29)

So I got a few hours to myself. Now what?

I kind of wanted to get outside for a while, walk the ground to check them with my own eyes. But I didn’t want to leave the kids alone again. So I checked the camera’s on my phone instead.

I put the burner phone I had spoken to Coventry on back together and checked for messages. Nothing. So I took it back apart again.

I thought about reading on my tablet, or trying to use it for the internet for once, but I got too much nervous energy to sit still and focus on anything.

Guess I need to burn off some of that energy.

I changed into a old set of sweats that had been cut off just above the knee and a tank top since I don’t want to hear either granddaughter go on about getting grossed out by a topless old man and headed down to the gym.

I had mostly been working out with eight pound dumbbells and ankle weights up until I won the lotto. But that had just been for maintaining some muscle tone, not trying to bulk up. Low weight, high repetition. But twice a week I had hit a gym with a bunch of old beat up weight machines to hit all the muscles I wasn't hitting at home.

Since I had gotten used to those beat up old machines, and I had the money, I picked them all up for a generous sum which let Sam update his gym with a bunch of much less used machines and I had gotten the old stuff serviced and installed in my basement.

All of which I had been skipping since getting all healthy by supernatural means. Now I’m not sure if working out still has any benefits, but I'm also curious just how strong I am now.

I started with loading up the overhead press set to hundred pounds, what is what I had lifted as a young man with the idea that a hundred would get me to where I wanted to be strength wise. Which was able to lift up one end of a fridge when helping someone move. As I had gotten older, my bench mark went down to one end of a couch, then a table, then “Let’s the kids get the heavy stuff.” The kids being in their thirties by that point.

So I threw a towel on the seat, courtesy is a habit you should never allow yourself to lose, sat down, grabbed the handles, braced my shoulders, wiggled my butt into place, and lifted.

I could feel the weight of it. I could even judge how heavy it was, but their wasn’t any strain, so, two dozen reps, then pushing past how many I usually did, three dozen more, then four, and finally about half way to five.

No strain, no burn, no sweat.

I set the rack down, took the pins out and popped them into the lowest plate along with two five pound half plates on the top. Two hundred and ten pounds.

It felt pretty much the same, just up another step, about what I would want to work with for just keeping in shape. All without pushing myself, and that was the most the machines could do.

I felt like I could do more, a lot more.

I went and to get my uncle's weight bench out of the closet. I had shoved it in after I got the machines installed. On top of that I began to stack up all the plates from the set he had bought, the plastic ones filled with bee-bees my dad had bought when I was a kid, the one that still survived at least, and some rusted old plates from my grandfather that had inherited from his own father.

Four hundred and seventy pounds all together.

I got my arms underneath it to help support the frame, bent over at the waist so could lift with my back, got one leg below it and slowly started to life the whole mess up.

This I could feel as I got the bench up to my chest, and I felt like I could easily take it up over my head if the plates weren't going to start tumbling down on my head if I did. I held it in place for a moment, getting a feel for the weight.

It felt like this would get me tired eventually, but it also felt I could still do a bit more.

Under the strain, way down in my bones, it felt like I could change so the weight meant nothing. But it wouldn't be changing into a wolf. It would be letting my whole body change like I had changed my hand, something half way between man and wolf, but this time all over.

Not a simple animal, not anything natural, something weaponized.

Something that might leave me less in control.

I admit to being curious, but not with the kids in the house, what I had done with the hand had been reckless, trying to show off like some dumb kid, putting children in danger just so I could get a thrill out of finding out just what I could do.

I didn’t have to figure this out alone anymore, I had the sheriff and probably others that could answer any questions I had instead of experimenting. All I had to do was trust a secret race of magical shape shifters dedicated to keeping their assistance a secret from all outsiders.

But I should be on the inside now, question is, would the kids and their parents be as well.

I didn’t want to bother the sheriff, or let her be in a position where she got to be the only one for me to go to for answers, but I did have a neighbor right next door that I should go and meet sooner or later.

But showing up at the door of a presumably territorial werewolf, with predators around, who had hurt her kid, and me being someone with what might be a legitimate reason to be mad at her, did not sound like a good idea.

I guess I could try calling her. I don’t have her phone number, but I do know where she works.

A quick google got me the non emergency number of the sheriff’s office, and a older sounding gall on the line.

“Hello, Ferdinand County Sheriff’s department, this is Sherry, how can I help you?”

“Hi, this is John Lathe, I live next door to a Deputy Adams, Deborah Adams. I was hoping to talk to her about some property line concerns, but I don’t want to show up at her door uninvited, so I was hoping you could pass on my number and a request for her to call me if you could?”

“Sure John, I would give her a call right now, but the Sheriff just up and moved her to the midnight shift this week so she is probably trying to sleep right now and may not get the message until after eleven or later. So she may not get back to you until tomorrow, early.”

“That’ll work, thanks.”

She gave me a “You’re welcome.” and hung up. Guess she’ll pass on my number from caller ID

I started to set all of the other machines to two hundred pounds each. I guess even getting just a light work out can’t hurt.