Moonlight Reckoning : claws and fangs

Chapter 1 He nervously kept looking around as he stood on the balcony, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. This had started a few days back when he thought he spotted a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at him from the nearby bushes when he had been sitting by the balcony watching the stars and having a beer. At first Liam thought he was just drunk but then the eerie feeling wouldn't leave him and he was starting to feel paranoid. He had called his close friend, Andy whom he told about the whole glowing eyes saga. Andy chuckled and advised him to get some rest, he thought his friend was just hoping for some attention since he had been living by himself at the cabin outside the city and the place was just in a secluded forest. When Andy kept dismissing him, Liam then decided to invite him over hoping he would understand when he got there and fortunately he agreed. When he got to the cabin, Liam welcomed him very warmly as always, “Man when was the last time you slept, you look like a zombie,” said Andy as soon as he got inside. Liam just gave a faint smile and shrugged but didn't say a word then walked towards the fridge and grabbed two bottles of beer, passed one to his friend who was still looking at him with concern then walked towards the balcony. Andy just followed quietly behind to where they both sat down and watched. After a while, Andy said he was going to bed as he claimed he was tired from all the driving to which Liam nodded without any excuse to keep him since they had been sitting there for almost two hours and nothing had happened. Andy proceeded to leave, while Liam just there starting to feel like maybe he was just being delusional and paranoid because of the sleep deprivation. After a while when he was about to go to bed also, he thought he detected a low growl coming from the huge tree that was at least thirty feet from his balcony, he instantly stood up and started to nervously back away toward the house where he grabbed a huge flashlight and his hunting shotgun which he had prepared in advance. He turned the flashlight on and pointed it at the huge tree across his balcony, as soon as the flashlight went off he again saw a pair of the yellow glowing eyes then a second later they were gone. He just grabbed his shotgun and fired twice towards the trees where he had seen the eyes. A whimper echoed through the night and seconds later Andy had rushed downstairs he had been woken up by the sound of the gunshots. When he got to the balcony, he didn't say a word because he had heard the whimpering cry and it clearly wasn't human whatever Liam had shot, so he just grabbed the flashlight Liam had put down to fire his g*n and pointed it to where the huge tree stood. They stood there, scanning the darkness, but saw nothing, then they slowly approached the tree after a while. When they got close they noticed a small hole on the tree which meant that one shot had missed but the other one had hit the target precisely since there was a pool of blood at the scene. After they were sure that whatever this beast was, was no where to be seen they went back to the cabin both shocked and quiet, when they got back inside Liam went straight to his hunting gear closet and brought out another rifle and a bag of ammunition which he passed to his friend who was starting to regret ever coming to this cabin. After a long silence, Andy finally spoke up, “What do you think that was man? I don't know about you but I am really freaking out,” he asked hoping his friend would have a valid explanation. “I don't know Andy, but it was surely huge and it had these sharp yellow eyes that glowed when I flashed it,” explained Liam. “So what do we do now?” asked Andy with a worried look on his face. “Let's wait for dawn then we track it, find it and finish it because all this time I wasn't hallucinating whatever this was, it has been watching me for a while probably waiting for the right time to pounce on me and now that I've attacked it first I am sure this time around it won't come to watch me,” explained Liam while his friend nodded as he understood the intensity of the situation. Liam had been living in that cabin for months now, it had belonged to his uncle who had disappeared a while back before he had moved there. He was now the last person alive in his family, his parents had passed away, his mother had died in a car crash then his father had a sudden attack and died just a few months after. He lost both of his parents when he was just thirteen years old and his uncle Danny had taken him under his wing and brought up at the cabin. He would go to school in the city while he stayed with a friend of his uncle until he was twenty two years old when his uncle disappeared from the cabin without a trace. Liam would visit his uncle almost every weekend but one day he had shown up at the cabin only to find it deserted with his uncle gone, signs showing no one had been to the house in a short while. A search team had been assigned to find the man but there was no luck so Liam decided to move to the cabin and live there. Liam was now a lean, tall young man with raven black hair and a pair of sleepy eyes. As planned the two young men started following the blood trail early in the morning at the c***k of dawn. Liam had been hunting with his uncle since he was twelve so he did possess a particular set of hunting and tracking skills which were being really handy for their mission. From the blood trail, Liam determined that whatever this creature was, had fled at an incredible speed and also left a weird set of prints which he couldn't determine what creature they belonged to. Just a short distance of following the trail, it vanished which left the two men puzzled, the blood trail was gone and the prints too so they just looked around for any sign of clues to how that had happened but to their surprise they had nothing. After looking around for a while, they decided to head back with both of their hearts pounding in their chests in fear as they walked back in silence. When they arrived at the cabin it was very clear to the two