The Midnight Hunt

A young man goes hunting with his father only to find out his world is more than it seems.

  Buck Owen followed his father into the woods, clutching the battered rifle close to his chest.  His heart was pounding a frantic beat.  His father frightened him.  He would never admit it to anyone, least of all the man he feared.  Buck hated these nights.  It was a perfect night for hunting; the moon was crisp and clear beyond stark limbs.  They didn't even have to use flashlights.  It was the in-between season; the leaves were gone but snow had yet to fall.  The wind had worked in their favor over the past week by blowing leaves from the paths and into spacious fields where plucked cornstalks still reached towards the sky.  They walked in near silence.  All he could hear were the small night sounds of animals moving, the panting of the dog at his heel, and his father's rasping breath.  Buck knotted his hands around the rifle.  Someday, he promised, he would be brave enough to say no and flee from these nights.  But until then he was expected to be a good son.  Grab a gun, grab his dog, and follow till they found their quarry.

  At the age of seventeen (eighteen the next morning if he survived the night), Buck was the spitting image of his mother, Abigail.  He was much taller than his father now and quite lean.  He had Abigail's finely made cheekbones and expressive brown eyes.  His hair was kept military worthy, never exceeding more than half an inch in length.  That was his father's rule; his father didn't want any long-haired sissies running around his household.  His father Tucker was a big man, thick and solid with short gray hair.  He was a Vietnam veteran, a war hero, and it showed in the deep lines of his face and the speckled shrapnel scars on his cheeks.  Buck wished he could love his father on the merit of his heroism alone but it was impossible.  If Buck hated anyone in the world it was his father.  Tucker Owen was not an easy man to live with.  He was not a kind man.  He never raised his hand to Buck yet it didn't take physical abuse to make Buck wish someone else had done the nasty with his mother.  He hated his father's urge to destroy everything, and more than anything else, he hated the way Tucker kept his mother locked away from the world as if she had to be quarantined.  He half thought that perhaps his father was afraid that if Abigail wasn't kept on a short leash she would spread her wings and fly away.  Buck always wished that she would.  He loved his mother with her quiet grace and understanding.  She was small, almost frail looking, but her muscles were hard underneath her ivory skin.  Her eyes were endless and almost black, her hair long and inky.  When he was a child Buck had played with her hair, brushing it until his father banned him from doing so, expressing the fear that Buck would turn into a f****t if his mother allowed such foolishness to continue.

  Buck wished he was brave enough to spread his own wings.  Someday he would go far away.  Where?  He didn't know.  All he knew was that he would go and he would take his mother with.  He had lost count of the number of times he begged Abigail to take them away.

  Let's go, we can leave him, was his mantra since he turned thirteen and realized that his father was not just strict and unkind, but slowly going mad.  Something was rotting Tucker from the inside, twisting him into a shadow of a man.  Buck had vague memories of good times before his father hated so much.  But those times were past and overshadowed by fear.

  His mother would look at him with such fire in her eyes that time and time again Buck thought it would happen.  She would change into something ferocious and wild and he would shiver with delightful fright at her transformation.  Then the fire would disappear and she would shake her head slowly, smiling so sadly, Not yet, love.  I can't leave him now.

  But why?

  I'm his subordinate, she would whisper though he never understood the full meaning of the word, I belong to him.

  The woods were so quiet that Buck broke out in goosebumps.  He found comfort in the sight of his own breath and the feel of his dog at his side.  The dog had no name; Tucker Owen was no soft thing to allow for the naming of creatures.  The dog hunted, lived outside, and only sometimes when Buck was feeling daring would the dog come inside and sleep curled up at the end of the boy's bed.  Buck often wondered if Tucker didn't name creatures because it would give them life and significance.  Things didn't have names, and things didn't have feelings.  Perhaps that why Buck was always boy, son, or kid...never Buck.  If it weren't for his mother he would feel like some nameless ghost, just another lost figure wandering the world.  He wiggled his fingers in his gloves.  The cold was starting to settle into his joints.  He wanted to go home.  He wanted to return to the small comfort that was his room.  Sinking into his blankets and forgetting the world sounded heavenly.

  He couldn't go yet though.  The state had just recently allowed for the hunting of wolves, and that was their quarry for the night.  When his father had found out he had been near frothing with anticipation.  Tucker called wolves baby-thieves, cattle killers, and familiars of the Devil.  His father assured him that wolves were cowardly creatures; they would sneak onto the property of good Christians and blood the animals.  They were Creatures of the Night, the Beast, and servants of Witches.  The rant had confused him and made his mother shed silent tears.  Buck didn't understand it but when his father wanted blood there was little to be done about it.  And he was the son, Tucker's boy, so he went along with his.

  How his mother had cried...

  Abigail had never liked the hunting.  She hated the trophies decorating their walls.  She looked at them with crinkle nosed distaste and would moan sadly whenever they would bring home a new creature for Tucker to brag about.  In secret his mother told him that it was not the hunting that she found disgusting, for much of their food came from Tucker's forays, but the needless taking of trophies.  There was no point in hunting just for proof of one's own superiority, she told him in quiet anger.  When Tucker had announced they were bringing home wolf pelts, she had gone into a wild anger that had frightened Buck.  He wondered if his mother had finally lost her mind.  She railed at Tucker, threatening to leave.  She sobbed and beat her little fists against his father's chest, I'll kill you if you do it, I swear I will!

