The moon hangs in the clear night sky, as if painted on a canvas of endless black. A howl climbs up from the back of my throat shouting at the moon, “hello old friend it’s me again.” The closest town is roughly twenty miles from my house but in my current state I can make it there in about thirty minutes. The moisture in the air catches on my long thick fur, its long thick fur. I can smell something not far off, maybe five miles; the old camp grounds. The teenagers go there to party, drink, smoke and screw. Oh god no. I can’t do this, not kids, but I can’t help it. It’s like living in a nightmare, I’m aware but I can’t stop, it’s driving me. Once I get a mile or so from the campgrounds I slow down, go into hunting mode. The smell of teenage hormones scented with booze and pot floats into my nostrils. I’m crouching in the brush, my ears perk, one of the kids has asthma, he’ll be the first. Always take out the slowest of the herd first. I circle around keeping low under the shrubs, my stomach growing, its stomach growling, begging me to feed it before it sleeps again.
Like a bolt of lighting I strike, one of the kids yells out “it’s a wolf!” No it’s just me Lenny Baxter, don’t be scared kids, it’s just me, a man in wolf’s clothing. My long claws take out their knees, the asthma kid first. Now I can feed at my leisure. I make quick work of all seven, ripping them apart leaving only bones and unwanted fat. Another howl rises up from deep within, “goodbye old friend, I’ll see you soon.”
In the morning my head pounds with the force of thirty hangovers. My mouth is filled with the horrible aftertaste one can only get by devouring a group of drunk and stoned teenagers. Images from last night play in my head like a montage from a grizzly horror film. Tears begin to fill my eyes, and I cry just like I always do. Why me? I glace over at my bedside table, looking at the dirty old revolver through tear-filled eyes. The old revolver with one silver bullet sleeping snuggly in one chamber, my way out…If I wasn’t such a coward. I roll out of bed; my knees wobble under my weight, walking down the stair is like walking on broken legs. The morning news is on, they’re talking about it, that reporter with the bad dye job is standing in front of the yellow police tape, oh god. Tears are again rolling down my cheeks, the kids’ screams still ringing in my head, but in time they will fade like all the other screams have.
The aches and pains in my body stay with me for the fifteen minute drive to the Trooper’s station like an unwanted passenger. The transformation always takes a toll on my body, and I wonder if others like me feel the same pains. I wonder if there are others like me, maybe I’m all alone in this; maybe I’m just lucky like that. The station is buzzing with talk of what they’re calling a brutal animal attack, some of the guys are skeptical, these are the guys who know a thing or two about known animals, but what I am is now a known animal, I’m something of horror writers’ fevered nightmares…A monster. I pick up my car and head out, thank Christ I’m working alone today, I couldn’t deal with listen to Bobby talk about his new born, or Frank bitch about how his mother chased away another girlfriend, come on, a grown man living with his mother.
Cars shoot by at all sorts of ungodly speeds; people are in such a hurry these days. My cruiser is nestled nicely behind some brush, the radar gun on the dash monitoring everyone flying by, but why the hell should I care if some speeding idiot in a metal death machine runs into some other idiot; I have my own problems to worry about. I just need to take a nap, that’ll get my head clear.
Ten minutes, that’s how long I’ve been out, ten minutes, every little bit helps. My vision is blurred with the heaviness of sleep. Something is resting on my windshield; it looks like a flyer… Reaching out the driver side window I grab it. The paper is cheap, the ink bleeding through, it was defiantly printed up on a home computer, it’s not even really a flyer, not the way we think of windshield flyers anyway. It’s more of a note. Who put it here, and how? I’m sitting parked on a freaking strip of land barely big enough for my car with two roaring four lane highways on both sides.
“CAN HELP CALL AFTER EIGHT!!” That’s what the flyer says, the number's a cell. I fold it neatly, a perfect square with all the edges perfectly even. I get a little OCD when I’m stressed, and after last night I’m stressed. I try nodding off a few more times before my lunch break, but the flyer is burning a hole in my pocket with a fire of curiosity. My watch beeps, lunch. I edge into the speeding traffic, no one honks, no one ever honks at troopers. I exceed the speed limit, I’m allowed, one of the many perks of the badge, just like the free vegetarian lunch I’m about to have. After the moon I can only eat vegetarian for about a week, the sight of meat hurts. Literally hurts, like causes a pain deep within my stomach.
