The Ultimate Werewolf

by Byron Preiss (ed)

  Raymond ended up being assigned to my homeroom. Normally, Mrs. Harper had us sit alphabetically; but in Raymond's case, she assigned him a desk in the back of the room. Not that it made any difference to Raymond. He never handed in homework and was excused from taking tests. All he did was sit and scribble in his notebook with one of those big kindergarten pencils.

  Raymond carried his lunch to school in an old paper bag that, judging from the grease stains, had seen a lot of use. Once I accidentally stumbled across Raymond eating his lunch behind the Science Building. His food consisted of a single sandwich made from cheap store-bought white bread and a slice of olive loaf. After he finished his meal, Raymond carefully flattened the paper bag, folded it, and tucked it in the back pocket of his overalls.

  I felt funny, standing there watching Raymond perform his little after-lunch ritual. I knew my folks weren't rich, but at least we could afford paper bags. Maybe that's why I did what I did when I saw Chucky Donothan picking on Raymond the next day.

  It was recess and I was hanging with my best friend, Rafe Mercer. We were talking about the county fair coming to town next month. It was nowhere near as big or as fancy as the State Fair up in Little Rock; but when you're stuck in a backwater like Seven Devils, you take what you can get.

  "Darryl, you reckon they'll have the kootchie show again?" Rafe must have asked me that question a hundred times already. I didn't mind, though, because I was wondering the same thing. Last year Rafe's older brother, Calvin, got in on the strength of some whiskers and his football-boy physique. Not to mention a dollar.

  "I don't see why not. It's been there every year, ain't it?"

  "Yeah, you're right." Rafe was afraid he would graduate high school without once getting the chance to see a woman in her bra and panties. He looked at the pictures in his mama's wish books, but that wasn't the same as seeing a real live half-naked lady. I could understand his concern.

  Just about then Kitty Killigrew ran past. Both me and Rafe were sweet on Kitty, not that we'd admit it to her—or ourselves—this side of physical torture. She was a pretty girl, with long coppery-red hair that hung to her waist and eyes the color of cornflowers. Rafe went on to marry her, six years later. That fucker.

  "Hey, Kitty! What's going on?" Rafe yelled after her.

  Kitty paused long enough to gasp out one word. "Fight!"

  That was all the explanation we needed. Schoolyard fights attract students like shit draws flies. Rafe and I hurried after her. As we rounded the corner of the building, I could see a knot of kids near the science building.

  I pushed my way through my schoolmates in time to see Chucky Donothan kick Raymond Fleuris's feet out from under him.

  Raymond flopped onto his back in the dirt and laid there. It was evident that the fight—if you could call it that—was pretty one-sided. I couldn't imagine what Raymond might have done to piss off the bigger boy; but knowing Chucky, the fact Raymond had weight and occupied space was probably insult enough.

  "Stand up and fight, retard!" Chucky bellowed.

  Raymond got to his feet, his eyes filled with pain and confusion. His bandage-turban was smeared with dirt. With his oversized canvas gloves and shit-kicker brogans, Raymond looked like a pathetic caricature of Mickey Mouse. Everyone started laughing.

  "What's with the gloves, retard?" Chucky sneered. "What's the matter? You jerk off so much you got hair on your palms?"

  Some of the girls giggled at that witticism, so Chucky continued pressing his attack. "Is that your big secret, Fleuris? You a jag-off? Huh? Huh? Is that it? Why don't you take 'em off so we can see, huh?"

  Raymond shook his head. "Paw sez I can't take 'em off. Paw sez I gotta keep 'em on alia time." It was one of the few times I ever heard Raymond speak out loud. His voice was thin and reedy, like a clarinet.

  The crowd fell silent as Chucky's naturally ruddy complexion grew even redder.

  "You tellin' me no, retard?"

  Raymond blinked. It was obvious he didn't understand what was going on. It dawned on me that Raymond would stand there and let Chucky beat him flatter than his lunch bag without lifting a finger to protect himself. Suddenly, I didn't want to watch what was going on anymore.

  "Chucky, leave him be, can't you see he's simple?"

  "Butt out, Sweetman! Less'n you want me to kick your ass, too!"

  I cut my eyes at Rafe. He shook his head. "Hell, Darryl, I ain't about to get the shit knocked outta me on account of Raymond Fleuris!"

