The Perdition Tales

The Manner of the Moon, Part One

It was growing dark when the three found their way back home becoming something less familiar that that which they had previously known. Strange, it seemed, considering the forest was so small and they had traversed it their whole lives. These three young souls knew the woods like they knew their own homes, for this large growth of arbors was their home and they had spent many a day after school passing the time watching the flowing of the stream or climbing their favorite trees or playing hide-and-seek. But their age had grown beyond such childish games and they had succumbed to merely discussing the multitude of topics in the confines of their favorite tree, which they had - for the same reason a child ordains a title upon its favorite stuffed animal - aptly named Charley. Charley became their favorite meeting spot and they would spend hours on end testing themselves to see how high they could go. None had ever reached the top.

As night fell on this dark eve, it was the girl, Henrietta, who had proposed their leave and journey home. The travel usually lasted less than five minutes but, as imaginative male youths tend to do, her companions grew sidetracked. Jeffrey, the eldest of the three, tried repeatedly to quell his insatiably inventive tendencies and resume their trail, but it was always the overactive and fantastical imaginings of the young Eddie that eventually slowed their speed to the likeness of a trudge through three-foot snowdrifts.

Henrietta tried to spur the two young men on as she was growing edgy in the night and her parents had strictly expected her before the time. Her parents were old-fashioned, as she had constantly explained to her best friends on many occasions. For instance, how many people used such an archaic, familial name as Henrietta as the name for their second child? Of course, it was better than her older sister, Grenda. The mere thought of possessing that name filled Henrietta with a sense of both loathing and sisterly pity. But it was the hatred of her own name that encouraged her to advise her friends on the usage of her nickname, Henna. It was almost funny that she could feel such a loathing of Henrietta and such a love of Henna. They were so similar, were they not?

In any case, it was Jeffrey that she really relied on to lead them home as he was almost a year older than the other two. Eddie was almost a child in Henna’s mind. He had so much maturing to do before Henna would see him on Jeff’s level. She did have the bias of feelings for Jeff, sure, but that had little to do with her lower view of Eddie…at least in her mind. And so, Jeff, with his deeper experience in leadership - he was an Eagle Scout and such a rank was almost impossible to achieve without some level of leadership and service to other - was the one who always appeared to be the head of their mischievous trio. But it was also he who first recognized the fact that they didn’t recognize the trees near which they now walked. And so, he stopped. He peered around, cautious, curious before proposing his interrogative. “Uh…did I miss something here?”

“What?” Eddie inquired in return. “Of what do you speak, oh Dark One?”

“We don’t have time for that, Eddie,” Jeff said. “We’re supposed to be home in…” He checked the watch but could not see it in the dark. Jeff leapt out into the middle of the trail where the light of the moon shone down and illuminated his timepiece. “Twenty minutes ago. Damn.”

“What?!” Henna screeched. “My parents are gonna freak! I’m going to be grounded for a week!”

“For twenty minutes?” Eddie asked. “Man, you’re parents are stricter than I thought. Besides, we only hang out on weekends because of school. A week doesn’t seem too-”

“Where are we?” Jeff interrupted.

“The same place we’ve been seventy thousand times before. The woods.”

“Thanks, Eddie. I feel so enlightened. But why don’t you go and explain how to get home from here. I don’t recognize this part.”

“Well, it’s actually quite simple, you see…” Eddie looked around puzzlingly, trying to discern the path they had previously been walking, which had now become more of a ruddy, trampled grassroots path than an actual trail through a neighborhood-surrounded forest. But Eddie was not content looking lost in the presence of a girl, so he decided to break out his scouting experience. “Well, moss always grows on the north side of the tree, so-”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jeff interrupted. “That‘s an old wives’ tale.”

“Well, we are seeing the western side of the moon, which means north is-”

“Which way, Eddie?” Jeff interrupted yet again. “Which way does that crap from your mouth say to go considering we only ever see the same side of the moon?”

“Fine, Mr. I-know-everything. Which way do you suggest? Why don’t you bring us some of those scout skills?”

“I don’t know. There’s something weird going on he-”

“Sshhh!” Henna said and the possessors of testosterone grew silent, listening for whatever it was the estrogenically one had heard. Silence. Then a howl. The classic introduction to a horror story. Henna shivered in fear and Jeff braced himself for whatever that howl meant, twisting his eyebrows to express both his disbelief and confusion. There weren’t any wolves in these woods. There weren’t even any deer. Jeff wasn’t even sure there were raccoons. He’d only ever seen birds and squirrels here, plus the occasional chipmunk. Of course, he believed in Henna’s story of once spotting a “bunny dancing back into the woods” despite never having seen a rabbit.

