Between the Wolf & The Dog: By C. Le Mroch
Thursday, January 21st, 2010LYCANTHROPY CONTESTANT
5:28 p.m.
“Have you seen my wife, madam?” Jeff McAllister asked.
Claudine, the innkeeper’s wife, regarded the American gravely.
“Oui, Monsieur.”
He waited. When she offered nothing further, he huffed impatiently.
“Where?”
“About an hour ago.”
“She must have taken a walk while I took my nap,” he muttered mostly to himself.
Claudine shrugged.
Suddenly Barbara, the wife of the other couple Jeff and his wife were traveling with, appeared. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“Are you okay?” Jeff asked.
She shook her head and spouted fresh tears.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” He went to offer a consolatory hug. Barbara buried her face into his chest.
“Laura (sob) and Bill (bigger sob) are… are… having an affair!”
Jeff pushed her away from him.
“I know my wife and she wouldn’t have an affair with your husband. Why would you think that?”
“They left over an hour ago and still aren’t back yet.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything torrid’s going on between them.” Then he thought, Jeez, Bill was right. Barbara really does have a jealous streak.
“Why aren’t they back yet then?”
Claudine surprised them by saying, “It is not love that keeps them, but Le Meneur des Loups.”
“Who?” Barbara and Jeff asked in unison.
“The Wizard of the Wolves. I warned them not to set out during the time between the wolf and the dog, but they did not listen.”
“What the hell is that?” Jeff asked.
“The time of day, Monsieur. Dusk. The woods are very dangerous then. I fear a fate worse than adultery has befallen them.”
“Why didn’t you stop them then?” Barbara shouted.
“I said I tried, madam. They would not listen. But the Wizard knows who wanders unaware and instructs his pack accordingly.”
“Who is this ‘wizard’ and why hasn’t he been stopped?”
“Ah, many have tried, monsieur. Impossible. He is the wind that rustles the leaves.”
“Let me guess, another euphemism?”
Claudine shrugged indifferently.
“Well, if this wizard’s so dangerous we can’t just stand here. We have to do something.”
“I will call the gendarme.”
7:07 p.m.
Jeff followed behind the three gendarmes armed with rifles and flashlights. They walked almost a mile before they found the first sign of menace.
“That’s a piece of my wife’s jacket!” Jeff cried as one of the gendarmes removed the bloody fabric from atop a trail-side bush.
His stomach turned. Their dream French countryside vacation had taken a nightmarish turn. It only got worse when they found Bill’s partially eaten remains a tenth of a mile later.
“Oh God!” Jeff said, throwing up at the sight.
“God, we have found, is no match for Le Meneur, monsieur.”
Brush rustled. All beams flashed to the source. Not even twenty yards away, eyes peered through the woods and reflected back at them. They hovered over the mutilated corpse of Jeff’s wife.
He let out a strangled cry when he realized it. A gendarme took aim at the creature, but the creature took flight a nanosecond before the shot was fired and escaped.
“I am sorry about your wife and your friend, monsieur. More sorry than I can express especially that you had to find them like this.”
Him too. This was one thousand times worse than Barbara’s fears of finding the pair in bed together.
A howl pierced the night. The gendarmes moved closer towards one another.
“We are not safe here, monsieur. The wolves thirst for more blood.”
7:53 p.m.
Dazed, led by the officers, Jeff staggered away from the carnage.
“Did you find them?” a frantic Barbara asked as she rushed from the inn when they approached.
Jeff didn’t have to say a word. His face said it all. Barbara fell to her knees screaming.
9:17 p.m.
Perhaps God was no match for the wizard, but Jeff felt he was. The love of his life had just been taken from him. He had to do something. Or at least try. He vowed to do what no other had yet accomplished: find the wizard and kill him.
Armed with a knife he’d taken from the inn’s kitchen, he set out for the woods. He only made it as far as the front gate, though. Claudine stopped him.
“You won’t find the wizard out there, Monsieur.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a good wife always knows her husband’s whereabouts.”
“Your husband is the wizard?” Jeff wondered. He thought in disbelief of the kindly pot-bellied innkeeper who’d been so gracious and warm during their stay.
“He wears many disguises, Le Meneur des Loops does. He can be anybody.”
Suddenly, Claudine’s face morphed into that of Jeff’s wife’s, then into the innkeeper’s before taking on an appearance of someone Jeff had never seen before: a tall man with thin, sharp features and tufts of unruly black hair that resembled horns.
Jeff thought of their time at the inn. How they never saw the innkeeper and his wife together at the same time.
Suddenly there was a wet tearing sound as Barbara gouged the wizard from behind with a metal pole, presumably from the stash of building supplies out back.
The wizard let out a howl before falling face first to the ground. The air filled with the sympathetic howls of his pack in mourning.
“Barbara?” Jeff said.
“He forgot one thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Never underestimate a grieving wife.”
But they’d forgotten something too: the wizard’s pack, which surrounded them. Behind them, the thin man rose and, using the pole he removed from his belly like a staff, he waved it in the air and instructed his pack to attack.
Like their spouses, Jeff and Barbara never stood a chance.
“Silly Americans. You must do better than that to kill Le Meneur des Loops,” the wizard scoffed as he watched the wolves feast on their flesh.
_________
@2010 C. Le Mroch
Courtney Mroch (who sometimes writes as C. Le Mroch) has published over three dozen short stories, eight of which have won, placed, or showed in contests. When she’s not concocting fiction, Courtney maintains Haunt Jaunts, a travel blog for restless spirits. To learn more, visit www.courtneymroch.com.
