Read Beneath a Winter Moon Online
Authors: Shawson M Hebert
Of the twelve, five ran away and never were found, four died from various illnesses, and three lived long enough to make it through the tough schooling and the torturous life as a bastard Scot learning how to be English.
Aonghasan
was successful and became a lawyer, given the lowest possible station and salary of course, but even so, the man was a far cry from the starving thief he had been as a boy.
He married a young girl whom he had met during a clan gathering. He was not there as a clansman, of course, but he had ignored the jeers of his fellow Scots while he wooed the young Alice
Camran
with his station and his money.
Alice
’s parents had been more than willing to marry their youngest daughter to
Aonghasan
, who would take the girl to
Edinburgh
and give her a decent home.
Within three years,
Alice
began running away from
Aonghasan
and back to her family. Each time, she was promptly retrieved, always with the blessing of
Alice
’s parents. Young Alastair was born, and soon afterward,
Alice
was found dead, the circumstances mysterious. Thus, young Alastair was raised by his father,
Aonghasan
, who focused every moment of his free time forcing his young son to act like an Englishman, and forever sever the ties—save his name, which he could not hide—with his Scottish past.
After a long, hot bath—made all the better because his wife attended him, Alastair moved to his small stateroom where he settled into the rocking chair at his desk. He preferred a good, sturdy rocking chair, even while sitting at his desk. He dipped a feathered quill into the expensive ink—true ink, not the cheap, soot filled mess, and began writing a lengthy and detailed report of the past week’s events, focusing, of course, on the past three days.
When he finished, he retired to his bed, where he found he was too exhausted for anything more than sleep. He awoke in the night, unable to return to sleep. He felt strange and feverish, but did not want to wake his wife, so he took great effort to be quiet as he slipped from the bed and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. The robe he wore, though made of the finest imported cotton, felt rough and heavy to his suddenly sensitive skin. He thought of shedding the thing, but realized that he might encounter one of his servants. He grinned at that thought, but resisted the urge, deciding to leave the robe open, instead.
His thirst was incredible, and drank glass after glass of water, standing in the kitchen looking out into the moonlit night. He felt a twinge of fear, as he could not quench the sudden thirst and now even more troubling was his itchy and extremely sensitive skin. He took a pitcher of water, poured it into a small wash-pan, and doused his hands. The itch had suddenly turned to a burning sensation, almost as if his hands were aflame. He resisted the urge to cry out.
Unable to stand the burning pain that overcame his body, Alastair ripped off his robe and threw it to the floor. He looked down at his hands and doubted his sanity when he saw that they were shifting, muscles bulging and fingers seeming to stretch. Then, with a sudden fear unlike any he had felt before, Alastair McLeod realized what was happening to him. The peasants had
not
been crazy, nor had they been wrong to want him dead. He
was
changing—into God knows what—but he
was
changing.
Alastair’s thoughts were now all about protecting his family, from both harm and the knowledge that he was cursed. He knew he would have to run in order to protect them and he didn’t even consider reaching down for the robe as he bolted for the back door. Each stride left him wracked with agony as his body shifted and pulsed with the change. He burst through the door and into the small courtyard, which was brightly lit by the light of the full moon. He tried to reach the gate leading out into the street, but failed, collapsing in misery. Alastair’s last coherent thoughts before darkness overtook him were of his wife and son…and perhaps those very thoughts were their very undoing.
He woke to sunlight shining through a window to his dog,
Gerdonny
, licking his hands. When he finally managed to open his eyes, he realized he was on the floor in the living area, next to the fireplace. His senses slowly returned and he rubbed at his eyes. He rolled onto his left side, facing the fireplace, and slowly tried to get up.
He realized he was naked and tried to remember why. Had he drank so much last night? Then, as he turned slowly around to view the room, everything came rushing back to him. For what he saw forced the memories to come and he was forced by those memories to understand. The living room was pure carnage. Every tile of the expensive, white marble was covered with thick, drying blood. Amidst the blood were the mangled and partially eaten remains of his wife, his precious son, and their three servants.
Of them all, his wife was the worst. Her body had been hollowed out—her twisted corpse lay on its back with dead eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, her mouth set forever in a scream. Alastair tried to shout with all his might, collapsing to his knees, but no sound came forth. Instead, he convulsed, his mouth open—leaving silence as he tried to cry out in an agony that touched his very soul. He lurched forward and vomited a mass of blood and gore. Something lodged in his throat and he reached for it, pulling and tugging until a long cord-like mass of tissue came free.
