Jackie the Beanstalk
Chapter 9
Howl at the Moon
I SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT with the gun in my lap while Misty and Princess busied themselves with getting dinner ready. I carefully examined the gun and ejected the magazine. I operated the slide to be sure there was no shell in the chamber. There was and I caught the ejected shell to examine. No. It definitely wasn’t silver. I emptied the magazine—a total of eight bullets. None of them were silver.
Silver bullets didn’t enter the canon of werewolf lore until the mid-twentieth century, though there are hints about the toxicity of silver to werewolves from earlier than that. Contemporary stories all seemed to agree that it takes a silver weapon to kill a werewolf, since if you are close enough to cut off its head or remove its heart, you are probably already dead. This according to Misty’s vast fantasy lore. Well, I read Twilight and Harry Potter, too. I wondered if the werewolves of Mount Morrisey Park were like that poor professor Lupin who was bitten by a werewolf in a battle and therefore became one. I started searching through the various manuals we’d found hidden among my travel documents.
A Catalogue of Dangers was included, so I looked up werewolves in the booklet. I kept getting distracted by other dangers listed, including poison berries, poison snakes, poison insects, and mountain monsters, variously described as anything from Bigfoot to an ogre. But no werewolves. I went flipping back through the pages trying to find out about ‘killing’ and thinking that article might have some specific instructions based on what needed killing. Nothing. I turned the page and there it was.
Lycanthrope. A werewolf. In ancient mythology and contemporary literature, it is said to be a human that transforms to a wolf, usually under the light of a full moon. However, in Victoriana, the Lycanthrope is a highly intelligent and vicious beast, most commonly identified as a wolf, but may take the form of any large carnivorous animal. Its voracious appetite and aggressiveness are at their peak during a full moon. If at all possible, avoid contact. If necessary to engage in combat, the most effective weapon is a silver bullet. Other silver weapons may also be effective, by severing the head or piercing the heart. Fire can be an effective defense.
Okay. I’m back to silver. Silver bullet, silver sword, silver knife, silver spear. I’d noticed, however, that every entry in the booklet included the sage advice to avoid contact if possible.
“So, in the stories you’ve heard, does a werewolf bite result in the bitten person becoming a werewolf?” I asked Princess as we sat eating an excellent meal of chicken cacciatore and garlic bread. I rather thought it was vampires that garlic was effective against, but I could smell garlic being cooked all over the campground.
“Um… As far as I know, a werewolf bite results in the bitten person becoming dinner. No one’s ever survived,” Princess said. That was encouraging.
“How does one become a werewolf then?” I continued.
“One is born a werewolf. One doesn’t become one,” she mocked me.
“Does a silver bullet kill it instantly?”
“Only if you hit it in the head or heart. Otherwise, it just stops the animal’s ability to heal. It will die eventually, but it can do a lot of damage beforehand,” Princess said. She had adopted a tone of teaching an elementary student in a classroom full of dunces. I appealed to Misty.
“Is a werewolf subject to magic? Like to Jackie’s cord of submission?” she asked. Now that was a thought. All I’d need to do is get close enough to loop the gold cord around the wolf and it would obey me. The entire problem with that would be getting close enough without dying.
“As far as I know, the magic that might be effective against a werewolf would be an enchanted object. Something that it might do to itself, like putting the gold cord around its own neck after it’s eaten you.”
Great. This was all just great. But there were other enchantments. I thought about turning the bullet silver if I could remember the French for ‘silver bullet.’ Madam Auclair said something about what it meant. I pulled a bullet from my pocket and looked at it in the palm of my hand. ‘Focus,’ I thought to myself.
“Miracle,” I said pointing at the bullet. I could be fooling myself, but I thought it glowed a little.
“Why are you asking for a miracle?” Misty said. “We could still just get in the car and drive away.”
“It’s French for silver bullet,” I said.
“That’s a metaphorical silver bullet,” Misty said, shaking her head. “You need to transform it into an actual silver bullet.”
