Then came the full moon. I kept my ears open, my eyes open, and looked for all of the signs. I went to an Internet café to read every local news-site, and all of the stories were there: a homeless man found mauled to death—two pet dogs found dead, their throats torn open—a teenager gone missing, her parents pleading for her to come home—a dead horse carcass—a car accident caused by the owner trying to avoid something, his body ripped to shreds by the force of the impact. So many. The head of the emergency department at the local hospital and the local police chief were helpful with older stories, and as I had come to expect, it was always during the full moon.
Of course it was. But the police and officials ignored the signs because the other option just could not possibly exist. People are so much more enlightened in this day and age, they say. Well, they’re wrong. They’re not enlightened—they are just better at justifying their denial of the truth.
But I did not ignore the signs. I knew better. I just had one, small problem—I still had no proof that the couple I was watching were actually involved. But, you know, that didn’t really matter, because the fact that there were definite patterns of behaviour in the city told me that, at the very least, I was close, and I was sure it was the couple. It could have been one of them, but the amount of damage told me I was looking for more than one perpetrator. Next moon cycle, I would follow them somehow.
I know where to buy silver bullets across the country now. When we hunted, silver bullets were sold because they didn’t leave as big a hole or do as much damage to the carcass, so if we were going to mount or eat, it was better. And silver poisoning was better for you than lead poisoning, Danny used to say. But that weekend hunting with Danny, we weren’t using silver. We just wanted those animals dead, so we used real bullets. But after everything happened the way it did, I had to go back to town and buy some silver tips.
That was the night I made my first kill.
That was the night Danny died.
Now I was prepared in every way possible.
I worked hard at those houses. They liked me, and I even managed to get hired at two more. And on one fine day, the couple approached me. Her name was April and his was Lachlan. They wanted me to do my “magic” for them as well. And damn if I wasn’t tempted. I could be so close, I could watch and listen and everything else. It was an opportunity I would never have again, but I had to force myself tell them I was already pretty full, and if someone else didn’t want me any more, then they’d be first on my list. They seemed disappointed, and I was as well. But there is such a thing as getting too close and instinct can be a funny thing. Still, this was such a great opportunity that I was of half a mind to find room for them…
So one day, when I had finished early, I offered just to do a quick yard tidy. It happened to be on the first day of the full moon cycle.
And, you know, they hesitated. I saw them cast their eyes at one another. I saw her pretty little smile drop a fraction and his eyes narrow oh so briefly, and both of them tensed up their shoulders for longer than they should have. I quickly added that Mrs Gianni up the road didn’t need me that afternoon, which was the truth. This brought back April’s smile. “Of course she wouldn’t need you,” she sighed. “We’ll be glad to have you here, even for a few hours.”
Stupid move, I knew, but I was in, and watching them was going to be simpler now.
I found obvious things to do, but took my time. When the sun began to set, it was April who came out. “You’ve done a good job,” she said. “Pity we can’t hire you.”
“Yeah, I know.” I was trying so very hard to act cool. For the first time in ten years I was communicating civilly with one of them before a kill.
“So how much do we owe you?” she asked. I saw the quickest of eye movements, gazing at the setting sun.
“Well, I’m not quite done here,” I said, motioning to a pile of weeds and leaves. “Give me twenty minutes to clean up and we can talk then.”
I saw the flicker of panic in her pretty features. Just a flicker, but you get to know the signs. She cast her eyes across the yard. I also let my own gaze dart in that direction. Two of her neighbours were in their front yards, one watering the garden, the other picking up some rubbish that had blown across. Afraid of what the locals might think—that was a new indication, but it certainly made sense. She put on a polite smile, “Oh, please don’t trouble yourself. Lachlan can take care of that.”
“I hate to leave a job unfinished.”
She smoothly opened her purse, reached in and quickly pressed two fifty-dollar bills into my hand. “I’m sure that should cover everything,” she said, “Thank you.” Her voice was still pleasant, but I could detect the undertone of threat in her words.
“If you’re sure.” I had to sound reluctant.
The smile on her face was now genuine again. “I am. You’ve done a marvellous job. Thank you again.”
I smiled and picked up my tools, then made my way to the beat-up car I had managed to procure. Within moments I was gone. But I did not go far. I parked around the corner and made my way slowly and carefully back to number twenty-seven. I used my recently gained knowledge of the neighbourhood to work through back yards and over fences until I was perched in a tree and looking through my gun scope. This was all I had to do—watch. After today I had a much better idea of the layout of their house. And, sure enough, the back screen door was slid open as the last rays of sunlight faded over the distant horizon and the blue light of the full moon took a firm foothold on the landscape below.
I watched as the preparations I had seen so often were made. They stripped off their clothes, standing naked. Like all the others, their bodies were paragons of fitness. They closed their eyes. Expressions of pain crossed their faces.
And then the change…
I had seen it before, and yet it still surprised me as I watched bone and muscle and skin deform and warp, taking on a new shape. The sheer agony they went through each time must have been incredible. But I had no sympathy for them. Whether they were willing or not in this transformation, it still happened, and they still allowed it to happen.
