When he bit into my flesh, seeing his fur matted with my blood, I couldn’t help but think about zombies. The only thing about those monsters that seemed scary was the bite and becoming just another nameless face in the crowd. But as he pulled back from his first bite, I forgot all about zombies looking into his yellow eyes and hearing his fierce growl coming from deep within. Then, I couldn’t help but wonder how I got here.

I don’t think people really want to hear about me going back to college. Not that I was back there more than a semester and a day. The semester until I ran out of money and the day was just to find out if my suspicion was correct. I do like being proved right. She was cheatin’ on me. It didn’t take long. But that’s not really the story I’m tellin’.

I think it was Mark Twain who said that the two most important days in your life are the days you are born and when you figure out why. Hell, it could’ve been Whitman, Thoreau, even Wilde, but I’m pretty sure it was Twain. Then again, I never thought too much of Twain. Kind of thought his reputation was as over blown as anyone could get. I read Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, even saw some of the movies. He was in a Star Trek episode too. I’ve always thought the man a curmudgeon and cynic at heart. Even though he is supposed to be the inventor of stand- up comedy. I never really understood why people seemed to gush over him.

Anyway, I mentioned Twain because I thought he was outright wrong. One of the most important days and I dare say it may rival the top two is the day you die. The day you die has to hold some kind of tier of importance. How many people live without ever knowing why they were born? I reckon a lot. How many people die? Every single one.

The Apostle Paul said, “I die daily”. That always stuck with me but that’s not what I’m talking about although I suppose we do die daily a little bit inside, but I doubt that’s what dear old Saul thought. We die a little bit every day with technology. The world echoes and hungers for something more to come. The good book talks about the groans of creation. There’s something too that. Whether you believe it or not you might be hungering for the good lord to return to earth riding on clouds. Not that I believe such things, I just really like a good theology class. Either way, I suppose, it is human nature to want something more. Something deeper. Creation groans.

I guess we’re all a little bit like Paul, trying to die to ourselves. God had renamed him on that old road to Damascus, but that old goat, that old codger, Saul still lived inside of him, you see. Paul had to put that man, that old man Saul, to death. That’s what life is like. You have a good side and a bad side and if you can, if you’re strong enough whether by the grace of God or the stubbornness of your grit, you hold to one side that you want and make your life about that. But I digress.

Long distance relationships don’t really work or maybe it is more proper to say that they are a lot of work. I took my second semester off and had moved in by circumstance and misfortune with the girlfriend’s family. Imagine a sheep moving into a den of wolves.

Well anyway, I was working on their farm singing to myself and sneaking out to town every Friday night to crash local clubs to listen to bands when I got the sensation that they were doing more than just putting up with me. They were fixing to wedge themselves between me and my girl. They worked or she did. The old codger inside of her sprung anew. When I showed up on campus in a red truck that belonged to her daddy, she didn’t recognize me at first.

The beard had admittedly grown out. The muscles had toned and if I may be so bold, I may have grown more because of the hard work. She was sitting on the bleachers necking with some boy whose identity I didn’t care to discover. I had known she had class but hadn’t known she had skipped it to go necking. I had waited on the bleachers not too far from where her and her escort had decided to rendezvous. It was truly a serendipitous meeting.

I watched for a minute. Allowing the shock and the dismay to wash over me. I suppose you might be wondering if I confronted them. I suppose you might want to know about the fire in the barn a few nights before I left and the other sordid details which may or may not have given me my new leather jacket and now, as I saw it, a new pick-up truck, ruby red. But that’s not what the story is about. Maybe it’ll be told in some other time in some other way, but right now, I wanted to talk about the wolves.

Wolves are interesting creatures. They hunt in packs and live in community but once a wolf is ostracized from the group, the lone wolf keeps to himself and rarely howls. They usually mate for life. They live for community but the lone one is separated from his own desires. I felt that leaving the college campus for the last time. Knowing my credits would remain forever unused.

Alfie Fernandez’s family owned a cabin up in the woods a day’s drive north two or three states up. He had recently expired within the fire of the barn and, by proxy, had given me an unspoken permission to squat there while I figured things out.

