Hybrid

by Wild Wolf Publishing

  Over the next few days I clung to that hope with everything I had left, all the strength that hadn’t been driven out of me by Fiona’s death. I clung to that hope like it was the edge of a cliff, and I was scrabbling on the smooth rock face, trying to pull myself back up, save myself from the fatal drop below. Perhaps it was too late for that.

  And then Thursday night, the thing I had been dreading was finally upon me. The restlessness, the pain as darkness fell, and finally the transformation when the moon found a break in the clouds and revealed itself to the world.

  However, that night, and the following one, the town would be safe. For I was to be spared the horror of knowing I had taken more innocent lives.

  Snow drifted down onto the wintry landscape, thickening the white blanket, lit up by the moonlight. Outside, it was quiet and still, peaceful, while the monster I was becoming lay writhing in pain, growing more powerful but currently trapped in a world of chaos in both body and mind. It seemed impossible that the two could exist so close together. And soon the chaos would break free, let loose upon the peaceful world that lay beyond, bringing death and destruction. Or at least it should have done.

  The moon was slowly climbing higher into the night sky, passing into another layer of cloud cover, a layer that was growing thicker as more clouds drifted across, until there were few breaks left for its light to penetrate. And as the world was plunged into darkness, I felt the impossible begin. The change was reversing!

  I had almost become fully wolf when thankfully, mercifully, I began to change back. By some miracle I found I still had the strength to fight the wolf, when it should have been the stronger under the moon’s influence. It seemed the wolf needed the moonlight to gain control; the fact that it was the right time of the month didn’t matter, not without the moonlight. The wolf felt cheated, and it fought for as long as it could, until its rage and its strength were spent, and it reluctantly retreated back into our subconscious, where I could feel it brimming with anger. I didn’t care. I’d been saved from killing, and I looked to the future with renewed hope. I could learn from this. Closing my curtains in an attempt to hide the moon’s light wasn’t enough, it was still visible through the thin material, but if I could find somewhere to hide during the full moon, somewhere not even the light of the sun could penetrate, I might be able to remain human and save lives. It was something at least. And even if I failed to prevent any more deaths, I would know I had tried. It was better than standing by and letting it happen at any rate.

  Saturday came and I was in a better mood than I had been for weeks past, less sullen and depressed, optimistic for the rest of the winter months at least, while the snow lasted. It seemed to me that while the snow lasted the clouds would block the moon's rays, and none need die by my hand while I remained human. But the snow showers had stopped sometime overnight, and as the day wore on and the cloud cover grew sparser, it seemed fated that I would transform that night, fated that at least one would die to satisfy my lupine hunger. Such dark events I did not see that morning when Mum came to wake me (though I had not been sleeping anyway), not until later in the day. I’d forgotten it was Amy’s birthday, and since as far back as I can remember we’d always gone into Mum and Dad’s bedroom to open presents as a family. I’d also forgotten one of her friends would be coming over to sleep that night.

  "Aw no, I'm not putting up with the two of them giggling all night!" I objected when Amy reminded me. I’d always been against her having friends to sleep. It was bad enough having one teenage girl in the house. I still hadn’t forgotten the previous year’s party, when there’d been six of the brats. They’d run around screaming like they were still five, giggling and talking about boys and other girly crap. When we were younger I used to chase them, but Amy would have killed me if I did that now she was older. Some of her friends were okay as girls went, but she could be a real bitch depending on who she was with, even more than usual, and they were all annoying in their own way. Not only that, I really didn’t want to think about them running around the house screaming that year. The wolf had been cheated out of hunting the past two nights, the only thing it lived for, and its bloodlust grew stronger by the day. Full moon or no, it was biding its time, licking its wounds, the rage slowly building. I feared what would happen when it chose the time to break free of its prison and force me down into the darkness. And young, tender girls would be too much for it. The temptation would bring it out of hiding, whether it deemed the time right or no, and with the smell of fresh meat and the power of the bloodlust, coupled with the time of the month, it might be too powerful for me to stop.

