A Tale of Marvel's Maniacal Man-Wolf!
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THE FEASTER FROM BEYOND
By
Michael D. Winkle
Old
Harry Van Deusen ambled out of his cabin-office as John pulled up in his rented
pickup. The old man smacked his toothless
gums and winced against the sun, twin actions that made him look more than a
little like Popeye the Sailor.
"Johnny
Jameson!" he said. "Been a
while."
"A
few years," answered John, brushing back his wind-mussed auburn hair.
"Here
for the rock bass? They're hitting good
out by Waupaseti Point."
The
former astronaut smiled.
"I'll
try for some. Have to make the best of
it. It'll be my last trip here --"
The
old man raised his wispy eyebrows.
"As
a bachelor."
Van
Deusen mulled over this as if mushing up creamed corn.
"Gettin'
hitched at last, eh?" he asked.
"Never thought I'd see the day.
Thet same girl of your'n? Cathy? Kitty?"
"Kristine,"
corrected John. "Yes, I thought I'd
lost her, but one day she came
looking for me. I'm not letting go this time."
"Good
for you," said the old man.
"But for now -- the fish are callin', right?"
"You
got it," said John.
"Your
usual? Cabin 18?" asked Harry. "Same as your moon flight?"
"The
same."
The
old man ambled back into the office and returned with a key.
#
Not letting go, thought John as he
hauled his big green tackle box out of the pickup shell.
He
remembered saying good-bye to Kristine Saunders while still with the Avengers
support team. His life -- and the
prospect of their life -- had proven too much for the blond artist. She left crying. He threw himself into his work, sorrow frozen
in his breast, often diving gung-ho into dangerous situations as if hoping to
get killed.
Then
one day, as he told Harry, Kristine came back.
At
least, he thought it was Kristine. She
had changed. She had learned judo, aikido,
and karate -- as their first few minutes in Goldie's Gym proved. John landed on his back and stared up
dumbfounded at the slim gi-gowned
woman. Then he smiled.
That
she skied difficult slopes in
"It
was wrong of me to run from our problems, John," Kris told him over pate de foie gras that night, "but
it was good for me. I had to fend for myself for the first
time. I refused to go back to Mom and
Dad. I rented a room the size of an
orange crate in
Colonel
Jameson carried his fiberglass rods, his reels of DuPont line, and his Coleman
lantern into Cabin 18. Even now he could
feel her hard, wiry fingers against his broad knuckles.
"Since
we first met," she had said, "I've seen things I pray the Aunt Irmas
of the world need never see. I've come
within inches of death more times than I can count."
John
sighed.
"Because
of --"
He
almost snatched his hand away, but Kris gripped like an eagle.
"The
Man-Wolf?" she finished.
"Maybe, but he is no
longer a factor. I worked at data entry,
answering phones, sorting mail, just to keep the ol' orange crate. Monkey work gave me time to think: Somewhere in this scared little would-be Van
Gogh lurked a hard core, a potential person who hung on to life and sanity
through the whole Man-Wolf experience. A
little training, and she might be someone worthy of the last man to walk on the
Moon."
"So
you joined the Marines," John suggested.
"Close. Life in
The
waiter set the bill on the table in its plastic tray. John reached for his wallet.
"Wait!"
ordered Kris. "John, the last time
we came to this restaurant, you asked me a question."
John
smiled.
"I
remember. It was the only experience in
my life to eclipse the Moon -- so to speak."
Kristine's
eyes narrowed slyly.
"Is
the offer still open?"
"I
never said there was a time limit. And
you already said yes."
"Oh?"
"Five
years ago."
Kris
smiled (John couldn't help but think) wolfishly. She nodded at the check.
"Now
it's time to go."
#
John
slammed the gate of the pickup. He
winced into the sunset. Took long enough
to get here. Well, reading a book before
a cheery fire usually made him sleepy, then he'd get up at 4:00 and beat the
other fishermen to Waupaseti Point.
