She screamed as she ran down the trail through the foggy moon lit forest. It was right behind her, growling in a low terrifying voice. She suddenly tripped on an old dead tree branch that was lying on the path. As she turned to look up, there stood the creature towering over her. The creature let out a howl that echoed through the forest. Then the sounds of dogs were getting closer and a gunshot rang out. Rex opened one eye and then another, trying to see what was going on. The creature was hit in the shoulder and then another shot found its mark. "I think I got him," said one of the hunters. The creature walked a few steps and fell to its death.
The hunters came up quickly and one of the hunters picked up the woman, "there, it will be alright now he's dead. " As they watched in amazement as the creature was changing back to the person, he was before. The bright silver moon shined with all its glory, it triggered the young man to change into the creature that night. Then the words "The End, "came across the screen and Rex grabbed the remote to turn off the movie. " I love those old horror movies like that; too bad I fell asleep and missed half of it."
Rex picked up his supper dishes from the coffee table and walked over to the kitchen sink. "Should I do these dishes right now or maybe later would be a better time, besides I need to go outside and enjoy the campfire." Rex walked across the kitchen, finishing a few things before going outside to relax. As he passed the snack bar, he picked up his favorite camouflage ball cap with the ten-point buck logo on it. He pulled it down over his shaggy brown hair and glanced up at his trophy deer mounts hanging on the living room wall of his log cabin. "It won't be too long before I may be hanging another one up there," he thought to himself.
As he turned to look at the calendar, he noticed that October was just about over. "One more day to go, why it's going to be Halloween tomorrow, "this brought a big smile to his face. His mind fell into the memories of carved pumpkins and ghosts. In addition, those frightening creatures of the night, that lay back in the shadows. Rex started shaking his head and laughed a little.
Then he turned and walked through the dining room to shut off the lights before going outside. As he did, the light from the moon filled the room with an eerie silvery brightness. He went to the sliding glass door that was just off the dining room and slid the door open. At the instant that he did, the cool October breeze brushed across his face. "Man! You can tell that winter is just around the corner, "he mumbles to himself as he walks through the door and out on the deck. As he turned to close the door, he leaned down to pick up the cooler that had the nectar of the gods in it, cold beer. He took the cooler and a boom box that was setting on a small table by the steps, in case he wanted to hear some good old jams later on.
As he walked out across the backyard to the stone shaped fire pit, he looked up at the enormous full moon, taking center stage to all the thousands of stars that dotted the sky that night. He then set the cooler down beside his chair and opened the lid for a cold one. His eyes scanned across the backyard and into the open field that continued until it came up against the tree line of the woods.
As he stepped closer to the fire, that was cracking in the fire pit. He could feel the warmth from the brightly burning wood that filled the small area with shadows dancing around the fire. He sat down in his chair and gazed into the flames of the fire for a while. Soon his mind was drifting in thoughts from the hypnotic way the flames were moving. As he stared deeper into the flames, a series of images came to him. These images formed into memories of when he was growing up. Those times were filled with a lot of love and understanding from his mom and dad that shaped him into the person he is today.
Rex Springfield grew up to be a very well liked person that would stop to help anyone in need. He worked in a sports shop close to the small northern town in Michigan, where he grew up. As a boy, he was either camping, fishing or hunting most of the time. His dad taught him a lot about the outdoors and hunting was at the top of his list for things he loved to do. It was not anything to do with the killing of an animal, but the hunt itself. The tracking and strategy of the hunt was one part that he loved about it. However, the excitement of the sheer willingness to survive made him have such a respect for nature and the quality of life. Maybe that is what drove him to become a Ranger when he was in the service. He was very skilled at what he had learned as a boy and put those skills to work for him to get the job done. He received a few medals in some of the missions he was in, for heroism beyond the call of duty. The only draw back to this was, the dreams and nightmares that he relives every once and awhile. Waking up in a cold sweat, heart pounding like a train going down a track at high speed and the reality of the dreams, so real, that it seems like you were still there after all these years.
Rex took another swallow of his beer to wash down his memories of the past, when he heard the sounds of the coyotes. They were singing their nightly songs that he has heard a lot of lately. As he reached to get another beer, he heard a howling that was so deathly loud, it smothered out the coyotes all together. Rex dropped his beer and stood up out of his chair in a blink of an eye. "Wow! What was that, "Rex said out loud. The howl was not like anything Rex has ever heard before. Besides being very loud, it was as something was in a lot of pain. Rex's eyes scanned the field all the way out to the tree line and back, trying to see anything moving. As Rex reached down to get his beer that he dropped, he tried to clear his mind and focus on what he just heard. He sat back down in his chair and took another drink.
