A Werewolf in our Midst
Dane Hatchell
This story is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Dane Hatchell
Cover Copyright © P.A. Douglas
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this story may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
From Severed Press:
From Severed Press:
From Severed PRESS
A Werewolf in our Midst
The woods were black in the night, the stars shined above, and a full moon hung on the horizon. A creature defined neither as man nor beast crashed through the brush, sending nocturnal animals scurrying for cover. Folklore had given it the name of Werewolf, and deemed it just a nightmare of men. Tonight was no dream. The beast was on the prowl.
The cool moist air filled its lungs. Its clawed feet ripped into the ground below. Like a young buck in rut, it frolicked through the woods marking its territory.
Fear, like good and evil, lay buried by the inhuman hormones flowing through its blood. Like any other carnivorous animal, a successful hunt was what its raw instinct demanded most.
A glow from a distant farmhouse caught its eye. It stopped and tilted its head, flexing its nostrils to the wind. The scent of food was strong. Drool dripped off its chin in anticipation.
The beast slowed its pace and made certain to quiet its approach as it headed toward the house. It ran on two legs, using rows of corn for cover, and fell and ran on all fours when the rickety, old barn came in sight.
It silently moved to the fenced-in area behind the barn protecting a number of laying hens. The chickens were all snug in the coops, roosting for the night.
The Werewolf rattled the fence and ran into the barn spooking the horses. The chickens went wild and cackled, but the horses didn’t go berserk until detecting the predator’s scent.
The beast ran away from the barn and hid behind a fresh bale of hay.
A light flicked on from the rear of the farmhouse. The old farmer exited the back door and struggled buttoning a strap on his overalls. He carried a shotgun in one hand, a flashlight in the other, and trotted toward the barn.
“Damn coons! Get out! Hey-ah!”
The farmer entered the barn and quieted the horses first. Chickens were cheaper to replace, and he did not want his barrel horses to injure themselves. He had never seen them this distressed, and wondered what had happened to scare them as it did.
The horses calmed to his soothing whispers, as his gentle strokes to their faces brought reassurance of safety.
Satisfied they were content; the farmer left, and walked the perimeter of his chicken yard. The fence was secure and all the chickens accounted for. No reason could be found for the ruckus. The full moon’s glow above was enough for him to see across his property, all the way to the surrounding woods, but nothing unusual caught his eye. The farmer turned and strolled back toward his house with his gun barrel pointing to the ground, mystified at what had caused all the commotion.
Not more than twenty steps from the rear porch, a noise from behind set the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. The farmer spun around. The last picture his mind would ever frame was of a man-beast silhouetted against an orange moon. Darkness fell as it crashed him to the ground.
The Werewolf proved to be an efficient killer, holding the man’s throat in the death grip of its jaws until his life-force ceased. With victory came the spoils of the hunt, and the satisfaction of a full belly.
*
Four weeks later, Sheriff Landon Richards, and Deputy Barbe, started their morning over black coffee and reading the local newspaper. The headline exploded in large bold print: ‘Fear of Full Moon Weekend.’ Richards winced when he read it, feeling it sensationalized the sufferings of the people of Jasper County. It did nothing to help him and his police force solve this ongoing terror.
“Well, Sheriff, did you get that call from the State Police?” Barbe asked.
Richards sipped his coffee, not taking his gaze from the paper. “Yep, sending four cars and eight officers. We’ll be doubling our shift Friday through Sunday on nights.”
“You think something’s going to happen again?” Barbe got up from the table and grabbed a doughnut.
“Might not. With all the publicity this has been getting, whoever is doing this might lay low this time.”
“You know, Sheriff, you’re one of the few who thinks a human is responsible for these attacks. Most think that a cougar is running wild out there.”
“No, I don’t think so. The guy doing it is just trying to make it look like an animal attack.”
Barbe walked to the window and watched the passing cars ferrying the drivers to work. “There have been six incidents in six months . . . but I hope you’re right. If this is an act of man, I hope he does lay low. It might buy us some time to get more clues. We need a break before he strikes again.” Barbe sipped his coffee. “Say Sheriff, she’s out there again.”
“What?”
“I said ‘she’s out there again,’ Mrs. Mendoza, she’s across the street. Just staring over here with that same blank look on her face.”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Richards tossed the paper to his desk, and paced to the widow. “It’s them I tell you—those damn Gypsies. One of them is behind all of this somehow. They’re nothing but trouble.”
“Sheriff, The Mendoza’s aren’t Gypsies, they’re Mexicans.”
“Don’t matter, they live like Gypsies. Moving from town to town, living out of those travel trailers.”
“They’re responsible citizens,” Barbe said. “They bought that old campground and moved a singlewide in. They pay property taxes. They’re hard workers. They have green cards, they’re legal. Sure, they have to travel to where the work is. But, Sheriff, what would happen to our strawberry crops without people like them?”
