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Tragic Vengeance
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Bay City, Michigan – 1955
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My clammy hands were doing me no favors. The harder I gripped the gun, the worse my palms started to sweat. It was my third month out here and I had yet to find that fucking wolf who had stolen my entire world from me.
I’d gone completely mad after Saundra’s death. They’d locked me in a mental hospital for a month—straightjacket and everything—but I didn’t care. It gave me lots of time to think about how I was going to kill that goddamn wolf and in which manner I was going to do it.
Once I proved that it was just grief that had caused me to go a little nutty, they let me out. The factory had fired me—which was disappointing and hurtful. They had always said their employees were family, but I supposed that was just a line to keep us working there. They hadn’t cared about me at all, delivering my pink slip to my home mailbox without so much as a, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
My parents were sympathetic to my plight but had no idea how to handle me. I barely spoke to my family. I spent most of my time in the library researching werewolves. As I had sat in that sterile, padded room, all the radio shows and comic books I’d listened to and read as a teen came back to me. “The Wolfman” was the one that stuck out the most. Except this wolf wasn’t half-man, half-beast. No, the fucker that killed my bride was just a plain wolf. But it definitely understood English and knew to run when the police were coming or when the doctor and the other passersby had approached. It hadn’t attacked them. It hadn’t attacked anyone else except me and Saundra. Almost like it was personal.
After poring over encyclopedias and old books on legends and lore, I knew exactly what I was going to do when I found this bastard.
First of all, werewolves only came out during the full moon, and that was why I found myself sitting in the sand on the shore where it had attacked us four months ago. One month in the asylum, and after that, I’d come out here every full moon for the past three months, waiting for it to show its ugly mug. I’d begrudgingly had to melt down some of Saundra’s jewelry for the pure silver, but was rewarded with eight silver-dipped bullets, which were now loaded into my Smith & Wesson. I definitely wasn’t going to kill this wolf quickly. No, I was going to make it suffer while I delivered a preplanned monologue about how its actions had ruined my life.
The past three full moons had yielded nothing. I sat out here each night, three nights a month during the full moon, but it hadn’t showed. Tonight, I tried a different approach. I’d parked my car, which thankfully was paid for since I was now homeless—evicted from my apartment since I’d had to use my savings to pay hospital bills and burial costs for my wife—as close as I could to the water and waited. During my last visit to my parents’ house, I’d swiped my dad’s bird-watching binoculars without his knowledge and used them now to see if this wolf would show up again. It was the last night of the full moon and if it didn’t show up tonight, I’d have to spend another month coming up with a better plan.
Scanning the trees, shoreline, and parking lot, I saw nothing. I sat there for hours, waiting, and nothing. As dawn began to approach, I started up the car, frustrated but determined to find this murderous beast eventually.
I steered the car toward the woods, where I’d slept those few nights after getting booted out of my parents’ house six years ago and parked the car. I again found myself living in the woods, but this time, I had better equipment, a tent and sleeping bag that kept me warm and lots of matches for campfires, a bow and arrow to hunt for food, and my dad’s fishing pole he’d “loaned” me that he probably wouldn’t be getting back.
Scrubbing a hand over my quickly growing beard and too-long hair, I trekked toward my campsite, my revolver tucked snug in my trouser pocket.
After starting a fire, I let it smolder while I went to a nearby stream to catch fish for dinner. It didn’t take me long to score two trout. I’d taught myself to gut and cook fish, and once it was cooked well enough, I pulled the pieces apart and scarfed down my dinner. What I wouldn’t do for some broccoli and a baked potato right about now.
I knew I needed to go find a job—anything—to support myself, but I just couldn’t think that far ahead. I needed to find this wolf and end him. I couldn’t get closure until it was dead, and I had to be the one to do it.
After cleaning up dinner, I plucked the novel I’d swiped from the library out of my backpack and set it on my sleeping bag, intent on reading before bed, the big, full moon my nightlight. The forest was quiet, crickets chirping and the occasional branch crack as small forest animals scurried around.
Fall was approaching quickly, and I wondered how I’d do out here during a Michigan winter, but I told myself I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. After doing a crude tooth brushing with some toothpaste I still had on hand, and a bird bath in the stream, I went to my tent and unzipped my sleeping bag. A crack of a branch caught my attention, but I didn’t think too much of it.
The feral growl, however, wasn’t something I could ignore.
I immediately snatched my revolver from under my pillow and exited the tent. As if my prayers had been answered, there stood the gray wolf, ten feet away, staring at me, snarling.