  You won't, his father had brushed Abigail away as one would a fly, we both know it's against whatever heathen code you follow.  I dare you Abigail.  Show your son who you really are.

  Instead of fighting she had sank to the floor, crying with a rawness that made Buck feel guilty.  When they left, Tucker bolted the door behind them.  For a moment, just a brief second, Buck had almost thought his mother capable of her threats.  But like always she wilted under his father's will.

  "Look here boy."

  His father's rough voice drew him out of his thoughts.  He shuffled forward quietly, ever the obedient son.  His father was pointing at the ground.

  "What is it?"

  "Don't you have eyes?"  His father's shrewd blue eyes stared up at him, empty in the silver moonlight, "Don't you see?"

  Buck looked harder, his heart pounding, "Pawprints."

  "Bring the dog over."

  Buck slapped his thigh and the dog, a big brindle animal of indeterminable breed, skittered over with alacrity.  His father roughly took one of the dog's paws and placed it against the print, "Lookit here."

  The print swallowed the dog's paw and he shivered, but not from the biting cold night air, "Big."

  "Damn right," there was a whistling sound as his father sucked in a breath excitedly through his teeth, "Damn right boy.  Seek, dog."

  The dog didn't want to.  A low whimper came from the mutt's throat and it huddled beseechingly against Buck's leg.  Buck scratched the dog's head reassuringly; he fancied the dog knew what would happen if they weren't careful.  A wolf, especially one big enough to leave those size of prints, could tear the dog apart.  He saw the image in his head; he'd never seen a wolf in person, only briefly on the television, so his mind conjured up monstrous beasts the size of houses, shredding and tearing everything in their path.

  "Seek."  There was a silent threat in Tucker Owen's voice.  Seek or you'll get the back of my hand.  The dog knew; it tucked its tail and cast about, searching for the scent of wolf.  What did a wolf smell like?  Buck didn't know.  The first wolf he would see up close would be dead, and by then, the scent of death would have washed away all else.  His father would draw his rifle up and with one blast the deed would be done.  Buck wouldn't even have to lift his weapon if this hunt played out like any other hunt he had been on with his father.  His stomach felt queasy; the thought of death tonight made him feel unusually uneasy.

  "We'll find it," his father whispered as they walked, following the reluctant dog, "A sucker this big can't hide from us.  We're bound to catch it."

  "Yes sir," Buck answered evenly.  There was nothing he could do but let his old man ramble.

  "Think of the pelt.  Off an animal this size...seven hundred dollars at least.  Hell boy, that'll pay for new tires for the truck and maybe...maybe even something nice for your mother...she's been so unhappy..."

  Buck was unnerved by the way his father seemed to trail off and come unhinged at the mention of his mother.  His father suddenly turned on him, taking his arm in a grip that was no less gentle than the grip of a bear trap, "This is no ordinary animal, son.  This is one of the Devil's own.  No wolf gets big enough to leave prints like that.  It's unholy."

  "Unholy."

  "Don't mock me boy," Tucker released him quickly, turning again on the path, "Unholy...Like your mother..."

  Tucker surprised Buck with a somewhat wistful look, "God help your mother.  Her and her witch eyes.  Gold help us all.  She'd run right of her skin and leave us, you know.  I have to be strong, stronger than her to keep her on the right path.  She would run in the woods like as an animal and forsake us if I didn't."

  Buck didn't know what to say.  He followed the dog, watching the prints on the ground.

  "When I married your mother she said she would leave that life," his father was half-whispering, "She promised me.  No more singing at the moon, no more wild nights, no more hunting.  She promised she would leave the others like her behind.  I lock her up to keep her safe, you know that?  Abigail has to be kept safe, most of all from herself."

  He didn't really believe that.  He knew that at one point his mother and father had been deeply in love.  His father had been handsome once with blue eyes that sparkled back at viewers from slightly faded photographs.  Buck's mother had hardly changed in appearance from the day she was married.  The only difference he could see was the spark was gone from her eyes and her smile had changed from radiant to drawn and tired.  Buck loved to look at the old photographs when he was a child.  His mother had been mesmerizing in her configuration of lace and silk on their wedding day.  There were pictures of his mother when she was pregnant, his still handsome father doting on her like a knight on his lady.  A few were even taken when Buck was a baby, and his father held him, a softness in Tucker's features that Buck had never seen outside those rare pictures.  Something had changed though when he was a toddler.  His father had changed.  His mother tried to tell Buck that his father had joined in with a hateful crowd, that he was a victim of his own vices, and that his father deserved their support and not their anger.  Buck tried but deep down he hated his father, and blamed his father for their lack of happiness.  His childhood was spent in the protection of his mother.  He was often accused of being a mommy's boy at school but the other kids didn't understand.  They didn't have a father on the edge of a psychotic breakdown, one that Buck feared would take out all three of them.

  "Mom wouldn't hurt a fly," Buck murmured, half to himself.  If Abigail needed protection it was from her husband.  Why his father thought she needed to be saved from herself Buck didn't know.  His mother had a strong stance when it came to self harm and suicide; he could only chalk it up to his father's weird religious beliefs, "And she wouldn't hurt herself."

