When the Wolf Comes Home

At a Los Angeles, California, diner called Poppy’s, two waitresses working the graveyard shift, 31-year-old Jessa Rae “Jess” Bailey and Margie, are talking about Jess’s love life. Margie encourages Jess to date again, but Jess is too dismissive of her prospects in the improvisational comedy scene to take anyone seriously. For Jess, everyone in comedy has “daddy issues,” which makes the guys she knows too mean to date. Margie laughs off Jess’s worries.

Jess is glad to have Margie’s company, especially since it distracts her from the pain of recently losing her estranged father, Tommy. Tommy died alone in Pennsylvania, where he’d been living after he left his family. Jess feels as if she has become two people: An “Outer Jess” who is unaffected by Tommy’s death and an “Inner Jess” who sees Tommy in everything. A third presence, “Little Jess,” silently reminds her of the trauma she experienced when Tommy left her behind. Jess hasn’t spoken to her mother since learning the news about Tommy.

Jess teases Margie to flirt with a customer who looks sick after exiting the diner bathroom. They worry that the customer left a mess, so they make a deal for Margie to take care of ejecting the customer and covering the rest of Jess’s shift if Jess can clean up the bathroom herself. Jess accepts since she has an audition the following afternoon.

Jess is relieved to see that the mess in the toilet isn’t as bad as she expected. Without her phone, she resorts to singing to distract herself from the smell, as well as Inner Jess’s thoughts. At one point, Inner Jess thinks, “But why didn’t he want me?” (13), which makes Jess emotional. Her thoughts escalate, with her blaming herself for Tommy’s departure. She tries to push the thoughts away but begins thinking about her failure to get new acting jobs in recent years. Inner Jess tells her that the reason why no one wants her is because she is exactly like Tommy.

Angry, Jess tries to convince herself that what Inner Jess said isn’t true. She affirms herself to the point of declaring her plan to quit working at Poppy’s so that she can pursue her acting career. The resolve emboldens her to work harder as she cleans the bathroom. She accidentally pricks her finger on a used syringe that has been left near the toilet.

Jess tries to contain her panic as she disposes of the syringe. She finishes cleaning the bathroom and then leaves Poppy’s to go to the hospital. During the drive home, she realizes that she left her phone behind at the diner. She arrives at her apartment and wants to scream but cannot do so because her roommate, Kelsey, is sleeping.

Jess calms down, though she remains disoriented over the past hour’s events. She considers retrieving her phone before going to the hospital but then worries about how much healthcare will cost without insurance. She charges her laptop so that she can look up possible infection symptoms. She steps outside to clear her thoughts.

Jess hears something rustling in the backyard. When she goes to investigate, she is surprised to find a crying little boy under attack by strange, bright birds. Jess brings the boy into her apartment. She introduces herself and asks the boy his name. He doesn’t answer her, even when she asks about the book he’s holding close to his chest. The boy nearly collapses from exhaustion, so Jess tries to get him to rest on the couch. She sees that the book is a collection of fairy tales. While the boy is sleeping, she sees that the book pages are stained with something dark. Jess decides that she will have to take the boy with her to the hospital.

Jess gets on her laptop and looks up information on what she can do to help the boy. None of the information she finds is particularly useful. She then looks up information about a possible infection and sees that she needs to reach a medical facility within 72 hours of her exposure to the syringe. She is about to wake the boy so that they can leave, but then she hears another commotion outside.

Two of Jess’s neighbors, Carl and Amber, are arguing with a naked stranger in the backyard. The stranger claims to be looking for someone. Carl and Amber refuse to hear him out, threatening to call the police. Seeing Jess, the stranger appeals to her for help. Carl grapples with him, but the stranger resists. The boy wakes up and comes outside. He and the stranger see each other, which scares the boy. Jess brings the boy back into her apartment, where the boy explains that the stranger is his dad. Outside, Carl and Amber’s screams are drowned out by a creature’s howl. Jess soon hears limbs being torn apart, especially as more neighbors come out to investigate.

Kelsey wakes up because of the noise and brings a gun from her room. Looking outside, she and Jess see a creature whose shape and size are reminiscent of both a wolf and a bear. The creature reaches their apartment and breaks through the locked glass door with Carl’s corpse. Kelsey shoots at the creature, but the bullets only stagger it. Jess and the boy prepare to escape from the apartment, but when Jess calls for Kelsey to follow, Kelsey is killed by the creature.