Not exactly a stag party, he
thought. Oh, well, he didn't need that
sort of excitement in his last week of bachelorhood. The thought of Kristine was enough.
#
The
flames crackled. A table lamp provided
more light. John finished a chapter of Arctic Wild and flipped through the
photo section. Tubby cubs and gangly
wolf yearlings yawned and howled and romped through the snow.
Why do I read this stuff? he asked
himself. Farley Mowat, David Mech, Barry Lopez.
Exorcising the memory? Proving to
myself there's nothing to worry about now?
Any
real study of wolves revealed surprisingly intelligent creatures with a society
of their own. They sang and played and
cooperated in ways more recognizable to humans than, say, the antics of
dolphins. They did not at all resemble
the slavering white lycanthrope he had so often become.
John
set the book aside. All these writers
decried the general human attitude that wolves were bloodthirsty, destructive,
man-eating vermin.
So what was my problem? Colonel Jameson wondered. The
wanton destruction -- if it was not of the wolf, perhaps it was of the
man. Preconceived ideas?
John
couldn't recall ever giving the subject of wolves much thought -- before.
He rose
and stretched. Enough brainstorming for
tonight. He stepped into the bedroom and
undressed. He scratched his chest and
stomach; suddenly he itched all over.
He
turned abruptly and padded through the cabin.
He unlatched the thick door and stepped onto the porch. The night poured down on him like a tsunami,
a flood of scents and sounds: the
stringent worms and aging bait; the oil and exhaust and heated Naugahyde covers
of the pickup seat; the lawn-clipping and rotten-potato scents of the forest floor,
the cold algae lake, and the local animals, a collective smell of bacon fat and
horse manure and fresh cut copper.
He
sprang onto the grass, his legs bowing as if filled with gelatin. He waited for the metamorphosis to
finish. The hair bled out with a feeling
like steel-toothed brushes raking his body.
His mandibles pushed forward like long spikes driven through the base of
his skull coming out his face. The
twistings of his legs and spine were less intense, but his big toes felt
stubbed as they shrank into dew claws.
Finally
pain stretched out from where he sat down:
a tail, long and fluffy like a mink stole.
He
straightened, imagining himself without a mirror: a head higher, thirty kilos heavier, a body
still manlike but covered with white fur.
A head like a wolf's but with a larger brain in a somewhat sloped skull,
large in the fashion that a Neanderthal's brain was more voluminous than modern
man's. Claws on fingers, paws for feet.
And
that tail, a relatively new adition, which now twitched like an angry cat's.
Wolf. Man-Wolf.
The creature that had so recently been Colonel John Jameson checked the
urge to howl. He was too near the other
cabins. He looked back at his own
log-and-brick abode and wondered again why daytime John did not remember.
#
The
silver-white man-beast stepped carefully from grassy tuft to grassy tuft. He would leave no prints. He had managed, so far, to leave few telltale
hairs coming or going -- somehow his system re-absorbed the fur when he changed
back. He dared not reveal himself to
"Day-John" yet.
Man-Wolf
sprang over an ancient stone wall, noting the wet cement, lichen, dandelion,
and bird-dropping entirety of its smell-existence. He trotted into the woods, bipedal yet
crouched as low as the animal he resembled.
His nostrils flared at the scent of squirrel and rabbit, but his
thoughts remained remarkably human.
Indeed,
he suffered no dissociation. The only
difference between John Jameson and the Man-Wolf, mentally, was the fact that
Jameson shared none of the lycanthrope's memories. When he "wolfed out" he remembered
Man-Wolf's night life. The closest
mundane experience to this sudden recall was once when Day-John visited an
elementary school to give a speech on aeronautics. After studying the brownstone structure and
its outbuildings for a moment, it hit him that he had spent a year here as a
kid. Suddenly memories of fights on the
playground and kids shooting marbles and that teacher with the hairy mole on
his chin welled over him, forgotten until that second.
