Read by Lionel Laurent
Niall doesn’t mean to forget the milk. Nobody means to forget anything. But he tells himself to check the fridge before the moon comes again, and he doesn’t do that. He forgets, and now there’s no milk. No biscuits either. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He runs through a quick inventory as he stands at the door. Cycle helmet, shoulder bag, claw hammer. Child’s cricket bat, unmarked, with five six-inch nails splitting the willow.
He feels ridiculous standing in the metal lift as it shuttles him down to the street. The helmet strap digs into his chin, his arms stick out at unnatural angles, pushed upwards by the glossy magazines he has taped around them. He read that tip on the Internet, posted by a self-defense expert in Italy. The rest of the world is watching. They are taking notes. His new life reminds him of the games he used to play when he was a kid, alone, hunched into his desk, willing the computer screen to pull him in. The everyday tales of survival he reads online sound like dispatches from that unreal world, not something happening on his doorstep. A game manufacturer in Texas has already launched a playable app set in London’s wolf-torn streets.
He thought it was a prank when they first ran the news story. It took a few reports before they started muttering werewolf, as if they could scarcely believe it was true. Then came the photos, the videos, the confirmation. After the last full moon they estimated that around 95% of Londoners had turned. Of the remaining 5%, many had already been bitten and were silently ticking until the next cycle. Red Riding Hood had met her match.
Niall attracts a few glances as he steps from the lobby into the street. The faces look almost normal. It isn’t quite that time yet. The separation is starting, though. The split into pack and non-pack, into THEM and us. THEY always look relaxed, THEIR smiles toothful and wide. We hurry like rats from the flood, clinging onto our cricket bats, our cableless petrol-driven chainsaws.
His feet feel heavy as he plods along the road. GamesMaster strapped to his left thigh, PC Gamer to his right. His eyes flick from side to side, trying to keep them in view as long as possible, as long as it takes to get him there, and home again. He picks his head up, picks up the pace. He knows better than to look at them. Eye contact gets you killed, or worse. He can feel the sweat pooling along the back rim of his helmet, tickling through the hairs on his neck.
Grip the hammer a little tighter. Keep the bag around the back, your arms free to swing.
The milk isn’t important anyway. It’s only milk. No one dies from lack of milk, no one has their guts ripped out and trailed over a lamppost because they haven’t had their daily glass of white stuff, their dribble of fat free in their tea.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He can already see the change in a few of them. That pack over by the entrance to the tube station, their shoulders hunched, hands clenching and unclenching. One of them glances back over her shoulder and he sees it. Eyes popping like she’s ODing on something, lips pulling back, a suggestion of beast in her unhidden hunger. Time is turning against him. She’s snarling now, visibly snarling, lips pulling back over teeth. they restrain her, but not for long. The pack is only so strong.
Niall tucks the hammer into his armpit while he wipes his palm on his jeans. It’s so slick he worries he’ll drop something when it matters. Just as he’s swinging for the muzzle. He may be imagining it, but he thinks he can feel their heat, pouring like a molten river from the massed groups on every street corner. He glances up for a second, sees the thick black hair on their forearms. their ears tugging ever so gradually up into points. their legs buckling.
There’s no way he’s going to make it to the store in time. No way he can even make it home. He clutches the hammer in one hand, the rubberized grip of the cricket bat in the other. Stops walking. Lifts his head.
The irony is that the city feels almost normal when the moon is on the wane. At that end of the cycle, when the wolf lies dormant, they seem the same as ever. They fix the broken shop windows, they refit the bars, they eat, and drink, and blog, and sleep. Then the cycle comes around again and they tear it all apart. Tooth and claw ripping London to pieces, pulling down everything that made their city so great. Doing more damage in a single night than they could ever hope to fix in the following month.
As the nearest pack drops to all fours he starts swinging the hammer, feeling the weight of it pull his hand around and around, drawing a silver circle under the moonlight. There are more of them now, more than he can count. And more coming. As far as he can see the city is given over to them, the beasts of legend. The wolves of London.
Long before they reach him, long before he can taste their rotten breath, their doggy musk, Niall stops swinging. He drops the hammer, and the bat. He sits on the ground. He waits to join the pack.
(c) Dan Coxon, 2015
Dan Coxon is currently editing and crowdfunding Being Dad, an anthology of short fiction about fatherhood (@BeingDadStories). His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in: Popshot, Unthology, The Lonely Crowd, Gutter, Flash, Neon. When not writing, he can be found wrestling his 3-year old and 6-month old boys.
Paris-born, London-raised Lionel Laurent (left) stepped back onto the stage recently for two runs of These Shining Lives at the Pleasance Theatre and the Lion & Unicorn. He can usually be found writing news stories, drawing cartoons or arguing about obscure music.
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