  "Don’t worry, they won’t bother you," Mum said, her voice holding a hint of impatience, like she was tired of my reaction every time. “They’ll be in their room, you’ll be in yours. It’s only for one night.”

  I swore inwardly and continued to argue, but the issue was evidently not open to debate. It had already been decided a couple of weeks ago, and no matter what I said, short of telling them the truth, there was no way I could convince them to cancel it.

  As the day dragged by I had the nagging feeling that darkness hung over our house. It felt like a cursed building and I just knew something horrific was going to take place there that night, something resulting in death for one of us under that roof. The thinning cloud cover did nothing to ease the feeling. As the last of the clouds drifted away, my optimism went with it, gone to the same grave in which one of them would soon lie.

  A knock on the door came at about five o'clock and I beheld Mel on the doorstep, her shoulder length brown hair, her blue eyes, her freckly face. She had a low cut top on and I could see the veins beneath her pale flesh... She looked at me nervously for perhaps there was a strange look in my eyes, one of fear and bitterness that could be mistaken for hatred, and beyond that even of hunger from the wolf within. I turned from the door and called up to Amy that her friend had arrived, and then invited her in. Soon the two of them were up in my sister’s room and I was left alone, growing ever more uneasy.

  Night advanced and I retired to my room, telling them I felt ill again. Mum was growing more concerned as the weeks passed and I only seemed to get worse, but agreed with me that I needed to rest. No doubt she put my gaunt appearance down to Fiona’s death. If only she knew that was just the tip of the iceberg.

  I fled from them and closed the door. I could already feel the change was not far away and it was too late by then to do anything about it. I’d not had chance to search for somewhere safe to hide away from the moon’s light, and there was no other way of preventing the change. I was resigned to my fate as I glared up at the full moon, knowing someone would die. There was one thing I could do though. From the wolf’s memories, I knew it would not risk smashing the window to reach the world outside, so I locked it and hoped that might keep it in. The door was closed behind me, and I was confident the doorknob would be impossible for a paw to turn. I prayed the wolf would not risk breaking out again, yet I still couldn’t shake the doomed feeling that hung over the house, and a part of me knew it was inevitable. Whether that was true or not, it was too late to do anything else. The change had already taken hold.

  When I found no way out of the room this time, I gave up and sank to the floor, whining pitifully and growling in frustration, snarling at my tormentor, the moon. I spent the first half of the night there, fighting the hunger. But in the end the hunger won.

  The bloodlust had been upon me for the past two nights and, unable to satisfy it, the craving was becoming more powerful, until it blocked out all else. I had temporarily lost my reason, a kind of madness upon me. As the night wore on, I forgot the threat of the Slayers, and the need for secrecy so as not to draw attention to myself. It didn’t matter that I was surrounded by humans, and my growling would attract them like moths to a light. All my senses were dominated by the signs of prey just beyond the four walls of my prison, and instinct had taken control. Bathed in the moon's light, much brighter compared with the previous two
months, I roared with hunger. Like a great orb it was, hanging in the sky, drawing its power from the sun.

  Hunger drew me to the door, tantalising scents snaking their way into my nostrils from underneath. I reared up on my hind legs and rested my front paws on the white, wooden barrier that stood between me and my prey, sniffing it, trying to find a way to open it as I had with the window. I could find none and I growled with frustration. There seemed to be no other way out and this drove me into a frenzy. Forgetting the door, I ran to the window, hearing a group of teenagers wandering the streets beyond. I tried attacking the glass for all the good it did. My claws slid across the smooth surface, barely scratching it, and I couldn’t get my jaws round anything to bite my way through. I threw my weight against the wall it was set in. The glass shuddered but miraculously it held, though I would have broken through eventually if I’d kept on trying. And I would have, if sounds of movement within the house hadn’t distracted me. I fell silent, listening intently.