But Eddie stifled a laugh. Jeff had always known that Eddie was a bit strange - he was known as Odd Eddie in school, after all - but he wouldn’t have expected the possible danger of a wolf to make him laugh! Later on, Eddie would explain to the others that he was only laughing out of irony after reading so many horror stories. A wolf in these woods! He had laughed in his head. Who’d have thunk it?!

“Which way is home?” Henna asked. “I don’t recognize where we are. How…how is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said. “I say we just keep going this way until we reach the neighborhood. Then we can just walk around the woods until we get home.” The three agreed on that plan and continued along the path they had traveled until they heard yet another howl. This one, however, revealed an abominable truth to the trio: they were walking toward the howls. “Why don’t we just go back the way we came?” Eddie asked.

“How long would it take to get out of the woods that way?” Henna inquired.

“Dunno,” Eddie answered. “It could take five minutes, it could take three hours. I don’t know where we are.”

“How the hell do we not know where we are re?!” Henna roared. “We have every inch of this forest memorized. We have since we were in grade-school.”

“I don’t know…but…” Jeff’s voice trailed off as he looked straight ahead. The other two turned. They saw what he saw. Henna let out a scream. Before them, in the gloom beneath a tree, glowed a pair of dark, yellow eyes above the dark silhouette of a canine snout. It was a wolf, a large, monstrously gigantic wolf. It let out a small whine and then a guttural growl as it slowly crept its approach toward the three. It stepped from the shadows and bathed itself beneath the crimson sphere of the sky.

Eddie turned to run but Jeff held him motionless. Not a muscle did the three move as the behemoth edged and crept toward them, now revealing its size in the dark moonlight. On all fours, it stood nearly as tall as Jeff, that being almost six feet high. Such a creature had not been seen in this age of human history. But it had made its appearance in the stories running through Eddie’s memory. As the creature got closer and closer, he flashed back to the days of comics in his room with his old friend, Arthur Bones. They had read the classic graphic novels of the Wolf-Man, Frankenstein and The Mummy. They had even explored the Draculian realms of vampires and night terrors. Eddie’s favorites had always been the stories and escapades of the werewolves and Lycanthropes. Arthur had always preferred the stories of necromancers, people who could summon the dead to do their bidding and kill someone with a casual glance or tap of the hand.

“Do you ever wonder what really lives out there?” Arthur had asked on one occasion.

“What do you mean?” Eddie had responded. “You mean in the woods out there? All I’ve ever seen is squirrels.”

“No,” Arthur had said. “I mean, like, under the radar. Below the table. Like Bigfoot or the Beast of Lake Champlain.”

“Well, obviously not your intelligence,” Eddie retorted. Arthur swung a fist at him but missed and the two eventually shared a laugh before resuming the debate. “Well,” Eddie had answered more seriously. “I used to, back when I was little. You know, the Bogeyman, gremlins, trolls, that sort of thing. I was always afraid of something living under my bed or below my bedroom window at night.”

“Do you still believe?” Arthur asked.

“Not anymore,” Eddie had said. “Almost everything’s been discovered. If anything like that still lived out there, it’d have to be one hell of a hide-and-seek player to still not be known.”

“I don’t think I agree,” Arthur had ended the conversation. “I still think there are…things…out there that man simply doesn’t understand. Things only the children can sense, perhaps…something that’s laying hidden in the shadows, only revealing itself to…well, who the hell knows, right?”

But now, Eddie was facing a renunciation of his side of their debate. For what stood before them, converting the cold night air into fiery blasts of heated growls and grunts. The creature was growling closer to the three, edging its way but starting to pick up speed. Jeff was the one to see the harm and sense the danger in their planted feet. And so, scurrying and scrambling and spitting out words to the others, he yelled that one, simple warning that the humans of the ancient plains had called in their own, telegraphic, unknown way. “Run!” Jeff called as the three broke into a dead run, sprinting away from the monstrosity behind them.

