The Perdition Tales

Moonlight Dance, Part Two

The fog from the swamps had fully enshrouded the town by the time Carl crossed the highway, with its endless row of abandoned vehicles. It was more than he would have expected in a small town, but it had been a small town in a panic. Carl tried not to notice the dark stains that marked open doors and patches of road which suggested how few people had escaped the town’s m******e. Even more unsettling was how little was left beyond these parts; after all, it hadn’t rained since before that time, so there was nothing to wash anything away.

The fog seemed to crawl past Carl as he walked, snaking its way along the sidewalks and streets and seeping into alleyways like it was looking for something, or simply seeking to claim this dead town. For once, Carl was grateful for something so eerie, for the fog would hide him from those infected by the swamp disease, the illness which ate their brains as well as their flesh, driving people into carnivorous fits. If there were still such people left, the fog would hide him from their sight. And so he walked, entering the town, his friends now lost, his grief buried beneath the need to find someone, his wife, the woman he prayed was still alive.

But the fog was too thick that first day, and he spent most of it wandering around, never sure where he was until he walked straight into a bike, a building, a car, a fence, sights which seemed to spring from the fog like predators hiding in wait. At one point, he found a drugstore, and after getting the door open, he raided it of what little preserved food was left, then took what he recognized as antibiotics from the pharmacy, constantly rubbing the warm pain radiating from his shoulder and into his chest and arms. He consumed the food voraciously, then took some of the stronger, prescription-strength antibiotics and ended his medical examination by stripping off his clothes and pouring both rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide along the gashes in his chest and arms, then into the deep wound on his shoulder. He nearly screamed in pain, but as the sensations receded, he stooped down and prayed that these measures would kill anything he may have caught from his attack. Eventually, he left the pharmacy and wandered the town again, never bothering to bring out the map he’d found, knowing that there was no way to navigate with a fog as thick as the one which kept him lost.

As evening came and all light began to disappear, he was stunned to find himself standing at the edge of the highway once again, the row of cars standing like grave markers on a plugged-up road to nowhere. Carl heard strange sounds coming from different directions, cries of rage from the direction of the town, and strange howls coming from the forest. With no other options, he found a car that seemed mostly clean, cleared out the backseat and climbed inside, locking the doors as he did so. He felt fatigued by his day of walking, aggravated by its pointlessness, and with the fog still pressed right up against the windows, he laid down and slipped off to sleep.

In his dreams, he saw faces, most of them he didn’t know, but he could pick a few from the crowd. There was Greg, the tall, thin man with the goatee, and beside him was Jesse, their amnesiac friend who now seemed in his right mind. And then there was Denny. Denny stared at him from the crowd, his face bringing forth the memories of the previous night: their exploration of the derelict mansion, the strange occurrences which had claimed their friends one by one, the girl they’d found in an underground chamber. The last he remembered was of the girl awakening and becoming something less-than-human, a creature which had raked its claws across both of them, mortally wounding Denny before sinking its teeth into Carl’s neck. As if in response to this flood of memories, Denny stepped out of the crowd, his shirt stained with blood, deep gashes carved into his chest and one of his arms. His mouth began to move, speaking words that Carl couldn’t hear, and then everything went to fog, and Carl found himself staring out the window of his refuge from the night before, the fog still pressed against the window like it was seeking a way in.

Carl rubbed his eyes for a moment, wondering how he’d slid so casually from asleep to awake. He turned back to his makeshift bed – the backseat of the sedan – and noticed small patches of dark fur clinging to the carpet. He shook his head, realizing that the family who owned this car most likely had a dog; if it had been cat fur, his allergies would have kicked in and driven him insane. But oddly, beside some of the patches of fur, there were also scraps of cloth, shredded little bits of textile. He looked at his own shirt and, seeing the holes and rips along it, realized that his already ruined clothes must have shed as he slept, the loosest pieces falling down to the bottom of the car. His clothes, unfortunately, were drenched in sweat, so much so that they clung to his body loosely, obviously stretched from the incident at the mansion. He had to find some new clothes before these totally fell off of him.

