in his dark, deep black hair, shined in the dimming light of day. His equally dark eyes looked just as bright.

  “I am a traveler from a far off land. I am looking for shelter from the cold of night.”

  He heard his voice sound as smooth and relaxed as anyone with age had ever sounded to him. He didn’t like this. He realized right then he was not going to give him the quick death he so needed.

  “Bugger off.” He turned back to the front door of his home as he huffed out the disgust. “I am not an inn.” He stumbled. He tripped and fell hard to his knees. The pain from this obviously drunken action only made the tears now storm down his face. Sobbing followed as he rushed both hands to his eyes. Her face, her beautifully overpowering eyes, now showed back to his with an unending glare that burned through his. She looked as lovely as the day he last saw them looking at his the night she closed them for good.

  Even through his crying, he heard the old man walk up behind him.

  “I can see her face. She was very beautiful.”

  The voice sound as soft as ever.

  It broke his sobbing almost instantly. “What?”

  “Your wife—she was very beautiful.”

  He felt shocked with this. It made him turn.

  The old man was now on his knees. His hands were on them. His eyes now sparkled with an overpowering blue shine.

  Everything made him blink his. “How do you know my wife’s face?” This was all he could say back to this. He didn’t know what else to think.

  The old man stared directly at his face. He never blinked once.

  “I can see many things, my friend. I can see her smooth face, as smooth as a dove’s wing. I can see her sparkling green eyes filled with hope and with tears. I can see the love she felt for you through those magnificent eyes.”

  He swallowed shallowly with hearing this. What this old man—this very warm man, yes he could feel his warmth emanating around him like a fire flushes your face on a cool winter’s night—said was just the memory he saw of his beloved wife. He described her just as he felt it.

  “Are you an angel?” He had to be. No other could have known what he obviously did. The pain of her death, and the reasons for it, vexed his prayers. He had hoped one would come for him, even if it meant him taking his own life to find them.

  “I am no angel.” The old man laughed some. He bowed his eyes. “I do know of your pain though. I know what it is like losing someone as you have.”

  “Who are you?” He shuttered with this. He also
took a deep breath in.

  “A friend.”

  Without another word, the old man suddenly stood. With strength, a power he couldn’t fathom with the haze now blaring through his mind, he lifted him up to his feet. He continued almost dragging him back through the front door of his home. It all happened so fast, he didn’t think his feet even touched the ground. He just didn’t know.

  Before he could even think again, he now found himself sitting in a chair. The old man was now likewise sitting directly across from him.

  “I can help you my friend. I can take away your pain. I can remove the way you hurt.” His voice remained calm. It also sounded firm.

  “How can you do that?” He responded with still tears in his eyes. His own voice sounded nothing as the same. His was even weaker. It didn’t even sound like his anymore. It sounded like someone else was talking.

  The old man bowed his head. “I have been there as well. I have lived with pain. I too have lost everything that I ever loved. I too lost my family.”

  Collins wiped both of his eyes with the back of his left hand. He sniffled strongly as he did it. “I have no reason to live.”

  He heard the old man take a deep breath. “I can give you a new life. I can give you something that is very different from what you are now.” He looked back up again. “You will live a new life.”

  He took a huge and exacerbated breath. “But I do not want to live.”

  The old man had true sadness on his face. “Death is not the end to pain Timothy. Living for tomorrow will.”

  He winced with hearing his name. “How do you know my name?”

  The old man smiled. “I have watched you for some time now. I have seen what happened to you after your loss.” The smile vanished fast, and his eyes grew sad again. “I was there too once. I lost too, but I had to move on. I had to endure. I had to find my reason to breathe again.”

  He didn’t know what this old man was trying to say, but he did hear it. The haze was still so strong in his mind.

  “You can live again. I will show you how.”

  Before he could think, before he could blink fully, he nodded. “How?”

  “First I must show you something that you have never seen before. I will show you your future. I will show you what you will become.”

  Again, he took a huge breath, readying himself for everything, and yet nothing at all.

  The old man stood up; pulled the robe he wore off his shoulders, and dropped it to the floor at his feet. He watched him close his eyes. When he opened them again, they flared to a bright yellow glow.

  He fell out of his chair. He fell to the floor. He screamed as he watched the black fur flush over his face. He watched the ears grow tall. He watched the snout form and he saw the huge teeth jut out towards his face. He heard the roars. He felt the heat flash his face. He saw the size. He saw the force. He opened his eyes.

  He is coming, my friend. He is on his way.

  Collins stayed on the bed. He just lifted his head and rushed both hands to his face. He brushed his long blonde hair with his hands to the back of his head. He listened to the voice echo inside his head. He heard him clearly. In fact, it boomed inside his skull.

  “Is that why you showed me the dream?” He truly wanted to know, but knew that he already did know the answer. This only made sense.

  Yes.

  The voice felt like it always had. It was always calming. It felt like watching the setting sun. It felt magical. It felt right.

  He is coming closer. He will be here soon. We must be ready for him. It is nearly time to start this all over again.

  Hearing this, he did understand. He didn’t want to but he did. He knew what it meant. He knew what it meant to him.

  The voice knew this too. I understand your fear, my friend. I know what you feel and why, but it must be done. It must happen as we have planned.

