Chapter TwoThe old man had seen them from his cabin -- the last cabin of its kind along this stretch of rolling dunes south of Pismo Beach. Both man and cabin had been here for a long time. Once Pismo had been a quiet little beach town between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a haven for artists and a few early hippies, and cabins like Sid's had dotted the shore where the cedar forest met the sand. That was before the tourists and the RV and dune-buggy crowds had discovered the place, and pushed most of Sid's kind farther north, or up into the hills. Sid McKenzie clung tenaciously to his little piece of California coast.
The fog caressed the land with long, lugubrious fingers, playing in and out of the shallow valleys between the hills that rolled to the shore. Sid knew the fog as an old friend. He knew its moods, its patterns, its movements. Sometimes in summer it rolled in from the ocean before nightfall, smothering everything in a wet gray blanket. Other times it teased and prodded and probed and danced along the contours of the coast, pulling back now and again to reveal the foam of wave tops and the sprinkled stars. Sid knew the moods of Pismo better than anyone. In his youth he had surfed here, on a long board made of pine, sanded and varnished and as lovingly maintained as any sailboat. The board now hung high up on a wall in his cabin. He had left Pismo during the height of the war in Vietnam. He had returned a year before the first full-moon murder. He didn't surf anymore. Now he kept watch.
Sid heard the family -- a father and two kids -- before he saw them. The girl and the boy were arguing, oblivious to their surroundings. Teenagers, from the sound of their voices and their vocabulary. The father trailed a short distance behind them, trying to stay out of the argument, interjecting only when one of the kids employed a particularly colorful phrase.
Not many people walked this far down the beach from the campground, but that was undoubtedly where they had come from, for there were no roads between here and there, and he could tell they weren't locals. The girl was of medium height, with long, blondish hair and a developing figure. She walked deliberately, striding up the sides of the dunes and pausing on top, hands on hips, waiting for the others. The son was the same height, but wiry, and more active. He had a mop of dark brown hair cut just above his eyebrows and ears, and he wore a black sweatshirt that was a couple of sizes too big for him. He covered twice as much ground as the other two, because while his father and sister walked methodically up each dune, hewing straight on in one direction, the boy described arcs and orbits around them both, running up the faces of dunes and then rolling down them, sometimes darting toward the ocean in pursuit of something interesting. City kids, Sid thought, happy to be away from thieves and muggers and rapists and pushers and prostitutes. Unaware, of course, of the danger that lurked among the dunes.
Sid knew. Three times he had come face-to-face with the werewolf of Pismo Beach. Once, he had taken a shot at it but the beast had gotten away.
Sometimes months would go by without an incident. Sometimes he would hear howls in the hills and find tracks the next morning, tracks that wouldn't last long in the shifting sand. Sid didn't know who the werewolf was in human form. He speculated that it might be a drifter who returned periodically to Pismo. But it had killed -- oh, yes, it had killed. And was fully capable of killing again.
He watched as the family walked farther into the dunes. Soon they were swallowed up by the fog again. Slowly Sid rose and walked into his small cabin. From the wall beside the door he took down his rifle. From a drawer in an antique table he drew out a box of bullets. He returned to his chair on the porch and began to load the gun.
"Wow, I feel like I'm in the Sahara or something," Miranda said. The dunes rolled away from them into the fog in all directions. Far off, they could hear the surf, but the walls of the world were gray and darkening. The Sun had set, though they had not seen it.
"How far do you think we've walked?" Danny asked.
"Far enough for it to be quiet, finally," his father answered. Ken Paxton raised his arms and turned slowly in place, surveying the dunes. "I've never been to this part of the beach before."
"Well, we ought to be getting back," Miranda reminded him. "It's going to be dark soon."
"It's the longest day of the year," her father said. "The summer solstice. If we were in Alaska right now, the Sun wouldn't set until eleven o'clock. In Maine it's light till nine." He laughed at some private joke. "Some year I want to be way up north on the summer solstice. Watch the Sun circle the sky. I think I'd really feel that I was on the surface of a planet, turning and moving through space."
Danny and Miranda exchanged a look: Here he goes again.
They had come to Pismo for the weekend to escape the crowds, but the campground had been filled to capacity by people with the same idea. "Let's go for a walk," their father had suggested, and they had ended up here, miles from town.
"I like this fog," he said now. "It reminds me of Maine."
"Everything reminds you of Maine," Miranda said.
Their father laughed. "I've been out in boats in this kind of stuff," he said, looking off into nothing, remembering his youth on another ocean.
"It's pretty nice here," Miranda said, a trifle defensively.
Ken Paxton turned toward the sound of the pounding surf and inhaled a mouthful of moist air. "Yeah, you're right. It really is." He draped an arm over the shoulder of each child; Danny wriggled a bit but Miranda didn't mind. "Things are gonna get better," he said. "You wait. It's gonna get better. Let's head back."
