They say I will never be satisfied. Perhaps they are right. They came with smoking torches through the woods, brewing violence, the night I ate the rector. Very put out over that, they were. Well, he was a bony little man, no better than a scrawny chicken. I picked my teeth with his spiny ribs and loped off to lie beneath the wild barberries and watch the blundering hunt. It was cold in the woods, moonless, and a smothering snow dropped in wet, fat flakes. They didn’t like it. It hissed on their torches and made their coats heavy. After a few hours, they went home.
A few nights later, I was in the tavern, still in disgrace and with my stomach snarling. None of them would talk to me or stand me a pint. I’m accustomed to such treatment. I sat in the far corner at the barman’s left hand and nursed my tankard. The fire smelled like death and roared like a barn ablaze. The sweat started out on my forehead, and I swiped at it, feeling like a devil on a spit. Blind Bob’s violin was a torture of clawing nettles inside my skin. I made a noise in my throat halfway between a whine and a growl. Jack, the barman, gave me a disgusted look.
“Get hold of yourself, Davy,” he said. “You’re in the shit good and deep. Squire’s sent for a new parson and the parish is in a godless muddle ‘til he gets here, thanks to you.”
He swiped viciously with his rag at the puddle of drool before me.
I knew he only meant to advise me for my own good, but Bob’s infernal screeching was seven shades of hell, combined with the sensation that I was being boiled alive. Worst of all, I was hungry. I looked out into the night, black as an inkwell and filling up with the whispering snow. This would be my last winter; I knew it sure as I knew my hand before me, squeezing the empty pewter tankard into a crooked, useless lump.
*****
There’s no moon in my dreams. I move in its absence like a man. I walk the night road and start at every skreek and rustle like other men. I can feel the panting regard of the forest on me, boring between my shoulders, making me want to turn at bay or run in wild panic. I can feel the soft shiver of the ground under the stalking feet of the predator. I can feel fear.
Nightmares, but precious to me. I never asked to be a monster, and until the unfortunate meal of the rector, I kept my hunger away from the village. It means a great deal to be tolerated, to be allowed to walk the streets and take my leisure at the tavern like the rest. They don’t have to keep me among them. I know there are some who would put me to death; more now, damn them.
The rector now, he was of a bloody mind. Always urging them to have my head off, to pin my skin to the wall of the church. Not this skin, weak and naked, but the other. The powerful silver fur I wear sometimes. Oh, it feels so good. You wouldn’t think being a beast could be so delicious, but I can tell you that my mind then is clear as a mountain pool and as chilly. Not like the red confusion of my man mind.
The rector couldn’t understand that I was a victim! I tried to tell him. I was attacked on the night road. I was a man like him, a hardworking man with the dreams and ambitions of a man. He knew me then; how could he turn his back on me now in my despair? Bastard! I’m glad I ate him.
*****
It’s an evil moon that rides the winter clouds. It pulls at me like a thousand red-hot hooks. It’ll pull my skin off if I’m not careful and leave only the wolf. I left the tavern and the sullen, moony sheep faces of the villagers. Ran, if I’m to be honest, out into the blessed cold and the frenzied kisses of the swirling snow. Bob’s howling violin followed me for a bit, needling my ears and my nerve endings. He’s next, the tone-deaf ox. I’ll rip his heart out and leave it steaming inside the black hell of his fiddle.
Do they think I can’t hear them in there, muttering about me? My friends and neighbors. They’ve been so patient. They never even spoke of turning me out, even after the incident with the cattle. And the next one with Abe’s coon hounds. And the next one, when little Toby Miller went missing in the blackberry thickets. No. They didn’t know about that one, that wicked day. But maybe they suspected. They’re so forgiving and compassionate. So docile.
Not the rector, though. He was a hard man, flinty and dried up, with eyes like flaming jack-o-lanterns. I couldn’t pass the threshold of his church after my … encounter. It was him kept me out, with his baleful stares and his hatred, though I could smell the fear humming through him like grain alcohol. When I stopped occupying my usual pew, the women of the village became dumb in my presence. Really, what could they say to such a creature, one who would slink from the eyes of God?
Bitches! They thought me handsome once. No, no. I don’t blame them. It was all him, the stick in black with his dog’s collar. He thought my evil nature prevented me from entering his church. I ate him on his altar, and never was a finer dining table, even if the meal was paltry.
*****
From the hill to the east of the village, I see them gather in the square. Scythes and pitchforks, the damn torches again throwing red light on the snow, and all the leaping shadows make them look like a convocation of demons. The squire rides up with his armed men, their horses snorting steam on the black air. The snow muffles their voices, but I can see what they’re up to. My guess is that Jack hadn’t liked the look of me as I sat slavering at his bar with my eyes rolling yellow in their bruised sockets.
Even a sheep can recognize danger if it’s close enough. I have to laugh at them milling about so purposefully, and the laugh turns to a long, deep-throated howl that shocks, and then delights, me. Yes, my last winter, and over sooner than I’d anticipated. I step from the verge of the woods into the cloudy moonlight and let it strip me down to my fur. Perhaps, after tonight, I will finally be satisfied.
The characterization of the werewolf is unique. I've never read a description quite like that,
More coming up next Friday!