The Wereman

Working late had become the rule for me lately, more so than the exception. I didn’t want to think about what made poring over files into the wee hours of the morning more appealing than being at home, so instead I poured two more fingers of bourbon into my glass and took another sip. The night felt darker this time of year, and when the streetlight outside of my office flickered off, robbing me of the free illumination I counted on to keep as much cash in my pocket as I could, I grunted a mild huff of discontent. I leaned over to switch on the small lamp that sat atop my large walnut desk. In the rare instance that I get visitors, the desk gives off an air of sophistication and success, but in reality, it was simply left behind by the last tenant, a remnant of a time when less seedy clientele conducted business in this part of town.

As I toggled the lamp’s switch back and forth, the room remained in darkness. Slowly I stood up and squinted my eyes while my hands felt the cord fall off the desk and meander its way over to the wall. Seeing that the plug was still inserted into the outlet, I made my way to the far side of the office, dragging one of the two vinyl chairs that served any bill collectors or landlords who came looking for one Mr. William Blake, and who gladly, yes, were in fact willing to wait for him to return from his meeting. Mr. Blake, of course, never returned from said meeting, and the poor soul would relent and suggest they would drop by some other time.

The slight rip in the vinyl grew larger as I stood on the chair and removed a bulb from the light in the ceiling. Just as it came free, the door to my office was flung open and slammed violently against the stucco wall. The shock caused me to step backward into nothing, and my desperate flailing sent the chair careening across the floor with a clatter and me flat on my back with a growl.

“You have to help me!” The words were blurted out as more of a demand than a request from the silhouetted figure at my door. I raised my head, trying to see more clearly, but the light from the hallway kept me from gaining any new information about my intruder.

“You have to help me,” came the voice again, more desperate, and now the figure was stalking closer to me, taking large steps while hunched over. I was still stunned and in pain, and I couldn’t speak or move. Just as the creature was about to speak again, the streetlight flickered back to life, and I could clearly see, standing hunched over me with glowing eyes and long fangs, a trembling, frightened wolf.

I sat up and reached out to him. “Jim, what are you doing here at 3 a.m.? And bursting in like that? I could’ve broken my tail.” He took my paw in his hand and pulled me up. “Have you ever seen someone walking around with a broken tail? It’s embarrassing.”

“Oh remember Annette? It was at a right angle for weeks. She finally had to leave the pack,” Jim laughed and shook his head. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were going to be standing on a chair. What were you doing up there in the dark anyway?”

“Desk lamp is out. Needed a bulb.” Jim just nodded as he picked up the chair and pulled it back over to my desk. “Anyway, why are you here?”

“You have to help me,” the wolf said more calmly this time.

“You’ve already said that. Twice, actually. Can you give me some more information? Do you need me to run surveillance on someone for you? You know I don’t do favors. I’ll need to be paid up front. In cash.”

“No, no, nothing like that. I didn’t know where else to go. Everyone else is so connected to the pack, but you—you’re more…” Jim paused and looked down.

“Of a lone wolf?” I finished his sentence for him.

“Yeah,” he looked back up and shrugged a little. “I don’t think the others will believe me and if they do, they might just send me out of the pack altogether.”

“Alright, well, tell me how I can help,” I said as I sat down behind my desk. Noticing my whiskey glass, I took another sip and leaned back. “Oh, uh, would you like a nip?” I asked, holding the glass up to Jim.

“No thanks.” He shook his head slightly and took a breath. “What I’m about to tell you is going to sound crazy, but try to refrain from disbelief.”

“Okay. You’re making me nervous.” I took another sip.

“Tomorrow is a full moon, and when the full moon comes out, I turn…” Jim paused and looked out the window, closing his eyes. Then he opened them and looked straight into mine. “...into a man.”

The bourbon burned as it slid down my throat and into the wrong pipe. I coughed, and my eyes began to water. “I’m sorry, a man?” I finally was able to gain control of my breathing, and I leaned forward, putting my front legs on my desk and clasping my paws together. “Let me see if I understand this correctly. When the moon is full tomorrow, you believe that you will turn into a man. Meaning, you believe you are a Wereman? Like from the kids’ stories?”

Jim leaned back, causing the vinyl to squeak, and folded his arms against his chest. “I know. Laugh all you want. I thought out of anyone, you would understand. Maybe I should just leave the pack for good.”

“Now, now, Jim, I’m sorry. It’s just so…”

“Outlandish? Insane? Ridiculous?”

“Yeah, actually,” I nodded. “Okay, so what? You turn into a man. Not saying I believe you, to be clear. But if you’re telling the truth—which I believe you believe you are—then who cares? Does it go away?”

“Yeah, usually by morning.”

“Okay, then. So you’re a man. What’s the big deal? Just go to sleep somewhere and wait it out,” I smiled, thinking about how easy making money from Jim was going to be.

