 One man's trash is another man's treasure. That's what my mom always said, every Tuesday and Friday, when she'd take me with her to go yard-sailing as she put it, every summer and my younger years. I must admit, it was kind of interesting seeing what other people had for sale. I got some really cool toys back then. GI Joes, Legos, I even found a complete Rock'em Sock'em Robots game one time. I still have it upstairs in my closet. I love that game. Anyway, mom used to find some nice stuff too. Purses, shoes, knickknacks, you know, mom stuff. She used to get stuff for dad too. Now, as I got older, in addition to Tuesdays and Fridays, we would go shopping as my mom put it. Every Sunday evening, the night before trash pickup, we'd ride around town in dad's truck. Dad stayed home, shopping wasn't really his thing. So we'd ride around town in dad's truck and see what people were thrown away in their trash, dressers, tables, bed frames, all kinds of stuff. Some of it was in good condition. Some needed a little work and some of it really was trash. Mom and I would bring home the good stuff. Dad would refinish it and they would either keep it or sell it at their own yard sale. It was a great way to make extra cash. Now, as I grew into adulthood, I kept the same family tradition. I go yard sailing every chance I get, bring home furniture from the side of the road, and I've also taken to wandering through random wooded areas in search of new treasures. In three months ago, I found one. No, I mean, I really found one. Well, what I found first brought sadness to my heart. What came after it made me smile. You see, I was on my way home from work. I'm a linesman for North Providence Telephone Company. But who cares about that? Anyway, I'm driving home in my beat up Mazda 626. There was an accident further up the road, causing traffic to come to a standstill. It was like 100 degrees outside. My car didn't have air conditioning. And after being outside in it most of the day, I had had enough of the heat. I slowly turned right onto the shoulder of the road, which you really shouldn't do. And made a right at the next intersection. It was a longer drive to get home. The air was still hot, but at least I wasn't sitting still on it. I came upon a patch of trees that I'd been wanting to explore, but couldn't find the time. A huge patch. So I put my foot on the brake and pulled over onto the grass right before the trees. I put the car in park and turned it off. I opened the glove box pulled out of flashlight, as I didn't know how long I'd be in there. And it would be getting dark in about an hour or so. I walked in and began looking around. There was a strange thickness in the air. I walked for about a half an hour, finding only an old John Deere hat, an old weathered shoe, and a broken pair of sunglasses. The sun was starting to go down at that point. I flipped on my flashlight, and I still continued looking. I walked for about another twenty minutes, and I found absolutely nothing. I was just about ready to give up. When I heard a noise to my right, I quickly turned to look, and for a split second, I could have sworn I saw someone standing by a tree. I blinked my eyes, and the figure was gone. Then I saw it. I didn't know what it was at first. I just knew it was big. I held the light on it as I walked closer. Oh my God, it's a car, I thought. How did it even get in here? It was totally demolished, broken windows, flat tires, dense all over it, and graffiti everywhere. But the doors and the seats were still intact. The seats were shredded, but still intact. And the keys still in the ignition. I couldn't tell what kind of car it was from all the damage. I got to the passenger side, opened the back door, shined my light in, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Styrofoam cups, candy wrappers, and fast food containers mostly. And then I went to the front door, opened it, and sat down on the front seat. Nothing strange there either. Old cigarette butts in the ashtray, a soda can in the cup holder, and a book of matches on the floor. Now I don't know what told me to do this, but something told me to look in the glove box. So I did. I opened it up. The door fell to the floor, along with a few old napkins, some ketchup packets, and a cassette tape with the words play me on it, inside a clear plastic case. We've all seen that movie where this guy or girl, I really can't remember, finds a videotape in the closet of their new home with those same words on it. They play it, then all kinds of crazy shit happens. You know what I'm talking about, right? I'm not gonna lie, I thought about just leaving it there, because that movie kind of freaked me out. But this was the most mysterious and coolest thing I'd ever found. I'm gonna take it. I thought, I got an old boombox somewhere in the garage that can play this thing. So I did. I took it, put it in my pocket, got out of the car, and shut the door. I drove home, found the old boombox, and I listened to the tape. I couldn't believe what I heard. I took the liberty of transcribing the tape word for word. It took me about a half hour to do so. Here it is. Sometimes in life, you just get tired of being who you are, being what you are. So you change it. I mean, if