He again braved the fog, wandering the town looking for some store which carried clothing. This time, he decided on a plan: after finding the first building, he would move in straight lines through the fog, moving from adjacent walls until he reached a building he recognized. From there, he would navigate by memory. This plan worked for awhile, but he started to lose his nerve as he heard strange sounds in the fog just beyond his ability to see: eerie growls, slithering sounds like the slow dragging of long bodies in the road, the snapping of jaws. Even more, the smell of the swamp itself seemed to be following him, permeating every part of his old home. Eventually, Carl managed to find a clothing store, and even better, its door was unlocked. He disappeared inside the dark building, but in the gloom, he could still see, thanks to the skylights way up in the roof of the main floor. He made his way to the men’s section, tearing off the remainders of his shirt as he did. Choosing a new set of clothes at random, he lost his old rags and appreciated the warm cleanliness that the new clothes gave him. Once he’d changed, he moved back to the main door, but saw the fog still pressed against it, and out in the fog, he could see strange shapes moving, dark forms crawling close to the ground, enormous but impossible to see clearly. He backed away and ultimately chose to remain in the store until the fog cleared up.

He wandered the store aimlessly, looking for anything to occupy his time. Every now and then, he’d find a well-lit place and unfurl the map he’d found at the mansion, trying to decipher its strange form, doing all he could to correspond this ancient vision with the town he knew. He knew he had to get to the place that was burned, to the hole in the map’s center, but he just couldn’t figure out where that place was. Eventually, he would tire of this and eat what meager foods he’d picked up at the pharmacy, then take some more of the antibiotics he’d found. At one point, he took his clothes back off to examine his wounds, and he was surprised to see fresh scar tissue already covering the claw and bite marks. Odd, was all he could think, recognizing that his wounds were completely opened only the day before.

The fog finally cleared during twilight, when the shadows had grown and consumed the entire clothing store. Realizing that the darkness was just as bad as the fog, Carl elected to remain in the store for the night, creating for himself a bed out of fresh shirts that he’d torn from the racks. He lay down and, in the eerie silence of the store, drifted off to sleep.

In his dream, he again saw Denny, who still bore his wounds from their encounter with the monster-girl in the woods. Denny’s shirt was soaked with blood, and deep gashes split the skin of his arms and torso. In the distance of this fog-enshrouded dream state, Carl could see Jesse and Greg looking on, their heads bowed, their bodies translucent and shimmery. Denny’s mouth was again moving, but this time, Carl could hear the sound of his voice as from a great distance, though he couldn’t tell what the dead man was saying. As the words became more and more clear, Carl suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of guilt, and his thoughts fell on the wives of his friends, the now-widows of this town. Distraught, Carl fell to his knees as Denny’s voice cleared.

“They’re still alive, brother,” the ghost spoke. “Our wives, your sister, they are all still alive. You don’t need to return to them. There’s nothing you can do.” Carl turned his face upward and wanted to speak, but no words could come out. Denny continued. “They’re preparing to leave the town. They only need a few days, and then they’ll be safe. Protect the town until the red moon falls. If the town falls first, they’ll all die.”

Carl sat up with a jump, tossing shirts into the air as he moved. His breathing was ragged and his skin felt strangely sensitive; the sensitivity died away over the course of a minute. There was light, bright sunshine pouring in through the skylights above. Carl slowly rose to his feet and decided to change again, having drenched the new clothes in sweat, but as he started to undress, he found that his new clothes had been shredded like his old, with the fabric worn and stretched to the point of breaking, with deep gashes across the chest. He looked down at his feet and saw more clothes torn, like great claws had been dragged through them. He kicked through the pile looking for something in good condition, and was startled to see beneath the clothes a layer of fur in dark patches covering the carpet, as if some great dog or wolf had come into the store and shed its whole coat, then tried to cover it with clothing. Shaking, Carl grabbed some clothes from deeper into the store, changed and began to make his way out. But on his way, he noticed a patch of the wall which seemed to be painted in strange blotches of red. A closer examination, however, revealed the “paint” to be not paint at all, but great buckets of blood. It was as if someone had come into the store only to be slaughtered and devoured, leaving only the stained wall behind. Carl initially shrugged this off under the assumption that some diseased people may have wandered through, but as he reached the door, he began to wonder if that wall had been clean the day before. Surely it’s something he would have noticed…

Out in the street, Carl began walking toward the center of town, thinking that if he could only find out where that point was on the map, then he could follow it to Liz. But as he walked, he began to hear footsteps, and as he walked faster, so did the steps which followed. Finally, he ducked around a corner, took out his knife and waited. The footsteps came closer, a shadow appeared, and then finally Carl leapt out, holding his knife up to the throat of a hairy-looking middle-aged man in a cowboy hat. “Ease up, there,” the man said in a thin Cajun accent. “Ain’t no messing with you. I just wanted to see if you were the boy from last night.”

