Wolves Abound: A Short Story, Page 2
Leslie M. Joyner
the sky turning into beautiful shades of purple and orange.
Jamie poured over every book on animal possessions, and animal transformations. Things that any normal person would have passed off as foolishness, or legends from a long ago past. Most legends of which many modern scientists had passed off as psychological defects of the human mind. Even stories that now were believed to have been caused by drug induced hallucinations. Whether the delusions or hallucinations where intentional by using a salve made of herbs or unintentional. Like the witch trials in Salem, hallucinations and mass hysteria caused by ergot poisoning of the stored rye of a village’s grains. But for Jamie it was all to real. As far back as anyone could recall, every man in his family had this curse that modern day people just looked at mainly as a diversion in horror films and stories.
Some of the men handled it in stride like his grandfather. Of course, he didn’t have much to do with mainlanders, and stayed mostly at the lighthouse. It was because he did not want to harm anyone. When the moon rose high, and the urges became so strong that not even his will or the charm around his neck could stop the blood lust, his wife would chain him in the basement and lock the barred doors. Others, like Jamie’s cousin Bryan, did not fare as well. It wasn’t that he was inherently evil. Up until the time of his changing he was the most loving and caring person Jamie had ever met. Then his time came, and he became a different man. Perhaps it would have helped had he stayed in the countryside with the rest of the family. At least there, they could have helped him control the beast that grew inside him. Bryan’s dreams of a big city life, was in essence his death.
News of dog attacks in New York reached them. As the weeks passed by, the news went from one dog, to a pack. Bryan had gone there earlier in the year to work on the stages of Broadway as a carpenter, and after a few months his calls home had decreased and then totally stopped. Along the same time is when the dog attacks had started. Generally, when left alone a wolf would not attack, but if a pack had been formed, then there was no limit to what damage they could do. Most of the time people would meet others of their kind and move on. On rare occasions, one of them would be charismatic enough to become a pack leader. Bryan was just such a person.
Dennis and Donald, Bryan’s father, left for New York, and never returned. The dog attacks stopped, so that was good it meant that the pack had been destroyed, or disbanded, but it also meant that Dennis and Donald had killed Bryan, and the pack had in turn killed Jamie’s father and his Uncle Donald. It had been hard enough losing his mom in the car accident, and now more of his family was gone. He was left with his grandparents, who he relied on.
They weren’t enough though. Jamie wanted his own family one day, but not if the chances of his son being like Bryan. He had to find a permanent cure. Which lead him to the Occult Library in Ireland where he now sat pouring over the ancient texts from various religions, and cultures. There was so much information there that his head began to spin. Not just on men becoming wolves, but all sorts of animals, owls, leopards, you name it. Each region of the world had their own myths about changing into animals. If so many different areas, that had never had contact with the other places of the world, how then could animal transformation not been a reality?
Jamie jumped with a start.
“You’ve got about 10 minutes before we close.” One of the librarians tapped him on the shoulder. “And you really should get something to eat young man, I’ve not seen you leave this floor all day.” The librarian laughed. “Though I cannot blame you. This books are quite fascinating, I myself have lost hours and hours in this section.” The librarian headed off to straighten up the shelves.
“Your quite right, and now that you mention it, I am starved.” Jamie let out a nervous chuckle as he gathered his things and headed down stairs.
In his room he fired off a quick email to his grandparents to let them know that all was well, and that he was going for a run then get a bit to eat at the local pub before getting some sleep.
“Do you think he will have any luck?” Harry asked Belinda, as he sat reading the latest email from Jamie.
Belinda stoked the fire one last time before sitting down. “I believe that he will not stop searching until his time is ended, or he finds the cure.” She said as she snuggled in close to her husband of 42 years.
