“Will do.” Mrs. Flint said as she walked out towards the front doors, I could hear the locks engage as they echoed through the empty building. It gave the place an eerie feeling, being all alone in an empty building, isn’t that the beginning of like a million scary movies.
“Well it looks like it's just you and me tonight.” I laughed looking down at the dusty tomb I’d paid a whole week's pay for, hoping this book would be the one. The book that would solve all my unanswered mysteries from that night. Some days it felt like it was only yesterday instead of ten years ago.
I was seventeen, trying to find my way to a party that someone said was out in the woods. I found out a few days later that the assholes sent me on a wild goose chase. That’s what happened when you weren’t the pretty popular girl apparently. Instead of a party with teenagers, booze, and maybe make some questionable decisions I found a man. No, not like that, I found a man turning into a wolf. I’d tripped on a root sticking out of the ground for the millionth time and stumbled into a clearing where a small pond was illuminated by the glow of the moon and stars. It was breathtaking watching the reflection of the sky in the pond, until I saw him across the pond. From where I kneeled on the ground, I could only make out the outline of his body. At first, I wanted to ask him where I was, and if he knew where the party was or maybe the way back to my car, but then he started undressing. Whether it was teenage curiosity wanting to see a naked man for the first time, or some hidden human instinct protecting me from the predator in front of me I don’t know, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.
He peeled his clothes off, and the moon light hit his body giving me an unobstructed view of his physique. Standing there in his naked glory, he was a specimen for one of those marble sculptors, all taut lines and muscles. I was too far away from him to make out his facial features, but I was sure if his body looked that good surely his face was that of a God. When he curled into himself and started making pained sounds, is when I made my mistake, the one that almost cost me my life I’m sure of it. I stood from my kneeling position and started toward him to ask if he needed help, that’s when his inhuman gaze landed on me, and a deep growl came out of his mouth that no longer looked like a human mouth. It was growing, moving, shifting into another form. I knew there was something not right about him, and then the man was gone. In his place stood a monstrous wolf, black as night, with his gums pulled back in a snarl. He stalked towards me and I scurried backwards, back where I came from, or at least I thought it was back where I came from. Everything looked the same, same tree stumps, same roots that tripped me up, but I just kept running. I could hear him steadily gaining on me, I knew he was playing with me, he was much faster than I was, but he wanted to hunt me. I saw my death in his eyes when he looked at me, but I wasn’t giving up without a fight. That’s when I saw a campfire and ran straight towards it, pumping my legs as fast as they would go. I barreled through the camp. Men around the campfire jumped up grabbing their rifles yelling at me. I was panting from all my exertion, trying to explain what happened, the men's eyes were trained on the woods around us, rifles at the ready. When I was finished the men seemed to communicate with each other without words, they helped me find my car, and told me to stay out of that area in the future. Many years later, I realized why the men didn’t freak out or call me crazy that night. They weren’t hunting deer that night they’d been hunting that werewolf and those like him.
When I got home, I tried to tell my dad about what happened, he patted me on my head like I was five and told me there was no such thing as werewolves. He thought I’d imagined it because I watched scary movies, told me I needed to stop because it was obviously causing me distress. I knew what I saw was real and spent my remaining days in high school followed by years in college scouring the world for knowledge on werewolves. There was this need to prove to everyone that I wasn’t batshit crazy that werewolves really did exist. I could almost smell my vindication in the book I was holding, soon all the answers I’d been searching for would be revealed to me I was sure of it.
Carefully I lifted the frayed, yellowing pages of the ancient tomb with a pair of tweezers to avoid getting the oil from my hands on the pages, causing more damage. Time seemed to stand still while I got lost in the pages of the book. Hand painted colorful illustrations showed various stages of transformation from man to beast. The drawings were so lifelike they felt like