Jess and the boy run outside and are met by the police. The creature bursts through the apartment in pursuit, and the police fire upon it. Jess gets the boy to her car, realizing only then that she left the keys in her apartment. She sneaks back through the backyard, where she sees the corpses of the neighbors the creature killed. Jess retrieves both the keys and Kelsey’s gun. She hears something approaching her and instinctively fires the gun. It isn’t the creature but a police officer. He is severely injured by the gunshot wound and identifies Jess as an accomplice over his radio. Jess drops the gun, apologizes, and runs back to her car. They drive away.

When they are clear of the danger, Jess decides that it isn’t safe to go to the police or her mother. It then occurs to her that she knows someone who can keep them safe.

Jess takes the boy to Margie’s house. Margie lets them stay in her son’s room, which is filled with posters of movie monsters. She sees that the images unnerve the boy, so she reassures him by giving him a blanket that she claims will make him invisible. She stresses that the blanket only works when he uses it against the things that scare him.

Margie confers with Jess in her garage, unable to make sense of what Jess has told her about their situation. Margie is especially alarmed that Jess is hiding from the police. When Jess promises to explain everything later, Margie stops her, deciding that she wants to have plausible deniability if she is ever questioned. Jess at least explains that the boy appears to be a runaway. Jess cries while recalling the carnage that the creature left behind.

Jess explains that she plans to hide the boy with her mother in Scottsdale, Arizona. She asks to use Margie’s phone to leave a voicemail for her mother, who is likely out partying. An alert shows up on Margie’s phone, warning Los Angeles residents about animal activity that has resulted in several casualties. Jess then explains that she needs another favor from Margie so that she can retrieve her phone from the diner.

Just before dawn, Jess uses Margie’s car to drive to the diner. She briefly considers fleeing and leaving the boy and Margie behind but decides that it is unfair for Margie. Jess turns the radio on to the news, which is filled with reports on the violence at her apartment. This makes her feel paranoid. Upon arriving, she briefly interacts with the diner staff, who warn her against the animal on the loose.

Jess retrieves her phone and briefly worries that the creature is in the car. She wonders what happened to the boy’s father and tries to remember whether she saw his corpse in the backyard. She considers the possibility that he might have something to do with the creature, especially given the intelligence she saw in the creature’s eyes. She dismisses the thought, believing it is impossible.

The creature, having survived its battle with the police, traces the boy’s scent. The creature has skills that help with tracking the boy down. The only thing that hinders it is a cramping feeling in its body, one that reminds it of its former life. The creature hurries to find the boy before it stops being a creature.

The boy wakes up when he hears Margie cursing out of fear. She mutters about a naked man on her lawn and then retrieves a baseball bat to defend them. The boy is terrified.

Margie confronts the naked man but is caught off guard when he begins to howl. The boy hears noises of destruction as the creature kills Margie and tears through her house. The boy puts on Margie’s invisibility blanket to protect himself. The creature enters the room and does not see him. It eventually leaves the room to keep searching.

The creature staggers around in its new form, one more complicated than its previous wolf-shape. It continues searching for the boy and then follows the sound of a song playing from somewhere else in the house. It traces the noise to a cell phone flashing with Jess’s name on the screen. The creature accepts the call. Believing that she is speaking to Margie, Jess reiterates her plan to take the boy to her mother, Cookie Montgomery. The creature is startled when something wraps it in a pelt covered with the faces of various horror-movie monsters. The creature grunts, alerting Jess to its presence.

The creature decides to intercept Jess and the boy at Cookie’s. While trying to pull Cookie’s phone number from Margie’s call history, the creature doesn’t notice the invisible form that is sneaking out of the house.

Jess returns to Margie’s house and immediately senses that something is wrong. She is about to enter when the boy grabs her leg, emerging from the invisibility blanket. He tells her that his father is inside and implies that Margie is dead. The boy gives Jess the blanket to use when she tells him that she will take a look inside the house. Jess doesn’t understand but worries that whatever is in the house has heard him. After glancing at the carnage inside, she puts the boy in Margie’s car and speeds away from the house, with the creature chasing them.