by Stead, Nick
“I’m not the guy you think I am.”
“What, you mean you’re really a girl like one of these transgendered people we’ve heard about? Because if you are that doesn’t change anything – you’re still the same person I’ve known since Year Seven.”
I laughed in spite of myself, though it was hollow and held little in the way of humour. “Hell no, there’s no confusion over my gender. No, I mean I’m not the guy you think you know. There’s this other side to me that you wouldn’t like.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t want to.” I met her eyes for a second and the concern in them almost broke me. My guilt grew heavier still as my gaze returned to the floor. “I wish I could tell you about what’s really going on but I just can’t. I value our friendship and it means a lot that you want to be here for me – more than you could ever know – but you can’t help this time and talking about it will just make things worse. So leave it please.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she held her tongue. We sat in silence for a minute or so, until the guilt drove me back to my feet.
“I need to be alone,” I said, rushing off before she could stop me. Her eyes felt accusing as she watched me go. Clearly I needed to make a better show of hiding things, but I was so lost in the horror and the shock of the wolf’s memories, not to mention the growing depression and the despair at the sheer hopelessness of my fate, that acting like my normal, happy self seemed impossible.
I made it home without further interruption. Dad was out golfing as usual on a Saturday, but Mum was in.
“Nick, there you are!” she said. I must have been gone a while – her face looked haggard with worry and when I went up to my desk it was to find several texts and missed calls on my phone. There was no lecture though, not when she saw the state I was in. My reflection was shocking, my pale face worse than Fiona’s had been when I’d first found her. The threat of an emergency appointment at the doctor’s sent me fleeing to the safety of my room, where I insisted I just needed to rest.
I wasn’t the same after that. I couldn’t eat, the very thought of it sickening, couldn’t sleep, since the nightmares plagued me worse than ever, and I refused to speak to people. Outwardly I was an empty shell, just a shadow of the laughing, joking boy I had once been. Inwardly I was trapped in the wolf’s memories, reliving the horror of all it had done time and again. But I was still in there somewhere, just enough of me left to function.
My parents gave up on trying to find out what was wrong and let me be, probably assuming it was nothing more than the mood swings brought on by puberty. My friends soon did the same when the weekend was over and we were back at school. Maybe Lizzy had talked to them for me. I sat in silence in the classrooms, hearing less and less of what the teachers were saying. My grades were suffering worse than ever. Not that I cared. It all seemed pointless then.
When it was discovered Fiona was missing, they soon forgot about me anyway. Fiona had been a popular girl and worry for her seemed to have settled over the entire school. David was especially distraught. Then the inevitable moment came when the police found her body, and I was no longer the only one lost in a dark pit of his own grief, sadness and mourning. But unlike the rest of them, I had guilt, depression, despair and horror to seal me in as well, along with anger and hate, with no hope of ever crawling out into the light. I had reached a point from which it seemed there was no return, death my only release.
Death. I thought about it often. What I wouldn’t have given for the earth to open up beneath my feet and let me fall into Hell. I wasn’t afraid – I wanted to pay for my sins. Did I have the nerve to end it myself though? I didn’t fear death, and yet I didn’t know whether I could commit that final sin. But doing so would save countless lives, and why should it be a sin anyway? God didn’t care about me. It was my life after all, mine to take and do with as I wished. If I chose to end it no one would stop me. If. That was the thing. I didn’t know if I could. Perhaps if I was pushed far enough I would, but there was still a faint desire to live somewhere in there. Maybe it lay with the wolf. It had shown me something of its suffering, but did it suffer enough to want death as much as I did?
Time didn’t help either. Gradually the school would forget. Fiona Young would become just another name in the school’s history, and only in those closest to her would she live on. Eventually the horror surrounding her death would fade and the mystery of it would become the thing of local legend. But not for me.
Every time I dared to close my eyes she was there, in my nightmares, stirring my guilt and renewing the horror of what I’d done. So I spent my every waking minute fighting sleep, despite the constant exhaustion and the strain it placed me under. If anything, time made it worse.
Fiona’s death had been all over the news of course – hers and the other girl the wolf had killed that same night – and experts had come to the conclusion that she’d been killed by some sort of canine, but they couldn’t agree on the species. They were saying the bites looked like the work of a large wolf or a dog, but where would a wolf have come from? And yet, despite the unlikelihood of there being a wolf on the loose, many people still favoured a wolf as the culprit. Dogs had too good a reputation. No one wanted to believe teenage girls were being killed by man’s best friend.
The rogue wolf, they were calling it, an escaped animal probably brought up illegally by someone with a taste for exotic pets – or at least that was the most popular theory. And then more deaths were discovered – the wolf’s kills from the two following nights before it was locked away inside again for another month – and the media had got the whole town in a panic.
