There were no chickens.
Only feathers.
And blood.
12
The Boy Who Lied
A few minutes later, Gramps walked out of the barn, scratching his head. He looked disturbed by what he had seen.
Max and Grammy stood nearby, waiting.
“I told you to lock up the barn last night,” Grammy said to Gramps, her tone harsher than usual.
“I did lock it up,” Gramps said. “Something must have gotten in.”
Max’s palms were sweaty, and he could feel his heart pounding all the way down in his fingertips. His adventure into the woods hadn’t been a nightmare after all! He knew good and well what had invaded the barn and eaten the chickens. And he knew it was his fault. But he was too afraid to tell Gramps.
Just then, a giant creature appeared around the corner of the barn.
“Ahhh!” Max yelped, jumping backward in fright.
Gramps and Grammy turned and saw the large and furry thing standing there. With black eyes, a long snout, and sharp teeth.
But it wasn’t a werewolf.
It was a bloodhound.
And it was limping.
Max noticed the silver dog tag gleaming from its neck.
He held the dog still while he read the inscription on the tag:
My name is Petunia.
If lost, please return to the Howlers at
1985 Wolf County Rd.
“This . . . is Petunia?” Max mused aloud, gazing upon the enormous dog. For some reason, he had imagined a dog with a name like Petunia to be much smaller than the colossal creature before him. Gramps knelt beside Max and examined the dog’s legs and snout.
“She’s all scratched up,” he said.
“Maybe it was a raccoon,” Max suggested, attempting to coax Gramps away from the truth. “Or maybe—maybe Petunia was the one who ate the chickens.”
Gramps grunted in disagreement.
“These marks are too big to be a coon’s. That’s the mark of a—” Gramps paused. His eyes narrowed, and he turned to Max. “Did you cross into the forest last night, boy?”
Max felt his heart drop into his stomach, split in two, and each half fall down his hollow legs and settle in his feet like weights.
“No,” he lied, baffled by how Gramps could know such a thing.
Gramps eyed him suspiciously. Max tried to hide his fear.
“You know what they say?” Grammy interjected, trying to break the tension. “The best way to keep a dog from barking in your front yard is to put him in your backyard.”
Neither Max nor Gramps laughed.
Grammy continued, “Gramps, why don’t you take the dog next door? And Max, why don’t you come help me clean inside for a bit? The cellar needs a good goin’ through.”
She then leaned in to Gramps and whispered something in his ear that Max sensed he wasn’t supposed to hear, “We need to keep a closer eye out tonight. We can’t wait much longer.”
Gramps nodded.
Grammy held out her wrinkly hand to Max, and he took it into his own. He walked beside her back to the house, stepping upon each stone of the leaf-covered pathway.
Before Max walked inside the cabin, he glanced over his shoulder at Gramps. The old man was standing near the barn, staring back at him, a secret locked in his eyes.
13
Cellar Secrets
The cellar was cold and dim, like a mortuary.
Max swept the floor with an old, crooked broom, making his way through a maze of dusty furniture—a broken bookshelf, an abandoned wardrobe, and a metal gun case. The walls were rotted and covered in cobwebs, and the air smelled musty, like a box of old clothes that hadn’t been opened in years.
I should have told Gramps the truth, he thought, wrestling with guilt. I guess it won’t matter anymore once I’m back in the city in a couple of days.
Max suddenly stopped. A beam of dusty sunlight illumined an old wooden chest resting in the corner of the cellar. The wood was warped, and the top was covered with a layer of dust an inch thick. Its lock was rusted beyond use. And above it was a grimy silver emblem.
He walked closer to get a better look.
The shape of it was unmistakable.
“Wolf?” Max whispered, making out the form of a hungry beast baring its fangs.
Max carefully unlatched the lock and opened the coffer. A moldy scent rose out of it.
Inside was a collection of peculiar relics left over from a childhood long ago: a tin can of baseball cards, G.I. Joe action figures, and a Super Soaker water gun. Mixed in with these forgotten treasures were artifacts from a more grown-up time in life: a framed photograph turned facedown, a worn leather journal, a stargazing atlas, a camouflaged net, a black pouch used for storing bullets, and a set of hunting magazines.
“What is all this stuff?” Max asked, running his finger over each item.
He turned over the photograph and gasped. It was as if he had seen a ghost.
In the picture was his mother, at least a decade younger. She was holding Max when he was a baby and standing next to a tall, kind-faced man who had his arms around both of them.
“Dad?” Max said in shock and awe.
He stared at his father’s face while gently touching the glass in the frame. He had only seen a few pictures of his father before—it was too hard for his mom to keep photographs of him up in their house.
Gramps was right, he thought. I do look like my dad.
After a long moment, Max set down the picture, picked up the leather journal, and opened it. The writing on the first page read:
The Diary of Jedidiah Bloodnight
It was his father’s handwriting. Max recognized it from old letters he had once found in his mom’s closet.
All of this stuff must have been my dad’s, Max thought. Maybe this is what Gramps and Grammy wanted to pass down to me. Maybe this is why they invited me here.
