Later on, he realized she was laughing at what Stuart had brought on himself.
▼▼▼
She kissed him.
It startled him. He didn't realize how deeply he had been lost in his memories.
"No," he said. He was different now.
"Don't argue," Debbie insisted. "I can see that you want to."
He found himself kissing her back. Why should he pull away from her now? It was too late for her, too late for this whole place. Why not just enjoy it?
He thought again about Lorraine.
He pushed himself away. "There's things you don't understand," he began, "about what's going to happen to this town—"
She laughed harshly at that. "Do you think I care at all about this whole damn town? A bunch of self-important men who think they have it made, because they live in this crummy place? And their wives aren't any better, let me tell you, with their holier-than-thou attitude about some woman who couldn't hold onto her man." She giggled; an innocent sound, like the laugh of a little girl. "Let's just do it to spite them all."
He kissed her, then. If that's the way she wanted it. They were the two outsiders, together. They kissed some more, and then they made love on the dirty floor of the shed.
It had been nearly fifty years since he had made love. Fifty years since he had discovered who he really was, and what happened to those who got too close.
Afterwards, he remembered Lorraine's laughter. But there was nothing now he wanted to laugh about.
Why had he let it happen?
Debbie and he were both outsiders. Surely, that was an easy excuse. But he had made sure they would always stay that way. This was the only way that would make a difference.
He sighed. Feelings had come and gone again, leaving him nothing but tired.
▼▼▼
He had tried to stop it from happening again.
He had moved into his new suburban home without much of a fuss. The Realtor had a bit of difficulty when he wouldn't shake hands, but he had used the old excuse of a "skin condition." It wouldn't do to wear gloves in the summer, especially when he was trying to appear as normal as possible. In certain parts of the city, you could wear pretty much what you wanted. But this new place had its advantages, too. Here in the suburbs, he thought, you could stay invisible, as long as you mowed your lawn.
So he had moved into his new place without touching anyone, flesh on flesh. And he would stay anonymous, hopefully for many years, in that house at the end of the street.
The boy and girl had been playing in his back yard the evening before, but they were so quiet he hadn't known they were there, until he had heard the screams. High, piercing animal sounds. Not thinking, he had rushed out to see what was the matter.
The two kids had cornered a raccoon, and what they thought was a cute animal with a mask had shown them nothing but teeth and claws. The two kids screamed then, and the boy ran right into him.
He realized what had happened. There was no way he could take back his touch. Maybe if he got the boy inside the house, he could keep death away.
But he was too frightened. He didn't reason with the kids, but only grabbed. The boy and girl, already upset with the raccoon, panicked at what must have seemed like the bogeyman to them. They ran into the woods that bordered his backyard. He had gone after them, calling to them, but night had fallen fast, and he had gotten lost among the trees.
A half hour later, the full moon had risen in the sky. And with that, he knew, the little girl—Jenny, that was her name—didn't have a chance.
He cursed himself. He lost all track of time as the moon fled across the sky toward morning. The woods were silent around him. The animals kept away. The crashing he finally heard was the search party, as they discovered Jenny's corpse. After that, the search party had turned into a mob.
▼▼▼
There was a pounding on the door.
"Debbie!"
The voice shocked them out of their languor.
"I'll be out in a minute, Arnie!" she called through the door as she quickly slipped back into her jeans.
"What's going on in there?" the angry voice demanded. "Is he doing anything to you?"
"My brother," she whispered as she rolled her eyes heavenward. "This man is hurt in here!" she answered in a louder voice. "What could he do?"
She looked back at Sam as she buttoned her blouse.
"What happens to us?" she asked. "Especially after you turn into a wolf?"
"I won't turn into a wolf," he said. "And neither will you."
She kissed him lightly one final time and banged on her side of the door. "What's the matter, Arnie? Why don't you open the door?"
Arnie did what his sister asked. Sam saw a brief flash of daylight, then the door slammed again, as if the very sight of him might corrupt those outside.
