by R. L. Stine
“Is Wolf out there?” I asked anxiously. I ran to the kitchen window before she could reply.
I could see Wolf at the head of the driveway. He had a blue rubber ball between his front paws, and he was chewing at it furiously.
“Bet he’s hungry for breakfast,” I muttered.
I heard the crunch of gravel, and Dad’s car pulled up the drive. The trunk was opened partway, a roll of wire mesh bulging inside.
“Morning,” Dad said as he came into the kitchen. His expression was grim.
“Are you going to take Wolf?” I demanded immediately. My eyes were on the dog, chewing on the rubber ball outside. He looked so cute.
“People in town are upset,” Dad replied, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker. “A lot of animals have been killed this week. And a guy who lives down the way, Ed Warner, has disappeared in the swamp. People are very worried. They’ve heard the howls, too.”
“Are you taking Wolf away?” I repeated shrilly, my voice trembling.
Dad nodded. His expression remained grim. He took a long sip of coffee. “Go look at the paw prints outside the pen, Grady,” he said, locking his eyes on mine. “Go ahead. Take a look.”
“I don’t care about prints,” I moaned. “I just know—”
“I can’t take any more chances,” Dad said.
“I don’t care! He’s my dog!” I screamed.
“Grady—” Dad set down the cup and started toward me.
But I burst past him and ran to the door. Pushing open the screen door, I leapt off the back stoop.
Wolf stood up as soon as he saw me. His tail started to wag. Leaving the blue rubber ball behind, he began loping toward me eagerly.
Dad was right behind me. “I’m going to take the dog away now, Grady,” he said. “Do you want to come along?”
“No!” I cried.
“I have no choice,” Dad said, his voice just above a whisper. He stepped forward and reached for Wolf.
“No!” I shouted. “No! Run, Wolf! Run!”
I gave the dog a shove. Wolf turned to me uncertainly.
“Run!” I screamed. “Run! Run!”
26
I gave Wolf another hard shove. “Run! Run, boy! Go!”
Dad had his hands around Wolf’s shoulders, but he didn’t have a good grip.
Wolf broke free and started to run toward the swamp.
“Hey—!” Dad called angrily. He chased Wolf to the end of the back yard. But the big dog was too fast for him.
I stood behind the house, breathing hard, and watched Wolf until he disappeared into the low trees at the edge of the swamp.
Dad turned back toward me, an angry expression on his face. “That was dumb, Grady,” he muttered.
I didn’t say anything.
“Wolf will come back later,” Dad said. “When he does, I’ll have to take him away.”
“But, Dad—” I started.
“No more discussion,” he said sternly. “As soon as the dog returns, I’m taking him to the pound.”
“You can’t!” I screamed.
“The dog is a killer, Grady. I have no choice.” Dad headed toward the car. “Come help me unload this wire mesh. I’ll need your help getting the pen patched up.”
I gazed toward the swamp as I followed Dad to the car. Don’t come back, Wolf, I pleaded silently. Please, don’t come back.
All day long, I watched the swamp. I felt nervous, shaky. I had no appetite at all. After I helped Dad repair the deer pen, I stayed in my room. I tried to read a book, but the words were just a blur.
By evening, Wolf hadn’t returned.
You’re safe, Wolf, I thought. At least for today.
My whole family was tense. At dinner, we hardly spoke. Emily talked about the movie she had seen the night before, but no one joined in with any comments.
I went to bed early. I was really tired. From tension, I guess. And from being up most of the night before.
My room was darker than usual. It was the last night of the full moon, but heavy blankets of clouds covered the moonlight.
I settled my head onto my pillow and tried to get to sleep. But I kept thinking about Wolf.
The howls started a short while later.
I crept out of bed and hurried to the window. I squinted out into the darkness. Heavy, black clouds still covered the moon. The air was still. Nothing moved.
I heard a low growl, and Wolf came into focus.
He was standing stiffly in the middle of the back yard, his head tilted up to the sky, uttering low growls. As I stared out the window at him, the big dog began to pace, back and forth from one side of the yard to the other.
He’s pacing like a caged animal, I thought. Pacing and growling, as if something is really troubling him.
Or scaring him.
As he paced, he kept raising his head toward the full moon behind the clouds and growling.
What is going on? I wondered. I had to find out.
I got dressed quickly in the darkness, pulling on the jeans and T-shirt I had worn all day.
I fumbled into my sneakers. At first I had the left one on the right foot. It was so dark in my room without the moonlight pouring in!
As soon as my sneakers were tied, I hurried back to the window. Wolf was leaving the back yard, I saw. He was lumbering slowly in the direction of the swamp.