  I looked away.

  Satisfied he'd quelled all opposition, Chucky grabbed Raymond's left arm, jerking on the loosely fitted glove. "If you ain't gonna show us, I guess I'll make you!"

  And that's when the shit hit the fan.

  One second Raymond was your basic slack-jawed moron, the next he was shrieking and clawing at Chucky like the Tasmanian Devil in those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. His face seemed to flex, like the muscles were being jerked every-which-way. I know it sounds stupid, but that's the only way I can describe it.

  Raymond was on the bully like white on rice, knocking him to the ground. We all stood there and gaped in disbelief, our mouths hanging open, as they wrestled in the dirt. Suddenly Chucky started making these high-pitched screams and that's when I saw the blood.

  Chucky managed to throw Raymond off of him just as Coach Jenkins hustled across the playground, paddle in hand. Chucky was rolling around, crying like a little kid. Blood ran from a ragged wound in the fleshy part of his upper arm. Raymond sat in the dirt, staring at the other boy like he was from Mars. There was blood on Raymond's mouth, but it wasn't his. The bandage had come unravelled in the brawl, giving everyone a good look at the three-inch scar that climbed his right temple.

  "What - the - blazes - is going on here!" Coach Jenkins always had trouble refraining from swearing in front of the students, and it looked like he was close to reaching critical mass. "Donothan! Get on your feet, boy!"

  "He bit me!" Chucky wailed, his face filthy with snot and tears.

  Coach Jenkins shot a surprised look at Raymond, still sitting in the dirt. "Is that true, Fleuris? Did you bite Donothan?"

  Raymond stared up at Coach Jenkins and blinked.

  Coach Jenkins' neck pulsed and he looked at the ring of now-guilty faces. "Okay, who started it?"

  "Donothan did, sir." I was surprised to hear the words coming from my mouth. "He was picking on Raymond."

  Coach Jenkins pushed the bill of his baseball cap back and tried to keep the vein in his neck from pulsing even harder. "Did anyone try to stop it?"

  Silence.

  "Right. Come on, Donothan. Get up. You, too, Fleuris. We're going to the principal's office."

  "I'm bleeding/"

  "We'll have the nurse take a look at it, but you're still going to the office!" Jenkins grabbed Chucky by his uninjured arm and jerked him to his feet. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Donothan!" He hissed under his breath. "Pickin' on a cripple!"

  I stepped forward to help Raymond. It was then that I noticed one of his gloves had come off in the fight.

  "Here, you lost this."

  Raymond snatched his glove back, quickly stuffing his bare hand into it. But not before I had time to notice that his ring finger was longer than the others.

  ▼▼▼

  When I was a kid, Choctaw County was pretty much like it was when my daddy was growing up. If not worse. Sure, we had stuff like television and a public library by then, but by the time I was twelve the old Malco Theatre went belly-up: another victim of the railroad dying off.

  One of the biggest thrills of the year was going to the county fair. For five days in late October the aluminum outbuildings dotting what had once been Old Man Ferguson's cow pasture became a gaudy wonderland of neon lights.

  If you went to the fair every night, you'd eventually see the entire population of Choctaw County put in an appearance. It was one of the few times the various ethnic groups and religious sects congregated at the same place, although I'd hardly call it "mingl
ing." The blacks stayed with the blacks while the whites stayed with the whites. There was also little in the way of crossover between the Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals. Families came by the truckload, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. I never knew there were so many people in the county.

  Rafe and I were wandering the booths lining the midway, looking for the kootchie show. Rafe hadn't shaved in three weeks, hoping he could build up enough beard to pass for sixteen.

  We bumped into Kitty, who was chewing on a wad of cotton candy and contemplating a banner that showed a dwarf supporting a bucket of sand from a skewer piercing his tongue.

  "Hey, Kitty. When'd you get here?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

  "Hey, Darryl. Hey, Rafe. I rode over with Veronica about a half- hour ago. You just get here?" There was a strand of pink candy floss I stuck at the corner of her perfect mouth. I watched in silent fascination as she tried to dislodge it with the tip of her tongue.

  Rafe shrugged. "Kind of."

  "Seen the World's Smallest Horse yet?"

  "No."

