Cycle of the Werewolf
APRIL
By the middle of April, all the snow is gone. There are no more snow storms, and the rain begins. And something amazing begins to happen in Tarker’s Mills: the leaves on the trees begin to grow! Spring has come again to the small town, and the people begin to celebrate. They celebrate the coming of spring even though a shadow has come to the town.
Gramma Hague bakes pies and puts them in the kitchen window to cool. On Sunday, at the Grace Baptist Church, the Reverend Lester Lowe reads from The Song of Solomon and preaches a sermon called "The Spring of the Lord's Love." Chris Wrightson, the biggest drunk in Tarker's Mills, has his Annual Spring Drunk at the local bar.
After he is completely drunk, he walks out of the bar into the cold, blue light of the April moon - it is almost full. Billy Roberston, the bartender of Tarker’s Mills’ only bar, watches him leave. He says to the waitress, “If that wolf is going to get someone tonight, I guess it’s going to be Chris.”
"Don't talk about it," the waitress answers. She is very scared. Her name is Elise Fournier, she is twenty-four. She sings in the choir at the Grace Baptist Church because she has a crush on the Rev. Lowe. But she plans to leave town by summer. Crush or no crush, this wolf thing has really scared her. She thinks that the money might be better in Portsmouth... and the only wolves there wear sailors' uniforms.
The nights in Tarker’s Mills are scary now, especially when the moon becomes fat. This is the third fat moon this year. The days are better. In the town park, the skies are now full of kites in the afternoons. Brady Kincaid, who is eleven years old, has a kite shaped like an eagle. He got it for his birthday. And this afternoon he has lost track of time.
He is having so much fun flying his kite - it feels like a living thing in his hand. It pulls this way, and it pulls that way. It drops and rises in the blue sky over the park. He has forgotten to go home for dinner. And he has not seen that all the other kite flyers have left the park, one by one. He does not realize that he is alone.
The daylight is leaving and the dark shadows are now long. He can see the moon rising over the trees at the end of the park. For the first time it is a warm-weather moon. It is fat and orange instead of cold and silver. But Brady does not notice this fact about the moon. He only realizes that he has stayed too long, and that his father will be angry with him. And he notices, too, that it is getting dark.
At school, he has laughed at the stories his classmates are telling, about the werewolf who killed the stranger last month. And Stella Randolph the month before. And Arnie Westrum the month before that. But he does not laugh now. As the April moon turns redder, the sky glows like blood. Now, the stories seem very real.
He begins to pull in the string of his kite as fast as he can. He winds the string around a stick and the flying eagle begins to come down from the sky. He pulls the string too fast, and the wind suddenly stops. As a result, the kite falls rapidly behind some bushes.
He begins to walk towards it, pulling the string in as he moves. He looks back over his shoulder. He is nervous. Suddenly, the string begins to move in his hands. Something is pulling the string out. It reminds him of the way the string pulls on a fishing pole when he catches a big fish in the town river. He looks at the string. He is not sure what to do. Suddenly, the string stops moving.
There is a terrifying roar that fills the night, and Brady Kincaid screams. He believes the stories now. Yes, he believes them now, all right. But it’s too late. His scream is lost under that roar that becomes a horrifying wolf howl. The wolf is running towards him, running on two legs. Its fur is orange in the moonlight. Its eyes are like green lamps.
In one paw - a wolf paw with human fingers and claws where the fingernails should be - is Brady’s eagle kite. It is moving crazily as the wolf runs at him. Brady turns to run and strong arms suddenly take him. He can smell something like blood and cinnamon.
He is found the next day, sitting against a tree in the forest near the park. He is headless and his intestines have been devoured. The eagle kite is in one rigid hand. The kite moves back and forth in the wind, trying to rise to the sky. The people who went out to look for Brady turn away. They are horrified and sick. The kite moves because the wind is blowing strong. It moves as if it knows this will be a good day to fly kites.
APRIL