  "You don't know your mother," Tucker Owned snapped, "You don't know Abby the way I do."

  Buck's heart jumped a little.  It was rare for his father to use his mother's nickname.  When he did there was always a jolt of childish hope Buck felt race through him, as if the use of a fond nickname could change a decade of bitterness between his mother and father.

  "Why though?"  Buck kicked at a leaf that had gotten caught in one of the freakish prints, "Mom isn't like that.  She isn't...dangerous."

  His father sighed, a long, sad sound.  Some of the bloodlust and lunacy had faded from Tucker's eyes, and he looked old, hurt, and tired.  Buck didn't know what to think.  He had never seen his father look even a semblance of vulnerable.

  "She isn't like other people," his father looked at the sky, "She isn't like you or me.  She's something else, your mother."

  Buck considered this and shrugged lightly, "Mom is different.  I know some people say she's weird but..."

  "She's not weird," his old man's voice was strained, "God what fools they are.  They can't see past her pretty eyes.  Poor Abigail.  She has demons in her heart, and no one knows."

  His blood ran cold.  His mother didn't have demons in her heart.  That sounded like more crazy religious babble from the group his father belonged to.  Even the other Churches in the area wanted nothing to do with the radical, insensitive group.  Buck wished he was braver so that he could argue with his father.  Abigail was the most beautiful person Buck knew in his life.  It was his father that wrestled with demons.  Alcohol, sometimes drugs, and hate.  And maybe insanity.

  "Dad..."  Buck fought to find his voice, "Dad...do you really think that about Mom?"

  "It's not a matter of thinking.  I know.  I know your mother."

  They walked in silence, Buck discomfited.  The talk made him nervous.  He felt like he had joined some sort of conspiracy against his mother.  He didn't understand what his father meant.  He knew certain things.  His father thought Abigail needed saving from something.  Tucker spent hundreds of dollars on having their house blessed and cleansed by the leader of the wacko Church he belonged to.  Sometimes his father threatened to have his mother exorcised, but the threat was never carried through.  Buck thought that perhaps even that was too much for Tucker.  Despite all the accusations, until tonight, Abigail had never raised her voice or hands to fight Tucker.  She suffered the ignorance of Tucker's companions, allowed herself to be locked away, and never said a peep about it.  Buck just couldn't fathom his mother being truly dangerous.

  "What is she then, Dad?"

  "I can't...I can't say," his father seemed to be wrestling with something, "It isn't my place to say.  Not now, not tonight."

  Buck was immediately annoyed and frustrated, the knot in his stomach not helping him any, "Then why did you bring it up?"

  "Don't sass me," his father said in a deceptively mild voice that Buck knew could change in an instant, "I brought it up to educate you boy.  Not everything in this world is as it seems.  There is evil lurking in the ones we love, inside ourselves.  I can't tell what it is, but I'm your father and it's my God given duty to make sure you're aware of it."

  "But..."

  "Shhhh," his father swiftly crossed an arm in front of him, "Listen."

  Buck stopped and listened.  At first he heard nothing but the sound came to him.  Thin and reedy, the noise crept over the naked trees until it expanded into a deep throated wail.  The call would rise and fall, reaching an ear shattering crescendo that left Buck shaking with an emotion that he couldn't place.  It was a wolf's song.  He had heard it on T.V. but hearing it from the cheap speakers didn't compare to what now greeted his ears.  It was more than just a howl.  It was a call, an invite, and made him want to break free.  He wondered what it would be like to run on soft padded feet through the forest with only the moon as his witness.

  When the sound faded away he realized he had been holding his breath.  He let his lungs relax and with the exhalation he was seized by a burning hatred for his father, the man who wanted nothing more than to destroy.  Buck wondered what his mother would say if he came home without his father, if Tucker had a tragic hunting accident.

  "Dad..."  He turned to his father only to see Tucker standing there with a longing expression on his face.  It occurred to Buck that maybe, just maybe, his father longed to be free as well.  A little voice inside himself reminded him that would never happen.  His father was a prisoner of his own making.

  "Let's go," the brindle dog whined softly, a terrified sound, as his father pushed the dog insistently with his foot.

  "We don't have to hunt them," Buck blurted, the words flying out of his mouth before he could stop them.  The thought of killing the creatures that sang with such dedication to the moon was revolting to him.  Besides, his body was beginning to rebel, his stomach growing more unsettled and a hot, prickling feeling was beginning to wash over his skin.  His father didn't stop though.  He walked on with a single minded purpose that Buck didn't understand.  Tucker had always been a stranger to him and the hunt was just making that fact all the more clear to him.

  He's possessed, a voice very much like his mother's murmured in his mind.

  Buck watched his father follow the dog and his stomach churned violently and he asked the voice, By what?

  He can't be us so it is hatred he feels for something he can never be that possesses and consumes him.  It was no longer a single voice but a chorus of voices speaking in his head, creating a symphony that rattled with a dark, wild undercurrent that was alien to his mind.  His head snapped to the side as he looked for the issuers of the voices.  He watched the trees with the hope that someone would jump out and yell "Gotcha!'.  Buck had never been a stupid child though.  There would be no one in the trees, no prankster out to get a couple of late night hunters.  He was hearing voices and he couldn't only wonder if the combination of his father's presence and the frightening nature of the woods were driving him crazy.

