by Tim O'Rourke
The only light I had was the candle that shone from the bathroom where I had left it. I couldn’t hold the towel about me, point the gun, and hold the candle, so I would have to go back for it once I had checked to make sure my bedroom window was locked and that if the werewolf had returned it couldn’t get in. Slowly, I made my way through the door to my bedroom. Reaching out with my foot, I pushed the door open. I glanced across the room. Everything was as I had left it. I could see that the bedroom window appeared to be closed, but was it locked? With my heart starting to beat faster, I edged my way across the room to the window. Keeping low, I reached up and yanked on the lock. It was shut tight. Believing that I was safe, I peered through the window and down at the front path. Even though it was very dark outside, I could see that the werewolf hadn’t returned. All I could see was the front gate opening and closing an inch or two in the wind.
Satisfied that the wolf hadn’t returned, I set down the gun on the edge of the bed, removed the towel, and pulled some clean clothes and underwear from the nearby drawer. Once dressed in a clean T-shirt and jogging bottoms, I picked up the gun again and headed back along the landing to the bathroom to fetch the candle. The flame flickered as I picked it up, casting my shadow up the walls and the landing as I turned to leave the bathroom. It was then that I noticed the door to Julia’s study was open. Had it been open just a few moments ago? I couldn’t be sure. With the gun in one hand and the candle in the other, I peered around the edge of the door and into the room. Just like my bedroom, nothing seemed to be out of place. Stepping into the study, I went and stood in front of the painting of the railway station and the steam trains. I put the gun and the candle down onto the nearby desk, then slowly and carefully lifted the painting down from the wall. Placing it to one side, I reached into the hole and took out the book. In the candlelight I inspected the front of what I believed had once been Julia Miller’s diary. But why had I thought that? Because there was just one single word written in that strange language stencilled across the front. What else could it say other than diary? There was only five letters. But that had been before Calix had told me that Julia Miller had been a witch. So perhaps then that five letter word read Spell? Did the book perhaps not contain Julia Miller’s most personal thoughts and feelings, but was in fact a book of spells? I thumbed through the pages, casting my eyes over the rows of that strange looking handwriting that had also covered the children’s schoolbooks and Calix’s body. But if they were in fact spells, why were they written all over the children’s schoolbooks? Julia had been their teacher so had she been teaching them spells? But why? Was it so they too could use magic to protect themselves and Shade from the Beautiful Immortals should they ever come back? But they had come back and no one in Shade appeared to be using magic to defend themselves – they had been using guns.
The noise that I believed I had heard before came again. Placing the book back into the hole, I snatched up the gun and candle and raced back to my room. Almost at once the candle was snuffed out by the sudden blast of wind that was blowing in through the now open window.
Chapter Nine
The window swung open in its frame, the curtain billowing out around its edges. With my heart feeling like it had been trapped in the back of my throat, I set the candle down and gripped the gun with both hands. Slowly, I inched my way toward the open window. With my damp hair fresh from the shower blowing back from my shoulders, I stood before the open window and peered out. And just like I feared it would be, the wolf was once again sitting at the end of the garden path. It looked up at me with its gleaming eyes and howled.
I stepped back from the window, the gun wavering in my hand. But tonight unlike previous nights when the wolf had come, I was fully awake. I wasn’t half asleep in my bed, the gun out of reach. Tonight I wouldn’t let the werewolf take me without a fight. Tonight I would ensnare the wolf – shoot it if I had to so I could prove to Rush and the others that there had been a werewolf hiding out in Shade. And it’s because of the werewolf that the vampires had returned – they had come looking for it. Perhaps if I could capture it, we could hand the creature over to the vampires when they next came to Shade and they would leave the village in peace. They might go back to that secret place where they had come from and leave Maze and my people alone too.
With my mind racing, I spun around and looked at the bed. Running toward it, I placed the pillows in a line and threw the bedding over them. In the dark it looked as if someone – me – was lying in the bed. With no time to lose, I crept behind the bedroom door, pressing myself flat against the wall. With my heart racing like a trip hammer, I gripped the gun and held my breath as I waited for the werewolf to spring up to my open window and then climb into my room.
I didn’t have to hide for too long in the dark, pressed flat behind the door, before I heard the sound of clawing at the window. I screwed my eyes shut and held my breath, terrified that I might make a sound and reveal my true whereabouts to the werewolf. With my eyes closed, I listened to the sound of the wolf-man dragging its long hooked fingernails down the length of the splintered window frame. In my mind’s eye, I pictured it sitting in the open window and peering down at the bed where it believed I was sleeping – waiting for him. I heard the wolf howl and I felt my blood run ice-cold through my veins. The room shook as the wolf-man leapt from the window and landed at the foot of the bed. I could hear its breathing as it came closer. I gripped the gun and dared to open my eyes. I heard the bed creak as he climbed on. Holding my breath, I knew that it was going to be any moment now before the wolf-man pulled back the bedding to reveal the pillows and learn how I had deceived him. I knew I had to be ready for that moment. I heard a flapping sound from the other side of the door as the wolf-man threw back the bed covers. I readied myself for the creature’s howl of anger. But he didn’t cry out in rage.
