Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) (7 page)

And Richard was––

Gone.

In his place was something most people will never see: half man, half wolf, bones mending, muscles growing, nose becoming snout, arms becoming legs, hair morphing into fur, hands turning into paws, eyes still green, still the windows to the soul of a man that’s able to comprehend the situation. But his mouth was growing larger and more dangerous with each passing moment. Teeth seemed to be everywhere. Jaws opened far too wide and words escaped like hostages. They were hard to recognize, but much harder to ignore:

“Abort. The child.”

Kate, standing in the center of the room with her hands in the air, looked away from Richard in horror. She saw Jennifer leaning against the wall with her blouse pulled open and her skirt hiked up. Her knees were shaking and her pink underwear had turned red. She had one hand cradling her belly as blood leaked from a long tear in her skin, through her trembling fingers, over her wedding ring (a ring she couldn’t bring herself to remove), and across her unpainted nails. She said, “Please Kate, Richard’s right. Get a clothes hanger. Help me abort the child.”

Kate watched her sister endure two quick spasms before a mist of blood sprayed from her mouth. It ran a line down her chin and dripped onto an exposed breast. There was blood between her legs, a dark red puddle. It was growing larger. Kate didn’t understand what was happening and she didn’t understand why, but she knew one thing for sure: her sister was dying, being ripped apart from the inside.

Yes. They had to abort the child.

She looked across the room and her eyes locked on the closet door. In no time at all the door was open and she was standing in the doorway, pushing bags out of the way with her left hand while pulling shirts off hangers with her right. But there was a problem: all the hangers were made with plastic. She couldn’t see any of the old-fashion metal kind. She grabbed a jacket and a vest and threw them to the ground in a pile.

Jennifer screamed.

Richard growled.

And Kate, cursing under her breath, saw what she was looking for: a rusty old hanger, nastier than a snake. She snagged it from the rack and stepped towards her sister, trying desperately to keep her eyes away from the huge thing that was laying on the bed, covered in fur, snapping its jaws, eying her like a fresh meal after a long day.

She said, “We need to get out of here!”

“No,” Jennifer whispered. “Just hurry, Kate. Hurry!”

There was no time to argue so Kate bent the hanger this way and that, playing it like an accordion, trying to snap it. She didn’t think she’d be able to unravel it fast enough, and time was so important now. Oh yes it was. She thought about running for the second time that evening, but Jennifer was in no position to follow her lead, and she couldn’t leave her sister behind.

Richard growled, sounding like a grizzly bear.

Jennifer screamed again. And Kate screamed too, frustrated with the time she was spending. Her hands were working as fast as they could but it wasn’t fast enough. She didn’t think the hanger would ever break but suddenly it did. It broke right where she wanted. It almost seemed like a miracle.

Straightening the wire, she turned it into a long, narrow spear. Then she dropped to the floor, positioning herself between her sister’s legs.

Jennifer’s eyes widened. She looked desperate now––desperate and in serious pain. She lifted her knees, stretched her legs apart, and grabbed a hold of her blood-soaked underwear. She pulled the dripping cloth to one side, exposing her vagina. Gasping and begging, she said, “Do it, Kate. Kill it.
Kill
it!”

Kate caught a frightful glimpse of her sister’s belly before pushing her labia apart with her fingers and plunging the wire in. But one glimpse of Jennifer’s stomach getting ripped open was enough: skin splitting, muscles tearing, blood pouring to the floor in generous amounts. There was a coil of flesh that appeared to be growing and when Kate saw it her stomach clenched and she thought she might pass out. It was too late to perform a back-alley abortion. It
had
to be too late.

Looking Jennifer in the eye, Kate forced the wire deep inside.

And Jennifer, gasping her final breaths, writhing in agony, looked up. Not at Kate. Oh no. There was a monster in the room now, standing high above, gazing down at the girls with its terrible green eyes, teeth like daggers, bloodlust boiling inside its brain.

Richard was gone.

And although Jennifer knew that her husband had become something entirely different––something bred without love or affection––memory of the man she married seeped into her heart and she managed to say, “I love you with all my heart, Richard Beach. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m unconditionally yours.”

