Granted it was more like the mourning of a lost childhood one might feel as they get onto the other side of their young adult years, but the point still stands.

  There wasn’t any going back for me though, I couldn’t just have a midlife crisis and start acting like a teenager again.

  Charles Broadstokes was gone, I was Chuck Stargun, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  And then something strange happened.

  I smiled.

  Don’t get me wrong, there was still a pang of grief tucked away in a space for when I was lonely and my mind wanted to screw with me, but I sort of re-realized that I really liked being the new me.

  Gunslinger, train robber, bounty hunter.

  Hell, I was even shaping up to be a halfway decent boyfriend, if somewhat hesitant to share what I was sure would be mind-breaking truths of my past.

  Anyway, after that somewhat cheerful epiphany, I started to take note of the fact that the world around me seemed to be getting somewhat brighter as we hammered across the desert.

  At first I figured we must be getting close to another time zone or something, but then I started to notice little things.

  It was difficult given the barren nature of my surroundings, though it quickly became obvious that I was less seeing the rise of a new dawn and more of a 1 Night in Paris-type deal.

  The grayscale, low-light vision, not the other thing.

  Getting past that as quickly as possible, I started looking out at the seemingly boundless dried dirt ahead of us, occasionally catching a glimpse of a bat or a whatever it was that flew at night on that moon.

  Though glad to finally see the Night Owl upgrade doing some work, I wasn’t really seeing anything interesting.

  That is until I followed the path of one of the flying maybe-bats over to my left and noticed something, a shadow a couple hundred feet away heading in the same direction as us.

  Only it wasn’t a shadow.

  It definitely had mass, a whole mess of it, and propelled itself forward like a horse on all of the amphetamines.

  I wanted to mention it to the girls if only to have someone confirm that I was seeing what I was seeing, but my mouth refused to form the words as my eyes tracked the beast that was apparently struggling not to just outrun us.

  Then, after a good couple of seconds, the beast slowed down to a halt, got up to its massive full height on a set of incredibly muscular, wolf-like legs, and looked up at the moon.

  I was stunned, no two ways about it, but that changed quick-smart as the monstrous beast turned its gaze to us, to me, its giant eyes reflecting the pale moonlight in a truly horrifying way.

  “Roxy,” I blurted out as I turned and looked down at our resident sniper, “you seein’ this?”

  “Seeing what?” Roxy yawned, clearly having just been sleeping, before scanning the area around us.

  “That.” I replied, turning my attention back to where the monster was and making a stomach-turning discovery, “Where’d it go?”

  “Where’d what go?” Roxy asked, going from exhaustedly curious to somewhat bitter.

  “There was a… Uh…” I trailed off as I struggled to find the word, my near-paralytic fear evidently doing a number on my verbal skills, “A werewolf.”

  And just like that, Roxy woke right up, “A werewolf?” she repeated before positioning herself on the driver’s side of the tray and looking through her scope, “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty damn sure,” I replied, still looking for the black-furred beast, “and I mean a proper werewolf.”

  “You’re positive it wasn’t just a tall Lycanian?” Roxy asked fearfully, “You know, out for a night stroll or something?”

  “Not unless Lycanians run on all fours.” I said, “You got eyes on it?”

  Roxy shook her head, “They’re crafty,” she replied matter-of-factly, “you only saw it because it wanted you to see it. Now it may as well be a shadow in the black…”

  “Amy?” I called over my shoulder, “You hearin’ this?”

  “Yeah, yeah I am,” Amy replied grimly, “I’m thinkin’ it might be an idea to stop the truck.”

  “How do you figure?” I asked confusedly.

  “She’s got a point,” Roxy chimed in, “werewolf’ll knock this whole truck over, peel it open, and rip us to pieces without so much as breaking a sweat. Might be in our best interests to stop, get out, and get ready for a fight.”

  “Sounds like pure insanity to me…” I muttered before tapping on the roof of the truck, giving Amy her cue to slowly apply the brakes, “Please tell me we don’t need silver to kill this thing.”

