I'm Just A Small Town Shifter Read online

  Whatever I might be feeling at the moment, I was still eighty-seven percent dead. Ironically, that was the same amount of cash I had in my pocket. It was useless now. The bank didn’t accept literal blood money.

  I didn’t really have a great memory of what happened next, or how long I laid there; slipping in and out of shock and consciousness. What I do know for a fact was that the bear didn’t come back to finish me off. I liked to think I shot it in the fucking face, but maybe I’d just jacked it up enough that I wasn’t worth the price of admission anymore.

  I had a blurry recollection of Mac standing over me. Then guys in jackets with a red cross on them. I remembered lights passing overhead. Not the stairway to heaven, but those blinding florescent lights that people lined ceilings with. Then there were lots of people with masks; although, that wasn’t an uncommon sight these days. One of them fit something over my mouth, and that was all she wrote.

  The last thing I recalled was that it was still so damn hot. “I’m going to hell. The devil himself is prodding me in the ass with his pitchfork. Why the fuck did I move to Alaska?”

  Chapter 3

  Beep . . . beep . . . hiss. Beep . . . beep . . . hiss.

  The sounds beat a rhythm into my brain as I steadily returned to the world of the living. At least I hoped it was the world of the living. If this was heaven, then organized religion had been lying to the masses for the last couple millennia. If it was hell . . . well, it was totally underwhelming.

  I wasn’t in a bed that was too hard or too soft, but I don’t think goldilocks would have taken a nap here. I was surrounded by machines that were doing the aforementioned beeping and hissing. These weren’t something out of Star Trek. When you were on the edge of civilization, you didn’t have cutting-edge medical equipment. This wasn’t Johns Hopkins, but the sounds came strong and steady, so I guessed there was nothing to worry about.

  I was surrounded on all sides by cream-colored walls, with a floral boarder at the top. There was a picture of a ship going out to sea on the wall, but that was it. I was completely alone.

  That’s about the time I realized I couldn’t breathe. The beeps started to come more rapidly, and any part of me that was still groggy woke up rickey-fucking-tick. Not being able to get oxygen will do that to someone.

  I gagged, and the bile hit something in my throat. “What the hell?” I clawed at my mouth where some contraption was located.

  I felt tension along my arms and hands, and then a sharp pain as something was pulled free of me. All I could do was groan in agony as pain filled my senses. Something on the machines must have finally triggered, because a siren went off in the room.

  I had to give it to the nursing staff, their response time was impressive. I struggled for maybe three more seconds before the first medical professional burst into the room.

  “Hold on, Mr. Jensen. I’ll get the intubation tube out right away,” she slipped on a pair of butt-inspection gloves and went to work.

  Other nurses joined her, but most just held me down as the first one did the dirty work. Now that I knew I had a tube down my throat to keep me alive, it actually helped calm me down, but my body still revolted at the blocked airway.

  “Holy fuck,” I gasped as the first nurse pulled a tube the length of my forearm out of my throat. It was like someone had sheathed a plastic sword in me.

  I shivered at the thought, which was only made worse by the loss of hormones being pumped into my panicked body. I was suddenly completely exhausted, and sagged back onto the bed. With the tube out, the nurses checked my vitals, and told me the doctor would come and see me right away. Then, they left me alone again.

  Now, it was loneliness’s turn to suffocate me. My immediate family was gone, and what little extended family I had remained in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have any friends here. The person I was closest too was Mac, and he was a grumpy old fart on the best of days.

  “I almost died,” the memories finally hit me like a mental haymaker. I’ll be honest and say they rocked my world, made me consider the mysteries of life, and reconsider what the hell I was doing with the few decades I had on this green and blue ball of mud.

  It was quite the introspective moment before the doctor arrived to check on me. She was a good-looking woman. Maybe early fifties, with the typical white, doctor’s coat. What wasn’t typical was the smile she gave me. I felt like I’d just settled in to read a good book, in front of a warm fire, with a cup of coffee in hand. I could feel the stress leak out of me.