ANNIVERSARY

JOHN EVERSON

Margaret looked at the calendar rune and tickled her lips with her tongue. Full moon tonight. She’d been pressing her thighs together in anticipation of this day all month long. Charles only came on the night of the moon, and though her body ached for his visits, she knew that once a month, realistically, was all she could handle. There was so much to prepare for––and so much to recover from, afterwards.

She made the bed, called in sick to work––did anyone notice her sick days always coincided with the phase of the moon?––and went to the closet to find what Charles called her “ice cream” outfit.

“Those guys all think you’re a cone waiting to be licked and caressed,” he’d grin, evilly. “But I know better. You’re a tigress. And I screeeeeem for you!” He’d howl as he said it and she’d strip out of the skin tight catsuit before letting him lay a hand on her.

“You don’t want to be licking the napkin around your cone, do you?” she’d tease.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she could feel her body starting to sweat and moisten, just thinking about Charles. Her average 34 A-cup breasts looked like 36 Cs in the immodest display of the sheer, deep blue suit, and she knew her butt jiggled tantalizingly as she walked, every dip and tuck bouncing. She was not a well-endowed woman, but she made the best possible use of her assets. One of which, she realized staring at her reflection, her hair was currently not. Charles forbade her a shower on the day of the full moon, and her hair hung in flat, lazy twists across her shoulders. She’d dyed it auburn this month for a change and prayed he’d like it. Running her hands through it in a useless attempt at styling, she decided she’d have to rely on her other allure tricks. Charles wouldn’t allow hairspray, either. Made him sneeze.

At the vanity in the corner of the bedroom she applied a heavy coat of electric red lipstick to match her nails, and lined her eyes in sooty black. She was ready.

First stop was the Kmart. More than a few graying heads turned her way in shock as she paraded through the white, tiled aisles. To any close stare she was stark naked in a coat of blue spray paint. An old woman stood fingering a fuzzy pink nighty in the underwear department and happened to look up as she passed. The nighty dropped to the floor. “Young lady,” a scratchy high pitched voice chased her. There was a strong element of chastisement couched in those two simple words. Margaret glanced over her shoulder and flashed a crinkle eyed look. “You keep your man your way and I’ll keep mine my own way,” she smiled sweetly.

God, she hated people, she thought, picking up a white cotton tank. Confront them with the truth––a human body, un or thinly veiled––and they went to pieces. Religions had been built on hiding the truth of the human form. Laws had been passed on how it should be shielded and where it could be kissed. Human beings lived in denial of what they were, and she hated them for it. She knew what she was, and she was unashamed.

Shaking her head, she took the cotton t and matching bottoms, grabbed a box of popcorn, and went to the register. A high school-aged girl with braces and plastic framed glasses rang her up, pausing every few seconds to stare at her chest when she thought Margaret wasn’t paying attention. “Yeah, you’ll have them soon,” she thought wickedly. “And you’ll bind them and hide them and offer them in trade for a chain noosed around your lover’s neck. Happy hooking, hon.”

Striding purposefully from the store, she drove to a park nearby. The sun shone golden bright through the trees as she tossed handfuls of popcorn to the pigeons. They crowded her feet, scrambling over each other in their haste to eat. Others swooped down from the trees periodically, disturbing the complex pecking order of feeding. “Whoever pecks the most ruthlessly rules the dinner table,” she thought, and wondered if she and Charles stood at the top of the food chain.

A pickup pulled into the parking lot a few yards away, and a middle-aged man stepped out. He was maybe 5’6, white, looked like a going-to-seed blue collar. Handleable. With a deliberate stretch, Margaret put her hands on the back of the bench, thrust out her chest, and spread her feet far apart on the ground. Within seconds the man answered the call.

“Mind if I sit down?” a tremulous voice asked. She did her best Madonna. “Sit or spit, I don’t care,” she answered, calculatedly bored. It was best not to act too forward––only look that way. She felt his weight settle onto the end of the bench, but didn’t look at him.

There were only the noises of the scuffling birds for a few moments, and then he tried again.

