A Wolf's Tale

 

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The Accident

If someone told you that he or she was a werewolf, what would your first reaction be? I doubt you would be very accepting. Humanity shuts themselves off from things they fear or do not fully understand. There is a world beyond what most see from day to day. I myself was not aware of this until I happened to stumble upon it one night. My name is Jake Peterson and what I am about to tell you will shock and horrify you. At one point, I was a normal human living a meaningless life. I would wake up, go to work, come home, sleep, and repeat until the weekend came. Then, instead of work, I would be found at the bar. You have probably realized that I have not told you where this is taking place. Well, I feel that that is unimportant and you will realize why and agree as you read.

 

Back to the point of this whole thing, as you may have guessed, I am a werewolf. I will be telling you of my rebirth and life since that faithful day of the change, and no ladies, the life of a creature of the night is not a romantic filled one. It is mostly filled with loneliness and hatred towards the world you once lived. Now here I am in a bar on a Saturday evening. I had a bad week so I wanted to get plastered. Now that I think about it, it wasn't such a great idea to get drunk in a bar when you don't have friends to carry home. Oh well. At that point, I didn't care about that. When your pay is docked and you are nearly drowning in debt, what does it matter if you drown in alcohol?

 

So here I was, throwing away my life when the bartender called for last rounds. I knew I couldn't drive but I was too disoriented to call for a cab as I normally would. I got in my beat up old Chevy 4X4 and started her up. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and suddenly wished I hadn't. I was a mess. Then again, who does look good drunk? The road ahead of me was twisting and turning, mostly due to the drinking, and was surrounded by trees. Thankfully, there were no cops in that area that night, or so I thought it was good. It felt like I was driving for hours. Time distortion is not one of my favorite experiences. Suddenly as if out of nowhere, I saw a giant black humanoid shape growing. Instead of stopping like a sober person, I swerved and from that point, I remember nothing else of that night.

 

I woke up in the hospital the next evening. From what the doctor was saying, I had suffered a minor concussion and a few cuts and bruises. I was also told that I was to remain in the hospital for a couple days while being questioned. It was weird considering that I was obviously drunk while driving. I was then thinking if the figure I hit was a person. I was sweating bullets as two cops had walked in and the doctor walked out. They ran me through the usual questions they normally ask drunk drivers. All except one question though. The last question they asked me caught me so off guard. They asked me to describe what I had seen that night. I guess they didn't realize that I had been suffering from a minor concussion so I won't remember certain things. I told then what was going on and they tried to tell me that it was normal procedure. I doubt asking questions without knowing the condition of the victim is normal procedure. They kept at it for the next few days as I was rechecked for any other injuries. On the second day, I was told that my truck was totaled and it was a miracle that I had come out with a couple broken bones, a concussion and some cuts and bruises. Apparently, I was a medical oddity. It wasn't until I was shown a picture of the wreckage that I knew why I was of everyone's interest. The truck looked like a mangled piece of metal. It looked impossible for anyone to survive but somehow I was still alive. They had also told me that there was a massive pool of blood but no body. In addition, the injuries I sustained could not have possibly bled out nearly that much. Now that I knew their focus was no longer on me, I had stopped worrying. I should have known right away that I wasn't being interrogated for a murder. I would have been arrested and taken in for questioning.

 

I seemed to heal pretty quickly. My broken bones were mended in days and all of my bruises and most of my cuts were gone. There was a strange scratch on my left arm. I thought it had been from getting me out of the wreckage but something seemed off. There were four long streaks. I was still a little hazy but I knew that even though my truck was mangled like a pretzel, there were no pieces of metal that could have made that. I spent weeks after that trying to figure out what it was. I searched online and could only find myths about werewolves and how their, so-called curse, is passed. Now I just laugh at that but back then I couldn't help but see those people as paranoid or even a little bit crazy. I eventually talked to a doctor about it but couldn't figure why it wasn't healing. During the day, it was fine but at night, it burned as if someone was taking a lit torch to my skin. The pain was excruciating, but as time passed, I had come to find out that the pain was little compared to what was going to happen to me.

 

Just a side note, but if a doctor can't figure out what's wrong with you, look to the internet. Some people may sound crazy but if you are having the same issues as what they are describing, they may not be as crazy as you think. The internet can either save your life or make it worse, and in my case, it got a whole lot worse.

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The Cravings

 Through the weeks that I was trying to figure out the scratch on my arm, I started getting weird cravings. I wanted red meat. I wanted fresh moving meat. I would walk down the street and see walking food whenever I saw a pet. I was starting to think I was going crazy. I nearly jumped at a woman's dog one time. Thankfully, I was able to stop myself. This craving phase got so bad that I couldn't eat anything but meat. I couldn't afford the really fresh cuts that my changing body craved so I would run through the alleys at night looking for rats. Please do not hastily judge, as it is the exact same thing as a homeless person searching for their next meal. One time I had attempted to get an uncooked burger from my local McDonalds off the dollar menu. Let's just say that the rumors about their fake meat are pretty accurate. I should have known before hand. I used to live off the dollar menu.


