Authors: William D. Carl
| M IKELSON : | From what we can tell, the metamorphosis begins between the shoulder blades. You can see the way the back changes, the bones relocating beneath the skin as he starts to grow hair over his body. As he turns, you can see the way his face elongates into a snout. Witnesses have stated that the sounds of crunching bone can be heard during this process. Observe the way the ears seem to stretch, fold themselves forward into concave shapes, similar to a dog or a bear. Can we slow this bit down, Alan? Thanks. |
(Tape rolling)
The man’s mouth opens, and the tape crawls in slow motion, a frame at a time. His teeth seem to push outward from bleeding gums, making room for longer, sharper fangs that shove their way past the normal teeth. The old teeth remain, crowded into a growing maw that makes room for the additional dental work. The hair distends a frame at a time.
| M IKELSON : | The entire process seems to take about two to three minutes. The resulting hybrid appears to be similar to a wolf, but with bear-like aspects, especially in the way they rear up on their hind legs. The claws appear to be a little more than an inch long, and the teeth about three to four inches at their largest. The animal, once completely transformed from the human, is aggressive and carnal. |
(Tape rolling)
The creature flips itself to its four legs on the hood of the car, smashing the metal beneath heavy feet. Whipping its head from side to side, it pounces upon a woman who was in the process of transforming. It rips out her throat in a single, massive bite. She claws for a moment, then dies as the beast feeds on her. Blood shoots across the street in an arterial spray. Behind them, others have changed and are racing through the stalled cars, attacking other animals.
Several of them begin copulating, the male thrusting from behind, the females raising their heads to the night sky and howling silently. Some of the females fight back, clawing and biting, but the males continue their incessant pounding.
(Tape stop)
| M IKELSON : | We have in the studio Doctor Ralph Graver, a specialist in the behavior of mammals, especially wolves. Doctor Graver, let me start by being blunt. Are these actually werewolves? |
| R ALPH G RAVER : | No, Fred, I don’t believe they are, although they display some of the distinctive physical traits of wolves—the pointed ears, the elongated canine snout. This is something else altogether. |
| M IKELSON : | Like what? |
| G RAVER : | In Eastern European mythology, the werewolf is an offshoot of the lycanthrope, a mystical human who can shape-shift into a large animal, like a wolf or bear or lion. Although the European lycanthrope can only be killed using silver, whether pummeled to death by something silver or the infamous silver bullet, these creatures last night could be killed in any manner that a human could. Many were torn apart or shot by regular bullets or run over with cars. Still, there could be a grain of truth in these myths, and it would be easier if we simply refer to them as lycanthropes. It’s as good a name as any. |
| M IKELSON : | It does appear as though all of them changed back this morning in the daylight. What can you tell us about these creatures’ behaviors? |
| G RAVER : | Very little, as of yet. We need to study the people who have changed, as well as the ones who didn’t. From the tapes I’ve watched, it seems that they become extremely animalistic, lacking anything resembling human social faculties. They exist simply to kill, eat, and reproduce. They seek to fulfill only the basest needs of ourselves and of the animals these creatures seem to emulate. |
| M IKELSON : | Food and sex? |
| G RAVER : | Yes. I believe that’s right, but we should know more in a few days. I do want to warn people that tonight there will be another full moon, just like last night. Taking precautions wouldn’t be such a bad idea, especially if they have family members who did not transform yesterday. |
| M IKELSON : | Doctor Graver, just what effect does the full moon have on the transformation? |
| G RAVER : | Once again, we aren’t sure. It could have something to do with the wavelength of the moonlight during a full moon, a physical catalyst to the change. Then again, several werewolf myths maintain it’s related to the effect of the moon on tides. The blood is affected in a similar manner, you see? In any case, there’s a full moon tonight, and there will be a full moon for a few hours on the following night. It’s best not to take chances. If you didn’t change, it’s very important that you relocate to one of the shelters that we’ll soon announce. We are in the process of setting up these shelters for such people, safe houses where they can sleep tonight. We need to interview them, to find out why they are immune to the metamorphosis. We also need to be sure they remain safe, even if that means hiding them someplace. |
| M IKELSON : | We’ll know more about that later, as the mayor, the vice mayor, the chief of police, and even this station’s manager are still missing. |
| G RAVER : | Well, if they haven’t shown up yet, they’re probably dead. |
| M IKELSON : | Um … thank you, Dr. Graver. More later. As a reminder, the rolling banner below shows places where you can receive medical attention as well as eat breakfast. Volunteers and staffers in these locations can tell you where to go in case the moon actually does bring about this metamorphosis tonight. |
| | So far, we aren’t sure about the extent of this epidemic. Phone lines are down, as is the electricity in most areas. We have managed to e-mail a fellow television station in London, and they report that there’ve been no occurrences of Lycanthrope Syndrome in Great Britain. This is also the case with affiliates in Mexico and Australia. Our stations in New York and Los Angeles report that there have been no sightings. In the meantime, we have sent a reporter with a camera to the Ohio River, where several people have reported sustained gunfire and explosions. When he returns, we hope to have more data, but it seems as though, so far, the phenomena is limited to the immediate Cincinnati area. Stay tuned. … |
SEPTEMBER 17, 11:55 A.M.
W
hen Christian saw the damage the beast-men had inflicted upon his city, he could think of only one man who might have answers. Since living on the streets, he knew only one smart person: the old Frenchman who paid him for sexual favors—Jean. He was a scientist. He would know what was causing this insanity.
Christian knew where the old man lived, having eaten there, showered there, and sometimes done business there. Tracking down the old man was going to be difficult for him, as it added a lot of baggage. Still, if he was going to survive—unlike the people he was stepping over in the streets, who were now just mutilated corpses—he would need someone who could guide him. He would need an adult, even if it was some old dude who liked young guys.
