All-American Werewolf

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All-American Werewolf - book excerpt

Prologue

Are you ready?

Are you, my Dear Friend, ready to delve once again into this world of horror, into this twisted hellscape we’ve only just started to explore – this, the Atrocissimus? We scratched the surface of this perverse space and began to expand your awareness in my first book, The House on Blackstone Hill. There I revealed to you some horrifying truths of the world around you, and now, with every step we take together in this journey you grow ever closer to knowing the truth – stark, clear, and unadulterated.

But once again, my Dear Friend, I must ask you: Do you really want to know? Do you truly want to know the unvarnished truth, to peel back the curtain that’s been draped over the Atrocissimus for all these millennia, to fully see and understand what lurks beneath you? I would understand if you didn’t; knowing the truth, the absolute truth with no embellishments, can be a terrible burden to bear. I would understand if you wanted to turn aside from this journey even now.

The secrets we’re going to unveil together are shocking and realizing that you’ve been lied to your entire life can be overwhelming. Not only that, but learning you are part of an endless supernatural war, that you are the plaything for evil entities can deeply disturb some people. Discovering that there is an entire hidden world ruled over by foul, twisted demons can be well-nigh traumatizing.

However, what I’m about to show you in this next part of my slowly unfolding series might haunt you. Realizing there are people, regular humans who willingly, even happily, traffic with these evil beings for their own enrichment and power, and the ends to which they’ll go to secure that power… well, my Dear Friend, that might be just too much.

If you’re disturbed by this level of awareness, perhaps you should turn aside. If learning the uttermost truth, if having all the workings of this massive cosmic system plainly revealed to you is knowledge you’d rather not have, then, by all means, Dear Friend, lay aside this book and continue floating in a stream of blissful ignorance. But if not, let’s begin exploring some more of the dark, dank corners of the Atrocissimus.

So, again I ask you… are you ready?

Chapter 1

Lenny Stevens sat on the front porch of his small rural house in the brutal early July heat, slowlyswaying on a two-person swing as the odor of fireworks still hung in the moist air. The slight, gentle movement he made as he swung through the humid night was the closest thing he’d get to a breeze; the heat wave that had gripped Maryland for the entire summer continued to hold the region in itsgrasp.

If the heat this summer weren’t bad enough, the humidity made it even worse. As Lenny lit a cigarette and breathed in the late-night air, he could smell the damp hanging in it. It felt like being wrapped in a wet blanket. The bedroom he shared with his wife was like an oven, and since they couldn’t afford to replace their air conditioner, he’d come to the porch to cool down rather than spend one more sleepless minute lying in a pool of his own sweat.

To cool down, and to think.

Lenny worried about the future. Ever since graduating high school, he’d worked at one of the factories just over the county border in Pocomoke City, the past seven of which he’d been first shift foreman. Although he and his wife, Cindy, had never had much in the way of riches, Lenny’s factory job had afforded them the comfortable little house in which they lived with their two rambunctious boys – both of whom were, thankfully, visiting his parents for the week. His job allowed for the bills to be paid and put food on the table, and enough acres of land so Lenny could pursue his side-business as a small farmer. Overall, things were good.

But that rock-solid foundation on which Lenny thought he’d built his life was starting to crumble. He realized the mistake he’d made by thinking life would be predictable, assuming it would follow his plan when he was promoted to shift foreman. Lenny figured he’d stay in that job for the next decade or so, then move into the shop foreman position. Finally, after many long years of loyal service to the company, he’d retire to Florida with a nice pension to live out his days fishing and growing fat.

It was a good plan until the manufacturing jobs started to disappear. For the past five years Lenny had watched as one factory in Pocomoke City after another grew ever more anemic until, after having moved most of the operations elsewhere, each factory finally closed. Lenny had prayed his own factory could avoid that fate, but in the last two years, he’d seen the same process starting there. He’d watched with growing angst as first one division was closed and everyone working there got laid off, then another division was moved overseas, as everyone there likewise got pink-slipped, and so on. Lenny feared he had a target on his back, and it was only a matter of time before he, too, lost his job.

Lenny felt like he was trapped on a slowly sinking ship, knowing what the inevitable outcome would be but fearing he might drown if he jumped overboard. He took a long drag of his cigarette and looked down at this dog, curled comfortably at his feet.

“What would you do, Max?” he asked, patting the dog’s head as he did. “What would you suggest I do?”

If Max had any wisdom to offer, he kept it to himself.

