Cycle of the Werewolf August By Stephen King

Cycle of the Werewolf By Stephen King   In the Stinking Darkness under the barn, he raised his Shaggy head. His yellow, stupid eyes gleamed. I hunger, he whispered. Henry Ellender The Wolf   Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, all the rest but the Second have thirty-one, Rains and snow and jolly sun, and the moon grows fat in every one. Child's Rime   "Even a man, who is pure in heart and say his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the Autumn Moon is bright. Laurence Talbot-1941 The Wolf-Man   Full Fruit or Barley Moon - August the names Fruit and Barley were reserved only for those years when the Harvest Moon is very late in September.   Sure, I think it's a werewolf, Constable Neary says.  He speaks too loudly maybe accidentally, more like accidentally on purpose and all conversation in Stan's Barbershop comes to a halt.  It is going on just half-past August, the hottest August anyone can remember in Tarkers Mills for years, and tonight the moon will be just one day past full.   So the town holds its breath, waiting.   Constable Neary surveys his audience and then goes on from his place in Stan Pelky's middle barber chair, speaking weightily, speaking judicially, speaking psychologically, all from the depths of his high school education (Neary is a big, beefy man, and in high school he mostly made touchdowns for the Tarkers Mills Tigers; his class work earned him some C's and not a few D's).   here are guys, he tell them, who are kind of like two people.  Kind of like split personalities, you know.  They are what I'd call fucking schizos.   He pauses to appreciate the respectful silence, which greets this and then goes on:   Now this guy, I think he's like that.  I don't think he knows what he's doing when the moon gets full and he goes out and kills somebody.  He could be anybody a teller at the bank, a gas-jockey at one of those stations out on the Town Road, maybe even someone right here now.  In the sense of being an animal inside and looking perfectly normal outside, yeah you bet.  But if you mean, do I think there's a guy who sprouts hair and howls at the moon no.  That shit's for kids.   What about the Coslaw boy, Neary? Stan asks, continuing to work carefully around the roll of fat at the base of Neary's neck.  His long, sharp scissors go snip,snip,snip.   Just proves what I said, Neary responds with some exasperation.  That shit's for kids.   In truth, he feels exasperated about what's happened with Marty Coslaw.  Here, in this boy, is the first eyeball witness to the freak that's killed six people in his town, including Neary's good friend Alfie Knopfler.  And is he allowed to interview the boy?  No.  Does he even know where the boy is?  No!  He's had to make do with a deposition furnished to him by the State Police, and he had to bow and scrape and just-a-damn-bout beg to get that much.  All because he's a small-town constable, what the State Police think of as a kiddie-cop, not able to tie his own shoes.  All because he doesn't have one of their numb fuck Smokey Bear hats.  And the deposition!  He might as well have used it to wipe his ass with.  According to the Coslaw kid, the beast stood about seven feet tall, was naked, was covered with dark hair all over his body.  He had big teeth and green eyes and smelled like a load of panther-shit.  He had claws, but the claws looked like hands.  He thought it had a tail.  A tail, for Chris sake.   Maybe,  Kenny Franklin says from his place in the row of chairs along the wall, maybe it's some kind of disguise this fella puts on.  Like a mask and all, you know.   I don't believe it, Neary says emphatically, and nods his head to emphasize the point.  Stan to draw his scissors backing in a hurry to avoid putting one of the blades into that beefy roll of fat at the back of Neary's neck.  Nossir! I don't believe it!  Kid heard a lot of these werewolf stories at school before it closed for the summer he admitted as much and then he didn't have nothing to do but sit there in that chair of his and think about it work it over in his mind.  It's all psycho-fuckin-logical, you see.   Why, if it's been you that'd come out of the bushes by the light of the moon, he would have thought you was a wolf, Kenny.   Kenny laughs a little uneasily.   Nope, Neary says gloomily.  Kid's testimony is just no damn good tall. In his disgust and disappointment over the deposition taken from Marty Coslaw at the home of Marty's aunt and uncle in Stowe, Constable Neary has also overlooked this line: Four of them went off at the side of his face I guess you'd call it a face all at once, and I guess maybe it put his eye out.  His left eye.   If Constable Neary had chewed this over in his mind and he hadn't he would have laughed even more contemptuously, because in that hot, still August, there was only one townsperson sporting an eye patch, and it was simply impossible to think of that person, of all persons, being the killer.  Neary would have believed his mother the killer before he would believe that.   There's only one thing that'll solve this case, Constable Neary says, jabbing his finger at the four or five men sitting against the wall and waiting for their Saturday morning haircuts, and that's good police work.  And I intend to be the guy who does it.  Those state Smokies are going to be laughing on the other side of their faces when I bring the guy in. Neary's face turns dreamy.  Anyone, he says. a bank teller gas jockey just some guy you drink with down there at the bar.  But good police-work will solve it.  You mark my words.   But Constable Lander Neary's good police work comes to an end that night when a hairy, moon-silvered arm reaches through the open window of his Dodge pickup as he sits parked at the crossing-point of two dirt roads out in West Tarkers Mills.  There is a low, snorting grunt, and a wild, terrifying smell like something you would smell in the lion-house of a zoo.    His head is snapped around and he stares into one green eye.  He sees the fur, the black, damp-looking snout.  And when the snout wrinkles back, he sees the teeth.  The beast claws at him almost playfully, and one of his cheeks is ripped away in a flap, exposing his teeth on the right side.  Blood spouts everywhere.  He can feel it running down over the shoulder of his shirt, sinking in warmly.  He screams; he screams out of his mouth and out of his cheek.  Over the beasts working shoulders, he can see the moon, flooding down white light.   He forgets all about his .30-.30 and the .45 strapped on his belt.  He forgets all about how this thing is psycho-fuckin-logical.  He forgets all about good police work.  Instead his mind fixes on something Kenny Franklin said in the barbershop that morning.  Maybe it's some kind of disguise this fella puts on.  Like a mask and all, you know.    And so, as the werewolf reaches for Neary's throat, Neary reaches for its face, grabs double-handful of coarse, wiry fu and pull, hoping madly that the mask will shift and then pull off there will be the snap of an elastic, the liquid ripping sound of latex, and he will see the killer.   But nothing happens nothing except a roar of pain and rage from the beast.  It swipes at him with one clawed handyes he can see it is a hand, however hideously misshapen, a hand, the boy was right and lays his throat wide open.  Blood jets over the truck's windshield and dashboard; it drips into the bottle of Busch that has been sitting tilted against Constable Neary's crotch.   The werewolf's other hand snags in Neary's freshly cut hair and yanks him half out of the Ford pick-up's cab.  It howls once, in triumph, and then it buries it face and shout in Neary's neck.  It feeds while the beer gurgles out of the spilled bottle and foams on the floor b the truck's brake and clutch pedals.    So much for psychology.   So much for good police work.   This Story is from the Book "Cycle of the Werewolf" by Stephen King. You can find a copy at www.Barnes&Noble.com   Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895  "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock  "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003  "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS Facebook: www.facebook.com/CarlRayLouk Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlRayLouk MySpace: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/