ONE AGAINST THE PACK

CHAPTER FIVE : The Man, Marcus

Across the small river, tucked among the bushes of the Trocian Creek, was Marcus’ house, a wooden shack which was smaller than Stella’s. He lived a lonely life, surrounded by no other houses within the radius of three miles. He transported by boat when he needed to go into town to get necessities, or hunt down werewolves that prowled the night. He was the only hunter in the whole town and was secret about it. And there were too many of these beasts to kill, so the crimes and killings prevailed.

He told Leo these as he examined the wounds on his back.

‘The government are wasting their time if they think their bullets can put out the wolves,’ he said, adjusting the intensity of the lamp he held strapped on his forehead. Leo groaned his response. His bank and right side burned. His right leg, where he had been pulled along by the werewolf looked worse. The holes made by the teeth were each deep enough to take in two fingers. Leo himself marvelled at how he was able to endure the pain.

‘You lost a great deal of blood,’ his uncle said. ‘Do you feel faint?’

Leo wasn’t sure what that meant. ‘A little, I guess.’

Marcus sighed and took a seat beside Leo’s who was lying on a low table. He turned his lamp on the wounds on his side. He felt a pang of pain when he realized it was a wolf’s wound. There was no way to save the boy now.

‘Leonard,’ he called softly.

‘Uncle.’

‘You have been infected.’ He waited for it to sink in, and when the boy wasn’t responding he went on. ‘Do you know anything about werewolves?’

‘The wolves out there? Just read some fiction and stuff.’

‘Yes. You see,’—he adjusted in his seat—‘those wolves there, they are humans, every single one of them.’

Leo raised his head in puzzlement. ‘How is that?’

‘I shall not go into long history. Werewolves are half human, half wolf. Some of them, actually. I’ll tell you how it works. It is spread by a powerful ancient virus and is transmitted through blood contact, or saliva. When a normal human is bitten, the venom spreads into his bloodstream, and from there three things can happen.’ He went away to shut a window; the wind was getting colder. He fed the chimney with more wood and poured himself a cup of coffee.

‘Make that two, please,’ Leo said from behind him.

He turned to see that he was now seated. He wasn’t surprised that the venom was making him more immune instead of killing him.

‘Here.’ He handed him a steaming mug. He sat back down and watched him sip from the mug. ‘Do you feel strange?’

‘I feel dead,’ he said through the steam, without looking at his uncle.

‘Accept my condolences. Your mother didn’t deserve to die at all.’

‘But she is, and my brother, too. And their killers are out there, roaming freely.’

Leo winced as his swinging leg collided with the leg of the table. He examined the teeth wound on his ankle and turned back to his uncle, a new anxiety in his eyes. ‘Tell me more about the poison.’

This was the hard moment. Marcus advised himself to dilute the explicitness of his description. Before he answered, Marcus dug out a stick of cigarette and lighted it. After a drag and puff, he began:

‘When a human is bitten, the results are diverse. If the host’s body system is weak, in the case of most children, they die immediately or after some short time. Then if the host is strong enough to house the virus, they turn to werewolves, typically during a full moon. The process is extremely painful for the first time. You know, their bones enlarging, reshaping, all those thick fur and large teeth. Some even pass out in the process, if the venom lets them. These people remain werewolves for life, while others, a few, can transform back to humans at will or when the full moon is lost to the light of dawn.’

Leo had a look of horror in his eyes.

‘Where does that place me, uncle?’ he stuttered.

Marcus swallowed hard and placed a comforting hand on the younger man’s knee. The fingers in his head groped for the right words. But all he found to say was:

‘All the time, I’ll be here for you.’

* * *

Leo lay awake on the mat, watching the dull, flickering reflection of the candles on the ceiling and walls. The night was silent and the hearth burned brilliantly. A little farther from him, in a little section of the large square room separated by a lacy curtain, his uncle snored in what Leo assumed to be deep sleep.

Leo did not quite know how he was related to Marcus. All he knew in that light was that when he had grown old enough to acknowledge his face, his mother said he was a ‘family friend’ and insisted that they—he and Damian—called him Uncle Marcus. She also did warn them, albeit passively, not to mention him or his spontaneous visits to their father Desmond. Whenever Marcus came, he played chess with the boys and laugh heartily when Damian beat him black and blue. Damian was all over him, but Leo always thought he allowed his younger brother to win just to make him feel good about him.

Leo, however, felt creepy about Marcus. He often caught him staring at him or his brother in a longing way he couldn’t understand. Leo had always tried to interpret the looks but could not. So, he distanced himself from him, believing Marcus was an evil person.

