We Can Eat This or We Can Eat You

“Who had the avocado egg rolls, Cuban sandwich with sweet potato fries, and the slice of triple berry cheesecake?” 

Our waitress is petite, blonde, and harried in the wake of our sizable lunch. 

“That’s mine,” Selina doesn’t blink her arresting turquoise eyes as she holds out a hand for her check. She’s even smaller than the waitress, with milky skin and straight black hair pulled up in a bun. 

“And next,” The waitress pauses to read the next receipt, “I have sweet corn tamale cakes, shepherd's pie, and carrot cake?”

“That’s me,” Luna’s eyes, hair, and skin are all the color of caramel. Her frame is as broad and muscular as Selina’s is tiny, and her eyes brim with predatory amusement at the waitress's discomfort, “But you forgot the steak frites.”

“Right. I’ll get those added,” The waitress wilts a little, then bravely plasters on a smile before turning to me, “That leaves you with the factory nachos, pasta carbonara, and brownie crunch cheesecake?”

“I think that covers it,” I brush back a stray peach-colored curl as I take my check. I don’t need a mirror to see that my lime green eyes are dancing with the same merriment as Luna’s.

“Can I bring you anything else?” The waitress assesses a sea of empty plates on our table, “No boxes?”

Luna snorts, “What would we put in them?”

That flusters the waitress a little, “I-of course, I-”

“No boxes,” I confirm, rescuing her. Humans are usually fine around us on the day of a full moon, but prolonged interactions can trigger a sort of inherent prey response. I don’t need our lunch to end in tears or shrieking, “If you bring us the corrected check, we’re good to go.”

She nods and hurries off, stealing one last nervous glance at our table.

“Come on, Celeste,” Luna protests good-naturedly, “Let me have a little fun.”

“We’re going to have plenty of that soon,” Selina says before I can respond. Her eyes gleam as she nods to a nearby table, “Look.”

We turn, not bothering to hide our curiosity. Two middle-aged women are standing up from their lunch. They both have platinum blonde hair, salon-tanned skin, and makeup at least a quarter of an inch thick. They’re wearing designer tank tops and yoga pants from a brand I can’t be bothered to recognize, and they carry canvas totes on their shoulders. A glance at their table reveals two small half-eaten salads and an untouched loaf of rich brown bread.

They make their way past our table, and one conveniently stops next to us to adjust her tote, “Looks like you ladies had a fun lunch,” She comments, eyeing our plates. 

“We did!” I reply cheerfully. 

“Just be careful,” The other chides, resting a perfectly manicured hand on Luna’s shoulder, “Eating like that catches up with you. One day you hit forty and then, oof-!” 

The pair titters, and we laugh with them, “We can eat this or we can eat you,” Luna says playfully.

Her tone is at such odds with her words that it takes a moment for them to register. Then the women both freeze, confusion in their eyes. They look at us, three women in their late twenties wearing sweatpants and graphic t-shirts with wolves, and they don’t see predators. But, just like the waitress, they suddenly sense that something’s off.

Selina swiftly breaks the standoff, “Nice talking to you!”

They nod and hurry away without another word.

“That goes to Luna,” I sigh.

Selina cocks her head, considering, “I don’t know if we can count it. They didn’t really single any of us out.”

“Are you kidding?” Luna protested, “She was practically digging those claws into me! I’ll probably have a bruise!”

“We count physical contact,” I remind Selina. 

She huffs, “All right. Fine.”

The waitress returns with Luna’s check, “Thank you for coming,” She says, gathering our plates into a stack so lofty I doubt she’ll get it off the table.

“Thank you!” I answer, brushing crumbs off the wolves on my shirt, “Need some help with that?”

She just glares at me.

“What next?” Selina asks as we walk to her car, “Ice cream? Ramen? Brazilian steakhouse?”

Luna brightens, “I don’t have to pay for this round! Brazilian steakhouse!”

“So early?” I protest, “I’d like to save that for the end. Plus it’ll be empty right now. They’re bound to get suspicious.”

“Tough luck! It’s my pick!” 

I give her a playful shove, “You are the most stubborn werewolf I know.”

“Takes one to know-”

“Ah! No!”

Selina’s exclamation interrupts our teasing, and we both stop to look at her. She’s practically snarling down at her phone, “I made them promise not to bother me today, but they’re still texting! The bride’s mother found out our produce isn’t organic, and she’s having a meltdown!”

Selina runs a catering company, and not a day goes by without someone complaining about what’s in her food. One day it’s sugar, the next it’s seed oils. Food dye. Artificial sweeteners. The list only gets more extreme as the years pass.

“Ugh, humans are so ungrateful,” I open the car door and get in, “First century where we aren’t all starving, and they complain about how unhealthy the food is!”

“Right?” Selina agrees, “Would they rather worry about surviving the winter?”

