Live and Let Howl

It's not easy being a werewolf. Fortunately, there's only one full moon per month, and the change only lasts from sunset to sunrise. I don't remember much from those times. Maybe other werewolves are different. We don't gather often, at least I don't, and when we do meet, we usually talk about anything except what happens that time of the month. There's no set age for the first change, though most are in their 20s when it happens. Some people it seems are born into it while others get converted by a werewolf bite or scratch. If you want to become a werewolf, and you shouldn't, you need to be one of the lucky encounters that does not end in a fatality. On the bright side, the aging process basically stops, though we still get white hair eventually. Our health is generally excellent, no matter how many bad habits we pick up. Alas, since we spend most of our time in human form, we must work to eat. 

I chose to be a park ranger, as it makes it easier for me to isolate myself during the change. My territory covers several square miles of a famous national park. You've probably heard of it. It has geysers and gets millions of visitors per year. The good news is almost all of them leave before sunset, and I can use my ranger truck on the back roads to find a secluded spot for my wild nights. Also, there is plenty of game nearby. The circle of life can be delicious. The change is a kind of fever dream. Though my senses are aware, the volume on my ego is turned down. Instinct takes over for the most part. My preferred prey are bison, particularly the larger males as I enjoy the challenge of the fight, and I don't always win. Werewolves feel pain just as intensely as any other mammal, and though our healing is greatly accelerated, it still takes hours to recover from serious injuries.    

Far as I can tell, most werewolves die by suicide in their human form. Sometimes, it's suicide by cop or some other situation where they deliberately decide to bite off more than they can chew, so to say. It's never clear what pushes them over the edge. A lot of us end up in the military, hoping to find ourselves in a situation where our qualities are more useful. Those same qualities generally result in most of us getting kicked out of the military or killed in battle. I must say it was a great challenge to hide my lycanthropy when I was in the Army. I had learned when I was younger to keep track of the lunar cycle and to plan well in advance. It was a great stroke of luck the day I learned that I can sleep through the transformation if I heavily drug myself just before sunset, though it leads to a terrible sort of hangover the next morning. 

It's been about 20 years since the night of my first change. I had no idea it was coming, and so it ended up being an epic rampage. Luckily for me, there were no fatalities, but it made the paper before being dismissed as a case of a rabid bear. On a related note, I can say with confidence that many sasquatch sightings were actually of werewolves. The reason for the lack of bigfoot photos is that werewolves are nocturnal whereas wildlife photographers are not. Some bigfoot tracks are definitely from werewolves. I did an experiment on myself to check. A few hours before my change, I went to an abandoned warehouse and scattered flour on the floor around me before lying down. When I came back the next day, there were indeed tracks that looked bigfoot prints. I took photos to save for my journal. Maybe someday I will find someone to publish it. I doubt it would be believed, though there is a real subculture of werewolf hunters.   

Some of the werewolf hunters are very keen. They know that silver bullets don't work. Silver is too fragile a metal for bullets anyway. It's basically impossible to kill a werewolf, though it is possible to injure them enough so as to incapacitate them for several hours. Fortunately for us, when the morning comes, we revert to our human form, and so we are generally let go. I managed to dig up one account of a werewolf who had been captured and sold to circus freak show. The plan was to put him in a cage so an audience could witness his transformation. Well, they did get to witness it, and it was the last thing about a dozen of them ever saw. It's hard to say how strong a werewolf is, but we're at least as strong a silverback gorilla as far as I can tell. I once locked myself in a cage with iron bars to see for myself. As a back-up plan and to avoid the temptation, I swallowed the key. As it turned out, I did not end up needing the key to escape. 

As far as I can tell, there is no active campaign to increase our numbers, though I often wonder how the world would be different. Perhaps if everyone had an outlet for their violent impulses, the mass catharsis would usher in a more peaceful world. The novelty of lycanthropy wears off quickly. Most of us quickly conclude that it is impossible for us to live normal lives. Perhaps tribal shamans were the way ancient societies dealt with lycanthropy. I read an account in an anthropology book where the chief of some tribe said, "thank God we have only one shaman and not two". There is no cure for our sickness, if that's the right word for it. Even if there was a cure, I wouldn't want it. I've gotten used to my life as it is. 

For me, there is no curse in being an immortal carnivore. I suspect there is a small percent of the human population that would feel the same way. My motto these days is: live and let howl.