But
in the morning John forgot again.
Man-Wolf
reached a steep, leaf-carpeted slope and trotted up on all fours. The hydrocarbons of internal combustion
engines hung everywhere these days, but the wind blew fresh off the lake,
almost pure.
He
reached the summit and spotted two moons, one above, one below in the
lake. He hunkered down and let loose a
wavering howl.
Whatever
he thought of Dr. Ashley Kafka professionally, he -- Man-Wolf -- owed his
present existence to her. She had used
hypnotic techniques to draw the story of Stargod and the Other Realm from John
Jameson. Kafka even triggered a brief
physical metamorphosis once, which she herself dismissed as an outer
manifestation of John's "inner demon."
Demon, indeed!
The
white wolf-man sprang straight up, arms outstretched as if to seize the
moon. He landed and trotted down the
hill, occasionally slapping his palms to the ground to keep from somersaulting
forward. He could not quite run on all fours.
He
smelled a stag and doe off to starboard, a porcupine to port, and (whew!) a
spotted skunk in the distance. Cicadas
buzzed and crickets chirped -- anyone could hear that -- but foxes barked, mice
squeaked, and -- well -- the muskrats and raccoons and herons talked, soft murmurs back and forth that
human ears could not pick up.
He
reached a slab of granite overhanging the lake.
He did not pause but leapt ten meters across the black-glass surface
before shattering the moon-image. Demon? This was godhood!
He
swam with long overhand strokes.
No dog-paddling for this wolf.
He
crossed the lake, snapping in air as he might bite at mayflies. He stepped out onto a shale beach opposite
Van Deusen's cabins. He loosened his
steely muscles and shook. At least he
wore no clothes to get soggy.
An uninhibited werewolf here, he
thought. Not even that stupid radiation suit that seemed as much a part of
Wolfie as purple pants on the Hulk.
He
wiped his chest and thighs with his open hands.
Water splashed off as from a squeegee.
Well, fur is like clothing.
His
tail twitched like an independent life-form.
It was long and fluffy and quite becoming.
He
found another slab of rock that still radiated the heat of the day. He stretched out on his stomach like a horned
toad and moon-bathed.
The
problem, or rather problems, returned.
Not just Day-John, but Kristine.
How could he hide from Kris? If
John Jameson disappeared on nights of the full moon, she of all people would
not think he was out with another woman.
She would know the Man-Wolf lived.
She
had undergone a transformation of her own, however. She was no wispy, oversensitive
He
snorted like a bull.
Maybe she could accept my existence, I was
thinking. Even if she didn't run
screaming into the night once she laid eyes on me, that's a long way from
acceptance. I don't see her kissing me
good-bye at moonrise and returning to her latest Nora Roberts novel, like I was
going bowling. She'd call Dr. Conners
and Colonel Fury and tell them to "cure" me.
Maybe
he should reveal himself to John, after all.
He would break off the engagement somehow, and Man-Wolf's secret would
be safe.
But . . . Kris . . .
Wolves
mated for life, and Kris sure felt
like his mate.
#
The
white-furred lycanthrope brooded for a time.
Eventually he heard a scream. He
perked his ears and lifted his head.
Just teenagers goofing around, he told
himself.
The
scream came again, its quavers ordering themselves into a pleading "Help me!" The cry came from deep in the woods, not from
the cabins. It was the voice of a woman,
no older than twenty-two.
They talk about the smell of fear.
He heard the fear in that voice, a
vibration of larynx and muscle one just could not fake.
He
rose, sniffing the air, ears drawing back like the wings of an F-111 at Mach
2. The breeze carried a vague odor of
decaying timbers, blue steel and humans, surrounded by a smell of old blood.
Kristine
had spoken of making herself worthy of him.
He would not be worthy of her if he did not investigate the source of
the screams. He hopped from the boulder
and loped into the trees.
