Funk-N-Fiction

Kicking off year 11 of our Halloween Flash Fiction is Victoria Sue. If you’re not familiar with Victoria’s work, you’re in for a treat!! If you ARE a fan… you will not be surprised that she’s chosen our wolves as inspiration for her story.

Carl Ramsay thought his new job at a pet store would be simple—until a litter of “German Shepherd” puppies turned out to be baby wolf shifters and their enormous, very naked Alpha broke in to rescue them. Between puppy chaos and one very persuasive wolf, Carl’s night goes from ordinary to out-of-this-world. Love might just be the wildest surprise of all.

I had been trying to impress my boss by alphabetizing the chew toys—apparently customers get heated about “Zebra Squeaks” being next to “Yodeling Yams”—but the puppies had other plans.

“Gentlemen,” I told the four wriggling fluff-bombs in the playpen. “We discussed boundaries.”

They blinked up at me with liquid brown eyes that could make a saint hand over the Vatican keys. One, the tiniest with a goofy left ear, chomped delicately on my shoelace and fell backward in surprise.

Mr. Dempsey—the owner of Happy Paws—had called them pure bred German Shepherds, but they weren’t like any German Shepherds I’d ever met.

“Okay, okay, last game and then I close up,” I promised. “Then we do a proper inventory and we—”

All four launched at once, small tornadoes of fur and confidence. I went down like a felled tree, my knees destroying a tasteful display of “Organic Yak Chews” as I took the hit. Puppy tongues. Puppy paws. Puppy tummies.

“Fine,” I gasped, laughing. “I surrender. Take me, tiny wolves.”

They froze.

Four sets of ears swiveled toward the back door.

A distant clatter had rattled through the alley, followed by the unmistakable metal sigh of the dumpster lid. My heart upgraded from “calm retail employee” to “absolutely in a horror movie.” It was late. I was new. Dempsey had disappeared an hour ago with a “You lock up, kid. Last employee didn’t, and the ferrets unionized.”

“Be right back,” I told the pups, grabbing the trash bag I’d knotted up and the aluminum bat we kept by the register for “discount-hungry Karens.” I opened the rear door and froze.

The world narrowed. My brain offered several options, some of which involved fainting, others that involved calling my mother to tell her I loved her despite the casserole incident of 2021.

Because the biggest dog I’d ever seen stood between me and the dumpster. Bigger than a mastiff. Bigger than my hope of ever paying off my student loans. It was a wolf—no, that was ridiculous. Wolves weren’t that… that… theatrical. This one had a coat like spilled ink, a scar cutting through his left eyebrow, and that waiting stillness predators wear like a designer suit.

The wolf tilted his head. His eyes were pale, icy gold.

A low sound rolled out of him, not a growl, not exactly.

He stepped forward.

I did what any brave man would do: I threw the trash bag at him and hit the panic button on my keychain. Which, for reasons unknown, made the front door chime go “Welcome to Happy Paws!” in a chipper voice, and then the world undid itself.

Bones shifted beneath fur—this is where I thought, Okay, Carl, you died, because there was a man standing where the wolf had been.

A very naked man.

I made a noise that came from a part of my soul I had previously reserved for roller coasters and tax audits. The bat clanged to the ground. I grabbed the nearest object—a blue poop-bag dispenser shaped like a fire hydrant—and held it like a talisman.

The man ran a hand through black hair that looked like it had never lost a fight. He had the kind of body that would embarrass Greek statues. There were scars. And there was absolutely nothing in the area where pants should have been covering the area.

I squeaked. I’m not proud.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said gently, lifting both hands. “My name is Tanner. I’m here for the pups.”

“The German Shepherds?” I croaked.

His mouth quirked. “Is that what he called them?”

I nodded. “You’re… you’re…”

“A shifter,” he said. “Yes.”

I took a breath. “Like in movies?”

His voice got brittle. “They’re my pack’s pups. My sister’s litter. We’ve been looking for them for a week.”

Images tumbled through my head—the way the puppies always knew when I was about to turn around, the way they’d frozen when the alley noise came, the intelligence flickering behind the goof.

He refocused on me. “I have a truck around the corner. The back lock on your shop is cheap, so I was just going to break in.”

My mouth moved. Words took longer. “Is there a protocol for the nakedness or do we just… not talk about it?”

That got a huff of laughter from him, quick and surprised. “I shifted because… well, I wanted to talk to you.”

The pups yipped from inside, already plotting a jailbreak. “Can they do that?” I waved at him.

He smirked. “Yes, but at seven they’re old enough to know to stay in their wolf form until the pack finds them, and then adrenaline will keep them in their wolf form for a short while afterwards. What’s your name?

“Carl,” I said. “It’s my first week,” I muttered knowing it was also going to be my last.

“Tanner,” he said a second time clasping my hand which did nothing to calm my body down.

“You’re going to need to wear… something,” I said, feeling my face go full tomato, darted back inside and grabbed a dog towel with golden retrievers on it, all wearing sunglasses.

“Stylish,” he said. Tanner gave me a glinting, briefly wicked grin. “I have clothes in the truck but I’ll still keep this.”

We approached the pen together. The instant Tanner stepped in, the pups went silent. Their noses quivered. One, then another, then all four gave a high, soft whine that went straight into my chest and detonated into something warm and gooey. They scrambled over each other, not to me this time but toward Tanner, little tails beating the air.