Jeff heard the hideously beautiful howl behind and heard the thud of its massive paws. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump. Thumpa-thump. Thumpa-thump. It was picking up speed but the sound of its feet on the earth sounded somewhat strange and the grunting and roaring of its mouth seemed to have raised to a higher level, as if the wolf was running through the low brambles of the trees. It padded the ground and gallumped after the trio until Charley came into view. Jeff had no need to speak as the other two had already sprinted past him and were busily scrambling up Charley’s thick limbs, stopping only when the limbs weakened into branches, then to twigs and finally to nothing but leaves. They could go no higher and so they stopped, peering down onto the ground below. The wolf had stopped. It had disappeared, the only sign of its even existence being the mournful howl traveling now away from them. It had given up the hunt. But why? It could almost have had them. It might have had them had it not been for the safe enclosure of their favorite tree. They stayed in that tree for nearly an hour, silent, shivering, trembling…

When a good deal of time had passed, the three decided to travel down the branches and explore the hazards beneath. This time, following their ingenious idea, they decided to head the opposite way of the wolf. They walked east - of course, they only assumed it to be east from what they could tell of Charley’s mysterious, late-night positioning. They walked carefully, silently, looking back every few seconds for any sign of yellow eyes or straightened ears or the swaying motion of a tail. None appeared, but it just so happened that a large clearing was presenting itself ahead, and so, led now by a curiosity held only in check by fear, the three found themselves within the confines of an abandoned, ethereal village in the woods.

“Uh…I don’t remember this being here before,” Eddie said.

“Dude, you’re the horror expert,” Jeff said. “Do you have any ideas at all? Any clue as to what’s going on?”

“None that comes to mind.”

“Fan-damn-tastic.”

They found the village somewhat reminiscent of the pictures they had seen in their school history books of tribal dwellings. There were small, thatched huts made from sticks and branches, mud and clay, all abandoned. There were eleven in all, plus what was assumed to be a large hut holding only the smoldering remains of a fire. But the embers were still hot. The fire pit was smoking. One of the coals was still a light shade of pink.

Henna stepped back and felt a squish as the ground slid a bit beneath her. She turned up her shoe to find the obvious liquid of life adhered to it. Blood. Blood and flesh. Jeff covered her mouth as she began to scream, stifling the cry into muffled whimper as tears streamed down her face. Jeff held her for a moment before turning away, disgusted. She had thrown up in his hand. “Augh!” Jeff grunted as he looked for something to wipe the upchuck off on. He found a tan blanket and began to wipe his hand on it, but then stopped. It wasn’t a blanket. Blankets weren’t flayed like this material was.

Jeff grabbed the others and high-tailed it out of the hut and out into the open, dragging the others behind him. He only released them when he could no longer hold it in and rushed over to a tree, promptly leaving the innards of his digestive tract around its revealed roots.

There was a growl behind him and he spun around to see three wolves, each just as large as the one that had chased them, if not larger, creeping up behind his companions. “Run!” he screeched and suddenly another wolf dove from the woods behind him. Jeff ducked and it soared right over, thudding to the ground and spinning around for another encounter. It let out a magnificent howl and lunged at Jeff but he had run around to the other side of the tree. It spun around after him but he was always sure to keep the tree between them.

Meanwhile, Eddie had backed up to the fire and began throwing embers, coals and rocks at the wolves creeping up on him and Henna. The coals burned, sure, but his adrenaline was pumping and the rocks were bouncing off the faces of his adversaries, occasionally knocking them back but really only increasing their anger. Eddie fell back when he ran out of projectiles and, looking up into the looming forms of the approaching beasts, he thought maniacally of his old werewolf stories, the Wolf-Man in particular. The nights of the attacks were typically full moons, as tonight was. The ground was usually foggy, with a slight mist floating cryptically about a foot off the ground and seeping into the mud of swamps. This was no swamp but those memories did give him an idea.

There were buckets beside the fire, most empty but a few containing water. This attempt was a long shot but Eddie still chose to lift one of the buckets and dump it on the burning coals. Smoke filled the air, more than he would have expected. Without even thinking, he grabbed one of the flayed skins and began billowing the smoke at the wolves. The noxious fumes demented their olfactory systems and the sizzling coals distracted their hyper-sensitive ears enough to allow he and Henna to run around the wolves and out the entrance of the hut.

Once outside, Eddie saw the wolf chasing after Jeff and he realized he was still holding the disgusting rag of former humanity. Luckily, the comics and horror stories had hardened his stomach enough to keep from completely throwing up, gagging. However, he tossed the skin at the wolf, enshrouding its head and enrapturing all of its senses. Jeff, now understanding yet still in disgust, ran around to his friends and the three dashed speedily away from that forsaken village of former human prey.