The two animals stepped carefully through the door and sniffed at the air.
Eyes fell in my direction. Noses inhaled deeply. Teeth were bared. I froze, like I did every time. I always felt like they knew I was watching them. But this time there was an added fear. I felt like they knew exactly who was watching them—they knew that it was me, the man who not an hour before had been digging in their front yard. But that was crazy. I was too far away. Paranoia. And after ten years I know that paranoia is just the mind’s way of keeping the body safe.
I stayed still. I watched. I waited. And they left. As soon as I lost sight of them, I dropped and ran. Over fences, back to the car. I gunned the engine and just drove. A dark shadow appeared at the side of the road. I swerved around it as the glowing eyes regarded me emotionlessly.
They knew. Yes, they knew.
And I just drove all night.
I risked a nap as the sun started to rise, but the images in my head were of Danny, his eyes begging me for whatever help I could give him, me apologising to him, and then…
Then I woke up.
I don’t remember ever having the sort of doubts that I now had. I had killed so many and yet, here I was, panicking. They knew who I was! They had followed me! They had let me know they knew. Were they warning me off? Did they know what I had done in the past? Did they suspect I had something to do with their friend Geoffrey dying? So many questions, and no matter how much my sensible, logical self said that that was all rubbish, I just knew in my gut that my whole life was open to them.
And that meant only one thing—I only had one chance to stop them and it had to be tonight.
I had already managed to get a gun and bullets—the American Constitution is an absolute boon to us hunters—and so it was back to the trailer to prepare. The problem was finding a source of Aconitum Vulparia at such short notice. And once again, ge
tting the plant was harder than anything else. At ten past four I found a nursery in a neighbouring town that had two I could have. Despite my mad dash, I arrived fifteen minutes after closing time. But luck must have been on my side as the owner had left a plant out front for me. I silently thanked him and left a fifty-dollar bill as payment, sliding it under his door. It was nicely ironic, I decided, that April had paid for her own death.
My drive back was even faster as I watched as the sun drop lower and lower over the horizon. Shadows crossed the road, standing out starkly against the orange light, the stripes of a tiger ready to attack. I had no time to make the oil, so I spent the last few precious moments of daylight carefully rubbing each bullet with the leaves from the plant. I finished and left the keys in the car as I jumped out. I was cutting it fine—too fine. But they knew me and there was nothing else for me to do… The thought of them out there, hunting me, was unacceptable.
I was the hunter—not the hunted. I had to strike first.
The sky was purple and getting darker as I squeezed in between the garden shed of the property behind number twenty-seven and the back fence. I was too close for comfort with two of them in the house, but it was the only place where I could be sure of a clean shot.
I waited nervously. I had never felt this way before. My heart was still pounding in my chest from the frantic drive and Olympic-like steeplechase to get here in time. Sweat ran into my eyes and across my palms. I was shaking. I felt like a kid asking a girl out for his first date.
I heard the screen door slide open.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax my breathing. My fingers gripped the gun a little too tightly. A quick glance at the sky told me it was to time.
I could hear movement. They were coming closer. Slowly, for sure, but they were stalking me. I cursed under my breath. They knew!
I had one option left.
With a smoothness borne of endless practice, I swiftly rose over the top of the fence and aimed the gun by instinct, gentle squeezed the trigger and the first bullet left the muzzle…
Lachlan did not make a sound as half of his face disappeared. He had been less than eight feet away from me when the bullet took him. But there was no sign of April.
“Damn!” I growled as I loaded the next bullet. A cold chill came over me then, lifting the hair off of the back of my neck and a I looked up.
She had silently climbed above me and now stared down with the angriest expression I had ever seen. She was halfway between forms, a truly terrifying shape, but you don’t survive as long as I have in the face of these creatures without some sort of mental strength. My body acted in reflex and I instantly fired the gun straight up. The bullet ripped through her stomach and exploded out of the top of her head. Anger was replaced by utter shock… and then it was April staring at me as blood poured down her naked body before she toppled backwards into her yard.
I caught my breath. My heart was pounding so hard, all I could hear was the blood rushing through my veins. I carefully jumped the fence knowing full well that the sounds of gunfire, especially in the middle of a suburban enclave, would not go unchallenged.
I dropped to the ground and squatted beside April. She was a mess. I did not even want to go and look at Lachlan. But it was two more kills and that was two less of them in the world.
I had no time to linger.
I moved quickly and went to clamber back over the back fence. A hand grabbed my foot and dragged me right back down. I spun, ready for a fight with April or Lachlan…
But the face of Mrs Gianni was the one that confronted me. Behind her were several other of the neighbours, all of whom I’d done work for. “I had to do it,” I growled. “You don’t know what they were…”
“Yes. We do,” Mrs Gianni said coldly. “They were what we are.”
I watched frozen in terror and the changes were swift. More heads appeared over fences and not a one of them was human. I was in the middle of a pack, a large pack, and I had been working and living among them the entire time…
I lifted the gun and that was all the provocation they needed. They were on me as one.
