The Ultimate Werewolf

by Byron Preiss (ed)

  Talbot sat silently in the small boat, the sail hanging like a forlorn ornament from its single centerpole.

  "I've cried more since I got inside you, Talbot, than I have in my whole life," he said, but could not stop. Thoughts of Martha Nelson a woman of whom he had never before heard, of whom he would never have heard had it not been by chance by chance by chance he had heard by chance, by chance thoughts of her skirled through his mind like cold winds.

  And the cold winds rose, and the sail filled, and he was no longer adrift, but was driven straight for the shore of the nearest islet. By chance.

  ▼▼▼

  He stood over the spot where Demeter's map had indicated he would find his soul. For a wild moment he chuckled, at the realization he had been expecting an enormous Maltese Cross or Captain Kidd's "X" to mark the location. But it was only soft green sand, gentle as talc, blowing in dust-devils toward the blood-red pancreatic sea. The spot was midway between the low-tide line and the enormous Bedlam-like structure that dominated the islet.

  He looked once more, uneasily, at the fortress rising in the center of the tiny blemish of land. It was built square, seemingly carved from a single monstrous black rock . . . perhaps from a cliff that had been thrust up during some natural disaster. It had no windows, no opening he could see, though two sides of its bulk were exposed to his view. It troubled him. It was a dark god presiding over an empty kingdom. He thought of the fish that would not die, and remembered Nietzsche's contention that gods died when they lost their supplicants.

  He dropped to his knees and, recalling the moment months before when he had dropped to his knees to tear at the flesh of his atrophied umbilical cord, he began digging in the green and powdery sand.

  The more he dug, the faster the sand ran back into the shallow bowl. He stepped into the middle of the depression and began slinging dirt back between his legs with both hands, a human dog excavating for a bone.

  When his fingertips encountered the edge of the box, he yelped with pain as his nails broke.

  He dug around the outline of the box, and then forced his bleeding fingers down through the sand to gain purchase under the buried shape.

  He wrenched at it, and it came loose. Heaving with tensed muscles, he freed it, and it came up.

  He took it to the edge of the beach and sat down.

  It was just a box. A plain wooden box, very much like an old cigar box, but larger. He turned it over and over and was not at all surprised to find it bore no arcane hieroglyphics or occult symbols. It wasn't that kind of treasure. Then he turned it right side up and pried open the lid. His soul was inside. It was not what he had expected to find, not at all. But it was what had been missing from the cache.

  Holding it tightly in his fist, he walked up past the fast-filling hole in the green sand, toward the bastion on the high ground.

  We shall not cease from exploration

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  nd know the place for the first time.

  —T. S. Eliot

  Once inside the brooding darkness of the fortress—and finding the entrance had been disturbingly easier than he had expected—there was no way to go but down. The wet, black stones of the switchback stairways led inexorably downward into the bowels of the structure, clearly far beneath the level of the pancreatic sea. The stairs were steep, and each step had been worn into smooth curves by the pressure of feet that had descended this way since the dawn of memory. It was dark, but not so dark that Talbot could not see his way. There was no light, however. He did not care to think about how that could be.

  When he came to the deepest part of the structure, having passed no rooms or chambers or openings along the way, he saw a doorway across an enormous hall, set into the far wall. He stepped off the last of the stairs, and walked to the door. It was built of crossed iron bars, as black and moist as the stones of the bastion. Through the interstices he saw something pale and still in a far corner of what could have been a cell.

  There was no lock on the door.

  It swung open at his touch.

  Whoever lived in this cell had never tried to open the door; or had tried and decided not to leave.

  He moved into deeper darkness.

  A long time of silence passed, and finally he stooped to help her to her feet. It was like lifting a sack of dead flowers, brittle and surrounded by dead air incapable of holding even the memory of fragrance.

  He took her in his arms and carried her.

  "Close your eyes against the light, Martha," he said, and started back up the long stairway to the golden sky.

  ▼▼▼

  Lawrence Talbot sat up on the operating table. He opened his eyes and looked at Victor. He smiled a peculiarly gentle smile. For the first time since they had been friends, Victor saw all torment cleansed from Talbot's face.

  "It went well," he said. Talbot nodded.

  They grinned at each other.

  "How're your cryonic facilities?" Talbot asked.

  Victor's brows drew down in bemusement. "You want me to freeze you? I thought you'd want something more permanent . . . say, in silver."

  "Not necessary."

  Talbot looked around. He saw her standing against the far wall by one of the grasers. She looked back at him with open fear. He slid off the table, wrapping the sheet upon which he had rested around himself, a makeshift toga. It gave him a patrician look.

  He went to her and looked down into her ancient face. "Nadja," he said, softly. After a long moment she looked up at him. He smiled and for an instant she was a girl again. She averted her gaze. He took her hand, and she came with him, to the table, to Victor.

  "I'd be deeply grateful for a running account, Larry," the physicist said. So Talbot told him; all of it.

  "My mother, Nadja, Martha Nelson, they're all the same," Talbot said, when he came to the end, "all wasted lives."

