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The floorboards groaned closer, closer.
Feet apart, I thought, fighting through woozy terror. It’s not the same. You’re older now.
A dark shadow moved into the seam of the closet door and sniffed.
Aim for center mass.
The werewolf dragged its nails along the paneling. I flinched but held steady.
The brass handle dipped.
The door creaked open.
Before me, view entirely unobstructed, lay my quilted bedspread, the dented pillow where the cats had been resting, and the canopy frame lit with twinkling string lights. Those lights, combined with bright overheads and my lamp, made the room’s buttercream walls extra cheery.
In red digits, my alarm clock projected the time onto the ceiling. Impossible to read at my angle, but it didn’t matter –– far too many minutes remained.
A growl, low like static on a night spent rolling the dial on an old AM radio, rose in volume until it felt as if my bones vibrated.
Beside a jungle of scarves I waited, drenched in sweat, arms extended, thankful for the revolver’s textured grip.
When sinewy knuckles touched the area rug and the werewolf’s profile loomed into the backlit doorway, for a fleeting second I wished I'd cut the lights. Its arms were covered in dense black hair that faded at the wrists to the veined gray of bloated corpses. The fur lacked the cheap polyester sheen of Halloween costumes, possessed instead a hound’s smooth shortness— all the scarier to accent flexing muscles and thick shoulders. Its spinal column was curved and bristled by a ridge of hair, giving the creature a permanent hunch.
The monster crooked one gnarled finger.
I should have blown a hole through its rotted heart while it was in the process of taunting me, but the thought hadn’t connected to my hand. My finger was frozen against the trigger; I was frozen, mired in this moment by a grotesque, toothy grin.
The muzzle was neither a wolf’s nor a man’s, but rather belonged to some scarecrow amalgamation twisted into existence from the Tree of Life’s pruned, worm-infested branches.
Framed by pointed ears, its eyes were glistening pools of dim sludge, sallow and polluted. Its hairless muzzle was squared, with a wide nose and wrinkles that exaggerated its wretched, predatory hunger. Fangs jutted from its mouth, each covered in clear, viscous spit. Black lips peeled back to reveal molars meant for crushing bone.
My alarm clock rolled another minute into history. No more time to be afraid.
I pulled the trigger.
One muscled shoulder flinched. The werewolf brought its snout against the smoking hole and sniffed.
Having almost lost the gun in the recoil, I righted my position and fired again. In a flash of tar and shattered glass, the beast smashed through my bedroom window, tearing the frame out with it.
The night wind swept an eerie calm over the scene. I stood dumbfounded in the center of the light spectacular, staring at rusty blood sprayed across my quilt, hearing screams I hadn’t heard in years, until the downstairs floorboards creaked.
A hoarse, familiar voice called, “Miss Davins?”
One yard over, Tammy’s poodle started barking.
I crept to the hole in my wall. An ugly smear marked the spot where the werewolf had smashed into the patio table. Debris lay scattered in the direction of the birdfeeder. Burdened by wind-whipped clouds and the spidery oaks, moonlight failed to penetrate the forest depths.
The sheriff called again.
Answering, I clambered over the dresser and into the hall. Below, my bedroom door had been propped against the hole where the front door formerly resided. “Sheriff?”
The man stepped from the shadowed dining room to the lighted entryway. His eyes flashed in the transition.
Panic squeezed my lungs. He’s on my side, I reminded myself, keeping a sturdy grip on the gun.
The gleam of his eyes had distracted me from his hands, which had just undone the last button on his shirt. He paused halfway through shrugging it off and rolled it back over his shoulders with a polite smile. “’Evening. You alright?”
“Yeah, but I think your deputy is dead.”