Rachel could drive no further. Her legs were beginning to cramp, and she needed to stretch out. She soon found a picnic area near a spring and pulled over. She stretched out against the car. The air crisp and fresh as she breathed in. The air somehow smelled sweeter. “Must just be because I’m from the city, and this is unpolluted air.” She thought to herself. But it was more than that, and Rachel new it. “Maybe I’ll go for a stroll before getting back into that sardine can of a car.”
She began walking along the spring, and before long she was sprinting, and then running as fast as she could. Nothing was going through her mind except the smell of the clean air and the freedom she felt in the running. When she finally stopped she was 12 miles from her car. She wasn’t even winded, but now she was starving, not just hungry, but an animalistic starving. “I’d better get back on the road and try to find a diner or something.” She began walking back to her car, not realizing how far she had come. “Well I ran away from the car, I suppose I can run back to it.” She picked up the pace and in no time she was back in the car and on her way again.
The pub was crowded with the locals, but that was great. It helped keep Jamie’s mind off why he was here for a few hours. He joined in a game of darts while he waited for his supper. The atmosphere was wonderful and the people there where about the best he had ever met. Of course, that could have been the ale talking. Last call was finally made and he bought a round for everyone still there which was only a few people. Luckily, the pub was across the street from the boarding house. Jamie stumbled to his room, and was immediately asleep.
Promptly at 6 am he awoke, feeling refreshed and renewed. Something seldom felt by anyone who spent a night of drinking. He grabbed a quick shower and away he went for another run before heading back for another shower and then off to the library. As he ran outside the small village relishing the beautiful landscape a grey car drove by him. He couldn’t see inside the car as it sped by, but there was a smell and an allure wafting from the air coming from the car. He knew the smell. It was one of his own. Not one of his family, but one of his kind. A werewolf, and a female at that, but from her smell, she had not yet completed the change. She probably didn’t even know what was going on. Was she here searching for answers as he was? Was she a local? Was she born this way as he had been? So many questions pulsed through his mind, he turned around and ran back towards town. By the time he had arrived, he had lost sight of the car, but the scent lingered. Jamie decided not to pursue the smell, he had work to do in the library. He could always pick up the scent after the library closed.
After hours of reading and not talking, Jamie began to tense up. His muscles ached and he yearned to run again. His stomach began growling deeply, not with the normal hunger pangs but the animalistic lusting for blood. He finished with the books he had out and gathered his laptop and notebooks. It was still early, maybe he would seek out the girl in the car. Looking at his watch he realized that even though it was early, and the sun still up, that the moon would soon begin to rise. The new full moon. Best to grab some food from the pub now before it got dark. So off he walked to grab a beer and a steak before the night fell upon the town.
Supper finished he walked up to his room and grabbed a backpack out of one of his trunks. As he walked down the stairs the lady of the house saw him. “How are your enjoying everything dear?”
“It’s absolutely marvelous here ma’am. I’m gonna be out over night, I’m gonna go for a little overnight sleep out under the beautiful skies. I do love the outdoors!” and out Jamie rushed, as he began to smell the lady intensely, and his hunger began to grow, even though he had just ate a huge steak. It wasn’t that kind of hunger the ki
nd of hunger for food. It was the blood lust for the sweet flesh of a human. How he knew that human meat was sweet he had no idea. He had never before ate a human, and vowed that he never would.
Jamie ran for what seemed like only a moment, but in that short time he traveled at least 20 miles from town into the wooded areas that surrounded the town. “This should be a safe enough place, and if not, I’ve got these.” He opened up his pack and he began to pull chains, handcuffs and manacles of all sorts. He found a suitable tree, it had to be several hundred years old to be this large he thought. He secured the first in a series of chains around the tree trunk. Then began the process of locking in the manacles and various handcuffs that he would need. The wind softly blew and rustled the trees, on the air he could smell the faintest smell of the girl in the car. There was no time for that. He had to protect not only himself, but anyone around, from him. He locked himself into the chains, he’d done this before, but never had the urge to run and the animal urge been so strong before. It must have been the girl that was making it worse for him. Come tomorrow he would have to track her down, for now though,
Jamie poured over every book on animal possessions, and animal transformations. Things that any normal person would have passed off as foolishness, or legends from a long ago past. Most legends of which many modern scientists had passed off as psychological defects of the human mind. Even stories that now were believed to have been caused by drug induced hallucinations. Whether the delusions or hallucinations where intentional by using a salve made of herbs or unintentional. Like the witch trials in Salem, hallucinations and mass hysteria caused by ergot poisoning of the stored rye of a village’s grains. But for Jamie it was all to real. As far back as anyone could recall, every man in his family had this curse that modern day people just looked at mainly as a diversion in horror films and stories.