And what about Debbie? It might have been the second most foolish thing he had ever done in his life. But she had touched him. And now she was safe. Safe, and changed.
Somehow, though, he doubted she would thank him.
▼▼▼
It had grown dark in suburbia, and soon they would see the moon.
The door opened, and in the dimness, he could see three men in the doorway. One of the three held a Coleman lantern. With that light, he could see that the other two men carried guns.
John smiled over his forty-four. "We're ready for you now, whatever you are." He waved at the man on the far side of the lantern. Sam recognized him as the fellow who had spoken reason earlier that morning. "Mark here has managed to make some silver bullets."
"Three of them," Mark agreed. "Melted down some old jewelry, including a couple of crucifixes. And I felt damned stupid doing it."
"Now all we have to do is wait," said the man with the lantern, whom Sam recognized as Arnie. "If you do turn yourself into some kind of monster, it'll be the last time it ever happens."
He wondered if he should tell them. But they wouldn't listen, any more than he had, almost fifty years ago.
"What's that?" John shook his head. "Damned flies."
"Flies?" Mark asked. "Where?" "I hear 'em too," Arnie agreed. "God! What a noise. It's making me itch all over."
The moon was rising.
John started to shake convulsively. Arnie dropped his lantern.
"What's the matter?" Mark called. But neither John nor Arnie could talk in coherent sentences.
Soon they began to growl, and change.
Mark yelled at them to stay away. It wouldn't do any good; Sam knew. The transformation always left the new wolves very hungry. Mark shot them both, using all three bullets in the process.
He glanced once, open-mouthed, at the unchanged Sam. Then he ran from sight.
He screamed a moment later as Sam heard a new chorus of growls. Mark would have needed a lot more than three bullets to stop all the wolves.
It was time for Sam to go. He would stop by his new house and pick up the important things.
The neighborhood outside was as bad as any he had ever seen, city or country. Those he had touched were busy killing those he had missed, ripping apart their neighbors with claws and teeth and eating their fill. A wolf cub, the same boy who had killed Jenny the night before, growled as he gnawed on a dead man's leg.
Stuart Samson walked on. He was beyond asking for forgiveness. He was beyond finding fault. He survived.
Debbie stood in the midst of it all, and watched the carnage in shock. But the wolves wouldn't touch her, for he had loved her, and given her his gift, just as Lorraine had given it to him all those years ago.
Two wolves looked up from their meal as he walked forward. Both cried in fright and ran from him as fast as their new paws could carry them, their tails between their legs.
The animals always knew.
MOONLIGHT ON THE GAZEBO
Mel Gilden
▼▼▼
IT WAS a beautiful night for an execution, warm and fragrant with summer flowers. Though, in his shaggy brown bathrobe, Cornel
ius Miller looked a little as if his Transformation had already begun, the full moon would not be up for nearly twenty minutes. Besides, if the Transformation really had begun, Miller would not have been outside the gazebo joshing with Mayor and Mrs. Grimes. The best sort of people walked by and nodded at them in greeting. The men tipped their flat straw hats. Nearby, a uniformed officer stood at ease near one of the gazebo's two entrances.
The natural amphitheater in which the gazebo was the central and main attraction was lit by hundreds of torches that stood at odd angles where people had thrust them into the turf. Light and shadow shivered, giving the scene a nervous quality it would have possessed in any case.
At the top of the natural amphitheater, just beyond the outside row of seats, a swarthy foreign-looking person in clothes too colorful to be in good taste turned the handle on a hurdy-gurdy, loudly playing "The Man On the Flying Trapeze" in a monotonous sing-songy way. A monkey on a leash begged coins from the crowd.
A man in white carried a small ice chest from a harness slung around his neck while he bellowed, "Ice cream!" He wound his way through the crowd of people dressed in their best, trying not to be run down by children who, for this occasion, were allowed to be a little wilder than was usually considered proper.