  And what are we?  Buck asked, wavering in his steps.  Loose dirt crunched under his feet and he nearly tripped over a hardened print.  While his father and the dog travelled ahead, he stopped and touched the print in the ground.  It spread beyond his fingers, the toes of the print pointing forward.  He felt a horrible wave of nausea as he stood up.  It made his vision swim until it looked like his father was not just one man but an army of many marching across the starlit path to create havoc.  Buck tasted bilein his mouth and refused the urge to vomit.  He stood still until he no longer felt like the world was swaying around him.

  What are we?  He asked the voices in his head again.

  The trees themselves seemed to shudder as the wolf-song started again, this time seeming so close that Buck's ears rang painfully and the dog stopped to crouch and piss in trembling submission.

  We'll find out, the voices spoke with grim, determined triumph.  Buck moved with the same sort of purpose.  He pushed forward though all he wanted to do was flee to the comfort of his home, no matter how messed up it was, and speak with his mother again.  He wanted to be seven years old again; at least at that age it was acceptable to climb into your mother's lap and let her wash the pain of the world away.  There was something magical about being young.  Once upon a time in his life Buck was allowed comfort.  Now he was a Man and Men were above their mothers.  Men went out to hunt animals, men locked their wives away from the world.  Men like his father, at least.

  Men hunted wolves.

  "They're here, close," Tucker stopped him, swinging an arm in to Buck's path so that he had no choice but to halt, "Follow me."

  The older man went off the path.  Buck could see the tracks were fresher now and he imagined that if he put his hand into a print he would feel the remaining warmth of the creatures passing through.  The ground was torn up; there was a confusing maze of prints.  Some were smaller than those that the dog left and the largest was much bigger than Buck's spread hands.  He fancied he could smell them too.  It was like the smell of a dog but stronger.  It was unpleasant.  It was wild and it clung to the branches and made the brindle dog's hackles rise nervously.  Buck fancied it was the smell of freedom.

  ...the woods are dark and cold but we are warm together one pack...

  Buck could hardly focus on the shape of his father in front of him.

  ...we ran and ran and ran and Man follows but we are strong and there are more of us and His mighty weapons can do us no harm any longer for we are of the Blessed and tonight the Moon watches...

  "What's wrong with you?"  He hadn't realized that his father had stopped.  Now Tucker owen was staring at him with blatant accusation in his eyes.  It could be no clearer now that Buck didn't want this hunt.  His stomach was turning in his body again and he felt like he was going to throw up on his father's feet.  It wasn't as if the thought wasn't tempting.  His father's iron blue eyes were staring at him, seeing right through him.  Buck wanted for a moment to pull up his gun and make sure his father never came home to harass them again.  He was not brave enough, for he was just a boy and his father was a Man.  

  ...the Man has evil on his heart and we weep weep weep for the child that who grew up poisoned...

  Tucker Owen looked like he was seeing his son for the first time, "You're just like her."

  "Like who?"  He wanted to fall to his knees; sweat was beading on his forehead.  For Christ's sake now would be the worst time for a full on fever to develop.  Here he was in the woods alone with his insane father and he felt sicker than he had in years.  buck had been a remarkably healthy child.  He only remembered once feeling so violently ill.  He had been fourteen and had lost his virginity to an older girl; they had been behind a shed, smoking when they decided to experiment.  It had been clumsy and awkward; it would have been a mostly forgettable experience if afterwards Buck hadn't become so deathly ill.  His father had blamed his mother and Abigail had cried over him, apologizing time and time again for what she was making him go through.  Buck never understood what she had meant by apologizing.  All he remembered was that it felt like his body was trying to tear itself in two.  He had eventually gotten over it, but this...this felt darker.

  "Your mother," his father's voice was horridly ragged, "You're just like her.  You were always her kind.  I tried to raise you right and fix that but you were born from a witch, and God will not suffer a witch.  I want you to know it was never you fault Buck.  The devil marked you when you were born.  I thought God would want you back but your mother made me weak."

  Buck stood in silent agony.  His body felt like it had been taken by a forest fire.  He thought hysterically that his father was probably going to shoot him.

  "Now we'll see," his father pulled the gun out of his hands, "I can smell it on you now, you know that?  I could always smell it on your mother.  She would try and hide from me.  No ma'am, I'd tell her, I can smell you as sure as I can smell a skunk passing through.  But by God she tried to hide it from me.  She tried so damned hard when all I wanted was for her to get better."

  Buck's father turned away and he followed, bleary-eyed, "She smells...she smells like the woods, the sea..."

  Tucker shook his head, "Death.  She carries with her.  She cursed you with it.  It nearly claimed you after you messed with that nasty girl, remember?  Abby said your body was rejecting that evil, and that she could help you if only I would let her.  But I knew what that meant.  You're my son, boy, and I couldn't let her take you down the same filthy stream she swam in.  I told her God would decide.  You would recover or God would take you into His arms.  She begged me but I couldn't...I just couldn't let her take my son..."

