"Hello," Shirley cooed as she made her way into the study room. She put her signature bag on the floor before putting a large ornate cross that was in her other hand on the table.

"Shirley, what's that?" Britta asked.

"It's a cross. I know you don't believe in God, but I figured you'd at least know what this is."

"I know what a…" Britta gritted her teeth in frustration before continuing. "I'm just asking why you have it here."

"I had a presentation in my religious allegory class and I brought it in to pass around."

"Is that thing real silver?" Pierce asked.

"Yes it is," Shirley exclaimed proudly. "100% silver. It was a wedding gift when Andre and I got married."

"You know, I know I guy who can fetch you a few hundred dollars-."

"Not on your life Pierce," Shirley said sternly. She quickly took the cross and put it under her chair so it was out of sight before taking out her notes. The group spent the next few minutes studying before Shirley's phone went off. "Hello Andre. I was just, what? What happened?" She clutched her phone in concern as she listened to her husband on the other line. "Okay, I'll be right there."

"Is everything all right?" Annie asked.

"Jordon fell off his bike and he might have a concussion. Andre brought him to the hospital, so I'm meeting him there now," she quickly explained as she packed up.

"Do you want any of us to go with you?" Troy asked.

"I'm good, thanks. I'll see you tomorrow," Shirley yelled as she grabbed her bag and quickly raced out of the study room.

"I don't know why she's so concerned," Pierce said. "I got concussions all the time when I was a kid and I turned out great."

After a moment all of them (Pierce included) looked over at Jeff's empty seat, sadly thinking that if he was there he would have had a witty retort to Pierce's comment. "Oh all right, I'll say something," Britta responded with exasperation. "Yeah, you're as all right as a-."

"It doesn't work when you do it," Abed said simply.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The group studied until 4:30, when they decided to call it a night. As they packed up Annie told them she was staying so she could do some more research for a presentation in her Forensic Psychology class that she had on Thursday. Troy said he'd save her some pizza he and Abed were getting for dinner before they left her to her studying.

Once they were gone Annie spread her books out on the table and continued with her note taking. Her pen flew across her notebook as she gathered useful tidbits for her presentation. She became so into her studies that she completely lost track of time. By the time she finally stopped to check her watch, it was past 8:00.

"Wow, I was only going to spend an hour or two here." She gathered her notes and textbooks up when a pen rolled onto the floor. As she bent down to retrieve it she spotted Shirley's cross under the table. Annie picked up the cross and put it on the table. Once she was all packed up she slung her backpack over her shoulders and grabbed the cross before heading out.

She quickly texted Abed and Troy that she was leaving the library, putting her phone away just as she walked out of the building. As she walked to her car a feeling of unease took hold of her. She glanced around, but didn't see anyone else in the parking lot. Just as she thought it was all in her head she heard something completely unexpected: the long, high-pitched drone of a wolf howl.

Annie stopped dead in her tracks, fear completely taking over. She breathed rapidly as she tried to calm herself. It can't be a wolf, she rationalized. There aren't any forests around here. It's probably just a stray dog or something.

She quickened her strides, wishing she hadn't parked so far away. As another howl was heard she walked even faster. Her steps turned into a full sprint as she saw her car in the distance. She pulled her keys out of her cardigan as she raced to her car.

Then without so much as a warning, the attack came.

She was thrown to her stomach as the creature snarled and tore at her backpack. Annie screamed and fought as her arms and upper back were scratched by the wolf's claws. Annie twisted her body just as the creature went for her neck. Instead it missed and bit down into her shoulder. Annie cried out in terror, the pain practically blinding her.

As the animal shook her like a rag doll Annie spotted Shirley's cross a few inches away. She desperately inched her fingers around the object and brought it up, driving it into the wolf's pelt. Again and again she stabbed the creature, her own desperate yelling mixed with the animal's cries as blood rained down on her. With a final scream like howl the wolf leapt off her back, stepping on the back of her neck and causing her to hit her head hard against the pavement, as it scampered off into the darkness.

Annie slipped from consciousness just as Neil ran into the parking lot. "What happened? I heard yelling and-." He gasped as he saw Annie lying on the pavement, unconsciousness and covered in blood. "Oh my God. Somebody help!" Neil knelt beside her as he pulled his phone out and dialed 911.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The wolf ran from the Greendale parking lot, leaving a trail of blood as it limped away. It was hurt badly, and needed to find a place to rest so it could have a chance to heal. It stopped to try and catch its breath when a gunshot rang through the air. The wolf dropped to the ground an instant later.