“Or eat meat crawling with maggots?” 

“Give up their children because they can’t feed them?”

“Kill their neighbors in a bloody rampage?” Luna exclaims.

We both look at her, “I mean, that’s only if they were werewolves,” I point out. 

“Which plenty of them were!”

She has a point. I shudder as I imagine myself in a tiny village on the edge of civilization, with barely enough food to survive day-to-day.

Then I imagine the hunger of the full moon. 

See, humans have werewolves all wrong. They imagine us as ravening beasts, slaves to our basest impulses. Murderers. Monsters. 

But our true nature is far more benign. We’re just hungry.

Have you ever thought about the amount of energy it takes to transform into a wolf and back in the course of one night? All the muscles, organs, and bones that have to reposition? The fur that has to grow and then shed? The teeth that enlarge, sharpen, and then retract? It can’t be done on an empty stomach, or even a normal human diet. We can die if we don’t take in enough calories, either ahead of the first transformation or once we’re in werewolf form. 

How many calories is enough? We didn’t know until about fifty years ago, when a few werewolves were able to do some clandestine experiments. They found that, no matter the age, gender, or size of the individual, the calories needed for a controlled transformation is 30,000. They have to be ingested in the twelve hours before midnight, but the type of food doesn’t matter. Steak, ice cream, nachos, broccoli…any of them work just fine. Eat enough, and we get to have a peaceful night curled up in a dog bed or running through the forest howling at the moon. Fail and, well, you can see why we have stories about waking up in the carcass of our neighbor’s cow. 

It used to be nearly impossible for us to find enough food before a full moon. Human civilization simply didn’t produce that level of excess, and we had no choice but to run rampant and suffer the often-fatal fury of our neighbors. But the last century of human food production has been a boon. With so much extra food available, all we have to do now is a little extra grocery shopping. A few frozen pizzas, some cheesecakes, and a couple of gallons of ice cream and we’re set. 

But sometimes it’s more fun to go out. 

We pull up to the Brazilian steakhouse a few minutes after two. It’s mostly empty, so we’re seated quickly. We flip the card to green, and the meat starts flowing. We enjoy the stream of sirloin, pork, ribeye, sausage, chicken, pineapple, and more for close to an hour before taking a break for salads and a mound of savory feijoada with rice. But we can’t resist more meat, so we flip the card to green again. I’m lifting a bite of succulent parmesan sirloin to my lips when three muscular college students enter the restaurant.

Luna assesses them and rolls her eyes, “Gym bros.”

“Great,” Selina growls, “Now I’m going to have to listen to a whole hour of talk about protein and gains.”

Our hearing is exceptional, so we can indeed hear everything the gym bros say as they’re seated across the room. It takes a predictably short interval before we’re mentioned, “Dude,” One nudges another with an unsubtle glance at our table, “Check out those girls over there.”

“The ones in the sweatpants?”

“Yeah. Are those wolves on their shirts?”

“That’s hilarious! I saw shirts like that in a gas station once.”

Luna snorts, and I roll my eyes. Eating for the full moon requires comfort, gentlemen. Imagine trying to eat 30,000 calories in anything but sweatpants and a t-shirt! 

A few exquisite minutes of meat pass before we come up again, “Dang, they’re packing it away! Look at them go!”

“I wish my girlfriend would eat like that!”

“But you don’t want your girlfriend to look like them!”

“Gross, no. Can you imagine Lynn in a wolf shirt?”

“We should buy her one!”

They all snicker. This is starting to distract us from our meat, and even worse the servers are looking annoyed every time they come by. So I turn our card to red and signal for the check. Werewolves have to be careful at buffets before the full moon. We could stay here and eat like this until midnight, but it tends to arouse suspicion and ire. Better to pay and move on to quieter options. 

“That time we all won,” I say once we’re out of the restaurant, “All equally judged.”

“Lynn won too, whoever she is,” Selina said with mock solemnity, “She gets a fantastic new shirt.”

I let out a bark of laughter at that, and Selina and Luna join in. Here’s the thing. Three women are simply not allowed to wear sweatpants and eat huge portions in public. When we go out before the full moon, we always get stares. Snarky comments. Jokes. Offers for therapy or medication. Insults. Teasing. It takes different forms, but it’s rare for us to make it through a single one of our many meals without some sort of commentary. The public ridicule drives most werewolves to be private about eating before a full moon. Embarrassed. Ashamed.

We made it a game. 

Before the full moon, we dress comfortably and eat whatever we want. We smile at the humans around us. Enjoy their petty judgement. Because we’re doing them a favor, eating out instead of eating them. And because whoever suffers the worst at one meal gets to pick the next, paid for by the other two. 

Nothing is better than free food, especially not before a full moon. 

