Chương 187: CDM 3, Chapter 63: Meat Alternatives

"Dorion! Shit, let me heal you." I waved Megan away as I attempted to sit up. The adrenaline that masked my pain a few seconds ago was gone now that the battle was over. At least one of my ribs broke when the bugbear tackled me off the porch, and I had part of an arrow sticking through my left shoulder.

"I'm not dying," I wheezed, recognizing in that moment that my tone of voice conveyed the opposite message of my words.

"Seriously. It just hurts. Save your mana for someone who really needs it." Megan frowned at me, looking down at me with her helmet off, her hair wet with sweat and sticking to the sides of her head.

"For real. If you don't get going, I'll kick your ass right here." She laughed.

"I'll be back in a bit." I managed a thumbs up. Sitting up had not gone well, so I set myself on the ground, trying to find a position where neither my ribs nor the arrow was aggravated. I failed, but I survived. Hornby found me before Megan returned and was joined by a middle-aged woman who helped him get my chest piece off.

"Remember when you ripped that arrow outta my thigh?" he asked, kneeling next to me. I nodded.

"Payback's a bitch." The sensation of an arrow shaft scraping across bone, muscles, and tendons felt like the blade of a knife cutting me apart from the inside. Unlike Hornby's thigh wound, my arrow had gone all the way through. I couldn't recall if the initial hit punched that far or if getting speared off the porch pushed it out the other side.

"Thanks," I gasped as the warmth of healing magic poured into the wound like water down a drain.

"Anything else?" he asked while his spell did its work.

"My ribs are pretty fucked."

"But not bleeding out anywhere?"

"Don't think so." He nodded.

"Good. I'm going to need a bit to get my mana back before I can help with the ribs."

"That's fine." A mournful howl echoed through the valley and was joined by half a dozen more from all around the town. In the dull light of a sunrise, I saw the woman helping Hornby crying.

"I've got him from here," Hornby said to her.

"You can go be with them. It's okay." She nodded with a sniffle and stood to hurry away.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"The count was five last I heard," he answered.

"Might have been all of us if they were a little faster about flanking. The bastard who shot you came up the river."

"No one guarded the river?"

"There was, but it looks like they went down without ever seeing it coming."

"Damn." Hornby nodded but didn't reply, nor did he attempt to move himself or me. I was fine with that. I was so tired, and I preferred lying in the dirt to feeling my ribs stab at my insides.

"Back at the meeting before all this," I began.

"Was that shit talk deliberate, or were you actually pissed?" He chuckled.

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I saw our tires spinnin' and thought I'd try speaking their language."

"Their language?"

"Hillbilly," Hornby said with a grin.

"It worked with that guy Rankin. Sometimes folks just need reassured that you're hearing what they're saying and that you understand their meaning, you know?"

"Sure." The scuff of footsteps on dirt and gravel approached.

"They need a hand digging graves," I heard Giago say. I couldn't turn to look at him. Hornby nodded.

"Yeah, alright. Gray's ribs are pretty fucked."

"Typical Gray," Giago muttered.

"You'll do anything to get out of work." I laughed and regretted it. After Hornby and Giago got me to my feet, they helped me to a picnic table and laid me down again, promising to return as soon as Hornby had the mana to finish the job. I assured them I was fine. Lying very still for the next several years sounded wonderful. Matewan lost seven people in total that night, and the howling continued well past noon as their bodies were tended to.

Once it was confirmed the surviving bugbears had left the area–we believed at least 2 shamans and a few archers escaped alive–two of the locals went to retrieve Nathan and de Saint, bridging the jackhammered moat so the van could drive all the way to town. We got back in touch with Enforcer Chapman and let her know we were no longer hostages. She had worked through the night in an attempt to meet our captors' demands.

That wasn't nearly enough time to secure requests of that size, but she had made headway with Agent Porter in securing a "wildlife refuge" designation for the Matewan valley. That wasn't official yet, and it wasn't as juicy as free gate credits, but it was a gesture of good faith. The EPA was willing to work with werewolves to keep everyone safe rather than hunting down Americans who were unlucky enough to be carriers of the lycanthropy virus. Chapman was also supremely pissed off.

Some sort of miscommunication among Army leadership left the movements of this tribe unreported. They had been observed breaking away from the larger-scale conflicts happening on the eastern side of the state, but that intelligence never made it into the hands of the CDM. Therefore, it never reached us. She was adamant that our six-person team should have never come close to intercepting a tribe of 37 bugbears.

Megan and Hornby both helped fix my ribs, but their spells weren't at a high enough level that they could reverse the damage completely. They were able to set them in their proper place and start the healing process, but my bones were far from whole. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. And that was fine. I could get around for the most part. Not being able to help with any of the aftermath was difficult, but I also didn't have a choice.

I didn't get the chance to reconnect with the whole of my party until that evening. Silas invited us to a town dinner, and we all agreed that declining that offer would be rude, so we joined the rest of Matewan for an outdoor meal served over mismatched tables and chairs. Our hosts passed out bottles of Michelob ULTRA–two a piece, I noticed–and Silas stood to speak.

"I wish I could say we were strangers to tragedy," he began, "but our history is filled with the sacrifices of men and women who wanted nothing more than to do right by their families and right by their neighbors. We could have lost everything last night, but thanks to good men and women, we didn't." Silas raised his beer.

"Jack, Emmer, Minter, Olin, Twila, Thedford, and Wyatt. You done good. We will miss you, and we'll never forget what you did for us here." The townsfolk cheered and then raised their bottles. I took a drink from mine to show solidarity, but when I lowered my bottle, I saw that none of the locals had done the same. They didn't put their bottles down until they were empty. So that explained why we were all given two bottles. De Saint and I were the only members of our party who didn't, or couldn't, chug ours.