#
Man-Wolf
hooked his claws over the top of a stone wall and hoisted himself over. He landed easily on matted grass. Crooked headstones marked ancient graves. The church beyond was a massive structure of
brownstone and brick. Its windows had
been boarded up, bricked up and/or painted, but flickering light escaped from
chinks and door seams.
A
passing hunter might not have taken note, but the white werewolf smelled the
odors of men, flavored by salts and hormones like some kind of sickness. He smelled true fear among the clover and
wild garlic of the graveyard, and a peculiar blood smell, unclassifiable even by
his sensitive nose.
Man-Wolf
crouched by a heel-shaped tombstone. He
crept on hands and knees behind wiry bushes and a pillarlike, lightning-blasted
stump. His snowy pelt could be a
giveaway on moonlit nights; perhaps clothes weren't such a bad idea.
As
he approached, he heard -- or felt -- a distant singing. Vague orange forms denoted two men at the
door of the church. One lit a cigarette,
the match burning like a parachute flare to the lycanthrope's night vision. They wore monklike hoods and carried rifles
slung over their shoulders.
Always a bad sign.
Man-Wolf
withdrew from the front entrance. The
south side of the church rose like the
The
lycanthrope studied the roof of the crumbling edifice. Eight meters if it was an inch. He grinned back to his ears.
He
trotted out, bounced a few paces as if he ran on the Moon again, and
sprang. He caught the eaves in a
grapnel-like hold and chinned himself up.
He
spread out flat, excepting his teepees of ears, which listened for any
outcry. The guards said nothing, but a
voice rose within the gritty, lead-shingled temple:
"Tibi, Magnum Innominandum, signa stellarum
nigrarum et bufoniformis . . .
Great.
Another bizarre, evil cult.
He
quelled the Jameson skepticism. He could
not afford to pooh-pooh cults, cult leaders, or wizards. He had only to recall Dreadmund or the
fantastic Other Realm.
He
slipped quietly up the roof. An acidic
distillation of pecans, crumbled leaves, and bird droppings shrouded the
church. A thread of cinnamon-like
incense led him to a hole. He scraped
detritus away from a crack under a warped shingle, careful not to dislodge
compost on the inner side. His nose told
him of pitch-coated pine torches, ten or twelve men, and candles made of a
greasy fat he did not want to dwell on.
He peered through the opening merely to confirm olfactory certainties.
The
torches and candles lit an eerie, smoky scene, disturbing despite its tabloid
dressing: the floor of the church had
been cleared, the pews, smashed to kindling, piled by the walls. Several cultists or worshipers stood in a
knot in the middle of the nave, all holding thick, white, lopsided tapers,
unmindful of the drippings on their hands.
They faced the pulpit, faces hidden in deep cowls. They said nothing, but an unholy
"preacher" stood at a podium, reading nonsense from a large, moldy
book.
A
slab of some sort, as long and wide as a door, lay between the
"preacher" and his weird flock.
Man-Wolf did not think it part of the original equipment of the church;
the cultists must have wrestled it in, though it surely weighed a ton.
Tied
across the slab, struggling against nylon ropes and making noises through a
cloth gag, was an African-American woman barely out of her teens. Beside her stood another hooded cultist, his
muscular physique obvious even through the monkish robe.
Man-Wolf
barely checked a growl. The bulky
cultist held a scimitar. The sickle
curve of its edge reflected a constellation in the lights of the candles. The cultist lowered it slowly to the young
woman's throat then drew it slowly back, like Tiger Woods measuring a putt.
Damn!
No time for subtlety.
The
werewolf worked his claws quietly between old boards. Thank God evil cults favored decrepit
ruins. He bunched his muscles, the fur
over his biceps fraying, and he tore away boards with both hands. The jagged hole resulting was wide enough for
him to drop through, which he did.
He
landed, padded paws and resilient legs absorbing the impact. For a second he crouched behind the gathering
of worshipers; they turned seemingly in slow motion. They stood in a triangle exactly like bowling
pins.