It was not a few seconds later, that he heard another howl. A howling that only comes with the act of deliberately inflicting extreme pain. Something was going on big time out in the woods tonight.
Rex ran to the house to get his Browning 30-06 caliber rifle with a Smith and Wesson 3x9 scope mounted on it. He kept it in his bedroom, hanging on the wall. He also grabbed a box of Winchester silver tip 180-grain bullets that he often used when he went hunting big game. Rex hurried back outside to load up and scan the field again, only this time looking through the scope on his rifle. The bright moon shined enough light to see through the scope, but not clear to make out a detailed shape.
He moved the rifle back and forth, trying to see anything that moved. Finally, there were sounds of something moving, that came from along the tree line of the woods. Rex moved the rifle to where he thought the sounds were coming from. As he peered through the scope, he saw movement coming out of the woods. Rex looked and looked again. He was not sure what he was seeing made any sense. Rex pulled his head back and wiped his eyes. He looked back through the scope to see what looked like a large wolf, but with a brawny, muscular body of a human. It was standing on its hind legs, in an upright position. The wolf creature was looking back and forth across the field, when it turned and looked straight at Rex. Its eyes glowed with the light of the moon, somewhat like a deer's eyes when the headlights shine on them crossing the road in front of you at night. But then again, this is a large wolf type creature with something else on its mind besides crossing the road in the middle of the night.
The creature started to move across the field at an angle that appeared to be straight at Rex. As it started to move faster and faster, which Rex was watching all of this through his scope. A blurred object passed between Rex and the wolf creature. It seem to move with a lot of speed and the wolf creature turned it's head and dashed after it with the quickness of a tiger on the hunt.
As Rex followed all of the action through his scope, the best that he could. The creature let out an ear-piercing cry that the shrill sound of it, made the hairs on the back of Rex's neck stand straight up. He followed the creature into the darkness of the far field, until he could not see any movement at all. Rex pulled his head back away from the scope and stood there in shock at what he had just witnessed.
He stood there for a while, trying to hear any type of sound at all. Maybe a small movement or rustling in the grass of the field. However, there was not a sound, except for the slowly burning wood of the fire pit, still letting out a crackling sound occasionally, with the fading dancing shadows from the fire.
Rex sat down in his chair again and finished up a beer he had sitting on the cooler. Overwhelmed by what had just happen. He was not sure what he should do, if anything at all. There was no way he could just set there or put out the fire and go to bed. Just knowing that something like that wolf creature or werewolf, "wait a minute! " Rex thought to himself. "A werewolf, this just can't be happening to me. But then again, what I just saw through the scope and heard with my own ears, cannot be a dream, can it? Besides, it sounds like its killing things out there. "
Therefore, after a minute of deep thought, Rex decided to track the wolf creature down. "That would be the right thing to do, besides, I was a Ranger or once was," he thought to himself. He picked up his rifle and walked up to the house. He slid the door open, stopped for a moment and looked back. Then he walked inside and proceeded to gear himself up for the hunt of a lifetime.
Rex started packing what he thought he might need to take with him in the woods. Then it dawned on him, "werewolf, silver tip bullets, what the hell am I doing, I've got to be going crazy or something. " He stopped to think for a minute or two and said, "yet, I'm crazy. " With that, he finished what he was packing and took a deep breath. He turned and looked up at a picture of his family he had on the fireplace mantle. He reached out to touch the picture, as to say, "I hope I will see you later. " He took a deep breath again, walked to the door, and went outside to start the hunt.
As Rex walked by the fire pit, he was ready to down one more beer, but he stopped and figured he would not do that until he got back. Rex thought for a moment, "I might need all the sense I can muster up, I do not need to be a half drunken clown out there with a rifle. " He turned and started walking out into the field where he had last seen the wolf creature fade into the darkness of the night.
After walking out into the field a ways, Rex clicked on the bright surefire flashlight that he brought with him. It was not long before he picked up the trail that the creature had left. Rex also figured out what the blur was that went between him and the creature, when he was looking through the scope earlier on. It was a deer or one of those large bucks he has been seeing in the field, according to the tracks that he found. He quickly moved along the trail that they left behind and Rex would stop every so often to flash the light out in front of himself. As he followed the tracks to the edge of the woods, he heard a movement a little ways a head of him. Rex proceeded to walk into the heavy tree canopy of the woods. He started to see large amounts of blood, probably from the deer that the creature was chasing. As Rex walked in a little farther, he started to see more then just blood. There was deer hair and small pieces of flesh from the deer. Then he found what appeared to be the rest of the deer, scattered in large pieces. Rex kneeled down to look at what was left of the deer. Then he heard that shrilling cry that he had heard earlier, but this time it was right in front of him. Through the brush and leaves of the trees, two horrifying glowing eyes of death, stared right at Rex. The creature's eyes seem to burn straight into Rex's soul, bringing into existence that overwhelming feeling of terror. Moving ever so slowly, snarling like the sound of the devil's own pet. It moved into the open area where Rex was standing. Rex could now see the whole wolf creature in his view.
