The Last Werewolf

I’m the last of my kind. Unless I bite you. Don’t usually go in for that sort of thing, mind, few too many silver hairs in my coat these days. Any road, it’s a full moon tonight, wouldn’t be much of a werewolf story otherwise, would it? Don’t matter though, I’ll be tucked up in my cellar, wearing my chains, no bother. But I’ve got to finish my round first.

You’d think they’d let the wolf have full moon off, but it don’t work like that, do it? Had to cover the new lad’s shift – he’s got pneumonia or some bollocks. Not that they know I’m a werewolf. First and foremost, I’m a postman, a bloody good one too. Eccleston stretches out across the country like a napping cat, taking up more space than it ought. Houses spread out, rambling gardens and farms. Means I have to keep hopping in and out of the van. It’s late by the time I get to Martha’s. I have a parcel and three letters. I’ll need a signature.

Place looks dead, no lights on. Give it my usual four raps on the knocker, but instead of the top of Martha’s grey and pink curls, a tiny human answers the door. Granddaughter, maybe?

‘Hi there, is someone else home?’ I ask.

‘Can’t talk to strangers,’ the tiny girl says. She twists to and fro, fiddling with the bow on her dress.

‘Carl! Is that you? Let him in, Millie!’

I don’t particularly want to go in, but Martha don’t sound right, so I pass Millie and step into the lounge, practically filling it single-handed. Martha’s taken a fall. She’s propped up against her armchair, cradling her wrist. I put the post down on the sideboard and help Martha back onto her chair.

‘What happened, love?’ I ask.

‘Tripped on one of Millie’s cuddly animals. Didn’t I?’ She directs the question at Millie, who covers her face with her hands.

‘What do you need? Ice?’

‘If you could get a doctor to come out, I don’t want to be waiting in hospital for hours and hours. I’ll catch something worse than a sore wrist, that’s for sure.’

‘I’ll try.’

I check my phone. 15:30. One hour until moonrise. I have two more houses after this, then drive back to the depot, pick up my car, drive home. Just enough time. What do you know, no signal.

‘Number’s by the phone, Carl,’ Martha directs, as Millie hands her a bag of frozen peas to put on her wrist. Martha is pale, clammy.

I heave a sigh. It’s flu season, not to mention our surgery is piddlingly small at the best of times. But I’m a professional, and make the call. A robot voice tells me I’m in a queue.

‘Wants me to ring 111, Martha,’ I call from the hallway.

‘I don’t need some spotty upstart to tell me what I already know. I need a splint and a few weeks’ rest from minding this one!’ Martha motions at little Millie again, who starts to cry. ‘Oh dear, come here. I didn’t mean it.’ Martha motions for Millie to go in for a hug. She gives her granddaughter a squeeze. ‘I’m a crotchety old woman who hasn’t gotten used to being old.’

111 ask me a million questions, then want Martha to confirm her identity.

‘I can’t make it over there,’ she moans.

15:45. Fuck me. The call handler gets cranky. I hang up, redial the GP surgery and get Millie to hold the phone. Meanwhile, I dig under the sink for a first-aid kit and bind Martha’s arm.

‘I really have to go, Martha. Can you shout into the phone when Millie gets through?’ My knee bobs up and down in agitation.

‘Can’t you stay? I feel faint.’ God, she lays it on thick. Makes me feel like the monster I am. My hackles rise. The little one would be a tasty snack for my other self. He’s ready to come out, one whiff of that moon…

‘I’ll call once I have signal,’ I promise, standing up. ‘Oh, and you need to sign for those,’ I nod to the pile of mail, hold out my work tablet.

‘I’m right-handed.’ She purses her lips.

‘Doesn’t matter what it looks like.’

‘Matters to me.’

Fuck’s sake!

‘Then you don’t get the post, Martha!’ I shout, and instantly regret it. That’s not me. That’s the wolf. It’s stretching its claws underneath my skin. Half an hour to moonrise. Millie screams and drops the phone, which dangles on its cord precariously. I snatch up the post and head out the door.

‘Wait, Carl!’ Martha’s croaky voice shouts after me, ‘what if I’ve broken my hip?’ Too late. Rather they think I’m a prick than I tear their hearts out for my supper.

My van is an oasis of calm compared to the cottage, but it’s not enough. Even if it would hold me in for the night, it’d be wrecked. I’d lose my job. There’s no time to get it back to the depot, so I park the van in the verge and message my manager to plead engine trouble. Sort it in the morning. Is the heaven-sent reply. I’m already running across the fields towards home.

The freezing winter air feels amazing. My muscles stretch and pulse with energy. Wolfy wants to savour the freedom, devour the night’s full moon. I can’t let him. It would feel so good, but I can’t let him. My still-human lungs heave, strain against the cold, lactic acid building in my thighs. The ground is muddy, and my boots slip on the slick grass of the field. I haul ungracefully over the back fence.

