Issue Three

JAMES MORRIS
to squeak underneath him. When it did,
everyone looked his way – a mix of
sadness and accusation. Then they
turned back to eating.
He tried to piece together how he got
inside; he thought briefly that he’d been
poisoned or dosed, but realized,
stupidly, he had been felled by a simple
kiss. Sad, indeed.
Caitlyn sat among them and waved him
over. “Come over, you must be
starving.” Not wanting to irritate his
kidnappers and secretly admitting that
he was hungry, he stumbled over to the
picnic table. The group made room for
him and Kevin sat between two hairy
men who slurped meat off the bone.
A bowl of he-knew-not-what sat in the
middle of the bench. It looked like slop,
a kind of giant proportioned steak
tartar. He spooned a glob onto his
paper plate. It stood unwavering, a
mound of meat, festooned with sprinkles
of pepper.
He took one bite and found it too
gelatinous and fatty for his taste. But
his tablemates seemed to suck it up like
manna. A man with two different
colours for eyes sat across from him,
staring. “Don’t waste it,” he
growled. “We honour the animal we
eat.” Under such scrutiny, Kevin
obeyed, shovelling the food into his
mouth and swallowing quickly so as to
reduce its taste. It was vile, filling his
nose with a pungent iron scent. Where
had he smelled this before? As he
chewed, he nearly cracked a tooth as he
bit down on something hard.
Reaching into his mouth, he pulled out a
finger: a human finger, its dirty fingernail
still intact. He spit it out and looked
across the table. Everyone stopped and
gaped at his ill manners. He scanned
everyone’s food. He hadn’t noticed
them before – hell, who would have?
Pieces of ear, tooth and toe littered his
tablemate’s plates. He stood up and
retched. When he looked at his
tablemates, they were laughing –
banging fists on the table, kneeling over
with tears laughing. One of them picked
up the finger he had spit out, put it in his
mouth and sucked the marrow
deliciously clean.
“…what’s wrong with you?” Kevin
stammered.
Caitlyn rose, “Kevin, don’t be
frightened. We’re not here to hurt you.”
“What is this? What kind of people are
you?” He moved backwards, only to find
his escape blocked by a wall.
“It’s just that. We’re not people.” She
spoke calmly and without
malice. “We’re werewolves. And so are
you.”
Kevin was clearly no werewolf. And
neither were these humans. Killers,
maybe. Insane, certainly. But --