I had just finished studying for my Comparative Literature mid-term and was dashing off a letter to my dear parents in the UK and enjoying some chamomile tea when Bones exploded into the room, bringing with him a sudden gust of wind that carried the odor of stale tobacco and cheap ale. With Bones, so named for his fondness for playing dominoes, it was not an entirely unusual circumstance for him to stumble back to the dormitory late at night, inebriated and wild of tongue. But this was different. His face was slate gray, and his eyes so wide I thought they might pop out at any moment and roll under the bunk. I was already halfway out of my chair when he collapsed into my arms and started gibbering unintelligably. I hauled him to the bunk and tried to lay him down, but he clung to me like a man dangling from the precipice of a bottomless canyon.
When I finally managed to wrest myself from Bones’ steely grip, my first instinct was to retrieve a cold compress for his head. Instead, I grabbed a bottle of corvousier from the bookshelf, poured a capful and brought it to his quivering lips. The poor boy’s whole body spasmed as he choked it down, and a deep flush bloomed in his cheeks. His eyes, those terrible eyes, squinted gratefully shut for a moment, then reopened and resumed their wild search.
“Easy now, Bones, easy,” I said, cradling his head. I was afraid that if he didn’t calm down soon, I might have to phone the ambulance. My First Aid training as a lifeguard in Sothesby two summers ago would only take me so far here before his well-being might run completely out of my hands. “Tell me the matter, man. What perturbs you so?”
Just then, a breeze rattled the window and blew the letter I’d been writing off my desk. Bones snapped his head toward the sound, leaped off the bed and scrambled madly toward the door. Despite being caught off-guard by his sudden movement, I managed to hook an arm around his legs and trip him. His chin smacked the floor with a sound like billiard balls clacking together, and I felt his body go limp as he fell unconscious.
I sprang to my feet and rolled him over, cursing myself for having tackled him so violently. Now that he was nearly comatose, I couldn’t query him further on the source of his terror-stricken demeanor. I patted him down, searching for anything that might give me a clue as to his whereabouts earlier in the evening, and came across a damp spot on his leg. When my fingertips came back red, I hastily grabbed my Bowie knife from the bureau and slashed apart his denim trousers. I felt my jaw unhinge and fell backward onto my buttocks at the sight before me: a six-inch gash running from Bones’ ankle to his calf. My blood ran cold at the thought of who or what was responsible for this abhorrent assault. Given Bones’ distress, this cut was not the result of a drunkenly prance through rose bushes or even the loss of equilibrium on his sojourn home from the tavern. This dastardly deed must have been perpetrated by a malicious hooligan or strung-out opium addict.
Fury must have gotten the better of me at that moment because I leapt to my feet, tore open the closet, and retrieved a slender pine box from the top shelf. Inside it was the Remington rifle my father had bestowed upon me with the understanding that I would use it only when absolutely necessary. Now was one of those times. The campus was largely deserted for spring break, so there were no colleagues to call upon for help in this matter. The campus security personnel were utterly inept; those good-for-nothing fools were probably tipped back by the telly, snoring away among empty Krispy Kreme boxes and tattered pornographic magazines. And since ours was a rural college, the fastest the local constable could motor here was 40 minutes, and by that time the perpetrator would probably be long gone. No, the time to act was now, and alone with only my wits and a keen sense of loyalty to my criminalized friend.
I loaded the Remington and slipped on my peacoat to guard against the March chill outside. Slipping into the hallway, I was immediately unnerved by the quiet. Usually, a leisurely stroll through this corridor could expose one to a myriad of different sounds: the high-pitched moaning of a couple engaged in coitus, the blaring wail of an electric guitar from a Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin tune, farting and belching from a contest between a gaggle of neanderthalithic pledges hoping to join their favorite fraternity. But the sources of these noises were elsewhere this week, probably in Cancun or South Padre Island or St. Maarten where they would undoubtedly be imbibing cheap ale and grinding body parts with complete strangers in packed nightclubs. Bones had chosen to stay on campus because he lacked the funds to travel to such exotic locales, and, if you believed him, so that he would have his favorite local watering holes to himself. My parents were on a skiing vacation in the Swiss Alps, so the only welcoming sound I would have heard at home was the chime of our grandfather clock or the mew of our cherished cat Gypsy. It was only Bones and I, at least in this section of campus, and that reality was now more than a little unsettling.