I concentrated some more, thinking about what I needed. I reached in my pocket and pulled out the rest of the bullets. When I deposited them in my hand next to the other, I noticed I’d collected a bean, too. A magic bean. And I wanted a transformation, not a command. What was that story about the papillon? I had it!
“Se métamorphoser en argent balles,” I said emphatically. And that’s when I got my miracle. The bean dissolved into dust and spread across the bullets. They glowed, and when the light subsided, I had eight silver bullets in my hand. “Yes!” I shouted triumphantly. Misty and Princess both jumped to look over my shoulder.
“Not bad for someone who doesn’t believe in magic,” Misty laughed.
“Holy wow! You just turned the bullets to silver. Will they still shoot?” Princess asked. The little bitch.
“Of course. I think. I just have to hit what I’m shooting at. In the heart or the head,” I sighed. “Um… Keep the fire burning while I’m gone. I read that fire is also an effective defense against werewolves. Look, all the other campsites have bright fires burning.” I loaded the cartridges in the magazine and shoved it in the gun. Hoped I’d done all that right. I read a thriller and the agent was always sure to put one in the chamber. I slid the slide and hoped that did the trick. I found the safety lever and practiced flicking it off and on with my thumb.
The sun was down and the noise from the other campsites was up. It was nearly moonrise. I tossed the car keys to Misty.
“If there’s a sign of any of the creatures getting near, get in the car and drive away. Don’t wait for me,” I said.
“I can’t drive,” Misty said.
“Oh, geez! Give them to me. I can drive,” Princess said.
“I’m not sure you could even reach the pedals,” I said. “But if the time comes, Misty will give you the keys. Make sure Roadkill and Shasta are safe.” I didn’t give them time for any sappy goodbyes. I just stood up and headed toward the hunting ground with the gun tucked into my belt. With luck, these folks all knew what to do and I wouldn’t be needed at all.
Twenty seconds on the edge of the gathering of would-be hunters and I was disabused of that opinion. There were twenty or twenty-five of them standing around with their knives and swords and pitchforks. Mabel had a bow and arrows, and someone was testing the pull of his slingshot. Most of them were dressed in some kind of armor, like having cookie sheets strapped to their chests and football helmets on.
And most of them were drunk, including the ‘bait’ they were gathered around. The guy—Charlie, they said—had an ankle shackle on with a chain attached to a stake in the ground.
“Don’t you worry, none, Charlie. We’re all right here beside you. Them wolves won’t have a chance. Ernie has his dogs ready as soon as the critters show their faces. We’ll take ’em down one right after another.”
“There isn’t really a need to have me chained here, Ross. I get the whole bait idea. But I’d like to be involved in the killing, too.”
“If ya weren’t chained, they’d know it was a trap. Smart critters these werewolves are.”
“Yeah, well, still…”
A howl in the darkness brought everyone’s head up. The full moon had just cleared the ridge to the east of us and it set the wolves to howling. I tried to identify how many there were by the number of howls and different directions they came from, but I couldn’t separate them all. They were definitely getting closer. People started falling back in a half-circle behind Charlie, toward the campground.
“You all, don’t just leave me out here,” Charlie yelled. “You gotta be close.”
“We’re here, old buddy. Just need to give them some room to show themselves.” It sounded like that voice was a lot farther away than was reasonable. I maintained my position where I’d stayed in the shadows. The next howl was much closer.
A shot whistled through the air and hit a tree on the far side of the clearing. I wondered if the guy had silver pellets for his slingshot.
“Don’t waste your ammo, Cecil. Wait till you see the whites of their eyes.”
“You don’t need to wait,” Charlie screamed. “Get ’em now! I can smell their breath!”
I doubted that, but a few more projectiles were thrown toward the edge of the clearing in the direction of the howls. At this rate, they wouldn’t have anything to fight with by the time the wolves got close enough to see.
And then a yellow glint broke the circle of trees and a wolf crept into the open.
“There it is!” Charlie shouted. He was at the end of his tether. “Don’t wait for whites of his eyes! They’re yellow. Come on and get it now.” An arrow flew through the clearing and buried itself in the ground about ten feet away from the wolf. It didn’t even look toward it. I wondered how far away Mabel was with her bow.