Some of the men handled it in stride like his grandfather. Of course, he didn’t have much to do with mainlanders, and stayed mostly at the lighthouse. It was because he did not want to harm anyone. When the moon rose high, and the urges became so strong that not even his will or the charm around his neck could stop the blood lust, his wife would chain him in the basement and lock the barred doors. Others, like Jamie’s cousin Bryan, did not fare as well. It wasn’t that he was inherently evil. Up until the time of his changing he was the most loving and caring person Jamie had ever met. Then his time came, and he became a different man. Perhaps it would have helped had he stayed in the countryside with the rest of the family. At least there, they could have helped him control the beast that grew inside him. Bryan’s dreams of a big city life, was in essence his death.
News of dog attacks in New York reached them. As the weeks passed by, the news went from one dog, to a pack. Bryan had gone there earlier in the year to work on the stages of Broadway as a carpenter, and after a few months his calls home had decreased and then totally stopped. Along the same time is when the dog attacks had started. Generally, when left alone a wolf would not attack, but if a pack had been formed, then there was no limit to what damage they could do. Most of the time people would meet others of their kind and move on. On rare occasions, one of them would be charismatic enough to become a pack leader. Bryan was just such a person.
Dennis and Donald, Bryan’s father, left for New York, and never returned. The dog attacks stopped, so that was good it meant that the pack had been destroyed, or disbanded, but it also meant that Dennis and Donald had killed Bryan, and the pack had in turn killed Jamie’s father and his Uncle Donald. It had been hard enough losing his mom in the car accident, and now more of his family was gone. He was left with his grandparents, who he relied on.
They weren’t enough though. Jamie wanted his own family one day, but not if the chances of his son being like Bryan. He had to find a permanent cure. Which lead him to the Occult Library in Ireland where he now sat pouring over the ancient texts from various religions, and cultures. There was so much information there that his head began to spin. Not just on men becoming wolves, but all sorts of animals, owls, leopards, you name it. Each region of the world had their own myths about changing into animals. If so many different areas, that had never had contact with the other places of the world, how then could animal transformation not been a reality?
Jamie jumped with a start.
“You’ve got about 10 minutes before we close.” One of the librarians tapped him on the shoulder. “And you really should get something to eat young man, I’ve not seen you leave this floor all day.” The librarian laughed. “Though I cannot blame you. This books are quite fascinating, I myself have lost hours and hours in this section.” The librarian headed off to straighten up the shelves.
“Your quite right, and now that you mention it, I am starved.” Jamie let out a nervous chuckle as he gathered his things and headed down stairs.
In his room he fired off a quick email to his grandparents to let them know that all was well, and that he was going for a run then get a bit to eat at the local pub before getting some sleep.
“Do you think he will have any luck?” Harry asked Belinda, as he sat reading the latest email from Jamie.
Belinda stoked the fire one last time before sitting down. “I believe that he will not stop searching until his time is ended, or he finds the cure.” She said as she snuggled in close to her husband of 42 years.
Rachel could drive no further. Her legs were beginning to cramp, and she needed to stretch out. She soon found a picnic area near a spring and pulled over. She stretched out against the car. The air crisp and fresh as she breathed in. The air somehow smelled sweeter. “Must just be because I’m from the city, and this is unpolluted air.” She thought to herself. But it was more than that, and Rachel new it. “Maybe I’ll go for a stroll before getting back into that sardine can of a car.”
