Mongrels

by Stephen Graham Jones

steering wheels aren’t designed for monsters that aren’t supposed to exist.

Texas was bad for werewolves.

Werewolves aren’t into shirts, even in January in North Texas.

Shakespeare snaking from the window to the door, to escape like we had.

I hated Darren, and I would have chewed my hand off just to see him one more time.

And my stupid chin was doing its stupid thing, bunching up like a stupid-ass prune.

“Being a werewolf isn’t just teeth and claws,” she said, her lips brushing my ear she was so close, so quiet, “it’s inside. It’s how you look at the world. It’s how the world looks back at you.”

It was a story, of course. It’s all we’ve got.