Werewolf Hunter

A mans struggle with humanity and what he has become.

 

Werewolf Hunter   4/12/07

 

 

I didn’t start out wanting to hunt werewolves, it just happened. When one of the b******s kills your whole family you tend to take it personally.

 

This one I am after tonight was being particularly crafty. After three full moons I had figured its hunting patterns, and knew it would be returning to its first hunting grounds in Mason Memorial Park. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the same beast that had attacked and killed my family, but it was a werewolf, and I will kill every one of them until I find the butcher responsible for my pain.

 

It’s pretty nice as far as parks go. A lot of nature for kids to run and play in, open fields, three man-made ponds placed through out its two-mile length. But it also had the perfect hunting grounds for a werewolf. It had about six small wooded areas all along jogging paths, and the whole park was surrounded on three sides by natural woods and one with a slow flowing river, slow during the summer anyway. As I said, perfect hunting grounds.

 

After a long circle of the park I picked up its trail. It had entered from the west through a dense forested area just south of I-80. Yeah, I knew where it came from. Not three miles away there was a park and rest area for tired drivers. It seems my foe drove to the rest area and walked into the woods. This one knew what it was doing. Some of them did, chose their prey days in advance even. Others were just mindless beast; unable or unwilling to remember what they were or who they were when not transformed in to a flesh-eating monster.

 

The first time it had killed in this park it had taken a jogger named, “Merriam Spencer,” right off the running path in front of her jogging partner and lover.

 

Three Months Earlier

 

The dimly lit path offered little warning to the couple as they neared the end of their run, and their life together. Only fifty yards from the parking lot with the light fading and the automated park lights just starting to turn on, some not quite set to the new earlier hours of early darkness that fall brought. The boy friend was telling his girlfriend a story about something funny that happened at work. They had both slowed to work off any tension in their muscles after two laps around the jogging path, almost a full four miles.

 

They had made the run many times, keeping fit being one of the things that attracted them to each other. Her boyfriend Michael stopped and walked in a small circle after noticing he was a few yards ahead of his love. He had made one whole walking turn hands on his hips when he heard the roar and turned in time to see something large and dark tackle his girlfriend, and saw as it lashed out at her and lowered its head tearing at her body.

 

He did like any man would, he ran to her rescue, at least at first. Reaching her he could barley make out what looked like either a bear or large dog, but he’d never seen a dog so large and began screaming and kicking at the beast. Its only reaction at first was to glare for a moment and then bite his love on the neck and pull a huge chunk out, and swallow it before his eyes. Michael screamed and turned to run away and seek help. Something bad to do in front of any animal hunting is to run, it tends to trigger a predators instincts to pursue and kill.

 

Tired and weak from the shock of what he’d just seen he only made it a few yards before the animal was upon him. It easily tackled him from the rear knocking him face down on the hard-clay jogging path. It dug at his back and bit his shoulder deeply as it flipped him over to face itself. Just as it leaned back and howled, ready for what would have been the death bite, headlights struck it from several parked cars. Mason Memorial park was also a favorite make out sight for teens within a ten-mile radius. Lucky for Michael that day four months ago, that the Highway Patrol hadn’t made their patrol of the park just yet to run the teens off before closing. They were tied up a few miles away at a one-car accident, sleepy drivers, well, shouldn’t drive. The teens hearing the screams had turned on their headlights that just happen to be pointed in the direction of the jogging path, and though it was far way, they could see a man mounted by a large animal. Some of them screamed, but one opened her cell-phone and dialed 911.

 

“This is 911, what is your emergency.”

 

“Oh my God, there’s this big animal thing killing some one, we need help.”

 

“What is your name and where are you calling from.”

 

“Oh, my name is Cindy, and we’re at a park, hang on. Where the hell are we Sam?”

 

“Sam turned from screaming and waving his arms at the animal now covering its eyes down the path, “Mason Park”

 

“Ok, we’re in Mason Park, some big bear or something is killing a guy down some path.”

 

“Ok, let me get this straight, a bear is attacking some one, and you can see the bear?”

 

“Yes we can see the thing, its really big and it has some guy pinned down.”

“Ok, do you have a car there?”

            “Yes.”