  What hit me most were the eyes. They were instantly familiar. “You’re Brianna’s mom,” I blurted.

  “Yes. I’m Doctor Miller-Ahnah. You know my daughter?” she grabbed the chart attached to the foot of the bed, but otherwise gave me her full and complete attention.

  “I work at the diner. I’ve seen her around,” I failed to hide a blush, but if she noticed, she didn’t comment on it.

  “She does love your meatloaf,” she quipped, which got a laugh out of me; and subsequently caused a spike of pain.

  “You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Jensen. Or, can I call you Kirk?”

  “Kirk is fine,” I replied.

  “Very well. You’re lucky to be alive, Kirk. That homeless man you tangled with in the alley nearly gutted you alive and beat you to death,” she continued, as her eyes scanned the chart.

  “I know. I’m . . . wait . . . what homeless man?” I started and stopped. “I was attacked by a bear.”

  “Bear?” she looked up from her chart and raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, Kirk. You must be confused. When you were brought in, you’d been the victim of a brutal mugging. You have multiple stab wounds across your chest, arm, and leg. Broken bones from where your assailant had beaten you with a lead pipe, severe blood loss, and a pretty bad concussion. If Mac hadn’t found you when he had, and called the police, you wouldn’t have made it. We were barely able to stitch you back together and get fluids back in you. You coded twice on the operating table. I can’t reiterate how lucky you are.”

  “Ass kicked by a bum . . . died twice . . . Mac saved me . . .” none of that was adding up.

  I might have just woken up, but my memory was crystal clear. I was attacked by a big-ass Kodiak brown bear. He’d nearly torn me to pieces and eaten me, but I’d shot it twice.

  “No,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Sorry. What was that?” she asked.

  “No,” I repeated louder. “It was a bear. Not some vagrant.”

  “Hmm,” the doctor stopped looking at her chart and looked at me. “I want to order a psychological evaluation for you, Kirk. The concussion you came in with was the least of your problems at the time, but a traumatic brain injury is something that should never be ignored.”

  The machine behind me confirmed that my heart literally skipped a beat at her statement. If I had a psych eval on file, it would be available to every police department in the country. Anywhere I tried to apply, they’d have a report that said I’d hallucinated the events of an assault. Since a police officer needed to have his wits about him to convey information about violent interactions with suspects, crime scenes, not to mention the need to make split second decisions that could mean life or death; no department would take a chance on a guy who might be crazy. My application would stand out from the others in all the wrong ways.

  I knew the doctor meant well with her suggestion, but it would royally fuck me.

  “No,” I answered in an entirely new tone. “I guess I’m just still groggy. My memories haven’t fully come back. I just remember a dark shape and then pain. It was probably a homeless guy like you said. Plus, I’m sure the police already investigated and have compiled all the evidence.”

  “They have,” she nodded in acceptance of my change of heart. “They found the man a few blocks away. Dead. He’d been grazed in the side, and then shot in the throat. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you killed him.

  “Killed him,” the two words echoed through my mind.

  Needless to say, I’d never killed anyone before. I knew it would be a possibility in my chosen profession, but odds were that I would never even fire my service weapon in the line of duty; much less kill a man.

  “Bear,” I reminded myself before I could get too lost in the lie.

  There definitely wasn’t a man, and the fact that a man had been found shot a few blocks away told me that not only was there a deranged animal on the loose, but some poor guy had been murdered; and the cops had already shut the book on his case.

  Now more than ever, I needed to make the force. If I didn’t, that victim’s killer would never get caught; because it sure as shit wasn’t me who killed him.

  “Sorry. What?” I’d missed the last few things the doctor said.

  “I was just explaining that you’ve been in a medically-induced coma for the last week. Now that you’re awake. We’ll monitor your vitals, wounds, and get you out of here as soon as we can. With the pandemic, the last place I know you want to be is a hospital.”

