MV2: Rebuilding

"You don't actually have to do that," Trainer Jim said, and Andy turned to face him. "I can just order more. They aren't that expensive."

Andy shrugged. "It makes me feel better, especially since I didn't get permission before I broke them." He was in the woodshop, carving and fitting another pair of training dummies to replace the ones he'd broken.  

"Ah," said Trainer Jim. "Then you're not going to want me to help out with them, either."

"Nope." Andy shook his head. "They're... kind of crude, but they should still work."

"They'll be fine."

When Andy looked up a few minutes later, the trainer was gone.  

MV2: Spirits and Spades

Maria OG opted out of the game, claiming to prefer watching a bit more television to playing cards, which surprised Andy a little bit. He was less surprised when Tłʼóoʼdi suddenly appeared and took a seat at the table. She was dressed in a bright green skirt and top, with a cape of feathers thrown over her shoulders, and she studied Andy for a long moment as he cut the cards. He was suddenly very aware that he was dealing with newborn spirits here; it wasn't like the wolves, who'd all had prior life experience and then become monsters."Everybody good with numbers?" he asked quietly. 

"I can count," Tom said quietly, then glanced nervously at the other two. 

They nodded, so Andy asked, "And how a standard deck of cards is counted?"

Tłʼóoʼdi looked puzzled, so Andy launched into an explanation of the suits, the numbers, the face cards... and how all that fit into the rules for Spades. "So the way this works is that four of us are two teams. I'm sitting across from Tłʼóoʼdi, so we're one team. Divvy and Tom, you're the other team. What you need to do now is make your best guess about how many hands you can win with the cards you're holding; that's your bid. There's a rule called 'sandbagging' where you lose points if you win too much more than you predicted, but we're going to ignore that for now."

He dealt the cards, then sat back to let everybody write down their bids. Tom nodded seriously, studying his cards, then turned them towards Andy. "What should I do with this?"

Ahhhhh... Andy shook his head. "I mean, first of all, you're really not supposed to show your cards to anyone else, especially the opposing team. But all right, first time out, we'll just walk through it." He laid his own cards out on the table, face up. "With what I'm holding here, I think I can take three hands. Tłʼóoʼdi, will you show us your cards?"

She laid hers down just as he had, and cocked her head as she studied him. 

"All right," he said. "With what you're holding, I'd say you can probably take four. Tom, if you play it right I think you can do the same. Divvy, do you want to show us, or keep yours hidden?"

"Hidden," said the spirit. "That's what keep the game interesting, right? Not knowing what the other players are holding?"

"It is," Andy acknowledged, "but since this is our first game there's nothing wrong with looking at the strategies openly."

"Even so," said Divvy. "I believe I can take five."

"All right," said Andy, and wrote it down on the notepad he'd grabbed from the shelves. "Let's find out."

He picked his cards back up, and Tłʼóoʼdi and Tom did as well.  

"Trust your partners," he advised. "You don't have to put down the card you think is most likely to win a hand, if you think your partner has one that will do it or if you think what they already put down will take it. If you're sure your team is going to lose a particular hand, you can use it to get rid of low-value cards that you know won't win anything."

He wasn't terribly surprised when Tom and Divvy took the first game. Advantage of surprise, and all that, he thought, smiling. "Well done," he said. "Tłʼóoʼdi, well played. It didn't go our way, but you have the idea now. When we play again, nobody shows their cards -- and maybe we can kick their asses, metaphorically speaking."

The woman in the cape of feathers smiled at him. 

MV2: Spirits of the Land

"Oh, hi," Andy said automatically, stopping to study the dark-skinned man in the hallway. 

He was dressed in a swallow-tailed coat and a top had, with an enormous, garish feather affixed to it. Of the two newborn nature spirits, he was the one most often visible; the other one preferred to remain unseen most of the time. 

The man hesitated. "You're a wight," he said. 

Andy nodded. "Andy." They'd been over this in their early-evening group meetings, but maybe it needed to be reiterated. "And you're Divvy."

The spirit nodded. Like the black-eyed child Tom, he had a solid, physical presence despite his origins; the hand he offered felt like, well, a hand when Andy clasped it. "Where you at on environmental stuff?" he asked. 

Andy chose his words carefully. "Conservationist," he said after a moment. "I mean, leave some room for camping and hiking, but keep the natural beauty in place. Otherwise, why bother with the camping and hiking?"

Divvy nodded and grinned. "Baby steps," he agreed. "Like to see the whole continent returned to its natural state, but that ain't gonna happen."

Andy nodded softly. "Does seem a pity sometimes. You up for a game of cards? Maria OG and Tom are usually up by now, and I've been trying to teach them to play Spades."

Divvy laughed. "Sure, I'm in. All you had to do was ask."

Andy chuckled. "I've been trying to take it slow," he said. "Several reasons."

"No need to explain," answered the spirit. "Come on. If your friends don't want to play, maybe you can show me and Tłʼóoʼdi."

