An unholy predator on the prowl!

Wolf Land

© 2015 Jonathan Janz

The small town of Lakeview offers little excitement for Duane, Savannah, and their friends. They’re about to endure their ten-year high school reunion when their lives are shattered by the arrival of an ancient, vengeful evil.

The werewolf.

The first attack leaves seven dead and four wounded. And though the beast remains on the loose and eager to spill more blood, the sleepy town is about to face an even greater terror. Because the four victims of the werewolf’s fury are changing. They’re experiencing unholy desires and unimaginable cravings. They’ll prey on the innocent. They’ll act on their basest desires. Soon, they’ll plunge the entire town into a nightmare. Lakeview is about to become Wolf Land.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Wolf Land:

“Seriously, man,” Mike said. “Who the hell is that?”

Glenn swiveled his head to look, and as he did he noticed that several other partygoers had spotted the newcomer as well.

The man stood maybe thirty yards away from where Glenn and Mike were standing, and perhaps twenty feet away from the nearest partygoers, who Glenn now identified as Dan and Jessica Clinton. Dan had impregnated Jessica in high school, and they’d gotten married. Now they had six kids and lived on the lake.

The man remained where he was, the shadows veiling his face. He was dressed curiously. He wore all black, but the clothes were too formal—dress slacks, a button-down shirt. For another, the clothes hung off the man as though he’d lost a great deal of weight recently. Glenn was reminded of a scarecrow. Or an itinerant preacher with parishioners too cheap to tithe.

“You know the dude?” Mike asked.

Glenn shook his head. He didn’t know the man, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Maybe it was the Jack and Coke, or maybe it was the heat from the bonfire, which danced and licked the air with rabid orange tongues, but there was definitely something unnatural about the figure. The man hadn’t moved at all, for one thing. For another, Glenn was pretty sure he could see the man’s eyes, even from this distance. They were chips of blue ice, piercing and not at all friendly.

Hunter and Kris Marvin had also noticed the interloper. Maybe, Glenn reasoned, one of the brothers had invited the guy. But that didn’t seem right either. There was something about the way the man stood that suggested experience. Glenn couldn’t shake the idea that one of their former teachers had shown up. Or some other hostile authority figure from their pasts.

“Come have a beer,” Kris Marvin called. Kris was the easier-going of the two brothers, and no doubt wanted to defuse the weird tension that had permeated the gathering.

The man in the shadows didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Glenn was sure he could see the man’s eyes glowing now.

“Ah, to hell with this,” Hunter Marvin said and began to stalk forward.

Glenn felt a chill. Hunter was a state champion wrestler and didn’t possess the peace-making tendencies of his brother. If Hunter decided to attack the man, things might get very ugly indeed. Probably sensing the danger here, Kris moved up alongside his brother and barred him with an outstretched arm.

“You are wayward lambs,” the man said.

The rest of Glenn’s lethargy burned away in a white-hot blast of fear. The man’s voice had been resonant, erudite. Yet there had been a croaking, disused quality to it, as if the man’s lungs were a pair of ancient bellows, the vocal chords coated in some viscous oil. Had he been alone, Glenn would have taken off running.

But Mike was chuckling. “‘Wayward lambs’? What the hell is he talking about?”

Both Marvin brothers were laughing too. In fact, it seemed that most of the partygoers found this newcomer an innocuous novelty someone had hired to enliven the proceedings.

But there were also those who weren’t laughing.

Savannah and her friend, the librarian whose name Glenn couldn’t recall…they were watching the newcomer with real trepidation. As was Short Pump, who was standing by himself about fifteen feet behind Glenn and Mike. Short Pump had a beer clutched in one hand, but his other hand was resting on his thigh, the fingers there tap-tapping against his jeans.

“You gonna have a beer or not?” Kris Marvin said. “I can’t prevent my brother from kicking your ass much longer.”

Jessica Clinton, who along with her husband Dan and her best friend Adriana Carlino, were the closest people to the interloper, said, “What the hell’s up your ass, man?”

Without moving, the man looked at Dan Clinton and said, “Tell your woman to be still.”

A few partygoers chuckled, but no one else saw much humor in the comment, least of all Jessica Clinton. She was sassy, Glenn knew. A woman pretty much had to be sassy to manage six kids.

