by Paul Kane
The Curse of the
wolf
Written by
Paul kane
Hersham Horror Books
Hersham Horror Books
Logo by Daniel S Boucher
Cover Design by Mark West 2015
Copyright 2015 © Hersham Horror Books
Story copyright Paul Kane 2014
All rights belong to the original artists, and writers for their contributed works.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Cursed Series No. 2 First Edition.
First published in 2015
Also from
Hersham Horror Books:
Alt-Series
Alt-Dead
Alt-Zombie
PentAnth-Series
Fogbound From 5
Siblings
Anatomy of Death
Demons & Devilry
Dead Water
The Cursed Series
The Curse of The Mummy
Series Foreword
I love monsters. There I’ve said it. As an author, editor and publisher I love a good story with a monster in it. I’m not saying I don’t like other types of horror, but the fear of something under your bed; in the wardrobe, or shuffling across a misty graveyard fills me with equal measures of fear and glee.
Where did this love spring from? Firstly from old horror films, before I got heavily into reading at twelve. I feel sorry for my boys who don’t know the names Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr, Elsa Lancaster and James Whale. I used to stay up to the wee hours with my portable telly turned down, so my mother would not hear it. Waiting for a double bill of horror, headed by the RKO Radio Picture logo.
This is where my love began, before moving onto the colour pleasures of Hammer films.
This series of six little books will take you back to the time of the mummy, werewolf, ghost, zombie, monster and vampire. Where nothing sparkled in black and white, and the odd child got thrown into a lake. The local villagers had a bountiful supply of pitchforks and flaming brands, and the vampires never came out until after dusk.
The graves are empty, the tombs open wide, and the moon is full and high. Prepare to shiver.
Peter Mark May
Series Editor
December 2014
.
The Curse of the wolf
From the moment I was first bitten, I knew I was cursed.
I mean, I’d seen all the movies, right? The TV shows… Read the books, heard the legends. I knew what it meant when one bit you, or even just scratched you – a wolf. A werewolf. Not that I was thinking particularly clearly at the time it happened; I was just trying to survive, to stay alive. I’d been walking to my old Nissan in the underground car park when I heard the whimpering. It was echoing, the sound bouncing off those concrete surfaces. I looked around, but I was the only one down there – my shift having stretched on well into the night. There were small cries now punctuating the whimpers, the mewling, and I recognised the sound. I should do, working where I do.
It was the sound of someone in pain, the sound of someone suffering.
Quickly, I made my way across the car park trying to trace the noise to its source; not easy given the disorientating echoes. But I managed to pin it down, mainly by following a trail of spilt blood, I have to say. Peering around the edge of a silver Volvo, I saw something lying on the floor at the far end of the vehicle, breathing sharply in and out. There was more blood pooling around the body. It was covered in fur, head tucked under itself, so not a person – I thought – though its cries sounded distinctly human. I recalled that I’d stayed in a holiday cottage once with an ex-girlfriend and the foxes in a nearby wood had kept us awake, sounding like crying babies or something – so it was possible. This was bigger than a fox, definitely, but looked to be of the same family. An injured dog perhaps, that had come in here to lick its wounds?
Now, I’ve always been an animal lover, but I’m not an idiot. I kept well back from the thing, making reassuring noises. I’m no vet, but I thought maybe if I could get a proper look at it I could see what the damage was. I should have gone for help, I know that now, but I figured the thing was on its last legs and if I left it any longer it would probably die.
It let out one final cry and then slumped. I couldn’t see it breathing. That was when I forgot myself and stepped closer. That was also when it sprang up and attacked me. I got a quick look at it then as it unfurled and sprang – as injured as it was, it still had enough power in those legs to leap the distance between us. It had yellow-red eyes, a snout and ears.
And teeth. Huge teeth, that clamped onto my forearm.
I yelped myself then, stumbling sideways and into the Volvo, setting off an alarm. The wolf, for I could see that’s what it was now – although it had been hiding its true size; man-size – howled at the noise, letting go of my arm. I scrambled to get free, half-tumbling, half-staggering away from the beast, though not before it was able to slash at my back with razor-sharp claws. I screamed, pitching forward, my glasses falling from my face and trodden underfoot. Vision blurred, not helped by the tears welling up, I made for the original destination: my car, parked across the way.
I fumbled with my keys, but finally managed to get inside and slam the door behind me, locking it; just as the wolf jumped onto the bonnet, its breath – coming out through those flaring nostrils – misting the glass in front of me. We exchanged a look, and time seemed to stand still. It was at that point I knew I was cursed. A bite or a scratch…either one could carry it. But I had both.