The beast howled in pain as a man approached the creature, placing the barrel of a gun right over its heart. With his other hand he took out a pair of pliers and yanked the canine teeth out of the animal's mouth. As it tried to bite his fingers the man pulled the trigger, sending a silver bullet straight through its heart.

The man stepped back as the creature's body began to change. Its fur retreated into its body as its snout and tail shrunk into itself. Its limps shortened and the paws morphed into hands and feet. The feral yellow eyes became light brown, as the fangs shrank back to human molars.

In a matter of moments, the wolf was completely gone, with a naked man having taken its place. The hunter knelt next to the man, feeling as always grief at having to take a life to prevent the spread of darkness. But this time he also felt anger at not being able to ask more quickly. He'd heard the yelling from before and knew someone had been attacked.

The hunter followed the trail of blood to the parking lot, where he saw two people there. One was a large man named Neil he'd seen around campus. But the other was Annie Edison, who was lying on the ground with wounds on her body. He sighed deeply, knowing he had to find out what her status was. And for her sake, he actually hoped the creature had killed her.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Jeff sighed deeply as he gathered up all the notes he'd been working on for his current case. He really hoped he'd get some more prestigious cases than the ones he had been assigned lately. But apparently he couldn't just start at the top at a new job, even with his previous experience.

He glanced at the clock in his office as he packed up his briefcase, seeing it was almost 9:00. No wonder I'm hungry, he thought. He walked out of his office and locked it up just as his phone went off.

"Hey Shirley. I'm just leaving work, so if you haven't eaten yet we can…" He stood stock still as he listened to her on the other line. "I'm leaving right now. Which hospital is she at…I'll be right there."

Twenty minutes later he burst into the emergency room, seeing Shirley, Britta, Troy and Abed sitting on a bench. "Jeffrey!" Shirley cried as she jumped up and gripped Jeff in a tight hug.

"How is she?" Jeff asked, his voice thick with emotion.

"We don't know, no one's told us anything," Shirley said as she released Jeff.

"Pierce knows one of the nurses, so he's trying to find out something from her," Troy said in a daze.

Jeff greeted everyone before noticing that Neil was also among them. "Neil, what are you doing here?"

"I was the one who found Annie. I came to see if she's going to be all right."

"Well what happened? What's wrong with her? Shirley just said Annie was attacked."

"I don't know. I came back to school to get something I left in my locker when I heard a woman screaming. By the time I got there all I saw was Annie unconscious in the parking lot with blood all over her."

Jeff's body tensed up as he grabbed Neil's shoulders. "You didn't see anything!?"

"Jeff!" Jeff backed off as Britta pulled him off Neil. "We're all upset here. But it's not going to do any good if we're fighting."

Surprised that Britta was being the voice of reason, Jeff nodded his head before looking back at Neil. "Sorry."

"No worries. I'd be the same way if Vicki had been attacked."

Before Jeff could process further meaning in that statement Abed got up and went over to a doctor who was passing by. "Rich."

The whole group got up in surprise as they saw that the man was indeed Rich. He offered his trademark smile as they all came over to him. "Well hey everyone. How's it going?"

"Annie was attacked by something and brought here," Abed said simply. "Do you know how she is?"

Rich's smile left his face as he wiped his forehead. "Oh my, that's terrible. I didn't even know she was brought in here."

Jeff narrowed his eyes, sensing there was something off with the doctor's body language, just as Pierce came over to them. "Pierce. Did you find anything out?" Troy asked as the group turned their attention to the older man.

"It took some doing, but Erica helped me out after I threw her some of the ol Hawthorne charm. It seems Annie was attacked by some kind of animal based on the attack wounds. There were scratches on her body, and a bite wound near her neck."

"Is she going to be okay?" Jeff frantically asked.

"They don't know," Pierce said seriously. "She has a concussion, and was still unconscious the last time they checked on her. They've bandaged her wounds, but for now Erica said we just have to wait until she regains consciousness to see what they're dealing with."

Jeff took a shaky breath as the full weight of Annie's condition took hold of him. "Rich, can you see if there's anything-." He looked around in surprise as he saw that the doctor was no longer among them. "Where'd he go?"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Rich quietly slipped into room 547, closing the door before approaching Annie. She was still unconscious, but appeared to be in good shape. Her heart monitor was beating steadily, and she didn't have any visible bruising. Rich removed the bandage from her shoulder, sadly unsurprised at seeing that the wound was already completely healed.