MV2: The Second Call

"Andy?" asked Mr. Carillo. 

Andy frowned. He'd only just gotten out of bed, and it was still daylight outside; early spring, but bright and crisp. "Yes?"

Mr. Carillo held out a cell phone. "Your  family called back."

"Ah." he put them on speaker, then said, "Hello?"

"Can we see you?" asked his mother, immediately. "Even if you're..."

"I looked up some information on wights," Judith put in. "Like, we know how you probably look now."

The sound Andy made was something like, "Ahhhgh--" He looked to Mr. Carillo, who said: "We could probably arrange something, but doing it without endangering you or your family would be... tricky."

"Maybe," Andy said into the speaker. "I don't know if you heard that, but... Like I said, the guy who killed me is still looking for me, and he wouldn't hesitate to use any of you as hostages. Or to murder you outright, if he had half a reason for it. I think the Authority would authorize social media contact -- assuming we can all be very discreet -- but I think it's better to keep my distance for now."

His father said, "That's... definitely better than nothing."

Judith sounded momentarily scared. "I don't ever want to see those things again. I have nightmares about them."

"I don't want them anywhere near you," Andy affirmed quietly. "Or me, really, but I'm the one they were looking for."

"But you're okay, right?" asked his mother. 

"I'm good," he replied. "We're working on feeding -- so far I have pretty good control of it -- and I'm finishing up high school online, and we're looking at self-defense after that, even though we're pretty safe here."

"That's... that's good, Honey. I'm proud of you."

Andy nodded, and managed not to rub at his eyes by an act of will. "If the situation changes, I'll let you know." 

They fell to more day-to-day issues after that -- how Judith was doing in school, how Andy liked his classmates, his dad's frustrations with his job as an engineer, his mother's taking a break from her career as a nurse. It was good to just talk about daily life -- a reminder for Andy that life went on, and maybe a reassurance for his family that he was still doing well even after the tragedy. 

When he finally hung up, it was full dark and time to get back to his studies. 

MV2: Practice Dummies

Trainer Jim -- apparently the werecougar's name was James Trainor -- had set up a a dozen or so wooden training dummies behind the classrooms building. Andy had already demolished three of them, with a combination of barehanded strikes, basic claws, and the longer claws of a wight. He knew there was a woodshop on campus; he'd have to build more to make up for it, but right now he needed to break things. Hitting the punching bag in the gym just hadn't done it for him. 

"Hey," said a soft voice behind him. 

Andy spun around, and found himself looking at Sam W -- Samantha Wolfe, she was calling herself, having apparently been turned in her late forties. He thought there was a joke to it, but he didn't get the reference. She was the werewolf who'd asked about shooting guns, though. 

She held her hands up and he put his claws away.

"Hey," she said again. "It's not really any of my business, and I'll go away if you want, but... are you all right?"

He shook his head. "No. No, I am so very much not all right."

She nodded. "You want to talk about it?"

He sighed, looking at the scattered bits of wood that had been three practice dummies, and the gouges in a fourth one. I should stop now, while there are still enough left for the class to use. Did he feel better? He wasn't sure, but he thought so. "I'm taking classes online to finish high school."

Sam nodded. "You mentioned that while we were waiting for movie night one time."

"Yeah, well... Internet connection. So I opened up social media, and saw... what my family is going through right now. Kind of had a meltdown."

"That's... how bad is it?"

"My family was in mourning. My girlfriend died in the same attack where I was turned, and her family is... turning their grief to anger. At everyone, including my family, the school... and particularly my sister, who survived the attack by hiding in her room and calling for help."

"Oh." Sam paused for a moment, picturing that. "Jesus. That's..."

"Yeah. That's why I've been hiding in my room for the last three days. Mr. Carillo arranged for me to call my family and let them know what's really going on, but I think I'm going to have to talk to Amy's family too. I've asked the Authority to give them more information about what happened, and how little chance any of us had of stopping it." He turned away, then turned back. "I thought I was okay, that I was handling all this, but then it all caught up to me and I'm... not."

"Andy... You're still calling yourself Andy, right? ...it's okay. You're allowed to freak out." Sam hesitated, then said, "God knows I did. If I hadn't been presumed dead, I'd owe the apartment complex a few thousand dollars in damages. At least all you did was hide away for a little while, and break some things that were built to be broken."

Andy sat down on the grass. "Thanks," he said.

Sam moved cautiously closer, and when he didn't object she sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. "I don't know if we're friends, exactly," Sam said carefully, "but I like you, and as far as I know the others do too. We've been lucky; no real assholes in this class, even if we do have our own issues. As far as I can tell, you're doing just fine. Plus, I owe you for getting us started on self-defense training. So if there's anything I can do to help, let me know."

Andy nodded. He didn't like asking for help; he never had. But the offer was genuine, and maybe it was time to consider that mutual support was supposed to go both ways. "Thank you," he said quietly. 

