There are two film that, in my opinion, have come to dominate popular culture and writing when it come to werewolves.

The first film is 1941’s The Wolf-Man, which more than anything else gave us what people consider to the essential elements of a werewolf. The contagious bite, the transformation under the full moon, the total animalistic nature with nothing of the rational human mind in effect during the evening as a wolf, all spring from this movie.

The other film is 1981’s An American Werewolf In London. Drawing on the same archetypes that are found in The Wolf-Man, writer/director John Landis trie his hand at the updating, with heavy comedic elements, of the class monster. What made this film so lasting and so powerful in the popular consciousness  is the fantastic transformation sequence pulled off my Rick Backer. The make-up and practical effects were a tremendous leap beyond the simple film dissolves for earlier werewolf movies. It also gave us the notion of a painful transformation, one where bones break and reforms and the character is physical tortured by the process.

My friend Gail Carriger, like many modern horror and fantasy writers, uses these painful, mass-conserving transformation for the werewolves of her Parasol Protectorate series of book. Ready the most recent book, Timeless, I was reminded of an experimental piece of writing I composed a little of a year ago, dealing with a different take on the transition from human to wolf.

Here it is, edited to reflect my recent changes in ability and style. I hope you enjoy it.

I sat in the shed, nothing more some plywood boosted from construction sites around the county, Styx’s ‘Love In The Midnight’ playing on the eight-track, toking on some fine weed.  Wind, smelling of fresh oranges from the surrounding groves, whistled through the shed like shit through a goose. The shed kept us dry, but not warm; mainly it gave us a place to hide from the pigs, narcs, and assholes. A kerosene smudge pot, stolen from an orange grove, stank up the place but kept me from freezing my ass off.

Opening my shirt I looked at the tattoo, it had finally stopped smarting. In the pot’s orange fire-light the wolf’s head looked black, with glowing yellow eyes, a boss tattoo. Ever since Ace inked it, I had spent almost all my time in the shed, hiding from mom, but screw her anyway. It was my life, my skin.

More cold air blew in, and I buttoned my shirt, tightening my jean jacket closed. I reached for the stash, ready to roll another joint when Ace called from outside.

“Duce! Get your ass out here!”

With less than half the stash left and scared shitless, my heart jumped into my throat. Ace was going to fucking kill me; I shoved the cigar-box of weed back into the trunk.

“Shit! It’s cold out there.” I yelled back stumbling to my feet, tripping over the extension cord, and nearly taking a header through the plywood. Just two months ago I’d been too pussy to cheat on old lady Wooley’s tests and now I stole everything, including electricity.

“Get out here,” He barked. Shit, shit, shit, he didn’t like back talk, not at all; pushing aside the sleeping bag we used as a door I stepped out.

He stood there disheveled, looking like he lost a fight with a hurricane, grinning ear to ear, and holding on a leash a, fucking an honest-to-god, virgin-white lamb. A couple more smudge pots cast a circle of light, leaving the rest of the thin wood in deep shadow, as the wind, stinking of kerosene and oranges, blew in across the fetid canal, cutting through my light jacket.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Future Fags of America.”

I snickered, imagining the 4F club squealing like their pigs when they found out. I started to say something but stopped, as the lab’s scent, soft and subtle under the stink in the air filled my nose. I don’t’ know what-the-fuck lambs are supposed to smell like, peat moss and shit I guess, or maybe Carlee’s sweaters, but this thing smelled like butter and steak, like chicken pot pie, or like fried catfish, like everything tasty. My mouth watered, killing my buzz.  My stomach growled, my mouth water and this wasn’t the munchies. This was something else.

Jack, King, and Queen, all three grinning, stepped, out of the shadows. The light glinted off their eyes, giving them a monstrous threatening look.  I wanted to run, to piss my pants and beg them not to hurt me. They looked to Ace and then back to me, laughing their asses off.

“Wh—wh why’d you stea…” I stammered. Not since the day of the fight had they scared me this much. Ace, his eyes yellow in the smudge pots’ flickering light, glared at me and I almost crap my shorts..

“Aren’t you hungry, Duce?”

The lamb bleated, high-pitched cries like screaming, jerking and clawing the ground, trying to escape.

Hunger gnawed at my belly like a caged animal trying to escape, and my mouth watered so bad I had to spit. Ace stepped closer, dragging the lamb by its throat. It’s screams shook my insides like the bass a really concert and my hands itched to grab it.

“Eat it.” He didn’t suggest, he ordered. The others stopped laughing and stared, the reflected light making eyes glow. I heard their breathing, smelled their sweat, even on the ass freezing night, salty, tangy, and powerful rolling off their skin.

My skin grew hot and, and even in the freezing in air, I stripped off my jean jacket . I stepped closer, tasting the lamb in my mouth, feeling its blood, thick and hot, running down my chin. I wanted it raw, alive and kicking. More than I wanted to please Ace, more than I wanted to screw Carlee, I wanted that lamb.

Tension tightened my muscles and I started breathing faster. A wave built from deep inside, making me shudder and shake, as it nearly peaked, then suddenly backed off, not quite going away.  As it built again my skin flushed hot and sensitive And I gulped air like I was drowning.   Burning up, I tore off my KISS tee-shirt, I felt the cold but it didn’t touch this fire bursting inside me..

The wave built again, teasing, taunting me but I couldn’t make it break, I couldn’t find that release, and oh God, I needed that. The wave subsided and, screaming in frustration, I fell to my knees. Sweat fell from my chest; my muscles weak and shaky even as I knew the wave would build again.

“He ain’t got it in him.” Jack, his voice small and distant, crowed. I smelled his power, his contempt and I wanted his blood too.

Burning up from inside, I stripped off my jeans, tearing away my underwear as the wave built again, teasing me, torturing me as it refused my release. As they laughed, I grabbed the lamb, burying my face in its wool, the scent more powerful than any weed. It struggled, kicking and squirming, but I held it tight, my muscles cramping into hard painful knots as the wave built and built.

I dropped the lamb, the wave, relentless, unstoppable, taking me higher, my hands and knees trembling, writhing with an insatiable boner as I shuddered in the dirt. Quivering all the way to the bone, I screamed with delight as the wave crested, and broke.

The world snapped to black-and-white, the trees in the distance nothing more than indistinct blurs, but oh the smells! Each member of the pack had his own smell, more unique than any name, the smudge pots, powerful and revolting, dominated the air, but beneath them and, the ever present tang of oranges, I smelt the exhaust of cars passing on the highway half a mile away, the sharp markers’ of a dog territory, the fading record of a child who passed this way hours earlier, but best of all, strong, clear, like a lit path in the night I smelled the lamb’s trail. Eagerly in my wolf-form, with the pack following, baying for its blood, I chased after it.