The wolf had been clever enough to hide its kills to start off with, so what had changed? I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know. Maybe it deemed it pointless, once the first body had been left out in the open to be discovered. For all its intelligence, it hadn’t considered the reaction all these bodies would cause, in both the general public and the government. They could well be planning a full on wolf hunt. But if they were, I wasn’t aware of it. I’d never paid any attention to the news and I was ignorant of whatever they had promised to do. It didn’t matter to me anyway. If they killed me it was for the better, and it would save me having to find the courage to do it myself.
The days wore on, and I knew time was running out for at least three more people in December, unless I could find a way to put a stop to my lupine half’s monstrous hunger.
But how did I stop it? I had felt the wolf’s strength. What could possibly contain that brutal force, driven by the primitive need to kill, to feed? My room wouldn’t hold it, but I had to try something. It was either that or ask the vampires for better ideas, but I didn’t know if they would understand. Lady Sarah wouldn’t, I was sure of that, and while Vince chose to live among mortals, he didn’t seem to have a problem with killing. He had told me to learn from the wolf; I didn’t think he would understand why I wanted to stop it.
Whatever I was going to do, I had to decide on it soon. Time was running out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hybrid
Winter ravaged the land with icy fury, the air turning bitterly cold in the days leading up to the full moon. Gloom settled over the heavens, the clouds as dark as my mood. Then the first of the winter snows fell, drifting down in a gentle flurry and delicately dusting the land. At first that was all it did: powdered the fields at the back of the house and the streets at the front. It didn’t last long enough to do much else. But that turned out to be no more than the calm before the storm, the showers coming angrier and heavier the next day. I watched the flakes swarming like a plague of angry insects, invading the world around them until they’d coated everything in a dazzling blanket of pure white. Our town was transformed, no longer a concrete jungle but a landscape of cold beauty.
The school grounds became a battlefield, snowballs flying thick and fast. Everyone was making the most of it while it lasted. Everyone but m
e.
The nights had been growing noticeably longer, something that filled me with an even greater sense of dread. Would there be more deaths? From the memories the wolf had shown me, it seemed its hunger was insatiable.
But what was on my mind the most was not knowing which night the moon would be full – I could only guess. At least a week had gone by since I’d last glimpsed it drifting between the clouds and I had no idea how much rounder it had gotten since. It seemed the lunar calendars could only guess too; not one of them could agree on when it would reach its fullest. The uncertainty felt worse than if I’d had a definite date hanging over me, my mind constantly tormented by the unanswered question of whether it would be that night, or the one after, or the one after that. And all the while I was trying to think of a way to stop the wolf, and so far I had come up with none.
Then, on the day of the heavy snowfall, it seemed I was to face my fears.
I chose to stay behind after school and catch up on some homework, not because I was worried about my grades and whether I passed or failed my GCSEs, but in the hope of forgetting what was still to come that month, and the inevitable bloodshed. When I grew restless, I knew what it probably meant and I took my leave.
Grey faded to black as I stepped out into the wintry wonderland, quickening my pace in fear of the oncoming darkness. Minutes later I was rushing down the drive, fumbling for my key with fingers made slow and clumsy in the cold. There was a noticeable shake to them as I stabbed at the lock, and I had to use my other hand to steady myself before it would slide in.
I looked up at the darkening sky as I opened the door, wondering if there truly was a full moon hidden behind those clouds. For the sake of the poor souls fated to become my prey that month I hoped not, though I knew it had to come sometime soon, and what difference did it really make whether it was that night or later in the week? I shivered again and went inside.
No sooner had I stepped through the doorway than the pain started. I groaned as it ravaged my stomach and headed straight for the stairs, desperate for the sanctuary of my room. What I’d do to stop the wolf when I got up there I had no idea, but it was too late for that now. The wolf was coming and there was no holding it back.
Amy blocked my path, a lollypop poking out of her mouth and a taunting look in her eyes. She got to her feet and stretched her arms out either side of her, determined not to let me pass until I was begging her for it.
I couldn’t believe her timing. She was so bloody annoying when she wanted to be, and already I was sure I could feel things happening inside my body and I had to know, had to find out whether it was what I feared it to be.
“Shift.”
“Ask me nicely,” she said in a sing-song voice.
“C’mon, Amy, move!”
“Ask me nicely.”
I didn’t have time for this. Visible changes could start at any moment, and I really didn’t want to transform in front of my family. Amy noticed my growing anxiety and was enjoying it all the more. Was my skin itching or was it my imagination? I couldn’t tell.
“Get out of the way!” I roared, pushing past her. There was a sharp crack as she fell, then the crying started. Whether I actually hurt her or not was anyone’s guess. A born actress, she could turn on the tears whenever it suited her. Maybe it was for real this time and I should have felt bad, but I was too caught up in my fear of the moon.
In the safety of my room, I examined the backs of my hands and ripped my shirt open, expecting to see the wolf’s pelt spreading over my skin, muscles rippling beneath it, bones reforming. But my hands were normal, my chest bare, the skin stretched across a human framework, and the pain dying down. Not daring to believe it, I ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was shocked by what I saw.