“Well, it’s not that simple. I have… cravings. Desires. Things I can’t control.” The hairs along my spine began to stand straight up as he spoke. “Have you ever lost control, Billy?”

I swallowed hard, trying to remain calm. Jim’s eyes stayed locked to mine.

“Go on. Tell me more if I’m going to help you.”

“As soon as the last drop of daylight fades from the sky, and the moon’s light touches my fur, I will endure a grotesque transformation, shrinking in size and losing my hair, until I am standing there, not hunched over at all, fully man. Then I will be overtaken by a sensation that I cannot refuse. I absolutely must immediately take a shower.”

My jaw dropped open. “No. But your musk… it defines you. It marks your territory. Why would you ever remove that?”

“I am sick, Billy. I can’t control the Wereman. But it gets worse,” Jim paused. “I think I will take that drink now, if you’re still offering.”

“Of course, of course,” I stood up and grabbed a glass from the old bar cart left behind with the desk, poured three fingers, and handed it to Jim.

After taking a long sip, he continued. “After the shower, I feel so exposed. Ashamed. The wolf in me is ashamed of the scent I washed down the drain. The man in me is embarrassed by his own flesh. I have to find clothing. I have to cover up.”

I looked down at my own body. Sure, I wasn’t a young pup anymore, but I could still see rippling muscles with dark brown fur; long, lean limbs; powerful paws tipped with menacingly sharp claws. “How could anyone feel shame in their own body?” I muttered. “That sounds terrible,” I sighed. “So you put on some jeans or something?”

Jim clenched his jaw and looked away, shaking his head. “Khakis,” was all he could get out. After a moment of composing himself, he continued. “With pleats. And a polo shirt. Tucked in. A braided belt and…”

“Go on,” I encouraged him.

“And boat shoes.”

I gasped and swung my chair around to look out the window over the street below. A light rain began to fall and the drops glistened in the orange streetlight. “Boat shoes,” Jim whispered again.

With a deep breath, he began again. “But it gets worse. After I’ve showered and dressed, I’m usually pretty hungry. Do you know what a man feeds on?” Lightning flashed and Jim’s exposed white fangs sent shivers throughout my body. He snarled a little as his snout pushed toward me. All I could do was shake my head.

“Salad,” he leaned back abruptly. “I crave salad. Lettuce,” he shuddered. “Lettuce and carrots, sometimes cucumbers, and little green peppers.” He made a gagging sound that made me start to feel nauseous.

“But not,” I had to close my mouth to control my own gag reflex, “not tomatoes, right?”

Jim shut his mouth tightly and put a paw up to it as he turned away.

“No, it’s not fair,” I moaned in agony. “What torment.”

“I walk right past humans and into some late-night diner and order the biggest Cobb salad they have,” Jim’s mouth contorted in shame and disgust. “I don’t even try to eat the waitress. Or any of the other humans. I don’t even want to,” his voice was pained.

“You don’t drown it in ranch dressing, do you?” I was searching his face for any sign of the man he described. I just couldn’t believe Jim could do these things. I could tell Jim didn’t want to answer me. “Jim…”

“Not ranch,” he said softly.

“No,” I shook my head and muzzled myself with my paw. “Not…”

“Bleu cheese.” His head hung as low as I’d seen it all night.

Thunder rumbled outside while his confession hung in the air, and I took a deep breath. Unsure of what to say, I grabbed my whiskey glass, stood up, and took another sip while I gazed out the window at the dark street below.

I knew I had to help my friend; heaven knows I don’t have many of those anymore. Despite solving hundreds of cases as a PI, I was stumped, so I decided the only thing I could do was treat this like any of those other cases.

“Alright, Jim, we need to go back to the beginning, to the very first time you transformed into this… monster.”

He looked up with the most hope I’d seen in his eyes since he crashed through my door.

“Unless there’s anything else you need to tell me?” I raised an eyebrow as I leaned onto my desk with both paws.

“Just that…” Jim seemed even more hesitant, but I couldn’t imagine what would be more embarrassing than eating a salad.

“I need to know everything if I’m going to help you,” I encouraged him.

He covered his eyes with his paws as he stifled sobs and blurted out, “I’m so slow!” His body was shaking as he cried tears of shame. “When I can’t take it anymore, when I need to get far away,” he continued through his sniffling. “Like when I’m sitting there, doing my taxes and balancing my checkbook, and the wolf inside of me roars in protest, clawing at my soul to retake control, I stand up and just run. I explode out the door of my middle-class suburban home, past my champagne-colored sedan, and just run toward the hills, following the full moon. No matter how hard I run, I go nowhere.”

“My God, Jim, you have a home and a sedan?” This was worse than I could have ever imagined.