  "Don't bother. It's a rip-off; just some dumb old Shetland Pony at the bottom of a hole dug in the ground." She poked her half-eaten cotton candy in my face. "You want the rest of this, Darryl? I can't finish it. You know what they say: sweets to the sweet."

  "Uh, no thanks, Kitty." People keep saying that to me on account of my last name, Sweetman. I hate it, but short of strangling everybody on the face of the earth, there's no way I can avoid it. And no one believes me when I tell them I can't stand sugar.

  "I'll take it, Kitty." Rafe was a smoothy, even then. Did I mention he

  ended up marrying her after high school? Did I mention I haven't talked to him since?

  Kitty frowned and pointed over my shoulder. "Isn't that Raymond Fleuris?"

  Rafe and I turned around and looked where she was pointing. Sure enough, Raymond Fleuris was standing in front of the "Tub-O-Ducks" game, watching the brightly colored plastic ducks bobbing along in their miniature millrace. Although his hands were still gloved, he no longer wore his bandage on his head, and his dark hair bristled like the quills of a porcupine.

  Rafe shrugged. "I saw his daddy shovelling out the livestock barn; the carnival lets the temporary workers' families ride for free."

  Kitty was still looking at Raymond. "You know, yesterday during recess I asked him why he had brain surgery."

  I found my voice first. "You actually asked him that?"

  "Sure did."

  "Well, what did he say?"

  Kitty frowned. "I dunno. When I asked him, he looked like he was trying real hard to remember something. Then he got this goofy grin on his face and said 'chickens'."

  "Chickens?"

  "Don't look at me like I'm nuts, Rafe Mercer! I'm just tellin' you what he said! But what was really weird was how he said it! Like he was remembering going to Disneyland or something!"

  "So Raymond Fleuris is weird. Big deal. C'mon, I wanna check out the guy who cuts a girl in half with a chainsaw. Wanna go with us, Kitty?" Rafe mimed pulling a cord and went rup-rup-ruppppp!, waving the wad of cotton candy like a deadly weapon.

  Kitty giggled behind her hand. "You're silly!"

  That was all I could take. If I had to stay with them another five minutes I'd either puke or pop Rafe in the nose. "I'll catch up with you later, Rafe. Okay? Rafe?"

  "Huh?" Rafe managed to tear his eyes away from Kitty long enough to give me a quick, distracted nod. "Oh, yeah. Sure. Later, man."

  Muttering under my breath, I stalked off, my fists stuffed in my pockets. Suddenly the fair didn't seem as much fun as it'd been ten minutes ago. Even the festive aroma of hot popcorn, cotton candy, and corndogs failed to revive my previous good mood.

  I found myself staring at a faded canvas banner that said, in vigorous Barnum script:

  Col. Reynard's Pocket Jungle.

  Below the headline a stiffly rendered red-headed young man dressed like Frank Buck wrestled a spotted leopard.

  Lounging behind the ticket booth in front of the tent stood a tall man dressed in a sweat-stained short-sleeved khaki shirt and jodhpurs. His hair was no longer bright red and his face looked older, but there was no doubt that he was Colonel Reynard: Great White Hunter. As I watched, he produced a World War Two surplus microphone and began his spiel. His voice crackled out of a public address system, adding to the noise and clamor of the midway.

  "Hur-ree! Hur-ree! Hur-ree! See the most ex-zotic and dangerus animals this side of Aff-Rika! See! The noble tim-bur wolf! King of the Ark-Tik Forest! See! The wild jag-war! Ruthless Lord of the Am-A- Zon Jungle! See! The hairy orang-utang! Borny-Oh's oh-riginal Wild Man of the Woods! See! The fur-rocious Grizz-lee Bear! Mon-Arch of the Fro-zen North! See these wonders and more! Hur-ree! Hur-ree! Hur-ree!"

  A handful of people stopped and turned their attention toward the Colonel. One of them happened to be Raymond Fleuris. A couple • came forward with their money. Raymond just stood there at the foot of the ticket podium, staring at the red-headed man. I expected the j Colonel to make like W.C. Fields, but instead he waved Raymond inside the tent.

  What the hell?

  I didn't really want to see a bunch of half-starved animals stuck in cages. But there was something in the way Colonel Reynard had looked ; at Raymond, like he'd recognized him, that struck me as curious. First I j thought he might be queer for boys, but The Great White Hunter didn't look at me twice when I paid for my ticket and joined the others inside the tent.