Three more sets of eyes separated from the trees and crept toward the bait. My fingers itched on the gun, but I knew damn well that making a shot at all would take a passel of luck. I stood no more of a chance at this distance than Mabel did. The wolves moved forward and a bunch of things were launched at them. More slingshot. Rocks. A couple of knives. I think I saw a sword or a bayonet fly toward the wolves, all landing wide or short.
“You guys! You’re too far away. You gotta come up here closer,” Charlie screamed.
Suddenly three hounds came charging into the circle and began growling and snapping toward the wolves. The big wolf in the center stretched himself out and howled a long angry call. That was when I heard the first car door slam and an engine start. Someone had decided to abandon the fight.
“Don’t go! Don’t leave me here!” Charlie screamed. He was frantically tugging at his chain and rocking the stake back and forth in the ground. A dog leapt at the lead wolf as they closed in and the big wolf simply batted it aside with a massive paw. The hound lay on the ground twitching as another wolf approached to put it out of its misery with a bite to the neck. The other two dogs turned tail and ran, yelping all the way. I heard more doors slam and engines start. The hunt—and Charlie—was being abandoned. Well, the guy was an idiot, but I wasn’t going to just leave him there to his fate. I raised the gun as the big wolf snarled and started forward with the other three trailing just slightly.
The echo of the shot I fired was louder than I expected. I hit the creature in the hind quarters and the howl he gave was much different than the hunting howl. The other three wolves turned their attention toward me, cautiously trying to circle me. Charlie started desperately rocking the stake back and forth as I took aim on the next wolf and fired.
It was a body shot and looked like I might have hit the vital organ with my silver bullet. The other two wolves jumped aside as I swung the gun around and they disappeared into the trees. I turned my attention to Charlie and helped him pull the stake from the ground. He started scrambling back, dragging the chain behind him.
That was the cue for the big bad wolf I’d shot first to shake his head and get to his feet. He was only a few feet away, but my hand was shaking now and my next shot didn’t touch him. He sprang.
I lost my grip on the gun and my senses at the same time. I’m not sure what transpired because it was all reflex. What I know is that when I finished, I held my silver stole in my hand. Only it wasn’t a stole any longer. It was a long, stiff broadsword of solid silver. The wolf lay dead in front of me with its head severed from its body, the dying light of his yellow eyes glaring balefully at me. I raised my head toward the moon and howled.
“OwowowooooooOw!” I screamed. The call was answered by retreating voices in the darkness.
I picked up the gun where it lay and threw the sword over my shoulder, where it draped like a stole. I walked back to our campsite. The rest of the sites were abandoned, fires still burning. Misty and Princess stood by our fire. Misty had a struggling Shasta in her arms and Princess held Roadkill’s leash. When they saw me, they let go of their grip and the two animals rushed to me, Roadkill, licking at my hands and Shasta jumping all the way to my shoulder.
I sat next to the fire and Princess fetched a wet cloth with which she started mopping the blood from my robe. Misty busied herself at the fire and soon handed me a cup of cocoa, which I sipped thankfully. Then I saw she had one of the Scarecrow’s blunts in her fingers and was lighting it. She took a toke and handed it to me. I took a long drag and held the smoke in my lungs. I looked at her and handed the joint to Princess. She looked a little uncertain, but sucked the smoke in and immediately started coughing her lungs out. That was usually Misty’s province, but we rescued the joint and each managed a couple more drags before it vanished. I drank down the rest of my cocoa.
“You always know just what we need, Aunt Misty,” I said.
“Right now, we need to go to bed. Look, the sky has clouded over. There won’t be any more werewolves tonight.” She said it calmly, as if she were an expert on the subject. I crawled into the tent and pulled off my boots and robe and hat. Misty crawled in beside me on one side and Princess on the other. Roadkill took his position across the entrance as Misty zipped it closed. It was too crowded in the bedroll, so Shasta curled up on top of me and we all went to sleep.