“What?” Carl asked. “What boy?”

The man smiled a smile barely perceptible behind his beard. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Ira,” the man answered, taking a step back away from Carl’s knife. “Ira Legrasse.”

“How come I’ve never seen you before?”

“Do you know everyone in this town?”

“It’s a small town.”

“A small town which never welcomed this stranger.” Ira backed up a bit more and dusted off the heavy overcoat he was wearing. “I came in from the swamp a few days ago, just ahead of the fog.”

“From the swamp?”

“I’m from the bayou, ain’t no thing to boat through muck. But what I really want to know about is that thing in you, the monster.”

“I’m not…what?” Carl was growing increasingly exasperated, and all he wanted to do was continue his search for his wife.

“Last night, I was situating up on a building and I looked down to see this hairy man with claws and teeth slinking through the streets. Keeping low, I watched it as it disappeared into the store you was in. Eventually, I got curious and came down. You know what I saw through the window? I saw a werewolf sitting on a nest of clothes, and as the sun came up, the fur and claws and teeth went away. That werewolf became you, boy.”

“I don’t have time for this garbage,” Carl spat at the man as he began walking away briskly. “I need to go find my wife.”

“I can help you,” Ira said, running up beside him. He shoved a shock of blond hair out of his face as he caught up. “I’ve had a few days to wander, and I remember things real quick.”

“Tag along if you want, I don’t care. Just cut it with the werewolf crap.”

“Any idea where she may be?” Reluctantly, Carl handed Ira the map he’d found and pointed out the burned spot. Ira’s eyes seared over the paper rapidly. Finally, he smiled, handed the map back to Carl and began to move in the opposite direction, away from the center of town. They walked for less than an hour before Ira brought him to a stop, asked for the map again and this time spent a lot longer staring at it. “Ain’t where I thought it was,” he said. With that, they began moving along the periphery of the town, this time for hours, occasionally taking breaks or hiding at mysterious sounds or shadows. It seemed, from Carl’s point-of-view, as if Ira was working to correspond as much of the town with the map as possible, trying to eliminate most of it so that he could zero in on the space that had been burned away.

It was in the late afternoon when they came to a stop outside the old, boarded up theater which used to put on plays a long time ago, though it hadn’t been utilized in the greater part of a decade. “Are you sure she’s in there?” Carl said after Ira handed the map back to him.

“It’s what the map says,” he responded. Carl gave him an unconvinced look and he became defensive. “I tracked people through days of swampland, kid. I can find your wifey in a small, small town, no issues there.”

Carl sighed as he walked up to the door and began pulling at the boards. Ira seemed to have some difficulty with them, but Carl was surprised at the ease with which they peeled away, almost like he was pulling Band-Aids off of an old wound. He tossed the boards aside, piling them loosely until the door was revealed, and together, he and Ira disappeared into the inner chambers of the playhouse.

“How could she have gotten in here?” Carl asked as they moved around in the gloom. Carl was able to navigate fairly well, but Ira kept bumping into everything before them, as if he was totally blind inside. Finally, out of frustration, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight, shining it around the theater. In the light, Carl could see broken seats covered in dust, a stage with props lying all over it and curtains waiting half-open, as if the house had been closed down at the very start or very end of a play.

“Whoo-ee!” Ira suddenly yelled after shining the light on Carl. “Boy, your eyes are shining like a dog’s!”

“Human eyes don’t do that,” Carl said, mostly ignoring him as his eyes scoured every part of the theater. “But like I asked, how could she have gotten in here?”

“There’s probably more than one way in, kid. She could have climbed in through a window or a back door or something. Or…she could be…right over our heads.”

“Carl?!”

Before Carl even had a chance to respond to the familiar voice from up above, he heard the clatter of the upper catwalks rumbling beneath running feet. There was the clatter of steps descending the rungs of a ladder and then a form came running out of the shadows, grabbing hold of Carl and hugging him tighter than he’d felt in a long time. As he looked into the dark eyes beneath the darker hair, he felt an overwhelming sense of joy, and he held his wife close for as long as he could.