As I came upon the stairwell, I stopped abruptly and reflected upon the situation. Perhaps I should call the campus authorities. For all their incompetence, they at the very least would turn the odds in our favor three to one if there was indeed a single perpetrator. But I discarded the thought, ashamed at my own cowardice. This was my first opportunity to extract myself from academia, to shrug off my cloak of intellect and philosophical endeavor in favor of utilizing more primal instincts, defense tactics and survival strategies. Would I embrace the challenge, slay the beast and avenge my dear friend or run back to the shelter of a textbook?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of blood droplets, crimson dimes scattered on the slate gray stairs that I assumed had come from Bones. They served to reinstill my sense of urgency, and my grip on the Remington grew ever tighter as a leaped down the stairs by threes, grimacing as I sidestepped the grisly spatters Bones had left behind. Perhaps I had gotten too excited, for I stumbled with three steps to go and lost my balance. I could see a likely scenario unfolding before me as I fell: I would crack my head on the concrete floor and lose consciousness. The gun would discharge, alarming the rent-a-cops. They would find me as I lie, with a warm gun, blood droplets on the stairs, and Bones injured in my room. Soon I would be shackled and dragged off to the hoosegow for attempted murder, with Bones, in his stupefied state, unable to confirm what had happened to him.
But the gun didn’t discharge. It click-clacked to the corner where I tossed it out of harm’s way and I crashed through the exit door into the cool night. As I lie on the ground, the wind knocked out of me, nursing a sore shoulder, I was immediately taken by how quiet it was outside. There was no traffic on the road, and only a whisper of wind stirred the skeletal trees into symphony. Far off, a dog barked.
I got up gingerly, holding my breath for fear of making the slightest noise. I no longer had the protection of being inside the building, and the realization of that made me rest my finger close to the Remington’s trigger. I scanned the moonlit courtyard but sighted nothing suspicious, only a dog poking around in the withered and colorless garden. The sight of him comforted me greatly. I whistled low to him, not wanting to alert a hiding assailant to my presence. He showed no reaction whatsoever, continuing to forage around for Lord knows what. I slapped my leg next and made a smooching sound with my lips, and for the first time he stopped his manic search.
All at once, I wish I hadn’t gotten the beast’s attention. He emitted a low growl and, for the first time, turned to face me. His face was obscured in shadow, but I imagined coal black eyes and silver teeth glistening with saliva.
I took a step back toward the door. Then, I witnessed something that violated everything I knew, all of my university training, the rules of science and evolution. The dog began to stand up. He did it slowly, but my eyes weren’t deceiving me. My rationality was shattered more quickly than I ever thought as I stared at a creature that I had previously believed to be mythical.
The wind shifted, carrying the beast’s odor to my nostrils — a combination of excrement, old cheese, and something else, a mean smell, the kind of smell that might come from the armpit of a cantankerous deep woodsman who has caught you trespassing on his property. This wasn’t a dog but a werewolf, a monster that had previously only reigned over my dreams and memories of late night television.
I was surprised at how steady my arms were as I lifted the Remington and took aim at the beast’s chest. It was barely able to take a defensive stance before I blasted a hole clean through it, the shot ricocheting around the courtyard. Its cry of pain was of the sort I hadn’t expected, more of a weak mewling sound rather than a hellish shriek, the kind an injured feline might make as it gasped its last breath in some dirty alleyway. The thing fell backward and, oddly, lay ramrod straight on the cold turf, as if set out by a mortician.
I took a few careful steps forward, training the gun on the beast in case it hadn’t been mortally wounded by my single shot. What I witnessed made my feel as if I had just chugged a shot of liquid nitrogen, with the freezing pain starting at my mouth, working down my throat and spreading slowly through my innards. It was changing. Metamorphosing. True to the legend, the beast, upon death, was turning back into man. The hair receded, the teeth retracted, the snout caved in. And when the man’s face began to take shape and I began to recognize who it was, I dropped to my knees and began bawling like a child: it was my good friend and mentor Douglas Redmacher, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts.
After laying my hand on Douglas’s chest and saying the Lord’s prayer, I picked up my rifle and trudged head down back into the building. The climb to the third floor felt like an eternity, slowed by my fits of sobbing and cursing. I thought I heard a siren approaching in the distance; perhaps the campus authorities had heard the rifle shot and called the local constable. No matter. The situation would be resolved shortly.
In all of my adventures that eve, I had completely forgotten about Bones, who stirred ever so slightly when I entered our room. Although he seemed better, it was clear he would be in a restful slumber the rest of the night. I sat at my desk where only two hours before I had been deep in study and reflection and pondered what would come of the dreadful actions I had been forced to take. It was then I realized there was one final act to perform. I lifted the Remington with what little strength I had left and placed the business end into my mouth. I, too, wanted to rest peacefully.