  ...it is Death that comes for the Man who seeks to tame the Children for tonight the ancient ones have come to deliver us from the hatred of Man that has killed and maimed so many Children are gone now only their bones cry from the ground where the little ones died when Men came with their guns and greed...

  And they stopped.  They stopped and Buck let out a soft cry, sinking into the ground.  He sobbed without shame.  He wept for all the pain in his life and the pain carried to him through the collective voices singing in his head.  He cried for his madness; Buck had always wondered when he would lose it and now he had and he was surprised to find himself bitter over the loss of his grip on reality.  Buck looked up to see his father watching him with what could be confused as compassion softening his features.

  "Come here," his father motioned, "Come here and look."

  Buck lifted himself to his feet and struggled to stand next to his father, his skin burning and sweat making cold rivers down his back.  With what could almost be parental concern, Tucker guided his on behind a log, helping him sit down with a gentleness that made Buck feel on edge.  His mind urged suspicion but with his body burning from the inside out, Buck could barely focus on anything.

  "Look."

  He did.

  Below him milled dozens of wolves.  They were moving back and forth in some sort of greeting ritual.  Their pelts were of all colors.  There were many wolves with gray pelts but even then they were sublimely different with some the charcoal gray of leftover ashes and some so light that they seemed to be made of spun silver.  Some were white, some near white, and every so often Buck's eyes picked out one so dark that all he could see were the penetrating wolf-yellow eyes staring from the darkness.  There were golden pelts and cinnamon pelts, and he knew deep in his heart those would be the first to fall victim to his father.  Tucker wouldn't want the standard wolf pelt.  His father would aim for the one with sleek fur so black the moon highlighted it blue, the one that greeted the others with enthusiastic whimpers.  Tucker would take the one with bared teeth, whose fur was the color of chocolate and freshly poured cream.

  ...the Man would kill all of us for greed and for fear because this Man fears what he cannot own and he cannot own the child or the woman who was born human but smells of the Children when she returns from her long walks at night...

  Buck knew with terrifying certainty that the voices were speaking of his mother.  His poor mother, locked away, not knowing what was happening to her son.

  ...he would use his gun to kill all of us and kill the young who hide in the earth as he has before and the Children can smell the blood of the young on his skin...

  Suddenly he found his eyes snapped back to the chocolate and cream furred wolf, who was restlessly pacing, her teeth bared.  Buck felt it in him.  There was hatred here, but not all of it belonged to his father.  He was a lunatic to think a wolf could hate anymore than a dog could hate but the way she moved and showed her teeth, scenting the air as if something unpleasant stained it...

  ...see here is a Mother whose little ones were left gutted on the ground and she is endless in her hatred of Man and weep weep weep she did for the ones that were lost to her...

  Lost in the voices, Buck barely noticed the wolves had stopped moving.  But they had, and his father watched on with burning eyes, clinging to the gun he held.  Buck's gun lay at his father's feet, useless and out of reach.  The night was terribly silent without the noise of the wolves.  It felt like a giant quilt had stifled everything.  Something hurt deep inside him, yet he continued to watch feeling as if he could never draw away from the sight below him.  The wolves that had ran to and fro with no organization had suddenly drawn back.  They stood with lowered heads and started deep into the forest beyond them.  There was a shape moving there in the darkness and the wolves parted like a sea to let the creature into the midst.  He stifled a groan of terror; the creature was bigger than any other he had seen in his sheltered life.  It was a wolf, but so unlike the other wolves in size and mass that it seemed alien in form.  It's skull was broad and heavier than those of the smaller wolves and unlike the other wolves, this one's eyes were a cold ice blue.  In the moonlight its fur was a rich golden color, only the sparest amount of black guard hairs spreading over its ruff.

  ...and the ones who were human first come to give a gift to the Children who have been waiting for so long for the Moon to send them relief from the hunting which kills us and makes the Moon cry for her lost ones the ones who were trapped and skinned to decorate the walls of Man...

  His father would aim for the one that waded among the little wolves, sniffing and letting them crawl on their bellies to joyously meet the giant as supplicants would a favored prince.  Like a dedicated royal the massive wolf touched its nose to the ones that were brave enough to approach as if bestowing favor upon them.

  Tucker was crying now, and the sharp guttural sounds snapped Buck out of his reverie.  The guns were on the ground and the old man's head was in his hands.  Buck felt dizziness overcome him and he bent away from the log long enough to vomit.  With only a small amount of sadness did he note that his vomit had left a deep red stain on the ground.  He was going to die; he knew that now.

  "Oh God help me," his father sobbed, "Oh God look how they confuse us.  Look at them, Buck!"

  And Buck looked.  He saw the wolves but when he blinked and looked again all he saw was a mass of people.  Wild haired people, dirty people with eyes that were dark orange, amber, golden, and sunlight yellow.  They were young people, and underneath the grime, they were beautiful people.  They stood still, staring upwards where Buck was dying and where both him and his father were possibly going mad.  Where the golden wolf stood now stood a man.  The man was tall and not exceptionally handsome, but with rough hewn features and short dark blond hair.  He had the same cold blue eyes as the wolf that had been standing there moments before.