you don't like your job, you get a new one, right? If you don't particularly like a certain thing about yourself, you change it, right? Well, that's what I did. I struggled for the first year or so. Temptation lied in wait around every corner. But I did it. I finally put my past behind me. Or so I thought. You see, over the past 12 years, I've seemed to keep the demons of my past at bay. Until tonight. What happened tonight brought everything back to the surface. Now, before I get started, let me tell you a little about myself. My name is York. Go ahead, make fun of me if you like. I know York the dork. Haha, very funny. Now that you've had your amusement for the day, let's move forward, shall we? Now in case you didn't know, York is an old Irish name. My grandmother and grandfather on my father's side were born in Ireland. I don't know anything about my other set of grandparents. Shortly after their marriage, my grandparents moved here to the good old US of A. My grandfather got an apprenticeship position with a watchmaker here, then took the knowledge that he learned over the years, I assume, and opened up his own shop. Soon after doing this, it was announced that my grandmother was with child. My father was born nine months later. At the age of 19, my father married a woman two years his senior named Emily. The marriage only lasted a couple years, five to be exact. In that five year span of time, my mother and father only produced one thing that's noteworthy. Me. Now, after the divorce, I apparently went to go live with my father when I was three. And from what I've discovered through research, I was shipped off to the Bennington School for boys soon after, citing uncontrollable outbursts and behavioral problems as the reason why. I can hardly remember anything about my mother or father. After my mother practically abandoned me, and my father stuck me in that God awful place, I had no desire to want to know either of them. Around the age of five, I discovered that I was, well, a unique child. Unique. Yeah, that's a good name for it. Let's just leave it at that. Now, as you can probably already imagine, I was quite a handful as a child, always getting in fights for which I mostly won, hiding food in my locker, chewing with my mouth open, you know, those type of things. The school didn't like me very much. So much so that for the majority of my stay there, I was placed in solitary confinement as I was clearly different from the other boys. I found out shortly before my release, that when the authorities found out about my uniqueness, they decided that it would be best to keep it under wraps, so to speak, in fear of a scandal. They kept me locked away. They fed me scraps and water only. Now, when I turned 18, I was released from the boys' school and thrown out into the world, knowing only the basics of survival. My behavioral pattern continued to get worse, and I was arrested many times for different things. The last time I was in jail, I met a man who once went through what I was going through, only a little different. He taught me how to control my impulses, turn them into positive things, instead of the negative. He completely changed my life. When I got out of jail, my impulses were still strong, though. Now, I must admit, I fell off the wagon a few times in the beginning, but I pulled myself together and I became the person I am now or was. I got a job at a little diner type restaurant named Chelsea's as a bus boy when I was 23. It didn't pay much, but it paid enough to where I could run a room at the local flop house just down the street. And that's where I met my wife at Chelsea's, not the flop house. I was clear in one of the tables, putting the dishes and such into a large gray tote. I was the only bus boy there that night. The other guy called out and I was trying to hurry. When I finished wiping the table, I grabbed the tote, turned around quickly and I ran right into her. She screamed and fell back against the table, causing me to drop the tote, breaking all the dishes. Oh my God, are you okay? I asked her nervously. She then looked at me with the most beautiful blue eyes I'd ever seen. Yeah, I'm fine. She said, smiling. You just startled me. My boss is going to kill me, I said, as three other girls walked by giggling. She then went to join her friends at the table. As if I wasn't embarrassed enough, I had to walk right past their table to get to the kitchen. I took a deep breath, let it out, and began walking. About forty-five minutes later, I was clearing another table when she came walking up to me. Hi, I'm Janice. She said, here's my number, call me. And handed me a folded piece of napkin. I'm York. I responded, I will. She then smiled, waved, and left. Looking back just before she walked out the door to wave once more. I called her the next day and we started dating. We were married one year later. I'm sorry for babbling. I just like to tell that story. Now, as I said, we were married a year later. We stayed with her parents in a small basement apartment until I saved enough money to rent an actual apartment. Two years after that, we had our first child, a boy. We decided to name him Stephen. Two years after that, we had our second child, this time a girl. We decided