Mike

Mike lives next door. Nice guy, really—waves when he mows the lawn, brings in your trash cans when you forget, occasionally howls at the moon. You’re not saying he’s definitely a werewolf, but the evidence is… compelling. For starters, the man is hairy. Like, “chewbacca in a flannel” hairy. His beard looks like it’s plotting world domination. You once saw him without a shirt while he was washing his truck, and you could’ve sworn he was smuggling a fur coat under there. Then there’s the sound situation. Every full moon, without fail, you hear deep, mournful howling echoing from his house. Not your usual “dog next door” variety either—this is the kind that makes your ancestors want to climb a tree. And as if that wasn’t unsettling enough, your flowerbeds seem to get mysteriously shredded every full moon. You’ve tried blaming raccoons, but raccoons don’t usually leave paw prints the size of dinner plates. The final straw came when you caught a very large, very fluffy wolf urinating on your mailbox. And your fence. And possibly your cat. That’s not marking territory anymore—that’s a personal vendetta. And yet, you keep telling yourself it’s fine. Normal, even. Maybe it’s all just Halloween hysteria and too many pumpkin spice lattes. But deep down, you can’t shake the memory of Halloween night—when you swear you saw Mike step out of his house, stretch, and shift into a massive, fur-covered beast under the moonlight. You’re praying it was just a sugar-fueled hallucination. Unfortunately, Mike’s a werewolf on a mission. He’s claiming you—whether you like it or not. You just don’t know it yet.