men that they were to leave immediately, without anyone saying a word they both started packing the essentials then they got into Andy's car. The car broke down and halted to a stop just a few feet from its previous parking spot, this incident made the both men panic and they both started trying to fix the car. After a while with no luck, they had even tried to make multiple phone calls but as remote as the place was they had no signal. “What do we do now? because there is absolutely no way we can fix this car,” asked Andy regretting why he had refused to pay attention when his father was working on them at his garage. “We should stay calm and try not to make irrational decisions. I say we arm ourselves then go back inside because even if we decided to walk it would be dark before we even get anywhere and we have a better chance to defend ourselves here than out there in the dark,” replied Liam passing a bottle of beer to his friend who clearly needed it for his nerves. Then Liam started placing lights on the few trees around the house so they would have a much broader area of vision. They sat inside until it got dark then Liam approached the lamp switch which turned all the lights he had placed around the cabin on, then he and Andy proceeded to grab their guns and went to sit by the balcony while keeping a close eye on their surroundings. They kept watch for hours and nothing happened, as mentally exhausted as both of them were, they dozed off. They were both woken up by the rustling sound of leaves nearby, as they both tried to adjust and get their gear, a huge grey werewolf leaped towards them at an insane speed giving them no time to flee or attack. Then before the grey wolf could rip the two men into shreds, a brown wolf suddenly pounced on the grey wolf, sending it flying from across the yard. The two wolves were extremely larger than the normal wolf size, at least by three times and more fierce. Then the two beasts started to battle fiercely while two men rushed inside totally forgetting their guns outside. The battle outside grew intense while the two men continued to hide in terror. After a while the two large animals in the clearing suddenly stopped and started to growl at each other while circling around obviously both trying to intimidate their opponent. Liam with a leap of bravery, slowly sneaked outside to grab his g*n but the grey wolf saw him and moved to attack him to which the brown wolf intercepted by directly pouncing and sinking its claws deep into the other creature. The two wolves crashed on the balcony missing Liam by a couple of inches, then the two creatures growled at each other, clearly the grey wolf had lost as it seemed to have more wounds than its opponent so it growled then fled the scene leaving the other wolf still growling in the partially damaged balcony. The wolf stood there for a while with its back turned towards Liam who finally took the chance to grab his g*n and pointed towards it. As he was about to pull the trigger, the wolf turned its head towards him but didn't move to attack and Liam hesitated to pull the trigger when he saw its eyes, he was sure it was the same yellow eyes he had seen before. It stared at him for a while then it slowly left, clearly limping from the huge gash on one of its front legs, Liam also slowly lowered his g*n completely confused about what had just happened. Before vanishing into the trees the wolf turned its head and looked at Liam then sped off, Andy also walked out of the house and looked around in confusion as he reached for his g*n. “What happened bro, why didn't you shoot it?” asked Andy, obviously puzzled by his friend's actions. “Because it wasn't attacking us, it was defending us and when it looked at me there was just something about its eyes which wouldn't let me pull the trigger,” answered Liam as he sank to the chair beside him whilst Andy also did the same. After a long silence, Andy asked another question “You did see its eyes, right?” “Yes Andy I did,” answered the inpatient Liam “What about the other one?”Andy proceeded to ask. “Yes I did, they were blue,” replied Liam, really intrigued to what Andy was about. “What doesn't make sense to me is that yesterday you attacked and shot yellow eyes but today he came back and protected us from turning into some wolf's delicacy and according to you it seems the creature had been watching you for a while,” Andy said while gazing up. “Wish I knew why buddy, wish I knew,” responded Liam. They then took turns to keep watch while the other slept. The following morning the two started preparing to leave but when they both stepped out they noticed someone wearing a back coat working on Andy's car at a distance, where it had given out, so they both grabbed their guns, pointed them towards the strange man as they approached him. As they got closer, the man suddenly started walking away. They were puzzled because he hadn't turned his head but it was pretty obvious he was aware of their presence. Liam shouted to the man to stop or he would shoot but the man continued to move, so Liam fired a shot intentionally missing the man to scare him but also show him they were serious and not joking. Regardless of the shot, the man was unfazed as he continued to move away but before he vanished he said, “If you wanted to shoot me Liam you wouldn't have hesitated and I also fixed your car, leave now it isn't safe out here.” The two men were left puzzled. “How do you know who I am?” asked Liam with his voice raised at the strange man but the man just laughed and disappeared into the trees. After the strange man had left, Andy rushed towards the car and started the engine, checking if the man had really fixed the car and indeed the car engine roared to life. Liam just stood there, still staring towards the direction of which the man had disappeared. “Get in the car Liam, we have to leave now,” a hopeful voice came from Andy who couldn't wait to press his foot on the acceleration pad and drive off. “I can't. I have to find that man, he clearly knows me and he might know what happened to my uncle,” replied Liam walking towards the cabin. “I support you man, but I