WOLVES (any gender, mid teens to mid twenties)
I'm sorry, mother. I understand if you can't look at me. I've been a disgrace. One quarrel and I abandon you completely for one month, bedridden. I'm certain the villagers will have nothing to do with me once they encounter me again.
IF they encounter me again. Mother, I've come to say goodbye. But I must first assess your well being. Can you at least take some of the covers off? My last time at your bedside, you were running a fever... if that still is the case, then all the extra cover won't help. Perhaps some fresh night air? There's a lovely moon on the rise. May I open a window, or at least a curtain? I can hardly see anything in here. Give me some sign...
Very well.
You were right, mother. I HAD been wandering with Red Molly but I never understood her madness until I ran from you and finally lay at her side. That's when she told me the story. Where the wolf almost killed her, disguising itself as her granny?
The villagers mock her and say she claims to have been devoured by the beast. But she told a different story to me. She told me she HAD been deceived but that she had escaped with only a bite.
Such was the bite she gave me when I lay with her.
It would seem mother, that she became something new, after that bite... she has the ability to transform at every full moon and she becomes not a feeble dog, gobbling up the sick and deceiving small children. She becomes creaturrrr of much greater intelligence and size. And so much more deadly.
Yes.
I believe that if I were to turn back your sheets, mother, I might see that your eyes have grown bigger, your ears have grown bigger, your teeth grown biggerrrrr... is that not the case? But before you try to devour me, I just may step into that sliver of swollen moonlight. And then, my furrrrrrrrrry little friend you shall behold a REAL monsterrrrrr with a REAL appetite. Don't worry, you pathetic old pup. I am quite hungry so yourrrrrr come-uppance must be brrrrrreif.
Copyright 2016 by Matt Haynes. If you would like to use this piece, please credit: "Courtesy of Matt Haynes and The Pulp Stage"