Whispers of the Dark Moon

The bus dropped Elias Quinn off at the edge of the highway. There was no station, just a weathered sign that read ‘Blackpine - 2 mi’. The air was cold and smelled of damp pine and distant rain. He shouldered his backpack and started walking. The town was small. One main street with a diner, a general store, and a bar. Houses were spaced far apart, swallowed by the dense Washington forest that pressed in from all sides. His rental cabin was at the end of a dirt road. The key was under a mossy rock, as the email said. Inside, it was cold. He turned on the lights. The furniture was old, the silence absolute. He unpacked his laptop, his notebooks, his sample kits. He was here to study predator-prey dynamics. A straightforward thesis project. He liked things he could measure. That night, he ate a frozen dinner. The silence bothered him. It wasn’t peaceful. It felt like waiting. The first attack was in the news two days later. A hiker. Found a mile off the trail. The report said it was a bear. Locals in the diner didn’t think so. They spoke in low voices. Their eyes were careful. They kept looking toward the trees. Elias went into the woods anyway. He set up camera traps. Collected scat samples. The forest was too quiet. No birdsong. He found deep gouges in the bark of a cedar tree. They were too high for any local bear. He took photos and measurements. Sheriff Miller came to see him a week later. He was a big man with a tired face. “Heard you’ve been out near the ridge.” “Yes,” Elias said. “Collecting data.” “Might want to stick closer to town for a while.” “Because of the bear?” The sheriff’s eyes didn’t waver. “Something like that. Just be careful, son. Things get strange in these woods when the moon gets full.” The next night, the dreams started. Vivid, hot. Running on all fours. The smell of blood and earth. He woke up sweating, his heart pounding. His muscles ached as if he had run for miles. Three days before the full moon, a man named Samuel arrived. Elias saw him in the diner. He wore practical, durable clothing. He ordered black coffee and asked the waitress specific questions about the attacks. About the shapes of the wounds. About the timing. His eyes scanned the room and landed on Elias for a moment too long. Elias felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He finished his coffee and left. That afternoon, he met Luna. He was checking a camera trap deep in a gully when she simply appeared. She was maybe thirty, with dark hair and watchful grey eyes. She wore simple clothes but moved without sound. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said. Her voice was low. “I’m working,” he replied, holding up a sample jar. “They call it a bear,” she said, ignoring the jar. “But you know it’s not. Your numbers and cameras won’t explain this.” “What is it, then?” She looked up at the sky, where the pale disc of the moon was already visible in the afternoon light. “It’s older than bears. It’s hungry. And it’s coming for this town.” She looked back at him. “But part of it is already here. In you.” He laughed, a short, nervous sound. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She stepped closer. She didn’t smell like perfume. She smelled like ozone and cold stone. “The dreams. The aches. The feeling that your skin is too tight. Especially at night.” The words stopped him cold. He said nothing. “Your grandfather,” she said. “On your mother’s side. Where was he from?” “Norway. A small village. He died before I was born.” Luna nodded slowly. “A place with long winters. Long nights. They had names for what he was. They called it *ulvemann*. Wolf-man. The blood doesn’t always pass down. But sometimes it sleeps, and then it wakes.” “This is insane,” Elias whispered. “Is it?” She turned and pointed to the claw marks on the tree. “Measure that. What is the spread? What is the angle of incision?” He already knew. The data was in his notebook. The spread was inconsistent with a bear’s paw. The claws were longer, the pattern all wrong. He had tried to rationalize it for days. “The full moon is tomorrow night,” Luna said. “You can be in your cabin, with the doors locked. Or you can come with me. I can show you how to survive the change. The first one is… violent. People get hurt.” “Who are you?” “Someone who knows what you are. Someone who can help.” She paused. “The man in the diner. Samuel. He is not here for the bear. He is here for us. He is a hunter. He will kill you if he finds you tomorrow night.” Elias’s mind raced, rejecting, analyzing. The evidence was circumstantial. Folklore. Fear. “Think about it,” Luna said. She pulled a folded map from her pocket and dropped it on the ground. “A place in the woods. If you want to live, be there by sunset tomorrow.” She turned and walked into the trees. In seconds, she was gone. Elias stood alone. The silence of the forest was back. It felt like a held breath. He picked up the map. The location was marked in pencil. Deep in the state forest, far from any trail. He walked back to his cabin, his thoughts a storm. He spent the evening trying to work. The data on his screen blurred. His body hummed with a strange, restless energy. His senses felt sharp, too sharp. He could hear mice in the walls. Smell the mildew under the floorboards. He looked at the map again. Then he looked at the moon through his window. It was nearly full, glowing behind a veil of cloud. He packed a bag. Water, first aid kit, a knife, a flashlight. He didn’t know why. He lay in bed but couldn’t sleep. His bones ached. His jaw felt stiff. In the dark, a new sound crept into his mind. It was faint at first, like static. Then it clarified into a chorus of low, resonant whispers. They had no words, only intent. A pull. A call. It was coming from the moon. He sat up, his breath fogging in the cold room. The rational part of his mind, the scientist, was screaming that this was psychosis. Stress-induced. The other part, the part that felt the truth in his aching marrow, just listened. The whispers grew louder. He got out of bed. He put on his boots. He picked up the backpack and the map. He had a choice. Lock the door. Wait for sunrise. Or go into the woods. He opened the door and stepped out into the cold, silvered night. The whispers swelled, not in his ears, but in his blood. He started walking toward the trees.