A moderate wind had already begun to erase their footprints. Overhead a few bright stars peeked out from holes in the fog, and to the east they could see the outlines of the hills behind the shore. On the beach, though, the gray mist surrounded them. They could not see the water, nor more than a few yards up and down the coast in either direction.
"Dad," Danny said suddenly. "What's that light over there?"
He pointed toward the hills. A fuzzy, circular light, obscured by the lip of the fog bank, emanated from a low spot between ridges. It looked at first like some kind of searchlight. But the light shone steadily even as the fog moved. After long seconds Ken realized what it was.
"It's the Moon," he told his son. "The full moon. It's just rising."
Sounds travel well in fog, and Sid McKenzie heard Danny and Miranda arguing long before they came back into view. "The ocean's right there, you dork," the girl said. "Of course you can hear it. You don't need to hold a shell up to your ear."
"You're just mad 'cause I saw it first," her brother shot back.
"Let me hold it."
"No! It's mine -- I found it."
"I just want to see it for a minute. Dad, Danny won't let me look at the shell he found."
"See it? It's right here in my hand."
"Dad!"
"I fail to see how this involves me," their father said.
"Let me hold it," Miranda insisted.
"No! You'll break it!"
"How's she going to do that?" their father interjected. "By dropping it in the sand?"
"Just let me see it for a friggin' minute," Miranda said.
"Well, okay, but give it right back." Reluctantly Danny placed the fist-sized moon shell in his sister's hands.
Instantly she ran off with it, to the top of a nearby dune. "Ha! It's mine now," she cried, waving the shell in the air.
"Miranda!" Danny climbed up the face of the dune, flailing his arms and screaming his indignation, giving his sister exactly the reaction she wanted.
"Jeez Louise, you'd think you guys were five and six years old the way you carry on," Ken said, exasperated. "Miranda, give him back his shell. And Danny, stop making all that noise."
"Who's gonna hear us, way out here?" Miranda said.
"Give him back his shell." He stared at her for emphasis. After several defiant seconds she lowered her eyes.
"Here's your stupid shell," she said, flipping the shell in a small arc just out of Danny's reach. Danny lunged in the sand for it; the shell landed unharmed inches beyond his outstretched arms.
"God, I get sick of the way you two squabble all the time," their father said. "It's bad enough that I have to listen to it. You come to a beautiful place like this, and all you can do is fight with each other. You think anyone wants to hear it?"
"Dad, look around," Miranda said. "Nobody can hear us."
But Sid McKenzie, hidden from them by the dunes and the darkness, could hear them quite clearly. And he knew that his were not the only ears attuned to the intruders. It was out here with them, somewhere close. The old man could sense its presence.
Not many campers were foolish enough to walk this far away from the campground in the gathering darkness, and fewer still chose to do so when the Moon was full. The locals were even more cautious. There were stories, and though most professed not to believe them, this part of the beach remained uncrowded.
Now the glowing orb rose above the hills, and the wisps of the low-lying fog could not conceal it entirely. Sid gripped the rifle and followed the family at a safe distance.
Five pelicans in formation wheeled in the fog and dipped toward the dunes to check the humans out. Danny whooped, arms pinwheeling, as the pelicans turned easily and glided away toward the surf. He and Miranda, recently released from the confines of school and city, raced after them. Their father watched them go, a thin smile on his lips. The Moon rose out of the wispy fog, and something moved in the trees behind him.
Ken didn't see it, for he was watching his kids and the birds and the waves of fog as they rolled along the waves of sand. But Sid McKenzie raised his rifle to his shoulder and squinted through the telescopic sight. The animal crouched at the edge of the woods, its yellow eyes intent, its ears flattened along its elongated skull. Sid held his breath. He'd never had such a good look at it. Its fur was blacker than the night; its shoulders hunched with coiled power. The werewolf of Pismo Beach, whose very existence would have been hotly denied by the responsible citizenry of the town, was his.
But then the man, still unaware of the beast's presence, took a couple of casual steps in the sand and put himself directly between Sid and his quarry. "Damn," the old man whispered to himself. "He's right in my line of fire!"
The kids were far to seaward now, almost to the shore, oblivious to the danger. Their cries reached Sid's ears like something from another universe, unconnected to the moment. The whole of his attention was focused on the eyes of the werewolf, and he saw the moment of decision in the creature's eyes. Sid was out from behind the dune and running toward the man even as the werewolf sprang from its cover and attacked.
The beast leaped at its prey, sending him sprawling face first in the sand. Ken barely had time to turn over before the werewolf was upon him. He flung his arms up in front of his face and screamed as the beast's jaws opened. The werewolf sank its teeth into Ken's left shoulder, inches from his throat.
Sid McKenzie cried out too, as he flew across the dunes with a speed belying his years. He raised the rifle like a baseball bat and swung it at the werewolf's head. It landed with a crack.
Momentarily stunned, the beast released the bleeding man and turned on its attacker. Sid backed away, fumbling with the rifle, certain he was staring into the face of his own death. And then the man who had just been bitten did an amazing thing. With his uninjured arm he reached down, grabbed a handful of sand, and flung it in the werewolf's face. The creature roared and turned on him.