The howls and roars into the sky were the only hints the three needed of the impending danger behind them. They heard the breaking of branches as large beings forced their way through the thick underbrush of the trio’s trail. They heard the ragged breathing and growling anger of the predators hunting them down. Tears rolled down Henna’s cheeks as she thought of losing her life in this forest she had loved so much.

She had been eight years old when she moved into her home near the forest. Her father had recently died and, as such, she was left the only child of her now single mother. She had been lonely, disheartened by the emptiness of their new home. That was when she had met Jeffrey.

She had been outside, reading a book in her backyard when he had come striding out of the woods, covered in leaves, dirt and broken twigs. She thought for a moment that he had been a danger, a demented fool who meant to harm her with his insane ravings and monstrous intentions. But he had introduced himself politely, revealing his actual, calm, very sane nature. She even came to adore him some years on. But that attempted relationship had been disastrous and they had ended it early. It took them almost a year to become friends again.

By the time she was nine, the two had become best friends and it was there that the two of them had met Eddie, whose best friend, Arthur, had recently moved away. Over the years, Jeff protected Eddie from the bullies’ fists and Henna comforted him after their insults and various ranting of “Odd Eddie loves the deadie!” She cared for him like a mother and Jeff protected him like a father. Such was the odd nature of their triangular friendship that found its greatest strength in the high perch of Charley’s branches.

The three sprinted through the woods, not even bothering to block the twigs and branches in their way but instead allowing their faces to become scratched and scathed. They didn’t care nor did they have time to worry; the wolves were coming.

The thudding of the wolves’ paws echoed behind them, getting closer and closer, occasionally, a howl was heard but, as Jeff had noticed before, the howls seemed to originate from a point higher than the wolves’ heads, as if they were running through the low branches or, on a less settling note, running on their hind legs.

Jeff ran behind the other two, making sure to keep himself sacrificially between them and those that hunted them. He was willing to die for them to live. But he still wanted to live and so he continued to run almost as fast as he could. Almost. Pretty soon, he lost all sight of them in the thick brush of the increasingly more dense forest. The air was growing hot and humid. Vines whipped at his face and sharp barbs embedded themselves in his clothing. The forest was starting to become a jungle.

Jeff sped up to try and find his companions but they were now nowhere to be found. It was as if they had vanished. The thuds grew closer and Jeff began panting as hard as he could, pumping his legs, trying to outrun not the wolves but the powerful throbbing of his own heart threatening to leap from his chest in a bloody explosion. He heard Henna scream up ahead, a cry that was cut off not by a roar or a tear but it seemed by distance. Henna’s voice and fearful cry seemed to have been spirited away. As Jeff’s mind raced, the strange reality of his abandonment surged forth a memory of reading one of Eddie’s old comic books…

“This one looks cool.” Jeff reached into Eddie’s closet and brought out a book with a picture of what looked like an albino Bigfoot. It walked erect like Sapiens, Heidelbergenses and Neanderthalenses, the children of Homo Erectus. He knew that little fact because it was printed on the very first page (although what that had had to do with the story of the book itself, Jeff did not know). As Jeff looked at the picture, he admired the artistic skill used in picturing the open clearing in the jungled forest wherein the creature walked. He noticed its height as compared to the person it held within its arms and carried upward into the sky. It was nearly three times the size of a normal man. It was a Wendigo, or a Wendego. It had both translations in the book.

“Hey, Eddie,” he had said. “Is it Wendigo or Wendego?”

“Oh, you’re talking about that book?” Eddie had exclaimed. “It’s okay, kind of like a graphic encyclopedia about it.” He paused for a moment, thinking over the pronunciation. Then, the light of his memory clicked. “The Indians called it Wendego, I’m pretty sure. But when the white man came, he called it Wendigo because he’s lazy.”

Jeff had stared at him, dumbfounded. “That’s…that’s so…”

“So what?”

“Anti-Semitic, I think.”

“Um…not all white people are Jewish. You know that, right?” Eddie replied sardonically.

“Stuff it.” Jeff had ignored him. “I’m reading.” And so he had read about the mysterious woodland Wendego, the beast that used to be man. According to the comic book (and they’re so reliable as information, aren’t they? Jeff now found himself sarcastically thinking between bouts of almost tangible fear) a Wendego was the living soul of a hunter who got lost in the woods, a man who had run out of food and was left with no choice for survival but to cannibalize his compatriots. Jeff had, on some deep, unconscious level, prayed he would never fall into such a frailty of damnation with his beloved Henna and Eddie.