“TRACIE’S” is this great little hippy diner run by a half dead baby boomer. It’s the best damn tofu burger in the world, or at least the best one I’ve ever had. A rusty VW van is the only other car in the lot; it’s the only car ever in the lot. It broke down about two years back, the guy who owned it ended up working at “TRACIE’S” in exchange for two meals a day, not a bad guy.
I take a seat at the counter; the lingering smell of pot fills my nostrils burning them ever slightly. It usually takes about a day for the heighten senses of my other-self to fade. I get my tofu burger with a side of carrot sticks, and then have seconds, Tracie never charges me but I always leave a hefty tip. I spent the rest of the day dozing off at my designated posts, the whole day the flyer screaming at me from deep within my lint infested pocket. I clock out and go home. There’s no more news about last night, not on the TV anyway, but in my mind the grizzly scene plays over and over, again and again. After a few beers my eyes are blurred, the clock next to me reads 8:32. I unfold the flyer carefully, perfect lines running up and down the paper, right to left. I dial. There’s breathing on the other end, but no one speaks, not until I do.
“Hello?”
“Lenny?”
“How do you know my name?” My words slur with confusion and drunkenness.
“We’re friends Lenny, we can help. We know what you are.”
My heart skips a beat, I try to say something, but I got no words.
“Meet us at Holy Salvation in fifteen.” There’s a click and then dead air.
Normally I’d never drive drunk, thankfully the church is only five minutes from my place. I think I hit a rabbit on my way there but I don’t care. The church is nearly rubble, it hasn’t been used in over twelve years but the Christian groups refuse to let the state tear it down. The back end of a pick-up peaks out from behind the building so I pull around back. The back is filled with ten cars parked in all sorts of strange angles. I make eleven, making sure to park on a strange angle just like the rest. A cellar door lies open, I stagger over to it. The light inside is faint, as if it were coming from candles or nearly dead flashlight bulbs. Wooden steps creek as I descend to god knows what. My throat tightens, alcohol is attempting to force its way back up, the smell of mold in the cellar isn’t helping much either. I was wrong, camping lanterns with nearly dead bulbs, damn I was so close. Eleven people stand-up from eleven chairs placed in a perfect circle. They smile and nod as I walk past making my way to the center of the room. A large dark skinned man meets me half way. His teeth stained with nicotine forming a smile from ear to ear on his chubby little face. He holds out a hand.
“Lenny Baxter, so good to meet you in person. I’m John, we spoke on the phone.”
He calls that speaking?
I burp, he motions for me to have a seat, everybody sits but John.
“First let me say that it’s nice to see you all here again.” Everybody smiles and nods in agreement as their eyes dart from each person in the room.
“Second I’d like to welcome a new member to our group. Mr. Lenny Baxter.” John starts clapping and everybody follows. I must look like an idiot, I’m sure my confusion is plastered all over my face, I’d probably look more appropriate in a dunce cap right about now instead of this old ratty cowboy hat. I half stand and give a half wave, what the hell is this?
“Lenny I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about,” is he reading my mind, I hope not.
“We’re a sort of support group… For peoples like yourself… for people cursed with the wolf.” He sounds so damn serious, almost like one of those cheap old horror flicks. A pretty young girl next to me turns; her smile almost like beaming rays of sunshine.
“I’ve been cursed for fifteen years this May. I haven’t killed in seven months.” Her voice is perky, the voice of a woman trapped in a childlike mind set.
“We’re all cursed here,” a heavyset man across the room says, the dim light shining off his bald head, he looks like a polished frog, I think I busted him a few months back in a whore house raid. In fact everyone here looks familiar somehow.