Lenny let out the smoke in a long, discontented sigh, and as he did, he thought he heard rustling in his cornfield a few yards away from the porch. Max suddenly became interested in that spot as well, but at the same moment he heard Cindy open the screen door. Thoughts of whatever the sound might have been immediately left his mind when he looked at his wife, her skin glistening with sweat, her hair sleep-tousled, wearing a sheer negligée that hid very little of her nude body under it. Max, however, fixed his stare at the same spot in the cornfield.

“Can’t sleep again?” Cindy asked softly in the quiet night, lighting her own cigarette as she joined him on the swing.

“Nope,” Lenny answered, putting his arm around Cindy, and pulling her close to him, though her skin was warm and sweaty. “Too damn hot up there.”

“Not much better out here, though.”

Lenny nodded his head in agreement, taking a long drag off his cigarette. “No, not much better, but at least it don’t feel so damn stuffy out here.”

After a moment of silence, Cindy said, “But I assume it ain’t just the heat that got you up. Worried ‘bout work?”

“Yeah, I am,” Lenny said, flicking the cigarette butt out towards the driveway. “I’m worried, but I’m also stuck, you know? Like, I can see what’s gonna happen. The writing’s on the wall, everyone can see it coming. So, I should leave, get another job.” Lenny paused to light another cigarette, taking a long first drag as he did. “But problem is, factory work is all I ever done, all I know how to do. I’m thirty-five, a little too old to learn a trade, no way I’m going back to school. And honestly, I don’t want to start over in another factory. I worked my ass off to get where I am now, and I really don’t want to go back to working on the line.”

Holding Cindy close to him, Lenny could feel the soft swell of her breast pressing into his chest, and he found her slick, sweaty skin to be wonderfully distracting.

“We need to come up with something,” Cindy said, her head leaning against her husband’s bare chest.

“I know.”

“I heard people talking at the restaurant of maybe there being oil or natural gas or something in the western part of the state, maybe up in Pennsylvania. They say that pays real good money.”

“Yeah, I could do that. I’d probably like that. I think that’d have me out in the field a lot, though,” Lenny said, gently massaging his wife’s hot shoulder with his fingertips as he drank in the image of her body. “We’d be separated for weeks at a time, I think. You okay with that?”

She thought for a moment, her hand resting on his thigh. “Hmm… I don’t think so. I’d miss you too much. Maybe one of them crabbers that work out of Crisfield?”

“Well, babe, then I’d be out for weeks at a time. I’d be gone more than if I were in the oil fields.”

A silent moment as the two thought about their very limited options, coming up with nothing.

“So, what do you suggest?” Cindy asked at last, lifting her head from Lenny’s chest to look into his eyes. “You don’t make enough from farming to cover the bills, even with what I bring in. We’ll need to do something else.”

“I know, I know,” Lenny said, no longer focused on the discussion and dismissing it from his mind. He’d gone over it a million times before and found no obvious answers. He was tired, and the more he looked at his wife’s all but naked body, the hornier he became. “For now, let’s just enjoy having the house to ourselves for once,” he said, as he leaned in to start kissing his wife’s neck.

But just as Lenny was about to move his hand to Cindy’s breast, he again heard the rustling sound in his cornfield. Lenny and Cindy both looked that way, half-expecting to see someone watching them, as Max got on his feet and started barking loudly. As they did, they caught the faint odor of rotten eggs.

“What is that?” Cindy said in a harsh whisper.

“I don’t know,” Lenny said, as he started to walk towards the cornfield, Max joining him. “Stay here,” he said to Cindy.

Lenny walked slowly, carefully, the way he would while out hunting, like he was trying to sneak up on whatever might be in the corn even though he was exposed on his lawn. He scanned the field, hoping to catch sight of what might be lurking in the waist-high corn. The dim lamp over his driveway only illuminated a few rows into the field, so there could be something hiding in the dark beyond the light. Max barked aggressively the whole time as he approached next to Lenny, eyes on the cornfield.

Lenny paused, coiled and ready to move in an instant, if need be, trying to see or hear anything. He couldn’t, though he knew there was something out there in his fields as the rotten egg smell became worse.

“Max!” Lenny yelled as the dog suddenly ran headlong into the field, disappearing into the darkness. Lenny took two quick steps to follow him, then stopped when he heard Max yelp once in pain, followed by an immediate end to his barking. “MAX!MAAAX!!”

Lenny stood in the abrupt silence, trying desperately to hear or see anything. He saw nothing but his darkened cornfield and heard nothing but blood flowing in his ears as his heart pounded in unexpected terror.

“Lenny,” Cindy whimpered from the porch behind him, “what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think Max got hurt. Get the—” Lenny stopped speaking abruptly, as he caught swift movement to his left and the odor of sulfur became overwhelming. He pivoted and whipped his head around to see what it was but only had time to catch a glimpse of his own death approaching.