“Julia,” I heard the wolf-man whisper.
Was he blind? Couldn’t he see that there wasn’t anyone in the bed but a bunch of old pillows?
Then I heard another voice – this one female. Surely I was mistaken? The female voice came again.
“I love you,” the voice whispered.
Feeling scared and bewildered, I slowly eased the door ajar and peered around the edge of it. I blinked twice, not only disbelieving what I had heard but now what I was seeing. There was a dark-haired woman lying on the bed. Her face was turned away from me, her long black hair spread across the pillow like a fan. Her knees were drawn up and the wolf-man was sunk between them. She dragged her long fingernails up and down the length of his back as he made love to her.
“Julia,” he whispered with pleasure.
I stood in the open doorway, the gun in my trembling hands. I stepped forward toward the bed, heart thumping as the wolf-man and who I believed to be Julia made love in the centre of the bed. Moonlight now poured through the open window and showered their naked bodies with light. But how was it possible? Julia was dead. I’d seen it happen through her eyes – just like I was now watching her. Just like how I had seen the wolf waiting at the end of the garden path each night, before springing up to the window and creeping into the room. The wolf had never been there – not really. Somehow – in some way that I wasn’t sure I understood – I had been seeing through Julia’s eyes. I had been seeing and reliving what she once had done and had once seen before she had been burnt at the stake and murdered. It was as if by sharing her home, I had begun to share her life too – the life she had once lived in this house in Shade.
Standing beside the bed, the gun lowered at my side, I whispered her name. She didn’t open her eyes or turn her face to look at me. Neither of them did. It was like I wasn’t there – like I didn’t exist. It was as if I was nothing more than a ghost to them just as they both were to me. And the scratches I had seen on my back? Had they really been there too or were they just some kind of ghostly memory of the scratches the wolf-man had made down Julia’s back as they had made love? But who was the wolf-man? Who had her lover
been and where was he now? Was he dead too?
A noise came from the opposite end of the landing. I spun around to face the door again. I could hear movement coming from Julia’s study. I glanced back over my shoulder to see if either Julia or her lover had heard the sound of movement too. But they had gone. The bed was empty and the window was locked tight as it always had been. Facing front, and with the gun clenched in my fist, I made my way along the hall toward the study.
Chapter Ten
With the gun raised, I edged my way along the landing. As I grew closer to the study, the noises coming from within became louder too. It sounded as if someone or something was searching the room. Slowly, I crept around the edge of the door. Someone was standing and looking at the hole in the wall that I had left uncovered. It was so dark in the room that I couldn’t see who had snuck into the house and into the study. But whoever it was reached up and put their hand into the hole.
“Stop right there,” I said, stepping into the room, gun pointed at their back.
The person took their hand from the hole and turned around to face me. I waved the gun in the air, motioning them toward the window so I could get a better view of them in the moonlight. But as I gestured for whoever it was to move, the gun suddenly went off in my hand. I screamed and so did they as they flew back into the wall. I glanced down at the smoking gun, knowing for sure that I hadn’t pressed on the trigger. The gun had just fired in my hand. But how? I then remembered loading the gun with the bullets that Morten had given to me. I remembered the warning that Calix had given me about the bullets being old and liable to go at any time.
A deep groaning sound came from the corner of the room where the person had fallen. Whoever it was sounded as if they were in a lot of pain.
“I didn’t mean to shoot you,” I said, racing across the room, still holding the gun. “I’m so sorry.”
The person lay curled up in the corner of the room beneath the window. Reaching up, I yanked back the curtains to let moonlight into the room. It spilled into the study in pale blue rays, illuminating the person writhing in agony at my feet. Kneeling, I touched the person’s shoulder, and rolled them over.
Placing one hand to my face, I gasped as Trent stared up at me. His eyes rolled in their sockets. I could see blood gushing from a wound in his chest. This time I knew for sure that I wasn’t having a trick played on me like Calix had in the woods when he had been teaching me how to shoot. Unlike Calix, I really had shot Trent.
“I didn’t mean to shot you,” I said, panicked at the amount of blood that was now gushing from the wound in his chest and staining his blue denim shirt black. “What were you doing in here? What were you looking for? If I’d known it was you…”
“Get away…” Trent suddenly roared.
The force of his roar hit me like a slap to the face and I stumbled backwards onto my arse. From where I now lay on the floor, I watched Trent twist and turn as if contorting in pain. But it wasn’t just pain and the gunshot wound that was making him convulse so violently. His body was starting to change. Rolling onto his back, I watched as Trent ripped open the front of his shirt. Buttons sprayed away like confetti as he tore it open with his hands that now looked like claws.
“You…!” I cried, pulling myself to my feet. My knees felt suddenly weak as I watched Trent’s face change shape. His skin made a stretching and tearing sound as hair began to break through his skin. The bones in his face made a sickening cracking sound as his nose and mouth changed into something more wolf-like than human. His ears began to stretch into points and his gums split open to reveal rows of jagged teeth.