That pack mentality.
The pain was like fire—I was seeing blood, feeling flesh being torn, hearing my body being ripped to shreds. The pain and horror became unbearable and darkness overcame me.
I wake up in my trailer. The sun has already risen.
My body is sore, but the scars and wounds seem to have healed. I am caked in dried blood, but there is no wound to tell where it has come from.
I have seen this once before.
I have my gun. I have the Wolfsbane. I have silver bullets.
And I remember the last time I saw this… Danny.
The first werewolf I killed was my brother. The circle has finally closed and the last werewolf I will kill will be me.
In a way, it is a relief. In another way, I am filled with regret that I have failed. Either way, I do not hesitate as I smoothly chamber a round with my initials carved into it, and this latest irony is not lost me either. I swivel the gun to point between my eyes. One less monster in the world. That’s all that matters.
One less monster in the world.
Steven is an Australian, married with two children, two university degrees, and a resume’ that looks like a list of every job you could ever have without really trying, including stints as a performance acrobat and professional wrestler. He has been writing for 25 years with a short list of stories in more than 20 anthologies, covering horror, fantasy, science fiction and humour. He aslo has a novella – Relick – available. Further, he writes about pop culture for a number of online blog sites. A dull life.
Second Chances
H.J. Hill
Not listening can get a person killed, and anyone not listening hard that day would have missed the deadly vibration. It crawled over a man’s skin like rampaging ants.
“Do you hear that?” The man held a wet cloth over a swollen welt on his neck. The field before him lay strewn with bloated carcasses of cattle and horses, a dozen, maybe more. “I barely escaped myself.” He let his hand fall to his side and Morne stared at the single hole punctured into his flesh.
The hum expanded until it saturated the air, a noise in the background of their thoughts that could have been mistaken for a summer day active with innocent, harmless life. But it was far from summer. And the drone was far from innocent or harmless.
“I hear it.” Saida concentrated on the sound. She raised her spyglass to one eye and focused on the horizon.
“I hear it, too,” said Morne. He studied their host and scratched absently at his own neck. “It’s annoying.” He pulled his kerchief up around his throat and tied it tighter.
“It’ll be more than annoying if they get after you the way they did me,” said the man. “Look at my animals. Sucked dry.”
Saida snapped the glass closed. “Quickly, Mr. Reeve, get your other animals into the barn. Your family, too. Bolt the doors and plug any gaps in the walls with whatever comes to hand. Take our horses in there with you.”
Morne winced. “How will we gallop away without our horses?” He wanted to laugh, but there was no joke.
“You wouldn’t run, would you? We can’t fight the swarm and protect the horses at the same time.”
“Swarm?”
Reeve rushed to fort up with his wife, his children, their two remaining horses, and their mule. His two girls and little son scurried after the chickens, shepherding them into the barn ahead of their mother who was leading Saida’s gray and Morne’s nag. Morne ran and pulled his shotgun and his rifle from their saddle scabbards.
Sweat trickled down his face and slid under his collar. “Do you have a plan, ma’am? Or is this just gonna be catch as catch can?”
“I don’t intend to catch anything, Mr. Morne. I intend to kill a great many things.”
What looked like a bird flew across the field straight toward Morne.
“If I were you, I’d shoot that.” Saida poin
ted toward it with her head as she drew her Damascus blade and her pistol.
“Shoot a bird?”
“Look again.”
A gadfly the size of a crow blew past Morne’s head and circled around for a strike. Morne barely got his bead on it and pulled the trigger before it could bore into him. The fly exploded.
“Whoa!” Morne drew a deep breath to replenish his lungs. “That had to be the mother of all gadflies.”
“No, that was a baby. I’m going after the mother. Make sure that scattergun of yours is loaded. I hope you brought a lot of ammunition.” She headed toward the Reeve’s stock pond.
As Morne turned to trail her, he saw them coming. They peppered the sky. Hundreds of huge gadflies, engorged by their recent meal, swooped down toward him and Saida, to his mind, was taking the whole thing entirely too calmly. He ran backwards, stumbling every few steps, aiming in the general direction of the swarm, and blasting the insects with shot as they came within range.
Saida stood on the bank at the water’s border and wedged her feet into the damp soil until they did not slide. “All right, Brize, I’m here.” The humming sharpened as another creature entered the field, a black and silver blotch wider at the back than at the front, sliding through the air in a beeline toward Saida. A gadfly the size of a flying boar. “That’s it. Come on…”
Morne turned in time to see Saida fire her pistol pointblank into the gadfly’s middle. The shot staggered the insect, but the shock lasted only a second and on she came, buzzing around Saida’s head until the huntress swiped at her with the big Damascus knife. The swirled knife sliced the air as Brize swerved. Saida slashed at every point the gadfly occupied, but always half a second late. The fly’s wings fanned the air and a breeze blew Saida’s hair back from her wet face.
“Fall down!” Morne shouted. “I’ll shoot it. Fall down!”
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 14