I’m going to follow Wolf, I decided. I’m going to prove once and for all that he isn’t a killer—or a werewolf.
I was afraid my parents might hear me if I went to the kitchen door. So I crawled out my window.
The grass was wet from a heavy dew. The air was wet, too, and nearly as hot as during the day. My sneakers squeaked and slid on the damp grass as I hurried to follow Wolf.
I stopped at the end of the back yard. I’d lost him.
I could still hear him somewhere up ahead. I could hear the soft thud of his paws on the marshy ground.
But it was too dark to see him.
I followed the sound of his footsteps, gazing up at the shifting, shadowy clouds.
I was nearly to the swamp when I heard footsteps behind me.
With a gasp of fright, I stopped and listened hard.
Yes. Footsteps.
Moving rapidly toward me.
27
“Hey!”
I let out a choked cry and spun around.
At first, all I could see was blackness. “Hey—who’s there?” My voice came out in a hushed whisper.
Will stepped out from the darkness. “Grady—it’s you!” he cried. He came closer. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt over black jeans.
“Will—what are you doing out here?” I asked breathlessly.
“I heard the howls,” he replied. “I decided to investigate.”
“Me, too. I’m so glad to see you!” I exclaimed. “We can explore together.”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” he said. “It was so dark, I—I didn’t know it was you. I thought—”
“I’m following Wolf,” I told him. I led the way into the swamp. It grew even darker as we made our way under the low trees.
As we walked, I told Will about the night before, about the murdered deer, the paw prints around the deer pen. I told him about how people in town were talking. And about how my dad planned to take Wolf away to the pound.
“I know Wolf isn’t the killer,” I told him. “I just know it. But Cassie got me so scared with all her werewolf stories, and—”
“Cassie is a jerk,” Will muttered. He pointed into the weeds. “Look—there’s Wolf!”
I could see his black outline moving steadily through the heavy darkness. “I was so stupid. I should have brought a flashlight,” I murmured.
Wolf disappeared behind the weeds. Will and I followed the sound of his footsteps. We walked for several minutes. Suddenly, I realized I could no longer hear the dog.
“Where’s Wolf?” I whispered, my eyes searching the dark bushes and low trees. “I don’t want to lose him.”
/>
“He went this way,” Will called back to me. “Follow me.”
Our sneakers slid over the damp, marshy ground. I slapped at a mosquito on the back of my neck. Too late. I could feel warm blood.
Deeper into the swamp. Past the bog, eerily silent now.
“Hey, Will?”
I stopped—and searched. “Oh.” A soft cry escaped my lips as I realized I had lost him.
Somehow we had gotten separated.
I heard rustling up ahead. The crack of twigs. The whispering brush of weeds being stepped on and pushed out of the way.
“Will? Is that you?”
Or was it Wolf?
“Will?”
“Where are you?”
Pale light suddenly washed over me, washed slowly over the ground. Glancing up, I saw the heavy clouds pull away. The yellow full moon hovered high in the sky.
As the light slowly swept over the swamp, a low structure came into view straight ahead of me.
At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Some kind of gigantic plant?
No.
As the moonlight shone down, I realized I was staring at the swamp hermit’s shack.
I stopped, frozen in sudden fear.
And then the howls began.
The frightening sound tore through the heavy silence. A horrifying wail, so loud, so nearby, rose on the still air, rose and then fell.
The sound was so terrifying, I raised my hands to cover my ears.
The swamp hermit! I thought. He is a werewolf!
I knew he was the werewolf.
I’ve got to get away from here, I realized. I’ve got to get home.
I turned away from the small shack.
My legs were trembling so hard, I didn’t know if I could walk.
Got to go! Got to go! Got to go! The words repeated in my mind.
But before I could move, the werewolf burst out from behind a tree—and, howling its hideous howl, leapt onto my shoulders and shoved me to the ground.
28
As the yellow light of the full moon shone down, I gazed into the face of the werewolf as it pinned me to the ground.
Its dark eyes glared out at me from a human face, a human face covered in wolf fur. It howled its rage, its animal snout opening wide to reveal two gleaming rows of wolf fangs.
It’s a human wolf! I realized to my terror. A werewolf!
“Get off!” I shrieked. “Will—get off me!”
It was Will. The werewolf was Will.
Even through the thick, matted wolf fur, I could recognize his dark features, his small, black eyes, his thick, stubby neck.
“Will—!” I screamed.
I struggled to push him away, to squirm out from under.
But he was too powerful. I couldn’t move.
“Will—get off!”
He raised his fur-covered face to the moon and uttered an animal howl. Then, snarling out his rage, he lowered his beastly head and dug his fangs into my shoulder.