That night, Carl went to sleep on the stage, his wife in his arms. They’d pulled some of the curtains down and made them into a bed, bunching some of them up for pillows and rolling the rest around for blankets. Ira did the same not too far away. They had chosen to remain at the playhouse until the next morning, at which time they would figure out what to do next. Carl still wasn’t sure about Ira, but the strange Cajun had found his wife, so there was a definite sense of gratitude toward the man.

It turned out Liz had been in the playhouse since not long after the outbreak. Once the swamp disease began spreading through the town, she’d initially found refuge in a grocery store, but more and more diseased people started showing up, and before long it had been too much for the survivors to handle. Eventually, she’d taken some supplies and left, only to end up separated from her group. With the few food items she had left, she’d sought refuge in the playhouse, staying up in the central control room and catwalks. Carl and Ira had found her only a day after the last of her food was gone.

As he slept, he again saw the strange mist, the gray world populated with faceless people. Greg and Jesse were gone, leaving Denny as the only discernable character in the crowd. Again, he approached Carl, his voice going in and out of focus. When he was close enough to whisper into Carl’s ear, his words became solid and seemed to float in the air between them. “Don’t trust Ira,” Denny said. “He’s a worshiper of monstrous things, a servant of the darker gods. You must kill him before he destroys the town.”

The words were shattered at the sound of screams and cries of alarm. Carl spun around in the fog, watching as the people around him started to vanish, leaving only their glowing eyes to stare at him. At last, the screaming caused Denny’s visage to shatter, and Carl found himself standing in the center of the stage, staring straight up at two forms huddled on the catwalk. He smelled something like copper mixed with water, and the smell caused his mouth to water. After a moment, he shook his head and stumbled around, then finally managed to get control of himself. He recognized the forms above him as Liz and Ira. “What’s going on?” Carl asked. “What are you doing up there?”

“He doesn’t know, does he?” Liz asked.

“I told him,” Ira said. “He didn’t believe me.”

“Is this that werewolf stuff again?” Carl yelled up. “I told you, I’m not-”

“Carl, look at your clothes,” Ira ordered. Carl stopped and looked at himself, noticing the slashes and tears in his clothes, which hung from him more like rags than any sort of actual garment. Below his feet, the floor was covered in more patches of fur and hair, which was collected into large clumps of dark brown.

“Where’d all the hair come from?” Carl asked. “What happened while I was asleep?”

“We can’t see any hair,” Ira called down. “There are no lights on in here.”

“But I can see you. I can see you both perfectly. Why can’t…” He began to slow down, not wanting to finish the thought, not wanting to consider the possibility that he had become something like the girl-creature that had killed Denny. But the evidence was mounting, and so Carl turned to his wife to see what her response was. As he looked up, he at last noticed her shoulder, which was raw and exposed beneath a torn collar. What remained of that part of her shirt was coated in blood.

Carl fell to his knees on the theater’s stage, put his head in his hands and began to shake.

He screamed and cried in his head. Outwardly, he showed no sign other than a quaking, but inside was chaos. His mind reeled from the reality of what he’d become, his thoughts and feelings far from the stage, out in the woods, where he imagined himself running from a creature unknown, but he could never outrun it, for the creature was himself. Eventually, he found himself on all fours, his nose pressed close to the dirt. A great howl echoed around him.

He jumped as a hand pressed into his shoulder and he fell sideways, collapsing into some of the fur and torn sheets they’d made the night before. His mind returned to this darkened room and he saw Liz and Ira staring at him, a flashlight in Ira’s hand, lighting up a small portion of their location. “It’s true, Carl,” he spoke softly, his accent barely perceptible. “Somehow, you’ve become the beast that I’ve been searching for. You’re a werewolf.”

“But werewolves aren’t real,” Carl pleaded, but as he spoke the words, the vision of the girl-creature from the woods appeared to him, almost real, only to vanish away in the wake of Liz. She was so beautiful, even with her wounded shoulder. “Did I…?” he began, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish the statement.

“You transformed while we slept,” she said quietly, nervously. “You chased after us. You caught me, but Ira chased you off and we climbed a ladder to get up onto the catwalk, and we stayed there until you changed back.”

“We pulled up the ladder so you couldn’t follow us,” Ira interjected.

“I don’t…but…all I remember is sleeping. I even remember dreaming.”

“What exactly did you dream about? The moon? The woods?”