  “Silver would do the job a whole lot quicker,” Roxy replied as I slipped into the truck and put my hat back on, “but kneecapping it and taking off its head will probably do the trick.”

  “‘Probably’?” I scoffed before climbing out of the truck, revolver in hand, “What’s it goin’ to do? Grow back a new head?”

  “No idea,” Roxy said, “most folk who don’t have silver don’t get to try out experimental killing methods. We’re talkin’ about a thing that the Nexxies have strict ‘tactically retreat’ orders about.”

  “So why aren’t I staying in the big ol’ gun?” I asked as the three of us met in front of the truck, our weapons at the ready.

  “Because if it does attack the truck we don’t need to be cut in half by misfire.” Amy replied near-silently while doing her best not to obscure the light from the truck’s headlights without leaving their safety, “Y’all hear anything?”

  “Nothin’,” I said, having pulled out my machete and keeping my revolver ready for some quick hip fire, “you?”

  “Nothing.” Amy and Roxy murmured in unison.

  The fear was palpable, to say the least, the unnerving silence and almost disturbing emptiness of the desert making my blood run cold as I waited for what I hoped would at least be a standing death.

  Thinking back on it, I could’ve just teleported us out of there, but that’s hindsight for you.

  “Shit.” Amy snapped as the lights clicked off behind us, making us all spin around in search of either a practical joker with horrible timing or a crushed truck.

  We saw neither though, and after a few moments of holding our collective breath, I nodded towards the truck, “Get those lights back on, we’ll cover you.”

  Without saying a word, Amy made for the truck, her head practically on a swivel as she swiftly covered the distance with a few long strides.

  “Anything?” I quietly asked, watching the driver’s side with unwavering focus.

  “Nothing so far.” Roxy replied, her scope fixed squarely on the other half of the truck.

  And then the lights clicked back on, temporarily blinding me as my night vision eyeballs felt like they’d just had white hot pokers shoved into them.

  “Oh…” Amy trailed off, her eyes locked onto something towering behind me while I struggled to blink the one sizeable dot from my vision.

  “You know what?” I said tiredly without turning around, “I’m gettin’ kind of sick of shit sneakin’ up behind me.”

  13

  For a time all I could do was stand there, the werewolf’s burning breath heaving down upon me being enough to make my hat’s brim flap like a nightcap in an old cartoon.

  “How dead am I?” I asked with defeat.

  “I can answer that.” a deep, raspy, and obviously entertained voice replied from above me.

  “Is he…” I trailed off, pointing up without looking around, “is he seriously going to taunt me before rippin’ me in half?”

  “Who said anything about ripping you in half?” the voice asked even more amusedly as he leaned in close enough that I could feel his fur on my hat.

  I wanted to try for a blind slash, I knew where his head was and was painfully aware that I wasn’t about to get another opportunity any time soon, but instead I slowly turned around to face the hulking wolf, his beaming smile, and his almost manically wide eyes.

  “Mags didn’t warn you, did she?” the werewolf practically giggled, his snout mere inches from my face, “I suppose she wouldn’t, much more fun this way.”

  “I would have to disagree,” I replied, some of the fear lifting from my voice, “but I s’pose I find getting the living shit scared out o’ me less entertaining than the next guy.”

  “Hmm,” the werewolf breathed, his haunting smile still planted firmly across his face, “well, no sense in dwelling on the past.”

  “Guess not.” I said coolly as the giant rose back to his full height and allowed me to see his massive claws, “Folk call me Chuck.”

  “Abraham,” the wolf replied as elatedly as he had with everything else he’d said, “I would offer to shake your hand, but I would undoubtedly crush it like a snail under a boot.”

  “Fair enough.” I half-chuckled, fighting the urge to look to the girls, “Well, I guess we should just follow you then, huh?”

  Abraham nodded at that gleefully, “You’ll have to be quick though, I’d like to put my boys to bed soon.”

  And with that, he was gone, leaving me to wonder just how many werewolves were on that part of the moon.