However, the comic continued, the lost hunter eventually developed a taste for the flesh he ate, a taste that drove out his humanity as a priest drives out a demon. The man grew, changed and became not a man but a beastly curse, a blight of lethal proportions upon those who dared follow the trail that had led him to his own Hell. It was said that the Wendego could command the wind and battle the skies. According to the ancient legends, when one was alone in the Wendego’s woods, the winds would call your name, drawing you out into the open where the creature would then swoop down upon you. He would scoop you into the sky and drag you until your feet were burned away. He would then carry you high and feast upon the rest of you until your bones were ground to dust. And then, when he/it was done, the ashes of your bones would drift down…and appear as pearly snow upon the footpaths, covering your marks and paving the way for another meal. The only way to survive a Wendego was…was…

Jeff now kicked himself for not remembering. He feared these wolves to be Wendegos, hell-bent on securing their next meal, the only of the trio left: Jeffrey.

Luckily for Jeffrey, he was saved by the most unlikely of occurrences. As Jeffrey ran, the ground opened beneath him and he crashed through a trapdoor, catching a vine that hanged down over the pit. He held tight, about ten feet below the entrance, looking up as the moon shone directly over the gulf he was now in. He peered up into that hole, seeing the wolves surround and stare down at him. His ears had not deceived him as a horribly terrifying, terribly horrible fact came to light beneath the moonlight. They were standing on their hind legs, upright like the Wendego. Their fur was dirty and shaggy, covering their wolfish faces that seemed so reminiscent of the humans they used to be. They reached forward with heavily muscled arms, arms that could, upon circumstance and need, become powerful front haunches. It was one of these powerful forelimbs that sprang forward and grasped the rope with a clawed human hand. It began to pull upward on the vine, lifting Jeff from that terrible hole in the earth. He looked down, down into a shadowy chasm that descended into eternal pitch and filled a vast emptiness with nothing but air and cold. As Jeff looked out, it looked as if the cave spread infinitely in all directions, Jeffrey had but two choices and the decision needed making In fractions of seconds. He could either hold on and find himself ripped to pieces and flayed over a fire of digestion or release the vine and die falling in the dark, praying for a second chance to live. Jeff took one look into the animalistic yellow eyes of the wolves above and let go. It’s better to sacrifice for the possibility of something than to hold on and find oneself in Hell. And so, Jeffrey descended from the light, falling down into the world of shadows and the cold, empty embrace of the megalithic cavern below the woods.

Jeffrey awoke in darkness and wondered if he was still falling. He realized the ulterior when he felt the old mattress buffering himself from the ground. “I thought it better than you didn’t freeze to death on the floor,” a voice issued from the dark. It took a moment before Jeffrey’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could see the rough silhouette of a man standing a few feet from him. Jeff grunted and placed an arm below himself, hefting his body up straight. Pain seared through his sore muscles, indicating the fall he’d endured. But how?

“There was a ramp at the bottom of the cave. It caught you and slowed your fall so that you wouldn’t die.” Even in the gloom, it seemed as if the mysterious stranger could see Jeffrey’s twisted confusion as his reeling mind tried to gain a hold of itself. “I assume you were wondering how you survived the fall.” After receiving only another questioning stare, the figure continued. “Of course, if you have amnesia and don’t remember anything then…well, you’re in a town of werewolves, Jeffrey. You fell through a trapdoor and just barely escaped from a pack.”

“Yeah, I remember that.” Jeff’s throat burned as he spoke, leading into a coughing fit. A warm glass of what he hoped was water was shoved into his hand and he downed the whole glass in four seconds flat. The hands produced another glass and soon that, too, was gone. Jeff wiped the dribble from his cheek and mouth and cleared his throat. “I was falling through the dark.”

“And the darkness brought you here,” the person continued. “The darkness delivered you back into life.”

“You almost sound like you worship the dark,” Jeff said.

“Well,” the person began. “It’s always dark in this town. I don’t think there’s been light since back when it was an actual town.” Jeff sharpened his ears at the sound of a high-pitched shriek, just barely audible. The other remained silent, listening. “What was that?” Jeff asked.

“Did you hear it?”

“Yeah, barely. What was it, a dog whistle?”

