Legacy of the Wolf

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!  

The sound of an alarm clock rings off the walls of a small run down studio apartment. Tucked at the back of the 3rd floor of a building that should have been condemned and torn down by now, except for the fact that the greasy landlord still made money off of those who couldn't afford anything else in this gutter swamp of a town.  

 "Great", she thought as she rushed to pull on her shirt and pants and stuff the wild dirty blonde hair on her head into a messy bun and rush out the door. 

MollyJay  was a woman lost in the world around her, at almost 30 years of age she lived on her own, no family to speak of and very few friends, if she could even call them that as they were all the people she worked with. She was an ordinary enough girl, about 5ft 3 with dull blue green eyes, pretty generic neutral skin and dirty blonde hair. She was the poster child of forgotten. And for the most part that was ok by her.

 Mj watched the people on the street as she made her way toward the center of town. All the hustle and bustle of people and their messy lives.

 "It was hard enough to live day to day with the crap around them let alone involve someone in that mess." She thought, watching as people scolded their kids for being late for school. Or as a couple had a very public argument about someone cheating on someone else while clothes and dishes thrown from a nearby apartment window to the unlucky adulteress below. 

"Thankfully" she thought "I dont have to deal with any of that stupid shit, just my own stupid self and the inabilty to wake up on time. 

When the fuck am i gonna grow up?" she huffed to herself with the realization she was now in her late twenties, working in a slaughter house in the same town she had been in for over 20 years! 

She had little education outside of high school and had no other real world experience. "So really doing anything else with her life didn't seem possible anyway".The depressing thought lingered as she made her way to work.

M.J worked 3 jobs at the moment. A part time job at the slaughterhouse, a part time job as a butchers assistant and a night job as a bartender. It kept her pretty busy so a more social life wasn't something she missed. But on mornings like this one sometimes she wondered what it would be like to have someone to talk to.  

The town of Lowder wasn't very big so Mj never bothered with a car. She would have had to maintain it and pay for insurance,and buying new shoes every couple months seemed more cost effective and much less headache to deal with. 

Mj hung her head, of all the mornings to oversleep it had to be the morning Lou was getting a new shipment “I'm really sorry Lou” Mj mumbles as she stuffed her hands in her pockets “I hit the snooze on the alarm clock and fell asleep”. 

Mj felt really guilty, Lou was a really easy going boss, and a better person. Lou didn't have much family aside from his sister Beth, as far as MJ knew or if he didn't like to talk about them or spend any time with them at all. 

Mj had worked for Lou for almost  3 years and he was always at the shop. Even on holidays, it was one thing Lou liked about Mj, that she would work any day of the week no matter what time of year but every holiday season Lou would give Mj a primo cut of whatever new meat he was hooked on that month and always made the excuse that a customer special ordered it and never picked it up.

“ Punk kids and their damn prank calls!” Lou would grumble and hand her a neatly wrapped package that lasted Mj until the next holiday. Mj caught on to what he was doing about a year ago and confronted him about it. She didn't think it was a big deal to ask him why he gave her things but Lou, the normally gentle giant of a man he was, absolutely lost his mind. 

He yelled and screamed and broke the front door to the shop. He screamed and wagged his finger in her face “I never gave anybody anything in they whole damn life MollyJay, what the hell makes you think I would start now”. 

It's true that Lou was a large man both in stature and girth, but he was such a solitary man one almost forgot how terrifying he could be, even for his age. Although Mj was never truly afraid of Lou, be it that his outbursts were far and few between or that they were usually caused by peculiar or silly things and the only objects that ever suffered any physical wrath were the shop itself.

“Look Lou, if you want I can take the truck down to the slaughterhouse and pick it up right now”, Mj said while looking at the ground “you can even take the gas money out of my pay” she offered as a way to help sooth the irritated man that was now engulfing the doorway he had peeked out from. “Fuckin aye right you will missy!” Lou said as he crossed his arms and pointed his chin at her “and after that you will wash the shop front windows and the sign”. 

“Alright Moll just get ur ass movin we got lots of work ta do” Lou said in fatherly tone that made Mj smile, she wasn't really fond of being called Moll either, but Lou was the only one who did and it was better than the alternative so she let it slide “you got it boss” she chirped as she bent over and scooped up the keys.