  ...and the ones that were human but wolf were Blessed by the Moon and she gave them the task of watching her Children but the human born wolves lost their purpose until now they have been reminded and they come to hide us and make us wolf born humans so that when Man takes his gun and hunts he sees us as HIS children and not as the Children of the Moon...

  "Witches!" His father cried with rage and frustration, "See how they trick us?  See the games they play?"

  Buck looked around, his vision throbbing.  The man with blond hair was looking at him coolly while the smaller, golden-eyed beings moved around him, pacing as they had when they were wolves.  When Buck looked at the man he could smell the scent of sun warmed wheat, honey, and the dusky smell of strong spirits.

  "Look at what you've done to him," the man was speaking to his father, disgusted, "He's nothing more than some dying dog now."

  The brindle dog, bless its soul, had remained with them and whined pathetically at the man who had moments before been a wolf.

  "No offense intended," the blond muttered.  Buck would have laughed at this, the sheer insanity of the situation, if his insides didn't feel like they were going to come clawing out of his skin.  Instead of laughing he groaned and curled in on himself.  He had often wondered why people dying in movies resorted to the fetal position.  Now he understood; in the back of his mind there was the feeble hope that if he made himself small, he could avoid whatever was going to befall him.

  Tucker Owen was a defeated man; the gun lay limply now in his hands like a toy he had grown bored of, "I tried to save him."

  "Misguided," the man shrugged, "You've all but killed him.  That's messed up, don't you think?  You know what they say about good intentions.  They pave the road to Hell."

  There was a muttering in the smaller beings.  They seemed childlike compared to the man, though physically they were now no smaller than he.  Their eyes were huge and staring, soaking in the sights with their new vision.  They struck Buck as infants.  What the blond man had said seemed to upset them.  They were speaking to each other in soft voices, distress on their faces.  Clearly they did not like the current situation.

  Sorry for dying, Buck thought miserably to himself.

  "I wasn't going to let him be like his mother," Tucker looked up at the blond man with desperation, "I wasn't going to allow him to burn in Hell for her curse."

  "Curse?"  The man's lip curled back in a feral expression.  His followers stopped moving, lips drawing back to reveal sharp teeth.  They watched his father with an expression of loathing, a collective snarl sounding from the mass.

  Tucker looked at the ground, shame perhaps coloring his face.  Never once did he look over to where Buck was laying in a puddle of his own bloody vomit.  Buck figured for whatever reason his father was embarrassed.  Maybe he was ashamed that Buck couldn't be 'saved', whatever that meant in his father's upside down world.  Or maybe Tucker just couldn't face the fact that somehow leading Buck out here had been a death sentence.

  "Where is she?" The man's blue eyes narrowed, causing Buck to shiver, "Did you really think I would forget her?  Did you think that you could sit here and sniffle without me remembering?  Lock her away for eternity, and I would never forget her."

  "You leave her alone!" His father's head snapped up and with alarming alacrity, the gun was again in his hands, "I swear if you touch her with your filthy Devil's hands I'll kill you and all your kind."

  The blond man looked unconcerned, if not annoyed, "Put that away, idiot.  You'll hurt yourself."

  Buck was mildly impressed with his father.  Tucker seemed to have pulled himself together and was looking at the stranger with an insane brand of calm, "You won't have her."

  "We won't?"  The man shook his head as if pitying Buck's father, "We had her long before you did.  When you are nothing but dust in the ground we will still have her.  You know that."

  "Mom," Buck startled himself by nearly puking the word, "You're talking about my Mom."

  The blond tilted his head slightly, "She could have saved you if your father wouldn't have prevented it.  I could have saved you, even.  I'm sorry for it.  Where is your mother?"

  "Home...locked away," he whispered.  If he hadn't already been on the ground he was sure his father's look would have knocked him flat.  There was so much loathing in the look that Buck, even in his current state, flinched away.  He almost loathed himself; he felt as if he were giving away a great secret that had been kept between his father and himself."

  "No.  I'm here."

  It was her voice.  It soothed him and Buck realized he could smell her in the same way he did the blond man.  It was the scent of sea salt, pine needles, and the golden sap that dripped from the trees in winter.  He could see her standing there like a vision.  Blood was running freely over her body, sparkling shards of glass gleaming from in the depths of her hair.

  She broke through the window, he realized numbly.  His mother, who had never so much as dropped a glass, had hurtled her body through a window to escape.  She had a terrible beauty about her, her skin glowing in the starlight, glass splinters sparkling across her skin.  Yet as he watched her the cuts on her body seemed to fade as if drawn shut by some invisible cord inside her body, glass tinkling to the ground.  It was like watching the blinds being shut on a window.  One by one the cuts disappeared, leaving only crusting rust-red blood on her body.

  "Abigail, please don't," his father begged, gun still sighted on the other man.

  But she and the man only had eyes for each other.  Something like electricity was passing between them.  It didn't strike Buck as romantic.  It was like watching two friends parted for years reunite.  His mother looked like she was going to jump out of her skin.  She was quivering, her eyes bigger than he had ever seen them.

  "You've been gone so long," the man sounded grieved, "Abigail, why?"

  "Rhaed," his mother spoke the man's name in a breathy, affectionate tone, "I had a family.  I had to think of my son."

  "That man trapped you!"  Rhaed growled insistently, echoed by the ones around him.