Lenny shrieked once in abject, overpowering horror. A shaggy creature with a gigantic paw swiped down at him, the long, curved claws slicing easily and deeply into his face, tearing off his cheek and ripping out his lower jaw, then continuing down to pull open his neck. As Lenny’s bloody corpse fell to the ground, the creature sank its fangs into his chest and, clutching his body with its talons, ripped his upper body wide open with a deep growl.

When Lenny was attacked by this huge, hairy beast, Cindy threw herself back against the screen door, frozen in terror, her eyes shocked wide open, unable to breathe let alone scream. But when it ripped open Lenny’s chest cavity, his blood pouring everywhere and pink organs falling out of his body with wet plops, she could no longer contain the shock of watching her husband being killed and mutilated; she screamed loudly, piteously, and until her throat hurt.

The creature stood looking at her, blood and gore dripping off its claws, red irises glowing in the dark night. It roared once in answer to her screams, an unearthly cry, one unlike any animal on Earth. Running with impossible speed on two legs, the beast ended Cindy’s life as savagely as it had Lenny’s, then took the time to destroy her remains.

Then, its fur caked and matted with bits of flesh, clotted blood, and shards of bone, the creature threw back its head and howled triumphantly into the dark night.

Chapter 2

As his personal chauffeur passed the iron gate and turned onto the long gravel driveway leading to Raven Hill Manor, Louis Garrou finished reading a small story buried deep in the pages of The Washington Post Sunday edition about a spate of bizarre animal attacks in the past week all throughout rural Somerset County, Maryland. According to the article, conservation officers were on the hunt for a rabid bear that had apparently killed no less than seven people in the days following the Fourth of July. All the bodies, the report noted, were ripped and shredded beyond recognition.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Garrou said. “Carlos, did you see that story in the Post about those animal attacks?”

Carlos, his driver, glanced in the rear-view mirror a moment to look at Garrou, then said, “No, sir, but I saw a report on the news about it. That’s horrible.”

“Damn right it is. I was going to all those town hall meetings on the Delmarva and never once realized this was happening. How terrible.”

“Yes, sir. It is that.”

Garrou looked again at the headline that read Thompson Closing Poll Numbers with Garrouin Senate Race, then tossed the paper aside with a grunt. He watched as the gigantic Gilded Age mansion loomed in front of him with all its imposing Italianate revival opulence, surrounded by flocks of crows as it was always. He’d grown up in that mansion with his parents, his siblings, the servants, and the memory of the entire Garrou family history, something that had been drilled into the children from an early age. He and his siblings all knew that they weren’t so much living their own lives as they were furthering the glorious history of the Garrou family and fulfilling its destiny.

His six siblings were scattered all around the world working as leaders in industry, banking, the media, and education. His generation was doing their duty to live up to the family name, furthering their agenda on a massive scale. But he, as the eldest and living so close to the family estate, had the additional duty of visiting his mother on a regular basis.

As Garrou walked into the grand foyer, he breathed in the familiar odor of his childhood home: Old leather, fresh-cut flowers, and tangy burnt incense. He paused to check himself in an enormous, gilded mirror that had once belonged to a king of France. His Bill Blass suit was impeccable as always, as was his strawberry blond hair, though he did adjust his tie to perfect the knot dimple. Though only meeting his mother for their weekly Sunday brunch, his appearance mattered.

He thought of the cold, hard woman that was his mother as he picked a small piece of lint off his suit coat. Mariette Garrou, matriarch of the family and incessant driver of her children’s success. She was ancient and unyielding and had been his entire life.

He knew she’d be sitting on the private family patio reading the Postas she waited for him because Sunday brunch is served on the patio during summer, and she always read the newspaper. If it were raining, the table and chairs would be moved to the portico, but brunch was always served outside. She would never consider an alteration to her ways, nor would the thought enter her mind that it is unrelentingly hot outside and perhaps not the ideal environment for eating.

He knew she was unbending, obdurate, and implacable, and always would be.

Garrou smiled to himself as he walked onto the patio; the picture he’d created in his mind perfectly matched the reality he saw. There sat his mother, stiff and straight as always, her half-moon glasses perched on her nose, reading the Post. She, as always, wore an archaic black dress that seemed as if it was original to the one hundred ten-year-old family mansion, with her hair tied into a severe bun atop her head. Servants in sharp white Eton jackets and matching white cloth gloves on their crossed hands stood a respectful distance away, awaiting an order from either Garrou.

“Good morning, Mother,” Garrou said as he crossed the patio to kiss her. She presented her cheek to him, but never once did her eyes stop reading the story.

“Did you have a pleasant hunting trip?” she asked.

“I did indeed. I downed seven of them.”