He could, of course, return home, but the monsters that dwelled there were far more daunting than the ones that had run wild in the streets. The werewolf-things seemed to have gone away in the daylight, but his father’s face always seemed more sinister in the morning, his true visage hidden behind a smile. Christian had promised himself that he would never go back home, never have to withstand that life again. He would rather die.
Christian had learned to trust the old man, sensing something out of the ordinary about the way Jean treated him. Trust was a scarce commodity on the streets of the city. Once earned, it wasn’t easy to dispatch. He’d misplaced his trust before—in his father, who had raped him and handed him over to other pedophiles. Once, he’d trusted his mother, but she’d been so busy looking the other way and attending social functions that she never noticed the bruises or the bleeding.
Christian had been on his own for long enough that he felt he couldn’t trust anyone. Unscrupulous johns had beaten him and stolen his money. Bashers had chased him into dark alleys and kicked and clobbered him to a bloody pulp, their cries of “faggot” ringing in the night. Policemen often ignored him, or—worse—demanded favors for their discretion.
But Jean Cowell, this old guy with a boy-toy fixation, had given Christian access to his apartment, his showers, and his food, bundling meals for him to take back to the warehouse. He had even offered to move Christian into his place, to take care of him, like a father, but Christian had already escaped the clutches of one father-rapist, and he didn’t think he could live with another. He’d always believed that if worse came to worst, he could crash in the old man’s extra room, but he hadn’t arrived at that desperate point yet.
Until today.
He leaped over puddles of blood to reach the classy apartment on Fourth Street, trying not to trip over any bodies, not to step in the remains of some poor soul. The farther he walked into the downtown area, the harder it became to avoid the corpses.
Jean’s home was on the corner of Fourth and Plum, only five blocks away from the warehouse where Christian lived in his elevator. Still, it took almost an hour to reach the building. Cincinnati, it appeared, had erupted into a bubbling volcano of chaos.
He climbed over cars that were stalled in the streets, their batteries run-down, doors gaping open. Once, when leaping back onto the ground, he put his foot through somebody’s rib cage. The crunching sound made him sick, and the ribs seemed to clutch at his foot. He shook his leg violently to extract himself from the corpse’s terrible grip.
At several points he encountered other people, lost souls who muttered to themselves, their eyes wide with shock and suspicion. One old lady, the left side of her face covered in blood, said a rosary while she fondled herself. A young couple threw a brick through the front window of a camera store.
Christian tried to steer a wide path around them, preferring to trust only in himself. He’d had altercations with crazy street people
before, and they were always stronger than they looked. Many of them were drug addicts, or they were mentally deranged in ways he’d never understood. Better to stick to the opposite side of the sidewalk and avoid dark alleys.
He didn’t see any of the beast-men on the streets. The sun was shining, and if he looked into the sky, at the buildings towering around him, he could almost pretend nothing strange had occurred. Only a few shattered, smoking windows near the top of some skyscrapers spoiled the effect. He wondered how those windows had broken. Had people leaped from them?
Every few minutes he heard gunshots, usually from the Kentucky side of the river. A loud boom drowned out the rifle cracks. He wondered what wars were being waged beyond his vision.
When he reached the apartment complex, he noticed the door was ajar, barely hanging from one hinge. The awning over the entrance had been torn down, and the bit of fabric that remained flapped lazily in the breeze, a tattered, clawed mess. The doorman wasn’t on duty, and there didn’t seem to be anyone manning the desk in the lobby, so he tiptoed across the marble floor, amazed at the wreckage that had once been furniture, chairs and end tables. Now it was reduced to rubble, the pieces flung about the corners of the room.
The electricity was still out, so he couldn’t take the elevator. Sighing, he thought,
Twenty-six fuckin’ floors
.
Jean, you couldn’t live near the bottom, could you
?
Oh well, may as well get started
.
This could take a while.
His steps echoed in the stairwell, which was surprisingly devoid of dead bodies and garbage. The silence was creepier than the gibbering of the crazy people in the street.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he ascended to the sixteenth floor; he stopped, his hand clutching the rail, his breath coming in fast pants. The air was stifling and hot.
In the middle of the landing, near a small window, someone had dropped a Raggedy Ann doll. It lay faceup, its empty eyes staring at the ceiling, its mouth stitched into a moonstruck grin, arms and legs akimbo. As Christian leaned over the doll, he saw a single drop of blood on the floor beside the doll’s head, about an inch in diameter. It
was a shocking reminder that things were seriously amiss with the world, that families, including small children, had recently dashed down these stairs, possibly running for their lives.
Children weren’t exempt from the horrors of the night. Christian knew this better than most people.
Moving around the doll so he wouldn’t put his foot in the stain, he continued his ascent.
A few floors higher, he heard someone open and shut one of the fire doors that led to the stairwell. The sound clanged off the cement walls, vibrant and alarming. He couldn’t be sure whether the person was an ally or an enemy, but he knew he had little recourse except to climb higher, to reach the twenty-sixth floor, where he hoped to find Jean. He just prayed he wouldn’t meet someone on the stairs
He wondered if the old man was even home. He could have been infected, too, could have roamed the streets, his fur a silver-tinged shade of brown, his muzzle gray. Christian wasn’t sure what he would find in the apartment.
But it was all he had to work with. A single lifeline to grab hold of, a final straw before he took to the streets in search of other survivors. If Jean was alive, and if he wasn’t one of the beast-men, then he would be company Christian could trust. He needed a friend, needed any sort of human companionship, more and more as the hours ticked by.
He stopped for a moment, listening to the echoes that haunted the stairway, lingering like memories almost lost to time. A shuffling overhead, a few soft footfalls, then the opening of yet another door, this one farther away from him.