  She stood silently, not bowing before the accusation.

  "He kept you locked up.  He tried to kill who you are.  He kept you away from us," the man, Rhaed, motioned around him, "You've let him kill your son, and he's kept you away from Her."

  Rhaed pointed vehemently at the sky, the moonlight reflecting eerily off his eyes.  The moon had no response but hung in the sky as always, silently and Buck believed, compassionately.  Abigail didn't flinch.  She nodded slowly and Buck wished she would say something, at least make an excuse.  But instead she simply accepted what Rhaed was saying, expressing no regret.

  "You're coming back though, right?" Rhaed asked quietly, his voice softly pleading, "We need you now Abby, more than we ever did.  We have to be in this all together."

  "Yes," she breathed, sounding relieved.  She seemed somehow different, more feral.  How had he never noticed the way the light reflected off her near black eyes?

  "Don't leave me," he begged through his pain.  He had asked her so many times to leave with him.  She wouldn't leave with her own son but now she would leave with this man, this wolf, who came out of nowhere and acted as if he had a claim on her.  Abigail was his mother and he had spent all of his almost eighteen years of life trying to protect her and save them from the mad whims of his father.  Now she was going to leave and he felt a burning anger in the back of his mind.  It was the sour feeling of betrayal.

  She looked at him, a soft unreadable expression on her face, "Watch me, Buck."

  And then his mother was no longer there.  It was as if she had jumped forward out of her skin to reveal what lay inside.  There in her place stood a wolf almost as tall as she had been.  It was mostly black with a brown-red undercoat that gave its fur a cinnamon glow.  The wolf was mother, and she was now looking at him through pale yellow eyes.

  ...and the mother shows her son what he could have been with the man's interference Moon marked he is one of her Children but now his body rejects the Change without his mother's bite and he will die a lonesome death underneath the Moon's eyes...

  Buck looked up to see all the gathered beings staring at him and for the first time he realized he was hearing the whispering of their minds.  They thought as a collective but within that current were other voices; their own voices.  They were one but they were their own as well.  Buck wanted to deny the fate they cast for him yet he was so tired now that all he could do was raise his hands to the only person in his life that had tried to understand him.

  His mother laid her head in his arms, allowing him to weakly circle them around her strong neck.  She was so powerful now, so different from the fragile woman he knew as hi mother.  He noted distantly that if she wanted to Abigail could crush his head in her jaws as easily as he could an egg in his fist.  But she didn't do that.  Instead a soft sound came from her wolf's throat, a soft sad whine that echoed deep within him.  In her own way his mother was apologizing to him.  The Voice of the wolves told him this.  she was apologizing for the secret she kept so long from him, for the years he had lived with her and watched their oppression though she was capable of breaking free.  Maybe someday he would have understood but there seemed little hope of him living that long.

  Instead he kissed the wolf on top of her head.  The kiss was forgiveness.

  Rhaed was suddenly there, kneeling next to them, looking at him intently with shrewd eyes, "There might be a chance.  He's not completely gone yet."

  Abigail's ear twitched slightly in response.

  The man rose, looking hard at Buck, "At this point it wouldn't hurt to try.  He's on death's door Abigail.  It has never been in my nature to coddle, and I won't now.  You owe it to your son to try.  Otherwise the fault of his death lies equally with you and that man you call husband."

  His father, nearly forgotten, roared to life, "By God's Grace you will not turn my son into a monster as well!"

  "God's Grace!"  Rhaed laughed, a sound full of thinly veiled menace, "Perhaps if you looked a little bit harder, man, you would find your God in our Goddess and our Goddess in your God.  All rivers lead to the same ocean but you would pollute that ocean with your own ignorance.  How sad I find it that you would deny your only child his once chance at survival based on nothing but the drivel of hateful literature."

  Buck clung to his mother and he could feel her trembling.

  "God will deal with you at some point," his father said weakly, as if his belief in God's divine interference was slipping away.

  That was in Buck's body decided to interfere and copious hot red liquid spilled from between his lips, dripping into his mothers fur and washing it with a brighter shade of red.  His mother didn't move but remained still as he slumped against her.  He wasn't hurting so much anymore.  What he felt now was a sense of heavy fatigue as if he had just been forcibly woken from a far too short night of sleep.  He figured soon enough he would find out if his father was right or not about Heaven and Hell.  Buck supposed he would either hear a choir of angels or feel the fire of demons.  Or perhaps he would feel the cool embrace of a Goddess that had been forgotten by all but the wolves.  Buck was growing to tired to ponder any more and rested his head on his mother's.

  "He'll die soon," Rhaed sounded drawn and tired, "Decide now, Abigail.  You might be able to Change him yet.  It'll be up to Her whether or not he survives it."

  His father cried out wordlessly and the gun swung towards them.  None of them moved, Rhaed and Abigail unconcerned and Buck simply too weak.  There was silence as he watched his father's fingers tighten, unsure of who would bite the bullet.  He waited for the explosive sound of the gun discharging to shatter the night.

  ...tonight she makes right the wrong that was done...

