Cycle of the Werewolf
MARCH
The snow is falling very heavily this cold night in March. It is snowing so much that tree branches fall from the weight of the snow. The sound of the branches cracking is like gunshots - CRACK! “Mother Nature is cutting her hair,” says Milt Sturmfuller to his wife Donna, as they eat dinner.
He is a thin man with a thin head and blue eyes. He has kept his pretty wife a prisoner in a marriage of terror for twelve years now. There are a few people in the town who suspect the truth about his abuse - Police Sheriff Neary’s wife Joan is one person who suspects. But the town can be a dark place, and no one knows for certain. Just Milt and his wife know. The dark town has dark secrets.
Milt likes the phrase he invented so much that he says it again, “Yep, Mother Nature is cutting her hair…” and then the lights go out. Donna Lee Sturmfuller screams a little scream. She also spills her coffee. “You clean that up,” her husband says coldly. “You clean that up right now.”
“Yes, honey. Okay.” she says in a small voice. In the dark kitchen she tries to find a cloth to clean up the spilled coffee. She hits her toe on the side of the refrigerator. She cries out in pain and surprise. In the dark, her husband laughs loudly. He enjoys his wife’s pain more than anything.
Mother Nature is cutting more than just the branches. Some of the power lines are cut from the falling branches. It is a wild March night. The power lines fall to the ground like snakes with blue tongues of fire. All of Tarker’s Mills goes dark. As if it is finally satisfied, the storm begins to move away from the town.
And just before midnight, the temperature falls from 0 degrees to -8 degrees. The soft snow freezes to hard ice. All the houses in town remain dark. It is too cold for the electricity company to send anyone to fix the power lines. As the storm moves farther away, the clouds open and a full moon shines brightly. In the night, something begins to howl.
Later, no one will be able to say where the sound came from. It was everywhere and nowhere as the full moon shone through the clouds. It was everywhere and nowhere as the cold wind in March cried in the trees. And with the wind they could hear the howl. It is lonely and savage. Donna Lee hears the sound as her cruel husband sleeps next to her.
Police Sheriff Neary hears it as he looks out his bedroom window at the bright moon in the dark sky. Ollie Parker, the fat elementary school principal, hears it in his bedroom. Others hear it also.
One of them is a boy in a wheelchair. No one sees what is making the noise. And no one knows the name of the transient man, the drifter, the traveler, the stranger who was found the next morning.
A power line repairman discovered the stranger frozen next to one of the broken cables. He was covered in ice. His head was pushed back in a silent scream. His dirty old coat and shirt were ripped and chewed open.
The unknown man sat in a frozen pool of his own blood. His hands were held up in front of him, like he was pushing something away. And all around him in the snow were prints. Wolf prints.
MARCH