“Well done. That was a fine speech you gave about how workers need the full backing of the government, and so it should support them everywhere,” Mariette said, without making eye contact. “Very inspiring, and no doubt uplifting for the poor and working classes.”

“Thank you,” said Garrou, glancing at one of the servants and snapping his fingers. The young man rushed to the table, laid Garrou’s napkin on his lap, poured him a cup of coffee from the silver carafe, then served him a croissant and some fruit before retreating with similar alacrity to his original spot. “You do know how deeply I care for the plight of the working man.”

“Of course,” she said, as what passed for a smile briefly teased up the ends of Mariette’s thin lips.

Garrou regarded his mother closely and noted that, although he remembered her as always being old, she looked even more aged of late. Her always pale skin was now nearly translucent and was so pallid it seemed almost to glow in the glaring sun; if he weren’t wearing his Ray-Bans, Garrou doubted he could look right at her. Her wrinkled skin seemed to have become more deeply etched of late, and her slight tremor appeared worse. Her hair, which up until recently had always been her natural red color, was now streaked with long wisps of pure white, making her bun look almost like the swirl of a candy cane.

Though Mariette had surrendered none of her intensity or vitality, and she moved with the grace she’d always shown, Garrou believed his mother looked somehow older. He’d once thought she was immortal, but, no, she could age just like everyone else.

“How are you, Mother?” he asked. “Is everything well?”

Mariette looked up from the newspaper at her son with unflinching ice blue eyes, one eyebrow raised.

“Am I well?” she said, her voice strong and fierce. “Am I well? Louis, may I remind you that I’m not the one running for the open Senate seat and not the one who should be leading the polls by double digits – especially given our connections – but who is not! I’m not the one who is being upstaged by some country bumpkin farmer and being made to look foolish. You are!”

Louis sat back in his chair and sighed. Fuck, he thought to himself. Politics. Always politics. And now here comes the lecture.

Mariette pointed to the folded newspaper she was reading. “Have you seen these latest poll numbers, hmm? Are you reading what the opinion pieces are saying?”

“Yes, Mother, of course,” Garrou said. “I’m a United State Congressman, I know enough to check the poll numbers and opinion pieces. My election staff is keeping me updated on all of this.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dismissively. “Sim Thompson is gaining on you in the polls. They are writing about him now like he is a viable alternative, that heis the leader the state needs and not you. Earlier in the year, after the sudden and tragic death of Senator Wilkes, Thompson was being written off as an ‘also-ran,’ as an opposition candidate just for the sake of opposition, but now he is becoming a serious threat to you… to all of us.”

“I know, Mother. I know.”

She swept her thin, bony hand into the air as if pushing aside his defense. “You know, you know,” she said contemptuously, “but I don’t see any action, Louis. I don’t see you taking on an enemy and annihilating him, the way you were taught.”

He looked at his mother as the realization of what she was saying dawned on him. “You want me to… again? Like Wilkes?”

“Nothing and no one can be allowed to stand in your way,” she said, and then in a whisper, “in our way.”

Garrou slowly chewed a small piece of croissant as he thought. “I need some time to plan it. I want it to look like an accident, like with Wilkes.”

“Time?” Mariette asked, speaking softly. “What time do you think you have? Might I remind youit was long ago decided by the High Commission itself that you would be president? Your duty, yoursingular mission to our coven, and to the Coven Universal, is to become president so you can establish policies to further our rule. The national covens will, of course, assist you to win the presidential race, but if you losethis race then all these plans will have been for naught – and, let me also remind you, this was the entire reason you were given the Gift of the Wolf.”

The Gift of the Wolf. The ability to change into a huge, wolf like beast at will, one granted through demonic power to only select members of the Coven Universal. It was a most convenient power to have when one wanted to eliminate political rivals in a clandestine way, or just to kill just for the sport of it.

Garrou thought back twenty-seven years to the night of his sixteenth birthday, the night he was given the Gift.

He’d been raised in the regional coven. He’d been saturated in its beliefs, aware of its awesome powers, and dedicated to its goals from an early age. Having a High Priestess as his mother made that inevitable. Garrou had become a full member three years earlier when he’d sacrificed a child on the bloody altar, and in that time, he’d been preparing himself to be worthy enough to deserve the Gift.

Garrou had been given a list of challenges to accomplish, of goals to achieve in something of a Satanic agoge. In addition to reading and analyzing some dark grimoires, Garrou had been given a list of heinous acts to commit. As a student at the Fairmont Preparatory Academy in California, Louis not only had many potential victims within easy reach but an even larger pool of victims waiting in the surrounding community, a community that would never believe a Fairmount student could be guilty of these crimes.