Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves And Ghosts - 25 Classic Stories Of The Supernatural
Page 48
Magister’s hand on the small of her back, through the thin cotton dress, calmed her. She had nothing more to say.
“Good girl,” he whispered, giving her a little push. She returned to her chair.
The rest of the conference went as planned. Magister brought out maps and charts, and the graduate students handed out photocopied material to the audience so that they could follow along and print accurately what Green Messiah was doing. But Lupe’s attention was drawn to a small bird that had, somehow, gotten trapped in the room and was frantically beating against a window. She felt her body straining toward it. It took all her concentration not to whine.
The bird finally swooped toward the back and out through an open door, losing itself somewhere in the maze of halls outside. Lupe lost interest once it had disappeared and turned her head toward Magister. He was just finishing.
“And so, this summer, we will take Ms. de Diega up to an undisclosed taiga or coniferous forest region in northern Canada where moose, elk, and a number of species of deer are abundant, as well as squirrels, marmots, chipmunks, rats, mice, moles, shrews, and hares. But where, alas, the wolf population is now minimal.
“There we shall give her a collar that will allow us to track her movements. We’ll help her remove her clothes, and give her the last of the series of injections of the Green Messiah serum to facilitate her change.
“We expect the change to be complete within hours and then Ms. de Diega—Lupe—will be off to find her dwindling pack. With her human mind, she will easily become dominant wolf and guide her fellow canines to a richer and more fruitful heritage than they could otherwise have known.”
A single hand was raised in the auditorium.
“Can you be sure?” the reporter asked.
Magister smiled. “Nothing in life is sure. However, we have looked at this from all the angles, and Ms. de Diega will report back once a month to us with her findings. And we shall, of course, keep you all apprised of her progress.” With a nod to Will Sheddery, his top graduate student, Magister closed the conference and escorted Lupe off the stage.
Lupe was surprised at how quickly the spring months went by. Her sense of time had become peculiar, tied less to the clock and more to the rising and setting of the sun. She found it harder and harder to get up in the morning and do her regular calisthenics with Emma, her trainer. She seemed to need more sleep, but in shorter snatches.
Magister visited her daily to chart her bodily functions and to ask her questions. Her temperature had risen, her senses of smell and hearing had heightened, her ability to pay attention to his nonsense had grown less and less. Often he had to call her name two or three times to get her attention, and when she turned her head toward him slowly, she would narrow her eyes to signal she was listening. More and more often, she hated to talk.
“Lupe,” his deep voice called her.
She couldn’t be bothered responding.
“Lupe!”
This time the sharp tone caused her to look up.
“You must pay attention. We are less than a week away from your last shot and the Change. We must go over things. We understand that your responses are less human now. But you must retain a part of your humanity. Otherwise you can do us no good.”
She let her head flop back down on her hands. She couldn’t understand why Magister wanted to bother her now. Now was naptime. Later would be better.
Someone yanked her head up. It was Will. She lifted her lip at him, trying to snarl. The sound was too human and not nearly threatening enough. It was all she could manage.
“Look at her, sir!” Will was saying. “She’s as bad as the Duane girl was. You thought that was because Duane was subnormal to begin with. But Lupe tested normal, even in the 120 range, very bright indeed.”
Magister made a snorting sound. “Hmmmph. I don’t think it’s lack of intelligence, Will. Just a different intelligence. It’s time we started thinking of her as a canine, and not as a human.” He turned his head. “Emma—bring me that can. The red one. That’s right.” He held out his hand and the dark-haired trainer placed the can in it.
Opening the top, Magister took out a twisted piece of dried meat. “Lupe!” he said, dangling the strip by her nose.
Lupe sat up. It had taken him long enough! she thought. This time she listened, nodding her head at the appropriate pauses, and chewing with what she hoped was a thoughtful expression on her face.
It was one of those brilliant summer days that only the Canadian taiga south of the tundra seemed to produce, the sky beyond the forest a solid blue edging off to a bleached muslin color at the horizon. Snow-capped mountains thrust angrily upward and nearby an aggressive stream tumbled noisily over its rocks.
Lupe’s hand went to the collar around her neck. She had told them over and over it was too tight, but no one had listened. Will had smugly informed her that it would fit the wolf just fine. She had bitten back the reply that she was the wolf.
Standing barefooted, the light cotton robe wrapped firmly around her, Lupe lifted her face to the slight breeze. She could smell an old scent of weasel and, overlaying it, wolverine. She wrinkled her nose, touched the collar once more, nervously waiting.
Magister came over to her. He smiled, not expecting any return on it. “Well, Lupe, this is the day. Our day.”
“My day,” she growled.
“Your success belongs to all of us. Green Messiah lives as you live,” he said, his voice smooth and without affect. She knew he would not use the scolding voice now. Too much was on the line.
She nodded. It took great effort. Too much was on the line for her, too.
