Page 16 of Strange Lights

I don’t have time to read through the article and parse through the chaff for the good bits right now, though. For a second, I consider taking the reckless path and confronting whoever is in the Jeep. But I’m a coward at heart, so I don’t do more than stare intently at its tinted windows and wonder which one of them has come to find me. Then I tear out of the lot, pedal to the floor, like I’m being followed. Because I know I am.

Despite my nap, it’s easy enough to catch up to Calvin at a gas station near the Montana border. Lucky for me, he’s planning on recording and researching this evening, leaving me to my own devices.

“Werewolf stakeout tomorrow night,” he says. “Care to join?” He’s scrubbing the bugs off Winnie’s windshield, her hazards blinking in appreciation. We’ve been too busy to stop for Winnie’s regular deep clean; a car wash is usually the highlight of her week. Sometimes she even updates my bedroom wallpaper for a few hours afterward. I make a mental note to buy Calvin a candy bar when I go inside to pretend to pay for gas.

“Sure,” I say. “Bet you a beer I’ll catch a werewolf before you find proof it’s a rabid wolf, or a guy dressed up as a prank.”

This time I’m making a bet I’m fully prepared to lose. My plan to defuse this werewolf problem is a simple and effective two-pronged approach. I’m taking care of these wolves tonight, shooting them with a vaccine before Calvin has even the chance to glimpse one. By this time tomorrow, he’ll find the wolf suit I’ll plant, and no one will be any the wiser.

Werewolves aren’t a myth, but they’ve got a slightly more down-to-earth explanation than most people expect. There is a disease that affects wolves and people that leads to this sort of story cropping up from time to time. When it manifests in a wolf population, affected wolves temporarily grow in size and walk on two legs. And it makes them cunning enough to be uncanny. They like to find, follow, and terrorize people, copying human mannerisms and speech patterns. It’s easy to imagine how a legend might grow over the centuries when people stumble across these creatures in the wild. Most werewolves seem content to terrorize from afar, but this viral strain that’s been giving me trouble lately creates an unfortunate variation that enjoys aggressively pursuing⁠—and biting⁠—humans. Lycanthropy in humans is varied and unpredictable.

In the past, the plague would eventually burn out and run its course in wild wolf packs, and the wolves would return to normal, leaving them immune to recurrent infection, like any other pathogen. I’ve hypothesized this may be where the moon part of the myth comes in. The infection is transient, but it’s got nothing to do with moon cycles. Maybe people just see monsters in the night more vividly by the light of the full moon.

Complications arise now that human populations have encroached so much on wolf territory⁠—same old story with an unnatural twist. This recent Yellowstone outbreak is even more muddled because of the specific strain of the virus that’s running rampant. The ranger who contacted me sent me a hair sample, and it confirmed my fears. This variant of the pathogen is unnatural. It wasn’t supposed to escape the lab where it was created, but it did.

I believe the creator was aiming to change the lycanthropy virus but didn’t anticipate the full ramifications of the end product, as too often happens. Whatever its original purpose, the entire project was bungled. The whole experiment reads as someone reckless with a half-assed plan, messing around with a dangerous virus, mutating random genes, just to see what happens⁠—like a child poking at a dog, pulling at its tail and ears until they get a reaction. I don’t want to think about the possibilities, how much worse it could have ended than some rogue werewolf packs. Trying to curb outbreaks in wild wolves and limit the spread of this strain to humans is the least I can do to attempt to right a wrong, however unintentional it was.

It’s simple enough to cure the wolves. I have a combination antidote/vaccine loaded into tranquilizing darts. I say simple, but that’s now, after years of painstaking research and testing, cobbling together equipment, building the gun from scratch. Cursing the original creator of the problem the whole time. But it was worth it, I think. It’s a streamlined process now that I can manufacture and keep a stock of the antidote on hand. It becomes a matter of hunting infected wolves and taking them down for a heavy nap with the vaccine-laced tranquilizer darts. I retrieve the darts and take any samples I need, and by the time they wake up, they’re as good as new.

Humans, though, remain affected forever if bitten, both historically and with this new strain. And the infection manifests so differently in individuals, it makes for a hard study and an elusive antidote. The human vaccine works proactively, at least, but hardly anyone knows about it. And no human antidote exists for an active case. A temporary suppressant is the furthest anyone has gotten in the search for the antidote. For all its unpredictable effects, there’s one thing the lycanthropy virus never does. Becoming a werewolf doesn’t fundamentally alter a person’s character⁠—a werewolf remains the person they were before the bite. Lycanthropy simply unleashes and amplifies what was already lurking under the surface, making the feral and free parts of the soul a little harder to ignore. And it’s the depths under that surface that I can’t resist studying. I’m no werewolf, but I find werewolves more relatable than most humans. I think I might be a similar breed of creature. Some days I win the battle, the beast inside me chained tight. Other times I fear I’m only a marionette tugged along by a string, unable to be anything but the worst version of myself. Maybe an antidote doesn’t exist; maybe I haven’t found it because it isn’t possible to cure the kind of monster a person harbors inside their heart. But I don’t have to stop trying. I haven’t run across many werewolf humans, but they’re out there, and I owe it to them to keep searching for answers.