He
spread his arms and sprang into the crowd, rock-hard muscle against more
yielding flesh. The cultists toppled,
candles flying everywhere.
The
priest and the executioner turned their cowls toward Man-Wolf. The priest stopped his chanting and yelled,
"Reapers! Intruder!"
Reapers?
At least it's different than the usual "Guards!"
Man-Wolf
hopped up, an ear cocked to the front entrance.
He ducked the executioner's slash and closed his clawed hands into
fists. He punched the heavyset man in
the gut, then the head.
Not as messy as tooth and claw.
Through
the confused exclamations, the lycanthrope heard the hinges of the front doors
squeal. He glanced at the spread-eagled
sacrifice, thinking of the "Reapers'" rifles. The woman took in his full shaggy, lupine
glory. At least, she screamed within her
gag.
I'll have to get used to that, thought
Man-Wolf.
He
dove for the nearest pile of hymnals and pews as the rifle-toting cultists
trotted in. He winced as the first slugs
splintered the shellacked timbers. He
could survive numerous bullet wounds, true, but a good shot could incapacitate
him.
All right, you're the maniacal Man-Wolf,
launching his astonishing new career, thought the white-furred
beast-man. How do you beat these goons?
The
congregation, seven or eight hooded cultists, climbed to their feet and pulled
daggers from their belts. They spread
around the pile of lumber. The Reapers
ceased fire of necessity. Man-Wolf
grinned.
Bring it.
His
first knife-wielding opponent tried to plunge his blade down overhand. Tried.
Man-Wolf caught his wrist easily, twisted it down and around 180
degrees. The cowled one barely began a
yell of pain before the white werewolf released him and kicked him for a field
goal.
He
heard rather than saw one behind him.
Sight, sound, and smell fused into one omniscient Sense. He swept out his long, shaggy leg and cracked
ribs with his heel.
The
priest started chanting again. That bothered him. If the droning Latin syllables were more
important than defeating a powerful foe, the cult leader expected his litany to
do something.
The
riflemen were the most immediate threat.
They edged around the melee, elbows almost touching.
Better
you should split up, thought the militarily-trained mind of John Jameson.
He
shoved back goons like toddlers. He
hauled up a nearly whole pew, a good ten-foot length of heavy wood. He pitched it like a medicine ball as the
Reapers shouldered their weapons.
They
attempted -- unsuccessfully -- to dodge the crude missile. Man-Wolf grinned as they, their rifles, their
knives, their shoes, and a few teeth spread like dry grain over the floor.
The
lycanthrope ducked another blade and rearranged another face. He hopped over the mound of shattered
furniture and landed beside the rock slab.
This is too easy. Note to self:
The executioner is only pretending to be out.
As
Man-Wolf padded near, the burly executioner grabbed his scimitar and lurched to
his feet. The white were-beast banged
him on the head as a man might fix a recalcitrant appliance. The burly cultist collapsed again.
The
woman on the slab watched him, no longer struggling or screaming. The priest at his pulpit finished his
invocation. He swept the hood back,
revealing a bug-eyed face, the scalp above shaved bald.
"No!"
he cried.
Man-Wolf
pulled yellow nylon ropes, snapping one, then another. He sniffed the air. Something collected in the dank atmosphere,
not a smell or a sound -- something more subtle, like increasing humidity.
"No! There must be blood!" continued the
priest.
The
werewolf did not like the sound of that.
He scooped up the woman and trotted toward the door. He ignored the cultists sprawled on the floor
or wavering on hands and knees. Their
intended victim, however, squealed through her gag and pointed.
Man-Wolf
turned. The priest hopped from his
raised platform to the floor. He seized
the executioner's scimitar.
"He
must come! He must feast!"
The
werewolf did not fear the man with the fancy cutlass, but the woman might be in
danger. He knelt to set her down.
The
priest sprang -- but not in Man-Wolf's direction. He hopped onto the marble slab, raised the
scimitar -- and swept it across his own throat.