MV2: Family Reunion

"Andy?" asked his mother. "How... Where are you?"

"Colorado, I think. I didn't ask." 

She gave a shaky laugh. "They said you were dead."

"When I was very young, I had a stuffed turtle that went with me everywhere. When Grandpa passed on, I asked if I could leave it in the coffin with him, to keep him company."

"Holy shit," said his father, clearly audible over the phone. "How is this even...?"

Andy sighed. "I wasn't supposed to get in touch with you. I really did die. And then three days later I came back as a wight, because that was what killed me. The Authority has a whole system for dealing with situations like this, and they've been doing their best to teach me how to live as... something like this. Not quite human, not quite alive."

"But you are alive," said Judith. "I mean, you called, you're talking to us."

He nodded, knowing they wouldn't see it. "You wouldn't recognize me, though. I look dead. I don't have a heartbeat. That's why I didn't come back home."

"Son..." His father cleared his throat. "Come home anyway."

Andy hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't. The thing that killed me is still looking for me. I can't risk leading it to you."

"What about Amy?" asked Judith. "Any chance that she...?"

"No. A clean death, I was told. And I think if she'd been reborn the way I was, they'd have kept us together."

Mr. Carillo nodded at that. 

"Oh." Judith sounded sad. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault you survived, Sis. You were smart, and lucky. Amy and I were... right in the line of fire. Dumb fucking luck, but there it is."

"Andy," his mother said. Then, a moment later, she continued with, "Never mind. It's not like your little sister has never heard curse words."

"Yeah, I know about those, Mom," said Judith. "I do watch YouTube."

"All right," said his father. "If you can't come home, and you were supposed to be dead, why call us?"

Andy hesitated for a long moment. "Because I thought it would help more than hurt. I might be dead, technically, but you'd still want to know I was all right -- and so far, I am. I can't imagine that this was any harder for me than it was for you, but... Listen, I'm still out here and I still love you guys. I worry about you."

There was a long silence, then his father burst into tears. His mother said, "I think... this was a lot. Can we... can we take a little while to sit with it, and then maybe talk to you again?"

"That might be a really good idea," said Andy, who was feeling more than a little overwhelmed himself. "Just... before I go... Judith?"

"Yeah?"

"You did the right thing. You stayed in your room and called for help, and it kept you alive. I don't really know how you're holding up, but I think you living through that was vital for Mom and Dad. You understand? And for me. You couldn't have changed things, and hiding wasn't cowardice. It... it was survival. Be proud of yourself, Sis, okay? Even if it's hard."

Judith sniffed. "I wish I could have saved you."

"I just told you: I think you did." He ended the call before he could say anything else, and stood for a time just staring down at the phone. His family doubtless had the number now and could have called back, but they didn't. He suspected they needed some time to adjust just as much as he did.  

MV2: Casting Oil On Troubled Waters

It took a few hours to get back on his feet, but when Tom threw his arms around Andy's waist he was glad he'd done it. Mr. Siegel was one of the wolves and one of the teachers, and willing to endanger himself by letting a starved wight feed off of him. Andy was starting to realize how much more life could be gained from other monsters than ordinary humans, and scaled his feeding down to suit. The beast stirred, but didn't rise. 

"You can't just give up," Tom said, looking up at him with those eerie black eyes. "Not when I don't even know where I came from."

Andy nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. I've just been... I think it all caught up to me."

Tom nodded. "Better now?"

"Not yet," Andy admitted. "But I'm willing to consider that it could be."

"All right," said Mr. Carillo. "Your voice shouldn't have changed much, and I've got a call going through to your family."

Andy stepped up, took the phone in a grip that should have broken it, and waited until an unmistakable voice said, "Hello?"

"Judy?" he asked quietly. 

There was a long moment of silence. Then his sister asked, "Am I supposed to believe that you're Andy?"

"Not really," he said, thinking fast. He was suddenly proud of his little sister for being suspicious that this might be a scam. "You remember those stupid banana-shaped earrings that I got you last Christmas?"

"Worst gag gift ever."

"Yeah, but you did wear them to school." 

"The uniform shirts are bright yellow. They matched."

"Okay, look. Put the phone down, go into my room, and look under the far left corner of the bed. I had a box back there."

Judith hesitated, then said: "All right, wait a moment."

When she came back a few minutes later she asked, "Condoms? Why did you want me to know you had condoms. Were you and Amy--?"

"I didn't want you to know. It was just the most secret thing I had -- the best way to prove that I'm me."

There was a long pause. "Andy?" Judith asked. 

"Yeah," he said. "I died. But I was killed by a wight, and I came back as one. I don't look... much of anything like you remember."

"But you're alive." 

"Sort of. And I am so, so grateful that you are really truly no-shit alive." Andy hesitated. "Can you find Mom and Dad? And put this on speaker?"

"No bullshit?" she asked suspiciously. 

"No bullshit."