Sid's hands furiously worked the rifle's firing mechanism. He rolled and aimed the rifle upward. There was no time for precision. He squeezed the trigger.
Sand kicked up around him in the gun's recoil. The beast screamed and staggered backward. Sid cocked the rifle and prepared to fire again. The werewolf roared, and then turned and ran on all fours back into the trees.
Suddenly the only sound was the white noise of the distant surf. Sid lay on the sand, hands gripping the rifle hard, his aging heart hammering in his chest. Then he heard a moan. Sid raised his head, and with an effort he got to his feet and went over to the fallen man.
Danny and Miranda had heard the shot and came quickly. They stopped when they saw their father bleeding in the sand, with a strange old man huddled over him. The old man looked up at them. "Help me," he said.
The girl crouched in the sand beside her father. Her wide-eyed brother pulled up, panting, behind her. But Ken's eyes were clear, not glazed with shock. "He's going to be okay," Sid said. "I scared it off." Then to the father: "Unbutton your shirt, so I can take a look."
"What happened, Dad?" Danny asked.
"A dog bit me," Ken said, fumbling with his buttons.
"No dog," Sid said, helping Ken draw back the shirt to examine the wound. "But you got bit, all right."
"By what?" Miranda asked. She too was looking at the wound -- a series of ragged punctures between neck and shoulder. Several of the teeth marks seeped blood; Ken's hand and most of his shirtfront were stained red. But he was breathing normally, and he allowed the old man to help him to his feet.
"I winged him," the old man said, casting a glance at the trees. "Damn, I wish I'd had a clear shot." He turned his attention back to Ken. "I'll take you to my place, so we can dress that," he said. "It's not far."
The cabin, though roomy enough for one person, felt small with all of them in it. Heavy wooden beams ran beneath a high cathedral ceiling and a partially enclosed loft where the old man slept. The lower level surrounded a central fireplace and chimney. The walls were dark wood. The cabin's interior was festooned with silver. A shiny crucifix hung from a television antenna bent just so to bear its weight. Silver candlesticks and figurines lined the shelves between books on surfing, the occult, and the central California coast. Wreaths of garlic decorated the tiny kitchen area and gave it fragrance. A large pentagram was painted on one wall in red.
Sid built up the fire and made hot chocolate for everybody, splashing some brandy in his own and Ken's. He boiled water, took some dried leaves down from a cabinet, and made a poultice for the father's injured shoulder. Ken relaxed against the back of the couch and sipped his drink.
Miranda looked anxiously at the old man. "Will Dad be okay?" she asked.
"Of course I'll be okay, honey," Ken said, attempting a reassuring smile. "It's just a dog bite."
"But you said it wasn't a dog," Miranda said, still looking at Sid.
The old man said nothing.
"If it wasn't a dog, what was it?"
The old man's eyes shifted from father to daughter and back again. "Your father was bitten by a werewolf, Miranda."
"I don't believe it!" Miranda cried.
"Believe it," Sid said grimly. "I wounded him once before too, I think. In the leg. Spent the next month skulking around town looking for anyone with a limp."
Danny was dumbstruck. "How long -- "
"How long has he been here?" Sid asked. Miranda and Danny nodded.
"Almost ten years now," the old man said, answering his own question. "But he comes and goes. He disappears for months at a time. He's killed four people so far, that I know of." Sid looked pointedly at Ken. "You're lucky you weren't the fifth."
"What's going to happen to him?" Miranda asked, leaning forward, her empty cup between her knees.
Sid McKenzie paused before replying. "Child, you must know" -- he stopped, aware that all three of his guests were looking at him intently -- "that is, well...A person who is bitten by a werewolf, and survives, becomes a werewolf." He looked at Ken. "A month from now, on the next full moon, that's when you'll change," he said. "And every full moon thereafter."
Ken let this sink in for a moment. "You are telling me," he said slowly, "that I am now a werewolf?"
The old man gave him a solemn nod. "I'm afraid that's about the size of it."
"I can't believe this," Danny said.
The old man's eyes flicked to the boy briefly, then returned to his sister.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Miranda said.
The old man shook his head. "Keep track of the calendar," he said. "Full moon happens at a specific moment, but there's a period of about three nights when the Moon is full enough to bring on the transformation. You'll have to make sure your father isn't in a position to do anybody any harm. Beyond that, you would have to trace the bloodline of the werewolf that bit him, and kill off every werewolf in the chain. And I wouldn't even know where to begin."
"But you knew he was out here!" Danny cried. "You knew! And you let him bite my dad!"
"I'm sorry. I was too late to stop it. I couldn't get a clear shot."
No one said anything for a long moment. Miranda and Danny exchanged fierce glances, but for once, they had nothing to say to each other.
At length the old man spoke again. "You'll have to take precautions, of course," he said.
Copyright © 2005 by Henry Garfield