“Fully upright, on two legs, my dumb human feet clomping in their boat shoes along the paved street, going nowhere,” Jim was ignoring me now, lost in his nightmare. “One time a small child, out past their bedtime, passed me on a bicycle.” The tears stopped and he lifted his head toward me, his jaw trembling. “Have you ever been slow, Billy?” I could only shake my head softly and look away.

“When did this begin? When did you first experience this trauma?”

“About eighteen months ago.” His eyes shifted up toward the old drop-ceiling tiles as he counted to himself. “No, it was nineteen. Well, tomorrow’s full moon will be my nineteenth.”

“What brought it on? Did something happen?”

“Well, I can’t be sure, but there was this one thing that I’ve wondered about,” Jim tapped his claws on my desk as he thought back.

“Okay, let’s start there. Tell me what happened.”

“I was out in the woods, just roaming about, you know, prowling. I came across this cabin I’d never seen before, and there was an old woman outside of it. I watched her for a while as she stirred some giant boiling cauldron over a fire. After a while, she went into the woods, appearing to search for something, so I followed her. After some time, she paused to collect some berries. She’d wandered into a terrible situation with nowhere to run, so I snarled at her, you know, to give her fair warning.” I leaned forward, closer to Jim as he retold this encounter. “Anyway, she turns around and says, ‘Wolf, I am a witch, and if you dare eat me, a curse on you for all time to live the life of a man at every full moon!’”

“Oh Jim, you didn’t.”

Jim’s face became sheepish as he shrugged. “What? It was mumbo-jumbo I’m sure. Humans will say anything to keep from being eaten. It’s embarrassing really.”

“Jim…” I shook my head and leaned back in my chair.

“What? You don’t think that was true, did you? A curse? From a witch?”

“Maybe, yeah. You started becoming a man right after you ate her, right?”

Jim was thinking again. “Maybe my math is off.” He counted silently once more. “Yeah, no, I think that’s when it started.”

“Did she say anything else? Anything about lifting the curse?”

“I don’t remember her exact words, but as I began my dinner, I may have heard ‘irreversible,’ ‘forever,’ ummm let’s see, ‘all of eternity,’ I think was thrown in there.” Jim waved his hand in the air as if swatting an invisible fly away. “But I’m sure I was just hungry and not hearing her correctly.”

As he was speaking, I walked across the old black-and-white linoleum floor and squatted down in front of a dilapidated hutch and pulled the lower cabinet doors open. For the really hard nights, I keep a bottle of very strong stuff in here. Thankfully this one was unopened. I was fairly certain I couldn’t cure Jim, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help him out, and maybe make a few bucks in the process. I grabbed the bottle and began to strip the label off the front.

“So can you help me?”

“I think so. I can’t make any promises, but I may have something in this old cabinet.” I peeled the label off the back side of the bottle, and then went over to my meager supply closet and opened the door. I pulled the old chain that dangled from above and a soft incandescent light buzzed softly to life.

“A long time ago, I received what I thought was a nonsense gift from an old partner,” I called back to Jim. “I tossed it into that old cabinet thinking nothing of it, that is, until you walked in tonight.” I grabbed a small, blank sticky label and smoothed it onto the front of the bottle. Then I grabbed a black marker and carefully wrote on the bottle before turning out the light and walking back across the room and showing the bottle to Jim.

“Wereman Cure?” he said skeptically.

“It’s an old elixir, and like I said, no promises, but I was told if you mix half of this bottle with the juice of a grapefruit—humans love grapefruit,” I paused as we both gagged briefly at the thought. “But mix half the bottle with the juice of a grapefruit and drink it all 2 hours before the next full moon, you won’t ever have these Wereman memories again.”

“That’s it?” Jim sounded hopeful.

“That’s it,” I reassured him. “Now, you’ll never be fully cured, you know. You’ll have to use this elixir for the rest of your life. But,” I continued, “fortunately for you, I know how to get it. It’s not cheap though.”

“Oh it doesn’t matter,” Jim was exuberant as he grabbed the bottle. “If it works, I’ll pay anything.”

I nodded in somber acknowledgment of my friend’s decision. “Okay, well, tomorrow night, 2 hours before the full moon: half the bottle with grapefruit juice. Do it exactly like that, and then report back to me. If it works—and I’m certain it will—we’ll discuss a payment plan to keep you in stock.”

Jim grabbed the bottle and disappeared back through my office door and out into the hallway. The atmosphere was suddenly eerily silent as I sat back down, hearing every creak of my old desk chair under my weight. I didn’t want to think about whether I’d helped Jim tonight or simply helped myself, so I took another sip of my own elixir and picked up the file I’d been working on: Missing Wolf; 7 Years Old; Last Seen at the River’s Bend near the Old Logging Cottage. As I began to scan the details of the case, the streetlight flickered out once more, leaving me shrouded in darkness.