Free Forest of Shadows by Hunter Shea

good for him. He hoped it was good for her, too, but had his doubts. He was just a diversion, something to help her pass the time away. The novelty of screwing an old fart would wear off one day. He wasn’t so sure he would be able to let her go as easily, and that disturbed him. The longer they were together, the closer their secret came to being exposed. 
    People talked, and talking was never good. 
     
    Muraco Fenton took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaled a cloud of smoke and howled at the full moon. His cry echoed across the forest, answered by the crack of twigs and brambles as startled deer, rabbits and squirrels darted into the darkness. 
    His name meant White Moon and tonight was his night, the first night of the new moon. It hung in the sky like an oversized sponge ball, pockmarked from a summer of being bounced on sidewalks, thrown against walls and smacked by skinny stick ball bats. 
    “Nice one. Have a beer.”
    Muraco’s crew sat around a small fire, guzzling beers from a case they had stolen from the volunteer fire department. It had been Wadi’s idea. His older brother was a volunteer fireman and bragged many a night about fighting fires and getting drunk afterwards with his fellow volunteers. He’d said they had soda vending machines stocked with a variety of beers and all you had to do was punch a button without inserting any money to have your pick. 
    Getting the beer was simple. Just a few minutes after nightfall, Wadi called in a phony fire report, something about hot oil blazing up when he, pretending to be that fat asshole Teddy Hawkins, had tried to make a batch of French fries. As soon as the firehouse emptied out, Muraco, Ahanu and Ciqala slipped inside, raiding the vending machines and stuffing the ice cold cans into an old Budweiser cardboard case they’d found in the garbage. 
    It was a perfect way to kick off the new moon. Another couple of beers and the fun could really begin. 
    He howled again, louder than the first time, tipping his head back as far as it could go, balling the hands of his outstretched arms into tight fists. Ahanu tossed him a beer and he bit down hard at the top. A jet stream of beer and foam shot up from the punctured can. He sucked hungrily, mindless of the fact that his hair and shirt were getting soaked. When the can was empty, Muraco tossed it into the darkness, bouncing it off a tree. 
    “I still can’t figure out how you do that without busting your teeth,” Wadi said. “Remember that time I tried and I chipped the end off my tooth?”
    Muraco sat near the fire and chuckled. “You can’t do it, moron, because you don’t have the spirit of the wolf. That’s why you guys feel compelled to tag along behind me. You’re my pack.”
    The pack of four howled in unison until they broke down laughing. 
    “I think my father once told me I had the spirit of a fox,” Wadi said.
    “If you have any spirit at all, it’s most likely a fat white woman who sits around all day and orders stuff from the Home Shopping Club,” Ciqala quickly interjected. 
    Muraco broke the circle around the fire and jumped into his car; a restored 1968 Camaro, ebony exterior and interior with custom alloy rims that shined as bright as the full moon. 
    “You ladies coming or what?”
    Ahanu grabbed what remained of the pilfered beer and they climbed into the Camaro. Four men, three years removed from their teens, hooted and hollered as the muscle car kicked up a cloud of dirt and gravel. They bounced about the interior as the car glided over the hardpack. Muraco slipped in a heavy metal CD, the CD player being the one concession to the twenty-first century in the vintage Camaro, and pushed the volume up high enough to drown out his pack’s drunken reverie. 
    They drove into town and spotted Teddy Hawkins and Judas Graves walking out of Cheryl’s Diner. 
    “Kind of late for dinner,” Ahanu said.
    “And early for a midnight snack,” Wadi added. 
    “Just in time for