Free Hair in All The Wrong Places by Andrew Buckley Page B

well for the teenager chained to the chair.
    The only illumination came from a portable light hanging from one of the pipes above Colin’s head. Despite the darkness, he found he could see fairly well. He sniffed the air and caught a familiar scent. Not a normal thing to do, but it felt right.
    As he inhaled, pieces of the room looked brighter, clearer to him. Colin could smell gas, and sure enough, there were several cans stacked in a corner. There were other things: the smell of fresh timber coming from a stack of wood, paint from an open paint can, and something else. He sniffed hard, and there it was again. The smell from his dreams, the smell from the man in the fog yesterday. Making that connection, Colin could suddenly see the man. He was standing in the darkest corner of the basement watching Colin intently. It wasdefinitely the same man. He was wearing a long jacket with a hood, but Colin couldn’t make out his face.
    â€œWho are you?” said Colin.
    â€œWho are you?” echoed the man. The voice was the same gruff rasp from his dreams. It was a vague memory, but he remembered it.
    â€œI’m Colin.”
    â€œAnd how are you feeling today, Colin?”
    â€œTired. It’s been a strange couple of days.”
    â€œDo you know what’s happening to you, Colin?”
    â€œI’m chained to a chair?”
    The man had wrapped chains around Colin’s arms, legs, and upper body; only his head was free. What struck Colin as strange was that his head didn’t hurt in the slightest. He remembered getting hit with something heavy.
    Maybe I’m in shock.
    â€œYou’re not in shock, Colin.”
    â€œDid I say that? Or did I think it?”
    â€œYou thought it. And then I heard it,” clarified the man unhelpfully.
    â€œWhat are you going to do to me?”
    â€œI think I’ve done my worst already.” Sighing heavily, the man walked out of the shadows. Colin recognized him from his dreams. He looked to be in his late forties with light brown eyes and a muscular build. His hair was dark and greasy. “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Colin.”
    â€œYou’ve got to admit,” said Colin, “there’s currently not a lot of evidence to back up that statement. I mean, I am strapped to a chair in a dark basement.”
    The man smiled and dragged a folding chair in front of Colin and sat down. “My name is Silas Baxter. Do you know who I am?”
    â€œYeah, you just told me. You’re Silas Baxter.”
    â€œNot my name, dummy. Do you know what I do?” Colin remembered the dreams again. “You hunt people.”
    â€œAh,” nodded Silas. “So you’ve had the dreams already.”
    â€œWhat do you know about my dreams?”
    â€œI know everything about you, Colin. I know that you’ve been moved from one family member to another since you were born. I know you live with your grandmother, and that you’re miserable 95% of the time. I know that you ran away from home two nights ago and now you’re having weird dreams and that your body is going through changes.”
    â€œHow could you possibly know all this? It’s impossible.”
    â€œI know that you have a tiny scar on your knee from when you fell off the monkey bars in fourth grade. The monkey bars were painted blue.”
    â€œThat’s very specific.”
    â€œIt’s funny what you remember. Most people can’t remember what they ate for dinner last night, but they can remember the stuffed toy they went to sleep with when they were a kid.”
    â€œMr. Snuffles,” said Colin.
    â€œHe was a pink elephant.”
    â€œHe was light red! And how do you know all this?”
    â€œI know all this because you know all this. I’ve knownall this since I bit you the other night.”
    The explosion. The car crash. The werewolf.
    â€œYou! You were … you are a werewolf!”
    Colin felt stupid saying it