Wolf Cove by Matthew Wolf Kane

 
Wolf Cove.
Matthew Wolf Kane
 
  A rocky and abandoned cove, tucked away on a rocky treacherous coast line hides a wolfie secret. Locals know...sailors know...but this new breed of water loving adventure seekers don't know. Surfers, kayakers, they don't know, but soon they will be forced to know the secrets dwelling in the craggy caves of Wolf Cove.
  What awaited them was death, vicious death by the claws of the werewolf that lived in the cave. It was once a human until its sixteenth birthday, when it changed to the werewolf that killed people from outside town. When the surfboards and kayaks started to appear upon the shores of the less secluded coves, with pieces of gristle and bone embedded into them, and huge rents where claws had grabbed a hold of the unfortunate occupants, the townsfolk hid the boards and pleasure craft. But one day, into town strode Tommy Doyle. Tommy was a spoilt rich kid, used to getting what he wanted, and what Tommy wanted more than anything right now was Krista Myers. Blonde, lithe and beautiful, Krista was an enigma; man did he want her. But Krista Myers had disappeared, off the waters of Wolf Cove, and Tommy wanted to know why...
  He went around town with a photo of Krista; half of the locals would not stop when he asked if they had seen her around. He walked and walked until it got dark. He spotted a woman acting oddly with a sack over her shoulder.
  Tommy ran up behind the woman and grabbed her by the shoulder, with the thought to spin her around to face him. Next thing he knew, he was lying on his back at the feet of a woman that could have at one time been stunning, except now, half her face appeared to be missing, a slit for a nostril, a lidless eye that was opaque with blindness, and a ragged hole where her the other half of her scarlet lips had once been. Tommy looked up and anger mounted.
"The fuck did ya do that for?" he shouted at the stranger. "Stupid bitch coulda broken my back!"
The woman looked down upon him, and spoke with a voice that was as melodic as the dawn chorus.
"The information ye be seeking lies within yonder ale house laddie, not many folks around here will be tellin ye the truth, but Sid, he will. He claims to be a direct descendant of Rodmar and Asgot. He'll be tellin ye the truth such as ‘tis. Ye be tellin’ him Milly sent ye. Now away with ye now, get your mission done on this night, for the morrow brings the full moon, and ye dunna wanna be here in Wolf Cove then...”
  Tommy jumped up, holding his nose as he backed away and watched the woman walking off with her sack.
  Tommy stole a small boat from the harbour and made his way out to Wolf Cove. The sea was covered with a fog, forming right in front of his eyes; he could feel the fog coming from the sea as he lost sight of the town. There was no turning back now, even though he was scared of what he might find at the end of the fog. Through the fog he could see the near full moon. He wished that he brought his fur jacket with him on this trip to keep him warm. Tommy let the boat sail as he tried to rub his hands together to warm them back up.
  As Tommy sailed further out to sea, the fog thickened, he was wet and freezing cold…and bloody hell! There was a hole in the damn boat! Tommy reached down with his hands and attempted to propel himself faster. As he did so, suddenly the fog parted slightly, and Tommy was startled to see a surfer pulling moves out on the water.
“Mate, hey mate!" he yelled, but the surfer ignored his calls. Tommy paddled closer to the surfer and tried again. "Oi, what you doing out here in this, you nutter?" he called, Still no answer. Anger filled Tommy at this ignorance, and he finally reached the surfer, but when he did, he wished he hadn’t. This surfer was dead, or rather undead, or a spectre of a surfer or something not of this world; possibly a demon surfer, and reminiscent of the strange woman with the stinking sack, this dead guy, who was somehow fucking surfing while dead, only had half a face, but his had not healed. Tommy could see brains, skull and a pierced hanging eyeball!! Screaming now, Tommy plunged into the icy water, and started to sink beneath the waves. As his lungs took in water and he began to sink, he fancied he could see Krista's beautiful face waiting for him. He was drifting into oblivion when strong hands yanked him from his watery near grave and dumped him upon the shore.