I let out a shriek of pain.
Blinding flashes of red filled my eyes.
I thrust out my hands, kicked my legs—struggled blindly to free myself.
But he had animal strength. He was much too strong for me… too strong… .
The flashing red faded, turned to black. Everything was fading to black. I could feel myself sinking, sinking down a black tunnel, sinking forever into deep, deep, endlessly deep darkness.
A loud growl brought me back.
Bewildered, I gazed up to see Wolf leap onto Will.
Will uttered a shrill howl of anger and turned to wrestle with the snarling dog.
I watched in stunned disbelief as they scrabbled over the ground, biting and clawing, raging at each other, growling and grunting.
“Will… Will, it was you… it was you all along….” I murmured, struggling to my feet.
I gripped a tree trunk. The ground appeared to be sliding beneath me.
The two creatures continued to battle, grunting and growling as they clawed at each other, wrestling over the wet ground.
“I knew it wasn’t Wolf,” I muttered aloud. “I knew…”
And then a deafening high-pitched shriek startled me, and I tumbled to my knees.
I looked up in time to see Will running away, fleeing on all fours through the tall weeds. Wolf followed close behind, snapping at Will’s ankles, jumping on him, biting and clawing him as they ran.
Then, I heard Will utter another cry of pain, a wail of defeat.
As the anguished sound faded, I sank down, down, down into the blue-black darkness.
29
“You have a slight fever,” Mom said. “But you’ll be okay.”
“Swamp fever,” I murmured weakly. I gazed up at her, trying to focus. Her face was blurred, hovering over me in the soft light.
It took me a long while to realize I was in my own bedroom. “How—how did I get here?” I stammered.
“The swamp hermit—he found you in the swamp and carried you home,” Mom said.
“He did?” I tried to sit up, but my shoulder ached. To my surprise, it was tightly bandaged. “The—the werewolf—Will—he bit me,” I said, swallowing hard.
Dad’s face, hovered beside Mom’s. “What are you saying, Grady? Why do you keep muttering about a werewolf?”
I pulled myself up a little and told them the whole story. They listened in silence, glancing at each other from time to time as I talked.
“Will is a werewolf,” I concluded. “He changed. Under the full moon. He changed into a wolf, and—”
“I’m going to check this out right now,” Dad said, staring intently down at me. “Your story is crazy, Grady. Just crazy. Maybe it’s the fever. I don’t know. But I’m going right over to your friend’s house and see what’s what.”
“Dad—be careful,” I called after him. “Be careful.”
Dad returned a short while later, a bewildered look on his face. I was sitting in the living room, feeling a lot better, a big bowl of popcorn in my lap.
“There’s no one there,” Dad said, scratching his head.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Mom asked.
“The house is empty,” Dad told us. “Deserted. It doesn’t look like anyone has lived there in months!”
“Wow, Grady. You certainly have strange friends!” Emily exclaimed, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t get it,” Dad said, shaking his head.
I didn’t, either. But I didn’t care. Will was gone. The werewolf was gone for good.
“So can I keep Wolf?” I asked Dad, climbing up from the chair and crossing the room to him. “Wolf saved my life. Can I keep him?”
Dad stared back at me thoughtfully, but didn’t reply.
“The swamp hermit told us he saw the dog chase some kind of animal away from Grady,” Mom said.
“Probably a squirrel,” Emily joked.
“Emily, give me a break,” I groaned. “Wolf really saved my life,” I told them.
“I guess you can keep him,” Dad said reluctantly.
“YAY!” I thanked him and eagerly made my way to the back yard to give Wolf a happy hug.
That all happened nearly a month ago.
Since then, Wolf and I have had a wonderful time exploring the swamp. I’ve gotten to know just about every inch of Fever Swamp. It’s like my second home.
Sometimes Wolf and I let Cassie come along exploring with us. She’s kind of fun, even though she’s always on the lookout for werewolves. I really wish she’d just drop the subject.
I’m standing at my bedroom window now, watching the full moon rising over the distant trees. This first full moon in a month makes me think of Will.
Will may be gone, but he changed my life. I know I’ll never forget him.
I can feel the fur sprouting on my face. My snout is expanding, and my fangs are sliding out between my dark lips.
Yes, when he bit me, Will passed the curse on to me.
But I don’t mind. I’m not upset.
/> I mean, with Will out of the way, the swamp is now mine! All mine!
I’m climbing out of my window now. There’s Wolf waiting for me, eager to do some night exploring.
I drop easily to the ground on all fours. I raise my fur-covered face to the moon and utter a long, joyful howl.
Let’s go, Wolf. Let’s hurry to Fever Swamp.
I’m ready to hunt.
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