“Actually, yes, some humans have the range to hear it but it drives the wolves crazy. They can’t stand it. Start howling and rolling around on the ground, even in human form. I was just testing you. Don’t want any of them knowing where I am.” Jeff listened closely now, swearing on all he knew that the voice sounded familiar, so terribly familiar. Finally, when he just couldn’t stand it anymore, he inquired. “Who are you?”

There was a bit of a giggle, almost a laugh. But it was a controlled laugh, the laugh of someone who knew the dangers of being too loud and was holding that behavior in an environment where it was unnecessary. Then, the answer. “The name is Ron. But I believe you knew me as Mr. Cam, Jeffrey.”

Jeffrey snapped out of his stupor and stood straight up off of the mattress, remembering his old history teacher. Mr. Cam was a bit on the older side, somewhat eccentric but very personable. He had had gray hair before but it now struck out in the gloom as a shade of papery white. But Mr. Cam had disappeared a short while back. No one could find him, not his family, not the school, not even the police. It was as if he had vanished after school one day. But here he was, torn-up blazer and all. “It sure has been awhile, Jeffrey. Who did they get to replace me?”

Jeffrey was speechless for a moment but his larynx eventually returned to him. “They, uh…they got a, uh…a bunch of substitutes. What are you doing here?!”

“Keep your voice down,” Mr. Cam said. “Eddie and Henrietta are sleeping.” Jeffrey, his eyes now as adjusted as they were ever going to be, looked over and saw two more mattresses, each holding the body of either Henna or Eddie, and Eddie’s was thrashing around. “It seems as if he’s having a bad dream,” Mr. Cam said. “What do you say I wake him up?”

It had taken time for Eddie and Henna to fully regain their composures and endure the pains of their injured bodies. They had experienced the same crash and slide down the ramp that Jeff had gone through. That, it turned out, had been the drifting away that Jeffrey had mistaken for a Wendego.

Mr. Cam took great care to explain and introduce their new surroundings. As it turned out, the large cave they had seen actually housed the construction of an ancient fallout shelter, fully equipped with military equipment, food and supplies to last for many long, arduous years. The place where they had awakened was the old barracks. Mr. Cam didn’t suspect they had ever been used. He had a suspicion that none had ever made it to the shelter before the coming of the wolves. Of course, he also theorized that few had even rejected the change of man-to-wolf and wolf-to-man. He had done much research on the occult and crypto zoology in the small archives within the facility. He had no idea why there had been so much on the subjects but he was grateful for it. Such knowledge had saved him countless times.

Mr. Cam showed them the few passageways that led to the surface, all blocked and barricaded to prevent anything getting in. There was only one opening that looked as if it had been used at all. Eddie asked about that one but their old teacher only told them he would explain it later. When the four arrived in the kitchen, Mr. Cam prepared sandwiches for his new companions, urging them to “build their strength for the future.” Jeff and Henna gorged themselves on the sandwiches prepared but Eddie resisted, stating that nothing there peaked his appetite. Of course, Eddie never really ate much anyways. He had once been asked if he was anorexic and his reply had been “I don’t starve myself. I eat whatever my stomach wants. That just doesn’t tend to be very much.”

While they ate, Mr. Cam decided to breach a subject that he had spent long, dark evenings (or so they could be called in this eternal night of the moonlit danger zone) wondering. How long had he been here? He suspected it to be a jumble of several years, accounting for his drying skin and the emptying color filament of his hair. Henna was the one to answer his question. “You’ve been gone for about two or three months now.”

“Two or three months!” Mr. Cam exploded, only driving his voice down just before its peak. “A few months! It feels like I’ve been here for years!”

“Maybe time’s different here,” Eddie proposed. The others turned to him and stared. “Well,” he continued. “I’m just saying that we started off in our own woods-”

“So did I,” Mr. Cam interrupted. Eddie almost dared to glare at his old mentor before returning to his hypothesis.

“Isn’t it possible that we’ve slipped into another dimension? Another timeline where werewolves are real?”

“I suppose,” Jeff said. “But how would that explain Charley?”

“Who the hell is Charley?” Mr. Cam asked. “Sorry. Who is Charley?”

“It’s a tree,” Jeff said. “We hid in it from the wolves.”

“Maybe…” Eddie continued, mulling things over in his head. “Maybe Charley is kind of a link between time streams. Maybe Charley is actually a portal that led us from our world to this one.”

“But we went both ways from Charley, Remember?” Henna said. “We went the one way and found the one wolf, and then the other way and found all the huts.”