These cravings just kept growing stronger and stronger still. They would get so bad that I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I would have to force myself to 'hunt' for a midnight snack. These hunts would sometimes have me up all night. I would lose sleep and then have to work the next day. I even tried to put my bills aside to pay for some sleeping pills. Sadly, those were a bust. I also tried banging my head against head against anything just to try to knock myself out but all that did was cause my neighbors to complain. I would eventually just lay there staring at the ceiling and contemplate suicide. I was too chicken to try to go through with it, but I still thought about it.


The last thing I tried was searching those sites again, and to my surprise there was a site that had a list of side effects if one were scratched by a werewolf. I had already gone through the first three points. With my rapid healing, the heightened meat cravings, and the heightened sense of taste, I had only two left on that list, excessive hair and heightened speed. I was pretty hairy already so I couldn't tell if I had extra hair or not.


Let me tell you a little embarrassing secret. I shaved my whole body, emphasis on whole, and looked to see how quickly and how much it grew. Now let's change back to the last topic. While searching up the subject I found a neat little section on the same page as the list that had suggestions on how to control the cravings. Most seemed pretty stupid and obvious but one stood out from the rest. It had said that slicing off a bit of your own flesh and eating it would almost instantaneously quell your hunger. Normally I would skip something as crazy as this but it correct in mentioning that since the hunger is past the regeneration phase, your flesh would regenerate as you slept. It also mentioned to take only a small piece. So sure enough, I got a disposable razor from the bathroom, broke it, and obtained one of the blades. I still feel stupid for even considering it.


I then got some gauze, wrap and medical tape, and prepared to wrap the wound up after. I then looked in the dingy mirror in front of me and saw how desperate I had become. Those cravings were interfering with my daily life. I felt I had no other choice. I laid my right arm out and placed the blade at a slight angle just above me skin. I took a few deep breaths and dug right in. The pain was far worse than the scratch on my other arm. I wanted to scream but I didn't want to fight with the neighbors, Besides, I had no clue as to what to tell them. I ended up cutting off a 1cm by 1cm piece. I tossed that onto the sink and quickly wrapped my arm up before the blood could drip down my arm.


After wrapping up my arm, I just stared at my own flesh for a bit. It was gross but at the same time looked appetizing. There was blood on the sink from it but not enough to fall to the floor. That flesh drew me in like a cat to catnip. I guess you could say I pounced on it. I put it in my mouth and licked up the little bit of blood that had pooled around it. Again, please do not judge. I am telling you what I had to go through. It wasn't pretty. My new set of instincts kicked in and I could not help myself. Yes, when I went hunting for rats, was my own decision. We do what we must to survive. For the time being, I cut a piece of myself off at night just before bed and wrapped myself up. This though, would not last long as the final phase was about to take place. Yes, I am talking about the final change in the full moon. The site I was got my info from said that once all the changes to your body have occurred, the next full moon would complete the transformation, and for me that was in just a few days. I was thinking that with my luck, the heightened speed would happen the very, next day. Sometimes it's not good to be right.

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The Fear of Change

 Fear is a natural reaction to anything you cannot face or comprehend, and I was sure feeling it. The thought of becoming a monster, or should I say what society has labeled a monster, had me curled up in a corner. You would think that a man with a dead end job, no family, and no friends, would have no problems facing a new life. Well, that's just it. A new life is difficult for some to comprehend and for me, it was like living in a horror film. I would think about how I would live life if it were real. Would I need to move, what about my crappy job? Questions about my old life began to flood my mind. This wasn't a simple case where you're just moving. It was changing lives.


Alongside thoughts of my old, or at that time current life, I was also trying to think about how I would live day to day knowing that I wouldn't be human. How different would I look? Would people see me as hideous? These thoughts only strengthened my fears.


If you still can't understand, take this situation. You walk up to a door at the end of a long hallway and you unwillingly open it to find your worst fear just behind it. What would you have done? I can almost certainly bet you would run away screaming. That's exactly how I feel but this was something that I couldn't run from. The reality is a harsh truth. We face this truth each day. Though this is true, some truths are harder to deal with than others are. Say for instance the love of your life dies, you face the reality that you will be alone, or until you find someone else. Though you may find someone, you still have that part of you that still fears to face each day without him or her. That is another great example of my situation. Losing a loved one is just like facing a new life. Therefore, if you think about it, fear is a reality.


Therefore, you can see that humanity has a natural fear of change. This is sad but true. Once change does happen though, most will find that it's not so bad. Others, well, just look at history and you'll see what I mean. Wow, I can get pretty deep sometimes.


I'm sorry for my ramblings. One good change that happened was that I became more intelligent. No longer am I that sad sack of flesh that had no social life. I have found a way to face my fears, or keep my mind of them. I found that talking or writing keeps me from thinking about what I fear currently. Everyone is different so you will obviously have your own ways of dealing. The fear I faced was possibly the worst pain I had felt well emotionally. So might I suggest the next time you know you are about to face a fear, to find some form of distraction? Again, I am sorry for my rambling. I will now get back to my story.

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The Transformation

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Love and Death

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