Mile 902
In the morning, Princess and I walked down to the battle site with Roadkill. Shasta stayed glued to Misty as she made breakfast. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see. Since it was just a dream, I figured it would be a pleasant little clearing all covered with green grass. Not so. Nor was there the carnage that a normal person would have expected.
There was a dug-up hole where the stake in the ground had been and we could see where it was dragged toward the campground. And there were two large charred spots on the ground where the two wolves had been killed. I didn’t exactly remember setting them on fire, but I did remember them burning. Princess examined the spots carefully and picked a bit of silver out of each charred spot. She stared at them and then handed them to me. They were mostly still bullet shaped, but had melted some. I dropped them in my medicine bag.
Suddenly, I had a sobbing girl clutching me. I wasn’t sure what inspired this, but she was shaking and all I could do was hold her and comfort her.
“Thank you for coming back,” she sobbed. “And thank you for not trading me for that poor guy who was staked here. We saw him drive out in a battered pickup truck just before the last howl. Knew it was him, because the stake was still hanging out his door on a chain. I was so afraid that I caused you to be hurt or killed because you’d have made better time without me and without having to chase my abductor across the mountain and without me having to stop and pee or eat or anything. I shouldn’t have come. You really don’t have a use for me.”
“Hey there. Without you, who would have told me I needed silver bullets?”
“But you might not have even needed them.” She handed me my car keys. “Here. I couldn’t use them.”
“What?”
“Misty gave them to me and told me to go ahead and leave because she and the animals wouldn’t leave you behind. And… And that’s when I realized, I couldn’t leave you behind either. So, we just kept hold of Roadkill and Shasta and waited by the fire for you to come back,” she said. “Um… We had a couple of stick bundles with the ends in the fire just in case we needed torches.”
We walked back through the abandoned campsites. They’d left everything and I figured they’d be coming back later in the morning to see the results of the night’s carnage. We didn’t need to be around for that. But some of the huge campfires they had were still glowing embers, so we grabbed a couple of pans we saw and got water to pour over the coals and make sure they were dead out.
Misty had breakfast and coffee ready for us and I gave my aunt the same kind of huge hug Princess had given me. We cleaned up the campsite and were on the road in half an hour.
“It was the only weapon I had!” Charlie was saying to a group at the little café where we stopped for a mid-morning coffee. “That big monster of a wolf was on me like stink on shit. I pulled the stake out of the ground and drove it through his heart. Then I took off. That Warrior Wizard wasn’t worth anything. Probably find her guts scattered about the place when we go out there.”
Someone at his table noticed I’d walked into the café and went to the counter to order coffee. The café got suddenly quiet.
“Is that the way it happened Warrior Wizard?” One of the guys hollered. I thought it was Ernie from the night before. I turned and looked at the table. Charlie turned to look at me with terror etched on his face. I smiled.
“I reckon what happened after you all turned tail and ran, leaving your buddy as a sacrifice, is Charlie’s story to tell. You listen to him and think about whether you should be staking people out for a werewolf hunt again.” I turned away to pay for the three cups of coffee as Misty and Princess came out of the restroom.
“I know she got at least a couple of shots off from her gun. I bet she was shooting silver bullets and there isn’t a werewolf left out there. And just as I was getting out of Dodge, there was a bloodcurdling howl. I thought it was the wolf, but I bet it was her.”
We left, got back in the car, and drove away. Let Charlie tell the story the way he wanted to remember it. Maybe that would keep the nightmares away.
Mile 1076
We pulled into the town of Amherst. My first impression was that this was a normal sounding name for a normal looking town. There were several businesses along the main street through town that had the typical signs in the windows. You know the “4-day sale” and “Trucker’s Special Breakfast” signs.
“TripTik has the Hotel a la Mode circled up here on the right,” Misty said.
“Doesn’t seem very urgent to move us on, does it?” I speculated. “Wonder why it wants us here. Where’s the kid held from here?”
Misty switched maps and Princess leaned over the seat to look, too.
