The Fault of the Flesh [short fiction]

Photograph and Design © Kelly Anne Milo, KanneMilo Photography

 

Too soon. It was all happening too soon, too fast.

He forced himself forward, trying to push beyond the pain welling up inside his body, but it was simply no use. His legs buckled as the first shock wave hit him in the stomach before creeping through his extremities. He collapsed in a heap and rolled over onto his back, staring skyward, pleading for mercy. The light from the full moon broke through the canopy above, mocking him for his foolishness. As if he could have outrun the curse…

As the pain coursed through his body, he tried to remember what it was like before all this had started. It had been seven months since that night with the damn gypsy witch. They had both been so young and stupid. The next morning, he got up to leave, and that’s when she condemned him to his fate with her strange hex. He wrote it off as the ranting of a jilted, superstitious lunatic. Transformation by the light of the full moon? Utter nonsense. But then that first full moon came, and, well… he quickly became a convert.

The throbbing behind his eyes made it hard to focus. Have to stay in control. Have to keep my wits.

He had spent the next six months researching his “condition.” He thought there had to be some kind of scientific explanation for what was happening to him, some kind of rational answer. But when science and rationalism failed, he became desperate. He scoured the Internet for old legends, he searched through comic books and old movies, for anything and everything that spoke to what was happening. The folk stories and trial and error helped him to at least understand some of the ground rules, and even though he hadn’t found a cure, he could at least take some precautions.

The ringing in his ears steadily increased to an almost deafening roar.

He tried herbs – wolfsbane potions and the like, but they proved futile. He tried different religious remedies, but they didn’t help either. He always took care while looking for an answer – knowing exactly when the full moon was, and locking himself away until it was safe to come out. But today? Today he was just reckless. All because he thought he had finally found the cure.

The burning in his skull flared.

He should have known better than to believe in a magic bullet cure. But if it could have ended this nightmare, once and for all, wasn’t it worth the effort? His friends, his family, his job… he had lost it all as a result of this curse. At his best, these days, he was an obsessive recluse. At his worst, he was downright dangerous. How could he possibly explain to those he cared about what was happening to him? They would think he was crazy. They probably already had the commitment papers signed, and were just looking for an excuse. But if he could get back some semblance of his pre-curse life, if he could put these past seven months behind him…

“Fool.” He could barely hear the mocking, sultry voice over the pounding of his own heartbeat. “There is only one cure for your ‘condition’ – death.”

Through hazy vision, an apparition hovered before him. But no, it was solid. It was real. It was her – the gypsy witch.

“No!” he muttered through labored breath. “Not her. Not here. Not now.”

But it was too late. His transformation had begun and he was in the throes of the turn.

He screamed an anguished, animalistic howl, spitting blood and teeth to the ground. He ran a finger along his vacant gums, and could tell that his “new” teeth were already coming in. Fingernails fell off, and new ones grew in their place. Bones cracked and snapped, jutting out at impossible angles. Skin and muscle and sinew shredded and tore loose before reconnecting in freakish new patterns. Every pain receptor was alive and overtaxed.

When the transformation was complete, he lay naked and vulnerable on the cold ground, shivering in shock. His coat had fallen out in patches, and in its place, pink, soft, weak flesh. His eyes, his nose, his ears – all of his senses were dulled, as if he were trying to perceive the world from the bottom of a swimming pool. His claws and fangs were replaced by flat, inefficient versions of the same. It had happened again, as it had these past seven months, whenever the moon was full – a once proud wolf, reduced to a weak, vulnerable man.

He tried to catch his breath through heaving lungs. He wretched, and bile billowed forth from his maw… they call them mouths, these lesser beings, not maws. The triumphant witch stood over him.

“You’re disgusting in this form,” she taunted. “But then again, you were disgusting in your previous form, too.

“You’ve eluded me for too long,” she continued. “I wanted to teach you something of humility, of respect, at first. Something you didn’t show me that night. Too proud and oh, so boastful. Just another fling… But as you continued to thwart the odds, as you continued to survive when you simply shouldn’t have… well… I suppose I should have done this when I first had the opportunity.”

Her coarse, rough padded digits wrapped around the hilt of a silver dagger. The lupine gypsy grinned, showing razor teeth, glistening in the mocking moonlight. The dagger was for gravitas, for show – she could have torn him apart with her natural physical gifts alone, and she knew it. But she wanted to play with her prey.

The witch lunged at him. Fast, agile, strong – she was everything a wolf was supposed to be. He barely dodged that first strike. He was slower, weaker, smaller. He grabbed a fallen tree branch to defend himself. Wolves weren’t supposed to attack other wolves – that was the law. But he wasn’t a wolf right now. He was fair game.

She whirled around, laughing, the blade reflecting the moonlight.

“You can’t possibly keep this up for long,” she said. “There’s no way you survive this.”

“I’m sorry!” he shouted. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what this is about? I repent for whatever you think I did… just, lift this curse. Please!”

“Too late for that, I’m afraid. Now, why don’t you be a good pup and die!”

She flung the knife at his head. He barely managed to get the branch between his face and the incoming projectile. The impact shook him, and the blade plunged deep through the wood, stopping inches from his flat, ugly, human nose. But it had stopped. Luck was somehow still on his side.

The she-wolf let out an angry howl and charged on all fours. Her teeth gnashed. Her claws kicked dirt up behind her.

He spun around his new weapon, and swung his makeshift tomahawk right through her face, the silver slashing deep into her flesh, sending bits of blood and gore flying. The wounded wolf stopped dead in her tracks.

“You wanted to know how I keep surviving, despite this?” he asked, motioning to his frail, human form. “Because it’s all I have left! You’ve taken everything else from me!”

“Please,” she begged, blood flowing from her deep wounds. “Please….”

“Too late for that,” he said, bringing the bladed club down on the back of her head, killing her instantly. He put a foot on her lifeless carcass for leverage and, with effort, pulled it free. He spat on the corpse.

He heard howls in the distance, not too far-off and seemingly moving closer. There was no way he could outrun them. He was going to be easy prey to the wolves who would arrive momentarily.

Maybe this was her plan all along. To get him out in the open, away from his safe rooms, away from his precautions and planning, weak and vulnerable. Yes, he was weak. Yes, he was vulnerable. But he wasn’t exactly helpless.

“I’ll survive…” he muttered to himself. He checked his weapon and prepared for a fight.

The Fault of the Flesh © 2013 Jason Butkowski
“The Witches” photograph © 2013 Kelly Anne Milo, KanneMilo Photography
Originally presented on Episodes from the Zero Hour! Halloween 2013