Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) (26 page)

All of the girls jumped.

“Robert that’s enough,” James interrupted.

“I’m just having some fun.” Robert let out more laughter when a howl from outside silenced him.

Emily looked to the windows. “It’s started,” she murmured. “It’s too late.”

Rebecca and Annabelle shivered as the howl repeated.

“The wolf returns,” Robert said and jumped from his chair. What sounded more like a roar then a howl resounded just outside the house.

“By God’s grace not again,” James left his chair next and joined Robert’s side.

A crash assaulted the timbered front door. It buckled once as the shelves on the adjacent walls crumpled to the floor.

Rebecca and Annabelle screamed as tears flooded their cheeks. They ran to Emily’s awaiting arms. Emily remained calm.

“Come little ones,” Emily whispered. “Let us allow the beast to do its work.”

Emily ushered her younger sisters away from the table and out of the room. Annabelle’s wound seeped from beneath her bandage and as they passed the first window behind them, a storm of glass and wood exploded around them.

The shutters splintered as a pair of clawed, fur-clad arms lunged and grabbed hold of Annabelle. The scent of her wound drove the beast mad. It tore the wailing girl from Emily’s arms, shook her violently before dragging her from the house.

“Annabelle!” Emily screamed. Her eyes widened. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She pushed Rebecca to the floor to shield her from the flying debris and peered out of the ruined window.

In the milky light of the moon an enormous wolf, more than six feet tall, stood on its hind legs. Long muscular arms pulled Annabelle to its snout where it clamped down on her throat. Emily heard a snap as blood poured to the ground. She hid her eyes and turned away from the window.

“Lord… good lord why?” Emily collapsed with Rebecca and cradled her tight. Heavy steps thudded in front of her. She gazed up to see Robert grinning down at her.

“Aw girls, don’t be upset,” Robert said. “Our Captain is just following his nature. The same manner that we do.” He went to the other windows and ripped the shutters from them, letting the moonlight flood the room.

“No Robert! Not again,” James cried as he stumbled over to stop his friend, but froze in the pale moonlight. “What is happening to me?”

“James, you do this every full moon,” Robert snapped as his teeth grew long and pointed. “You really need to let go of that guilt, buddy. You, captain and me are a pack. We hunt together. Stop pretending you have no memory of it. Accept your nature and eat!”

Rooted to the spot, Emily watched James turn to her, his eyes bleeding with guilt and remorse. “I’m sorry––so very sorry. I have no control over it. I must obey the moon––” His face twisted in anguish.

Emily felt her pulse race and her breath quicken. Rebecca buried her head into her older sister’s chest. In mute horror she watched James’s eyes morph black before blazing with yellow.

“Emily run!” James howled as his words melted into grunts and growls. “R-r-r-rah-un!”

* * *

James’s blood boiled while his entire body burned as if with fever. The pain of the transformation was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, even during this war. His flesh split as muscles ripped, coarse brown fur covered his body, and his bones cracked as the shifting converged.

His face stretched into a snout wet with blood and saliva, and filled with dagger-like teeth. Fingers elongated into claws. His shape transformed into a hulking abomination he knew all too well.

He hated himself more with every change. Each full moon the hunger worsened. Until last night, the unthinkable happened. Robert, the captain and himself lived under the curse for some time, but none thought they would ever massacre their entire troop.

Their hunger was insatiable. Even after the devouring of all their comrades, their bellies were still filled with the pain of starvation. James knew it was out of control. Knew it was too powerful. So maddening was the guilt, he hoped the war would kill him. It was the only reason he served. He didn’t believe in the ideals, the politics. He just wanted to end the curse. He just wanted to die. Now that hope faded with the light of the full moon.

The James-wolf snarled and turned to Robert, who was also fully transformed and dancing in the pale white light filling the room. James watched Robert race to the front door and rip it off its hinges, allowing their captain inside the home.

The captain’s fur was wet with blood, matted around his muzzle. He joined his two men and the three howled in unison. The hunger raged again.