He considered closing the chest, so as not to ruin Gramps and Grammy’s surprise. But he wanted answers, and he didn’t want to wait any longer for the truth. He continued flipping through the pages of the diary, and stopped on the very last entry:
October 31
The wolves are nearly all dead. Time is running out.
I must protect my family at all costs and find a way to complete my experiment.
If I am unsuccessful tonight, then a new beast will surely arise in twelve years.
“So it’s true, then?” Max whispered. “My father was hunting the beast. And he died trying to protect us—his family.”
He looked up from the diary and noticed a giant drape covering up something behind the chest. He gently lifted the covering, and his eyes grew wide. Beneath it was a table ornamented with glass beakers, coiling funnels, and test tubes. An open chemistry book sat in the middle of it all, filled with indecipherable equations. Taped to the wall behind the table were blueprints of the red hoodie with a silver zipper, the silver dagger, and a glass vial labeled “Liquid Silver.”
What was my father doing with a chemistry lab down here in Gramps and Grammy’s basement? he wondered. What was he trying to create?
He glanced back down at the diary and saw something else written in bigger letters and underlined at the bottom of the last page:
PS I’m leaving behind three talismans in case something happens to me.
The Liquid Silver is the most powerful of them all.
The hoodie and dagger will only hold off the beast for the first two nights of the full moon.
Only by infecting its blood on the third night can it be destroyed forever.
Max looked up from the diary to the sketches on the wall. He examined the drawings of the silver zipper on the hoodie, the silver dagger, and the vial of glowing Liquid Silver. He had encountered all three of the talismans except for the last one. He looked around for it but didn’t find anything.
Why is the Liquid Silver the most powerful talisman of all? he wondered.
Just then,
something crashed against the cellar window behind him . . .
14
Meet Me at Midnight
A shadow moved across the cellar window that connected to the side yard. Someone was standing outside, pounding on the pane.
Max walked across the basement and lifted the window.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Jade said, her blue-ribboned braids falling over the window frame like two ropes leading up the side of a castle wall.
“How did you know I was down here?” Max asked.
“Your gramps said that you were doing some cleaning in the basement, so I snuck over,” she replied. “He just brought Petunia by. She’s resting back at the house.”
“I told you that she’d be okay,” Max said.
“Yeah, but did you see those claw marks? Whatever did that to her had to be the creature that chased us through the woods last night. I told my dad everything, but he just got really angry that I had gone into the forest. He said it was impossible that the hermit could be back, and to stay away from the woods.”
Max was glad that he hadn’t told Gramps and Grammy anything.
“The chickens were all missing from the barn this morning,” Max revealed. “Something ate them. Just like you said happened twelve years ago.”
Jade gulped, then gazed into the shadows of the basement.
“What if the beast from twelve years ago never really died?” she said.
Max remembered Gramps and Grammy’s conversation the night before about a new beast rising during the full moon. His father had written about it in his diary too.
“What made people think the werewolf was dead?” Max asked. “Did anyone actually see it after it was killed?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what my dad told me,” Jade replied. “I did hear Molly White say once at recess that the beast could have been one of our own. And that there might be others.”
Max considered this for a moment.
So that’s why no one trusts each other in Wolf County—even neighbors, he realized.
It was all too incredible to be believed. Like an episode of Stranger Things.
“Listen, I’ve been gathering clues, and I found one down here, I think. Before my dad died, he was conducting some kind of experiment with silver. I think he was trying to find ways to kill the beast. And the red hoodie I lost last night was a part of it. I have to go back to find it.”
“Are you crazy? We almost died in there last night!” Jade reminded him.
“It’s the only thing I have that belonged to him,” Max said. “And I have to know what happened to my dad out there. There are still too many unanswered questions.”
Jade stared at him incredulously. Max was braver than she’d thought. And more insane.
“But, Max, the hermit who lives in that shack is the beast,” Jade reminded him. “I mean, we saw him transform in the window right before our eyes.”
“There are still two more nights of the full moon. Think of all the lives we’ll save if we can find a way to stop the beast this time,” Max said.
Jade was silent.
“Meet me at the fence at midnight. Okay?” Max added.
“My dad will kill me if he finds out,” Jade said.
“He doesn’t have to know,” Max coaxed her with a mischievous smirk. “Besides, I risked my life to help you look for Petunia last night. You owe me.”
Jade thought about it for a long moment.
“Fine,” she said. “But you better bring a rifle. And some silver bullets.”
“Huh?”
“Silver bullets are the only way to kill a werewolf, city boy. You have to pierce its heart. Don’t you watch scary movies?” she teased, then disappeared out of Max’s view before he could say anything else.
Max knew good and well that silver was the only way to kill a werewolf in comic books and movies, but this was real life. And in real life, there were no such things as monsters. Right? At least that’s what he kept trying to tell himself.
Hesitantly, he went back to the trunk and reached for the black pouch used for storing bullets, sensing what might lie inside of it.
