Morbid Metamorphosis

by Lycan Valley Press

  Scratching his head, he got to his feet and went inside. He went to his room and showered to rinse off the blood. When he flossed, he spit out a small tuft of fur.

  Downstairs, he heard Aaron muttering.

  “What’s up?” he asked entering the kitchen.

  “The Moonlight Killer struck again. The police received her eyes, left arm, and spleen today. The rest of the body is still missing … like the others.”

  “Sounds horrible. Want to get some lunch?” Jimmy's stomach grumbled and his hunger grew at the thought of rare meat now.

  Aaron quirked a brow. “This kind of stuff doesn’t bother you? Seriously, you want to eat? Women are being mutilated.”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Don't know what to tell you. I'm hungry.”

  “I'll pass.”

  Jimmy shrugged, grabbed his wallet, and exited the door. As he walked down the street,

  Jimmy perked up at the smell of fresh coffee from his favorite diner, three blocks away. Fresh sausages and bacon made his mouth water from three stores down. A jolt of fear struck him when he passed a petite woman walking by herself. Somehow he knew it came from her.

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose. When he turned around, a dozen stray dogs were following. People stared at him. He tried to act casual but failed.

  “Hey, this some sort of side gig I don't know about?”

  Jimmy spun to see Don standing there, chomping a cigar between his teeth.

  “What? No. Just walking down the street, same as you.”

  Don glanced between him and the dogs, now sitting obediently in front of Jimmy.

  “Right, whatever you say. Be sure to shave for tonight and get that chest hair under control.”

  Don walked away, leaving a confused Jimmy behind. He did shave. He raised his hand and felt the stubble on his chin. As for chest hair, he had to be yanking Jimmy's chain. Ever since he’d started working at Shakers, he waxed twice a month.

  Slipping a few fingers inside his shirt, he felt around for any signs of hair, mortified when he found multiple. He looked in a window to his right and caught several of them peeking out of the collar of his shirt.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed the salon.

  “Wax on, Wax off, how can I help you?” a perky voice answered.

  “Hi, Monique, it’s Jimmy. I need an appointment stat.”

  “The first available appointment is tomorrow at three. How’s that?” She sounded bored.

  “I’ll take it, but if anyone cancels today please call me.”

  The line went dead, and Jimmy suspected he would not be getting a call back. Looking at his chest, he knew calling in sick to work was his only option.

  He looked at the pack of dogs watching him. Something had happened last night, he just didn’t know what. Jimmy panicked. What if he lost his job over this? The urge to run kicked in and after a few seconds it occurred to him he might attract unnecessary attention, especially with a pack of dogs chasing him.

  He stopped, faced the canines, and spoke in a commanding voice. “Go home.” They whimpered, but did as told.

  For the next few weeks Jimmy monitored his hair growth. He’d had more wax jobs than a sixty-five Corvette, and it didn’t help one bit.

  While walking home from class one night his vision blurred. A sheen of sweat coated his body, his blood boiled, and within seconds he was running to the woods. He needed to be free. Seconds after sunset, lightning erupted through his body.

  He used what little bit of energy he had to fling himself behind a bush. Bones snapped and tore through skin. He lost the ability to breathe when his ribs cracked and re-formed. He sucked in air only to have it explode out of him when his knees slipped out of joint and he fell to the ground. He opened his mouth to scream but his sharp teeth broke through his elongating mouth. Across from him, he saw a wolf. The animal howled in pain when its fur separated and revealed a human rib cage forming.

  Jimmy cried out when his shoulders lurched forward and muscles realigned themselves. Thick coarse fur sprouted all over his body. The wolf beside him howled when its hind legs extended to five times their normal length.

  Jimmy fell to his side when the pain stopped. His breathing heavy and labored. He panted, not familiar with how it worked, and almost hyperventilated. Opposite him sat a naked man, wide eyed and shivering, part of his ear gone. Jimmy knew it was the wolf that bit him, but it didn’t make a bit of sense.