I crane my neck to check the dim midwinter sky. The hands of the devil part the scant cloud to reveal a huge, pearlescent moon. Seconds wasted looking at what I already felt in my bones. It begins. I reach the back door, fumble the key as my hands lengthen, nails thicken into curved claws. Inside, the room shrinks as I grow, and my joints ache as my skeleton expands. I’m getting too old for this. Panicked and sweaty, I’m gasping for breath as I crash open the cellar door and throw myself into the darkness. I have time to reach the chains. I’m going to make it.

Four silver snakes coil in the half-light seeping down from the stairwell. Pure silver. Inherited them from my old man. Tarnished to shit now, green and black and puckered with corrosion. Can you blame me for not coming down here to polish them? I’ve no kids, no chance I might pass on these problematic genes. When I die, they’ll just have to think a madman lived here.

My knees complain as I fall to the stone floor and click the heavy cuffs round my ankles, then my wrists. They’re bloody tight. Need to be. The metal digs into my flesh as the change completes, uniform in tatters on the ground.

*

Every moon. Every single moon for the last fifty-two years spent down in this cellar. Today was a sliver, a drop of that moon on my tongue. I saw it, felt it beneath my paws before the human vessel dragged me under the earth. He paused. He knew how good it would be. He knew it and locked us down here anyway.

I snarl, growl building deep in my throat. Not a month’s worth of rage, half a century. I vent it all at once, roar my pain and rage into this stone dungeon. The echoes bounce off the walls back at me. The silver pinches and scrapes my skin, constantly stinging. He made a mistake, letting me see that light. Normally so careful, too. That moment was enough.

I’m getting the hell out of here.

The chains are strong, forged to last, but I’ve been tugging on them for decades, and the human gets weaker as the years tick by, and has been too lazy to repair or clean them. I strain every muscle and sinew in my power, yanking on the chains. Release, pull, repeat. Every sound amplifies in the empty stone space to a deafening series of reverberations.

But, I’m a wolf. Even through all the clanging and my own raucous snarls, I heard her. A little voice at the top of the stairs.

‘Hello?’ Tiny Millie’s trembling voice is anathema to every sound I make. I instantly stop. She must have followed that human shell home. Foolish. Tasty. Morsel. I hunch, shrink down, flatten my ears. Just an overgrown doggie. Here, girl, it’s alright, come pet the big pooch. Step by step, she plods down into the darkness. The kitchen lights cast a long beam across the opposite half of the room.

‘Granny said to fetch you back. You’re a faster runner than me!’

Her high-pitched voice only gets higher, but she does not back off in her fear, she keeps descending. Gradually, I creep forward, take the weight of the chains. The cracks enlarge. The wall around the bolts crumbles. My claws find purchase on the stone and the silver buckles. One link, then two.

‘Carl?’ She reaches the bottom step. I make no sound. ‘Granny needs help!’ She cries. Sobbing, she wrings the bottom of her jacket between her hands.

Ping. Clatter. The chains burst from the wall. But they still bite into me, and will slow me down if I try to run. I pad up to the little crying girl. I whimper at her feet, holding out a long, bony leg. She smells like meat. I keep my fangs hidden, claws folded out of sight, but she is a miniature, frightened human, and I am a giant wolf. She spins on the spot and dashes up the first few steps. In a single movement, I lunge and bite the bottom of her jacket to pull her back.

‘Bad doggy!’ she yells. I try whimpering again, holding up my leg. This time she gets the hint and unbolts the shackle. When I eat her, I will avoid the face. There’s a lot of snot. Call me picky. Whoever said werewolves were out-of-control monsters? I have perfect control as I wait. The second shackle hits the floor, then the third. ‘Where’s Carl?’

Why is she asking me? Maybe I can just bite this last chain off…

I snap at her arm. She’s fast, darts away and scrambles up the stairs. The hunter in me gives chase. She makes it through the doorway first, and into the house. I lose time squeezing through the narrow opening, and tugging at the chain that snags on every fucking thing possible as I drag it behind me. The silver cuts deeper and searing pain shoots up my rear left leg. A deafening growl erupts from the most guttural part of my throat.

Millie is quick, but she cannot outrun me, hobbled though I am. I crash through the house after her, into the darkness.

Luna. The night. I have not smelled this air before. I have not seen the burnished glow of the full moon. Not in all my years. Instinctively, I howl. It pierces the soul of the sky, and a sound returns to me that no human ear could hear. The echo of my ancestor’s howls singing like the wind.

I catch up to the girl in a few strides and bite down on her shoulder. Blood, thick and unctuous, envelops my tongue. I toss her aside and lope into the woods in search of larger prey.

In the mournful pre-dawn hour, I limp back to the house. Miles of running with the silver shackle has all but crippled me. Millie lies by the back door, cold, sleeping. Barely breathing. If I do not kill her before the dawn, she will turn. Shall I finish it and consume the little one’s delicious heart? Or shall I be the last of my kind no more?