My blood instantly boiled. It was the same wolf—I was sure of it. With my thumb, I cocked the hammer back on the gun and pulled the trigger, firing it straight into the beast’s flank. It didn’t even have a chance to run. It fell to the forest floor with a yelp and squirmed in place.
I ran over to it, smoking gun in my hand, and cocked the hammer back again as I hovered over it. Then, something I would never, ever forget happened. It was like it happened in slow motion. The wolf’s fur began to retract into its body, its long snout shrinking into its face. Where there was once long black claws were fleshy hands. And within seconds, where a wolf once lie was a naked human man with a bleeding gunshot to the area between his hip and thigh.
“Holy Jesus!” I breathed, taking a step back but keeping my very shaky hand holding the weapon trained on the man.
“Help me,” he whimpered, rolling over and sliding a hand over the wound.
I didn’t know what to do. I’d read about this in all those books, but a part of me didn’t actually believe this was true. How was this possible? A human being turning into a wolf, or vice-versa?
“Don’t help him.”
I whipped my head around to see three males emerge from the forest. They were extremely pale under the full moon. At this point, I wasn’t sure where to aim the gun.
“What? Who are you?” I asked the strangers, who all wore dark-colored coats, jeans, and sported James Dean type hairstyles.
“Help me,” the wolf-slash-man at my feet said.
Anger took over my confusion, and I kicked the man in the stomach. “Start talking, you louse! Why did you kill my Saundra?”
One of the pale men laughed. “That’s not gonna work on a werewolf, man.”
I narrowed my eyes at the trio. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“Saundra... you took her from me,” the wolfman said, rolling back over to his side.
One minute, the trio of pale men were ten feet away, the next they were standing two feet from me. I jumped back. “What the heck!” I pointed the revolver at them.
There was too much going on, and I was so confused. “I don’t know who you are but please leave. This is between me and this man right here.”
“He kill someone you love?” the tallest of them asked me.
I nodded. “My wife. Tore her throat right out in front of me.” I bit back a sob, as I didn’t want to appear weak in front of these men, whoever they were.
“Then shoot him again, make him suffer. Or, I can start breaking his limbs for you. Or his neck...”
I looked at the pale man. “No, I’ve got this under control. I don’t know where you came from, but just go.”
“Saundra...” the man whimpered.
I bent down and pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple. “Say my wife’s name one more time, and I’ll waste you.”
“You took her from me,” he said.
“Who are you?” I asked, my teeth grinding together.
“She was to be mine, not yours, you thief,” he said quietly.
“Just waste him already. Filthy wolf has no use on this planet,” one of the pale men said.
I turned the gun on him. “I said, shut up!” I felt like I was about to crack and kill everyone around. There was too much going on in such a short period of time and my brain couldn’t keep up.
“Saundra was nineteen when I met her. She hadn’t loved anyone before me. And then you killed her.” I pressed the muzzle harder into his temple, the tears I couldn’t hold back now falling like rain down my cheeks. “I hate you. I hate you so much!”
“His wound is going to heal if you don’t off him. Let me take his head off. Those bullets won’t kill him either.”
I looked over at the pale man and said, “Shut your trap. Please just shut your trap.” I shook uncontrollably now, sweat and tears mixing on my face.
I looked back at the naked man. “These are silver bullets. You want another?”
“No, please,” he whimpered.
“Smart, very smart,” the pale man said, smiling, and I just now noticed he had fangs that shone under the full moon.
Fangs... what the?
“Get the fuck out of here!” I screamed, knowing I’d finally lost the plot since I’d used the F-word.
“He won’t heal, I stand corrected,” one of the pale men replied.
I lifted the gun and shot him in the stomach. He fell to the forest floor, gripping his stomach with a curse.
Hot, stinging heat seared into my leg. I looked down to see the man was a wolf again, and his fangs were clamped onto my calf.
“Get off me!” I screamed.
Then he lunged up and snapped his mouth on my neck. Remembering I had the gun, I cocked the hammer back and shot the wolf in the head. Blood and bone splattered my face. He immediately dropped to the forest floor, changed back into a man, and lay lifeless and unmoving. He died with his eyes open.
Two of the pale men advanced on me so fast, I didn’t see them coming.
The weapon slipped from my hand as both men bit into the side of my neck and chewed my skin, muscles, and veins to shreds. I could literally feel my lifeforce draining out of me... and pretty much couldn’t care less.
At least I’d die happy, knowing I’d murdered the sonofabitch who’d taken my Saundra from me.