Hartmut has been following his target for a while before the maiden becomes aware of his presence. She knows something is lurking out there. She’s accustomed to this part of the forest and would usually be comfortable in her surroundings, but now she slows her pace, anxiously glancing about. She is an easy and vulnerable target.
He consciously slows his breath to avoid detection. When he’s in full transition like this and on the hunt, he can easily get overheated due to the burden of his thick coat, and he must pant to cool himself. They’ve both been moving at a pretty good pace. She is young and energetic, but Hartmut is beginning to show signs of aging, some grey appearing in his muzzle. He is still capable of great speed when necessary, but otherwise tires more easily over long distances.
Just five more minutes up the trail is the spot he has envisioned for the fatal encounter on this All Hallows Eve. The path forks, creating an opening in the forest canopy, and there’s a convenient boulder he can use to launch himself silently in the direction of his prey. Long ago he made good use of it several times to bring down easy targets, but this time he knows he’ll have to be more cautious in his movements, more certain in the execution of his plans, more ruthless in the final decisive blow. Too much is at stake should he fail.
Hartmut had awakened earlier that day to the bustle of the Schwarz Wald village: the sounds of roosters trumpeting their importance, households coming alive, breakfast pots clanging, mothers calling their children to table. The villagers would be preparing for tonight’s celebration, when all of life’s burdens would give way to a bonfire in the square and joyful singing and drinking into the dawn.
He discovered his wife Hannah was not beside him in bed. He was disappointed but not surprised. Her transition always came a bit before his. On this first day of the full moon, his transformation would come by noon. But he needed to stoke the fire and set out a simple breakfast for Regina. She would be making an early start of her monthly trip to the market at Wolfsburg Castle a few kilometers away so she could return in time for the festivities. Then he would indulge in a final, lingering look around the property and the neighborhood. For today would be his last hunt.
He was the village weaponsmith, proud of his craft and the business he had built over the years. His steel blades didn’t break, the handles never shattered upon impact. He had been careful to ensure that all pending orders were fulfilled. Young Bergman, his apprentice of two years, would be able to step in and take over the business once it was known that Hartmut was no longer available to run things. He’d already said his goodbyes to Bergman, in his own way. A casual discussion about the business and sounding him out on his interest in winning the hand of his daughter. Hartmut had subtly signaled he would approve of such a match, but had emphasized to the inexperienced boy that, ultimately, it would be Regina’s decision whether to accept him when she was of age. Bergman, an industrious and honest boy from a good family, had indicated he understood.
It is now afternoon, and Hartmut is on the hunt. The maiden he is tracking, his own daughter Regina, is still scanning the landscape for anything suspicious. She takes a sturdy dagger from beneath her red cloak, holding it at the ready. It is the very dagger he forged for her last year—a lethal instrument in most encounters. The tip is plated in silver from the church crucifix that went missing last year, and is newly doused in pilfered holy water. But the innocent girl has never been confronted with an adversary such as his kind before, by a creature so bloodthirsty and powerful that a timid maiden holding even such a sharp blade in her trembling hand doesn’t stand a chance.
He wonders how his daughter will feel when he implores her to kill him. They’ve had the conversation in the abstract before—what to do should one encounter a monster in the wild, when it’s a matter of survival or certain death. But what if the demon-monster is your own father, what then?
Residents of the small village have been frightened with the knowledge that a dangerous predator has been recently stalking people in the forest. Two dead and two missing last week alone. The two children were schoolmates of his daughter. The two hunters had gone in search of the children, and then somehow found themselves in peril.
Another hunter, Siegfried der Jaeger, had located the scene of the hunters’ fateful encounter. Just last night he held in thrall an audience of inebriated and frightened farmers and tradesmen in the Brauhaus Blind Boar:
“That creature, after he killed two helpless kinder, he set a trap for the two hunters, is what he did. He left behind from the scene of the little ones’ demise an obvious trail of bloody tracks. The two fools knew they were following the creature. What else could it be? It was a spawn of Satan, a demon stronger than a dozen able-bodied men.”
More drinks were poured, his audience held in a paralysis of suspense.
“When I discovered what happened to them—you couldn’t believe the hellish scene.”
“What was there?”
“The two men were gone, the earth littered with broken branches, the bloodied mud imprinted with strange tracks. Two muskets, both with their loads discharged, lying broken and twisted in the brush. But nothing of their two bodies—not a trace.”
“What became of them?”
More drinks poured.
“Vanished, like into thin air—only the tracks leading away from there. That was no normal animal. It was a wolf twice the size of any I’ve ever seen, and walking on hind legs.”
“On hind legs!” A general exclamation, and frightened murmurings. Someone implored Gustav, the deputy Burgermeister, who was sharing the company and the rich stout beer.
“We must send to the town for troops!”
“Yes, what are you waiting for? Our families need protection.”
“I’ve already lost two sheep and a goat. How easy would it be for my children to be next?”
“You must call in the guard now!”
Hartmut listened to the frightened clabbering of helpless villagers. The request for protection from the town will involve two days of travel, then waiting and haggling, and finally, perhaps a couple of inept conscripts will be sent to establish a presence in the village, but by then the season of the hunt will have passed, and the inevitable will have occurred.
Hartmut isn’t responsible for these recent horrible kills. In fact, he hasn’t killed anything larger than a rabbit in twelve years. But he has an idea who the unholy perpetrator is. The killer has only become active in this month of the annual harvest moon.
His wife Hannah’s family, from the eastern side of the mountains, had been hunted down and eradicated over the years, until she was the only surviving remnant of a long line of her type. She and her family were traditionally on the harvest moon cycle, hunting only during a few weeks of that season.