It wasn’t only the strange looks that bothered Leo. Marcus didn’t dress like the average 20th century man. He donned in black or brown leather coats, a thick Jewish turban or a cowboy hat. His feet were always buried in never- aging boots. Leo had once asked his mother why he dressed thus. Stella only laughter and said Marcus was a hunter and believed he was immortal. Leo laughed, too, but when he got to think about it, he didn’t see what being a game hunter or an immortal had to do with dressing like a demon slayer of the world of fiction.

Suspiciously, the next time he visited, he arrived dressed in jeans and a sky-blue shirt that plastered to his body like a second skin. It looked so odd on him that Leo excused himself, jaywalked to the backyard and erupted into bouts of laughter.Suspiciously, the next time he visited, he arrived dressed in jeans and a sky-blue shirt that plastered to his body like a second skin. It looked so odd on him that Leo excused himself, jaywalked to the backyard and erupted into bouts of laughter.

But everything changed one afternoon. Their father had popped into the house and decided that their mother was a w***e ad slept around with government men to get ‘stories’ for her paper. He made sure to involve Leo and his brother.

‘Your mother here, my dear boys, is a cheap slut and a leg spreader,’ he declared, eyes darting wildly in their sockets. ‘Do you believe me?’

Leo turned to look at their mother who was standing frozen in the middle of the house, holding a hammer and a piece of wood to close a hole through which rats came into the house. Her face was as shocked and speechless like a slammed door. Soon, there ensued a very heated argument, and the next moment, a fight broke out. It was more of a lynching. Desmond picked up anything he laid his hands on –stools, twines, the hammer—and flung it at her. Leo and Damian ran helter-skelter, too terrified to fight back at him. It reached to a point where she slumped on the floor near a wall, too weak and battered to defend the blows anymore. Desmond stood over her, tall and wide like an idol, wielding a leather belt. Damian was beside their mother, wailing and hugging her and their father was too occupied trying to pry him away to notice when Leo snuck up behind him, holding an object.

The aluminium ladle swooped down and broke to pieces on Desmond’s waist. The sound was deafening and frightening. Leo heard the loud gasps from his mother and brother. Desmond stood still for a while, his face a round hole as he wondered how Leo’s strength could be so excruciatingly painful.

‘What did you hit me?’ he croaked, turning to glower at him. They now stood at about the same height. Desmond touched his waist and checked his fingers for blood. There was none but as he noticed he was leaping as he charged towards Leo.

Then it came.

The grey fog.

(Later, in a bid to explain it and steer it out from the paranormal, their mother had said she saw him standing at the door, and saw him running towards them in quiet a human speed. The grey fog, in her opinion, was a fragment of Leo’s imaginations.)

But Leo was sure of it. A human sized grey smoke—just like that evening when he was surrounded by death—whooshed in between him and his father and in the next moment settled to become a human: Uncle Marcus.

Leo noticed the rapid successive changes on Desmond’s expressions. First it was a familiar and primal anger, and then, noticing Leo’s watch he assumed profound shock at the extraordinary entrance.

‘What the hell...’ Desmond stuttered after he couldn’t hold the stare down any longer. ‘Who are you?’

‘You know me,’ Uncle Marcus said. ‘Leave the boys and Stella alone.’

‘Or what?’ he snarled, baring yellowed teeth. Or what, mister voodoo? You’ll cast a spell on me? Or entrap my soul in a jar? Tell me how to run my own family. Go on.’

Leo had never seen his father act so girlish and eager for a fight. It was so sickening. And the rehearsed way he spoke to Marcus showed they did know each other, and it wasn’t on friendly grounds. The sound of their breathing was barely drowned by the noise from the streets. Finally Marcus gave in and walked towards the door.

‘You’d better get going,’ Desmond resumed after him. ‘My family and I are Christians and totally normal, we want none of your evil wizardry here.’

Then it happened. Marcus stopped at the door and, with a speed of insects’ wings, his hand went into his coat, and flung towards Leo. There was a metallic flash in front of Leo’s eyes. It was accompanied by a kind of ash and wind. Leo was too mesmerized to duck, and even if he had, the weapon would have still caught him. He closed his eyes and waited for the sharp pain. But he didn’t feel anything. When his eyes fluttered open, he saw Desmond holding the object between his fingers: it looked like a ninja star. Then his fingers began to burn, making a hissing sound like a slab of meat on a red hot plate. He dropped the object, groaned and hid his fingers beneath his coat. He barked at Marcus.

‘Out of here, you devil!’