Mayor Grimes stopped the man in white and said, "Ice cream, Mr. Miller? How about you, Mrs. Grimes?"
Miller smiled shyly and shook his head, but Mrs. Grimes said that she would be delighted. Like her husband, she was a substantial and stately person. An explosion of purple ostrich feathers complemented the beauty of her large purple hat and of her purple silk dress. Mayor Grimes was outfitted all in pearl gray. Miller was thin and rangy. He might have been suffering through the early stages of a terrible wasting disease, but he wasn't.
While Mrs. Grimes used a wooden spoon to take refined globs of ice cream, Miller waved at Allegra Idaho, a delicate woman in the front row who wore the palest blue, from her wide-brimmed straw hat to her satin shoes. Allegra lowered her eyes for a moment and then waved back, her hand like the wing of a bird.
As the time approached, parents reeled in their children and everyone found seats. A big man and his six children noisily evicted seven people who had been sitting in the front row since early that evening.
"Nice night, Mr. Tivley," said one young man who hurried out of the way of a small blonde Tivley girl.
As he settled himself, Mr. Tivley said, "Any night when justice is done is a nice night."
Allegra Idaho glanced at the late-comers and shook her head.
"We'll be starting soon," Mayor Grimes said as he studied the crowd. He popped open his big turnip pocketwatch and nodded.
Miller glanced at the clear summer sky and made an affirming noise. He glanced at Allegra Idaho and she nodded encouragement.
Mrs. Grimes wished him luck, and the mayor pressed the traditional gold coin into his palm. Mr. and Mrs. Grimes sat down in the seats that had been saved for them, and Mr. Grimes and Mr. Tivley shook hands. Cornelius Miller stood at his entrance, alone but for the company of the single uniformed policeman. Miller slipped the coin into a bathrobe pocket.
The policeman took his work seriously. As he opened the outer barred door and Miller stepped inside, the policeman barely looked at him. The outer door closed with the click of a catch. Miller now had a single barred door behind him and one in front of him.
The crowd hissed and booed as Chief O'Mara walked forward leading a tumbrel in which knelt a very worried man dressed in prisoner's stripes. The tumbrel was pushed by three of O'Mara's men. The eyes of the prisoner, staring straight ahead, were ringed with red. He had the surprised, unhappy and dazed appearance of a man who had been hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat. No one had bothered to comb his hair, which was long and a luminous golden color in the torchlight.
Chief O'Mara unlocked the outside door of a small cage directly opposite the small cage in which Miller stood. Two policemen grabbed the prisoner while the third unlocked the shackle around his neck. As they forced him into the small cage, the prisoner struggled a little, but without energy or hope, the way a sick old cat might struggle on its way to an inevitable bath.
The door was slammed and the crowd became silent. The hurdy- gurdy stopped in mid-phrase. A very young child asked a parent what was going on. The parent hissed and the child settled right down. The policemen backed away from the cage. The prisoner started to whimper and moan.
Two men stood ready. The one in the shaggy brown bathrobe, calmly; the one in the stripes whimpering, clutching the bars of the door he'd just come through, his knees a trifle bent as if his legs would not support his weight. A light wind shook the leaves, making the sound of grain rushing down a chute.
The waiting continued for a long time, stretching like a rubber band. When the rubber band was tight and in danger of breaking, a white shape peeked through the arms of the trees. Then it rose slowly over the trees like a silver serving plate.
As the full moon drifted higher, Cornelius Miller shed his bathrobe. It dropped at his feet and he stood there buck naked, but no more offensive than a statue in a park. His Transformation began slowly. Then an intake of breath came from the audience as if from one throat. The crowd sat frozen, the only movement being by individuals leaning this way or that to get a better view.
Miller's reddish brown hair spread across his body in waves while his limbs changed. His face grew into a muzzle. His ears lengthened into demonic points. Soon the growling in one cage nearly blotted out the sounds of distress in the other.
