A Shaggy Wolf Story

A moody drizzle threatened an upgrade to sharp downpour. Sensing the shift in the weather, Mike hurried to the familiar comfort of his local pub. Mike didn’t mind the looming dark or the chill, but he loathed the damp. He had been walking for hours, and his bad leg ached. He had certainly earned a restorative pint and a welcome sit-down, he decided.

He waved cheerily to the regular flotsam of Wessex barflies and waited impatiently for Gary the landlord to finish serving a family of tourists. Mike surveyed the Grockles with grumpy distaste. Their expensive, too bright clothing offended his eyes, their over-loud conversation and constantly pinging phones, his ears. Worse, they had chosen to occupy his favoured table close to the bar.

One of the tourists had asked for a Piña Colada, and Gary, whose cocktail experience extended to adding coke to rum, appeared troubled. Eventually, an older man with a baseball cap, gathered the array of drinks and balancing them on a sticky tray, tottered over to his waiting clan.

"Sorry about the wait, Mike," said Gary, handing him a beer. He was mid-gulp when the senior tourist re-appeared at the bar, proudly brandishing the returned tray.

"Lovely part of the world," he observed to the pub at large.

There was a muted mumbling of agreement from the regulars.

"You, local?" continued the outsider, flashing an over-eager smile in Mike's direction. Mike, a taciturn man by nature, merely nodded his head.

"We love it here, there's so much history!" the garrulous tourist continued, demonstrating that he was a poor student of body-language.

“You know, there's nothing Mike doesn't know about local history,” chipped in Gary, lacklustre mixologist, but an expert practitioner of the gentle stitch-up.

"Really?" responded the visitor with gleeful enthusiasm and gestured to his family to join him. To his irritated discomfort, Mike had now acquired an attentive audience. It was true that he did love the past and would happily have lived there, if he was able to keep craft ale and Chinese take-aways. But he was not feeling particularly gregarious and had been looking forward to a quiet drink.

"Well, you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to history round here,” Mike observed reluctantly. He took a thoughtful slurp of his beverage and continued. “We have an Iron Age fort at Maiden Castle, the Romans landed here at Hengistbury Head, the Black Death arrived in England from Weymouth in 1348 and...”

"Must be lots of ghosts?” A young voice interrupted him, mid-flow. Mike smiled in what he hoped was a mysterious manner.

"Oh, we can do better than that, heard of William Doggett, the Blandford vampire? When they dug him up and drove a stake through his heart, he was fresher than one of Gary's meat pies.”

“Vampire, you've got to be joking!” the youngster replied.

“You should never joke about the supernatural, they don’t like it,” Mike uttered in a flat, dead-pan tone. “You won't believe me, but only today I was on an unusual investigation of my own. I've just been up to St Catherine's Hill in Christchurch, looking for a werewolf!”

His audience regarded him with a cocktail of reaction; rapt attention, mixed with a generous measure of disbelief, and a dash of potential mockery.

“Now I know you are making fun of us,” one of the tourists replied. Mike softly shook his grizzled head and scowled at his detractor.

“Not at all. You should go; it’s an eerie sort of place. A prehistoric lookout and the intended site of Christchurch Priory, except each night the building materials kept being moved, some say by angry spirits.”

“I’ve heard that story,” confirmed Gary.

“Well, it’s not so well known that it was also the location of an ancient werewolf cult. They would gather there to worship and pray for the gift of shape shifting. You see, they wanted to become a wolf, like their god. Even now there are stories of wolf-men being spotted locally. I believe there is even a video of a Wessex Way Werewolf on YouTube”.

“Sounds creepy, why on earth were you doing there?” asked one of the now fascinated tourists.

"Well, as I said, I was on something of a mission,” Mike explained. “Probably easier if I show you.”

Mike placed his left leg heavily on a pub chair and dramatically rolled up a trouser leg to expose his calf. It was a mess, dominated by a raw pink wound of healing flesh surrounded by fading purple and brown bruises. If you could paint recent pain, you would select from this palate of colours.

“Last time I was there a werewolf bit me and now I have to kill it,” Mike exclaimed.

Mike’s audience pulled back from the wound as if it was suddenly contagious. There was a splash of nervous laughter, but Mike’s show and tell had effectively killed the conversation. The unnerved group did not stay for a second round of drinks. They waved their farewells and wished everyone a good evening but left with poorly concealed haste.

The locals dispassionately watched their departure. There was a comfortable silence as everyone enjoyed their drinks.

“Did you ever find the chap whose dog bit you Mike?” asked Dave the plasterer, disturbing the quiet.

“No, but I will. I’d recognise that vicious, hairy monster anywhere.”

“What about the dog?” asked Gary, to general merriment.

Mike grinned widely showing his teeth and gently scratched his itching wound. He pondered whether it was a good idea to have another beer while he was still on a course of antibiotics.

“Good one about that werewolf,” commented Dave.

"Should have told them about the Portland Mer-Chicken instead,” commented Gary, slightly miffed at the sudden exodus of several paying customers.

Mike decided one more beer wouldn’t do any harm and waggled his glass at Gary to attract his attention. Mike worried that he had been a touch over dramatic with his performance for the tourists. Apart from hostile dogs attacking him (the awkwardness of their shared heritage often manifested in canine aggression), he mostly managed to live a normal life. He took a long pull of his pint. He had a real thirst. He was starving hungry too, maybe he would pick up a big dish of Beef Chow Mein on the limp home.