don't want to turn into some creature's meal so I say we leave now and then call the sheriff to deal with this matter,” said Andy as he tried to talk some sense into his friend. “When you get a signal, could you please do that for me my friend, I would really appreciate it,” Liam said as he waved his hand for his friend to leave. “Okay I will surely do that. Please be safe Liam,” he replied as he sighed in defeat, “Goodbye,” he added as he drove away. Liam didn't say anything, he just walked inside and sat down in the living room. He must have dozed off because when he opened his eyes, he saw a familiar face standing, leaning against the wall from across the room, it was his uncle. Liam stood up in shock as he realized something off with him. He had changed so much from the last time he had seen him and it had been roughly six months since he had disappeared. The forty eight year old man looked almost a decade younger, his facial features had sharpened and he looked like he had lost a few pounds as his beer belly had disappeared. “Uncle Danny?” asked Liam as he inched towards the rifle that was next to him. “Hello Liam,” the man replied, lifting his hands gesturing that he meant no harm but as he spoke Liam realized from his voice that the man was indeed his uncle, so he let his guard down and he moved closer to hug him. Then he moved back. “Where have you been Uncle?” asked Liam, “I thought you were dead”, he added. Then his uncle began explaining what had happened to him. “I will tell you as much as I remember, kid”, he said then paused, then he proceeded, “Am sure it was a couple of months ago when I was sitting by the balcony having a bottle of beer, suddenly something huge lunged towards me when I wasn't paying attention, I hit my head and lost consciousness”. “When I woke up, I had a huge weird bite mark on my arm which was rapidly healing at a visible pace”, he said as he showed him his arm and the mark was still there though it had completely healed it was very visible that it had been very deep. After showing Liam his arm, he continued, “I then realized my clothes had been torn and shredded plus I had been dragged from the house, I was at least seven miles away from the cabin”. “It was clear to me that I had been unconscious for a couple of days which was very strange and the tracks around me looked pretty old. Another strange thing I noticed was the claw marks on some nearby trees which also looked days old, which meant whatever had left those claw marks was responsible for the bite wound on my arm”. He stopped talking and sighed clearly trying to get read on his nephew, who just nodded signaling him to continue. “When I woke up I felt really weird and extremely hungry. My stomach wouldn't stop growling then I blacked out, when I regained consciousness I was laying in a pool of blood but it was mine, I had killed, mauled and ferociously ate a deer with my own teeth. I had eaten almost the whole raw animal by myself, that's when I realized that something was really wrong with me”. Liam suddenly threw up on the flower pot he had managed to grab whilst Danny waited For Liam to tell him to proceed. Liam then nodded his head so his uncle continued to fill him in. “So when I realized what I had done I stood up and tried to flee but a strange man wearing a black coat approached me and asked I come with him to which I refused but he wasn't having it, he gave me a weird look that made me somehow obedient and so I followed him”. “I have seen that man, he fixed Andy's car earlier and told us to leave, that it wasn't safe here, strangely he also knew who I was, I wonder how”. “Well, I told him”, said Danny who made an abrupt stop as he waited for Liam to say something, when his nephew said nothing, he continued to speak. “As I was saying, the man told me I had become a werewolf and a bunch of other crazy stuff which didn't make sense to me at the time”. “Werewolf?”, spluttered Liam as his hand moved towards the rifle. “Calm down and let me finish”, said Danny, “Long story short, he was the one who bit me and he turned me to a werewolf and to answer your question about where I've been all this time, he has been training me and teaching me how to control my abilities”. “That's a joke right”, laughed Liam, his uncle didn't say a word, he just looked at him and his eyes turned yellow whilst he opened his mouth to show a set of huge sharp canines that had grown. This time Liam moved quickly, grabbed the g*n and fired right at his uncle's leg, despite what he had just witnessed he subconsciously still didn't want to harm the man. Danny just riveted back to his normal human firm and put his leg up for his nephew to see. Liam was shocked to see the leg starting to heal, it was slow but surely and in only a couple of minutes it was fully healed. “I came back a couple days ago and every night I have been watching and keeping an eye on you” said Danny after a short period of total silence. “Why didn't you approach me and tell me”, cried Liam. “It's f*******n by the alpha and yesterday was an exception because that werewolf that tried to attack you, so I had to step in and protect you”. “And you defeated it”, said Liam, clearly proud of his uncle. “Well, I wasn't going to lose a match in front of my nephew”, said Danny. “You said interactions with me were f*******n, right?”, asked Liam, “So why are you here talking to me?”. “Because we need your help son”. “We?”asked Liam, his uncle didn't say a word, he just glanced behind him and there stood the strange man in the black coat who looked about the size of his uncle but from his clothing style, it was obvious that he was much older. When Liam saw his uncle continue to sit down and relax, he understood that the man wasn't a threat so he put the g*n he had been clutching on his hand down. Then suddenly the man moved towards him, but when Liam looked at his uncle with a questioning gaze, Danny just smiled and nodded. Liam just stood still and let the man approach him. Then suddenly the man grabbed Liam's arm and before he could react, a sharp set of canines sank into his forearm. Liam screamed in pain as his consciousness slipped away.