“My brother-in-law.” Carl closed his eyes as he tried to remember the dream, but it was quickly fading from his memory. “He died in the woods a few days ago. He was killed by the thing that bit me. I’ve seen other people in my dreams, too.” Liz backed away as Carl said these things, her lips quivering, tears forming in her eyes.

“So you’ve been dreaming of dead men, then,” Ira said, eying him studiously. He switched the flashlight into his other hand. “That’s not unheard of. I’ve heard it said that werewolves can see ghosts, and I’d wager there are plenty in this town, walking through the mists on days like we’ve seen.”

“He said not to trust you, Ira. He said you worship monsters.”

Ira sighed at that. “I would expect as much from ghosts. They’re not to be trusted, boy.” He reached out his hand to help Carl up, and after a brief hesitation, Carl took it. The Cajun hoisted him to his feet. “The ghost of a man who’s killed by a werewolf is cursed to wander the Earth until the werewolf is dead, or so some legends say. These spirits, as well as all spirits, want nothing more than to move on, and they’ll tell any lie to get there. If he speaks to you again, beware of what he tells you. He may be working to kill you, and ride your soul out of this world.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Carl asked, indicating Liz’s bloody shoulder. In the light of Ira’s beam, they could see that the bleeding had already stopped and the wound was beginning to close up.

“What do you think, Carl? Is her wound as extensive as yours was?”

Silently, Carl nodded his head, and as he did, he saw the look in her face drop away into a look of remorse and terror intermingled. Not only did she have to face her husband being a monster, but now she, too, was to become one. Carl backed away, ashamed at what he’d done, but she took a step toward him as he did and took his hand in hers. “You’re not alone anymore,” she said softly. “What one of us faces, we both face.”

“Is that what marriage is?” Carl asked, his eyes growing hot and wet.

“No, that’s what love is,” she answered him. He reached out and hugged her close, holding her tight, never wanting to let her go. But as he held her, a realization began creeping into his mind, and he had to dive deeper in order to face it.

“Ira,” he said, turning to the Cajun. “How is it you know so much about this? You knew what I was, and why I’m seeing ghosts.”

“There are many things I know,” Ira said casually. “But what you two are interested in is a cure, and my new friends, I just so happen to be in possession of that.”

“You mean you can make us human again?” Liz asked, suddenly standing up straight and turning to face the man. “Is it some sort of medicine?”

“It’s a spell,” the older man replied. “There is a spell which will remove the wolf from each of you and leave only the humans behind.”

They were both taken aback, frozen at the idea of some magical spell to unlock their humanities. Carl was skeptical and very cautious, having seen the spell that Jesse did a few nights ago. After finding a strange book in an abandoned chapel, his friend had begun reciting from it, transforming the chapel as he did so. Ghosts had shown up and it seemed that the building itself had come alive. Carl also had a sinking suspicion that Jesse had been the one to draw in the fog, which had covered the town, hiding the crawling things within it, things which had scared away even the girl-thing from the woods.

Ira noticed their dispositions toward his proposal and raised his hands in peace. “Now I don’t want to rush you, but I do want you to know how lucky you lovebirds are. Why don’t you follow me outside for a moment.” He turned and began trotting down the aisle toward the central exit of the theater, and Carl and Liz turned to follow, catching up to him just outside the ticket window. His eyes were turned toward the sky, seemingly ignoring his companions’ arrival. “What do you see up there?” he asked.

Carl stared up but saw only a blank, dark blue sky, just beginning to grow brighter as the morning light began to dawn upon it. “Nothing,” he said. Liz nodded in agreement.

“That’s a New Moon,” Ira said. “This is the time of month when it gets no light from the sun, so it turns nearly invisible at night, and it’s even harder to see when the sun is rising.”

“Then why did I change last night?” Carl asked, confused. “I thought werewolves only changed during the Full Moon.”

“Son, you been hearing lies,” Ira chuckled. “A werewolf changes whenever it wants to feel the breeze on its fur and blood in its teeth. But the Full Moon does hold its own power. It can…mesmerize the beast, momentarily. And, of course, a Full Moon is the only time creatures without night vision – like humans – can have a hope of seeing a werewolf before it shreds them to pieces. At least…that’s how it was in the old days before we invented searchlights.”

“What are you trying to tell us, Ira?” Liz asked.