As night falls and the moon rises, I check and recheck my pack of supplies. Basic first aid and survival gear, because that’s always a good idea. Triple the amount of antidote doses I calculated I would need in a worst-case scenario, a safety factor OSHA would approve of. What’s preloaded in the gun alone should be more than enough. A bag of cheese crackers and jerky (beef, extra tender this time) and a thermos of coffee because stakeouts get long. And of course, Goat, because no toddler can leave behind their prized stuffed animal, but no toddler can carry their own crap either.

A distant howl echoes as I shoulder my pack and heft up my loaded gun. Too bulky and too essential for the pack; it has to be carried. Eldi darts into the shadows ahead of me.

“Time to hunt some monsters, Eldi,” I say.

Moonlight reflects off her razor-sharp canines and gleaming eyes as she eagerly leads the way.

This time I leave my Chuck Taylors in the Winnebago.

Interlude

Man in a Fur Suit

Transcribed excerpt from The Debunker podcast archives:

Calvin: Humans have long held complicated feelings toward the darkness. The darkness of the night, the darkness inside of us. We need it; some of us even crave it. The darkness serves us in a myriad of ways, but we have a primal fear of it all the same. Nothing is a better example of that than the story of the werewolf.

Half-human, half-beast, a creature who can’t control the darkness inside themselves. A person who can’t control their baser instincts. It’s humanity’s worst fear, and it’s human nature in its freest form. A beast with the cunning of a human and the strength of a wolf. A werewolf sheds the mask that is humanity and in return regains the title of mighty apex predator.

The myth of the werewolf evolved right alongside humanity. One of those folkloric tales you’d be hard pressed to find an origin for. It’s had many purposes over the years.

Werewolves are a holdover from the days when our world was wilder and monsters lived at the edges of our maps. Lycanthropy might have been a tale from the days before we knew about genetic conditions and DNA to explain why the members of one family in the village always grew hair all over their bodies. Werewolves might be a myth to explain a rash of brutal deaths, because a monster in the woods is less frightening than a monster who lives inside your house. You can shut the door and keep the forest out, but you can’t hide if the beast is locked in with you. Werewolves feature in cautionary tales that kept kids out of the woods and safe at home when we lived lower on the food chain and deeper in the wilderness.

But aren’t we better than tall tales these days? Can’t we admit that sometimes the worst monsters are people? That those gruesome murders are the work of a human, that we’ve decimated wolves after demonizing them with stories of werewolves? That makes humans the monsters in this story.

I personally think it’s dangerous to make a mythical creature the scapegoat for humanity’s faults. There’s no room for monsters besides man in the modern world.

8

Oops

Taking a toddler on a werewolf hunt might be bad parenting, but Eldi is the exception to the rule. If anything, she’ll be the most dangerous predator out there tonight. For obvious reasons, I can’t take her to a pediatrician, but she’s never been sick or injured. Now, it’s not like I’ve tested it on purpose. I’m not a monster, but a few incidents have as good as proven it. So I’m not too worried about werewolf bites, even if she gets in a tussle with one; I’ve seen her take down a mountain lion. She got into the kitchen knives once, testing them on her fingers. Not a scratch on her. I, on the other hand, nearly needed blood pressure medication after that. She doesn’t bruise, even though she’s hardly more graceful than a human toddler.

I tried to take Eldi to a play group before I considered the danger human diseases might pose to whatever creature she is. Eldi didn’t share that concern. She immediately put a number of unspeakably germ-infested toys in her mouth. At least half the other toddlers were dripping snot or coughing directly into the other kids’ faces and onto every surface. Even though the other children were terrified of Eldi and wouldn’t come near her, they didn’t show me the same courtesy. I left the playgroup with someone’s snot rubbed into my sleeve, zero desire to ever repeat the experience, and an incubating case of hand, foot, and mouth disease. I couldn’t walk on my blistered feet for a week, and it took me six months to regrow all the fingernails I lost. Eldi didn’t so much as cough. I’m comfortable assuming she’s immune to lycanthropy too.

I leave the carrier behind; I have enough to manage with my pack and gun. Eldi takes down a bison for bait, and she enjoys a meal for her trouble. It isn’t a goat, but Eldi likes it better than nothing. I know wildlife is protected in Yellowstone, but sacrifices have to be made somewhere, and it’s a law I’m willing to break for the greater good.