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Ill Met By Moonlight
(© Biswapriya Purkayastha)

This contribution is part of a series:-
1. Baying At The Moon (11-Jun-2010)
A full moon night, a boy, a monster...and a lynch mob on the loose.
2. Dark Of The Moon (3-Sep-2010)
When the moon calls, fighting the monster within is futile, and can be lethal...to yourself.
3. Ill Met By Moonlight (11-Oct-2010)
Some monsters are much, much worse than others who stalk the night and merely want to kill you.This is part 3 of the series of stories which began with Baying At The Moon and continued with Dark Of The Moon.
4. Hunter's Moon (31-Oct-2010)
The Woman and the Boy face danger from a different source, one which may be the most lethal of all.
5. The Darkness Before The Dawn (25-May-2011)
The Boy, alone in the streets of the town, gets into trouble. This is Part Five of the Werewolf Series.
6. Descent Into The Dark (14-Jul-2011)
In a desperate attempt to halt the Change that the full moon brings upon them, the Woman and the Boy climb down into the bowels of the earth, and into a greater danger. This is Part 6 of the Werewolf Series.

Page 1

"Tell me how you started."

She turns from the dishes in the sink, to where the boy leans on the refrigerator, watching her through the screen of hair falling over his forehead. She smiles slightly, shrugging, pulling off the rubber gloves. "Why do you want to know?"

"Don’t you want to tell me? If you don’t want to, it’s all right." He turns to go, shoulders stiff with hurt.

"No," she says, hurrying after him. He’s as tall as she is now, but still young, so young, and so easily hurt. "It’s not that I don’t want to tell you," she tells him, catching up with him before he can enter his room. "It’s just that I’m surprised that you waited so long to ask."

"It’s OK," he answers. "It’s really all right if you don’t want to tell me. Really." It’s the sort of comment her sister would have made, once. She remembers her sister, tries to block her out, can’t. Some wounds never heal.

"I’ll tell you," she says. "I’ll tell you everything you want to know...but it’s a long story."

"I don’t mind long stories." He’s relaxing visibly, the lines of disappointment smoothening out from his face, and once again she realises how young he is, even though their eyes are on a level and his shoulders are broader than hers.

"That’s fine, then," she smiles. "I’ll tell you all about it...tonight."

"It was when I was sixteen," she says.

They’re sitting in front of the television, which has not been turned on. She’s sitting on the carpet, leaning back against the sofa, a glass of red wine at her hand. She doesn’t believe in age limitations and would have offered him a glass too, but he doesn’t like the wine, it’s not sweet enough for him, and so he sips soda straight from the bottle as he listens.

"I used to belong to a pretty conventional family," she begins. "Well, conventional to a point, and on the outside. Maybe that’s true of everything you call conventional, that it’s only on the outside.

"There were four of us. Dad, mom, my younger sister, and I. No pets. My dad didn’t like pets. Said they were dirty and noisy.

"We didn’t live in this town, of course. That place is a long way off, down by the coast." She names her hometown, the polysyllabic name feeling strange on her tongue after so many years. "I left it many years ago and never want to go back...ever."

"You left it – afterwards?" he prompts.

"Yes," she says, bitterly, feeling the rush of memories strain to break through the dam she has built against them over the years. "Afterwards. That’s a good way of putting it. Before and afterwards, day and night, and nothing ever the same again."

"What?" His eyes are wide, confused.

"I’m sorry," she says, shaking her head, sips the wine, settles back, lets the flood of memories smash through the dam, and begins over again.


She was walking back from school, the autumn wind whipping leaves along the pavement, rain in her face. She had an umbrella in her bag but had chosen not to use it, preferring the sting of the rain, the water crawling down her back. She was alone, of course; nobody wanted to make friends with her and she wanted to make friends with nobody.

Her home street was already almost deserted in this hour of twilight, the wind slashing across it, a few raincoated figures hurrying by, dim lights in the windows of houses. Her own house was just about exactly like the others, featureless, one of the mass-produced units of suburbia. Her steps slowed as she approached it, but there was no way out, she had to lift the latch of the gate and enter. Up to the front door, then, shoes off – family rule, no outside footwear in the house – and fumbling for the spare key where it was always kept, in the niche behind the letter-box. It was such an obvious hiding place for a spare key that, her father said, no thief would think of looking for it there, and so far he had been proved correct.

She went straight to the bathroom and stripped off her wet clothes, rubbing herself down with her towel, grimacing at the smear of menstrual blood on the cloth. She was early this time round. Her periods had always been irregular, painful, and she could feel the first queasiness beginning in the pit of her stomach. Sighing, she dragged on a sweatshirt and jeans and went to get herself something to eat.

[ Continue to page 2 ]

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Genre:General Horror
Type:Short story
Rating:6.95 / 10
Rated By:27 users
Comments: 2 users
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