“Lenny we want you to understand what happened to you is not your fault. It’s none of our faults.” John’s voice sounds somehow sinister but I’m probably just being paranoid, I get like this when I’m drunk. John says I don’t have to speak if I don’t want to; he understands I’m still a little skeptical, he says a lot of them were their first time, he just says to listen, and I do. I listen for over an hour to everyone else, everyone talking about their urges, about what the full moon does to them, about how they chain themselves in locked rooms, how they refuse to give in to the beast.
John looks at his watch and claps his hands together once, “well folks same time next week.” Everyone stands and shakes hands, they make fast chit chat before grabbing their coats. I’m on my way out when I feel a hand on my shoulder, it’s John.
“So what do you think Lenny?” The same smile from when I first came in. I don’t answer.
“A little weird isn’t it, knowing you’re not the only one.” He chuckles, “When I first found another like me, I was so happy. This group has saved so many lives and now with you a part we’ll save so many more.” I still don’t trust him and my buzz is pretty much all gone. I grab my coat and head for the door. Something about the group doesn’t sit right with me, the whole drive home I’m trying to put my finger on it, but I’m drawing a blank. No worries, I’m not going back, so I don’t have to see them again. I could end it all tonight, why spend a life fighting an urge that you can’t control, the simplest solution is usually the right one, and the simplest one is a silver bullet through my brain, but I don’t have the balls to do that. No, I’m just going to go to bed.
It’s going to rain today, the clouds are thick and full, I hate the rain, and I hate having to work in it. The normal bad drivers become ten times worse on the wet, slippery roads. Not like a crash will do anything to me, except hurt like a bitch. I used up all my sick days so it looks like I’m stuck out there with the animals. The rain starts ten minutes after I get on the road, of course it does. It’s coming down really hard to, I can barely see out of the windshield. There are no other cars out here, I’m two miles from my place and there is someone sitting on the side of the road, the rain soaking them. I should really pull over, what the hell; I’ll be a nice guy. Damn it’s really coming down. I step out holding my hand over my head as if that will do anything against this ungodly rain.
“Everything okay?” I scream even though they are only three feet away, it’s a woman.
“My tire blew out I think.” I can’t see her face, but her voice is familiar. I move in to get a closer look but something whacks me on my head and I’m out.
When I wake I’m someplace dark, no wait, there’s a bag over my head. I hear voices talking about me, the bag comes off and I’m tied to a chair. My eyes adjust to the dim light and I recognize everyone around me. The support group from last night. John sticks his chubby face inches from mine, I can smell the tobacco on his breath.
“Hello Lenny,”
“I’m a state trooper,” I say.
“No, you’re a murder, and a disease.” John’s voice is cold.
It’s all coming back to me, where I’ve seen these people from, all but one of them, I can’t place John, but he’s growing more and more familiar, I know I’ve stared into his could blue eyes before. Everyone else I can place now, their faces on a TV scream, families of my meals, some of them are the meals, ghost of nightmares I’ve had, people who survived me, people cursed by dear old Lenny Baxter.
“Do you remember us Lenny, what you did to us.” John brings the young girl close, the girl who sat next to me last night, the girl who baited me on the road, the girl whose boyfriend I ripped apart before tearing into her leg. I never thought much about the survivors.
“It was her boyfriend’s birthday, you killed everyone there, but she made it, five months in the hospital but here she is.” John pushes her into the background, he motions for the bald toad, “remember him, he walked in just as you were finishing off his eight year old daughter.”
These people all victims of my actions. It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s coming.
“If we kill you, it breaks the curse,” John waves a gun in my face, “and I think it will bring some of these people closure knowing the killer of their families got what he deserved.
“You cursed me,” he says, those eyes, those stone cold eyes, this man was not my dinner, but then who? John pushes the barrel to my head and turns to the group watching, “are you all sure about this?” Everyone mutters in agreement, they want me dead, they want justice, they want freedom. The barrel digs into my forehead; my eyes shut tight, his finger gently pulling back the trigger, and it hits me, seconds before the bullet does, it hits me. I know where I’ve seen him before, he wasn’t my dinner, I was his. He cursed me, those blue eyes staring me down as he ripped into my arm right before I gave him a shot gun blast, those eyes staring me down as he cursed me, the same eyes staring me down as he shoots me, and he mouths I don’t like to leave loose ends.
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