Jessica flipped her long, auburn hair aside, and strode toward the figure. “You better start apologizing right now.”

The man laughed softly. “Helpless, wayward lambs.”

Glenn’s chill deepened.

But Jessica’s husband had evidently had enough. So had Hunter Marvin. Together, they stalked toward the figure, who Glenn realized was bigger and stronger than he’d initially estimated. The black clothes remained a bit roomy, but the figure inside them was far from emaciated. To the contrary, the arms and legs seemed muscular now. Even if he was older, the man looked stout enough to put up a fight.

“This is your only warning,” the man said, his voice deepening.

Hunter Marvin spread his arms. “You’re warning us?”

“If you run now,” the man continued, “you might escape retribution.”

Now the laughter was more pronounced.

“You believe this?” Billy Kramer said to Colton Crane. “This douchebag thinks he’s gonna take us all on.”

One person who apparently took the man’s threats seriously was Josh Roller. A couple years older than Glenn, Roller was a known gun enthusiast. Brushing past Glenn and Mike, Roller said, “Fellas, I’m gonna put a stop to this bull, pronto.”

Which meant, Glenn knew, that Roller was trudging to his beat-up Ford pick-up in order to retrieve whatever weaponry he stored there. Roller had driven through one of the fields and was only parked about fifty yards away.

Time to go, a voice whispered.

But that was impossible, Glenn knew. Not only were the odds in their favor—hell, there were how many people here tonight? Fifty?—but he would appear gutless if he turned tail now. Not to mention Savannah. What would she think of him?

Don’t you want to protect Savannah?

Sure, he thought uneasily. Of course I do.

“Last warning, asshole,” Hunter Marvin said. “Either leave or tell us who the hell you are.”

“And apologize to my wife,” Dan Clinton added. Dan was ordinarily a pretty reasonable guy, but he looked pissed off enough to make the interloper pay for his rudeness.

“You want to know who I am?” the interloper asked.

Hunter Marvin grinned, glanced back at the other partygoers in exasperation. “That’s what I said, didn’t I? You hard of hearing or something?”

“Hard of hearing is one thing I am not,” the interloper said. “I hear everything. I hear the wind and what it conceals. I hear the language of the night, the music of the ancient world. I hear the leaves. I hear the worms, eager to writhe in your carcass.”

Hunter hesitated. “You’re a real freak, aren’t you?”

The figure turned his face this way and that, sampling the air.

“I smell your fear,” the interloper said. “It is the scent of impending death.”

And now, for the first time since they’d met back in junior high, Glenn saw Hunter Marvin take a backwards step. Hunter had always seemed eager for a confrontation, but several factors were conspiring to undo his courage now:

The interloper’s body no longer looked bony at all, but instead packed the voluminous clothes with brawn and sinew. Though there was still something in the voice and bearing that bespoke of experience, Glenn now wondered just how agile this man might be. His whole frame seemed to thrum with caged energy. And something else. If hatred were a tangible thing, this man was broadcasting it. The contempt in his voice was real, the desire to inflict pain.

“Hey, guys?” a voice behind them said.

Glenn turned and saw Short Pump, whose apologetic expression only partially masked his terror.

“What?” Mike asked.

“Think we should maybe, I don’t know, get the hell out of here?” Short Pump asked.

Glenn was about to agree with him, his reputation as a badass be damned, when the figure said, “You were wrong to return.”

Next to him he sensed Mike stiffen.

Glenn swallowed. “Hey, I think Duane’s got a point. Maybe we should get Savannah and—”

“See what your deeds have wrought,” the figure interrupted.

Glenn tried to swallow but couldn’t. The voice seemed to fill the clearing, to absorb the flames of the bonfire and swirl about them until the air was no longer breathable, was a superheated cauldron in which they would all boil.

Dan Clinton stepped closer to the figure. “Look, I’ve asked you to apologize to my wife, and if you’re not going to—”

“Come,” the figure said.

Dan faltered, a stricken look on his face. He glanced about uncertainly, then said, “You mean me?”

“I mean anyone with a modicum of courage. Even one who has failed an entire town.”

And this time there was absolutely no doubt to whom the figure was speaking.