“Trash, nothing but trash. A bunch of no good Satanists too.”
“Satanists? The Mendoza’s are very devout Catholics.”
“That’s just what they want you to think. You remember, we found a bunch of old books on the supernatural when we did the investigation on her missing kid. We found knives made of pure silver. What about all those purple flowers they had growing around there? Turns out it was wolf’s bane. The same stuff witches use to brew up potions and stuff. I tell you, they’re into some type of Godforsaken hoodoo. The daughter probably ran off to get away from them before being sacrificed.”
Barbe thought a moment. “Well, she did go missing about a month before the animal attacks, but I don’t see any connection between the two.”
“I think they’re harvesting human organs for their rituals. I’ve been reading some strange stuff on the internet about what Satanists do. I bet they maul up the body to make it look like an animal attack.”
“Sheriff, look at the poor old woman out there. She may come from a different culture, but she’s grieving for her daughter. All she wants is for us to find her.”
“No, she blames me ’cause I’m the sheriff of this county. This is my town, and these are my people. She thinks I’m protecting somebody. Hell, that’s fricking insane! My boy is still an emotional wreck over her missing daughter. He was going to take Maria to the prom. He had even told me he was in love with her.
“I told him she was trouble. He was thinking with the brain in his pecker and not the one in his head. The boy wouldn’t listen to me. Now, he’s on prescription medication for depression. Some mornings I can’t even get him out of bed
to go to school. That old woman needs to blame herself and her family’s lifestyle for making her girl run off.”
“I know Sheriff. I know . . . there’s a whole lot of hurtin’ going on in our little county these days.” Barbe grabbed his gun off the desk and pushed his hair under his hat. It was time to make his morning patrol.
The Sheriff gazed on at the old woman, swallowed dryly, and shook his head from side to side.
*
The face of the moon showed full once again. Its white light brightened the cloudless sky. The people of the town were all too aware of what the next few nights could bring.
The local businesses felt the financial pinch from the violence that had invaded their quaint little town. The full moon cycled on a weekend last month too. Restaurants advertised nightly specials and had extra security to patrol the parking lots. No one wanted to be a prisoner of their own home. People eagerly sought justifications to go out and have a good time. The prevailing human rationale being bad things only happen to other people.
Greenwood Cemetery was the county’s largest and oldest burial ground. It was also the site of the county’s first established church, which dated to the 1880s. Over the years the church body outgrew the old church. A new place of worship had been built at a new location to house the congregation. The old building eventually fell to hungry termites and was torn down, but the Cemetery continued to serve the needs of the townspeople.
Albert Harvey was a retired Sergeant from the U.S. Army in his late forties. His wife had divorced him many years before. The strain of military life had found the marriage’s breaking point. She and their two grown children lived four counties over. Not one of them bothered to welcome him home on his last tour of duty from overseas.
Albert defined himself as a man of simple needs, enjoying a beer or two at night, and splurging on season tickets to watch Mississippi State University basketball.
He received a monthly check from the U.S. Government, a pension for his twenty years plus of service to his country. It wasn’t a large amount of money to live on, but it got him by.
A few months earlier, Albert picked up security duty at Greenwood. Vandals, kids, or thieves had been stealing metal urns and markers.
Working night shift in a cemetery came with its share concerns; most based in superstition. The last time Albert worked night duty had been in Baghdad, so he did not see this job as much of a challenge. So far, his duties borderlined on the routine and mundane. About once an hour he would hop on a golf cart and patrol the grounds. The rest of the time he spent inside the kitchen area of the main building, drinking coffee, and watching TV.
Albert looked at his watch and set the microwave to heat his frozen dinner. It would be ready for him by the time he returned. He grabbed his 6 D cell flashlight off the counter and headed for the cart. The flashlight was large, chosen primarily for its secondary purpose, a club.
The cart hummed in the night air to the songs of crickets and frogs, peppered with leaves and twigs crinkling and snapping under the tires. Albert steered with one hand and shined his flashlight about with the other. Two old mercury vapor lights on the property cast a dim, eerie glow on the gravesites below.
He was mindlessly shifting the beam of light from side to side thinking mainly of his chicken dinner. A scratching noise broke through his fog and beckoned him to slow to a stop to investigate.
There had been a funeral earlier that day, and he was near the burial site. The light revealed fresh flowers strewn about the area covered with fresh dirt. As Albert looked on, more dirt flew out the hole.
Gravediggers!
Albert reached in his pocket for his cell phone, and then remembered he had left it in the charger in the kitchen. He was not licensed to carry a handgun, but packed a backup in an ankle holster anyway. ‘Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six,’ he always said. Albert didn’t want these ghouls to get away. He had known the man buried in that grave.
He turned off his light and unstrapped his hammerless .38 caliber revolver. It only held five bullets, so he had it loaded with +P ammo for superior knockdown power.
Dirt rained upon him when he approached with his finger on the trigger. He pointed the flashlight down in the hole, and turned it back on.