The
bald man grinned, features obscured by a fan of hot blood. He dropped flat on the stone.
Crouched
on one knee, still cradling the woman, Man-Wolf gaped. The woman worked the gag loose.
"Put
me down!"
He
rose, setting the woman upright as he did so.
"He
killed himself," the werewolf commented in a gravelly voice.
"Man,
it talks," said the woman, stumbling back.
The
white lycanthrope clacked his jaws shut.
"I
can fetch and play dead, too."
The
woman pulled coils of rope off as if brushing cobwebs.
"Sorry,
man. You gotta be one of the good
guys. You a mutant or something?"
Man-Wolf
grinned. The connotations of
"mutant" were barely better than those of "werewolf", but people
knew of those.
"Yes.
. . I'm, er, the Beast. One of the
X-Men."
"Oh? Damn, I've heard of you!"
The
exchange amused the werewolf, but the uncomfortable sense of presence
increased. He sniffed the air
instinctively.
"What?"
demanded the black woman.
"Blood,"
said Man-Wolf.
"Blood?" She glanced toward the priest.
"Not
just him," the werewolf elaborated, glancing toward the rafters. "Rusty old blood. Hot new blood. Salty ocean blood, clammy insect blood . .
."
"Uh
-- I think I'll be going now," saidd the woman. "Get back to my tent before someone
steals it. Can't trust nobody 'round
this lake --"
Man-Wolf
growled. He turned toward the half-open
front doors. A storm-crackle filled his
head like static. The woman clapped her
hands over her ears, so she heard it too.
"Heard it" isn't right, though -- it's
something psychic -- telepathic, like the Stargod's communication.
The
crackle faded, resolved. Now an evil
gibbering filled Man-Wolf's brain, and a horrid, arrogant laughter that made Arisen
Tyrk's blasphemies sound like kindergarten potty talk.
The
ten-foot leaves of the double door flew inward and upward like kites. The werewolf tackled the woman down but
turned to cradle her as they hit the floor.
Something writhed and bubbled through the entrance like noodle soup
brought to boil.
"What
did that? What --"
Man-Wolf
did not answer. He saw only a vague
outline of infrared threads -- but an outline of what?
A
gorgon's head of slipping, coiling, stovepipe-thick serpents or tentacles
roiled like the proverbial can of worms.
They surrounded a body of some sort, a pulsating mass the size of a
Volkswagen.
The
woman and the werewolf lay still like bunnies in the grass as the Thing
thunderstormed by. Bear traps of mouths
snapped and slobbered at the ends of the writhing limbs, and a telepathic hiss
of thoughts, mad and twisted thoughts, filled the air, as strange as those of a
scorpion or centipede granted intelligence.
The
werewolf's animal instincts burst like a fireworks display. The Thing was not of nature. Every atom of scent told him this was bad,
evil, horrible, worse than a larger predator, worse than men with their
gunpowder and internal combustion aura.
He puffed like a cat. He whined.
The
Thing from Outside hung like an extracted tumor over the slab. An appendage uncoiled and drew up the dead
priest's blood as an elephant's trunk draws up water. The coursing blood filled in the obscenity's
features. The woman in Man-Wolf's arms
screamed. The Thing laughed its abyssal laugh.
The
burly executioner stirred and crawled away on hands and knees. A groping limb swung down to him, and a
meter-wide leech sucker clamped onto his spine.
The cultist yelled in horror and pain as the Thing hauled him bodily
into the air.
"Lemme
the hell go!" yelled the woman.
Man-Wolf
released her. She ran for the
entrance. The were-beast thought to
follow, but --
The
Thing "looked" at him -- at least, it regarded him in some fashion,
and the feeling of unnaturalness swept over him again, scrambling his thoughts
and even the desire for self-preservation.
The
woman paused at the threshold.
"What
are you waiting for, man?"
