[ WP ] Were-humans ...

For the third night, Phil could n't sleep in his room. The scritchy-scractching in the walls, though normally the mundane doings of a mouse or a rat, the last few nights were exceptional. The house was too old to bother maintaining, and short of taking an axe to the walls there would be no fishing them out. But there was a squealing, hours long trills of pain, as if something had clutched the thing in talons. As the month came to an end it had built up, loudened into a crescendo, always in the dead of night. He'd never quit a job in his life, but caring for this particular manor might prove an exception. 
 
 And tonight the chorus continued. The squealing noise, too high pitched to pinpoint, clawed at the back of his mind, through even the thickest pillow. The clock in the living room began to chime it's 11th hour, no doubt Phil would be there for all of them as the hours turned. 
 
 Then it happened. A loud, crunching, popping sound, floorboards distending and shifting in the house. There was no squealing, there was screaming. A woman's scream, loud and shrill, sobbing, terrified. 
 Phil sat bolt upright from his couch, a crawling feeling wrapped up his spine. 
 
 `` Hello?!'' 
 
 He yelled. She continued screaming, banging on a wall. Phil quickly put on shoes and switched on lights as he hurried toward her voice. But as he opened doors and searched, he realized she was n't actually in any of the rooms. 
 
 Running between doors to double check, he stopped in the hall, realizing the sound of screaming was loudest was n't coming from a room. It was in the wall. He scrambled for an object, anything, to bust in the wall with. His hands finally came across a sturdy lamp base, heavy and blunt. 
 `` I'm coming to get you! Just hold on!'' 
 
 He began smashing around the wall, steering away from the center of the noise, so as not to hurt her. 
 
 She'd begun to hyperventilate, he could hear her erratic breathing, wherever she was, whatever was happening to her was traumatic. 
 Finally a large section of the wall ripped free of the mooring. And behind it, solid bricks, mottled with cobwebs and mildew, a permanent remnant of a hasty addition to the house. 
 
 He dropped his lamp, knowing it'd be useless. But he could n't give up, not yet. He sprinted downstairs, outside to the old shed, her screams following him the whole way. 
 
 Clicking on the lamp, the light fell on the perfect utility, a large iron pickaxe, probably decades old, layered with dust. 
 
 Wheezing as he ran, he dashed up the groaning staircase to the brick wall, fishing his phone out of his pocket. The emergency line buzzed momentarily, picking up to a live operator. 
 
 `` 911, what is the emergency?'' 
 
 `` There's a lady trapped in my wall!'' 
 
 `` Sir?'' 
 
 `` A woman! There is a woman trapped in the goddamn wall!'' 
 
 `` What happened? How did she get trapped?'' 
 
 `` I do n't know, maybe she's a cat burglar or something, can you hear her screaming on the line? We need a battering ram or something, she's probably suffocating!'' 
 
 The operator took his details down, promising aid. `` I'm gon na do what I can to get her out, it sounds like she's in terrible pain! Just hurry!'' 
 With that he began wailing on the wall, the loud tink-tink of the pick echoing into the foyer amid the screams. 
 
 He was making progress. Large chunks of rubble began to fall to his feet, but knowing the old house he was far from finished. Exhausted and running the last fumes of his adrenaline, his swings slowed. As a layer of bricks finally came loose, he wept at the sight of yet another boundary of them, he collapsed to his knees. Inside the wall, the woman's screaming had begun to die down, her voice too hoarse to carry, she mostly sobbed now. 
 
 `` I... I'm so sorry, miss.'' He said, sweating and wheezing, `` I'm still here, please, the police are coming to help! They've got firetrucks and paramedics!'' 
 His arms and legs were twisted with cramps. Foolishly, and at the behest of the sleepless night prior, he closed his eyes. 
 
 The pounding at the door startled him to life, leaping to his feet. It'd been hours now, and the dawn of the new day was near. 
 
 He flung open the door for the firemen and police, who stormed up stairs to the site. A paramedic checked Phil briefly, trying to assure him he'd done all he could, as the grown men tallied away at the remaining wall, Phil finally gathered the strength to rejoin them and watched as the wall finally began to crumble away. The sunlight of morning poured through the window at the end of the hall, illuminating the last brick in their way. 
 
 With a final swing, a cascade of rotten bricks spilled free, revealing beyond. 
 
 A layer, a structural gap between 2x4's and foundation no more than a few odd inches wide, lay open to them. 
 
 `` What in god's name?'' Said a fireman, stepping back from the scene. Paramedics popped flashlights into the space, the glare of red was startling. Blood, pools and swatches of it, lined the interior. Claw marks drew dire mazes everywhere within an arc of reach. 
 
 The policemen turned to Phil. `` Well, where is she?'' 
 
 `` I see something moving in there!'' Yelled a paramedic. 
 
 A single rat, covered in blood, emerged from the wall. It wiped its ears and sat unphased by the glaring lights upon it. 
 
 `` There's no way someone got in there! Jesus, it's like they got crushed between the boards and just... popped.'' Said a medic. 
 
 `` Well, blood like that does n't just show up from nowhere! No, somebody was inside that thing!'' Said an officer. 
 
 The gaze began to fall back onto Phil. `` Son... I think you'd better come with me.