Since the birth of their daughter Regina, Hartmut and Hannah have both managed to suppress this side of their nature, living traditional domestic lives, blending in with the unsuspecting villagers. But Hannah, somehow tired of fighting off the ever-present urge lying just under the surface, has succumbed to the lust for that special taste of iron in human blood, giving herself over to the thrill and rage of a successful hunt during these past weeks.
Now Hartmut has no choice but to intercept his wife, the love of his life, and put her down before her next kill, which will inevitably be their daughter Regina.
Hartmut’s heightened senses in his changed state are on alert; he is prepared, but still apprehensive of the coming battle. Now that Regina has entered her pubescence, the scent of this fragile vessel is too strong a magnet for the predator, her own mother in her unholy state, to resist.
Regina is on the move again. Hartmut stealthily pulls ahead to where he has calculated the ambush should take place. He feels unsure that he can even meet the challenge, to kill his wife and mate of so many years, but he knows that she, or the animal spirit that inhabits her this evening, will not hesitate to kill their lovely daughter. She has made her choice, and so he must stand in her way. She is a decade younger and more powerful than he, but he will have the element of surprise.
How will Regina react when she realizes what he has done? Can she forgive him in his last act of sacrifice, of laying down his life in order to vanquish her mother? To ensure her own future?
They are drawing near the point where he knows his wife in her beastly form will have calculated to make her ambush; she knows of Regina’s monthly trip through the forest to the castle, and this place is surely the spot he would have chosen.
In these last moments before the ultimate kill, he feels his senses become oddly calm. In earlier years, at such a moment during the chase, his heart would race, his blood vessels constrict, and pupils dilate. But now, on his last hunt, he has entered a serene state beyond time and space.
He reaches the designated crossroads, sees the boulder which is an instrument of his strategy. And here comes Regina, about to enter the clearing. No need to think, only act. Now, the wolf form of Hannah is moving rapidly into view from an oblique direction. With the full exertion of every muscle, his taut loins springing like a catapult, he launches himself off the boulder toward her. She sees the sudden motion, but too late to evade the impact.
He meets his target with a powerful shock, two bodies colliding heavily in midair. They fall to the ground together, just feet from the trembling girl. His prey lets out a howl of surprise, struggling to recover her footing. With the first blow, his inch-length claws tear open her abdomen, severing tendons and muscles across her torso. But she’s not finished yet.
As they thrash and struggle in the dirt before her, Regina pulls the knife, holding it defensively before her, crouching to the side, desperately trying to understand what it is she is witnessing play out.
Hannah manages to extricate herself from his lethal claws. In a defensive move, she latches onto his shoulder, her jaws a steel trap slicing to the bone. But in his adrenaline rush, he is immune to pain. By latching onto him, she leaves herself vulnerable, exposing her throat, and he’s inside her legs, pinning her to the ground and gnashing at her larynx. He crushes the windpipe, severing the jugular with the same powerful motion. Her warm blood fills his mouth, engorges his senses. It is finished.
He lies panting in the dust, overwhelmed with exhaustion. He barely feels his change back to human form. The girl, still holding the knife out defensively, is petrified with fright.
He slowly pulls himself to his knees, his normal self once again intact. He holds out both hands in a calming gesture, as the look of recognition enters her terrified eyes.
“Vater – is it you?”
“Yes, meine Kleine. Now, my dear daughter, you must take that knife, whose blade is plated in the silver from a holy crucifix, and plunge it into my heart.”
“Vater, what are you talking about? How can you demand such a thing of me?”
He nods, moving closer to his frightened daughter.
“Vater, you are the monster?”
“Yes and no. I am not responsible for the recent killings in the village.”
As he speaks, he sees her look of absolute terror as she observes the limp form before her, that of her mother, turn back to its natural human condition.
“Listen, child, there’s not much time. Your mother changed a year after our wedding night, that first full harvest moon of the season twelve years ago. You were never in danger of her wild side until now, when you are coming of age. With our deaths, the evil spell will finally be broken. You will no longer be saddled with this horrible family curse. I have done the hardest part for you. Now the final act is in your hands.”
“But, Vater, how could Mutti want to kill me?”
“It wasn’t your mother who intended to hurt you. It was that monster you just witnessed. After our marriage, and your birth, she infected me before I understood the nature of her illness.”
Regina is crying, trembling, shaking her head. “Then why must you die? Haven’t you solved the problem?”
He takes her in his arms. “I was barely able to hold off my own instincts recently to tear you apart. My only goal has been to intervene and stop her before I follow her to my final rest. I knew she would choose this place to ambush you.”
“Vater, I don’t think I can do it. I’m not strong enough. Don’t ask me to.”
“You must, my child, and before I turn again. This is your chance to guarantee your safety and the survival of our family’s bloodline. You’ve got to be brave and take this knife, drive it in here, like so—”
“No, Vater!”
“Do it, before I regain my strength and commit an unspeakable crime against heaven. Today, on this hallowed eve, is the auspicious time to act.”
Sobbing, the maiden grips the knife with both hands, searching her fathers’ eyes. He beholds her sadly, proudly, for the last time. The knife plunges to its mark.
Jonathan Worlde’s latino-noir novel Latex Monkey with Banana was winner of the Hollywood Discovery Award. He has over thirty short genre stories published in various journals, including Trembling with Fear, Cirque Journal, Raven Review, Stupefying Stories, Daily SF, Flash Phantom, Metastellar, and most recently Mystery Tribune, Issue 22-23. In his spare time he performs blues as Paul the Resonator; his CD is Soul of a Man.
Leave a Reply