Their desire to find me also might have had something to do with slapping their daughter. The heat was on, as they say. I did not slap her hard but merely, my hand, I do attest, bounced off the face of the boy she was necking and ricocheted onto hers. There is something about a slap that is emasculating when a man receives it from another. It’s as if to say you’re not worth my closing my fingers into knuckles. I didn’t stay long to find out how much damage there was, but I suspect it was more shock than triage. I do remember her calling out my name, “Dylan!” She shouted but I was already gone. Once love is lost, it is never to be found again.

Either way, I had reason to leave. Reason good enough to move on to other parts of the world and I found the mountains. Temperature and air move differently there. Winter was already beginning to bear down while the campus had felt more like an autumn. Although we were through enough of November where you could argue both. The cabin, the key of which I had in my safe keeping, was fully furnished. I did not have possessions, being a man of little means when I made my escape, but I still was able to acquire enough groceries for some time to squat.

It’s hard to blame someone for your troubles when you’re alone. It’s takes exceptional skill and so I used such skill that I had previously transposed into music to blaming the red head who had stomped on the little bit of my heart that still throbbed with feeling.

I did notice the moon that first night. I guess, when you’re on top of a mountain you can’t help but notice it. Damn thing feels like it is standing right outside your window. I had a picture of her from my wallet that I took out with a beer that I had liberated for my own needs. I remember telling the picture, “Maggie, you used to be beautiful” not thinking that my slap did more than just leave a worn and red mark but rather that love has a funny way of making people feel a little bit better and a little bit nicer than they actually are. As well as drastically the opposite when it leaves.

That was when I heard the howling in the middle of the night. There was a wolf out tonight, I thought. Also smiling to myself wondering if the beer was strong or if I were a lightweight, the wolf is inside tonight. I laughed to myself, but the power flickered on and off. I saw in the dark, half-drunk with growing trepidation at my present circumstances, opportunity calling me.

I had always liked werewolf stories from American Werewolf in London to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Although, I suppose I have never been fully satisfied with it. Hyde is a werewolf if there ever was one.

The moon often feels like it features either too prominently in the story or not prominent enough. The anger, the rage, the transformation, all seem a bit too much. I don’t care for watching or hearing about the change. Elongating faces or splaying noses all seem like something that would appear in visages of stain-glassed catacombs.

I felt it looking at me before I saw it. I half-drunk immobile on the couch. The picture I had been holding fallen to the floor and frankly, I couldn’t see a reason to bend over and pick it up. Nor do I think I could if I wanted to. I felt it looking at me. My eyes drifting over to the window. Seeing outside the dark shadows rising blocking out the moon and those yellow eyes peering in from them.

He must think I’m asleep. We watched each other. I do not how long he was there before I noticed. It could not have been very long. I wanted to get up with fervor and say, “The wolf is in here too”. But I lacked the luster and I knew that glass could easily be broken. I waited to see if something would happen. I waited until those eyes disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. I waited until I was fully alone. Then, I waited some more.

Two people. Saul and Paul. Two waring halves. Jekyll and Hyde. Opposites bent on war. Me. And my good, old werewolf friend. The tracks the next morning were right up to the window. Maybe it was my fanciful imagination or my desire for it to be a werewolf, but I swore it walked on hind legs and came up to the window. I swear I saw the snow that its paws might have collected from a fast gallop through the snowy mountain pass clinging on the sides of the window as it leaned in. While I may have been indisposed, it is worth saying, I was aware that those eyes were not coming from waist height but higher.

I had traveled this far with my old friend. It’s the same friend as Lyle Lovett had, it is coal black and it is .45. I had thought maybe I could use him for something. You know what Lennon said, I get by with a little help from my friends. I decided I would I wait for the wolf to return. I slept during the day leaving the door open as an invitation to allow the moonlight and a friend to drift inward.

I kept sober because I thought that might be the only way of dealing with such a thing. I set no trap but just waited. Things have a way of coming around. I lay on the couch with my legs up under a blanket. My old friend in hand under the blanket too.

Darkness has a way of betraying people. It has a feeling. It has a taste that is rich and powerful. It has a hunger and speaks to you if you are willing. Sometimes if you open your eyes in the middle of night, you might find you’re not alone.

The wolf hovered over me. Closer than I would’ve allowed consciously, but he moved swiftly with purpose and if he hadn’t hesitated, we would reckon that Twain quote and speak of its folly right here and now. See, I told you this was better than slapping my girlfriend.