  The animal moved clumsily, which could only mean it was human, and its scent reached me from the crack beneath the door as confirmation. I could hear its rapidly beating heart and scented its fear. She was a young female, her smell making me drool. I could almost taste the tender flesh in my mouth.

  Minutes passed while I listened to her beating heart, my own pumping faster in anticipation. Slowly, so slowly, after she had stood listening on the other side of the door, she began to open it. Perhaps she had heard me in my madness and was curious, though afraid. Maybe she was worried for the human I had been, thinking perhaps the animal she’d heard had killed it. She was right in a way. I was not entirely sure why, but she crept into the room and blinked in the moonlight. To be honest, looking back now I’m surprised no one else came to check on me, for surely they all heard me raging in there. Although I have learnt humans have a habit of explaining away the supernatural, no matter how unbelievable their explanations might be. Maybe they assumed I was watching a horror film and had the TV on too loud, despite the fact I was supposedly in bed. They’d gone to sleep and thought nothing more of it, until the human before me had woken and decided to investigate. It was as good an explanation as any.

  The girl looked at me and went very still, while I had been crouched ready to strike when the time was right. We were both deathly still for a few seconds in which the world seemed to still with us, before I was up and running towards her with a new strength. I could see my prey now and it was as if nothing could stop me. The threat of the Slayers certainly didn't. They were the last thing in my crazed mind as I sprang towards her.

  I was upon her almost immediately. She was about to scream for help as my teeth raked her face, and I quickly bit into the soft flesh of her throat to silence her forever. The scream never escaped her mouth. All she managed was a soft gurgle as the blood rushed in, and in those few seconds in which she still lived her hand rose to her throat, feeling it in horror, before falling back to her side. Her eyes had been filled with surprise, mixed with terror and horror since she had first looked upon me, and now would be for all eternity, or at least until they rotted away to nothingness. But such details did not worry me; she was prey like any other. Dragging her back into the room so as not to be disturbed, I ripped into her flesh and began to eat my fill, and there would have been little left when I had finished if it had not been for the return of the snowfall.

  Clouds had been accumulating in the sky above, unnoticed by me, and the moon was fast becoming shrouded in those clouds. I had eaten only a few mouthfuls, exposing her organs, when I suddenly felt the agony I had felt but hours before. The few mouthfuls I had consumed seemed to squirm in my stomach as if the flesh were still alive, and it churned in there, so that I had to fight to keep it down. It felt like my hind legs were being pulled at either end as my femurs stretched painfully outwards. Other bones were changing shape, muscles shifting. The human mind was becoming stronger. I roared in pain and anger that I had been denied the chance to satisfy my hunger after all, and struggled with the human for ascendancy. The moon was wreathed in black clouds and yet such was its power that night that still a little light penetrated the blackness. It no longer held its sway over me, but I had not been released from it yet. I had not transformed back completely and I was neither human nor wolf, but a beast somewhere in between, my form truly symbolic of the hybrid I was.

  For I had become a beast straight out of a Hollywood horror movie. My head was still lupine, as were my hands and feet, more like paws than human appendages, though they had more dexterity than my paws as a full wolf. My body was humanoid, though still covered in fur and more muscular than my human form, but the spine hadn’t straightened out completely. And while I could stand upright if I wanted to, relaxed I was stooped slightly with my knees bent forward, so that my front paws reached down to my knees when I stretched my arms to their full length. I was also stood on my toes like a wolf (and many other predators for that matter), my feet too close to paws to allow me to stand on the flat of them like a human. I still had a tail. And as for my mind, it was suddenly neither human nor wolf, but something of both. For we were both of equal strength in the semi-moonlight and somehow both seemed in control.

  And, my reasoning now returned, I looked down at my kill and knew it meant trouble. The police would find it in my room, but worse still, I had no doubt that some of the Slayers were in the police force as well, conveniently placed to hunt us down easier and keep our existence secret at the same time. By killing in my own house, in my own room, I had signed my own death warrant. There would be no question in the Slayers’ minds as to the human identity of the werewolf. The hunger would have to wait. I relinquished my hold on our body entirely to the human, in the hope it would know what to do to hide the evidence from the Slayers.

