Down on all fours, the transformation rips his body apart once more. Bones crack, flesh is rent, and his heart races at twice its normal rate. He howls into the night and writhes on the ground as arms and legs form once more. The change is shift and brutal, a twisted combination of excruciating pain and wild adrenaline rush. When it is complete, for this one night, he will again be at the top of the food chain. Fur is shed and his face flattens out, and then he slowly stands erect once more as his front legs turn to arms, and the transformation from wolf to man, at least some form of man, is complete.
He roars at the night sky, to the moon above, invisible yet present. This is his moon and his night.
The Night of the New Moon.
He dashes through the forest, knowing it will not take long to find a human settlement, now that these New People have taken over so much of the land. He pauses, filling the woods with the resonance of another spectacular roar, then the madness of the moon raves within him and he runs even faster. He is amazed at how fast he can move upright on two legs.
He knows “they” hear him, fear him, as he once more becomes the embodiment of pure vengeance. “I am Death and Revenge,” he remembers. “That was the prayer the shaman answered that night so many New Moons ago.”
The Other People, The First People, were different. The natives of this land coexisted with his kind for ages with little confrontation. Those First People honored the land, respected their environment, only using what they needed, and let his kind have their own territory to roam. These New People, with their paler skin and strange clothing and customs, are far more arrogant and destructive. They clear large areas of the forest for themselves, driving out the First People and all the area’s wildlife.
Though he was not learned to speak, on this monthly journey he hears human words in his head and understands their meaning. He does not know whether they are his own thoughts, or those of the shaman guiding his thoughts. “They take and take, and waste, and give nothing back,” speaks this voice. “They kill what they fear, not just what is necessary to sustain life. They kill for sport. Even when we happen upon ‘their land’ by mistake, they kill without conscience.”
The night they killed his mate, pregnant with their first litter, the shaman heard his howls of agony and rage. The shaman had witnessed the murder from a distance and hated The New People intensely, so he decided to take action that night. He used his power to transform the mourning wolf into a creature of monthly vengeance for The First People and the Brotherhood of the Wolves.
The shaman warned him that this gift of revenge came with a price. The transformation would be very painful and it would take some time to adjust to his changed form. “You must hunt the whole night through,” the shaman instructed. “Your hunger will not be sated until the rising of the sun the following day. You must kill any human you come into contact on these nights of transformation. There can be no discrimination and no mercy.”
That night he nodded in mystical understanding of the shaman’s words, but he would have agreed to anything in his grief, and thus hastily accepted the transformation that is both his gift and his curse.
Though changed in essence to a man, he maintains many of his previous form’s instincts. He smells the smoke from their indoor fire first, and then as he draws nearer to the cabin, another intrusive and luxurious dwelling, he catches the more important scent, that of a human.
The human that is outside, well past the hour of safety in the wilderness, is a small female, less than half the size of most of the New People he has encountered. The little girl is further from the house than she is probably allowed, digging in the dirt and humming to herself. Was she not missed? He wonders if this is some kind of trap as he slowly and silently approaches his latest victim.
Just eleven years old, her light brown hair is a mass of curls all around her face and flowing half way down her back. She senses something behind her, and when she turns around and stands up, an innocent set of hazel eyes are fixed on this creature before her.
He is bewildered--this unfamiliar look in her eyes, what is it? Not fear or hatred--curiosity perhaps--or something he still cannot understand?
The animal before her stands upright like a man, very tall, much taller than Daddy, but is covered in a thin coat of mangy fur. Its face seems human, except its mouth is like that of a dog. It growls, quietly but fiercely, revealing its sharp teeth at the ready. There are long dangerous claws on its fingertips as well.
“Good evening to you,” she says to the creature, with no trace of fear or hatred.
He cocks his head, looking her directly in the eyes, sniffs her, and then growls lowly again. Although he comprehends the voice in his head, he does not yet understand other humans when they speak, but his instincts can discern tone of voice, and this little one does not seem a threat. This disrupts his habitual cycle under the New Moon--hunt and kill--has he actually met a human that deserves to live?
“No discrimination!” the shaman screams in his head. “No mercy!” Shaking his head, trying to silence his guide, he wants to make his own sense of this new human he has encountered.
He remains still as the girl slowly approaches him. “My name’s Mina,” she says, gently holding out a hand toward him.