  He bowed his head. Like so much of his life, he knew what he had to do. He knew how important this was, and he also knew that he didn’t have the choice. He struck that bargain. They made that deal.

  “I understand.” He just didn’t have to like it. “How will I know it is him?”

  You will my friend. We will.

  He heard the voice stay calm. He heard him grow confident. He wished that he felt the same way. He only hoped that his friend was right. He would know. Again, he had no other choice but to trust him with everything he did.

  2

  “How many times do I have to tell you to do something? I told you to get this place ready before the visit. We’re running out of time Jimmy. You can’t keep procrastinating. You cannot keep getting it wrong.” Mister Maggery crossed the pure white tiled floor, and stepped in front of the many gondolas that made neat and organized rows across the store’s main floor.

  He looked small in front of all of them. He looked just like any other man. For Jimmy Walls, his boss always looked intimidating. He knew that, but he always tried to think of him as normal. He tried to think of him as an equal, but not now. He looked very different this time. He sounded different. He sounded angry. Something’s going on. He’s not listening to me. What in the hell did I do wrong? Those thoughts alone made his heart sink and his mind turn to fear. He has spent years working for Mister Maggery, and in all that time, he worked harder than most. He always did the best job that he could. Being a store manager was never easy. He worked many hours, but he was paid well for it. It made him respect what he did. It made him loyal, and he always did what they told him to do.

  Mister Maggery stepped to the corner of the second gondola and looked down the third aisle. Boxes of merchandise were everywhere. They sat in front of the gondolas. They sat in the aisles and blocked them completely. With all of them scattered about, they made everything look like a small group of young boys tried to build a fort, but gave up in the middle of building it. Their light brown color stood out against the white floor beneath them, making them stand out more than they probably should have looked. The backroom wasn’t any different.

  All of the stores in his district had the same size backrooms. They were all small. They barely fit what they were supposed to hold. They were all small for a reason. They were designed to store only the things that wouldn’t fit out on the shelves. When they were stacked to the max, as this one was, it meant that he had a problem. It meant that nothing was out on the shelves. It meant that nothing would sell. Seeing boxes in the aisles told him that Jimmy was at least trying to get everything out, but that wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t here for that. This was his fifth visit, before the visit. His boss was coming tomorrow, and knowing that, how could he show him this place as it looked? He had seen enough of what was wrong, and not enough of what should have been right. No one knew he was under this much pressure. He had to do something, and he had to do it now.

  However, Jimmy did know what Mister Maggery felt. He was under the same amount of pressure, which was obvious when he knew that a visit was coming. I’ve been working nonstop for over a week. I’ve spent fourteen hours every day trying to solve this mess. I’m doing my best! And, he wasn’t stopping. He didn’t think that he was falling behind. Whenever he took over a store, one that was this much of a mess, he knew what they expected of him. He knew what he had to do to fix it. He had to get the stocking issues solved first. He knew that would solve most of the problems. Next, he had to get the staff together. He had to pick up the sales. However, this time, it seemed far more hopeless. He knew that he had more to do. He also knew that he was doing it. He tried everything, but also knew that it wasn’t happening fast enough. He knew it, but he still couldn’t stop it. He felt helpless and that made him feel completely alone.

  “I know, Mister Maggery, I know. I’m running out of time, I can see that, but that’s what I need—more time.” He crossed the distance from the four registers at the front of the store, and walked to his District Manager with a cautious stride in his steps. He kept his eyes down towards the floor and couldn’t bring himself to look hi
m in the eyes. As for what he said, he knew what he meant, and worse yet, so did Mister Maggery. In fact, the last time he cleaned a store, he even gave him help. He gave him extra payroll and allowed him time. He gave him the chance to get it up and running, but now, things were somehow different. He doesn’t seem to care about hearing me out. That alone felt odd, but there was more to it than that.

  This time, he too felt different. He felt tired. He felt exhausted. He felt almost winded. He felt alone more than ever. “You have to give me more time, or at least get me some help.” He stepped in front of Maggery with legs that suddenly felt rather weak. He felt somewhat nauseous. He just didn’t feel right.

  Mister Maggery listened, but did not need to hear anything more. “I can’t give you something that you should have done in the first place.” He had to remain calm. He had to keep his cool. He could feel that Jimmy was starting to break. He could hear the sounds of a telltale quivering in his voice. He could even see the unbalance in his legs. He had to wait for the break to happen, so he knew that he had to stay patient. It seemed more than likely that everything would happen sooner than he thought. “I’ve given you five weeks now to get this place ready. A month is more than what I would’ve needed to get this store back in shape.” He let his voice rise. It was not booming yet, but it was getting close.

  Jimmy turned from him and looked back across the store to the front windows, and looked out through them with ever widening eyes. They were so large and covered the entire wall, and because of them, he was able to see everything outside with a complete clarity. Feeling everything, he breathed.

  Outside, the day looked shorter and the night was coming fast. The setting sun glared down to everything below it. The once bright blue sky was already starting to darken some, and was slowly beginning to turn into a strong pinkish red. It all looked so peaceful. It all looked so beautiful. It all felt so inviting. He could see people everywhere. Several were walking down the sidewalk across the parking lot. A young couple walked just by the window, and made their way back to their car at the front of the store. They were holding hands. They looked happy. They looked content. He watched them as they both climbed into the car and laugh to each other with a gleeful glance.