“Wait, you three saw their village?” Mr. Cam asked. “I’ve never even been that far in the woods. You should all be dead.”

“We’re not,” Jeff said. “But that’s not the important thing. I think that, if Charley is, in fact, a portal between worlds, maybe it’s not exactly a linear thing as a, well, a sort of hopping thing. You know, you climb Charley and you ‘hop’ to this world, climb it again and you’re back home.”

“But we climbed it twice and still stayed here,” Henna said.

“Maybe you just didn’t climb high enough,” Mr. Cam suggested. “What happened before you met that one wolf, the first one you were talking about?”

“We were seeing who could climb the highest,” Jeff said. “Then we found that wolf and heard more. So we climbed Charley and-”

“And it went away,” Eddie continued. “Like it was afraid of that tree. But we didn’t go as high that time. Maybe it sensed that we were about to leave but we only made it halfway home and then turned back.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said, continuing for Mr. Cam’s sake. “Then we climbed back down, went the other way and found the village. Three wolves-”

“Four wolves,” Henna corrected him.

“Four wolves…four wolves chased us into that pit.”

“And then I found your unconscious bodies and brought you to my home. You were so close to home, kinds. I must say I’m grateful you were guided to bring me back.”

A while later, they were being shown the control room, full of computer monitors and video equipment. “I don’t think this place was meant for military operations,” Mr. Cam said. He continued, growing more dismayed with each following word. “It was meant for observation. I don’t think this base was built for the military at all. I think some rich bastard built it so that he could watch the rest of his home die in the safety of his haven. Maybe that bastard even knew the wolves were coming. He might have been able to do something. Now it’s our burden to bear.”

“So you can see the whole forest?” Eddie asked. “You can find Charley?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know which tree is Charley.” Eddie looked down and began fumbling with some of the knobs and dials, turning the cameras ever so gracefully in their hiding spots in the forest. In moments, the magnificent, beautiful form of Charley loomed into view. “Found it,” Eddie exclaimed ecstatically.

“So that’s the portal, eh?” Mr. Cam looked, glee growing on his now hopeful face. “Who’d have thunk it?”

“Mr. Cam, I think it’s time you explain that open hatch,” Henna barreled into the palaver.

Mr. Cam took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. “Before I explain, I want you all to know that those aren’t just animals up there. They’re monsters. I’ve seen unspeakable acts. Unimaginable horrors. They don’t deserve to walk this or any world.”

Trembling, Henna asked again, “Mr. Cam, what have you done with that hatch?”

Mr. Cam looked over at her, the monitors lighting his face a pale blue, showing a strange side she’d never seen before. “So many years ago - only a few months for you children - I followed something into the woods. I thought it was a person but I can never be sure. They were gone when I found the portal. I now remember your Charley, waiting there to send me on to this Hell. I remember the first time I heard those beautiful howls and felt the rumbling of those terrible paws upon the earth. I fell through that same drop you came through. I think the ramp might have been originally for a plane but the plane has long since gone from this place.”

“Anyway, I built a home from this facility, reading and watching those monitors for endless, horrible days. But eventually I got an idea. The occult wasn’t the only thing in the archives. They had tactical schematics of war machines and deathtraps, ways to catch and evade one’s enemies and ways to decimate whole towns. But I don’t have the resources for the last.”

Henna was now shivering in fear of her former favorite teacher. “Mr. Cam, what have you done with that hatch?”

“My dear student, Henrietta,” Mr. Cam chuckled. “I’ve set traps out in the upworld. I’ve killed my share of those beasts. I like to use bombs but when I can’t, I set spike traps and crushing traps. Have you ever heard of a burning spike barricade?” Henna didn’t move nor did she speak. That silence was enough for him to glean his answer. “Be glad you don’t, young lady. It’s a terrible device. I never used it after that one time.”

“Mr. Cam,” Eddie began, but he trailed off into a mumbled jumble of incoherency.

“I’ve used that hatch to kill the werewolves I could find,” Mr. Cam said. “They damned themselves with their hideous ways. I merely sped them on their journey.” And with that, Mr. Cam left the room, leaving the three to stare into the monitors as the cunning Mr. Cam went about his work.

Hours had passed since Mr. Cam had left. Eddie laid in his bed in the barracks, thinking about crypto zoology. Jeffrey and Henna were over in the kitchen, trying to starve their memories by gorging their stomachs, he presumed.

Eddie thought for a great while on his inquests into Arthur’s world of faith and fears. “Do you ever wonder what really lives out there?” Arthur had asked.