“It was you,” I said, stumbling back toward the open door. I aimed the gun at him once more. I now didn’t much care if it went off again. “You were Julia’s lover. You’ve come in search of that book and that picture of you. But why? Was your love for each other some kind of secret?”
Rolling onto all fours, Trent looked up at me. His eyes shone so bright that they were almost dazzling. But it wasn’t only his eyes that dazzled me – it was his beauty too. Slowly he stood up, the wound in his chest beginning to heal over already.
Don’t look at him, I heard Rush say as if he were whispering over my shoulder and into my ear. Don’t look at the Beautiful Immortals – their beauty is their armour.
I turned away and headed onto the landing. Reaching for the banister at the top of the stairs I raced down them. I had to warn the others. I had to tell them there was a werewolf in Shade.
“Mila!” I heard Trent call out, his voice more of a snarl now. “Come back!”
“No!” I cried, throwing open the front door and staggering out onto the path. I willed myself on toward the gate. My legs felt heavy, like I was wading through deep water. At the gate, I looked back. Trent was through the doorway and striding along the path toward me. He looked just like – if not identical to – the wolf-man I had seen making love to Julia on my bed.
“Mila, you don’t understand,” he said.
“I understand everything,” I hissed, spilling through the gate and into the park. With the gun swinging in my fist and fighting to draw in lungfuls of the cold night air that whipped all about me, I cut across the park toward the school. I knew that I stood little chance of reaching the Weeping Wolf pub before Trent had caught hold of me, but I might just make it to the school. There I could pull on the bell rope and warn the people of Shade.
Lurching forward and clawing my hair from my eyes, I raced on. My fear was almost crippling now, threatening to kick my legs from beneath me. But I couldn’t give up – not now. If I did I would surely be dead and so would my friends. Glancing up, I could see the old schoolhouse looming ahead. I looked back and could see Trent now running across the park toward me. But he didn’t run on two legs, but propelled himself forward on all fours. He moved at a terrifying speed. Facing front, I ran as fast as my legs would let me toward the school house. Fearing that I might not make it to the school before Trent had hold of me, I started to scream. I was desperate to wake the people of Shade from their beds and warn them of the werewolf that lurked amongst them. But my screams came out as nothing more than squeaks as fear almost seemed to tighten about my throat. With one last stab of my remaining strength and resolve, I lunged for the rope that swung down from the bell that was attached to the school roof. Snatching hold of it, I dropped to the floor, yanking down as hard as I could. At once the bell began to toll and it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. As I pulled again and again on the rope, I looked back to see that Trent had stopped running. He was now standing on two legs and walking toward me. Was he going to change back into human form? Was I going to be made to look like a liar once more? Who would Rea, Calix, and Rush believe? Me – a virtual stranger who had lied about their reasons for coming to Shade and where they had come from – or Trent – their lifelong friend and Rea’s lover?
From the other side of the park, I could see the first signs of villagers heading out of their homes. Most of them were still in their nightclothes. I couldn’t help but notice that Annabel’s father was amongst them. Unlike the others, he was fully dressed and wore the same bloodstained apron that I had seen on him before. Didn’t he ever take it off? Not even to go to bed? The children had woken too and they walked bleary-eyed toward me as I continued to yank on the bell rope. I heard running and I glanced in the direction it was coming from. It was Rush, Rea, and Calix that I could see. They had come from the direction of the church and not the village. Perhaps they had been visiting with the prisoner in the crypt or helping Morten fill in the last of the graves?
“What is going on?” Rea asked as she drew near to me. “What is all the commotion about – it is still the dead of night.”
“I found the werewolf,” I gasped, pulling myself to my feet by hanging onto the bell rope. I shot a look at Rush, then Calix. Did they believe me? They had to. “I was right, there is a werewolf in Shade,” I said, looking at them.
“Where is this werewolf?” Rea asked.
Turning in the direction I had last seen Trent, I said, “Over there.” And to my utter amazement and disbelief, Trent hadn’t changed back into his human form. He still looked like the wolf-man – he still looked like one of the Beautiful Immortals. “There!” I gasped, staggering away from him. “He’s the wolf I’ve been trying to warn you all about.”
“We’re all wolves,” I heard Rea suddenly whisper.
Wheeling around on the balls of my bare feet, I stared at Rea, Calix, Rush, and all the people I had woken from their sleep. Each and every one of them looked just as Trent now did.
“All of us are Beautiful Immortals,” Rea said, her eyes blazing bright. “We are the werewolves of Shade.”
“No, it can’t be true,” I said, my heart feeling as if it had suddenly stopped in my chest. I glanced at my friends. I stared at Calix. He no longer looked human. He looked just like the wolf-man that had climbed into my room. He looked strangely beautiful. They all did.
“I thought… I thought….” I said, gasping for air and the right words. It seemed impossible to comprehend what I was seeing as the rest of the villagers of Shade came closer still, forming a circle about me. Each and every one of them now looked more wolf-like than human.