  A shape was moving in the crowd.  The yellow-eyed spectators moved with alacrity, allowing a shape to break free.  It was the wolf whose fur was shades of chocolate and cream, the one whose young had been stolen from her.  She was not human anymore and as the force of her body knocked the gun out of Tucker's hands, Buck's mind was assaulted with raging images.  He saw little ones, wolf cubs that looked no different than the puppies one might see in a store front, with their brains splattered across the ground.  He saw the grieving mother return to her den to find her slaughtered young ones and not even the pack mentality, the shared pain, could fill the hole in her soul.

  He felt no grief when his father's throat was engulfed by the fearsome maw of the broken mother.  Buck didn't shed a tear as his father crumpled to the ground, the mother wolf with her jaws around his neck.  All he did was hold on to his mother as she buried her broad head into his chest.  His father lay on the ground, squirming and dying, and all he felt was immense relief.  Avenged, the wolf disappeared back into the crowd, becoming just another person watching the events with eager interest.

  "It's now or never," Rhaed was watching his father gasp for air through his mangled throat.  There was no emotion on his face, just a remote, alien coldness.

  Buck heard a soft whispered apology in his mind.  He watched as his mother drew back from him.  There was no hate in her light gold eyes, just a plea that he understand.  Buck thought he did.  He was dying and she, maybe rightfully, blamed herself.  He knew with frightening clarity that his mother was either going to cure him or kill him.  Weary, Buck just wanted the pain and the confusion to stop.  All he could do was watch as his mother bared her teeth and lunged forward.

  The pain was unlike anything he had felt before.  It was lightening hot, racing through his body.  Buck shuddered, held up by his mother's grip on his shoulder.  Slowly her teeth sank in deeper, shearing flesh and crunching the delicate bones of his clavicle.  She didn't stop until holes were punched through his shoulder blade, her canines meeting in his body, and he had gone delirious.  A racing white hot pain, like poison, flashed through his veins.  When Abigail pulled away it was with his blood on her tongue, frothing at her lips.  Yet there was still his mother in those eyes, Buck thought as his body fell to the side.  She was still there, waiting to see if her son was going to die.

  There were no angels or demons.  Just the moon.

-----------------------

  Tucker Owen was almost dead.  He knew it and the only comfort left to him after the betrayal of his family was that at least he would be in God's arms soon.  He listened for the voices of the angels but all he could hear was the howling of the wolves.  They wouldn't be quiet.  They kept up a jubilant, ecstatic chorus.  His mind was hazed over, and he wondered what they were singing for.

   He rolled over, feeling his own blood pour over his neck.  His son was lying on the ground, blood pooling underneath him.  Over him stood Abigail, who had been the love of his life.  Lord knew he had tried to save her.

  One day, almost twenty years ago, he had set a trap hoping to catch a fox that had been systematically thinning the chickens he was raising.  He was a different man then.  Tucker had once been a man whose hands could nurse an ill chick as well as they could hold a gun.  He had been a gentle person at one time.  The fox wasn't hated; he merely wanted it moved away from his property.  More than once he had worked with the DNR to remove a pest.  Once he had been a gentle person, never taking a life unless he had to.  What he had done as a soldier emphasized that; his dreams were haunted by the senseless deaths he had seen during Vietnam.  Yet when he checked his traps, it hadn't been a fox that he got.  Caught in his snare was a wolf, greater than any he had ever seen before, and before him the wolf changed into a woman that would become his life.  She was weak and exhausted, having traveled far from her home.  He took her in and helped her, keeping her secret.  Tucker loved Abigail the moment he saw her and she loved him back.

  Tucker was also a man caught on the past and easy to influence.  Seeking peace for the things he had done while younger, he joined a radical Church, lured by their promise of salvation.  His pastor warned him the group was known more for their attention seeking than good deeds, but Tucker was easily persuaded.  While with them he confessed he feared his wife was a witch, telling the Father of his wife's wolf-nature and his fear for his young son.  Abigail would burn in Hell, and so would their son, if Tucker did not try and save them and make sure Church remained the priority in his life.  He believed it, and spent his whole marriage trying to save Abigail, sinking deeper and deeper into the cult's beliefs.

  Now she was standing over their slaughtered son.  Her golden eyes bore into his and he felt a twinge of regret.  He had attempted to tame what could never be tamed.  He had demanded Abigail to become something she was not and now he was reaping the bitter rewards.  The regret he felt was akin to the regret of generations of men and women who learned to late that not everything can be conquered.  Some things are meant to be as they are.

  Then the most miraculous thing happened.  Buck was rising, gasping in the cool night air and before his father's eyes, he changed.  Where once was his son stood a wolf, tall and strong, grizzled black fur shifting into silver under the moonlight.  Golden eyes, darker than Abigail's, stared at him.  There was no remorse or love there, but Tucker understood that.  He had tried to tame the boy as well and now the boy was a man.  Buck stood strong, his injuries now gone.  Tucker watched, his heart breaking for the boy he had failed, as his son came to stand over him.

  The scent of Buck washed over him.  It was the spicy scent of cloves, freshly cut hay, and a hint of cinnamon.

  "Do...right..." He gasped, knowing what Buck's purpose was.

  The wolf's eyes softened.

  I forgive you, Dad.

  Those words were better than the song of angels.  Tucker Owen finally came to terms with his life too late as Buck, his only child, ended his life.

Author's Note

Polite critiques welcome :)