Hunters’ Moon

David Byron

     He paused in the woodlands, panting great ragged breaths. Behind him he could hear the dogs yapping and snarling. He raised his head; the undergrowth was thick and dense. Snaggles of brambles cut across his face, drawing blood like bright ruby beads.

     He cocked his head to one side, trying to hear how far behind him they were. The woods were a cacophony of noises: above, the sounds of birds squawking their unrest, behind, the sound of the dogs baying for blood and of men coarsely shouting to each other.

     Fools, he thought, you give your presence away by your foolish actions. He chuckled slyly, the sound more a growl than a laugh.

     He pushed ahead, driving deeper into the thick undergrowth. His way was lit by the silver of the moon, casting wary shadows beneath the oaks and birches. A fox bolted out from beneath the massive girth of an ancient gnarled oak, its red tail bristling with fear, as it smelt the strangeness in the air. He lashed out with one sudden swipe of a great taloned hand, and the fox fell dead, the look of fear forever frozen in its deadened gaze. Intestines glistened inside a great ragged hole, gleaming palely in the dull light of the moon.

     The smell of blood excited him greatly, and he thrust his head at the dead fox, hungrily devouring the liver, intestines and spleen. He turned his head quickly to the side, listening, as he rabidly swallowed the prized offal. The sounds were nearer; they had picked up his scent again. He wiped away a smear of blood from his lips with his great hand, and raising it to his mouth, he suckled at the red smear.

     He bounded through the woods, gradually picking up momentum. The scenery flew past him, a dull mixture of night and shadows.

     A sound in front of him pulled him up sharply. His reflexes, which were finely honed, stopped him from plummeting headfirst into a fallen birch, a relic of past storms. A slavering face with quivering jowls thrust at his face, lips peeled back to reveal strong white canines. He froze, staring the bloodhound out, brown eyes matching brown eyes, movement for movement. The bloodhound threw back its head and howled, a deep, mournful sound. He watched the dog silently, muscles bunching powerfully beneath his long shaggy pelt. Teeth bared, he lunged at the large dog, aiming for its throat.

     The bloodhound already anticipated the move, and they met head on, cruel mouths stretched wide, teeth clashing. Strength and size were on his side; he bowled the dog over, and in an instant his teeth were buried in the dog’s belly, wrenching and tearing at the soft, warm flesh. The dog let out an anguished wail of pain and fear; this creature that tore at it was unlike anything that it had ever encountered before.

     He ripped and tore flesh asunder in a frenzied bloodlust, gulping down chunks of hot, steaming flesh. The bloodhound valiantly tried to rise, but the man-creature snapped its femur as easily as a twig. The dog was rendered immobile; disbelief shining in its hurt brown eyes. With a last bout of frenzied action, he tore out the dog’s throat, warm blood gushing over his face.

     Victorious, he knelt from the dog and raised his great shaggy head, his fevered eyes searching for the silver glow in the sky. He opened his bloodstained muzzle, long yellow canines stained with gore, and let out a blood-curdling roar.

     The group of five men, still some distance away from him, froze in fear as they heard the howl split the night’s sky. The bloodhounds cowered, tails shooting between their legs, hackles rising up and spiking like quills. One hunkered down, and shot out a stream of yellow urine, soaking the jeans of one of the trackers, who had knelt in concern for his dog.

     “Damn you, Fern,” he said in disbelief. It had been a long time since he had seen the dog as frightened as this, and it scared him badly.

     “Come on, Pete!” whispered one of the other trackers. “We’ve got a job to do. Can’t let the beast escape. Think of poor Frieda . . .”

     Pete looked up “Yeah, you’re right, Dave. Poor Frieda and her young boy.” He felt his resolve harden. “We’ll catch the animal that savaged Adam.”

     “Too bloody right, mate!” Dave said harshly.

     A third tracker wandered over to them. “I just heard on the radio that Adam’s doing fine. He’s in the hospital and it’s said the wounds weren’t too serious. He’ll survive—I’ll bet Frieda’s relieved.”

     Pete glanced at him “And where the hell was Andy when all this was happening, Matt? Drunk again in some pit, I’ll bet!”

     Matt laid his hand on Pete’s arm. “You don’t know that.”

     Pete rounded on him. “Best tracker that we’ve got.” He spat at the ground in disgust. “What a waste!”

     “We all know he wasn’t the same after that dog mauled him,” Dave said, trying to ease the tension.

     “Bloody big dog!” Pete laughed, sarcastically. “To take out our best tracker, and reduce him to a no-good drunk!”

     Dave glanced around. “Speaking of big dogs, has anyone seen Jasper?”

     “He’s probably nosing on up ahead, picking up the beast’s scent,” Pete said quietly.

     Two hundred yards away, a pair of baleful brown eyes observed them. He twitched his overgrown ears at them, picking up the sound of their voices, although by now the words were barely coherent. His teeth bared as if in a grimace of pain, and he growled at them, menacingly, a threat warning them off. I have already disposed of one of your hounds, and if you come nearer, I’ll fight you to the death, he thought, in an animalistic manner.