Gerdonny
yelped and ran for the kitchen as Alastair finally stood. Shaking, but determined, Alastair stepped through the blood to reach above the fireplace and take down his father’s sword. He took the arm of his mangled son and dragged him through the blood so that he lay next to his mother’s side. Alastair knelt beside them and wedged the hilt of the sword against the protruding marble frame of the fireplace, then set the tip of the sword against his skin just under the rib below his left breast. He took a deep breath, and then leaned his body forward with all his might. The sword passed under the ribs and pierced his heart perfectly.
When Alastair awoke a few hours later, still amidst the bloody carnage, sword lying beside him, he almost went mad. He ran a bloody hand across his chest. There was the slightest scar where the sword had pierced him, ensuring that he had not imagined the success of the deed. Nevertheless, his body had somehow pushed the sword out and healed itself. The irony was almost too much to bear.
Camran
Shaw’s words of dismemberment and burning came to him and now he understood. He assumed that, to
stay
dead, his body would have to be burned. Alastair imagined being caught, hanged, and then buried, only to wake in his casket, forever entombed…perhaps to wake and die over and over through time.
He fled the living room and ran up the stairs and into his master bath. He stood in the Eagle Claw tub and washed the dried, sticky blood from his body. Afterwards, he stood at his closet, looking at his fine clothes. He realized that his rank and popularity would be a hindrance to any plans of escape. After all, his was a well-known face. He went back to the sink, forcing himself to look into the mirror as he shaved off his beard and mustache.
Alastair knew it was a minor miracle that soldiers were not in his house now and if he were to escape
Edinburgh
, he would need a disguise that left him unremarkable and inconsequential. He used his own underclothes, but left the rest in his wardrobe. He grabbed his leather travel sack from the closet and ran around the bedroom gathering up his wife’s jewelry and any small valuables he could find. He felt a heavy guilt but he was in a panic to preserve his life. He had pushed the powerful wave of suicidal guilt and sorrow away and into a dark corner of his mind. In its place thrived a more powerful instinct—survival.
He took clothes from his servants’ quarters and thumbed through them until he found something he could wear. He felt a pang of disgust as he gazed in a mirror but felt sure that no one would recognize him from a distance…and who would want to come close to or speak to a simple peasant? Men of rank would never bother to speak to a commoner without good reason.
He gathered up all the coin in his home, even those hidden within the servants’ quarters and decided that the small bounty now in his travel sack would get him anywhere he needed to go and still allow him enough comfort and time to establish himself in a lawyer’s trade. Things would be difficult, to be sure, but he would adapt. He would learn what he could about this damned affliction and do what he could to control it. All that he knew now was from childhood stories and would have to do for the moment.
Alastair knew that when the moon was full, he would change. After that, he was unsure, but believed he could only change at night. Silver was supposed to be dangerous, and he would heal from most wounds very quickly—he could not die, as could ordinary men. That thought now exhilarated him and he wondered if he would also stop aging. He was forty-two now, and age had not been so kind to him even allowing for the benefits of his station. Would he remain this age? Could he die of old age? Could it be that he was truly immortal? He found excitement at the prospect…even though it came at a high price.
He refused to allow memories of his wife and son to reach the surface of his mind. If their faces did make it through, he would force them away and focus only on the future. Alastair McLeod, now calling himself Jeremiah Roberts, found a ship to America the next morning and sailed away to leave murder and mayhem behind. He looked into the distant horizon and began planning a new future.
Present Day,
Canada
The beast breathed in the cold midnight air as he studied the dark surroundings. For a brief moment, he understood time and felt that too much had passed since he was last
awake
. For another moment, he was self-aware. He looked down at his huge black hands; long razor-sharp claws extended on each finger, and felt power surge through them. While turning the hands over to look closer at them, blurred images…thoughts of daylight and humans entered his thoughts. He struggled to recollect, but the ability was beyond him. Then, as quickly as the awareness came, it was gone—replaced by a gnawing hunger and an instinct to kill. The beast raised his snout high, making his near seven-foot frame even taller. He huffed icy air through his nostrils and caught a scent. It was distant—how far did not matter—if he could smell their scent, he could find them.
Humans. He could not form the word with his mouth, nor could he summon one of the blurred images that had been at the forefront of his mind only seconds ago...but it did not matter. The urge to track them down was so strong and his abilities so remarkable that the beast did not need images or recollection. The human things were his prey and his instinct was such that nothing else mattered. Not the deep snow on the ground or the freezing temperature. Not the gusting, icy wind or the stinging snow that sailed on it. Not the rocky crags that jutted from the ground, or the mountainous terrain between he and his prey—nor the darkness. Indeed, he thrived on darkness.