  “Is being a werewolf a genetic thing?” I asked confusedly, leading the way to the truck.

  “Not to my knowledge, no,” Roxy replied, her eyes locked on where the bulky mass of black fur had been a moment beforehand, “bites, scratches, blood, stuff like that, and last I checked they were feral.”

  “Yeah, he did seem a little too personable.” I agreed as I climbed into the passenger seat, surprising Flint and leaving the girls in the darkness as they apparently struggled to fathom what had just happened, “C’mon, I want to get to smiley’s place quick. You know, on the off chance that he’s capable of feeling anger.”

  “I…” Amy trailed off before shaking her head loose and hopping into the driver’s seat, “Sorry, yeah, wouldn’t want to piss him off.”

  “Y’all wouldn’t mind if I invested in some silver bullets when we got home?” Roxy asked as she passed my door on her way to the tray, “He seems cool now, sure, but I think we’d all benefit from some safety measures with our… new friend.”

  “No arguments here,” Amy scoffed after putting the truck in gear and continuing towards our destination, “have to be honest, I’m not sure we can trust him now.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” I replied as a thought occurred to me, “How didn’t you know about this?”

  “Who, me?” Amy asked, “Why would I know about a werewolf out in the middle of nowhere? Better yet, why would I drive us to one?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but you seem to know you’re way to the outpost.”

  “That’s because Mags told me where it was,” Amy replied defensively, “besides, even if I had traveled through here, there’s a good chance the place has changed hands a dozen times over the past few years. Desert’s a lonely place, folk go stir crazy and jump as soon as they can.”

  “Abraham’s clearly been out here a while,” I argued, “and I mean at least a couple of years, not months.”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” Amy said, trading in defensiveness for nonchalance, “maybe he wasn’t a werewolf when I met him. I meet a lot of people, Chuck, it’s not like they’re all going to stick out.”

  I felt like she was hiding something, but I also felt like it wasn’t a thing that particularly mattered.

  Anyway, after about ten minutes of driving, the outpost and its lights finally came into view, although it looked less like an outpost and more of a wide tin house with a watchtower attached.

  “You sure took your time,” Abraham chuckled as we pulled up in front of the outpost that he was almost as tall as, “thought you weren’t coming.”

  “We just figured we’d do a circuit, make sure we weren’t walking into an ambush.” I joked as we climbed out of the truck, Flint on Amy’s shoulder seemingly to back her up.

  “Oh, that’s not necessary,” Abraham replied, clearly knowing I was kidding, before leaning over to the wooden door he was standing beside, “Troy, would you mind activating the fence?”

  Silence met Abraham followed by some arcs of neon purple around the perimeter that eventually connected to form an electric fence-looking series of lines.

  “Something I got from a guy I know from my days in the corps,” Abraham explained with a toothy smirk, “won’t keep anything too big out, but it’ll fry a man in an instant.”

  “Got it, don’t pee on the fence,” Amy said, looking around at the purple electricity, “you’ve got the parts Mags wanted?”

  “I do,” Abraham replied without seeming the least bit offended by Amy’s abrupt nature, “well, my boy does. Trevor?”

  “Hello!” a cheerful, child-like robotic voice called from inside the outpost.

  “Hello, Trevor,” Abraham said with the same level most reserved for children, “would you like to come out?”

  “Hello!” the voice repeated.

  Abraham let the air stay silent for a while, to the point that I seriously considered yelling out for Trevor, but right as the werewolf looked ready to call for his boy again, the unmistakable sound of hissing hydraulics and thumping metal feet started making their way towards us.

  Half-expecting a fight, I let my palm rest on my revolver, though that concern quickly washed away as I saw who it was that was coming for us.

  It was an android, obviously, about as tall as a sixth-grade boy and kind of dumpy.

  The metal he was made of also wasn’t of the highest quality, and the holographic screen that floated about an inch from his head flickered with an unchanging smiley emoticon.

  “I take it he gets that charmin’ grin from his father then, huh?” I chuckled.