 

“Tell everyone to get into the car, do not approach the bear, just get in and honk the horn, see if that scares the bear away. Don’t do anything else, the Highway patrol is on its way.”

 

Cindy told her friends what to do and they followed the operators’ advice, lucky for them. Within two minutes three units were racing into the parking lot and towards the two carloads of teens still honking and tapping between high and low beams. Upon their arrival the brave teens jumped out of their cars, one missing a hood and started pointing towards the path and the one remaining body, some of them terrified and shaking with fear, crying uncontrollably.

 

Sergeant Peter McKinley grabbed one of the boys, and asked what was going on while officers from the other two units drew their weapons and advanced down the path.

“What the hell happened here?”

 

Sam could hardly stop shaking, “The stupid b***h on the phone said to honk and try to scare it off of the guy. It f*****g came after us.”

 

“Hey watch your mouth, and try to calm down, what came after you?”

Sam shook holding himself in a tight hug looking left and right, and then trying to look in all directions. “The lady on the phone said if we honked our horns it would maybe let the guy go.”

 

“Well?”

 

“What do you mean well, we honked and the damn thing came after us and tore the f*****g hood off my car.”

 

Sam started to shake more. An ambulance arrived just after the Highway Patrol units, but stayed by the park entrance, Sam was still rattling off as he watched it hypnotic lights in the distance. “It must have heard you guys coming, no sooner had it lifted its head and looked towards the park exit, it growled at us showing those f*****g big teeth and turned, and ran back down the path. A few seconds later your headlights lit the area up.”

 

McKinley Looked around and unsnapped his holster before reaching up and pressing the mike switch on his shoulder mounted radio, “Be advised, the animal is still in the area, you guys be careful up there.”

 

He could hear two clicks come over the radio. They had heard him. He could see them working their way down the path watching the brush and tree lines to either side. Some of the brush seemed like it came almost up to where the jogging path was.

“McKinley,” his radio buzzed.

 

He pressed his mikes switch again, “Yeah go ahead.”

 

“We need that ambulance up here now. This guy is hurt pretty bad, but he’s still alive. We think he’s saying there was some one else with him, but we don’t see anyone.”

 

Peter McKinley looked around again. Some of the teens were on their phones talking to parents; others were back in the cars, some crying, some holding them, and some rocking back and forth in obvious shock.

 

The ambulance pulled up next to him at the beginning of the clay jogging path, the driver asking as he rolled down his window, “Where you want us officer?”

 

Peter shook his head to clear it and pointed, “Down the path. There are two other officers with a possible bear attack victim, they need you right away, but be careful, the bear may be in the area still.”

 

The driver smiled, “Bears wont attack groups of people, they’re more scared of us th….” he stopped in mid sentence, “What the hell happen to the hood of that car.”

 

Peter McKinley jerked a thumb in the direction of a small nearby field, “That scared bear ran over here and tore the hood off the car, then tossed it over there just before we got here.”

 

The driver started to roll up his window, “Holy s**t.”

 

Peter watched the ambulance pull around the chains running between two poles blocking the entrance to the jogging route and drive up the clay path. The spotlights on either side of the converted van scanned the tree line back and forth until they reached the wounded man and two officers with flashlights out doing the same thing.

 

Within minutes the backup arrived and a full-blown search began. The badly wounded man was hurried off to the nearest hospital while Highway and State police conducted a vigorous search of the area. Over the next 12 hours, they did find parts of the woman’s clothing and flesh, but not enough to identify her. That is until a State trooper stopped under a tree to catch his breath and felt something dripping on him. When he looked up, wedged between two branches was the mauled head of a woman staring down at him, its mouth open in a permanent scream, forever unheard, But everyone searching could hear the State Trooper scream, and ran in his direction.

 

Full Moon Present Day.

 

I was there that night, watching from the shadows at the other end of the small parking lot. I was just a little too late for the attack, but the police had kept me from tracking it. Tonight would be different. Tonight as like the many nights after, showed little in the way of joggers. No other attacks had happened since but they stayed away. It had all been blamed on a rouge bear. They said it was desperate for food to fatten up on before the winters hibernation. Little by little the teens were starting to come back to the park and party. The snow made it harder to get in and out of the parking lot, but they came. They came to drink, they came to party, and make love. But tonight, they are my bait for the beast. I’ll do my best to protect them from it, but if any of them are bitten, I’ll do what I did to that Michael guy just before he saw his first full moon, I’ll kill and chop off the victims head and burn the body.