The werewolves tore through the house. Emily and Rebecca were no longer in sight. They heeded James’s pleas and vacated the room. Cunning as ever, the wolves knew the girls could not have gone far. The house was just not large enough to hide from the pack.

The creatures destroyed furniture in their hunt, thrashed closet doors, tore human food to pieces, and stormed the root cellar and pantries. Finally, James eyed the set of stairs ascending to a second floor shrouded in darkness.

The James-wolf yelped to his pack and they closed in. He was only following instinct, and appeasing the agony of the hunger, but he hoped the girls were not up there. He prayed for an end somehow––but in the end, roared up the stairs.

* * *

Emily rushed Rebecca up the stairs as the soldiers were locked in their transformations below. They burst into the nearest bedroom, shut the door behind them and latched it for all the good it would do.

“Under the bed,” Emily told Rebecca. “Right quick!”

The quaking Rebecca cried, tears streaming in torrents, but obeyed her sister. She slid under the four-post bed as Emily shuffled around the room. Downstairs a cacophony of destruction thundered throughout the house.

Emily searched her jewelry boxes, her hope chest and her apron and braced herself as footsteps pounded up the stairs.

The door exploded into pieces as the pack clawed its way into the room. Howling filled the house as the captain, the alpha wolf, led the charge.

Her back against the wall, Emily thrust her hand into her apron and ripped out a bunch of purple-colored flowers—wolfsbane. She’d been growing them in the gardens all her life. “My grand pappy did indeed teach me how to deal with your kind!” In her other hand she lifted a Derringer pepper-box revolver.

The werewolf captain froze in his steps. A howl of rage escaped him as he shrank away from Emily, unable to touch her. James and Robert backed against the doorway, clawing to get out of the room, but the broken door blocked their escape.

Emily stared the captain down, fury burned in his eyes. He let out a pitiful yelp as Emily fired the revolver. The shot blew a hole in the beast’s chest. It roared in agony, its head twisting from side to side, its arms flailing helplessly until it crashed to the floor.

Smoke wafted off the lifeless body. The two wolf soldiers looked down at their fallen alpha and roared. The James-wolf’s eyes met Emily’s and they faced-off. The two didn’t budge. James’s claws clicked, his teeth gnashed with drool, but he could not advance on her. Emily held the wolfsbane high and tight.

Suddenly the Robert-wolf sniffed at the air. He eyed the bed and bolted to the other side of the room. He leapt on top of the bed and jumped up and down until the posts toppled and the bed collapsed.

Rebecca screamed and struggled beneath.

“No! Rebecca!” Emily stood her ground, unsure of what to do. She kept her revolver aimed at James while watching Robert drag Rebecca from the under the bed. It tore her up inside to watch the last of her sisters enter the clutches of the beast.

Emily turned back to James. He snarled at her once then turned to glare at Robert. James barked at him, but he continued his attack. Rebecca squirmed and shrieked as the werewolf lifted her from the ground.

The James-wolf tore itself away from Emily and lunged for Robert. The two collided in a thunderous crash as Rebecca tumbled to the floor.

“Rebecca to me!” Emily called and the young girl crawled across the room as the two wolves clashed, biting and clawing at each other’s throats.

James and Robert battered each other around the room. Blood spattered the walls, clumps of fur filled the air until the two crashed through the window to the ground below.

The two girls screamed and the house went silent. Emily checked on Rebecca, who seemed unharmed and wiped the tears from her face. Emily put down the wolfsbane and made her way slowly to the window.

Down below she saw Robert in human form, glass and wood protruding from his naked body, his throat shredded like paper. James was nowhere in sight. In the distance she heard a faint, lonely howl.

* * *

In the dead of night Emily had her dream again. She ran from the men with their knives and guns. She raced on all fours, and leapt through the treetops. They were gaining on her. Rain fell cold onto her body. Her hair matted to her face. Her blood boiled and her body burned as if with fever but this time the dream finally became clear.

She was not the one running from the men. Emily was not the wolf that was forever hunted. As her dream eyes caught view of her reflection in the rivers of the forest, it was James in the dream not she. Emily saw through James’s eyes. He ran from the men. He ran from himself. As long as the moon was full, James would always be running.

