13 Moons: #3
March 25, 2005

Gévaudan, France

They still talk about it here. Children are warned if they misbehave, "La bête vous mangera vers le haut, enfant !" The Beast will eat you up, child! My kind still come here, but we do not hunt. Some of the caves have shelters - for some reason, we like to be near here, near where our ancestor, the Beast of Gévaudan, killed so many. The locals watch us, though. THere is an uneasy truce - as long as we do not hunt, they leave us be.

In my wanderings, I've tried to make sense of what I am, what I've become, what I should be. If I'm careful, I could live another hundred years or so. Coming here, to the home of the most famous of my kind, brings memories bubbling to the surface.

World War II in the hills of Serbia, Tito's partisans throwing Nazi collaborators into my cage when the moon was full, placing bets on how long each would last, their coarse peasant accents harsh on my ears. Working my hand out of my shackles, breaking two fingers to do it but getting at the latch for the cage and running through the camp, worrying at their throats, their blood gushing into my muzzle. Their bullets ripping into my skin, the smell of freedom overpowering even the hunger and the pain, I left them bleeding and screaming for their mothers as I ran into the hills.

Slick, coppery and oh so sweet the taste of the blood to the wolf, the wild lesser brothers smelling it and surrounding me half snarling at the smell of men and half cringing beneath the power the glory of my breed wolf's instincts mixed with the savagery of the man to make something more, something less I cannot stop thinking about the blood and the taste of fear in the flesh and I am doubled over and sick with the memories but also painfully erect, my cock throbbing at the taste of fear in my memory and I cannot stand it

It's bad this month, I can tell it's going to be bad. At dinner, I didn't even eat the beef - it was too rare, and I didn't trust myself to eat it without tearing at it and snarling.

I lock the door to the shelter then close the manacles around my wrist, double-checking to make sure they fit.

March 26, 2005

When the moon shines through the bars, I feel the change begin, as always the wash of different perceptions and the mind of the wolf coming in waves, overwhelming me. The pain as my bones and joints reshape themselves, the anticipation of the hunt and the shock and panic of the beast as it realizes it is trapped, battering against the bars and tearing at the chains.

Waking up in a cell, shackled to a massive bolt in the floor, it's not the best way greet the morning. It's better than waking up covered in blood in an alley, though, or with a mouthful of entrails. I dry heave a few times, then punch in the combination to drop the key into the cell.

The shelter keeper, an old man with a cast in his eye, comes to unlock the cell door. He says nothing, points to my clothes - washed and neatly folded - in the corner. I can smell breakfast in the next room. He and his wife have been here for decades. No one knows who pays him, and the shelter always has the most up-to-date, reliable technology. I dress, eat in silence.

Outside, it's a bright day - that special color of light you see only in the south of France. Still chilly, but the sun is warming me up as I walk.

I don't know what possessed me to take this trip, to wander at this point in my life. I've had this affliction for almost a century and there's no cure short of death. For a time, I reveled in it. Later, I fled from it, lived for years in the Yukon, running wild at night, surrendering entirely to the wolf. I've been probed, analyzed, tested, conditioned and hypnotized. I've tried Scientology, EST, ECT, exorcism, high colonics and baptism. The wolf is always with me, hungry and tearing at the walls I put around it.

Where to next, I don't know.