What mattered was that he was awake once again and that he was hunting. The excitement he felt knowing that he was to have a human was almost too much for him to bear. He howled with exhilaration, his black, muscled frame shaking as he threw back his head. However, a jolt of inner alertness let him know he should stop the congratulatory howling as his calls might scare his prey and cause them to move farther away. He stopped and opened his eyes as he held his face to the sky a moment longer—and he was captivated by what he saw. The beast stared with an innate veneration at the shiny globe that floated high in the night sky. His jet black eyes reflected the image of the moon so perfectly, that if one were to look into those dark orbs, they could make out its every detail. The beast felt a tug in his chest and did not understand. It was pain, and yet he enjoyed it. It was also a longing so strong that he choked in reverence. Finally, he looked away, back into the forest and began to move. His senses tingled and his heart thumped heavily with excitement. He was filled with elation. Tonight’s hunt was different. Were the beast able to tap into memory, he would know that the
man he had been
only hours ago had wanted this hunt. The human side of the beast had welcomed the thought of the human prey and so the instinct to hunt was more powerful and the thrill almost tangible.
The heavy winds of the snowstorm were at his back pushing him to move even faster. He grunted as he leapt over a fallen tree, landing gracefully a full ten feet the other side of the tangled branches. Huge canine-like paws thudded softly in the deep snow. The beast did not know, but minutes ago, those paws had been human feet. His legs retained some human form but were now massive and strewn with muscle and a black, oily coat of fur. They were long and powerful, effortlessly propelling the dark form through the snow-covered forest. The upper torso of the creature was comprised of an unnaturally thin waist and a thick broad chest with huge and powerful shoulders. His dark, black eyes were set close together and might have been considered wondrous were they not set on a face of pure horror. He was no longer a man but neither was he wholly an animal and so his head was a jumbled mixture of both canine and human features. Tall, pointed ears twitched and turned, catching sounds that had traveled great distances through the trees. The snap of a branch or the soft sound of clumped snow falling from the branches of an Evergreen. Protruding just below and between the dark eyes of the beast were fierce jaws set within a grotesque canine snout—rows of sharp, pointed teeth, waiting for prey.
The change was complete, and though human features might be recognizable in his monstrous form, nothing of the man remained in the beast’s mind—or in the empty cavity that had once possessed a soul. Driven by instinct, with anticipation and anxiety he picked up the pace, taking longer and fuller strides. Though he was no longer capable of tapping into his human memories, something akin to an image from the past shot through his mind. Synapses fired and a cross between recollection and instinct came together to tell the beast that the huge crag of rock that jutted out of the ground to his left was familiar. He felt this was a place of importance and understood that this was somewhere he was supposed to go—somewhere he had been many times before. Though he could no longer smell his own scent among the rocks, he instinctively knew that this was
his
place.
The human sent grew stronger and although bursting with need to kill, he stopped and sniffed at the air. Snow whirled around his massive black form as he heaved in breaths, closing his jaws briefly to pull the scent in off the wind. He was close enough to stalk the humans and now the true hunt would begin. There were two of the humans, though numbers did not matter to the creature. Remarkably, the beast recognized the scent of both of the men and instinctively chose his first victim. The monstrous head snapped back as the beast raised his face to the sky—then checked, realizing he was too close. They would be aware of him. They would be warned--and he did not want them warned. Though the element of surprise was unnecessary, it was his nature to stalk silently, and then come in for the attack when he saw the look of sheer terror on the face of the victim. He shook himself, throwing snow and sweat from his body. He knelt down and placed his deformed hands into the snow. He stared at the ground and then lifted a handful of the white powder and some of the frozen soil to his face and breathed in the scent. He closed his eyes in delirium. He must have them. He wanted them,
now.
He pushed the urge down and waited. Stalk, reveal himself to the prey, let them take in the horror, and—kill. He shuddered with anticipation.
The two men sat by a small, waning fire. They were unusually nervous, having heard the unnatural howls only minutes before. One man, the fat one, poked at the embers with a stick, leaning in too close and almost catching his orange, vinyl hunting-vest on fire. He was breathing harder than he should have been, and though most of his body was cold, there were small beads of sweat on his forehead. The thinner, taller man detested his companion. The tracker was here for the money but had begun to think that there was not enough cash in British Columbia to justify being so far removed from civilization, deep in the night in heavy snow with few supplies and a waning fire—and a disgusting, spoiled, fat man. The fat man had convinced him that the hunt would be successful on the first day, and that they could radio in for pickup within forty-eight hours. The opposite had turned out to be true. No game lived in the forest at all,
nevermind
Grizzly, and after two days and nights, they had found only grief.
The crazy hermit in that cabin up north had only served to exacerbate the already bad situation, throwing a fit unlike any the fat or thin man had ever seen. There was even a moment—just a brief one—(it had happened when the hermit had growled like a dog), that they both feared the man might just pull his pistol strapped from its wild-west-like holster and shoot them. The two men barely had time to grab their packs and rifles as the man forcefully shoved them out the cabin door. The shaky hunting guide had had enough, and he would tell the fat, disgusting man that no amount of money would save him from a helicopter ride home tomorrow. There would be no bear, no moose, not even an elk—merely a turbulent flight back to civilization. And the guide would charge him for every minute—oh yes—he would not let the rich, fat cat out of his sight until he had coughed up every penny.