  The statement made my asshole pucker. I had barely survived an animal attack, but one wrong move, and a microscopic virus could take me down. That would suck.

  “Yeah, I’d like to get home as soon as it’s safe to do so,” I nodded fervently.

  She smiled down at me before pulling back my covers to check my wounds. My chest was covered in white gauze. As was my right arm, and left calf. All the places the bear had mauled me. The bandages weren’t soaked through with red, so that was a good sign, but everything felt very tight when I tried to move.

  “Crap. That’s going to set back my training,” I thought.

  “You have a dispenser in your arm if you’re feeling pain. It won’t dispense more than the prescribed dose, and we’ll start to ween you over th
e next few days. Let the nurses know if the pain gets too intense. The good news is you are healing remarkably fast. The bad news . . . you have a visitor.”

  “Visitor?” I asked when she raised a comical eyebrow and nodded to the door.

  In the doorway, looking incredibly uncomfortable, was Mac.

  “Mac?”

  “Kid,” he grunted as he entered the room.

  “I’ll let you two have a minute,” she nodded to Mac and left. Her heels clacking against the worn linoleum.

  The diner owner moved aside to let her pass, and then stood there awkwardly for several seconds. “You okay?” he finally asked.

  “I should be back in the kitchen in no time,” I smiled.

  “Eh,” he grunted, and waved his hand back and forth as he came to stand next to my bed. “Don’t worry. This warrants a few days off.” Another awkward silence fell. “Here,” he grunted, and deposited a big brown paper bag on the bedside table.

  Instantly, my mouth started to water. The delicious aroma of the Warf Burger was something I was intimately familiar with. After six months in that diner’s kitchen, it was as much a part of me as my own blood, sweat, and tears.

  I reached for the bag, but stopped. “Can I?” I looked at the door where the doctor had just left.

  I had no idea how deep the bear had gotten me, I just remembered a lot of blood. If it tore up my intestines, eating solid food like this might put me back in a coma. I couldn’t have that. I needed to get healthy, get back to training, and get the job I wanted . . . no . . . needed.

  “Don’t know,” Mac shrugged. “But you can have this or the Jell-O,” he raised a plastic tin of the gelatinous substance.

  It just smelled . . . wrong.

  “Fuck it,” I was taking a risk, but there was no reward without it. Plus, a body needed protein to heal.

  I opened the bag and practically drooled all over the aluminum foil wrapping. My hands ripped off the protective coating, and I dug in. The medium-rare meat, pickles, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and Mac’s signature special sauce hit my taste buds like an atom bomb. I literally got light headed as my senses went into overdrive.

  “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” I mumbled through bites, as I reached back into the bag for the fries I knew would be there.

  Mac had a tendency to overserve fries, but no one complained. Hell, it probably drove repeat business when people knew they were going to get an extra fistful of the golden-brown, fried deliciousness when they ordered a small.

  “Eh,” was Mac’s reply to the compliment, but he looked pleased as I devoured his creation.

  Before I knew it, I was licking the juices off my fingers and wanting more.

  “Easy kid, I’ll bring you dinner,” Mac scoffed when he saw the dejected look on my face as I pawed at the now-empty bag.

  “Thanks,” I placed my hand on my still rumbling belly. “Did you . . .” I began, and then stopped. I needed to approach this cautiously. “Did you see what happened?”

  If Mac had seen the bear, then one corroborating witness, who hadn’t endured severe trauma, would be enough to reopen the case again.

  “Nah,” the old man shrugged. “I came out after I heard the gunshots, and you were on the ground.”

  “So much for that.”

  “Thanks for calling the ambulance,” I really meant it. Without this man, I’d be six feet under.

  Mac just shrugged. All the touchy-feelies going around were making him uncomfortable.

  “I brought you this,” he pulled a wad of envelopes from his back pocket. “Your mail.”

  “Great,” I accepted the hodgepodge of postage and started to go through it.