Suddenly, it turned sideways and head-butted the glass, spider-webbing it. I started, pulling back sharply into the seat. When I looked again, the creature had vanished. I let out a long, deep sigh, and realised I probably shouldn’t have when everything began to spin. The pain in my arm and back faded with my eyesight.
And it wasn’t long after that I blacked out.
So, I knew I was cursed, but didn’t know the true nature of the curse until then. Until that thing’s parting gift was in my body, in my system. Jumbled images flashed through my mind at speed, scenes from a life – and I thought then that I was going to die. That’s what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it, just before you pass away? You get a front row seat at a film screening of your life, with someone pointing out all the things you got right, the things you did wrong? (Going anywhere near that wolf, for starters.)
Took me a second or two to realise these scenes weren’t from my life at all. They belonged to the beast that had attacked me. At first they were playing backwards – time not standing still, but rather going in reverse – and I saw it get up from its hiding place, sucking the lost blood back into itself, before crawling off through the car park, collecting the lost remnants it had spilled there as well.
Crawling back out through the Emergency Door it had managed to force open, crawling back along that alleyway it retreated into after the fight. I watched all this in reverse, that battle, saw that the thing hadn’t been alone. There were other wolves involved, wolves who’d been lured there and cornered by whatever had done the damage – the people hunting them. People in black firing round after round at the
furry animals. One in particular was a pale-skinned woman with striking eyes, poured into a fetishist’s dream of an outfit. There was something wrong with those people as well, something otherworldly.
As bullets were sucked out of the wolf and his kin, projectiles returning to their respective homes in the chambers of those pistols and rifles, I came to realise – through the beast, through the curse – that it had been part of an age-old struggle between supernatural foes. I watched, as their attackers vanished from the street: flying up into the air, a reversal of the way they’d glided gracefully down to catch the pack in a cross-fire.
Next, the wolves also retreated, sniffing the air as they tracked their prey – little realising they were the ones who’d be ambushed. They peeled off, until all that was left was my wolf, walking on its hind legs. The one who’d passed all this on. And I watched as it…he transformed, backwards, fur and snout drawing into his body, leaving behind a handsome-looking man with scars and tattoos covering his body. He was a warrior, this man, always had been. Part of the battle, but also part of the ongoing war.
I went back through the previous years of his life, saw other skirmishes he’d been involved with. Saw the charismatic pack leader he followed, believed in, giving speeches to the brethren. And though I was going back, the scenes now played out forwards. Like the one where he was recruited in the bar, as he was pouring drink after drink down his throat – paid for by stealing money from an all-night store.
“You’re lost, brother,” the leader had said to him, grinning toothily. “Let me give you a purpose once more. A cause worth fighting for!”
I went back to see his life before that, wandering from town to town. He’d been part of a biker set for a little while, looking for the structure, the discipline he was missing – but found none there either. I saw the kills he made though when he turned, dozens of them, running through back-streets when the moon was full, feasting on the homeless: people who wouldn’t be missed in society. He didn’t have to do this to survive, not like the creatures he would end up pitted against eventually – didn’t need the blood to live…technically. And, on occasion, he attempted to fight the urges – it was what he did best, after all, fight – but the animal inside was simply too strong. I saw the slaughter, tasted the blood and the meat of his prey; it made me sick to my stomach.
Then back again, to what he’d been before his nomadic life began, before he’d gone AWOL. The military, when they’d found out what he’d become, wanted to turn him into a weapon, of course. But he was too unpredictable in his transformed state, unable to recognise let alone follow orders. Perhaps they’d even known what would happen when they dropped him and his men on that supposedly deserted island off the Irish coast for training exercises. Maybe they’d known already what was waiting for them, were hoping one of them would get bitten or scratched.
I witnessed the man and his troops as they tried to work out what was going on, seeing the corpses of sheep and cows out in the wilderness and realising they were not alone out there. Saw the banter they had been full of at the start, jokes about footie and women, diminish the more danger they were in – facing the unknown. Saw them get attacked as they attempted to raise base on their radio, having stumbled upon the creatures themselves: two wolves, a male and his mate. She was killed when one of the soldiers happened to jab her in the eye with the only weapon he had to hand at the time: a silver pen his parents had given him to write home with. That had sent the male into a frenzy, tearing the arms and legs off the squadron of soldiers, tearing into them with tooth and claw.
There had been one survivor, and he only just made it, discovered when a rescue mission was sent in. And the legacy, the curse that had been passed on, discovered after that.
But that’s where I left his tale, the soldier who had infected me – at its start. I travelled back down the line of the curse, into the wolf who had bitten him. A former agent in the publishing world, who’d fallen in love with one of his clients, though only after falling in love with her prose first.
