LYCANTHROPY CONTEST

“Come on, Steve, trust me, I cut across this moorland all the time last year. It’s a quicker way to the campsite.”

Steve eyed his older brother. The light of the full moon was bright enough to see how dilated his pupils were. “How many did you take, Gray?”

“Look, I can handle it, okay? Are you gonna try finding your own way back or are you gonna follow me?”
“All right.” The moorland was painted in greys with an occasional splash of muted colour. It rolled like a gentle sea, its overall flat vastness concealed by local peaks and troughs.

Gray sniffed. “I saw something weird out here last year.”

“A hallucination?”

“It’s not that kind of drug.”

“Whatever, you’re not thinking straight, let’s just get back.”

“No, I want you to see it too.”

“What? You said this was a short cut.”

“It’s all right, it’s on the way.”

Steve was worried about his brother. Gray might think he could handle it, but Steve knew his brother wasn’t the same person he’d grown up with, the person he loved. “Let’s just get back.”

“It was a werewolf.”
“What?”

“It bit me, see.” Gray pulled up his sleeve. “Right across here.” He ran a finger across his forearm in an S from the pulse at his wrist to his outer elbow.

“I can’t see anything, Graham.”

“Too dark. If you had my eyes you’d see it. It bit me, Steve, and I got its power. I want it to bite you too. It’s more of a gift than a curse.”

Steve wanted this to be a joke, but he knew that his addled brother was deadly serious. “Okay, Gray. I’m following you.” He’d have to look after him, get him back safe.

Gray’s severe smile looked maniacal in the monochrome light. “This is gonna be fun!” He turned and ran.

Steve stumbled over a patch of heather or gorse or something, he couldn’t tell. He shouted after Gray but lost sight of him over a ridge. He got to his feet and pelted towards the ridge but he’d lost him. Steve heard Gray wolf-howl, trying to scare him. It nearly worked.

As Steve ran, the moor opened out, sloping down toward a dark line of hedgerow. He caught sight of a figure running towards the darkness. Something passed across the moon, a flutter of wings overhead, a sudden gust of wind. Steve shivered and ran to the hedge. Beyond it he could see the first few scattered lights at the campsite’s edge.

As Steve tried to squeeze himself through he heard a commotion on the other side, like a fight conducted in silence. Scratched and twisted, he emerged but his ankle was caught up in something, he reached down to pull it off but recoiled as thorns stung his palm. He tried to wriggle free but the bramble cinched tighter around his jeans. Meanwhile he could still hear muffled shuffling noises, a grunt, a stifled moan.

Steve reached into his coat’s hidden pocket, concealed behind a waterproof flap that protected the main zipper, glad the nightclub bouncers had patted him down only after he’d put his coat into the cloakroom on the way in. He knew he shouldn’t carry it, but he’d been a boy scout for years and couldn’t imagine going camping without it. If only he’d known what his big brother actually got up to on these camping trips. Steve was glad he’d brought it though, and that he’d kept it sharp within its protective sheathe. He was free within moments.

A girl’s anguished scream split the night. Steve ran towards it, knife in hand. A second scream began but was stifled. Another grunt, more violent shuffling. Steve could see shadows now, something bad was happening inside a lonesome tent. A dim light within cast shadows on its surface, giving an indistinct impression of two forms struggling within. Steve rounded the tent and tripped over the lamp that had been creating the shadow-play. Darkness fell and the noises stopped. He couldn’t make sense of what he’d seen in that illuminated instant. He froze, unsure, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight.

A shadowy form resolved into the back of some kind of beast. Gray’s talk of werewolves precluded rational thought. The fur on its back was more like a sheep’s fleece than wolf’s pelt, and its legs were bare and human-like, as if the creature had only half transformed. At first Steve was confused by an extra pair of legs, but as his mind caught up with his eyes he realised the creature was bearing down upon the girl, her skirt pulled up around her hips. The beast shifted and Steve saw its foul paw clamped over her mouth, muffling her screams, but her eyes still screamed, and now those eyes saw him standing there and shattered his unbelieving numbness.

He reached down to grab the creature by the shoulders, his only thought to save the poor girl from further harm. The thing turned and launched towards him but tripped and pitched forwards onto Steve’s outstretched knife. The girl screamed and screamed. She’d found a flashlight and was waving it about like a disco light, illuminating the scene in snatches.

Blood bubbled from Gray’s mouth and oozed through his fingers as he clutched at his gut where a dark flower bloomed through his fleece. It trickled down his bare legs, into his tangle of trousers, which were bunched around his ankles. “Seen her about. Knew her tent was out here.” He looked confused. “What are you doing here, Steve?”

He looked down at his hands. “Am I bleeding?” He slumped to the floor. Steve dropped the knife, and the flashlight went out. The girl had stopped screaming and now keened like a frightened child. Steve dropped to his knees and moaned in denial as Gray’s last breath escaped into the night. He vowed he would never succumb to that which had transformed his brother.