  Most of it was junk mail, but I had a letter from my aunt. At the very bottom of the pile was a white envelope with the seal of the Kodiak Police Department. My breath caught in my throat, and I tore into it faster than the burger. I carefully extracted the letter inside, and eased it open.

  “I got in,” I whispered at first. “I got in!” I yelled and turned to Mac.

  He rolled his eyes at my exuberance, but nodded in congratulations.

  “I mean, it’s only the selection process. I still need to beat out everyone else, both physically and mentally, to get the position. Then, I need to complete my local certification, before heading off to get certified by the state. But this is the first step,” I held the letter like it was worth a million bucks. “Next, I’ll . . .” I stopped cold.

  “Mac, what day is it?” I felt dread grow in my gut.

  “Twenty-first,” he grunted

  “Fuck! Fuck . . . fuck . . . fuck,” I cursed as I looked frantically around the room. “Phone. I need a phone.”

  “Geez, kid,” Mac grimaced, but handed over a cell that looked straight out of the eighties.

  Now, my hands trembled for all the wrong reasons. The letter was postmarked the fourteenth. The day I got attacked. Hell, it had probably already been in my mailbox. If I’d made it home that night, this wouldn’t be happening to me.

  At the very bottom of the letter, which I hadn’t read because I was so psyched, was a request to verify that I would be attending the selection. The due date for the response was two days ago.

  “No. This can’t be happening,” my tear ducts burned, but I didn’t cry. I wasn’t going to let the last six months of my life be for nothing all because of some stupid animal, and bureaucratic bullshit.

  “Kodiak Police Department, how may I direct your call,” a bored voice answered.

  “Hello, my name is Kirk Jensen, and I’m calling about the selection process . . .”

  “Please hold,” the voice cut me off, and a public service announcement started to play in lieu of the normal, wait-time elevator music.

  I was still recovering from the sudden disconnection, and trying to figure out who I was being transferred too, and what I would say, when a much gruffer voice came on the line.

  “Chief Johansson,” the voice answered.

  “The chief,” I gulped. “They sent me to the chief.”

  “Hello?” the voice sounded irritated.

  “Yes . . . sorry. Hello, sir. My name is Kirk Jensen, and I’m calling about the selection. I know I’m outside the acceptance window, but . . .”

  “Ah, yeah. You’re the alley kid,” the chief’s tone changed.

  Something inside me bristled at being identified by the most traumatic experience of my life, but I pushed it back down.

  “I’m glad you made it, Jensen. When my guys got to the scene, you were in pretty rough shape,” the chief truthfully sounding relieved that I’d made it helped me suppress my earlier irritation.

  “Thank you, sir. I just received your letter about the selection. I’ve been in the hospital for the last week, and my mail was just delivered to me,” I hoped he understood where I was going, and took pity on me.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jensen,” he caught my drift, and I felt relief wash through me. “I’ll keep a slot open for you next time we have selection.”

  “Thank . . . wait . . . what? No, sir,” I quickly recovered. “I just wanted to let you know I want to be there at this selection.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. “Look, Jensen. I get it, and I admire your moxie, but you got the shit kicked out of you,” the man was being blunt, but I didn’t mind. If anything, it only fueled the fire growing inside me.

  “You got messed up real bad, and selection is in six weeks. I won’t stop you from coming out. As long as you have a clean bill of health from the doc; but, I want you to manage expectations. You’re only going to be a month and a half out of major surgery. The guys you’ll be going up against are in the best shape of their lives. There is no shame in taking more time to recover.”

  I got the sense the chief was just being straight with me, and maybe trying to save me some humiliation. That wasn’t going to stop me.

  “I will be there, sir. With a doctor’s note and everything,” I replied.

  “Huh,” the leader of the island’s police chuckled. “Okay, Jensen. I’m interested to see how you do. I’ll tell Doris to put you on the list. See you in six weeks,” he hung up. He was a busy man. He had better things to do than spend time talking to a recruit who might not make it past selection.