“Ye silly little fucker," shouted the gnarled and grizzled man who was now pumping the water from Tommy’s lungs, "Di’nt Milly tell ye to stay away from the Cove?  Ghosts out there laddie, and ye nearly joined them this night”...
  "I be Sid,” said the man throwing Tommy over his shoulder, "And ye silly wee fucker are coming to my ale house with me ‘n’ I gonnea tell ye a tale."
  The grizzled man gave Tommy a boating sheet to wrap around him to keep warm. He watched the guy boiling some water. A few times, the guy would look right at Tommy and smile at him, revealing that he was missing his front teeth.
  ‘Who are you?” Tommy asked, as he reached a hand out to take hold of the cup of hot tea.
  "I be t'watchman, for years I've watched over the cove," the old man replied.
  "Many years ago, thousands in fact, two brothers sailed into these parts and settled, but here there be monsters and strange ‘appenins, and the two brothers, they both wanted to be the better, they parted ways, bitterly. Rodmar was walking one day in the woods and was bitten by a wolf like creature; he thought nowt of it till next full moon, when he turned into a part beast with bloodlust, but Rodmar was inherently good, and tried to keep away from folks when he did the shiftin’, but what happened to his brother Asgot was entirely diffrnt laddie, Asgot was inherently bad."
Wide eyed, Tommy was enthralled by the watchman’s tale.
 “What happened to Asgot?" He blurted through chattering teeth.
"Well, Asgot was attacked by a thing called a Draugr on an island of death. It was him and three people that escaped with their lives. But, they had to fight against the sea, and the sea won and sent them overboard, to be washed up and rescued by village people." The watchman took a sip of his tea and started again. "Slowly, one of them changed into a monster and killed for blood to make them stronger than before. Soon, they all went through the changes and they too killed for blood, Asgot was the last; he killed the leader of the village. Not a lot is known where they went after. He was heading home to his father. Wherever he went first, he got worse as a monster. He wanted to know why his father chose his brother over him."
  Tommy was completely enthralled by the watchman’s tale, but he was also still wondering about Krista. “Look mate, please, nobody else will help me; most won't even answer me. Have you seen this girl? She will have been missing exactly a month tomorrow / today; whatever the fucking day it is, I need to find her, I must." Sid took the photo from Tommy's hand and looked carefully at it.
“Pretty wee thing, your intended?" he asked Tommy.
"Nope," replied Tommy. “Intended lay maybe," but he immediately felt contrite for his crassness.
“I fancy there may be a deeper feeling in your heart for this ‘ere lassie than you be lettin’ on boy," chuckled Sid. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell ye, but chances of yer wee lassie bein ere in t'cove still are slim. There be strange ‘appenins ‘ere abouts to this very day. Cove history holds nowt but tales of monsters and bloodshed. Ye see that there lassie you got flipped onto yer arse by? Milly?  You caught a whiff of her sack? Yup, thought ye musta, she does that every other night, to appease that which lives in the caves of the cove, mutations and inbreedin’ between the monsters down the generations have led to the horror ye will find in yonder caves t'day. Descended from generations of cross breedin’, we have a monster so terrible, none but me speak of it, ‘n’ if the bonnie wee lassie in that photo has been yer ‘n’ disappeared, there will be no hope for her. I'm sorry laddie, but she will likely be dead ‘n’ eaten now." Tommy stared at the old watchman in disbelief.
“You fucking crazy old man!! You want me to believe you have some Viking werewolf/vampire cross creature living here, killing these surfers? How can you say shit like that? You chatting shit man!!" Sid looked at Tommy not unkindly, but spoke with more conviction than before.
"Boy, what I tell ye be the truth. I know it to be so, because yonder monster is none other than my own child! The were curse skips a generation, my own father was a lycanthropic vampire, and so is my only child."
  Tommy jumped up and grabbed hold of the watchman’s throat.
  "I want you to tell me where Krista is." His grip was getting tighter. "Are you going to tell me where Krista is?" The watchman nodded at Tommy. "Good. You better start talking old man."