And the humans do not disappoint today. We go for ice cream next, and a mother loudly announces to her two children that the added sugars in Luna’s four scoops of strawberry ice cream are an addictive substance. 

Selina is sipping the dregs of her third bowl of tonkotsu ramen when a man approaches her and gleefully announces that he won a bet with his wife as to whether or not she’d finish it. 

I get a high five from our waiter after I polish off my second chimichanga. 

And after Selina downs her fifth basket of cheese fries, a woman leans over from the booth across from us and spends ten agonizing minutes telling her about a new injectable weight loss drug that makes the pounds “melt off like butter on a hot griddle.”

Sounds painful. 

Eleven hits as we’re leaving the burger joint, and our moods abruptly fizzle. We still haven’t eaten enough to be in control when we transform, and the hunger makes us anxious, “Cheesecake?” I suggest, buckling my seat belt. We always leave a few emergency cheesecakes in the fridge on full moon days, “We should have just enough time.”

“Mm, we already had cheesecake,” Selina checks her phone, “There’s a pizza buffet just down the road, and it’s open until midnight. Let’s finish there.”

I hesitate, “Do you want to risk it? What if they’re running low?”

“Then I’m sure we can find a grocery store or something,” Selina says, “Come on. I just sat through a monologue on weight loss drugs. I get to pick the next spot.”

I shrug, too hungry to argue, and she drives for close to ten minutes before pulling into a parking lot with a handful of cars. We’re on the edge of town now, and darkness envelopes us on all sides. There’s a national forest nearby that’ll be perfect for later, but my anxiety deepens. There’s nothing else out here if this is a bust.

Luckily, the spicy aroma of pizza wafts from the restaurant the instant we open the door. We choose a table, and it only takes moments for each of us to pile a plate high with slices. We receive wide-eyed stares from the patrons around us, but this time no one says anything as we devour them. 

I hit satiation about twenty minutes to midnight. One bite I’m laser-focused on my loaded baked potato pizza, and the next I couldn’t care less about it. The knot that was building in my stomach unwinds, and my thoughts turn to the forest outside with its full moon and stars. I suddenly ache to run through the perfect inky night, and I shift restlessly while Luna and Selina finish.

Luna puts down her slice a couple minutes later, expression relaxed, but Selina is looking more and more tense, “I’m going for another round,” She announces, returning to the buffet.

“Hurry, Selina,” I murmur, checking my phone. Ten minutes. 

I relax a little when she returns with a loaded plate, but then there’s an angry shout. The cook emerges from the kitchen, greasy apron still tied over his hairy barrel chest, “You!” He yells, pointing at Selina and her loaded plate, “You pig! You cleaned out the buffet!”

We blink at him, “It’s…all you can eat?” I opine tentatively.

“Not like this!” He pinches the top slice of pizza off Selina’s plate with thick, dirty fingers, “This is ridiculous! No one needs this much food!”

“I can eat that or I can eat you,” Selina’s voice is tight, and she’s starting to sweat.

“And now you’re going to threaten me?” The cook’s face purples with rage, and in one motion he sweeps the plate of pizza to the floor. Slices of pepperoni and Canadian bacon tumble, smearing sauce and cheese, “Slobs! Get out!”

Selina slams her hands on the table and half-stands with a snarl, but Luna and I intercept her and drag her outside. We only have minutes to midnight, and we can’t afford any violence, “Did you see anything nearby?” I shout to Luna, who jumps in the driver’s seat as I push Selina into the car, “Gas station? Grocery store? Fruit stand?”

“I didn’t!” She answers frantically, putting the car in reverse as Selina starts to writhe, “We only have two minutes anyway! There’s no time!”

We barely manage to park at a trailhead and tumble out before the transformation begins. I step out of the trees a few minutes later, shaking leaves and moss from my curly peach coat. I’m soon joined by a muscular caramel-colored werewolf, “Did you see where she went?” Luna asks anxiously. 

I never get to answer. A piercing howl rends the air, and a small black and white werewolf tears out of the forest. Her jaw is slack, drooling, and her turquoise eyes are crazed. She passes us without a glance and runs straight for the road.

“Selina!” I cry. Luna and I give chase, but Selina’s ravenous hunger drives her faster. She doesn’t stop until she reaches the pizza buffet.

Where the cook happens to be outside, throwing out the night’s garbage. 

Luna and I skid to a stop as the screams begin. We watch for a moment, panting, heads cocked, “We should probably intervene or something,” I finally say, my tone light and unhurried.

“Should we?” Luna sounds equally unbothered, “He was pretty rude.”

“He was, wasn’t he?” I agree, “And she did warn him.”

“She did!” Luna flops down to watch, “Maybe next time he’ll let her finish her pizza.”

“I don’t think he’s getting a next time,” I sit down next to her. I look up at the sky and go back to dreaming about the forest, the moon, and the stars.