“Two things. One, that the performing of this spell is an urgent matter, because this evening, I’ll now have two werewolves to keep an eye out for. And two, there is a note of divine intervention in the air. You see, I been monitoring the skies, and I happen to know that there is to be a lunar eclipse this very night. The shadow of the Earth will pass over the Moon, and the Moon will flow a blood-like crimson. That will not only immobilize the beasts within you, but this eclipse is required for the spell to work. If you don’t let me do the spell tonight, then you will have to wait for the next eclipse, and none but the crawdads know when that’ll be. So, what’ll it be, pups?”

*

*

*

As it turned out, Ira even had a perfect place chosen for the spell. There was a hole in the ground, a chasm which had been opened up by four boys a few years back. They’d fallen in and found what seemed to be the basement of a house which had long since been demolished, a basement from which they were unable to escape. It had taken almost a week for them to be found, and by that time, it was the coroner, not the paramedics, who was needed. At the time, it had been a horrifying accident, but after the plague swept the town, those few survivors saw enough horrors of their own to forget that one accident.

But not Ira. He explained to the frightened couple as they moved cautiously through the woods that he’d suspected something deeper in the accident. After all, where had the rubble from the house been? Why had the basement contained a staircase leading nowhere? That was the first thing that set him on the trail toward King’s End. The second was the eclipse, and when he put the two together, he saw the potentiality for him to try out a spell he’d picked up in his travels.

With that admission, the door had been opened and Carl and Liz became relentless about the mysterious Cajun’s past. With a heavy sigh, he eventually opened up and told them how he’d come to acquire the knowledge in his possession.

“It began almost a decade ago back in Louisiana. I was known down there as Chief Inspector Legrasse, and I was jointly chosen by both the sheriff and the chief of police to lead an investigation into strange disappearances happening along the border of the bayou just south of New Orleans. Eventually, I gathered enough evidence to coordinate a large-scale manhunt deep into the swamps. We trudged through the muck for three days before we came upon nearly a hundred men and women involved in some sort of queer ceremony, voodoo or the like. We arrested the ones we could, but most of them disappeared into the swamps pretty quick-like. We did a cursory study of the ceremony grounds and found strange incantations carved into the dirt and rocks, and the bones of both adults and children buried on the outskirts: they’d been sacrificing them, you see, offering them up to their strange gods. I am sorry to say that not all of the arrested individuals made it the three days back to the station before my mob got ahold of them. But even more eerie is that the number in my search party began dwindling as we went. Not dying, mind you, just…disappearing, as if the swamp was taking them, or perhaps the escaped crazies were taking them silently in the night. In any case, by the time we made it back to the station, the search party was only half its original size, and the arrested individuals were less than a dozen.

Now we took a number of artifacts from their ritual grounds with us when we left the swamps: some statues and knives, a couple of staves and strange stones that looked like they were covered in strange runes, like you’d imagine finding across the Atlantic. These were kept in evidence, and while they were there, I began studying them, trying to figure out exactly what it was these fools were up to. Like I said, we all thought it was old-style voodoo, but the more I dug into the runes and statues, the more I learned that this was of a far worse caliber than any slave religion. This was something darker, stranger than anything I’d ever experienced in my line of work.

I became eager to learn more, to understand what it was they were trying to do, and so I went on extended leave from the department and began to follow similar patterns, and that quest ultimately led me all the way to this ghost town in Indiana. Surely, the two of you haven’t ignored all of the strange things that happened here before the swamp disease, did you? The disappearances, the lynchings, houses burning to the ground or being found abandoned with no evidence of what happened inside? Well, you two want to know how it is I came across this anti-werewolf spell. The simple truth is that in my travels, I have picked up a thing or two, and one of those happens to be exactly what was needed. Like I said, pups: divine intervention.”

“Why did you keep looking?” Liz asked. “I mean, you stopped the kidnappings, right? You arrested some people and scattered the rest, and I’m guessing left that up to the FBI. So why not just close the case and move on?”

“That is the unfortunate nature of the human condition,” he answered her. “In the end, the mysteries consume us all.” He stopped suddenly and put a hand up to catch the other two. “We’re here. Your sheriff made a good report on this one.”

Carl pulled a rope out of his pack – which Ira had advised him to bring along – and tied it around the nearest tree, then climbed down himself. Next, Ira shimmied down, followed lastly by Liz. They’d walked for most of the day, and twilight was just beginning to fall while the moon was beginning to rise. Carl could feel his skin starting to crawl and itch, growing hotter by the minute. He glanced over at Liz and saw her growing discomfort as well, but Ira didn’t notice as he began to arrange some rocks from the floor in a pattern. When he at last noticed their changing demeanor, he merely told them, “hold yourselves in check, lest the beasts come out and end your chances of being cured.” With that, Carl and Liz began struggling hard, breathing slowly in and out, trying to stay in control of their own bodies. “So how…does this work…exactly?” Carl asked between deep breaths.