Yes, Eddie now thought. Now I know what lives out there. But if the wolves are real, what else it, too?

Arthur had been so sure that there were things man had not seen in so long. Maybe, Eddie thought. Maybe man is too mature to deal with what he sees. Or not mature enough.

He knew exactly what Arthur would have suggested, for Arthur’s beliefs and imaginings rivaled that of the child savant, the little one that sees what grown-ups do not. Children believe what they see, Arthur would have said. Back in the times of teeth and blood, when man was new on an aging world, he had seen such things that contemporaries do not believe. Perhaps it is that childlike belief that allows the real truth to be seen.

Grow up, Arthur, Eddie would have said, but not anymore. Back then, he would have continued with a quip like “man’s maturity does not affect the light that enters his eyes“ or some skeptical saying of the such. But now, he would have applauded Arthur as a fledgling philosophical genius. Keep those brain cells working, Arthur, Eddie thought. Wherever the hell you are.

Eddie arose to a grinding sound from down one corridor. He quickly leapt from the mattress and gripped a crowbar he’d found in his shaking, dry-sweat-stained arms. He peered down the corridor, afraid that what was lumbering toward him was what he thought it was. He lifted the iron bar and prepared to take the creature down.

An arm shot out and held the crowbar steady, preventing the trembling Eddie from moving. “Don’t do it, Eddie,” Mr. Cam’s voice said. “It’s only me.” Eddie struggled but eventually gave up, succumbing to the man’s words. “I’ve just come back. Don’t worry.”

Eddie lowered the bar and looked down the hall, seeing the hatch closed securely at the end. The boy looked up at his teacher. “I thought-”

“I know.”

“And I was-”

“I know. But it wouldn’t have done you any good.”

“Why not?” Eddie wondered aloud.

“There are only two things that kill these wolves, Eddie. Decapitation and silver poisoning.”

“Silver is poisonous?” Eddie responded. “I never knew that.”

“Only to these wolves,” Mr. Cam said. “I think it’s a bit of an allergy. If it gets into them, they have an allergic reaction that resembles someone dying of a slow-acting poison.” Eddie stared at him, astonished at his knowledge. “I’ve tested all the proposals in the books,” Mr. Cam continued, explanatorily. “Those are the only ones I’ve found to hold true.”

“I thought you said you’ve blown a couple of them up,” Eddie said after they had begun walking back to the kitchen to rejoin the others. “That doesn’t sound like silver poisoning.”

“Well, the wolves only actually die if the bombs happen to blow their heads off. There are probably a few wolves up there that bear the scars of my guerilla tactics.” Mr. Cam waited but only got silence. “Nothing?” He stepped back, astonished. “Did you not pay attention at all in my class?”

“A little bit.” He waited a moment before asking his next query. “I’ve been wondering something. I read somewhere that a werewolf can become human again if he eats the heart of the one that bit him. Is that true?”

“I have never had the opportunity to test that specific suggestion but the books that were most accurate said that the cure lay in the blood of the creator, not necessarily in the heart.”

“What if you ate some of the flesh of another wolf? You know, if you bit a little off of its arm or something?”

Eddie’s questions had begun to grow eerie and unsettling. Mr. Cam was starting to grow nervous. This boy has seen one too many horror movies, Mr. Cam told himself before answering the question as best he could. “I don’t see how you could, uh, but off some…flesh…without taking a little bit of blood with it, I suppose.”

“Hmm…” Eddie said. They walked in silence for a few moments. Then, Eddie asked yet another eerie question, only this question was unsettling in a different way. “Why are we safe from the wolves here?”

“You see the walls?” Mr. Cam asked, spreading his arms wide in indication.

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

“They’re very thick with steel and iron, I think. It blocks our sound, our scent, even the vibrations of our feet as we walk around. The only thing that makes me nervous is the thought of…” Mr. Cam trailed off. Eddie looked ahead to see what that one possibility was.

Eddie and Mr. Cam entered the kitchen to find several ragged-looking men holding Jeff and Henna in their massive arms, cradling them and preventing any hope of an escape. It didn’t require a genius to uncover who - what - these men were. More emerged from the darkness and grabbed Mr. Cam and Eddie, holding them in submission. Mr. Cam realized with shock that this was why the hatch had squealed: the large men had warped it upon their somehow silent entry. “The Alpha would like to see you,” one of the men said before shadows and silence enshrouded the trio.