But when he looked in the pouch . . .
It was empty.
15
Trapped
At dinner that evening, Gramps and Grammy were quiet. Gramps kept looking out the window, as if he was expecting someone.
“Did you get the cellar cleaned up?” Grammy asked.
Max nodded as he chewed a mouthful of green beans.
“Find anything interesting?” Gramps added. “I’m sure there are lots of treasures down there.”
“Not really,” Max said, wanting to keep his findings to himself. Every time he had tried to ask Gramps or Grammy about his father, they had only given him vague answers.
Grammy smiled and passed a bowl of mashed potatoes around the table. “Well, it’s nice to have you here, Max. This house has felt empty for some time.”
“Ever since your pa died,” Gramps added solemnly. “We wrote to your mom many times through the years asking her to bring you here, but I think she was afraid of—”
Grammy kicked Gramps’s shin beneath the table. Max’s eyebrows rose in intrigue.
Afraid of what? he wondered.
Gramps cleared his throat and continued, “Now that you’re here, we can right some of our wrongs.”
“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Grammy said to Gramps, then turned to Max. “Gramps has always blamed himself for your father’s death. But it wasn’t his fault.”
Max wanted Gramps and Grammy to tell him more, but neither of them said another word the rest of dinner.
Later that night, Max lay in bed watching the clock tick, tick, tick . . .
Toward midnight.
A few minutes before he was supposed to meet Jade at the barbed-wire fence, he crawled out of bed already fully dressed. His plan was to go downstairs, take Gramps’s rifle, and sneak out the back door. But he knew if he woke anyone up, his plan would be ruined.
Quietly, he crept toward his bedroom door, put his hand on the cold brass handle, and turned it.
But . . .
It was locked.
From the outside.
He tried again.
But it wouldn’t budge.
He jiggled it harder, but still nothing.
Gramps and Grammy locked me in! Are they trying to keep me in or keep something out?
Max pounded his fist against the door, then glanced at the clock. Midnight was quickly approaching.
If I don’t meet Jade on time, she might chicken out, he worried. And I won’t be able to find the hoodie!
He rushed to the window and tried to open it. But it was stuck too. He then saw two large nails wedged into the side panels of the frame, blocking the window from being pushed up.
Gramps must have nailed these shut while I was cleaning in the cellar today, Max thought.
He panicked, looking everywhere for a hammer or something helpful to pry the nails. He searched under the bed, in every drawer of the wardrobe, and even in the closet. But there was nothing.
Feeling the weight of defeat, Max sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. His eyes perused the poster of the moon cycles. Each illustration showed a different moon phase, including the three nights of the full moon. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the third night of the full moon was circled multiple times with a red marker. It reminded him of his father’s diary entry.
The silver dagger! Max remembered. It’s one of the talismans!
Knowing he didn’t have much time, he rushed to open the nightstand drawer, grabbed his father’s knife, and hurried to the window. When he pulled the knife from its sheath, he accidentally touched the silver blade and an odd feeling rushed over him.
What sort of experiment was my dad doing with this thing?
He held the dagger by the leather handle and used the blade as a lever to pry up the nails. It took longer than if he’d had a hammer, but he
was eventually able to jimmy the window enough to open it and slip through.
He clumsily climbed across the roof, taking light steps so that he wouldn’t wake up his grandparents.
Gramps’s rifle! Max remembered. If I try to go back inside to get it now, I’ll wake up him and Grammy. This knife will have to do.
Once at the edge of the roof, Max jumped onto a hay bale resting below and tumbled onto his feet. Just as he was about to run to meet Jade . . .
A desperate cry arose from the direction of the forest.
16
Max Meets the Beast
When Max arrived at the barbed-wire fence, Jade wasn’t there.
I’m too late, he thought. She must have already gone home.
He gazed into the woods. They were dark and quiet, like something that had been asleep for a thousand years and had no need to make its presence known. He sensed they were hiding something.
Then he saw something that turned his blood cold . . .
A blue ribbon.
Caught on a branch.
Just a few feet on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.
“No,” he gasped.
Without a second thought, Max climbed through the barbed wires, grabbed Jade’s ribbon, and sprinted into the forest. He squinted, trying to see in the dark, but the canopy of trees above blocked the moonlight.
I have to find her, he thought, his guts a trembling pile of mush.
He searched for hours, looking everywhere. He passed by streams and across narrow ravines. Near caves and burrows. But there was no sign of her anywhere—no sounds, no footprints, no bouncing beam of her flashlight. And no hoodie either.
I hope the hermit—the beast—didn’t get her, he thought as he walked by a tree he had already passed a dozen times. He sensed the night was nearly over.
Just as he was about to turn around, a high-pitched yelp blared from behind a nearby bush.
“Jade!” Max whispered in fright.
The cry came again. And again. It was excruciating—like she was wounded or trying to escape!
He hurried as fast as he could toward her, hoping he could get there in time. Branches scratched his arms and legs, and cobwebs stuck to his face as he navigated through the warren of trees.
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