“Hey,” he whispered, kneeling. The towel held much to my disappointment. He held out his hands, letting the pups climb into his lap, press to his neck, lick his chin. The tiniest I’d named Skye—burrowed against his wrist, sighing like a person who had finally found their pillow.

Tanner nodded. “They were in the play area and all had their first shift suddenly, panicked, and ran outside,” he said quietly. “My wolves followed but a human must have found them almost immediately, and not a very honest one if they ended up here.”

We moved like we’d rehearsed it, which was absurd. I switched the lights to “night mode,” which made the fish glow like tiny neon signs and the ferrets go instantly asleep like someone had unplugged them. Tanner gathered the pups, speaking in a low mix of English and something else that might have been a language or might have just been the sound of love. I left the front register drawer open the way Dempsey had instructed in case of actual robbers—“They’ll be so offended by the lack of cash, they’ll leave a Yelp review,” he liked to say.

“You should go,” I said, and the words surprised me by hurting. We’d known each other for six minutes and a lifetime. “Before Dempsey comes back.”

Tanner’s grin flashed again. “Can you blame this on a break-in? I don’t want you to lose your job.”

I nodded. “He’s too cheap to have cameras, and I’m resigning, as in immediately.”

He nudged the door open with his hip and shot me a look over his shoulder. “Come with us.”

My footsteps faltered. “What?”

“Just to the truck,” he amended. “Just to see them safe. You don’t have to get involved more than you already have.”

He was very persuasive in a towel. I followed.

The alley felt different with him in it; the shadows were still there, but they seemed to be on our side. The truck was an unremarkable silver thing with a dented bumper and a sticker that said I BRAKE FOR SQUIRRELS. He opened the back, we slid the carrier in, and the pups, apparently exhausted from their jailbreak, never so much as flicked an eyelid.

“You must be cold,” I blurted, because my mother raised me right and also because there was still a lot of nakedness going on under that towel.

“Little bit,” he admitted cheerfully. “Clothes always tear. It’s a whole thing.”

“You can’t wear, like, tear-away pants?”

He laughed. It carved a dimple into his cheek and did things to my insides that should have required a permit.

Tanner’s gaze flicked to my mouth and back to my eyes, swift as a heartbeat. He shut the van and leaned against it, crossing his arms. “We have doctors,” he said. “Lawyers. We keep to ourselves mostly. But we’re… around. We protect our young. I’m the Alpha of my pack. It’s my job to bite what bites us.”

“Is that on a business card?” I asked, because flirting is just panic with better PR.

He tilted his head, amused. “Would you want it to be?”

I swallowed. “Maybe.”

The night hummed. Somewhere a siren wove past like a tired song. Inside the truck, a pup dreamed, tiny paws paddling.

“I should go,” Tanner said finally, regret in the words. “Before anyone notices the world is better off without Dempsey’s inventory.”

“Wait,” I said, and fumbled out my phone. “Can I—? Can I have your number or is that, like, a state secret?”

His smile turned soft, almost shy, which was unfair on a man who had turned from a wolf ten minutes ago. He rattled off a number. I entered it and texted him a wolf emoji.

His phone buzzed somewhere in the truck.

He reached out to me. I thought he was going to shake my hand, like a normal person, in this impossible night. Instead, he caught my wrist gently, lifted it, and pressed his nose there for a second—just a breath, a soft touch, a wild and tender hello. It should have been weird. It wasn’t. It felt like being seen in a language my skin understood before my head did.

“Thank you, Carl Ramsay,” he said, releasing me. “For believing me. For them.”

“Anytime,” I said, and meant it more than made sense. “I hope to say hi to them again.”

Tanner’s mouth tipped. “Preferably when they can say hi back,” he said confidently. Then, with a last look, he slid into the driver’s seat, the towel behaving miraculously, the truck purring to life. He rolled down the window. “I’ll text when they’re safe. We’re going to talk to some people about Dempsey.”

“And by talk you mean—”

“Bite what bites us,” he said, that wicked glint returning.

The van left with a whisper, taillights smearing red across the damp pavement. I stood for a long minute, the empty alley suddenly enormous. When I finally went back inside, I bashed the lock on the back door with the bat, and gave the ferrets a solidarity treat.

I left my resignation note on Dempsey’s desk.

Two hours later, my phone buzzed. A photo popped up: four pups in a dog pile on a worn leather couch. Behind them, a pair of strong hands—Tanner’s hands—held the edge of a towel.

Safe, the next text read. Thank you again. Coffee tomorrow? I owe you one and approximately fourteen explanations.

I stared at it and grinned like an idiot into my empty apartment.

Only fourteen? I typed back. Bold of you to assume I won’t require twenty.

His reply came with a wolf emoji and a coffee cup. A walk, he added. They’ll want to show you the creek. Also, I found pants, but these don’t have cute dogs on them. 11 am? I can collect you if you text me your addy.

My heart did a complicated, joyful thing. See you tomorrow, Alpha Tanner, I wrote and sent him my address.

I put my phone on the nightstand and lay back. Somewhere out there, a man who turned into a wolf was tucking his family into bed. Tomorrow there would be coffee and explanations. There would be a conversation that started with “So. Shifters,” and continued into places I didn’t have names for yet.

For now, though, there was this picture: four pups safe, a man who still wore a towel I’d given him, and me, Carl Ramsay, discovering that sometimes, you turn a corner and run into the kind of trouble that looks suspiciously like hope.