  "This lassie ye spoke of is likely in t'cave just up t' hill from here with my son. She may still be alive if you hurry now laddie, fir when that hand hits midnight, t’woman ye love may…just may, be turned like my son so's he can breed children what be just like him." Tommy could not hold back his rage anymore, so he slapped the watchman across the face, and then heard a howl echoing through the night sky.
“I don’t think that will be happening tonight, mate.” Tommy noticed an axe hanging proudly on the ale house wall. "And I can use that to kill your beloved son before he touches her."
  It was not even hard to find the cave when the howling was echoing through the air and guided him right to the entrance. 'Krista, just hold on love. I’m coming to save you from this monster,' Tommy thought in the back of his head. 'Your knight is going to fucking save you and we will live ever happy with our children.’
As soon as he set foot into the cave, he could hear the watchman shouting at him not to go any further in. He swore he heard something about his death, but Tommy was not going to stand around and listen to him, no, he had to go and save the woman he loved from this monster that wanted to turn her like it.
  He knew he was getting closer as the howling was getting louder. It was then that he saw a shadow of a something run in front of him that made him step back and he felt something on his shoulder. Tommy turned around and used the top of the axe to hit whatever was behind him. Tommy had knocked the watchman to the floor of the cave, his nose was bleeding.
  "Ye must turn back now…before he sees ye an’ kills ye for gettin in the way of his desires."
  "Shut your god damn mouth! I’ve come to find the woman I love, and take her back home where she belongs.’
 ‘It’s too late now…once the clouds move out of the way of the full moon…it will start and there will be no way of stopping this.
 Tommy clapped his hands over his ears. Between the howling, the crashing of the sea and the old watchman's entreaties, he was getting a crushing headache. He slowly turned a corner in the cave which then opened up into a chamber, and laying face down on the floor, wearing just a bikini top and nothing else, was Krista. At first, he though she was dead, and he staggered back stunned when he saw what had happened to her beautiful face as he turned her over. Krista was missing half her face. Tommy screamed his distress and then caught his breath as he saw the smallest movement of her chest as she breathed shallowly. Tommy prepared to hoist her over his shoulder and get her out of here, when he heard the old watchman scream.
       Placing Krista back down gently, he ran towards the sound. The watchman was there, his face was half gone, and there was a nightmare creature hunched over him. When the creature spotted Tommy, its blood soaked maw opened wider, in a suggestion of the evil it intended to do here this night. Tommy scrabbled around behind himself until he found the axe from the ale house wall. Adrenaline running wild in his veins now, he chased the man beast to the next chamber. Fury ran through Tommy as he thought of the beauty that had been stolen from Krista, and through that fury, Tommy Doyle found the strength to repeatedly swing the axe into the body of this werewolf/werevampire being, dismembering it so thoroughly that its parts were scattered all around the cave chamber. He dropped the axe and was about to make his way back to Krista, when he heard a sound that made him freeze in disbelief - howling!  A different pitch of howl this was, but a howl all the same, and it was close… by heck was it close!
       Tommy rounded the corner back into the first chamber and screamed. The once beautiful Krista was hunched over the now definitely dead watchman, dragging out entrails and consuming them. The half of her beautiful face not missing was now covered in a grey fur, her cherry red lips were now an elongated snout, and her remaining eye was wild with the madness. There was a flicker of recognition as she looked at Tommy, and Tommy took advantage of this and slipped out of the cave. As he went, he picked up the axe, the sack he found laying on the floor, and made his way back down the treacherous cliffs to the shore. He then turned and headed for the ale house.
         So now, when travellers or adventure seekers come to Wolf Cove, it is none other than Tommy Doyle who draws them a pint of ale and tells them the tales of why they should avoid yonder cove and its mysterious caves. It is Tommy Doyle that now helps Milly collect any roadkill they can find, for Milly to deposit outside the cave in her stinking sack. Tommy Doyle must now pay the price for falling in love, for in yonder cave dwells the object of his affection. Every full moon, she howls the night away, and Tommy Doyle, watchman of Wolf Cove does what he can to protect the adventurers that will surely meet their deaths, if they don't respect the evil, that is Wolf Cove.