Human eyes stared out of a gaunt face. Human, but not my own. The horror had affected me more deeply than I’d thought. Not sleeping or eating, not to mention the constant stress I was under, had robbed me of muscles and fatty tissue, leaving little more than bone. Barely recognisable as the boy I’d been, my face looked closer to a living skull now.
That was the first time I’d really looked at myself since Fiona’s death. Facing my reflection had only worsened the guilt, and I’d avoided it where I could.
A trace of something in my eyes unnerved me, a hint of the unearthly hunger that came with the transformation. Then it was gone, and the eyes staring back at me held only sadness and despair.
I held that gaze as long as I could, until finally I had to look away. Truly I had died the night I was bitten and but a shadow of myself remained. Still, I had a faint glimmer of hope. I wouldn’t transform that night; I still had time to find a way to restrain the wolf.
I clung to that hope with everything I had left – all the strength that hadn’t been driven out of me by Fiona’s death. But the days continued to slip by and I was no closer to figuring out how I could keep myself from killing. And then it was Thursday night, and the thing I’d been dreading had finally come.
Darkness fell and I couldn’t keep still. My feet paced the length of my room, my eyes constantly drawn to the window and the blackness of the night sky. It was with a sense of defeat that I watched the moonlight pierce a crack in the cloud cover, setting my body on fire and summoning the pain.
With a cry of anguish, I fell to my knees, fighting the sensation of bones lengthening and flesh shifting. It was no use. The moon’s power over me was absolute.
More snow drifted by my window, thickening the white blanket covering the streets. Out there it was quiet and peaceful, at complete odds with the world of chaos I’d been thrown into. It seemed impossible that the two could exist so close together, separated only by the walls of our home. But not for long. Soon the chaos would break free and run rampant on those tranquil streets, and the world would share in my pain.
The moon climbed higher and plunged into another layer of clouds. And as the sky grew blacker, I felt the impossible. The change was reversing!
I was almost fully lupine when thankfully, mercifully, I found the strength to push the wolf back. It had to be the moonlight, or lack of – the wolf must need it to gain control. Had I just found the answer to keeping myself from killing every month?
The wolf felt cheated. It continued to fight me for dominance long into the night, but the moon remained hidden and I was spared from killing. The town would be safe, and my hope was restored.
Saturday came and I was in a better mood than I had been for weeks past. The cloud cover had kept the moon hidden and I was full of optimism, for the rest of the winter months at least. As long as the clouds lasted, none need die by my jaws.
I lay on my top bunk, awake and fully human, when I heard my bedroom door open and Mum’s voice called out “Nick, love, are you awake?”
“It’s Saturday,” I grumbled.
“It’s your sister’s birthday. Come on, we’re ready for opening cards and presents!”
I sighed. Sleep might not be an option with the nightmares waiting to ensnare me, but I would happily have stayed in bed a while longer and rested as best I could. Taking part in the family tradition of squeezing into Mum and Dad’s bed for cards and presents was the last thing I felt like doing.
Cold air greeted me as I threw off the covers and forced myself down the bunk bed’s ladder. The window drew me over and I pulled open the curtains to peer out. It was to find the snow showers had stopped for the time being, though the sky was still black as ever. My optimism remained intact as I made my way into my parents’ room.
Amy was already sat between Mum and Dad. She patted the bed for me to join her and I climbed in, watching as she opened her birthday gifts and feigning interest in the cards she passed round to look at.
With the birthday morning ritual complete, we went down for breakfast and more cards arriving through the letterbox.
“Okay, cooked breakfast today if you want one, Amy,” Mum said, making her way into the kitchen. “How much bacon and sausage do we all want?�
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“Aw, can’t I have cake for breakfast, Mum, please?” Amy answered as we sat at the table.
“You’ve got cake for later, when Mel gets here.”
A stab of fear went through me. “Mel?”
Amy rolled her eyes, her voice dripping sarcasm. “Yes, Nick, you know – my friend?”
I swore. Of course, the birthday sleepover – I’d completely forgotten! And it couldn’t have come at a worse time. There was still one more night to get through before the moon lost its hold over me, and I got the sense the wolf would be fighting harder than ever to take control. How would I keep it at bay with two girls running around giggling and screaming like five-year-olds?
“Oi!” Dad snapped. “Language!”
“Yes, less of that, please, Nick,” Mum said. “It’s Amy’s birthday – let’s not ruin it.”
“But I’m not putting up with the two of them giggling all night!”
Impatience crept into Mum’s voice. “Don’t worry, they won’t bother you. They’ll be in their room, you’ll be in yours. It’s only for one night.”
“But-”
“Enough, Nick,” Dad said, with more than just impatience. I knew then arguing was pointless, even if it was for their safety. His anger was nearing boiling point and there was nothing I could say which wouldn’t tip him over the edge, and certainly nothing to change anyone’s minds.
“So how much bacon and sausage are we all having?” Mum asked again.
“None for me – I’m not hungry.” I stood and started to make my way upstairs.
“What’s happened to your manners? None for me, thank you!” Dad shouted after me.