  I was sickened to find myself trapped in the nightmarish form between boy and wolf, and tried to force the transformation further so that I could be human again. It was no use, the moonlight was too strong. Even more sickening was the realisation of the blood in my mouth, still fresh and spilling out over my jaws, trickling down my body, mixing with sweat. And with this realisation came the discovery of what lay at my feet, and it was all I could do not to cry out and awaken the others. I couldn’t let them see me like this, or what I had done.

  The bloody corpse stared up at me with wide eyes, almost accusing to my guilty mind. Blood pooled around it, the torso torn open, organs glistening in the moonlight like a sick piece of artwork. The throat had been ripped apart, the windpipe severed, more blood spilling out of it. Long gashes covered the mutilated face where teeth had torn through the delicate skin to the flesh beneath. It was barely recognisable as Mel, the girl it had once been. And now I had to clean it up. I don’t think I could have brought myself to touch it if it wasn’t for the thought that if the Slayers found out, it could put my family in danger as well.

  Numb with shock, I mopped up the blood with a couple of towels before it could stain the varnished wooden floors. Then I used the same towels to stem the flow of blood from the body. I didn’t bother to wipe her prints off the door – if the police knew she’d been staying with us I was confident it would not arouse suspicion. As for my own prints on the body, there were none on the hard black pads beneath my paws. Or at least none that could be identified as human. All that remained then was to dispose of the body and the bloodied towels. Reluctantly, not really wanting to touch it, I picked up the dead weight and slung it over my shoulder. A few specks of blood flecked the painted walls and the floor with the movement of the body, despite the towels I’d wrapped round it, but I’d clean them up when I returned before daybreak.

  I fumbled with the window, trying to unlock it. I couldn’t grip the key in my paws and kept dropping it, but somehow I managed to open it after several attempts. I shifted my hold on the body and leapt out of the window, landing crouched and cat-like, as I had countless times whenever I’d jumped the last two stairs in our home. But it wasn’t a game anymore.

&n
bsp; I stood and forced my protesting spine upright and my knees straight, just while I paused to clear my mind. I was vaguely aware of the fact I was naked, and on two legs I was much more exposed than on four. Ordinarily I’d have been embarrassed and would have attempted to cover myself, but I was too lost in my emotions to care. The shock of finding her body lying bleeding at my feet had numbed the pain that was soon to follow, but now the shock was wearing off and I could feel the sadness and despair creeping into my senses, along with the guilt that had been there all along. I didn’t want to hide her body. Her family had the right to know what had happened to her, and to give her a decent burial. Instead her parents would have to suffer the agony of not knowing whether their missing daughter was alive or dead. At least Fiona’s family had soon found out what had become of her. Mel’s family might never know if I hid the body well enough, which was something I had to do for my own survival, and that of my own family.

  Gently I let her body slide into my arms and stood looking at her face. When I had beheld her in the doorway earlier that day she had been beautiful, but in death she had become ugly, mutilated. She’d still been warm when I first picked her up, but the icy cold wind was already creeping into her dead veins, flakes of snow cooling her skin. It should have been hours before she was cold to the touch, but the snow was speeding up the process. And then she was so cold, as cold as the snow my feet were upon. The muscles twitched, and I almost dropped her with revulsion, before they stiffened in response to the cold, though rigor mortis wouldn’t happen for hours yet. As I stood there gazing into her face, snowflakes collected in my dark fur, tinting it with white. I could see my breath steaming out of my mouth. I had to close those eyes, for I could not stand to look into them and see the horror, the terror, the pain. Minutes passed that seemed to last for years and time once again seemed to stand still. Finally I howled her name into the night sky so that she may not be forgotten, and that broke the spell. I started walking with her, headed towards the other side of town.