to name her Autumn. As time went on, we saved what little money we could, having two toddlers and all, and eventually bought a small three-bedroom ranch-style house in town. Life was going great. Until tonight. Tonight. Everything went to shit. Now, they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that statement is absolutely true. My intention was good. Protect my wife and family the only way I knew how. But in doing so, I caused the hell I'm in right now. Last night was family night out, dinner, and a movie. Everyone was having a great time. Right on the way home, we stopped for gas. We could have made it home, but I don't like letting the tank get below a quarter. So we pulled to the pump. Janice had to use the bathroom, and the kids wanted to look around, so we all went in. I was about to say I need 30 on 5 when the door chime went off, and a deep male voice told everyone to get down on the ground. He fired two shots in the ceiling. My kids began to scream. I told them to get down, and I felt those impulses start building. I turned back around to see the barrel of a handgun pointed directly at my forehead. He screamed to the cashier to give him the money, as the sound of him fumbling with a register soon followed. I just stood there. I wasn't afraid. But then he pointed the gun at my wife. Now it's one thing to point a gun in my face. It's a whole different ballgame when you threaten my wife. I turned to the cashier and said, get down and stay down. Now those impulses that I mentioned earlier, well, they came to the surface. I felt my eye sockets shift as my vision became masked in crimson. I felt my skeletal frame and my muscles begin to morph into what I truly am. Thick black hair began piercing my skin as it grew and covered my entire body, ripping my clothes in the process. My nose and my teeth were replaced with elongated snout and fangs. My ears shifted. My hands and feet became claws and I dropped down on all fours, letting out a deep growl. The full transformation took mere seconds to complete. The guy turned around and fired four shots into my chest as I pounced on him. The bullets did nothing. They didn't even hurt. Only a silver bullet can kill a werewolf, you know. I ripped his entire face off with one bite. Blood was everywhere and I was tearing his body limb from limb. When I heard it, my wife screamed. I looked at her and she was terrified. I stepped over the bloody body and I took a step towards her, get away from me. She said. She gathered the kids and they ran out the door screaming. All I could do was watch. Before they left, I saw my children, my children. Look at me with fear in their eyes. I would never hurt my children. I would never hurt my wife ever. I was protecting them. I heard sirens blaring in the distance and I ran out the back door. I ran the whole 10 plus miles to our house hoping to find my wife and the kids there. But they weren't. All of her clothes and all of my kids clothes were gone. I looked on the wall and saw our wedding picture broken. A little piece of me died when I saw that. I fell to my knees and I cried. And then after a long while, I walked to our bedroom. I walked over to my dresser and I pulled out the only thing my mother ever gave me. A small black box. I remember when she gave it to me outside of the courthouse. She said, you'll know when you have to use this. That was the last time I saw her. I didn't understand then, but I understand now because inside the box is a silver bullet I kept it after all these years. And then I drove. I knew what I had to do. Whoever finds this car can have it. I've already signed the title. I'm recording this in hopes that maybe somebody will find this tape and hear my story. Maybe Janice will hear it or Steven or Autumn and know that I was only trying to protect them. Know that I love them. And know that I'm sorry. That's where the tape ends. Now I'm not ashamed to admit it. The first time I heard it, I cried. I called a buddy of mine whose father owns a towing service and an auto repair shop. I had him tow the car to the shop. I took two old boards and I made a cross. I painted it white, wrote York on it and put it in the ground where I'd found the car. I don't know exactly where he died, so I did the best I could. I did a little research and come to find out there was a suicide that happened in those woods back in 2003. Police reports stated that the victim's name was York O'Brien identified by the driver's license in his wallet. For some reason, I sunk every bit of money I had into restoring that car and come to find out that massive heap of junk was actually a 67 Ford Mustang. It took them two months to completely restore it. I even got a vanity plate from the DMV that simply says, for York on it. I've been driving around in it for about a month now. And sometimes when I'm riding, I swear out of the corner of my eye, I see someone sitting in the passenger seat that looks exactly like the figure I saw in the woods that day. But when I turn my head, he's gone. Now I still go yard sailing, I still pick up furniture on the side of the road and it makes me happy doing so. Nothing makes me happier than when I'm riding down some back road, the radio blaring with York riding along with me.