Cycle of the Werewolf
SEPTEMBER
The month passes by and the night of the full moon is coming soon. The people of Tarker’s Mills are terrified. And the weather is still very hot. It is almost unbearable. The townspeople are frustrated and scared.
The children are back at school. They sit in their classrooms sweating in the September heat. Husbands and wives argue for no reason. And Milt Sturmfuller beats his wife so badly, she has to go to the hospital. Milt found a piece of egg on his plate that the dishwasher did not clean completely.
“You damn bitch,” he says as he stands over her. She is lying on the floor of the kitchen. Donna Lee’s nose is broken and bleeding. The back of her head is also bleeding. “My mother used to clean the dishes perfectly. And she didn’t have a dishwasher. What’s your problem?”
Later, Milt will tell the doctor at the hospital emergency room that Donna Lee fell down the stairs. Donna Lee, who has lived in fear and terror for nine years will confirm this story.
At around seven o’clock on the night of the full moon, there is a cold wind that begins to blow. The long, hot summer is finally over. Rain clouds come with the cold wind. And the full moon appears and disappears behind the clouds. The moonlight turns the edges of the clouds a bright silver.
The clouds fill the sky and the moon disappears completely. You cannot see it, but it is there. The ocean tides only a few kilometers away feel its influence. And closer to Tarker’s Mills, the Beast also feels the pull of the moon.
At around two o’clock in the morning, there is a terrible sound from Elmer Zinneman’s pig pen. He lives about 20 kilometers outside of town, and his pigs are screaming in the night. Elmer goes and gets his rifle. He is wearing only his pajama pants.
His wife, who was almost pretty when Elmer married her when she was sixteen, in 1947, cries and tells him not to go outside. She begs him to stay with her. Elmer moves past her and takes his gun from the closet. His pigs are not just screaming; they are screaming in terror.
The sound his pigs are making is like the sound of many young girls surprised by a lunatic murderer during a sleep-over party. Elmer is going. Nothing can stop him from going, he tells her… and then he freezes. He stops and stands completely still with his hand on the doorknob.There is a new sound.
There is the sound of a roaring howl of triumph that grows in the night. It is a wolf howl, but there is something very human in that howl. Elmer takes his hand off the doorknob, and his wife pulls him back into the living room.
He puts his arms around her in a protective embrace and they sit on the sofa like two terrified children. Soon the screams begin to stop. Yes, they stop. One by one. The screams stop in horrible, bloody gurgling sounds. The Beast howls again. Its howl is as silver as the moon on this cloudy night.
Elmer looks out the window and he sees something - he does not know what he sees - something running into the dark trees. Then it begins to rain.
Elmer waits a long time before he leaves his house and goes to his pig pen. He finds what he expects to find in his pig pen: death. All of his pigs are dead. They are ripped to pieces and parts of them have been eaten.
Elmer calls his brother Pete. When Pete arrives he looks into his brother’s pig pen. They do not speak for a long time. And then Elmer says the same thing Pete has been thinking. “I think the insurance will cover some of the costs. It’s better that my pigs died than another person.”
Pete nods his head. “Yeah, too many people have died. Enough,” he says. It is difficult to hear his voice in the rain. “What do you mean?” Elmer asks him. “You know what I mean. When the next full moon comes, we need to put forty men out looking for the Beast… or sixty… or a hundred and sixty men!”
“It’s time people around here stop pretending nothing is happening. Any fool can see what is going on. Look at this, for Christ’s sake!” Pete points to the pigs. All around the slaughtered pigs, Elmer and Pete can see many large footprints. They look like the tracks of a very large wolf… but they also look almost human.
“Do you see those fucking tracks?” “I see them,” Elmer says. “Do you think those are dog tracks?” “No. I guess not.” “A werewolf made those tracks,” Pete says. “You know it’s true. Alice knows it. Most of the people in this town know it. Hell, I know it, and I don’t even live here.”
Pete looks into his brother’s face. “There has been enough death. It’s time for us to end this.” Elmer thinks about what his brother says. And then he answers. “Yeah. It’s time. But not the next full moon.” “You want to wait until November?” Pete asks him.
Elmer nods his head, yes. “The leaves are off the trees - you can see farther. If there is snow, you can see the footprints better.” “But if we wait until November, what about next month?” Pete asks him, worried. Elmer looks at his brother. “People had better be careful,” he says.
SEPTEMBER