“It’s quite simple, really,” Ira responded. “You see, I am going to be opening a doorway, but opening this doorway requires what you might call a ‘dual-destiny;’ that is, two destinies mingled together. Now I already tried this ritual a few years ago with a couple of zombies that I picked up, but unfortunately, zombies have no destinies, so it was unsuccessful. But each of you has a human destiny and a werewolf destiny. At first, I was afraid that to open the door, I’d have to sacrifice all of you, Carl, but it seems your wife has saved your life. Now all I need is the destinies of your werewolves, cast upon the portal and the gateway will open.”

“What?” Liz asked, tears forming in the corners of her eyes as a result of her inner struggle. “A gateway to where?”

“Oh, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with the two of you,” he said as he began walking back toward the pile of stones. “You see, I eventually discovered what those people in the swamp were doing: they were trying to wake their gods and free them from their murky crypts. When I left the department, I made sure to take with me one of those statues, and with it, I will wake one such creature who lives on his own island far beneath the Pacific Sea.”

“Why?” Carl stuttered, his chest pounding as his heart seemed nearly to burst from it.

“Because I’m a warlock, pup,” Ira said with a sneer. “I am Legrasse, servant of the dreaming things which fell from the skies eons ago.”

“You can’t!” Carl screamed incomprehensibly as he began shambling toward Ira, but Ira simply held up his hand. “You can stop me,” he said. “But if you do, you will condemn both you and your wife to a murderous life.” Carl stopped in his tracks, his back contorting in agony as he collapsed to the ground. Behind himself, he heard Liz scratching the stone walls. “Don’t you see the gift I’m giving you?” Ira asked, leaning down beside him. “Once these beings cross over, they will reward the faithful with such great power. We will become rulers of this land, reigning in the wake of their destruction. You will be so much more than werewolves: you will walk in the ways of lightning and thunder, and hammer down on the defiant. We will walk in the footsteps of the gods.”

Carl gasped for air, but Ira ignored him and pulled a grotesque statue from his own pack and laid it in the center of the stones. Then, he peered up into the sky, at the moon which had appeared as if from nowhere in the center of the hole above them. As he spoke strange phrases and incantations, the moon began to turn red, as if it had been struck by a blade and the blood of space was pouring into it. Then, the words of Ira began to echo off the cave walls.

“From the flames of Tartarus to the rays of Hyperborea,” the warlock cried up at the moon. “Gather the Atlantean winds from the hollow Earth and press them to the waves of R’lyeh! Let the darkness rise, wake the dreaming and come forth from the corpse of Tiamat! Arise and conquer, arise and destroy! Arise and claim the world as your own!”

Suddenly, a great sphere appeared above the statue, like a glowing silver bubble that was rapidly growing in size. At first it was the size of a volleyball, but it quickly grew to the size of Ira, and beyond its shimmering outline, Carl could start to see strange things, black and shapeless forms moving within it.

There was intense pain as his body began to glow, and he could hear Liz crying behind him. Carl raised his eyes to see Ira holding his hands above them, hands which were glowing the color of the moon, and as his eyes focused on them, he felt like something was being pulled away from him, pulled out of him, as if Ira was removing his very heart. There was the sound of barking and growling, and ghostly forms in the shape of two wolves were floating in the air between them and Ira now, linked to the madman by some imperceptible rays and being dragged toward the growing bubble of silvery light. At first, the wolves nearly turned to devour Ira, but the light from the moon caught their eyes and then they went still, their gazes focused intensely on the blood-red sky, becoming little more than puppets for Legrasse to control.

His body wracked with pain, Carl crawled back to his wife, who was sobbing against the stone, which was covered all over in deep claw marks. He held her close and turned his eyes to the portal, but the wolves captured by the crazed warlock before the grotesque statue, and the portal, were all too much for him to bear, so he closed his eyes as tight as he could. But even that didn’t work, for strange visions began flowing before his eyes and into his very mind, visions of a world stomped flat by mountainous beings, forests set ablaze by the fiery breath of dragons, hundreds, thousands, millions of human bodies all piled high and set before giants with green, grey and blue skin, but each with eyes that glowed a bloody red and wings that dredged up hurricanes and tsunamis. These monsters would push the world into destruction. They would consume all of humanity, and this time there would be no flood to destroy these awoken things, no angels strong enough to rebind their chains beneath the Earth. This was the end, the beginning of the end, not just for the town but for all of humanity if they allowed Ira to continue his work.