“Farther northwest, but it’s impossible to tell the scale of things. We’ve been driving a couple hundred miles along this lake and it hardly looks like a blip on the map. But we got all the way from over here to the lake in just a couple of hours. So, short answer is, I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go register for a room and get a nice hot shower. As nice a job as Princess did wiping up the blood last night, I should really scrub this robe some more. And there’s a red tinge around the edge of my stole.” We got out of the car and started toward the hotel. Then we all stopped and looked up and down the street. There wasn’t a car there. There wasn’t a person in sight. We couldn’t hear a thing moving or a bird singing.
“This is a little spooky,” Princess said. Shasta and Roadkill both rubbed against us and followed us into the hotel with their heads against our legs. No one was in the lobby, so I went over to the desk and rang the bell. Nothing. I rang again.
I could hear a shuffling from the back and saw an eye and forehead peek around the corner. It looked for a few seconds and then was joined by the body of a young woman in a hotel reception uniform or something. She shuffled up behind the desk.
“May I help you?” she squeaked in a very soft voice.
“Our TripTik said this was a good place to stop for the night. Do you have a room available?” I asked. She looked surprised and then gave a little snort.
“You’ve got to be kidding! For a dollar and a ride out of town, I’ll sell you the whole hotel,” she said. “Why would you want to stay here? You should just keep driving. There’s nothing here.”
“Uh… We noticed there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Where did everyone go?” Misty asked.
“Go? They’re all right here.” She waved a hand vaguely around the room.
“Well, if you can give us a room with a soft bed and a hot shower, and direct us to a good dinner, we’d gratefully appreciate it,” I said.
“Your funeral.” She checked us in and handed me the key.
“What about dinner?” I asked.
“Dining room opens at sundown,” she said, smiling sweetly. That really wasn’t comforting.
“Hon, let’s bring the cooler in with us. I’m not sure I’m up for a restaurant meal tonight,” Misty whispered to me. We went to the car and grabbed our packs and the cooler and made our way to the room. After a hearty meal that we found heated as soon as the cover was taken off, we all fell asleep on the two beds. We’d been up late and were drained from the previous night and nearly three hundred miles on the road during the day. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon and I allowed the bed to claim me.
I was awakened by Roadkill whining beside the bed. When I stirred, Misty stirred, and when Misty stirred, Princess stirred, and that meant Shasta was stretching on top of us. I wondered when Princess had gotten in the same bed as the rest of us, but I couldn’t blame her.
“You need to go out, fella?” I asked. Roadkill trotted over to the door and Shasta jumped out of bed to join us. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said. “Gotta take the animals out.”
“We’ll get showers and get some more food ready,” Misty yawned. Sounded like a good idea. I hadn’t even taken my robe off when I lay down. I grabbed my hat and opened the door.
This was an old hotel in a small city. It was only five stories tall and being on the top floor still wasn’t a hardship to use the stairs. The animals ran down in front of me and by the time I reached the third floor, I could hear voices below. Well, someone had come around, apparently. The voices got louder and when I reached the lobby, I saw into the dining room where a good number of people were seated and chatted as they ate. The food looked good, but something felt off. I stepped out the front with my animals.
We walked the entire length of the main drag—about six blocks—then turned and came back on the other side of the street. Everywhere we looked there were people going about their business. All the shops seemed to be open. I considered grabbing a cup of coffee at a little café, but decided to just make one up in our room. After all, Misty and Princess were preparing dinner. People seemed friendly enough, smiling and nodding as we passed, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. For one thing, Roadkill and Shasta weren’t responding to the people or noises at all. We finally got back to the hotel and went in to the sound of laughter and a band tuning up in the dining room. Hmm. Live music with dinner. Wondered what they’d play.
I stopped at the front desk and the young woman who checked us in was still working there. Long shift, I guess.
“The place looks a lot livelier this evening,” I said casually. “Where were all these people earlier in the day?” She looked at me a long moment as if she couldn’t believe I’d even asked.
“You’re not much of a Warrior Wizard, are you?” she asked. I just shrugged and she sighed. “This is a ghost town.”
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