She began walking along the spring, and before long she was sprinting, and then running as fast as she could. Nothing was going through her mind except the smell of the clean air and the freedom she felt in the running. When she finally stopped she was 12 miles from her car. She wasn’t even winded, but now she was starving, not just hungry, but an animalistic starving. “I’d better get back on the road and try to find a diner or something.” She began walking back to her car, not realizing how far she had come. “Well I ran away from the car, I suppose I can run back to it.” She picked up the pace and in no time she was back in the car and on her way again.
The pub was crowded with the locals, but that was great. It helped keep Jamie’s mind off why he was here for a few hours. He joined in a game of darts while he waited for his supper. The atmosphere was wonderful and the people there where about the best he had ever met. Of course, that could have been the ale talking. Last call was finally made and he bought a round for everyone still there which was only a few people. Luckily, the pub was across the street from the boarding house. Jamie stumbled to his room, and was immediately asleep.
Promptly at 6 am he awoke, feeling refreshed and renewed. Something seldom felt by anyone who spent a night of drinking. He grabbed a quick shower and away he went for another run before heading back for another shower and then off to the library. As he ran outside the small village relishing the beautiful landscape a grey car drove by him. He couldn’t see inside the car as it sped by, but there was a smell and an allure wafting from the air coming from the car. He knew the smell. It was one of his own. Not one of his family, but one of his kind. A werewolf, and a female at that, but from her smell, she had not yet completed the change. She probably didn’t even know what was going on. Was she here searching for answers as he was? Was she a local? Was she born this way as he had been? So many questions pulsed through his mind, he turned around and ran back towards town. By the time he had arrived, he had lost sight of the car, but the scent lingered. Jamie decided not to pursue the smell, he had work to do in the library. He could always pick up the scent after the library closed.
After hours of reading and not talking, Jamie began to tense up. His muscles ached and he yearned to run again. His stomach began growling deeply, not with the normal hunger pangs but the animalistic lusting for blood. He finished with the books he had out and gathered his laptop and notebooks. It was still early, maybe he would seek out the girl in the car. Looking at his watch he realized that even though it was early, and the sun still up, that the moon would soon begin to rise. The new full moon. Best to grab some food from the pub now before it got dark. So off he walked to grab a beer and a steak before the night fell upon the town.
Supper finished he walked up to his room and grabbed a backpack out of one of his trunks. As he walked down the stairs the lady of the house saw him. “How are your enjoying everything dear?”
“It’s absolutely marvelous here ma’am. I’m gonna be out over night, I’m gonna go for a little overnight sleep out under the beautiful skies. I do love the outdoors!” and out Jamie rushed, as he began to smell the lady intensely, and his hunger began to grow, even though he had just ate a huge steak. It wasn’t that kind of hunger the ki
nd of hunger for food. It was the blood lust for the sweet flesh of a human. How he knew that human meat was sweet he had no idea. He had never before ate a human, and vowed that he never would.
Jamie ran for what seemed like only a moment, but in that short time he traveled at least 20 miles from town into the wooded areas that surrounded the town. “This should be a safe enough place, and if not, I’ve got these.” He opened up his pack and he began to pull chains, handcuffs and manacles of all sorts. He found a suitable tree, it had to be several hundred years old to be this large he thought. He secured the first in a series of chains around the tree trunk. Then began the process of locking in the manacles and various handcuffs that he would need. The wind softly blew and rustled the trees, on the air he could smell the faintest smell of the girl in the car. There was no time for that. He had to protect not only himself, but anyone around, from him. He locked himself into the chains, he’d done this before, but never had the urge to run and the animal urge been so strong before. It must have been the girl that was making it worse for him. Come tomorrow he would have to track her down, for now though,