UNLEASHED

NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN

The baby, Joe, was still nursing when Amelia felt the change coming on, the first stirring of appetite for the forbidden, the faint current of unnatural strength, the hint that she would become the thing she feared and hated. She glanced toward the apartment’s living room window. The white curtains were parted, showing that night had arrived as gently as a first snow, shadows lodging among the buildings in drifts, melted in spots by the yellow warmth of street lights. She tasted the cool metal of twilight in the autumn air. Soon the moon would crest the hill above town. For the first of its three nights full, the moon would work on her weakly; she could resist change for a little while, but not all night.

Where was the babysitter?

Gently, Amelia pulled Joe free, tucked her breast back into her bra, and buttoned her shirt. She rose from the folding metal chair and carried the baby to the closet where she had set up his crib three months before.

Pregnancy had protected her from the moon change, and she had thought nursing would, too. She had prayed that this frightening mother-change in her body would drive out the other, unwelcome change entirely. For a year it had. Just in case, since Joe’s birth she had arranged for a babysitter each full moon. Of course, the first time she really needed a sitter, the sitter was late.

Who could she call? She glanced over her shoulder at the phone. The sitter first. Then, maybe, the man who had moved into the apartment downstairs two weeks ago. Amelia usually had trouble talking with strangers, especially men, but something about this man—his smell, perhaps, a musty, stale-sweat-in-body-hair scent that she would have dismissed as unclean, save for its strange attractiveness—had reassured her. They had spoken by the mailboxes three times. He had patted Joe’s head with a gentle hand, and Joe had not minded.

What would Mother think of her even considering calling a strange man to look after her child?

Blast that thought. If Mother were alive and knew Amelia had a child at all, she would disown her daughter.

Amelia put Joe in his crib and wound up the music-box mobile above it. By the light of a shell nightlight, plastic cardinals and bluebirds spun to the tune of Brahms’ “Lullaby.” The baby stared up at the birds. Amelia tucked the blanket in around Joe.

He was such a good baby. Gentle, quiet, undemanding. Just the way she had been as a baby, according to her mother. The way she had been all through girlhood.

She kissed Joe’s forehead.

Change gripped her breasts, flattening them against her chest, her body shifting to absorb and redistribute tissue. She backed out of the closet and lay on the rag rug in the tiny living room, her eyes clenched shut, her mind grappling with the change, holding it at bay. When the hunger woke to fullness in her, would Joe be safe?

* * *

Kelly Patterson sat on the dirty laundry in his armchair and looked at his apartment. In the two weeks since he had moved in, he had managed to get it as messy as any other place he had lived—crushed beer cans mingling with wadded potato chip bags and filthy socks on the floor, an assortment of dirty shirts and jeans draped across most of the furniture, and a couple crumpled TV dinner trays on the lamp table, right next to the rings left on the wood by wet cans. Sawdust he carried home from the construction site in the cuffs of his pants and in the waffles on his work-boots mixed with everything else, but its clean wood scent couldn’t compete with the odor of decay, which was almost a color in the air, spiced but not diminished by the scent of soured beer.

By morning it would all be cleaned up and he would have to start over. No matter how much he challenged his animal self, it always rose to the challenge and exceeded it.

Kelly scratched a stubbled cheek. The night Sonya-the-sudden had bitten him—he had forgotten that she had asked him not to come by that night, and he had a record album he was convinced she should hear—the night she had bitten him, he had visualized many scenarios, but never one to match this reality. Who would ever guess that somewhere inside his sloppy self lurked a finicky creature?

Maybe he should stop teasing himself, leave the place neat once and see what his alter ego would do when housekeeping didn’t get in its way. Adult onset lycanthropy. It was still so new and weird. There were lots of experiments he hadn’t tried yet. Like, what would he do in the woods? Maybe he should throw a couple blankets, kibble, and a dog dish into the Jeep, drive out into the woods and check it out—if not tonight, tomorrow. He had never had any woods sense. What if he got lost? Lost, forty, and naked in the early morning. An ugly thing to contemplate.