  "And what was in the box?" Victor said.

  "How well do you do with symbolism and cosmic irony, old friend?"

  "Thus far I'm doing well enough with Jung and Freud," Victor said. He could not help but smile.

  Talbot held tightly to the old technician's hand as he said, "It was an old, rusted Howdy Doody button."

  Victor turned around.

  When he turned back, Talbot was grinning. "That's not cosmic irony, Larry . . . it's slapstick," Victor said. He was angry. It showed clearly.

  Talbot said nothing, simply let him work it out.

  Finally Victor said, "What the hell's that supposed to signify, innocence?"

  Talbot shrugged. "I suppose if I'd known, I wouldn't have lost it in the first place. That's what it was, and that's what it is. A little metal pinback around an inch and a half in diameter, with that cockeyed face on it, the orange hair, the toothy grin, the pug nose, the freckles, all of it, just the way he always was." He fell silent, then after a moment added, "It seems right."

  "And now that you have it back, you don't want to die?"

  "I don't need to die."

  "And you want me to freeze you."

  "Both of us."

  Victor stared at him with disbelief. "For God's sake, Larry!"

  Nadja stood quietly, as if she could not hear them.

  "Victor, listen: Martha Nelson is in there. A wasted life. Nadja is out here. I don't know why or how or what did it . . . but ... a wasted life. Another wasted life. I want you to create her mite, the same way you created mine, and send her inside. He's waiting for her and he can make it right, Victor. All right, at last. He can be with her as she regains the years that were stolen from her. He can be—I can be—her father when she's a baby, her playmate when she's a child, her buddy when she's maturing, her boyfriend when she's a young girl, her suitor when she's a young woman, her lover, her husband, her companion as she grows old. Let her be all the women she was never permitted to be, Victor. Don't steal from her a second time. And when it's over, it will start again. . . ."


  "How, for Christ sake, how the hell how? Talk sense, Larry. What is all this metaphysical crap?"

  "I don't know how; it just is! I've been there, Victor, I was there for months, maybe years, and I never changed, never went to the wolf, there's no Moon there ... no night and no day, just golden light and warmth, and I can try to make restitution. I can give back two lives. Please, Victor!"

  The physicist looked at him without speaking. Then he looked at the old woman. She smiled up at him, and then, with arthritic fingers, removed her clothing.

  ▼▼▼

  When she came through the collapsed lumen, Talbot was waiting for her. She looked very tired, and he knew she would have to rest before they attempted to cross the orange mountains. He helped her down from the ceiling of the cave, and laid her down on soft, pale yellow moss he had carried back from the islets of Langerhans during the long trek with Martha Nelson. Side by side, the two old women lay on the moss, and Nadja fell asleep almost immediately. He stood over them, looking at their faces.

  They were identical.

  Then he went out on the ledge and stood looking toward the spine of the orange mountains. The skeleton held no fear for him now. He felt a sudden sharp chill in the air and knew Victor had begun the cryonic preservation.

  He stood that way for a long time, the little metal button with the sly, innocent face of a mythical creature painted on its surface in four brilliant colors held tightly in his left hand.

  And after a while, he heard the crying of a baby, just one baby, from inside the cave, and turned to return for the start of the easiest journey he had ever made.

  Somewhere, a terrible devil-fish suddenly flattened its gills, turned slowly bellyup, and sank into darkness.

  WOLF, IRON, AND MOTH

  Philip Jose Farmer

  ▼▼▼

  LESS than Man, more than Wolf, he ran.

  More than Man, less than Wolf, he ran howling with ecstasy through the forest.

  He had no memory of being Man any more than he would remember being Wolf when he again became Man.

  Whenever the storm clouds were torn apart briefly by the howling wind, the full July moon was revealed. It seemed to him. though vaguely, that his howling worked the magic that rent the clouds. But he had no conception of magic. He lacked words and The Word.

  Lightning as white as cow fat crashed. Thunder like the death cry of a bull bellowed. Being Wolf, he did not think of these comparisons. The tips of the trees danced under the whiplash of the winds and seemed to him to be alive. He sensed that the thunder and lightning were the orgasms of Earth Herself locked in frenzy with the moon, though this feeling had no link to human thought and image. Being Wolf, he had no words to voice such feelings. Words could never image forth Wolf feelings.

  He ran, and he ran.

  Where a man would have seen trees, bushes, and boulders, he saw beings that had no names and were not connected or grouped by word or thought. They had in his mind no species or genus but were individuals.

  The vegetation and the boulders he passed moved, changing shape slightly with each of his leaps, seeming to have their own life and mobility. Perhaps, they did. Wolf might know what Man could not know. Man knew what Wolf could not know. Though they occupied the same physical world, they lived in separate mental-emotional continuums.

  A is A. Not-A is Not-A. Therefore, never the twain shall meet. Not in the world of the mind. But werewolves . . . what are they? A plus not-A makes B?

  He ran, and he ran.