Man-Wolf
yipped like a coyote. Though the Thing
horrified her, the woman did not feel the otherness
of it. For the first time Man-Wolf
wished for the blindness of human instinct and senses.
The
woman scooped up a chunk of wood from the busted doors. She threw it, presumably at the hideous
Feaster, but it banged on the lycanthrope's broad skull.
Thanks.
I needed that.
Man-Wolf
trotted forward. Strands of psychic
force shifted like wheat in the winds.
The Outsider followed.
I can outrun this whatsit --
The
husk of the executioner dropped on Man-Wolf like a wrecking ball. He sprawled flat and slid on the cold stone floor.
Man-Wolf's
fur bristled like porcupine quills. The
vampiric blob passed over him and on, despite his momentary helplessness. The woman screamed.
Did
it prefer human blood? Did it sense she
had been meant for it?
The
werewolf shrugged off the drained corpse.
He rose, facing the Thing's backside, like firehoses whipping around a
hot air balloon. The woman screamed
again.
No you don't!
He
sprang, assuming the woman held the horror's attention. A foot-thick tentacle snapped out and slapped
him away. He hit a bricked-over window
with a belly-buster dive of pain and kept going. He bounced in high grass with red-black
chunks of mortar.
Damn, he thought dizzily. It
senses in every direction.
He
worked his limbs. He inhaled the blood
smells, like rotten earth and slaughterhouses, with a cold dash of outer space
and autopsies. The thing was a vampire,
a hundred times worse than Morbius or Dracula, an utterly pure parasite with no
once-human form to impede it, just a circulatory system, heart-body and
aorta-arms --
He
snorted and sat up. Could it be that
simple? Could there be some connection?
The
woman ran into view from the front of the church, her shrieking, arm-waving
terror almost comical. The Feaster from
Beyond took a shortcut through the wall with all the finesse of a runaway
semi. Brick and tiles flew everywhere.
The
Thing's stolen blood glowed sickly, like the phosphorescence of some scarlet
fungus. It quivered and pulsed exactly
like a heart, its limbs like thick arteries.
Man-Wolf
rose and glanced around. What killed a
vampire? Sunlight? Hours away -- and he could just see Day-John
waking up to this nightmare long enough to scream and die.
His
gaze fell upon the lightning-blasted tree, bayonet spires jutting from its
summit. He shut down conscious thought,
fearing the Thing could read minds as well as project its unearthly
cackle. He touched the feral hate that
characterized the old Man-Wolf instead, and he sprang, fangs bared and claws
outstretched.
The
Feaster, whether a creature of instinct or intelligence, reacted
predictably. A slimy elephant's trunk
uncoiled at him and smacked him away.
Man-Wolf
hit the dead tree ten feet up, spraying bark and termite dust in all
directions. The trunk snapped off flush
with the earth. Werewolf and log
toppled.
Well, that worked, I guess.
The
tentacle-leech-aortas wavered near. He
wanted to vomit, urinate, draw his tail between his legs. He rolled up instead. He lifted the fallen tree in his clawed
fingers and whipped it around.
Still hungry? Eat this!
He
hurled the monstrous javelin with all his might. It flew with illusionary slowness toward the
Thing, like a fighter jet seen in the stratosphere. It grazed coiling red pythons and hit its
target dead center.
A
wretched abattoir stench hurricaned out with a storm surge of liquid
putrescence. Man-Wolf clamped his hands
over his ears, his howl of pain the merest echo of the Feaster's telepathic
screech.
Lamprey-necks
rolled up and shark teeth clamped onto the wood. The section of log poking from the heart-body
shattered in a hail of splinters, but the main length of the old tree hung
within the Feaster.
Gravity
finally claimed the horror. It dropped
to earth like three tons of rotten tomatoes.
The hoselike tentacles raked furrows in the turf and flipped gravestones
into the air. Thick liquids and fetid
gas bubbled out around the colossal stake.
Man-Wolf winced and snorted. He
understood a million scents of nature, but these unknown odors and fluids
temporarily blew out his olfactory nerves.