  The man-wolf stopped moving and sneered. The pathetic whimper which came out did nothing to scare Jimmy. The two circled one another. Jimmy focused his thoughts. There was a squirrel a few feet away, a rabbit about twenty feet to his left, and a dead bird lay somewhere nearby.

  A strange mumbling to his right caused him to back up into the bushes. The wolf-man stayed beside him.

  ***

  Marshall took his usual spot behind the park bench. The perfect place to find his next victim. After a few hours he saw exactly what he wanted. He waited for her and her boyfriend to finish making out, then followed them as they left. Tomorrow night, the fun would begin.

  ***

  Jimmy watched the man with interest. Fear, excitement, anger, and a predatory nature made Jimmy's hackles rise. After he left, Jimmy lifted his leg, marking the tree next to him, the wolf-man doing the same thing but falling over in the middle of it.

  Something strange was definitely going on. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. For no reason he could think of, he took off and caught the rabbit he'd sensed earlier. When he bit into it and felt the warm blood on his tongue, he gagged and spat it out. The wolf-man crawled up to the carcass, picked it up, and shoved it in his mouth.

  The sound of tiny bones breaking and the sight of blood pouring out of his mouth made Jimmy nauseous–again.

  Jimmy stared at the wolf-man as he tried to use his fingers and thumb separately, a look of absolute confusion on his face. Jimmy thought about his current predicament. He’d turned into a werewolf or at the very least a wolf-man, but werewolf sounded cooler. The wolf he’d bitten was now a man, making him a wolf-man or man-wolf. Again, he opted for wolf-man. Cooler sounding.

  After deciding on what to call himself and the other creature, he thought about why this had happened. Nothing made sense. Yes, he was bitten, but that didn’t account for the wolf changing into a man.

  For the rest of the night, the two were-creatures sat staring at one another. When the sun rose, the pain set in once more.

  Bones splintered, skin shrunk, the tail disappeared somewhere Jimmy would rather not think of. The wolf-man suffered in a similar fashion. The snout protruded in a bloody mess as the small human nose broke, the fangs extended, and the tail reappeared from a rather unpleasant place. No amount of scrubbing would erase the image from Jimmy’s memory.

  Jimmy sucked in deep breaths trying not to freak out about what had just happened. The wolf sniffed him then ran off. Jimmy, exhausted, picked up his shredded clothes, managing to put them on as best he could. Then he made his way home. By the time he arrived at the front door, he’d made thirty-seven bucks in change.

  “Where the hell were you? Did you stay out all night?” Aaron asked from the kitchen entryway.

  Taken aback, with no story ready, Jimmy stumbled. “Yeah … I mean no, I was-”

  “Look at you, your clothes are shredded and is that blood? What the hell is going on with you?”

  “I can't talk about it.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  Jimmy sighed as he sat at the table. The newspaper headline caught his attention.

  “Moonlight Killer strikes again, woman goes missing from apartment last night …”

  He stared at the picture, wanting it to morph, needing it to change. Stubbornly, it remained the same. The image of the woman he’d seen on the park bench the night before stared back at him accusingly. The man in the bushes was the serial killer, and Jimmy had let him get away.

  He finished the article realizing tonight
the woman would be butchered and tomorrow the police would receive a grotesque package. Jimmy had a hunch the killer dropped off the spare parts in the woods. Most likely what had attracted his wolf friend so close to town.

  ***

  Marshall stared at the crying woman. She begged for her life as they all did. Of course, it was pointless. They all died in the end.

  He glanced around the room. He’d collected quite a few interesting items over the last few months. He walked over to his prisoner. Her eyes darted between him and the knife he held. Several empty bottles lined the shelf in the back of the dank basement. He pointed to one at random: Liver.

  “Tonight’s your lucky night, liver wounds are the worst. You’ll bleed out in less than twenty minutes but I'll try my best to make it last longer, much, much longer.”

  He whistled while he worked. All the while, the woman screamed against the gag in her mouth and squirmed until the blood ran thick and dark onto the floor.

