The Talisman

We don’t go near them, we’d eat them, eat them, we’d eat them, Jack, when we change we’d—

The face in the moon, a chiaroscuro carved in bone, was the face of a snarling beast, its head cocked in that final moment before the lunge, the mouth open and filled with teeth.

We’d eat we’d kill we’d kill, kill, KILL KILL

A finger touched Jack’s shoulder and ran slowly down to his waist.

Jack had only been standing there with his penis in his hand, the foreskin pinched lightly between thumb and forefinger, looking at the moon. Now a fresh, hard jet of urine spurted out of him.

“I scared you,” Wolf said from behind him. “I’m sorry, Jack. God pound me.”

But for a moment Jack didn’t think Wolf was sorry.

For a moment it sounded as if Wolf were grinning.

And Jack was suddenly sure he was going to be eaten up.

House of bricks? he thought incoherently. I don’t even have a house of straw that I can run to.

Now the fear came, dry terror in his veins hotter than any fever.

Who’s afraid of the big bad Wolf the big bad Wolf the big bad—

“Jack?”

I am, I am, oh God I am afraid of the big bad Wolf—

He turned around slowly.

Wolf’s face, which had been lightly scruffed with stubble when the two of them crossed to the shed and lay down, was now heavily bearded from a point so high on his cheekbones that the hair almost seemed to begin at his temples. His eyes glared a bright red-orange.

“Wolf, are you all right?” Jack asked in a husky, breathy whisper. It was as loud as he could talk.

“Yes,” Wolf said. “I’ve been running with the moon. It’s beautiful. I ran . . . and ran . . . and ran. But I’m all right, Jack.” Wolf smiled to show how all right he was, and revealed a mouthful of giant, rending teeth. Jack recoiled in numb horror. It was like looking into the mouth of that Alien thing in the movies.

Wolf saw his expression, and dismay crossed his roughened, thickening features. But under the dismay—and not far under, either—was something else. Something that capered and grinned and showed its teeth. Something that would chase prey until blood flew from the prey’s nose in its terror, until it moaned and begged. Something that would laugh as it tore the screaming prey open.

It would laugh even if he were the prey.

Especially if he were the prey.

“Jack, I’m sorry,” he said. “The time . . . it’s coming. We’ll have to do something. We’ll . . . tomorrow. We’ll have to . . . have to . . .” He looked up and that hypnotized expression spread over his face as he looked into the sky.

He raised his head and howled.

And Jack thought he heard—very faintly—the Wolf in the moon howl back.

Horror stole through him, quietly and completely. Jack slept no more that night.

3

The next day Wolf was better. A little better, anyway, but he was almost sick with tension. As he was trying to tell Jack what to do—as well as he could, anyway—a jet plane passed high overhead. Wolf jumped to his feet, rushed out, and howled at it, shaking his fists at the sky. His hairy feet were bare again. They had swelled and split the cheap penny loafers wide open.

He tried to tell Jack what to do, but he had little to go on except old tales and rumors. He knew what the change was in his own world, but he sensed it might be much worse—more powerful and more dangerous—in the land of the Strangers. And he felt that now. He felt that power sweeping through him, and tonight when the moon rose he felt sure it would sweep him away.

Over and over again he reiterated that he didn’t want to hurt Jack, that he would rather kill himself than hurt Jack.

4

Daleville was the closest small town. Jack got there shortly after the courthouse clock struck noon, and went into the True Value hardware store. One hand was stuffed into his pants pocket, touching his depleted roll of bills.

“Help you, son?”

“Yes sir,” Jack said. “I want to buy a padlock.”

“Well, step over here and let’s us have a look. We’ve got Yales, and Mosslers, and Lok-Tites, and you name it. What kind of padlock you want?”

“A big one,” Jack said, looking at the clerk with his shadowed, somehow disquieting eyes. His face was gaunt but still persuasive in its odd beauty.

“A big one,” the clerk mused. “And what would you be wanting it for, might I ask?”

“My dog,” Jack said steadily. A Story. Always they wanted a Story. He had gotten this one ready on the way in from the shed where they had spent the last two nights. “I need it for my dog. I have to lock him up. He bites.”

5

The padlock he picked out cost ten dollars, leaving Jack with about ten dollars to his name. It hurt him to spend that much, and he almost went for a cheaper item . . . and then he had a memory of how Wolf had looked the night