  The "Pocket Jungle" reeked of sawdust and piss. There were raised platforms scattered about the tent, canvas drop-cloths covering the cages. Colonel Reynard finally joined us and went into his pitch, going 1 on about how he'd risked life and limb collecting the specimens we were about to see. As he spoke, he went from cage to cage, throwing back the drop-cloths so we could see the animals trapped inside.

  I hadn't been expecting anything, and I wasn't disappointed. The "jaguar" was a slat-thin ocelot; the "timber wolf" was a yellow-eyed coyote that paced the confines of its cage like a madman; the "grizzly" was a plain old black bear, its muzzle so white it looked like it'd been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The only thing that really was what it was supposed to be was the orangutan.

  The ape was big. its wrinkled old-man's features nearly lost in its vast face. It sat in a cage only slightly larger than itself, its hand-like feet folded in front of its mammoth belly. With its dropping teats and huge girth, it resembled a shaggy Buddha.

  Just as the Colonel was wrapping up his act, Raymond pushed his way from the back of the crowd and stood, motionless, gaping at the "timber wolf."

  The coyote halted its ceaseless pacing and bared its fangs. A low, frightened growl came from the animal as it raised its hackles. The Colonel halted in mid-sentence and stared first at the coyote, then at Raymond.

  As if on cue, the ocelot started to hiss and spit, flattening its ears against its sleek skull. The bear emitted a series of low grunts, while the orangutan covered its face and turned its back to the audience.

  Raymond stepped back, shaking his head like he had a mite in his ear. The muscles in his face were jerking again, and I imagined I could smell blood and dust and hear Chucky Donothan squealing like a girl. Raymond staggered back, covering his eyes with his gloves. I heard someone in the crowd laugh; it sounded like a short, sharp, ugly bark.

  Colonel Reynard snapped his fingers once and said in a strong voice; "Hush!" The animals grew silent immediately. He then stepped toward Raymond. "Son . . ."

  Raymond made a noise that was somewhere between a sob and a shout and ran from the tent and into the crowds and noise of the midway. Colonel Reynard followed after him, and I followed the Colonel.

  Raymond made for the cluster of aluminum outbuildings that served as exhibition halls. The Colonel didn't see Raymond dodge between the Crafts Barn and the Tractor Exhibit, but I did. I hurried after him, leaving the light and activity of the fairground behind me. I could dimly make out Raymond a
few dozen yards ahead.

  I froze as a tall, thin shadow stepped directly into Raymond's path, knocking him to the ground. I pressed against the aluminum shell of the Crafts Barn, praying no one noticed me lurking in the darkened "alley."

  "You all right, son?" I recognized Colonel Reynard's voice, although I could not see his face.

  Raymond shuddered as he tried to catch his breath and stop crying at the same time.

  The carny helped Raymond to his feet. "Now, now, son . . . There's nothing to be ashamed of." His voice was as gentle and soothing as a man talking to a skittish horse. "I'm not going to hurt you, boy. Far from it."

  Raymond stood there as Colonel Reynard wiped his face clean of tears, dirt and snot with a handkerchief.

  "Let me see your hands, son."

  Raymond shrank away from the stranger, crossing his gloved hands over his heart. "Paw sez if I take 'em off he'll whup me good. I ain't ever supposed to take 'em off ever again."

  "Well, I say it's okay for you to take them off. And if your daddy don't like it, he'll have to whup on me first." The carny quickly untied both gloves and let them drop. Raymond's hands looked dazzlingly white, compared to his grimy face and forearms. Colonel Reynard squatted on his haunches and took Raymond's hands into his own, studying the fingers with interest. Then he tilted Raymond's head to one side. I could tell he was looking at the scar.

  "What have they done?" The Colonel's voice sounded both angry and sad. "You poor child . . . What did they do to you?"

  "Here now! What you doin' messin' with my boy?"

  It was Mr. Fleuris. He passed within inches of me, but if he noticed my presence it didn't register on his face. I wondered if this was how the first mammals felt, watching the dinosaurs lumber by their hiding place in the underbrush. The big man reeked of manure and fresh straw.

  Raymond cringed as his father bore down on him.