  ***

  Jimmy passed the day studying maps of the forested area around where he lived. He'd eaten whenever possible, his hunger damn near insatiable. He snapped at Aaron a few times, his temper short.

  The sun began its descent and he knew it was time. He made his way to the park, stripped, and waited.

  Intense pain shot through him in waves. He attempted to stay calm and breathe but it was difficult when the snapping and cracking of his bones echoed around him. His skin tingled and the same electrical feeling from the night before surged through him.

  Jimmy stared at the wolf-man with cautious eyes. The wolf-man, less hesitant moving around in his body, stood and walked around. A low branch caught him off guard, and he spent the better part of fifteen minutes trying to growl at it then shred it with his teeth.

  Jimmy felt the urge rise, and moments later, he had a squirrel in his mouth. Dammit, he spat it out in the hope it was still alive. The wolf-man came running and gobbled it up.

  Jimmy looked at him eat, tossing his tail to the side. Perhaps this wolf was the world’s worst hunter, or Jimmy remembered, he was used to eating human body bits. He needed to ask but had no idea how. He focused very hard trying to see if it was possible to create some sort of mind link.

  An hour of staring and a raging headache later, Jimmy gave up. He loped around the preserve to see if he could pick up the scent of death and find the spot where the serial killer left the bodies. The stench hit him two miles back in the denser part of the woods. Just as he thought, his wolf friend had been feasting.

  Bones jutted out of the ground, gnaw marks covering most of them. Femurs, ribs, skulls, and other assorted human bits littered the ground. An arm here, a leg there, a torso somewhere. Jimmy glanced at the wolf-man wanting to scold him, but instead did the gagging thing as he watched him pick up a green forearm crawling with maggots and nibble on it.

  The police, he needed to call the police. But he was a wolf right now, so that had to wait. But what would he tell them that wouldn't sound crazy. Sure, he could tip them off anonymously, but they might not take it seriously.

  Glancing at his counterpart, he knew they needed to catch the serial killer. Tomorrow night he would be here, dropping off his latest victim, and they would be waiting.

  ***

  Morning arrived and Jimmy woke to a wolf licking his face and wondered how he slept through the transformation. He cracked an eye open and swatted the offending tongue away. He ran off to where he’d left his clothes the night prior and dressed while he plotted his plan to catch a serial killer. His lack of ability to communicate with the wolf-man hindered his nab a psycho plan.

  Aaron waited for him in the kitchen, a dour look on his face. “Where were you?”

  Jimmy didn’t want to lie, but he could tell the truth. “It's complicated.”

  “I bet it is, but you know what? I don't care. Figure it out, you're acting weird and it's freaking me out.”

  Jimmy brushed by his roommate and went straight to the shower. He needed to wash the smell of death off of him.

  The day passed slowly while he turned plan after plan over in his head. He could feel the anticipation of the hunt. The moment the sun began to set, he leapt off the couch. He ran to the woods and fell in the middle of a path while the change took hold of him. Spasms rocked his body, his nerves sparked, and pain darkened his vision.

  His back arched upward. His face stretched in all directions, and his lower jaw cracked. Ribs caved in on one another and his legs shortened.

  Jimmy lay there a few moments before moving. Finally, working up the courage, he got on all fours and saw a pair of kneecaps. He tilted his head up to see the wolf-man looking down at him.

  Jimmy wasted no time getting to the serial killer's dumping ground. After thinking about it all day, he knew there could be no plan other than waiting … for hours it turned out. Every now and then, the wolf-man would reach over and poke him in the side or sniff his butt.

  Jimmy focused, and he took off after another rabbit. Once caught, he returned to the body dump and dropped the corpse in front of his salivating friend. Waiting, again, and when he looked up at the moon, he knew the time was near.

  A twig snapped. An owl flew from its perch. Jimmy picked up on the scent of fresh blood and bleach. The serial killer broke through the brush and stood there taking in the vista of partially eaten bodies in front of him.

  ***

  Marshall dragged the body to the sacred ground. The body, heavier than the others, weighed him down. He repositioned his grip and pulled it forward.