“He was right,” Liz stuttered, her body cold and shaking as she spoke. “This is divine intervention.”

“What do you mean?” Carl asked. “It was his gods that called him here and helped him find us. Is that what you mean?”

“No,” Liz replied as she leaned in and gave Carl a soft, weak kiss on his lips. “It was our God who chose us to be here.”

“She’s right,” Carl heard another voice behind him. He turned over to see Denny standing there, the wounds still clawed across his hide. Silently, he knelt down beside the couple, and a glance from Liz was enough to acknowledge to her husband that she saw him, too. “God chose the two of you to bear this burden. If Legrasse opens that portal and lets those things through before the eclipse ends, this town will be destroyed, and everyone who still lives within it. And then the whole world will die. This is your destiny, Carl.”

The words of his wife and his brother-in-law echoed in his mind as Carl slowly lifted his aching body, rising to his feet with great strain. He began moving forward, slowly at first but gaining in speed, and the closer he drew to the warlock and the wolves, the more one of the wolves began resisting its controller. By the time Ira saw what was happening, it was too late. Reaching out one hand, Carl brushed the ghostly fur of the wolf, and it dissipated into a mist that flooded back into him, diving beneath his skin and binding itself to his very soul. The pain immediately receded and Carl felt himself in possession of a strength he’d never known before. He stood taller, leaner, more powerful than he’d ever been. Making sure to keep his eyes off of the seductive crimson of the moon, he gripped the warlock by the throat and dragged him toward the portal.

When he got close, he paused, seeing the wolf that had lived so briefly inside of Liz. He could cast it, along with Ira, into the portal and banish them both, freeing Liz from the curse that he had taken upon himself, but then the portal would open and the monsters would flood forth. So reaching out, he grabbed Ira’s outstretched hand and broke it with the smallest effort. The warlock screamed in pain as the ghostly wolf sprinted toward the back of the cave. Then, Carl lifted Legrasse by his neck and held him up to the portal.

The ground began to shake and something enormous and dark slithered out of the bubble and snaked across the ground, reaching blindly for them. Momentarily immobilized in fear, Carl traced the strange tentacle back to the portal, in which greater limbs and black forms were now shifting, as if awakening from an ancient sleep. The limbs and forms were moving toward the gateway, and eventually, a great, yellow eye filled the view, an eye so alien and unknown and horrifying that Carl’s body began to tremble. Ira began struggling against his iron grip, and, regaining control of himself, Carl flung the warlock into the eye of the thing beyond the gate, his claw-like fingernails raking across the madman’s neck as he let go.

Ira seemed to vanish into the portal, but some of the blood from his neck splattered against its outer edges and began to grow, to taint the gateway between the strange, sunken island and this hole in Midwest soil. The portal turned red and began to shrink away, and as it did, the visions in his mind dissipated and the great tentacle retracted back upon itself. As if by an afterthought, Carl reached down, grabbed the grotesque statue Ira had secreted with him and tossed it through the portal as well, forever ensuring that such a portal could never again be made. Then, in scarcely the blink of an eye, the bubble of contorted spacetime vanished and was no more.

*

*

*

The next morning, the bedraggled couple pulled themselves out of the hole in the ground by the rope which was still tied to a nearby tree. After the destruction of the portal, the eclipse had ended, having progressed and regressed far more rapidly than any eclipse should have, but Carl suspected that the opening of the portal – the manipulation of time and space by such strange mysticism – had altered the flow of time down in their temporary prison. The rest of the night had been spent sleeping, albeit in somewhat lupine forms. Now, with the sun arisen and their inner beasts resting peacefully deep inside, they felt confident enough to venture out into the woods.

They never again saw the ghost of Denny. He had disappeared with the eclipse, though because he was tied to it or because Carl had saved the town – and, thus, Denny’s wife – they would never know. But they were determined to face the difficult road ahead of them, to peer into the unknown and try to discover a way of ensuring that they could still be human…in spirit, if not in body.