| |
Despite the many horror books I wrote, I never wrote a werewolf story. I always tried to come up with something new, whether it be a monstrous animal like in The Chameleon or an indescribable psychological ability like telekinesis that just so happened to end up in the mind of a sociopath. I always skirted the line of not divulging too much concrete information for the shear fact that readers loved there to always be some areas for themselves to fill in the gaps. Some readers did not like the gaps and accused me (or TC Hawks or Granger Haven or whomever I was writing as) of not fully explaining the story for it to make complete sense.
Personally, I think that’s boring for just the narrator to tell you everything and leave nothing to the imagination of the reader. Some things won’t make sense because life doesn’t always all make sense. To me, it seemed realistic to accept that approach with all my books. To some readers, they took it as a flaw in my writing. To each their own, but fuck the latter.
Although I never wrote a story or series involving werewolves per se, I did remember doing some research on the subject for various books, and sometimes just for fun in case I ever did want to write one.
Some of what I remember was pretty vague. As such, I hopped onto Google and did some research.
There are many different theories involving the subject. Over the years, I’ve become pretty good at deciphering what’s completely false to those that have some merit. Bigfoot stories, for instance, always gave me some pause since there have been so many sightings and credible people that say they saw something they couldn’t explain.
Werewolves, however, were a different beast, literally.
The majority of werewolf folktales are just that: tales.
But the origin of the werewolf dates back to Greek mythology.
A cruel king named Lyacon hated the god of the kings, Zeus. Lyacon tried to trick Zeus into eating a meal that was made from human flesh. After learning of this attempt, Zeus turned Lyacon into a wolf. But of course, Lyacon wasn’t just your average wolf. He could change from human to wolf form. Some legends suggest that he could change from human to wolf or vice versa at his own whim; others say he would only turn when there was a full moon.
More legends go on to say that Lyacon wanted revenge against Zeus for his new cursed life so he turned other people, slaves mainly, into werewolves so that one day he could start a war with Zeus and take his place as god of the kings.
There’s a lot of folklore about this subject.
I also delved into the possibility that these crimes could have been the result of someone experiencing clinical lycanthropy. Basically, it’s a delusional person who thinks that can transform into an animal.
But the crime scene left traces of actual wolf hair, and the hair could change colors to hide itself in plain sight.
That was one part of the equation that threw off this notion of this chaos being caused by a werewolf. If anything, it sounded more like my book.
Come to think of it, it sounded like a hybrid of both the beast in my book and a werewolf.
I wasn’t even going to question the why or how. That’s just what it seemed like at the moment.
But I still went back to the motive of why a werewolf would kill three women and steal the husbands. And all couples did not have children. What’s the connection?
I researched a bit more and discovered that some legends stated that werewolves were mostly male because the woman’s gene, for whatever reason, wasn’t strong enough to endure the turning point of becoming a werewolf, either as a developing fetus or after being bitten as an adult. However, there were at least some female werewolves.
It was becoming more clear in my research that because female werewolves were somewhat of a rarity, they took on multiple male partners for mates. In fact, in order to birth a newborn werewolf from a female werewolf, it needed semen from at least three male counterparts.
Three!
The werewolf picks its mates by the inherent pheromonal scent given off by the males. Essentially, males that are not consistently having sex on a regular basis would produce a low amount of pheromones. However, if you’re with a partner, like most married couples, you’re at least getting it on a few times a month.
That must be it!
The female werewolf, wherever it came from and for whatever reason, has chameleon-like capabilities, and needs to procreate to preserve its species. She may be the only one of its kind, at least in this area. It kidnapped the three men with no kids and killed the wives so there would be no parental or sexual competition. In this scenario, it must not be necessary for the men to be werewolves themselves in order to sire an offspring. Even a half-werewolf is still more werewolf than just the lone female.
I then started to think about Deputy Rose. She was at Ridley’s house, just minutes after she told me Ridley left for the day from the station. She obviously doesn’t want me to help with this case, which is odd since she’s now really the only law enforcement officer in our small town. Why wouldn’t she welcome backup from someone who has the time and who the sheriff deems to be competent enough to work with?
And that line she said. That was straight my manuscript.
All those facts, mixed with my basic hunches that have seemed to prove righteous throughout the course of these recent events, illuminated what I knew to be true.
Deputy Lindsay Rose is the werewolf.
And she has the men held captive somewhere.