“You write from the soul,” he’d said to her after finishing her latest historical romance, all knights in armour and damsels in distress. “No, more than that. You write from the gut. There’s something organic about it, something raw and animalistic.” He’d kissed her then, and she’d responded. The lovemaking that followed had been no less wild, either; his hands in her golden hair, tugging as he ground away inside her; biting her shoulder, then clawing at her breasts.
It was after that, after she’d become truly his, that he’d suggested moving to the island to be together. “Somewhere nobody will be able to disturb us, somewhere we can be free.” And somewhere there was no risk of them hurting anyone else physically…or so they’d thought.
He’d been married once before, but the bitch had cheated on him – and with an editor from a publishing house he’d considered a friend, as well. That had hurt, terribly. He’d ruined the man by luring away all the top earners from that company, and he’d kicked his wife out onto the street. It was funny, but he never used to be that decisive; would never have considered himself confident, let alone ruthless…something which held him back in his job, especially when arguing for more money.
But that had been before the incident on the underground.
He’d been late home from seeing a client out in the sticks, or at least at the end of the tube line, which amounted to the same thing as far as he was concerned. (Again, he never would have thought he’d ever have moved out of the city – but then life was funny that way.) He’d got the signatures he’d needed on the contracts and was waiting for the last tube back to his home station, alone on the platform late at night. From the tunnel, he’d thought he heard the train approaching, but when he looked in that direction, cocking his ear for the sound and frowning, he realised that it was a kind of growling noise he was hearing instead.
“Hel…Hello?” he’d said timidly. “Who’s there?”
The answer had been a pair of eyes which opened up in the darkness – bright, sparkly and round, just like the full moon that had watched him descend into the depths of the earth to catch his train. Just as I watched him now gazing at the beast which had leapt onto the platform itself. The pair regarded each other, on one side the almost black shape bristling with fur moving forward, and on the other the man in his raincoat and suit, carrying an umbrella and his briefcase full of important papers.
“Now…now stay back, you,” he told the thing, but it just kept padding along. “There’s a good doggy…” But it was much bigger than any dog he’d ever encountered, more like a cross-breed or something – if he only knew, he might have laughed…hysterically. Then again, maybe not. The giant dog was frothing at the mouth, obviously rabid, as was borne out by the fact it was snarling at him for no good reason (in fact, the man was invading its home, disturbing its peace, he just didn’t know it).
The agent ran, while there was still some distance between himself and the creature on the platform. He ducked sideways into an exit, began sprinting up curved corridors, tiled and lined with lights. The footfalls (pawfalls?) behind him increased in pace and in loudness, the growling accompanying them doing the same. He should have let go of the case and umbrella, but either it hadn’t occurred to him in the confusion or he simply couldn’t let go, his grip tightening the more frightened he became.
In the end he was glad of both items, for as he tripped and fell on the stairs, he turned just in time to hold up the case to the charging wolf – which ran into it and staggered back a foot or two, but in the process knocked it out of the agent’s hands altogether. The wolf shook its head, then leapt again at the man – who held up the only thing he had left in his hands, his umbrella. His – unbeknownst to him – silver-tipped umbrella. The wolf was impaled on the end of this, and howled for all it was worth. It also flailed around with its front paws, catching the agent with a swipe to the cheek, before heaving itself off the umbrella to limp away back onto the platform. Onto the tracks, an
d right into the path of an oncoming train.
“I…I’ve a good mind to…to report this,” he said to himself, holding his bleeding cheek. “Mad dogs on the tube! Whatever next?” And so he did this time, something he never would have bothered with before, receiving compensation for the attack – with the underground’s sincerest apologies and a promise that they’d look into the matter further (which they never did; what was to investigate? it was just one of those things, a stray in the tunnels). The agent got the relevant shots, was told to come back if he started to experience any symptoms. “What, you mean like foaming at the mouth myself?” he said angrily.
Over the coming days and weeks, the wound had healed. And he’d experienced symptoms all right, but they were things like being to hear people from across a room – then across a street, then into the next street, inside the next building even. His sense of smell increased as well, which is how he knew that his wife was playing away in the first place. His appetite grew, especially for steaks – though they had to be so rare as to be almost uncooked, barely shown the flame in fact – and yet it didn’t matter how much he ate, he never put on an ounce. It wasn’t simply his hunger that increased, however, his drive in other areas did as well, which was how he ended up being so bold with his female client, someone he’d had a crush on for some time.
He also had dreams, which I experienced with him; ones where he would grow hair and run into the nearest woods or park region, bounding through on all fours and chasing wildlife. Once he came across a couple out there getting amorous, and would’ve attacked them if it hadn’t been for the fact a park ranger showed up. The funny thing was, when he woke the next morning there was dirt and grass on the bedroom floor, in the bed…