Anyway, I woke to the low and thunderous rumble of the wolf man. A mutation of old-world beliefs and the scientific present. A strange and absurd beast that desired nothing more than to eat and to eat and to eat before moving on. I stared up at it seeing it had more than just a night or two to transform but change as regular as the night.

He leaned forward about to bite down when I smiled. He hesitated, and I knew I had taken the upper hand as he stared curiously at my smile. I knew inside there was that good ol’ Paul beggin to come out and that good ol’ Jekyll wanting to be free again. I smiled. It was a nice smile. At least, I always believed I had a nice smile and when it came to attack, my smile was nice enough to cause it to step back. Dismay or maybe just shy at the grace I was bestowing. It took a step back and then I shot. I did not hesitate. For if I did, surely it would have been my ruin.

The growl, I will never forget. It was a low and angry rumble. It was if he had decided to go and spare my life, but I had outraged it to the point of need. I was now an itch to scratch. It fell onto all fours before rising up and howling high into the sky. I grinned watching feeling the power of its might about to bear down on me. I had more bullets and they were ready to go for sure, but I wanted to know what he was going to do.

When the howling returned to him from somewhere alongside the mountains, I realized I had overstepped my burden. I had lured him in, but I had thought this a lone wolf not a pack wolf. While the gunshot might not call the others, the howling sure would.

I don’t know if wolves can smile, but as he turned to me and cocked his head to the side, I swore I saw a smile on his face. I still lying there like some kind of fatted calf waited for it to come back when the howling had grown closer.

I don’t remember why it hadn’t crossed my mind before now. I just took it as a foolish fancy, but the bullets weren’t silver. I did not possess any silver as far I could tell. The folklore had been wrong about lone wolfs at least I was quickly discovering this truth with the howls still echoing across the mountains outside, but had it been wrong about silver? The wolf was in pain, I was sure. Still staring at me, he waited for me to either move or for back up to come.

It is an important thing to keep your composure when you are caught in a difficult situation. Composure is everything when you are in the midst of a good bluff. I held my hands upright, ready for anything that may come. I braced as the howls grew even closer, and the silence between me and my new friend stretched.

“It wasn’t silver.” I said but the words sounded weak and apologetic. I hated that.

“I know.” The voice responded almost stoically.

This surprised me just a little because I was right in my suspicion that it was not stuck in a full animal mind. I thought it a good chance to reason with him as long as I did not sound weak or apologetic. We might both get through the night. He knew the gun was still pointed toward him. He knew I was still alert and at full strength.

“Maybe we can talk this out.” I suggested.

“You don’t have anything I want.” He grumbled in a low growl.

“I have your life.”

His arms which hovered crooked in the air began to lower.

I shot again. The momentary pause grew an ease in him, and I leapt from the couch on top of him. He howled in pain and then drew silent as I fired again into his head. I laughed feeling the exhilaration of the moment take hold as I rose to close the door when another appeared in the doorway. Then the window behind me shattered as a hairy paw broke it. Growling growing deep from within a cavernous chest came from behind me.

The one in the doorway sniffed the air. I was confident there was more than one behind me. I stood my ground although my entire being wanted to retreat. Any step back would be seen as weakness. This old wolf would take that as permission to come into my place and call it his own.

“Your people have invaded my house.” I said mentally calculating how many bullets were still in the gun. I loaded every bullet I had and knew I had three shots left. My mind drifted to the bathroom which wouldn’t hold them back for long. I had to get the truck, but I would need to shake them, give myself a couple of seconds to get in and get the old junk started. I had no doubt it would start. Maggie’s father loved that car more than he loved his own son.

“This isn’t your home.” The wolf growled from the door.

Admittedly, my response to this statement was a poor one. It was the best that I conjure at the moment as I held my hand out to them as invitation. “Bite me.” I said asking them to make me one of their own.

When they took their first bite, it didn’t feel bad. The gun fell out of my hand and bounced on the floor. I don’t know what I expected. I don’t know why I thought of zombies. I don’t know why it didn’t feel bad. He pulled back and locked eyes with me. I thought this would be our peace summit. Then the others came closer and the one in front of me, as I looked into his yellow eyes, he let out a low rumbling, growing growl.

The others advanced faster than I knew what was happening as they began to tear into my flesh. I suppose Twain was right. But most people don’t find out why they were born and it becomes too late for them. Most people are left with the two most important days of their life being the day they were born and they day they die.