  “Ha, that he does,” Abraham replied as the stout android wobbled towards Amy with his balled up hand out in front of him, “you mind if she gets it?”

  “Is he goin’ to sock me in the mouth?” Amy asked concernedly, “‘Cause I’ll fry his metal ass if he so much as touches me.”

  “It isn’t anything like that,” Abraham said, unfazed by Amy’s threat, “he just likes pretty girls is all.”

  “Hello!” the android exclaimed as he came to a stop.

  “H-hi…” Amy trailed off confusedly before looking down at Trevor’s metal hand and, with no small amount of caution, extended her hand out under it to catch what he looked ready to drop.

  “Hello!” Trevor said again as he dropped a dice-sized, faintly glowing blue cube into Amy’s waiting hand, who seemed to be surprised by the weight.

  “Huh,” Amy let out, raising the cube to her face, “is this what I think it is?”

  “I have no way of knowing that,” Abraham replied amusedly as Trevor slowly turned around and made his way towards the outpost’s open door, “but if you think it’s a ComCube, then yes, that’s exactly what it is.”

  “Seriously?” Roxy scoffed in obvious amazement, “How in the Hell did you get a ComCube?”

  “It’s easy when you know the right people.” Abraham said without so much as a whiff of cockiness.

  “Forgive me for being out of the loop here,” I interjected, “but what’s a ComCube?”

  “Basically it’s fitting a bunch of stuff into cubes,” Amy replied, “originally they planned to use it on soldiers, but the troops came out kind of… wrong.”

  “Wrong how?” I asked.

  “Okay, so imagine you get a package but it has a dent due to crappy postage and handling or, you know, traversing who knows how many stars to get to you, right?” Roxy said, “It’s no biggie though because either you get a new thing or whatever you’ve got is easily fixed. People on the other hand?”

  “Don’t dent or rip as consequence-free, got it,” I chuckled meekly as Amy handed the cube to Roxy, “but why’s it in civie hands?”

  “By all rights, it’s not,” Abraham replied, “for the moment it’s still being pretty much only used as a means of transporting guns, ammo, and vehicles across the universe. I’ve even heard that they’re testing it out on full-sized ships now. But that’s beside the point. Everything Mags wanted is in there, and now we’re squa-”

  “Abraham,” another robotic voice droned from inside, “Trevor’s painting on the walls again.”

  “He’s fine, Troy, let him do as he wants.” Abraham called back, mildly annoyed that he’d been interrupted but still overall maintaining his cheerful demeanor

  “Of course you’d say that,” Troy groaned as he made his way to the door, “you don’t live in here anymore. I’m the one who has to look at it.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Abraham asked, looking down at the sleek but still short android.

  “I want you to give me the authority to exercise maximum force.”

  “No, I’m not going to let you punch your brother because he’s expressing himself.” Abraham sighed, showing anything other than happiness for the first time since I’d met him.

  “He’s not my brother,” Troy sighed, “he’s barely even from the same factory.”

  “He is your brother,” Abraham replied forcefully, his smile back but clearly hiding some rage, “and I expect you to treat him as such.”

  Silence.

  Not the desert silence I’d experienced before either, more like the ‘I just watched my friend yell at their kid over a cookie’ silence.

  “Fine.” Troy droned before shuffling inside with Abraham’s gaze following him, showing absolutely zero remorse or concern, “Let me know if you need anything else, Abraham.”

  “Kids, huh?” I chuckled meekly, “Anyway, thanks for the gear.”

  “Hmm?” Abraham said, turning his attention back to me, “Oh, the ComCube, yeah, no, that’s not a problem at all. How’s Mags these days anyway? Haven’t seen her since I was hu-”

  “Big problem, guys!” Roxy exclaimed, whipping my attention around to her aiming down her rifle’s sight at something in the distance.

  “What’s the pro…blem…” I trailed off as I looked at the fast-approaching convoy of trucks and cars, “Please tell me that fence can hold them off.”