He flinches for a moment and growls again. A trick after all? No, her hand is not curled up in a ball or being thrust out as a weapon. She extends an open palm, very slowly, vulnerably, toward his arm. He decides to stand still a few moments longer, trust this creature, for if this is a trick, she is so small, frail, can be easily overtaken in an instant.
The girl touches his arm, ever so gently. Only twice in wolf-form had he felt one of the First People touch him so lightly. She strokes his arm, and then his cheek, unafraid, fascinated by him.
He growls again, but lightly, expressing the pleasure of this intimate exchange between species. He is beginning to learn the difference between this little one and the older ones. “Just like the cubs I never got to raise,” he thinks. “Yes, the cubs are so innocent, before they learn to hunt for themselves, playful, slow to anger.” Even the shaman’s voice in his head is silenced in this moment of intimacy.
For this one brief moment he reasons there might be a chance to coexist with these New People, if only they could all be like this little one.
But their moment of peace is interrupted all too soon with an eruption of violence. He is snapped back to reality by the sound of the cabin door pounding against the building as it is thrown open. The girl stares wide-eyed at her father, rushing towards them, rifle in hand. “Mina! I’m coming, baby!” her father shouts, aiming the rifle toward the creature as he approaches.
As the charging human aims his rifle, the creature becomes immediately all animal, shredding any humanity he felt in those brief seconds with the human child. He hears the girl cry out: “No, Daddy, no! It’s not hurting me!” But that appeal comes too late. It is once more beast against man.
The man fires at him three times, center mass, and he feels the pain rush through his body. Resigned to likely death anyway, he desires to make his last moments of life count for something. He knocks the man down and slashes the human’s face with his claws. The little human keeps crying out her appeal to both parties to stop the fighting--all in vain. He bites down hard on the man’s throat and, if he had lived a second longer might have ripped out a chunk of flesh that would have been the fatal blow, but instead his jaw goes slack as he dies, his full weight falling on the man.
The transformation is reversed and, a few seconds later, the corpse of a wolf lies atop her father when Mina reaches his side. She sees the creature has hurt her father badly, but he is still breathing and will probably pull through, if she can get some help. She opens her mouth to cry out for that help, but an instant later she faints and falls to the ground.
***
Fifteen nights later, Mina’s father is in the barn feeding his horse as the full moon rises above. He barely survived his struggle with the mysterious creature and only three days ago finally felt well enough to resume his usual routine. He always saved feeding his trusted horse until last because he liked spending time alone in the barn with the animal.
He feels the changes within him the instant the full moon shines directly above the barn.
He is burning hot and his body twists and cracks as he falls to the ground. Crying out in agony, he feels a rush of adrenaline as bestial power streams through his system. Standing on all fours, his body transforms, without any sense of logic, into that of a huge wolf with razor sharp claws and long fangs.
All the while, an unknown voice repeats in his head: “Kill! Kill them! Kill them all!”
He screams and screams, sure this is a nightmare, yet it has no end.
Then, he hears the voice in his head again, the voice of the same shaman that created the creature he slaughtered just over two weeks ago: “You have killed my creation before he was finished. Now, you will become my new creation, but you will be doubly cursed, for you will feed on your own kind.”
The shaman’s mocking laughter echoes in Mina’s father’s head as he roars at the night, realizing his vocal chords are no longer capable of human speech.
That first Night of the Full Moon passes in a hallucinatory blur, and he is still not convinced it is anything but a very long intense nightmare filled with slaughter, carnage, whatever name you wanted to label this random and senseless killing. A part of him seems oddly gratified by the fulfillment of this vengeance, even though it is not his own. He is merely an instrument being manipulated by a force he does not understand, but constantly hears in his head.
The next morning, Mina’s father wakes up very far from home. “I have finally woken from the nightmare,” he tells himself, still in denial. “It caused me to sleepwalk here.”
However, once he rises from the ground it does not take long to realize it was no nightmare at all.
First, he notices his naked body, covered in blood and gore; definitely not his own, for he feels no pain or any evidence of injury. The next horrific realization lies before him on the ground. A severed human arm, ripped apart and covered with bite marks, indicating some creature has feasted upon on it. Flies buzz around him as he becomes aware of the foul stench emanating from that piece of decaying flesh.
The final straw, however, that has him bent over and heaving, praying for his stomach to vent its contents, is the putrid taste in his mouth that proves that he indeed must be the creature that ripped off that arm in the previous night’s madness. Try as he may, he cannot rid his mouth of the appalling taste of rotting meat.