My Secret
Still want to hear my big secret? Of course you do, I wouldn’t have been able to tear you away from the party and bring you out all the way into the privacy of the woods if you didn’t really want me to tell you. Well, since you seam so interested, here it is.
It happened on a dark moonless night about two years ago. Mother had forgotten a few things when she went grocery shopping earlier that day, and wanted me to run down to one of those little convenience stores that are open all night long to pick them up. As usual, I grumbled and complained, but there is no arguing with Mother. I took my car out and drove to the nearest one. It didn’t take me long to find the things I needed. It was late, and as I headed to my car with the groceries I could see little around me in the dimly lit parking lot.
The attack came from behind, just as I reached the car. I don’t remember it very clearly, but I do recall screaming loudly and struggling against the grasp of hairy arms, and a sudden sharp pain in my neck. When I woke up I was in a hospital bed, and my parents and some doctors were in the room waiting anxiously for me to revive. They told me that the clerk at the convenience store had heard me screaming, but by the time he came out whatever had attacked me had disappeared and I was laying unconscious in a pool of blood on the ground. My neck hurt, and the doctors told me that I was injured and had required several stitches, but I was otherwise OK. They said that the nature of the injury was unusual, and that it reminded them of serious dog bite wounds they had seen in the past. Despite the doctor’s predictions the injuries, or bites, on my neck healed quickly. By then, however, I was more preoccupied with other things.
Ever since the night of the attack I had been having the strangest and most frightening dreams. The person or thing that had attacked me had never been found, so at the time I supposed this was causing me a lot of anxiety. However, the dreams never involved being attacked, or anything else that might suggest a nightly reliving of the terrifying incident. If anything, in these dreams I seamed to be the one doing the attacking, though in what sort of strange body I could not tell. They always ended with me chasing and pinning down some wide-eyed screaming person, and reaching quickly for their throat.
What with the injury to my neck and the anxiety caused by the dreams, it’s no surprise that my boss let me take off a few days from my job as a waitress at the local burger joint. These I spent at home resting in bed and growing more anxious every day. I felt as though I were living in some sort of countdown, though to what I could not guess. A week to the day after the attack my neck was feeling terrific, almost as good as new, but my anxiety had reached new heights.
That night my sleep was restless and the dreams particularly horrific. I remember quit vividly the intense pain with which I awoke. It was the worst I had ever experienced in my life, but I gritted my teeth and bore it out. In a short time it subsided and passed, and I relaxed in a stated of intense exhaustion. At first my vision was blurry and I was so tired that I did not want to move, but this quickly changed.
As I felt new strength creep rapidly throughout my body, my vision cleared and I realized something incredible. Though it was in the middle of the night, with only the faint glow of moonlight coming in through my bedroom window, everything in my room appeared to me as it would in bright daylight! The colors were dark and washed out looking, but it seamed that it was no longer night. I thought that perhaps I had just awakened from some terrible dream and it was actually in the early hours of the morning. I reached out my hand to turn the alarm clock on the nightstand toward myself to see what time it was, and my blood ran icy cold.
Instead of my usual human arm and hand, I was reaching with the forelimb and paw of a dog. I stared at the limb for a while, and then tried moving it again to see if it were really attached to me. It was. I struggled to think of what I should do next, but eventually I decided to examine the rest of my body to see if it had changed as well. With a new thrill of excitement I discovered that I now possessed the body of an animal, and not of a dog but a wolf.
What now? I was fearful that I might have made some noise that would bring Mother or Father to investigate, and I had no desire to be seen be either in such a state. I determined to escape through my bedroom window. In the room I quickly got the hang of walking on all fours and found that my front paws were as dexterous as human hands. I easily opened the window and leapt out. I spent the rest of the night prowling around the neighborhood, enjoying my newfound strength, speed, and senses. I could see in the dark, and recognize anything by it’s smell alone.
You should have heard the dogs bark! All of the neighborhood dogs were mad with fear and excitement when I strolled by. I will never think of their incessant yapping in the same way again, knowing now that they must surely be more aware of what really goes on out there than any human could give himself credit for.
When it started to get light I headed back to my house and jumped back in through the window. At this point I realized that my original problem had not yet been solved. I remained a wolf. I watched the sunrise worriedly, wondering why I had not yet changed back. Eventually this proved to be the key. When I thought hard enough about how I wanted to be human again, it triggered my transformation back into my old self. And with the clothing I had been sleeping in intact and in place no less!
Over the next few days and nights I mastered the art of shapeshifting. I found that I could become a wolf at will at any time of the day or night, or even transform only a part of myself, such as an arm or my teeth. Imagine that, instant wolf fangs! Naturally, I have kept all of this a secret from my family and everyone else. You are the first person I have ever told. Everyone who knew me before the Change notices that my habits and personality are a bit different, but it is not obvious enough to be dangerous.
I see by the look on your face that you do not believe me. You think I’m pulling your leg, don’t you? Ha ha, very funny. Where is the mention of full moons or silver bullets and all that other nonsense? Well, I can tell that you know nothing about werewolves. We’re just as mortal as any other being, but we don’t let any silly old moon tell us when we can prowl. We are, however, controlled by one other thing. Although we can normally move about as we please and chose who we want to attack and when, if anyone, we do eventually get an uncontrollable urge to kill. It comes less frequently then once a month, but when the urge strikes you ignore it at the risk of going mad. Luckily, this urge to kill can be satisfied with the simple biting of a selected victim. All of the nicer werewolves, like the one who attacked me in the parking lot, do this. It does turn the victims into werewolves themselves, but the alternative is quite messy, both in the toll it takes on the mind of the werewolf and the inevitable fear and dangerous curiosity the scene stirs in the human community when it is discovered. Since I like you so much, I’ll let you decide.
This is what we need rather than those people in metaphysics.