 

I’m not cold hearted, I just don’t want any more of those damn things running around committing mindless murder. Sitting here in the tree line I have the teens within easy sight and reach if they need my help. As I look around I can almost sense its presence. It’s here. I can feel it. I start my search, watching the tree line up wind from me. I see movement, something is closing from behind them, moving tree to tree, staying low. No, its not some prankster friend playing a joke, it’s the beast. A glint of moonlight touched one of its eyes, I saw a demonic red flash as it moved closer, and it was pausing to make sure it wasn’t detected. It must want them all. This was a very ambitious beast at that.

 

I had no choice, I broke cover in a dead run just as it made to attack a pair of teens leaning against the back of a snow covered sedan, its engine still running.

 

I reached them just as it leaped, and did the same. We collided only a few feet from the horrified teens and started swinging at each other, slashing out, kicking, biting and tearing at one another. Oh, did I forget to tell you, I was there when my family was killed. I survived the attack, sort of. The teens did what teens do best; they ran like hell, jumped in their cars and started burning rubber fishtailing and sliding for the exits as we fought for the upper claw.

 

It didn’t take long until it was just us two rolling around on the ground, each trying for the death bite, neither getting the chance. Both bleeding badly, but I was winning. Pretty soon it would be too weak to fight me off, and I would kill it. It was strange how easy it seemed, to defeat this one. It wasn’t even as big as I imagined it would be.

 

It must have sensed its doom and turned its head towards the sky and howled. That’s when I reached out in mid bay and slashed its throat wide open. Its head dropped, its eyes looked into mine, a look of almost confusion is what I saw, not the anger I expected. As it coughed and gurgled its blood out over the clawed hands it tried to cover the tear with, I heard something else far off in the distance behind me and turned. I heard howls, not one, not two, but at least three or four distinct answers to his call. I could now also hear the coughs of the beast as it became human again, and turned back to look upon a teenager, his eyes starting to glaze over. I did not see fear, I saw sorrow, I saw sadness in a child’s face, in my little brothers face.

 

When I was found after the attack, most of my family’s member’s bodies had been torn to shreds, but not all of them found. It had only occurred to me that the beast had feasted on the bodies or dragged them off to feed upon at a later time. Not that they had been turned. I changed back to human form as I cried on my knees rocking my baby brother back and forth in my arms. I had just killed someone I had loved so dearly, and now my family was coming to kill me…

 

The End

Author's Note

I seem to have lost my edited copy of this story, so have a good go at it as it stands.

Reviews

[N. Tripper]

Okay - my first question to you is how in the world do you find time to write? A single dad with 6 kids? You must do your writing between the hours of 9am and 2pm - when the kids are at school! Anyway, I really enjoyed your story. I thought you had an excellent idea when you decided to write a story about a werewolf hunter - most would write about a vampire hunter, I'm guessing - so many stories all over the place about vampires and it feels to me that werewolves get ignored, for the most part. It was a surprise to find out that your werewolf hunter was a werewolf himself - and he was forced to hunt down his own family. That's just a horrible situation for anyone to find themselves in. And on top of that, his family is now hunting him! The part I found confused me a bit was how the story begins in first person and then, towards the middle, it changes to third person. Even though I could figure out what was going on, it bothered me. I feel like you should have stuck with one or the other. When the 911 operator had lines in the story I kept thinking "how in the world does this werewolf hunter know what she is saying? Can he actually hear the voice on that cell phone? And then I had to adjust the story in my own mind to the writer's style.

Keep writing that horror fiction. I personally like it when writers start from scratch and invent a new type of monster to read about. When you invent your own, you are not restricted by the 'rules' and 'ideas' developed in earlier works of fiction. And we need something new in the genre... I mean, how long have we been obsessing over vampires, werewolves and frankensteins? (Even though they are a fun bunch.)

Thanks for the read and I look forward to reading more from you, James!