Marcus gave a little triumphant smile and walked out into the streets. And Desmond turned to them and, as though he read the question on their faces, said, ‘It’s reflex, boys, just reflex. Fatherly- propelled. And that there’—he pointed at the metal star lying on the rug—‘mustn’t be touched by bare hands. It’s dangerous.’

That incident made Leo conscious of the supernatural world. He began to ask his mother unanswered questions about Marcus and, in school, started scouting the library for books about supernatural beings and people. One day he came across a twilight-blue cover book. On the cover was the picture of a large wolf peeling away to become human. It was a gory image and Leo wondered why it was allowed in the school library. It was a non-fiction tale of a young boy who was dropped into a den of wolves. He began to quickly flip through the pages, his head taking in the fast-moving words and the explicit images of the wolves becoming humans, attacking humans or going from humans to wolves.

Suddenly his ears filled with loud whispers that superimposed atop each other; they weren’t human voices, they sounded more like panting, growling, of prophesies and curses, of becoming what you read. The pages of the book disappeared and in their place were flashing images of paws, yellow teeth, blood and flying ropes of saliva. Then a loud howl rang out at the bank of his head. He staggered and hit a shelf behind him which clashed into the one behind it and set it falling. He didn’t wait anymore. He flung the cursed book into the darkness and ran out of the building.

The images were present in his dreams, too, realer and glossier. He saw himself fighting with animals whose identities he couldn’t discern. They outnumbered, surrounded and tore him apart. He would force himself awake and sit up on his sleep mat watching the flickers of yellow light from the candles.

Just like he did now. Except now that, instead of him being attacked, it was his brother and mother torn apart between the claws of the beasts.

He rubbed his eyes with a hand, trying to keep them open. Sleep still prickled his eyes but he was too terrified to go back there. They were still waiting for him, in their claws and hundreds.

He staggered to his feet. He failed to notice the lack of pain from his earlier wounds. If he had, he might have checked and would notice that they were near fully healed. He began to take in the room. It was an archive of countless tables, stools, cases and hanging dame guns. Several science- related tubes and Bunsen burners sat on the tables. The room was crowded but not disorderly. There was not an item kept where it shouldn’t be.

The two windows were made of glass, which was slightly unusual for a wooden house. The curtains were all drawn but there was a little uncovered opening on which he the slit of his reflection. The night was alight with the full moon and the shadows of the tree branches quavered on the windows, visible even through the curtains. Leo bit down the urge to steal a peek.

He quietly picked his way through the furniture, touching objects and sniffing jars. There was a patent spookiness and aura in the room, emanating from each object he saw. It felt like walking through a church archive in a vampire infested town. You did not know if you were wholly safe, or if the clergy man walking beside you was a vampire in disguise. But it was theoretically the safest place to be. Yet.

He turned to look at the silhouette of his uncle behind the curtain, suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of suspicion and fear. Was Marcus whom he appeared to be?

Leo’s head went wild with thoughts. His so-called uncle might be one of the werewolves and was just helping to entrap him here. Everything was possible. It all began to make sense now: the mysterious way he gawked at him and his brother, the strangeness of not wanting them to tell his father about his visits. And, finally that afternoon when he shot that ninja star at him with full intention to kill him. Marcus was the enemy and his father was only trying to protect him. Glancing back again to check if he was still there, Leo began to look for something to arm himself with.

He needed to be noiseless as possible. He took a candle stand and hovered it over the objects on the tables and walls. His eyes fell on the two dame guns on the wall. He didn’t know how to use a gun and getting it down might cause a noise.

He turned again to ensure his uncle was still there. Should he just sneak over and strangle him? No, he would be easily overpowered. Smash his head with a stool? Or a bludgeon? Right. His eyes scanned the floor and there in the corner it laid, the perfect weapon. It was an old rusted cleaver knife covered with dust and cobwebs. He picked the weapon and just before he rose, he heard the sound of running feet just beyond the wall. He shot up to his full height. His eyes instinctively went to the windows and he saw them.

Moving shadows of what looked like animals.

Leo needed no one to tell him what animals those were. He remembered his uncle and wanted to go wake him when he remembered his suspicions. The werewolves had arrived and his uncle was about to give him off. Leo’s tongue dried up with fear. He clasped the knife firmly in his trembling hand and the candlestick on the other. He moved out from the corner towards the centre of the room. His eyes went to the curtain and his fears were confirmed.

The silhouette of his uncle was not there anymore.

Behind him came the hushed voice of his uncle.

‘Don’t make a sound.’

The candlestick fell from his hands and the room was thrown into pitch darkness.