  Rain came from nowhere; he did not know that it was from above. Its nature changed when it dashed against the ground and splashed on his fur and into his eyes and on his nose. Raindrops had become something else, just wetness. He had no name for wetness. Wetness was a live being. It veiled his sight and his sense of smell. But the wind had carried the scent of lightning-frightened cattle to him before the rain absorbed the thousands of billions of scent molecules whistling by.

  He floated over a wire fence and was among the cattle. He did bloody work there. The half-deaf farmer and his half-deaf wife and their stoned sons in the house a hundred feet away did not hear the loud cries of cattle-terror. The thunder, lightning, and booming TV censored the noise from the pasture. The wolf ate undisturbed.

  ▼▼▼

  "I've never seen a man gain weight so fast or lose it so fast," Sheriff Yeager said. "Seems to me it goes in a cycle too, regular as prune juice. You gain twenty or more pounds in a month. Then, come full moon, you seem to lose it overnight. How do you do it? Why?"

  "If questions were food, you'd be fat," Doctor Varglik said.

  Throughout the physical examination, the sheriff's pale-blue but lively eyes had fixed on the huge wolf skin stretched across the opposite wall of the room. It lacked the legs and the head, but its bushy tail had not been cut off.

  "It doesn't seem natural," Yeager said.

  "What? The wolf skin? It's not artificial."

  "No, I mean the incredibly rapid fluctuations in your weight. That's unnatural."

  "Anything in Nature is natural."

  The doctor removed the inflatable rubber cuff from Yeager's arm. "One twenty over eighty. Thirty-six years old, and you got a teenager's blood pressure. You can get off the table now. Drop your pants."

  From a wall-dispenser, Varglik drew out a latex glove. The sheriff, unlike most men during this examination, did not groan, grimace, or complain. He was a stoic.

  While he was bent over, he said, "Doctor, you still didn't answer my question."

  The son of a bitch is getting suspicious, Varglik thought. Maybe he knows. But he must also think he's going bananas if he sincerely believes that what he's not so subtly hinting at is true.

  He withdrew the finger. He said, "Everything checks out fine. Congratulations. The county'll be satisfied for another year.'1

  "I don't want to be a nuisance or too nosey," Sheriff Yeager said. "Put it down to scientific curiosity. I asked you . . ."

  "I don't know why I have such a phenomenally rapid weight loss and gain," Varglik said. "Never heard of a case like mine in a completely healthy man."

  The wall mirror caught him and Yeager in its mercury light. Both were thirty-six, six feet two inches tall, lean, rangy, and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. Both lived in Wagner (pop. 5000 except in tourist season), set along the south shore of Pristine Lake, Reynolds County, Arkansas. Yeager had an M.A. in Forest Rangery, but, after a few years, had become a policeman and then a sheriff. Varglik had an M.D. from Yale and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford. After a few | years of practice in Manhattan, he had given up a brilliant and affluent career to come to this rural area.

  Like most people who knew this, Yeager was wondering just why Varglik had left Park Avenue. The difference between Yeager and the others was that he would be checking out or had already checked out the doctor's past.

  Despite their many similarities, they were worlds apart in one thing. Varglik was the hunted; Yeager, the hunter. Unless, Varglik thought, I can reverse the situation. But when did A and not-A ever exchange roles?

  The doctor had removed the gloves and was washing his hands. The sheriff was standing in front of the wolf skin and looking intently at it.

  "That's really something," he said. His expression was strange and undecipherable. "Where'd you shoot him?"

  "I didn't." Varglik said. "It's a family heirloom, sort of. My Swedish grandfather passed it on down. My mother, she's Finnish, wanted to get rid of it, I don't know why, but my father, he was born in Sweden but raised in upper New York, wouldn't let her."

  "I’d’ve thought you'd've put it up on the wall above the fireplace mantel in your house."

  "Not many people'd see it there. Here, my patients can see it while I'm examining them. Makes a good conversational piece."

  The sheriff whistled softly. "He must've weighed at least a hundred and eighty. Hell of a big wolf!"

  The doctor smiled. "About as big as the wolf that's terrorizing the county. But what w
ould a wolf be doing in the Ozarks? Hasn't been one here for fifty years or more."

  Yeager turned slowly. He was smiling rather smugly and without any reason to do so. Unless . . . Varglik's heart suddenly beat harder. He should not have been so bold. Why had he mentioned the wolf? Why steer the conversation to it? But, then, why not?

  "It's a wolf, all right! I don't know how in hell it got here, but it's not a dog!"

  "O.K." Varglik said. "But it had better be caught soon! The cattle, sheep, and dogs are bad enough! But those two kids!" He shuddered. "Eaten up!"

  "We'll get him, though he's damned elusive so far!" the sheriff said. "Tomorrow morning, most of the county police, thirty state troopers, and two hundred civilian volunteers will be beating the bush. We're not stopping until we flush him out!"

  Yeager paused, glanced sideways at the skin, then turned his head to face Varglik. "The hunt won't stop, day or night, until we get him!"

  "Even the tourists are getting afraid," Varglik said. "Bad for business."

  The sheriff turned to the pelt again. "Are you sure it's not artificial and you're not putting me on?"