Wolves and Men

The fire died slowly; the pain ebbed as the ocean tide at night. It was an eternity for her in that hell of hot electricity that seemed to course through and fuel the fire that would have consumed her had it not been for that one friendly hand.

She looked up and saw her savior. It was that British Officer.

She calmly thanked him and stood up as he assisted her. She immediately realized that she was now much taller than he was. She looked to see if he was in fact standing, which he was. She saw shreds of a deep sari at her feet on the cool grass.

She then saw what had become of her. Her toned, slim, dancer’s legs had been replaced with powerful, though very hairy ones. Her hands had elongated into claws and her whole body was naked but covered in long hair, almost fur.

She wanted to panic. But there was nothing left in her. She was exhausted, too exhausted to call for help or demand answers. She was hungry though, very hungry. She could suddenly smell every cat in the nearby buildings and their scent made her mouth water.

She was a monster. But for some reason she was amazingly calm about this. She turned toward the British Officer. “What do you know about this?” She asked while holding out her hands.

The British Officer nodded, though he had a very shocked expression on his face. He bowed and his form partially melted, only to be reformed again in the form of a familiar child’s nightmare. Then again, she knew that she was the same. And the fact that this man in front of her knew this would happen, and only offered vague warnings was enough to infuriate her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked coldly, “Or do you prefer seeing me this way, to gloat and revel in your victory?”

The once British Officer shook his head, “I have no joy in watching what just happened to you and I will explain everything. But first,” He half melted and became his human self again, “we need to go someplace a little more private, don’t you think? I’ll explain everything.”

With that he threw a thick blanket around her shoulders and told her to hunch over. He guided her to a car and asked her to get in the back and hide there as best she could. There was not a whole lot of space for her to fit, but she managed to wedge herself into the back seat of the vehicle somehow. The blanket was warm, but she was in no mood for rest. She wanted answers and all she could do was wish for this trip to be over so she could get those answers.

The car soon slowed down and parked. The door opened and a hand helped her up and out of the car. She was told to hunch over as the blanket was pulled down over her features. She was forced to be guided blindly by the British Officer.

A door opened and she was inside a warm building. There was light that filtered through her blanket. “Stay here a moment.” The Officer said. She was half tempted to throw off her blanket and confront this man here and now, but that wasn’t wise and she knew it.

The old stories telling of those that had been cursed with what she had now become were all she could think about. How villagers would hunt and kill these amazing predators that seemed to at once take on the form of animal and then man. The nightmares that those stories had created in her as a little girl came back to her in vivid detail.

There was one such story where a young pair of twins only a year or two old were carried away from their village one dark moonless night. The parents had searched for their missing children for days, nights, and eventually months. The mother died from grief at the loss and the father became a village drunk and the source of pity from those around him.

Then one night many years later, the father was drinking a strong beer when suddenly a terrible growling was heard outside the village. In his drunken stupor he stumbled to the door, “Is that my little girl? My Little girl come home?” He cried into the still dark night. He was only answered by the terrible growl and like a man possessed he stumbled toward the horrible sound. “It is my little girl! You sound so cold Haimavathi, show yourself! Let daddy make a fire and you can warm yourself inside our home.”

The man was half mad and ran out the village gate. The growls turned to savage tearing and the man screaming in pain and agony filled the night. The villages lighted torches and ran to where the commotion was coming from.

Their torches lit up a scene of horror that she had hid deep under her covers from as a child. The fire lit up two large creatures. Their fur was colored like that of Bengal tigers that roamed the area nearby, but they were at least ten feet tall. Their bodies were twisted and contorted to have a very human appearance and hanging from their powerful jaws and claws were the bloody remains of the distraught father, lured to his death by the abominations.

The villagers were able to chase away the creatures and a funeral pyre was built for what they could recover of the man’s remains. They burned him and spread his ashes with wishes that he might find peace with his family in the afterlife and that his false hope on the night he died would not keep him from his place among the Gods and his wife. The two creatures never returned and were never seen again.

That story had always terrified her and whenever she was bad all it took was a spirited retelling to make her wish that she hadn’t misbehaved at all because she didn’t want to get carried away by such monsters.

Now looking down at her own hairy body she could do nothing but think that instead of being carried off by one of those monsters, she had become one. Only her fur was a deep rich brown, there was no gold or black at all. What had happened to her was something different than what those stories told of.

“You can take off the blanket now, we are alone, all the shades are drawn, and the doors are all locked,” said the Officer.

Ansuya pulled the blanket from her body and let it fall to the floor. “May I see a mirror, please?”