A policeman at each cage pulled the inner door aside on tracks. Miller-the-Wolf trotted forward and stiffened, his ears up, his nose pulsing. The prisoner glanced over his shoulder, then tried to climb his outer door and to melt through the bars. He shouted for help.
Miller-the-Wolf growled and took another step. The prisoner, finding himself to be more solid than smoke, turned around. He shouted for help again, slinging a string of spit down his stubbly chin. He pleaded for mercy, for help, for release.
Miller-the-Wolf leaped at the same time the prisoner shrieked. Mil- ler-the-Wolf tore into the prisoner's neck and blood spurted. Soon the prisoner stopped struggling and Miller-the-Wolf dragged the carcass into the center of the gazebo where he settled down to pull meat from bone. He paid no attention to either the polite applause or the sound of crying children.
Much later, Cornelius Miller returned to his human form and collapsed next to the messy remains of the prisoner. It would not take an expert to be certain the prisoner was dead, but Doc Kelly's signature on a paper made the pronouncement official.
Doc had no hair under his bowler, and he smiled most of the time, as if his work pleased him. The smile comforted some and disconcerted others. He and Mayor Grimes supervised as Chief O'Mara and his men loaded Miller onto a stretcher. Doc threw the brown bathrobe over him. At Miller's hotel, Doc made sure that he was properly tucked in.
▼▼▼
The remainder of that night, an entire day, and most of the following morning had passed when Miller awoke. He moved slowly under the covers, then opened his eyes. After a while he got out of bed, moving carefully. He poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the night stand, swished his mouth and spit the water into a bowl. He did this a few times, and then just sat on the bed with the half-full glass in his hand.
Miller got dressed and went downstairs, still moving like a man made of sticks. In the lobby he found Doc Kelly waiting for him in a big wing chair. Smoke rose from a cigar in a silver stand next to him.
Miller sat in a wing chair across from him and said, "Hello, Doc."
"Hello, Cornelius. Justice was done."
Miller nodded and said, "Thank goodness. Too many months without an execution was making me crazier than a snake with the mange." He patted the arms of his chair. 'Tm going to dinner. Want to come?"
"Delighted," Doc said and smiled in a way that may not have meant anything. He said, "You haven't seen this," and threw that morning
's Mill River Rambler into Miller's lap.
The headline said: ALLEGRA IDAHO HELD.
"What's this?" Miller said, surprised and horrified.
"Read the story."
"Tell me." Miller said. "My head is full of hay."
"Allegra was arrested yesterday for malpractice."
"What does that mean?" Miller said hotly.
"Manor Tivley's hen house burned down. They say it's her fault."
"She wouldn't do that."
"Maybe not on purpose. That's why they're calling it malpractice."
Miller stood up, seemingly too fast, because he swayed a little and touched the arm of the chair. "I'm going to see her."
"I'll be keeping office hours. Come by when you want that dinner."
After giving Doc Kelly a curt nod, Miller marched out of the hotel and across the wide porch. The day was hot, as summers always were. "Justice was done," said a fat man rocking in the thick shade. "Thanks," Miller said and kept moving. He nearly tripped himself as he ran down the steps into the sunshine.
Nobody much was out on the street except a few kids still in knickers, too excited about summer vacation to stay out of the sun. From the porches of big wooden houses that sprawled on their wide lawns like self-satisfied white cats, people nodded at him. Some offered him lemonade. He waved and was polite but kept moving.
City Hall was a three-story brick building on the town square. He galloped up the steps and went along the cool dim hallway to its end where he entered the office of the chief of police.
Miller walked up to the counter and said, "Hello, Casey," to the young uniformed man behind a desk.
"Justice was done," Casey said, looking uncomfortable.
"I'd like to see Allegra."
A thick brown door with a pebbled glass window opened and Chief O'Mara stood in front of it. "Here to see Allegra?" he said. He was solemn.
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