He took a syringe out of his coat pocket, having already prepared it with an undetectable poison that would put her into cardiac arrest. "I'm so sorry Annie. I hate to do this, but its better this way than the hell that would await you."

He was just about to put the needle in her IV tube when the door opened and a nurse burst in. "Dr. Stephenson. You need to come right now. Bill Mulligan's having an allergic reaction to the medicine he was just given."

"I'll be there in a minute. I'm just checking up on-."

"This can't wait, his throat's closing up and he's going into shock." The nurse grabbed his arm (not noticing him slip the syringe back in his lab coat) and pulled the doctor out of the room. Rich glanced back at Annie's room, hoping he could get to her before she woke up, before marching off to treat his patient.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"What time is it?" Britta asked Troy.

Troy checked his phone before dully saying, "3:07 a.m."

The group had been in the emergency room for hours, hoping to get some prognoses on Annie's condition. Neil had left around midnight, asking them to call him in the morning if they had any news. Shirley would go to check on Jordon every hour (he was spending the night at the hospital) before returning to keep vigil with the group. Pierce had fallen asleep not long after Neil left, with Abed passing the time by keeping count of how many snores the man would make in a hour. Britta had left a few times to make coffee runs, but spend most of her time sitting with Troy, absentmindedly running her fingers through his hair as she leaned against his shoulder.

Jeff sat next to Shirley, staring off into space as he tried to keep his emotions from spilling out. They still hadn't heard anything regarding Annie's condition. He'd harassed the nurses several times already, but no one would give him any news.

She's going to be all right, he frantically repeated in his head. She has to be all right.

He glanced up as he heard::Code Blue, fifth floor, room 547:: across the PA system.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

As the resuscitation staff raced to room 547 they heard loud screaming in addition to the heart monitor beating wildly. Though they were more surprised when the human cries seemed to morph into animal like snarls and growls. They burst into the room, looking on in shock at what they saw in there.

There was no patient in the room. Instead a large wolf was standing on top of the hospital bed. The bed shook ominously from the creature's weight as it looked at the people standing in the doorway. With a savage growl it leapt off the bed, sending everyone scurrying away as it charged out of the room.

"We need animal control right now!" one of the orderlies yelled into a nearby phone. "There's a wolf in the hospital! Tell everyone to lock their doors and get someone down here right now!"

The wolf ran down the hallways as fast as it could, ignoring people that ran away from it. All it cared about was getting out of the building. It rounded a corner and shot into an open elevator. The animal ricocheted over the medal walls as the elevator automatically went down to the main floor. As soon as the elevator door opened the wolf leapt out and ran down the hallway, bursting through doors on its quest for freedom. It cried out from the alarms that sounded all around it as it crashed through a glass window and ran into the emergency room just as several men surrounded the animal.

"Everyone back!" one of the orderlies yelled to the people in the area before looking at the other hospital staff with him. "Keep it contained until animal control arrives." He raised the metal IV stand in his hands as he approached the animal, signaling for the other men to do the same.

Though he approached with caution, he wasn't at all prepared for the wolf raising a paw and batting the IV stand out of his hands. It jumped on top of the man, knocking him to the ground. But before it could do anything the other men hit at it with their weapons. The animal jumped off the orderly and looked around for the exit when it spotted the study group, who were huddled in fright behind the wooden benches. As it ran towards them Jeff and Abed threw chairs at it to slow it down. The creature howled in pain as it stopped and stared at them with an almost mournful look in its eyes.

As they looked at the enormous animal Jeff noticed something peculiar. Its eyes weren't the expected yellow wolves normally had, but blue. A very familiar shade of blue.

Jeff snapped out of his thoughts as a tranquillizer dart whizzed past the wolf. The animal looked over as animal control ran into the lobby. "Keep back everyone, keep back!"

Without warning the wolf charged the animal control group, knocking them to the ground as it burst out of the building and raced out of sight. The head of the group pulled a radio out as she signaled for her team to follow the creature. "Animal is loose, I repeat, animal is loose. Lone wolf, approximately the size and weight of an adult St. Bernard. Creature appears to be heading west on Main Street. Send out an alert telling people to stay indoors. And I want eyes in the air as well as people on the ground. LET'S MOVE IT PEOPLE!" she yelled as she pocketed her radio and led her team out of the hospital.

As everyone excitedly talked among themselves over what had just happened, no one noticed Rich standing there looking at the lobby door. He sighed in exasperation, wishing he could have prevented this earlier when he was in Annie's room. Or even better, if he had been able to kill the first werewolf before it had attacked Annie. But now he once again had to go on the hunt, and do what had to be done.