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WEREWOLF OF MISTY VALLEY
By Donald H Sullivan
Page 1 of 2
Werewolf! What a horrible legend, thought Peggy Vasko, for such a beautiful, peaceful valley. But according to Pete Halas, the clerk in the general store, the three hundred people that populated the town of Arcos didn't think of it as a mere legend. Everyone in the valley, he said, truly believed it.
Peggy had studied the history of this area, and she knew that a band of Gypsies from Eastern Europe had settled Arcos, in the mountains of North Carolina, over a hundred years ago. That was probably the basis for the werewolf legend, she thought, as she finished hanging the forest green drapes she'd bought at the general store.
She stepped back and appraised her work. Great! The drapes went well with the decor of the guest bedroom.
She was tired from working in the house all day. It was an old house that Phil had inherited--along with a sizeable fortune--from his uncle Dan Vasco, and it needed lots of work. It was solid, but lacked some modern conveniences such as a dishwasher and garbage disposal.
At first, Peggy had wanted to sell the property, but fell in love with it the first time she saw it. She'd been nagging Phil to get those modern appliances and also a caller ID for the phone.
She put on a pot of coffee, and just as she sat down to rest, she heard the door chimes. That would be Phil, back from the hospital in Asheville. She ran to the door.
He gave her a peck on the cheek. "Hi, Sweet. Got my last rabies shot today. Am I ever glad that's over." He chuckled. "I asked them for a rabies tag, but they wouldn't give me one."
She grinned. "Darn. I could've put the tag on your collar. Seriously, Phil, I know you love to hike, but I want you to stop going so far into the woods."
"It was just a raccoon bite," he said, pulling up his trousers leg to expose the healing scar on his calf. "Next time I go hiking I'll take the revolver along."
"You must be tired from the drive to Asheville." She ran her fingers through his hair. "I made some cookies this morning and just put on a pot of coffee."
"Mmmm! The coffee smells good, and those cookies will taste great," he said. "By the way, I finally remembered to pick up that caller ID you've been wanting while I was in Ashville. I'll install it after the coffee and cookies."
***
The following day, Phil had to make another trip to Asheville, this time to sign some papers for his lawyer. After Phil left, she continued rearranging things and cleaning the house. She was cleaning the den when she idly picked up one of the books on a shelf. She glanced at the title, "Werewolves: Fact or Myth?" Uncle Dan must have had a fascination for the occult, she reasoned. She noticed a slip of paper protruding from the book, marking a page.
She opened the book to the page and found that the slip of paper was a receipt. The receipt was from a book store in Asheville, dated only a few days ago.
Curious, she scanned the marked page. A passage caught her attention. "It is believed that a werewolf attacks for one of two reasons. The first is pure bloodlust. The second is simply to inflict a bite, which causes its victim to become a werewolf at the next full moon.”
Why, she wondered, would Phil be reading such trash? Phil was a hard working, practical man. Before inheriting his uncle's fortune, he was a construction foreman for a builder in Asheville. Hardly a man to be interested in the occult.
Peggy, an ex-nurse, thought of herself, too, as a very basic, practical person. But deep inside she knew that she tended to be a trifle superstitious, probably a legacy from her grandmother. When Peggy was a little girl, her grandmother had filled her head with frightening ghost stories and myths.
Peggy found a calendar in the den and checked the moon phases. The next full moon was just three nights away.
Looking at the calendar, she laughed inwardly. What on Earth was she thinking? She couldn't believe that she was actually, even for a minute, believing in such nonsense. She went back to her cleaning. Her feather duster kicked up a cloud of dust and she sneezed.
Try as she might, she couldn't stop thinking of the bite on Phil's leg and the marked page in the book. Coincidence?
***
The next morning, Phil took the .38 revolver from the locked drawer where he kept it. "They don't have a gunsmith here in Arcos," he said, "so I'm taking it Asheville to get it checked out. I want to make sure it works okay."
When Phil left, Peggy made a trip into Arcos. She was ostensibly going to the general store for a lampshade, but her real reason for going was to talk to Pete.
She picked out a lampshade and paid for it at the old fashioned cash register sitting on the counter. "Nice lampshade there, Peggy," said Pete. "Hope you enjoy it."
"Pete, before I go, there's something I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind."
"Not at all." The young man's face showed concern. "What's on your mind?"
"Pete, I wonder if you would tell me more about this werewolf thing. I'm just curious."
"All I know is what I've heard the old folks say about it," he said. "The werewolf is a normal person until the night of a full moon. It could be anyone who lives in the valley or any of the surrounding towns. Maybe it could even be someone here in Arcos.
It kills mostly livestock and wild animals. But they say it prefers killing humans. The only thing that can kill it is silver, usually in the form of a silver bullet."
He cleared his throat. "Maybe you'll think I'm nuts, but I've seen and heard of enough strange things in this valley to think there's something to it."
"I understand," she said.
He went on. "It's immortal, and during its long life it sometimes gets lonely for its own kind. When that happens, it creates another werewolf."
She felt the blood draining from her face. "But how can it do that?"
"It doesn't kill, but just bites its victim, who will then become a werewolf at the next full moon."
Peggy was speechless for a long moment. "This is all such nonsense," she said. "I don't know why I bothered to ask."
Conclusion on page 2 of 2
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