  With no respect whatsoever, he tossed her carved-up body on top of the others. His work done for the month, he smiled and turned to leave. Howling, then the rapid approach of pounding paws froze him in place.

  ***

  Jimmy raced after the serial killer, jumping as the man turned. He tore off half his face with one vicious snap of his powerful jaws.

  The man screamed, but Jimmy didn’t stop. His predator side took over. He bit an arm, the crunch of bones urging him on. The man screamed, trying to cover his face. Jimmy tore the arm off tossing it to the side with a shake of his head. Lips pulled back to reveal his teeth, Jimmy snarled.

  “Help.”

  Jimmy's eyes narrowed. He thought of all the women this sadistic monster had killed over the months. Their bodies left out to rot. A second later nothing remained of the man's neck except a slowing stream of blood.

  ***

  Jimmy called the police the next morning with an anonymous tip about the body dump. He felt good until he went to the bathroom and saw a trail of intestine in the toilet. He thought he might be dying until he remembered he'd swallowed some of the serial killer. He needed to remember to spit, not swallow.

  The wolf had come home with him and Aaron frowned, not believing the large animal was a mutt. Jimmy had to try and make amends with his roommate, but for now the fact no more women would go missing worked in his favor. There were other things to think about, werewolf things, but he’d figure it out.

  A headline in the paper caught his eye:

  Highway Killer Making his way to Logansville.

  He raised a brow and smiled at the wolf.

  “Looks like we got more work to do.”

  PICKIN’ TO BEAT THE DEVIL

  Franklin E. Wales

  THE storm that had been threatening to arrive since late afternoon finally made its appearance at dusk, turning the gray sky to near-black. No small drizzle to announce its arrival, the heavens simply opened up and poured water downward. Dramos tightened his black duster around himself and pulled the brim of his hat down, shielding his eyes. Not that it did much good. As hard as the rain was belting down, he couldn’t see much of anything beyond the mare’s mane.

  The rain didn’t bother him. He and the mare had shared worse. The far off thunder rolling in the background was another story. She didn’t take too kindly to thunder and lightning. Dramos eased the horse closer to the canyon wall on their right, searching for an overhang where they coul
d take some shelter. He didn’t have any unfounded hopes that God would care about him fending off the weather, but he hoped the Deity might have some concerns for the animal.

  The mare was holding her own, plodding along slowly, but each time the thunder called out in the distance, Dramos sensed her fear. He rubbed the back of her neck. There was no use in speaking. His voice would be swallowed up by the storm before it reached the horse’s ears.

  Evidently, God did have a soft spot for the horse because, as luck would have it, a large shadow, darker than those around it, appeared against the canyon wall. Dramos dismounted and walked alongside the mare, guiding her steps with the reins.

  The cavern was a good twenty feet high as well as wide and went back all of thirty feet before tapering off to the ground. “Come on, Girl!” he shouted, leading the mare into the cavern. Five feet inside it was still mostly dry. The wind still cut in, but nowhere near as strong. He removed his saddle and bags from the mare’s back and bedded her down. If she was on her feet when the lightning caught up with them she’d bolt off, but if she was down on the ground, Dramos know he could keep her calm.

  He pulled out three of the sugar cubes he kept protected in the saddlebags and leaned down to her mouth. “Here you go, Girl,” he said, offering her a cube.

  The mare’s tongue reached out and licked the cube into her mouth. “See?” he said. “It’s not so bad. You and me have seen worse things in life.” He stroked her long nose softly. “Here, have another one.”

  As the horse smacked on the second cube of sugar, Dramos stood and removed his duster. He spread the long black coat out over her hindquarters to ward off the chill and then laid his own body across the horse, placing his lips to her ear. “That’s right Girl,” he whispered, scratching her long nose downward. When he reached its end, Dramos slipped the final sugar cube into her mouth. He could feel the horse beginning to relax as he concentrated on his own heartbeat, willing his spirit into the beast, calming her. “It’s okay,” he whispered over and over. “It’s okay, Girl.”