“Freeze, Muthafucka!” Staring back at him in the bring light were two glowing green eyes, a dark face covered with hair, and a gaping mouth sporting one-inch fangs. The beast roared a bloodthirsty growl. Albert screamed and dropped the light, blindly firing the gun twice at the beast before turning and running away.
He had been in many firefights in Iraqi, and even caught his share of shrapnel. Nothing had ever scared him like this. The fear that gave him flight had its origins from the dawn of time, back when the beasts ruled the planet. His heart pounded hard against his chest, and his lungs strained for more air as he ran toward the main building.
The werewolf was at his heels in no time. It leapt onto his back and rode Albert to the ground. He tried his best to roll over and fight, but the strength of the Werewolf was equal to that of three men. He felt jaws of iron clasped down on the back of his neck. All Albert could do was scream. Intense pain traveled up his neck to his brain, and mercifully snuffed out his consciousness.
The satisfaction of victory was a warm feeling, each bite sugared with the sweetness that only human flesh could provide. The monster dinned ferociously on the meat of the arms and legs, cleaning the bones of every morsel before tossing them aside. But nothing pleased its animalistic palate more than the warm blood filled heart and the savory goodness found in the liver.
The Werewolf finally satiated, wiped its mouth with the back of its hairy hand. The moon above bathed it in its life-transforming light. It raised its head and howled to the stars. The other sounds of the night went silent.
The beast left the cemetery the way it entered, not knowing where the night would take it.
*
Almost another four weeks had passed. Rumors were the Feds were just about to come in and run the operation. Sheriff Richards didn’t like the sound of that, having no desire to lose control of his town.
Wildlife and Fisheries had set multiple animal traps and placed digital motion activated cameras in the areas most likely suitable where cougar, or bear, would roam. Pictures captured nothing of any interest, but the Deputies now ate barbecued raccoon on a regular basis.
The sheriff sat behind his desk with a stack of mail to one side and pile of suspect profiles on the other. His face looked pasty white underneath a two-day growth of a salt and pepper beard. His shirt had grown a size too large because of the thirty pounds he had lost over the past several months. His increased anxiety reduced his sleep to something less than three hours a night.
His problems didn’t end there. The horrific events that plagued his town also jeopardized his reelection. What was left of his family life was not much better. His son had been growing further away from him. He was out of ideas how to reach out and reconnect.
The door slowly opened with the squeak of a rusty hinge. A lone figure hesitantly made his way in. The presence of a young man standing before the sheriff broke his trance.
“Will . . . what are you doing here?”
“I didn’t go to school today, Dad. I just don’t see the point,” Will said softly, his stare fixated to the floor.
“Son, the point is you can’t go to college unless you graduate from high school. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You just can’t throw it away now.” Sheriff Richards felt that he had said these same words a hundred times. “Did you take your medicine this morning?”
“Yes, but drugs can’t change the past.”
“You’re right, drugs can’t change the past. You have to find ways to overcome the things that come unexpectedly in life. I had to deal with your mother’s death when you were less than a year old. It was tough, but I learned ways to live with it. It’s the same way for you. Only you can make the changes to begin to live again. You’ve got to
snap out of your funk, son. You owe it to me, you owe it to yourself, and you even owe it to Maria.”
Will’s eyes lit up. “What do you mean? You act like she’s dead. Did you learn something new? Did they find her?”
“No, son. That’s not what I meant.”
“Dad, you’re the one that said she might have run off with her old boyfriend from Carroll County. I’m hoping she might still be alive. If you know something please tell me.”
“Look . . . I don’t know anything. She’s been missing for months. Nothing has come across the wire, and I’m now thinking she may be dead. And if she is, she would want you to move on in life.”
Will’s face blushed as tears started to well up in his eyes.
The Sheriff picked up a report from his desk and pretended to be interested in it. He tossed it down and pulled out a pocketknife, and then shaved off a hangnail.
Will maintained a silent vigil of the floor.
Sheriff Richards closed his knife and grabbed a brown envelope from the mail pile. He tore it open and spilled the contents onto his desk. A cold chill ran down his spine.
Will turned his head toward the sound, focusing his eyes on the items on the desk.
A silver crucifix on a broken chain lay next to a bronze nametag, torn brown material still attached to the pin. The crucifix was small, but the figure of Jesus displayed a good amount of fine detail. Will picked up the crucifix and gently examined it with both hands.
“Maria had one just like this,” Will said, closing his eyes as if trying to recall a memory.
Sheriff Richards picked up the nametag. He already knew what was written on it—his name.
“Dad, is this Maria’s?”
“I don’t know, son,” Richards said dryly.
“Why was your name tag in that envelope?” Will asked, his face twisted with confusion.
The Sheriff’s heart raced, but he knew he had to master his emotions or he might lose his son forever. An uncomfortable silence passed. The Sheriff stood and looked his son in the eye.
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