The Power of Moonlight

The brush moved quickly past their moving legs. The older male looked back to his younger brother, his tongue hanging out in a comical smile. If the wolf had the ability he would find this quite hilarious. The older wolf looked up to the sky at the moon. It was full, but only in the sky for a few more hours. He heard the sound of a river up ahead of him. He barked stern but quietly to the smaller wolf. They ran in the direction of the river.

Once they arrived, the older wolf sniffed the air. The smell of man was gone. The younger wolf started nipping at the older wolf’s tail. The older one turned and growled playfully. The two wolf’s started wrestling and when they were done they drank from the river, then layed down to sleep.

A branch snapped, the older wolf woke first. He sniffed the air, there was a deer, young by the smell of it, in the brush ahead of him. He looked to the other wolf, and stalked off into the bushes after the deer. The fawn was in a small clearing crying out. It must have been lost, it was too young to fend for itself. The wolf jumped on its back and sank it’s fang’s into the fawn’s throat. Blood spilled onto the ground. The wolf breathed deep into the scent. He caught another smell in the air. Man. The wolf ran back to it’s younger brother. Then it heard the sound of a rifle going off.

As the wolf came into the bushes across from where his brother lay he seen a man standing there. Rifle smoking still, the smell of gunpowder hung acridly in the air. The man was looking down where there once was a wolf but now was a little boy. The man said something the wolf couldn’t understand in this form, but the human part of the wolf’s brain caught the gist. The man had only heard of were-wolves in fairy tales. He never expected that the wolves that killed one of his cattle was actually a mythical creature. Even after watching the transformation the man still didn’t believe it. The man picked up the boy and went off on his horse back to his ranch. The older wolf looked on as a tear left it’s eye.

The lone wolf looked up to the moon. Less than an hour before the sun rose again and he would change back to human form. He headed back towards the man’s ranch. When he arrived, the man was getting his horse ready. Possibly to take the dead child to town. The wolf smelled the air and heard a human voice coming from the house. The man started off with a couple of his hands. The wolf ran to the house.

Inside a little boy about the same age as the were-wolf’s brother was standing there looking at the huge wolf in his doorway. The boy screamed. The wolf lunged and knocked the boy over, the wolf tore into the child. The sun was already coming up and the change was taking the were-wolf. The wolf’s legs stretched and skewed. The hair started to retreat back into his body. Sinew and muscles stretched, joints popped. He was halfway through the change and he screamed. It was an inhuman scream, half scream half growl.

The rancher and his two hands came in and seen the boy’s body. They looked up and standing over the boy was a wolf that looked more man. One of the hands dropped their rifle, they other shot and hit the were-wolf in the shoulder. The were-wolf summoned up the last bit of his strength to stop the change where it was at. He jumped at the rancher and bit down on his throat. The rancher’s gun went off and the bullet pierced the wolf-man’s heart. The change finished and the two men fell to the floor, bleeding to death.

The two hands dug a ditch and put logs into it. They carried the four bodies outside and placed them all onto the wood and lit it. Off in the distance a wolf howled at the approaching sun.