Its mangled hair was dripping of blood and so were its razor sharp teeth that glisten from the light that Rex was holding. The pointed ears shaped the top of its head and the long snarling nose was sniffing the night air like a bloodhound on the scent of a trail. The body was a muscular frame covered in thick hair, with the color of a timber wolf. The huge claws dripped with the fresh blood of the deer. Now looking right at the creature in front of him, it towered over him standing on it's powerful hind legs. "This was something right out of those horror movies that I use to watch," Rex thought to himself.
Rex tried to move back slowly, but the creature also moved with his every step. In a spilt second, a thousand thoughts went through Rex's head. Quickly and for whatever reason, well maybe survival. Rex pulled the rifle up and shot once, then again, hitting the creature both times in the chest. The wolf creature fell back, landed on its backside, rolled over, and ran into the woods. It screamed in pain, but still moved with great swiftness. Rex hurried after it, but could not keep up with it. Therefore, he started tracking the creature again, which was leaving its own blood trail now.
Rex tracked it up to a small cliff, towering slightly above the river and lost the tracks. As he turned to try and pick up the creature's trail, he was attacked with the fury and rage of something possessed. The rifle and flashlight flew from his hands, as Rex and the creature both fell to the river below. They hit the water like a ton of bricks, going straight to the bottom of the river. Turning and fighting for his life, Rex managed to get his knife out. He started carving and slashing, like one of those Japanese sword movies. The creature was clawing and ripping at Rex, with those powerful arms. From all of the fighting between the both of them, the water was turning a red color from all of the blood.
Then all of a sudden, the creature let go and started to make its way upward. As Rex swam after him, the creature managed to get up to the top of the water. Painfully gasping for a breath of fresh air, the creature made its way out of the river. When Rex swam to the open fresh air of the night, he fought for every breath he could get to fill his lungs. Any longer and they would have collapsed from the lack of oxygen. As Rex drug himself out of the river and stood up the best that he could. He tried to see where the creature went, but the tracks were hard to see in the foggy darkness of the night. There were small amounts of moon light filtering through the trees, but it was still too hard to see any trace of direction the creature might have taken.
Rex tried to regroup and catch his breath for the moment. Then he heard that cry of pain and agony, Rex quickly followed the sound, running along the river's edge. After a ways he stopped for a moment to listen again. Then he heard a splash in the water ahead of him, like a mad man on a mission, he ran to the sound. He saw something floating in the river and jumped in to find a body laying face down. He pulled the body from the water and laid it on the grass. As he rolled the body over, it seems to be a middle-aged man with long mangled hair and a beard. The man was naked. He had cuts and slashes all over his body and two large bullet holes in his chest. "Could this be the wolf creature that I have been fighting with, "Rex thought to himself? There were also bruises that he could see under the blood, that also cover most of the man's body. However, this person did not resemble that of the creature, at least the wolf features and muscular hairy body that the creature had.
Rex sat back and started to doubt his own sanity. He looked down and started to cry, swaying back and forth. His heart started pounding like a tribal drum conjuring up some type of spirits or demons. He suddenly jumped to his feet and started to scream violently, like a person possessed by the devil himself. He screamed so violently, that the screams turned into shrill cries of pain and agony. Which made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and suddenly started growing all over his body? His muscles swelled and started altering the form of his body, ripping the clothing right off of his back. His screams turned into howling and his snarling face starting taking the shape of a wolf, which revealed fangs that glisten in the moon light. Rex slowly raised his head up and stared at the Moon.
He leaped forward and started to run down the edge of the river. His speed was increasing faster and faster, jumping and leaping like a creature chasing its prey. Then suddenly without warning, he fell to his knees, hitting his head on a large rock. Pain shot through him like a powerful electrical shock. His eyes suddenly opened as he stumbled to get up, trying to clear his vision enough to see where he was. The smoke from the fire pit stung his eyes and made him step back. He bumped in to the chair that was lying on its side. He was sweating from his head to his toes and his heart was pounding like a run away train. The cool October breeze put an ice-cold chill down his back.
He finally mustered up a few words and said, "What the hell I must have fallen asleep, it was all just a bad, bad dream. " Still half in a daze, his eyes rose up slowly and gazed at the enormous full moon, with its silvery glow. It was still taking center stage to all the thousands of stars that dotted the sky that night. In addition, in the distance, Rex could hear the coyotes singing their songs of the night.
The End