Everyone else downed theirs like professionals. When that toast was complete, Silas continued, "And tonight is also a celebration. We lucked into having a batch of visitors around who were willing to help us, even after we tied 'em up and grilled them hard about what they were doing around here. They fought like they were one of us." Silas turned toward our table with a fresh bottle in hand.

"Most of you are pretty damn ugly to be callin' yourselves 'Dungeon Divas,' but y'all got big hearts and are willing to fight with them too. Thank you." That drink was a more traditional toast, but Megan, Nathan, Hornby, and Giago didn't realize that until after they downed another full bottle.

"We've been smelling barbecue for like five hours now," Nathan said quietly to our group when Silas finished with his toast.

"I am so excited to have a meal not from a gas station."

"I'm glad you two ended up being okay," Megan added.

"When we couldn't get in touch with you, and then you tell us bugbears are all over… we shouldn't have left you alone like that."

"We did alright," de Saint replied.

"I was scared shitless," Nathan admitted.

"How upset are you about Kimmy?" Giago asked. Nathan shrugged.

"The cool thing about Kimmy is that she can reincarnate. She'll be fine once we get her a new body."

"Will be a pain hunting without her, though."

"We're going home after this," Megan announced.

"Chapman said so." A platter of meat appeared at the center of our table, as did more bottles of beer. Hornby chewed with a pensive look on his face.

"This is damn good. Did they say what this is?" None of us knew.

"I wanna say pork, but it's kind of got a chicken flavor but also not." The rest of us agreed with Hornby on all fronts. The meat did taste good, but we didn't recognize the flavors. When we were each about four beers in, Silas pulled a chair up to our table.

"Now that we got you liquored up, figure we should get square on what happens next."

"Before that," Nathan interjected.

"Is this pork, beef, or deer?"

"Dire guinea pig." Nathan started to laugh but noticed Silas wasn't.

"Wait, for real?"

"We got a few pigs and a couple of dairy cows, but nothing beats these fellas. They fuck like rabbits, grow like weeds, and as long as you don't stick a finger in their cage, they're herbivores. They'll chow down a whole acre in an afternoon. Makes them pretty handy too."

"How did that come about?" Megan asked. Nathan, meanwhile, pondered the meat on his plate.

"One of the families here has been breeding them since the gates opened. Kept it secret so they didn't have the law giving them shit. Ended up being the best thing that ever happened. We always got plenty of meat. We still eat lots of other stuff, but it's a comfort knowing the guineas are always around."

"We've really been eating guinea pig?" Nathan asked. De Saint leaned across the table to reassure him.

"It's pretty common. Peruvians ate guinea pigs all the time." I pointed a fork at Nathan.

"No. Absolutely not."

"What?"

"I know what you're thinking. And no."

"Bro, you don't know what I'm thinking."

"We are not taking one home to be a pet." Nathan threw his hands in the air.

"Why the hell not?"

"We have no place to put it, for one."

"Sure, we do," Nathan retorted.

"We don't like Rainy that much. We could turn her room into a big enclosure."

"Hey!" de Saint protested.

"Didn't mean to start nothin'," Silas said with a chuckle.

"We should talk seriously for a minute." Megan quieted Nathan with a look and gave Silas the floor.

"What are we doin' about our secret now that the CDM knows all about us?" he asked. De Saint and I had spoken about the suggestions I shared prior to the big bugbear battle. She had thoughts as well.

"How many accidental werewolf attacks do you get, on average?"

"You mean someone turnin' and losing control kind of accident?"

"Yes."

"Shit started getting weird about a year ago, and I'm not gonna lie to you. We had some dark days back then and had no idea what the hell was going on. Since we've figured things out? No problems. Last six months been pretty peaceful."

"What did you figure out?"

"First thing is knowing what to look for. Doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for when someone gets their fangs. That kid you were worried about, for instance, started getting his four days ago. We can't say when or if it will happen to someone, but when it starts, they get real ornery. Quick to anger, like. Then the migraines hit. Smellin' and hearin' that much better is hell on the brain, so those are the biggest signs." De Saint nodded, totally enthralled by the conversation. We all were, really.

"We lock them up so they can't hurt nobody. Once they got their shit under control, we let them out."

"Tell me more about that."

"Getting your shit under control? Going feral is like slipping into a dream. You're kinda aware of what you're doing, but you're just watching it happen. Ever have a nightmare, and you wake up already swinging? It's like that. The trick is staying awake when the transformation happens, like you hold tight to being human and ride it out."

"Do you coach people through that, or do they have to learn it themselves?"

"We got some techniques." De Saint thought for a moment.

"Sharing what you've learned could help a lot of people. I can't speak for all of us, but I think showing the world that lycanthropy isn't a life-ending curse would do a lot of good. We talk about your history, the methods you've learned, and then do a tour of life in Matewan. Let everyone see what a normal day is like for you."

"My concerns are still the same," Silas replied.

"We don't want the government or vigilantes coming in here, ruining what we've got."

"I understand," de Saint said.

"We have a little pull with the CDM, but we can't promise that it will work out. We also can't tell you that no assholes will show up, looking for trouble. My opinion is that most of those issues are rooted in fear. People are afraid that werewolves are dangerous, and frightened people make strange choices sometimes."

"And you think a few videos will make people less afraid?"

"I do."

"Can we have a night to think on it?" Everyone at the table nodded.

"Appreciate it. We mean it when we say we're grateful. I know I've said that a bunch, but I gotta say it again. Thank you for putting yourselves on the line to help us like that."