“We will withdraw now, to beyond that stand of pines. When you are ready, my dear, cast aside the robe and let the Change take you. You will know when it begins.” He reached out and patted her hand awkwardly. She was in between now and she knew he was uncomfortable with her. Inside she was more wolf than woman, outside more woman than wolf. What she needed was integration. He was right. She would know when it began.
Magister signaled to the twelve graduate students and the two Green Messiah doctors with an almost imperceptible hand movement. They finished packing the equipment and loaded it onto the trucks.
Each of them, in turn, came to shake hands with Lupe. Only Emma gave her a hug. Will Sheddery barely touched her.
Magister was last. He held both her hands in his. “Go well, Lupe. Hunt the wind,” he whispered. “And don’t worry. We will track you with the collar. If there’s any trouble, we’ll be there for you at once.”
Then he got into the last of the trucks and they rumbled across the stone-strewn field.
Lupe could hardly wait for them to leave. She had been ready for over an hour, her thighs wet with blood. Even before the last of the trucks was out of sight, she had ripped off the robe. Standing in the warmth of the sun, she raised her arms up, threw her head back, and began to sing.
Magister had not known, but she had known. There was more to the old tales than he suspected. She had memorized the spell from a book she’d found in his library, one of the fairy tales he’d dismissed. The words had settled comfortably in her mouth the very first time she’d spoken them. For she was not any old werewolf, she was lobombre, a Spanish werewolf. Like the one in the Goya print that her grandmother had on her kitchen wall.
Lobombre.
Sing wolf. Howl.
The mouth knows the morning,
The teeth the afternoon,
But the heart knows midnight,
And all the predations of the moon.
Sing wolf. Howl.
She sang it first in Spanish, then in English, and then, when the full Change came over her, in Wolf. Her eyes narrowed and she could see the wind. Her ears, now long, could hear the grass grow. She felt her hands tighten, the nails lengthen. Before they were completely paws, she reached up and ripped the collar from her throat, throwing it away from her.
When she could wave her plumed tail from side to side, she put her head
back and howled. Then she raced off to the copse of trees, far away from the place where Magister and his students waited, to follow the bright steady scent of the pack.
(The following pages constitute an extension of the copyright page:)
“Count Dracula,” from Getting Even by Woody Allen, copyright © 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 by Woody Allen. Renewed 1998 by Woody Allen. Used by permission of Random House, Inc., and the author.
“The Man Upstairs” by Ray Bradbury. Reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc. Copyright © 1941 by Harper Magazine, renewed 1974 by the Minneapolis Star and Tribune.
“The Brood” by Ramsey Campbell. Copyright © 1980 by Ramsey Campbell. From Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley.
“The Company of Wolves,” from The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Copyright © 1979 Angela Carter. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN.
“The Third Option” by Derek Gunn. Copyright © 2007 by Derek Gunn. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“20th Century Ghost” by Joe Hill. Copyright © 2005, 2007 by Joe Hill.
“20th Century Ghost” was first published in The High Plains Literary Review, vol. XVII, no. 1–3, 2002. It appeared in the story collection 20th Century Ghosts first published in 2005 by PS Publishing, Ltd., England, and subsequently in a hardcover edition published in 2007 by Harper-Collins Publishers.
“Home Delivery” by Stephen King. Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King. Copyright © 1993 by Stephen King.All rights reserved.
“The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Leiber. Copyright © 1949 by Fritz Leiber. Reprinted by permission of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc.
“For the Good of All” by Yvonne Navarro. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly” from Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque by Joyce Carol Oates. Copyright © 1994 Ontario Press. Reprinted by permission of John Hawkins & Associates, Inc.
Excerpt from Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth. Copyright © 2006, Kim Paffenroth. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Master of Rampling Gate” by Anne Rice. Copyright © 1984 by Anne O’Brien Rice. Originally published in Redbook. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Ghost” by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Anne Sexton.
Excerpt from The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber. Copyright © 1978 by Whitley Strieber. Originally published by William Morrow. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair” by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Reprinted by permission of Kraas Literary Agency. Copyright © 1978 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
“Green Messiah” by Jane Yolen. Copyright © 1988 by Jane Yolen. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
1
Robert Arp, “Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t” in Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy (Chicago: Open Court Press, 2010), 146–47.
2
William Seabrook, The Magic Island (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., Inc., 1929), Part II, Chapter 2, “. . . Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields,” 93.
3
Quoted in John Scipp and Craig Spector, eds., “Introduction” to Book of the Dead (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), 7.
4
Charlotte F. Otten, ed., The Literary Werewolf (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2002), xxvii.
5
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (New York: Penguin Books, 1959), 1. These are also the last lines of the novel.
6
Simon Clark, “The Undead Martyr” in Vampires, Zombies, and Philosophy , 198.
7
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, “Why Vampires Never Die,” New York Times op-ed, July 31, 2009.
8
Thomas Hood, “The Death-Bed.”