Immortal Lycanthropes

by Hal Johnson

  The hippopotamus and the wildebeest, now in human form, ran forward to scan the water for any sign of Myron. And so they all saw the water boil; and there, breaking the water, was the most enormous whale. It rocketed up from the depths, drawing almost its full length out of the water until it stood on its tail. One eye of its huge pointed head was level for a moment with the cliff, with Marcus Lynch and his cronies. The scars were tiny along its enormous face. And then the head twitched to one side; its tonnage came down upon the startled creatures, squashing them flat. Marcus’s white suit ripped where a lion’s mass, pulped and boneless, burst out of it. And then the whole side of the cliff cracked, and cracked off, and the corpses fell to the sea below, the bulk of the whale crashing in an enormous upthrust of water beside it.

  For a moment, the whale circled around in the deep water at the base of the cliff. Then it rose, and from its blowhole it fired one last salute. Perhaps that meant good luck among whales. And then off into the boundless ocean it disappeared.

  The ermine had managed to slip away, but Alice tracked him through the low scrub and took care of him, too. And then she waited for the windstorm to end, so the navy would come above ground, and she could as a human feign shipwreck survivor and hitch a ride back to the mainland.

  And that was the last we saw of Myron. I interviewed several seamen in the days after the storm, and many reported seeing an enormous whale, which some called a blue and some a sperm. One mariner, pleased with his own eloquence, called what he saw “the Moby Dick of whales”; but he was an idiot. Certainly they saw something huge, and then they stopped seeing it, as it made its way back to the deeps.

  Years have passed, and years will pass, endlessly and eternally. Evelyn has vowed to bring some sort of order to the jungle, and has even gone so far as to put out a ban on murder. Gloria predictably is calling in response for assassination and keeps blowing her face off trying to make a pipe bomb with pushpins in it; once she masters the theory, she will fill the finished product, she vows, with her nail clippings. After putting it off for far too long, in my opinion, Alice fed a line to the tearful and confused Dr. and Mrs. Horowitz. And I still come down to the shores of both coasts, alternately every few months, and throw bottles into the sea. Sometimes jars, with paperback books I wrote in better days jammed inside, but sometimes just bottles with a curl of paper in each. Gloria calls it bourgeois sentimental and Alice calls it cruel, but all it says is:

  Myron.—Wish you were here.

  Dramatis Animalia

  Ailurus fulgens (Alice): Do not listen to what Alice says about anything

  Alces alces (Spenser): Former legionnaire, former survivalist; mainly a cynic

  Arctictis binturong (Arthur Hong): Your humble narrator

  Bison bison (Benson): Head flunky; smart enough to know when he’s not smart enough

  Canis latrans (Angel Sanchez): Sorry about the car, chum

  Connochaetes taurinus: Flunky

  Gorilla gorilla (Gloria): Anarchist; in related news, kind of self-destructive

  Gulo gulo (Svipdag): Not even a proper cameo, really, but still a fan favorite

  Hippopotamus amphibius: Flunky

  Lemur catta (Florence): Last survivor of a dying race; shorter than me

  Loxodonta africana (Evelyn): Not a bad sort, all things considered

  Macaca sylvanus (Charles DeRudio): Assassin (failed); cavalry officer

  Microtus californicus: In the employ of the Nine Unknown Men

  Mustela erminea: Flunky; notoriously shifty

  Panthera leo (Marcus Lynch): Nature’s deadliest hunter; a bit of a reprobate, really

  Panthera tigris (Bima): The second deadliest, it turns out

  Pteromys volans: Assassinated Friedrich Nietzsche (?)

  Pteropus scapulatus (Allambee): Not really trustworthy; did he mention he’s from Australia?

  Ursus arctos (Mignon Emanuel): Despot of the Fortress of the Id

  About the Author

  Hal Johnson is the singer-songwriter Halifax Slasher. His music is folk-punk—folk because he has an acoustic guitar and punk because he doesn’t know how to play it. He lives in Astoria, New York.

  About the Illustrator

  Teagan White is a designer and illustrator who is fascinated with natural history. She lives in Chicago, Illinois. Visit her at www.teaganwhite.com.