“Um, my name’s Bill,” he said. She turned to meet his gaze. “Hi Bill.”

“You, uh, come out here and feed the birds a lot?” he pressed on.

“Now and then.”

“Married?” he braved.

“No.”

Quiet again. Probably time to help him a little.

“You want to toss some,” she offered, holding out the bag of popcorn.

His face lit and he slid closer to her.

“Sure.”

* * *

It barely took an hour. Bill was an electrician, supposed to be at a job site. Sometimes, he admitted, he came here during lunchtime, looking for “company.” She got the impression he didn’t care what kind, as long as he got off. He let it slip that he was married, while his eyes massaged her chest and crotch guiltily.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I like a little company, too.”

She stretched, put her arm around his shoulder and trailed a nail down his biceps. He stiffened, and then looked at her face in unveiled lust. She leaned over, kissed him, and then stood.

“Want to come back to my place?”

It wasn’t always this easy, but it was never that hard.

* * *

She led him by the hand down the stairs through the basement and into a nearly bare room. The walls were black painted cinderblock, the floor black tile. A white vinyl couch stood out in violent contrast in the room’s center.

“I like to pretend it’s night when it’s day,” she explained when he looked in dawning fear at the oddly decorated room. His suspicions evaporated when the blood rushed from his head to his cock as she knelt at his feet. She stripped them both, moving her supple body sinuously around his thickening waist and wrinkled rear. Laying him on the couch, she twisted and turned atop him, rubbing every inch of herself on his skin. No baths, and the scent of the man she’d brought him, that was what Charles asked. Smells drove him wild. She would not let the “other man” enter her. When he began to grow anxious for the act, she slid from the couch and worked him with mouth and hands as his own beefy palms grabbed and kneaded her flesh.

This was always the hardest part for her. Having to touch some disgusting strange man in the unclean places. She was not turned on by this––rarely did she pick up a man to whom she was sexually attracted. But she did this for Charles. She thought of the first time they’d met, when in her forward passion she’d reached inside his jogging pants in the very same park she’d picked Bill up in. Charles had kissed her lightly, and with a firm hand, had pulled her probing fingers from his crotch.

“I can only cum beneath the light of a full moon,” he said softly. She was not convinced––other women just hadn’t been as skilled as her, she thought somewhere deep in her lust clouded brain. His eyes looked sad as he watched her ego-deflating, vain attempts to prove him wrong. Filled with stubborn pride––and a telling, nagging wetness between her legs––she stuck out her chin and challenged, “Then visit me on the night of the full moon.”

His strong features both grinned and frowned at that invitation. “I will,” he promised.

She laughed inside now at her foolish naivety in extending that offer. She knew he had struggled not to accept––he’d liked her, and knew what would come of such a tryst. Ultimately, he had lost his internal battle. At her doorstep, 8 p.m. on the night of the moon he had appeared, a thin wiry man in a black t-shirt and jeans. He’d brought her roses and asked if she’d reconsidered her invitation. In answer, she’d leaned into his body, inhaling his musky, woodsy, animal scent and inserted her tongue between his lips. In moments, they’d been naked and rutting on the couch in the living room.

Beneath her absent ministrations she felt the warm stream that signaled an end to her duty. As Bill groaned in ecstasy, she reached a hand beneath the vinyl cushions searching for the chain. She needed a new couch, she thought. The cushions were cracked with age and scored with scratches. Her hand grasped what she was looking for. With a fast pull and snap, she efficiently cuffed Bill’s right arm to the couch.

“Huh?” he exclaimed and grabbed for her with his free hand. She skipped easily out of his reach, watching in sad amusement as his cock deflated instantly. “What are you doing? Let Me Go!” he ordered in false bravado.

There was fear in his voice, but nothing like the tremors that would shake it as the day wore into night.

“Sorry Bill, but I need you tonight. Get some rest why don’t you.”

Ignoring his angered yells and curses, she picked up the clothes that littered the floor and left the room. The door clicked shut to leave Bill in blackest darkness. His bellows diminished to murmurs as she climbed the stairs to wait for the night.