He dropped as if blinded by a nuclear blast, and could he think clearly
he would have considered the simile appropriate, though applied to a different
sense. The Thing from the Void sank down
like a stricken tent.
#
"Hey!"
Something
prodded Man-Wolf. He growled.
"Hey! Mr. Beast!"
He
snorted and flipped up on his haunches.
The black woman jumped away.
"Whoa!"
she said. "'S cool! It's dead."
"Dead?"
grumbled the werewolf.
He
sniffed the air. A smell of old blood
lingered, with an added iodine/wasp-poison background from the church. The whole side of the decaying structure was
gone, its brickwork scattered over the graveyard. A crater gaped in the earth before Man-Wolf,
clear of grass, brush, and headstones.
The splintered log lay in the center, a slimy sheen glinting in the
moonlight.
"It
sort of dissolved," explained the intended sacrifice. "Only some blue snot left."
"Hmmm
. . ."
Man-Wolf
rose, fur still riffling, nostrils still flaring. Dogs in ghost stories always freaked in the
presence of the supernatural. He could
believe it; the wolf in him only wanted to flee.
He
jumped when the woman touched his shaggy forearm.
"Chill,
man! You won! It's gone!" she said.
The
lycanthrope grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry. It was so strange . . ."
The
woman smiled. Her apparel, a gray
jogging uniform, hung thick with her sweat.
She was younger than he first thought, probably nineteen.
"Look
who's talking. I seen a lot of things in
Man-Wolf
nodded. The girl seemed oblivious now to
his appearance and near-seven-foot height.
"You're
welcome, er --"
"Tomika
Komisha Zoe
"Er
-- Miss -- Tomika."
The
teen pinched up a tuft of snowy fur.
"Do
you have a name? A real one? Or should I just call you Whitey?"
Man-Wolf
tilted an ear back. Could he ever
announce himself to the world? That was
biting off more than even he could chew.
But one person at a time . . .
"My
name is John," he said. "And
I'm not really an X-Man. I am known as
Man-Wolf."
Tomika
drew in her lip.
"Well,
I guess there's a reason for that.
Man-Wolf, Beast, X-Men -- whatever.
It's what's inside that counts, my Aunt Maisie says."
The
werewolf sniffed the air. Dawn would
arrive in about two hours -- and with it John Jameson.
"Do
you know the way back to the camp grounds?" he asked.
Tomika
pointed toward
"That
way -- I think."
Man-Wolf
sighed. She was in no condition to walk
back through the darkness alone, even if she knew where to go.
"Let
me escort you," said the werewolf, offering his wide paw-hand.
Tomika
accepted it carefully.
"Okay,
but watch those meathooks."
They
started off down a narrow, overgrown road, but after a dozen steps Tomika
wavered and fell. Man-Wolf scooped her
up in his steely arms. After a moment of
surprise, Tomika grinned.
"Ol'
Red Ridinghood didn't know what she was missing."
#
Colonel
John Jameson pulled up in front of Harry Van Deusen's cabin-office again. He stepped from the pickup as the old man
tottered out.
"Do
much fishin'?" asked Harry. He spat
on the grass.
"A
little," admitted John.
"Seemed to spend a lot of time napping. Must have tired blood."
"Fishin'
-- nappin' -- what else is a vacation foor?"
John
nodded. He dropped the keys to Cabin 18
into Van Deusen's wrinkled palm. He
stared back toward the lake.
"Sum'thin'
wrong?" asked the old man.
"I
got only a few nibbles this week," said John. "The few I hooked I hauled in. Yet I keep thinking there was a big one that got
away."
Harry
gave a toothless grin.
"Well,
go back to the city and get hitched to this Kitty of yours --"
"Kristine."
"--
And bring her here on your honeymoon.
Then you can show me the one that didn't get away."
John
grinned as well.
"We'll
do that," he promised. "She
kind of likes wildlife."
The End