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©2010 Barry J. Northern

Barry writes, podcasts, blogs about being a writer in the 21st century, and he can’t write amusing bios when it’s nearly midnight. Read better words at barryjnorthern.blogspot.com.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Barry J. Northern about his fiction writing and Lame Goat Podcast.

LT: When did you first start writing, and why?

BN: I started writing in school. I didn’t see the point of doing anything else other than Creative Writing in English class, there wasn’t enough of it for my liking. I had an old typewriter at home, the kind with a double ribbon that can give you black or red ink, and I remember writing bad rip-offs of horror stories such as Slugs by Shaun Hutson, a book about flesh-eating slugs. Mine was called Beetles. It was about flesh-eating beetles. I even did ink illustrations.

LT: What draws you to some of the topics in your stories?

BN: I go for two things. The most important is to work hard in getting the strong emotional reactions in the reader that I love so much when I read. Secondly I try to build in things that resonate with the reader, references to popular culture, literature, places. It’s a way of borrowing parts of the reader’s mind that are already there and putting them to my own uses.

LT: Tell us about two of your recent writing projects.

BN: I’ve just finished writing a short story about a mermaid, but it’s not really about a mermaid. It’s about a mother mourning the lost little child that her teenage used to be, and holding onto her too hard, not letting her be free. I was inspired by the Abba song, Slipping through my Fingers. The lyrics are so sad, they move me, I wanted to capture that feeling in the story. I’ll be looking for a market for it soon.

My previous project was a short story called Corvus Curse …

LT:  How did you first get involved with Lame Goat Press?

BN: Fellow Flashes authour, Jodi MacArthur, tipped me off about Lame Goat Press’s Howl anthology. I decided to write something specifically for it, which became Corvus Curse. It’s a deeply moving story for me personally, and borrows a lot of my own fears and experiences. The words would mean a lot to me even if they weren’t my first in print.

LT:  What’s the production of the podcast like? How long does one story usually take?

BN: I had a lot of practice during my first podcast, Friday Fables. Writing the story is the hard part. With the Lame Goat Podcast I’m reading other people’s stories for the first time, which is enjoyable. I record the text of the story in one go, repeating myself if I make a mistake. Then I go back and edit, adding in the authour info, intro, music and such, which can take anything from one to five hours, depending on the length of story, and whether it needs any special voices or music.

LT:  What do you like to read?

BN: I like good fantasy, Raymond E. Feist is good. Robin Hobb too. I’ve always liked Stephen King since long before I was supposedly old enough to read it. That might explain some things. I’ve recently begun to appreciate the rich writing of Dean Koontz too. I’m trying to read more widely and get through the classics. I’ve done a review of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell for the Kick Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast. It’s not out yet, but keep your nose to the ground on that one. It’s a fantastic book.

LT:  Does music have an influence on your writing? If yes, how so?

BN: Lyrics more than music. I prefer silence when I write, the same as when I code games for my day job. I’ve already mentioned the Abba lyrics, I was also inspired by some Stevie Nicks lyrics in my first Flashes story, Rhiannon’s Glade.

LT:  Do you get ideas from other forms of art? If so, which ones?

BN: Anything can spark an idea. I think everyone is bombarded by hundreds of good triggers for stories every day, it’s just that writers are tuned into catching them, tying them down, and making them work. That’s the hard part; knowing what will work and what won’t. I get a lot of my ideas from huge amounts of podcast fiction I listen to. I often find myself thinking - ‘oh, I thought the story was going to go this way’ or, ‘I think it’d be better if this happened.’ I once saw a poster in taped to a lamppost which read “Lost Cockatiel”. I wrote a funny little flash with the same title.

LT:  If you had a chance to write a story with any character in it, which one would you chose?

BN:  Admiral Adama from the new Battlestar Galactica. He rocks. He’s flawed too, which makes him interesting. David Tennent’s Doctor is a great character too. I can’t wait to see what the 11th Doctor is going to be like…

LT:  What’s your favorite “guilty pleasure” of horror, in movies, books, or television series?

BN: I don’t have guilty pleasures. I’m loud and proud. I love Doctor Who, Lost, Flash Forward (the TV series), Lark Rise to Candleford (a BBC series adapted from Flora Thompson’s classic work — I’m reading that right now as it happens — told you I was trying to broaden my reading didn’t I?) I like Pixar and Disney movies and trashy romances. Well, not that last one, but I mean to read one one day just to see what they’re like.

LT:  Is there anything you’d like to add?

BN: Yes! Visit the new Lame Goat Podcast blog over at http://lamegoatpodcast.blogspot.com. There’s an RSS feed and I’ll be setting it up in iTunes soon.

Also visit my writing blog to see what other projects I’m working on over at http://barryjnorthern.blogspot.com. And please leave plenty of feedback and comments, I love to hear from people.

Thanks, Lori!

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©2010 Lori Titus