The guide stood up, moved to the fire and rearranged the logs so that it could breathe, and the flames seemed to appreciate the effort, rising higher and thicker. The fat man grumbled something under his breath and the guide sneered at him in disgust. The fat man turned to look into the forest behind him. He thought he heard something out of the ordinary, especially having heard strange crunching sounds over the wailing winds. He froze. The guide eventually saw the look on the fat man’s face and noticed the man’s unwavering form. Puzzled, he started to ask his motionless companion what the matter was, but he suddenly knew the answer.
Standing no more than twenty feet away was a tall, thick, black figure. Some snow had settled on the huge shoulders of the creature’s still form, but black fur still shined in the light of the fire. The fat man dribbled. Spittle flew from his lips as he tried to control his shaking jaw long enough to form a scream. The sound that came from him was more of a high-pitched grunt, however, as he stumbled backwards, tripping into the fire and rolling through it to come to a stop in the melting snow. Strange mewling noises came from his throat as he rolled over on his stomach in an effort to stand up. The guide had his own problems with the fear in his gut, but he would not allow it to engulf him entirely. He had faced charging grizzlies at twenty paces, one dropping dead at his feet. Whatever this was, it was not immune to a bullet—he thought.
He jumped toward the rifle, which leaned against his tent about five feet away, but the thing was in front of him, lifting him high off of the snow as he screamed. He sailed through the air and into two large trees that had stood only a few feet apart. His chest and head slammed into one tree, and his legs into the other. His world went dark.
The fat man had managed to stand up and he tried to run but his knees shook and his body failed to heed his commands. He felt a warm trickle down his leg and then felt an odd pressure against his right shoulder. The pressure grew, and then changed to a searing pain. He jerked and fell sideways as the beast tore away half his shoulder and a part of his collarbone. The fat man did scream then, and no sooner had the scream escaped his lips than a blood-freezing howl erupted beside him. Blood spurted from the howling beast’s jaws as the fat man made it to his knees. He felt a strange need to look at his attacker, and so he did. The horrifying snarl of the werewolf was the last thing he saw as his heart, mercifully, stopped beating.
Pain brought the hunting guide to consciousness as he awoke to an almost pure darkness. There was no sky, no snow, and no wind—although he thought he could hear the whirring of the snowstorm. He laid still, wedged deep in a pile of—something. Perhaps broken branches—no—the things around him were stiff, but not hard to the touch. He shook his head and forced himself to focus. A snapping, crunching sound echoed from somewhere to his left…maybe a few yards away, and he had no doubts as to what made the sound. The beast was here. The creature from hell was feasting on the fat man’s body. The pain was excruciating as he struggled to stay calm and as his body’s supply of adrenaline waned. He might survive, but he had to think—he had to plan—and he had to comprehend. He stared toward the sounds, allowing his eyes to adjust to the blackness. After a few long moments, the faintest glow became apparent in the distance. The light came from a large opening that looked natural, made of rock.
I’m in a cave. The damned thing has taken me…us…to its lair
. He believed that he had but one chance to live through this nightmare. He considered his injuries, which he surmised were two broken legs, the right one much worse than the left. He could slightly wiggle his left foot and felt little pain, but the right leg had shot pain through his entire body when he made the attempt. Biting down on the sleeve of his jacket while trying to be silent, he slowly curled himself into a tight ball. Psychedelic colors flashed behind his eyes as he slowly pulled the mangled legs to his chest, the agony unbearable…but he did not cry out. He buried his head in his arms, and lay still in the twisted fetal position.
He opened an eye, gazed toward the dim glow of the cave’s entrance, and saw the shadowy form still feeding on what he supposed was the fat man. He lost all sense of time and eventually drifted into unconsciousness. As he drifted away, he thought of his family, and made his peace. When he awoke to see the shadowy form coming for him, he pissed himself, horrified…and he thought he saw the beast smile as the blaze of white fangs lowered down toward his face.
The guide was cold and numb, and wet with his own blood. Dawn had found him lying in a pile of rotting animal corpses, some complete, some dismembered—many had been there so long they had mummified. The putrid air of the cave might have bothered him but just as the smell had not registered last night, so it mercifully escaped his senses now. His breaths were shallow and ragged and he had no illusions of survival. His body was mangled and torn, now beyond repair. He wanted to escape the cave into the snow where he could lay on his back to watch the morning sky and to feel the fluttering snowflakes land softly on his torn face. He didn’t want to die amongst the gore and rot of the beast’s lair.