     He watched them shoulder their large heavy guns, walking slowly to where he was concealed in the thick tangle of brambles and ferns. His hackles rose slowly, he could smell their impending doom in his flared nostrils. He arched himself gracefully onto his powerful, muscle-laden legs, slowly and quietly revealing himself to them. In all my glory, he growled.

     The dogs picked the scent up. A cacophony of barking and howls pierced his delicate, sensitive hearing, and he leapt away, plunging again deep into the woods. Some last vestige of humanity lingered, telling him to flee, to not hurt the trackers, but it was diminishing, slowly giving way to the need to tear and consume flesh.

     He ran for what seemed hours, plummeting down hillsides in his haste to be free from the men and their dogs. Yet relentless, the men still followed his every move. The sound of the dogs baying brought a sense of annoyance to him; he felt agitated by these pitiful curs that followed their handlers with their sickening obedience. Best to be free, he thought, answer to the call of the moon; the primeval need in us all-the need to devour.

     He leapt across a fragile stream, water splashing pitifully over hard, uncaring boulders. He slipped and lost his footing, landing heavily on one leg. He felt the muscle in his shoulder bruise, the icy water sluicing his face. He sniffed at the air; there was a strangeness about it and he peered, eyes widening in alarm as he saw the first grey fingers of dawn tentatively touch the horizon.

     He limped across the stream, small sharp pebbles cutting into heavily-furred pads. In the distance, he heard a lone bird cry its mournful song, and he raised his head, no longer fighting the urge to howl against the approaching light.

     He stumbled blindly into a small grove of pine trees, and crouching down low, he slipped liked a shadow into the cover, to wait out the morning—knowing the transformation was coming.

     The trackers saw him move across the stream, a large muscular brown-furred creature, and one of them laughed when he saw the beast slip, banging his shoulder against a large grey boulder.

    “He’s hurt himself, Pete!” Matt exclaimed, laughing. “We’ve nearly got him!”

    “Send the dogs” Pete said. “Then we finish it off.”

    They unleashed the dogs, watching as they splashed through the water, barking and yapping as they cautiously neared their prey. The men unshouldered their heavy double-barreled shotguns and raced after the bloodhounds, revenge in their eyes.

    The men pushed their way through the dense pines, shotguns pointing downwards, until they reached the small clearing.

    Their prey lay heavily on the ground, body arching backwards, pink flesh showing through matted brown fur. The large paws were melting away, revealing human hands. The sound that the creature was growling in its misery, was fading into a scream as the large snout flattened into a macabre parody of a human face.

     “Jesus wept!” screamed Dave, pointing his shotgun at the grotesque image writhing on the needle-strewn ground.

     His finger tightened on the trigger, pumping two cartridges into the body. An unearthly scream tore through the sky as the bullets hit home, spraying blood and clumps of flesh, dousing the nearest tree with matted gore.

     Matt, in his panic at seeing Dave shoot, released his cartridges into the creature, throwing up as gore splattered the ground.

     “Stop!” yelled a voice in his ear. “Jesus, can’t you see? I think it’s Andy . . .”

     Matt forced his eyes downwards, wiping at the drool on his chin. He could see a face now, amidst the mass of blood and long brown fur, and he vomited again, retching as it hurt his throat.

     “Christ . . . it’s Andy . . .” he muttered, the color draining from his face. He turned to see Pete watching him impassively. The dogs were nearing the fallen half man/half beast, growling with barely-kept desire. Matt had to do something, anything, but a peculiar paralysis had crept over him, turning his limbs to lead.

     He watched in stunned disbelief as Pete called the dogs, watching as the bloodhounds snapped and snarled, biting, tearing chunks out of the half-dead creature on the ground. He watched as it feebly raised a hand, attempting to shoo the dogs away.

     Pete casually lit a cigarette, tossing the match to the ground. He inhaled, and with a satisfied smile, said quietly, “I never liked Andy anyway.”

Copyright © 2004, by David Byron.

David Byron is the founder and owner of NVF Magazine, an online publication that promotes dark fiction, independent filmmakers, and small press publishers. His diverse style of fiction has been published in numerous online magazines, including Midnight IN Hell, Darkfire, Niteblade, Twisted Tongue, Abandoned Towers, and most recently in Something Wicked, who published his Bram Stoker recommended story “Electrocuting The Clowns”.

In only one year online, he has conducted almost 100 interviews with such noted celebrities within the horror film industry as Herschell Gordon Lewis, Ingrid Pitt, Edwin Neal and Simon Bamford, and such noted fiction authors as Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, Elizabeth Massie, Roberta Lannes, Kim Newman, Kathe Koja, and Joe R. Lansdale. His online magazine has featured fiction from Roberta Lannes, John Everson, Paul Kane, Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin, and L.L. Soares. He has also done book and film reviews for McFarland Publishing, Bloody Books, Fangoria, and Obscure Horror.