The love heart was cut from red construction paper, and it hung on a curve of thin clear plastic that allowed it to bounce and sway in the breeze. The fan fastened to the high shelf on the adjacent wall would catch it as it swept over in its slow arc and for perhaps ten seconds the heart would look fit to burst from the wall.
Jennifer watched it as she waited.
The full arc took about thirty seconds and for twenty of those the heart remained passive, untouched, and unmoved.
She had to smile.
The paper heart hung from amid a mass of post-its, notes and drawings that appeared to have been created by the local primary school. Over the board in large letters cut from colourful paper were the words “Welcome to Carlin Cove.”
The train journey had taken them most of the day. They had started before the sun had shown its face and now it was threatening to disappear behind the hills on the horizon before they got to their destination.
She felt the bench under her shift as he sat, it was a sturdy bench but not quite sturdy enough.
“Be ‘ere in a minute.” He barked and she glanced at him. That’s all she could manage these days, a glance, but that was enough. He looked like an English Bulldog that someone had overfed; then shaved. His jowls had the veiny redness of liver taken from a fresh corpse and his eyes bulged in constant surprise. His hair was thankfully quite sparse, thankfully because where she could see it the colour was of something pale with sickness.
She turned back to watch the heart and waited.
The taxi arrived in good time for country folk, which is to say it took about twenty minutes. Then it took another thirty to finally arrive at their destination.
The boarding house was a picturesque building that had once been a waystation. It still supported a public house, a small restaurant and a dozen or so rooms and if it were not for her travelling companion Jennifer would have been overjoyed at the prospect of staying there a week.
Across the lot behind it were the rocks that kept the beach at bay and beyond that the sea. Overhead the sky was a deep blue that paled to a grey at the horizon; a storm was on the way.
“Humph.” Rover said beside her.
She ignored him and pulled her back from the boot of the taxi.
Inside the place was just as quaint, it had the beams running across the ceiling and the uneven floor under their feet. The bar was set unusually low as if the clientele were shorter than average, not that Jennifer had witnessed such a phenomenon, and the people seemed friendly and welcoming.
“Brookes, room for two.” Fido said, and the barman spared her a glance she thought might have been sympathetic before disappearing into a backroom. He returned a moment later with a brass key about six inches in length that looked as though the lock it belonged to had been installed by the original builders. Jennifer took it and the barman smiled at her.
It was as obvious to her as it seemed oblivious to others.
People would glance from Brutus to her, and she would see their faces shift. Sometimes it would be a subtle change, a slight tilt of the lips or a widening of the eyes, but sometimes it would be dramatic; a scowl would change to a smile.
She believed the people themselves were not conscious of this change, neither was Rufus, but to her it was always as clear as the hatred she felt for the man she spent her life with; the man whose name she never allowed inside her mind.
Minutes later they were deposited in the room that would be home for the coming week. Two windows flanked by a matching set of dressing tables offered a view to the narrow stretch of beach and the large expanse of ocean.
Jennifer breathed it in and ignored the grumblings from Butch.
It hadn’t always been this way.
There was a time, back when he still had a name, when she quite liked him. There was a time before that when she loved him; and then a time, a little further back still, when she was actually in love with him. She never thought this could change, she certainly didn’t think it would change so fast.
His natural assertiveness became common rudeness, and his laid-back calm became slovenly and unkempt. At some point he transformed from a free-thinking and curious young man to an arrogant and argumentative old man; and as much as she thought on the subject she could not understand how or when this happened.
Half an hour later she watched him be fed and watered and they retired to bed. She watched him for a while, the loose skin under his chin quivering with each snort of breath, and then turned her back to him and tried to sleep. Her night interrupted by snoring that sounded like the breaking of waves and breaking of waves that sounded like freedom.
Jennifer woke to silence.
The moonlight reflected by the waves undulated across the ceiling as the surf roared in the distance.
Beside her the bed was empty and for a moment she did not move; the sound of the waves was mesmerizing, and the absence of her husband made it magical. There was no sound other than the far away waves, no one crept around the old buildings hallways and no settling sounds came from the building itself. Everything was in slumber. The minutes slipped by into an hour and still she lay alone.
Quietly she swung her legs from the bed and stared out through the window at the clear night sky. She wasn’t certain why she intended to pursue her husband into the unfamiliar night. It wasn’t out of concern or a sense of duty. Perhaps it was merely curiosity; she just knew she would.
Perhaps he had found some poor woman who found his paunch and bark alluring.
Not likely; but the thought amused.
The door opened silently and after less than a moment’s thought she decided to leave it unlocked. She doubted anyone other than herself and her wayward husband would be skulking around so late; and besides there was little to steal. She took a dozen steps down the corridor and paused, the rough carpet felt gritty under her bare feet and for a moment she thought of all the filthy shoes caked in who-knew-what that had traversed the corridor.
Over the last few months these thoughts had become more invasive, and she suspected that this rumination and the anxiety she often felt about it were a response to Caesar’s changing personality.
Decision made she rubbed her feet against the carpet in defiance to the anxiety and continued her way down the hallway. Twenty feet and she turned right to where unusually ornate stairs for such a building curved around to the ground floor. She paused a second to listen.
She wasn’t sure, the sound may have been her imagination, or it may have been a sheet being disturbed by a fitful breeze; but it sounded like the murmuring of many people, or the shouting of many more muffled by distance, or the thick old walls of an old waystation.
The anxiety she now felt had little to do with real or imagined dirt.
She paused, and again considered turning back to her room with its beautiful but eerie sea view.
A little further, she decided, a little further; but quietly!
The stairs were broad and curved around to the ground floor in a steady sweep of deep blue carpet. Above them a window allowed in the light from the full moon held in the near cloudless sky. Below them she stepped into the wide corridor that ran the whole length of the ground floor, beginning at reception and ending in the glass doors that led to the conservatory tacked on to the beck of the old building.
The sounds were louder now, and certainly not part of her imagination.
She walked the length of the corridor to the conservatory doors.
Her reflection stared back at her, and Jennifer took a moment. She looked far younger than her forty-two years in the long t-shirt she always wore to bed, the Minnie Mouse emblazoned on it striking her with sudden embarrassment; she stepped closer to her reflection. No, no she didn’t look all that young, she just looked like she wanted to be.
She watched her eyes harden and her jaw set itself into an expression of recrimination but before the thought evolved into something more, she saw movement in the darkened conservatory.
The first movement was of something quick and low to the ground, while the flurry that followed it was a furious gaggle.
Jennifer pressed her face against the glass to follow the movement as it moved at an angle perpendicular to her view, the gaggle of activity drawing her eye away from the low movement that skulked close to the ground.
The conservatory was huge, large enough that she could barely make out the far side of it in the gloom. Rows of plants sat in stone planters, some reaching high on trellises while others piled out like green waterfalls. The gaggle moved away from her between the foliage, spreading out along the far side of the conservatory.
She watched them and did not see the shape moving closer; and the gaggle had not seen the shape double back away from their search. Jennifer thought of villagers with pitchforks and torches and that made her think of beasts and scientific mistakes. She did not understand what was happening in the conservatory, but she knew now it was better in her room with a locked and barricaded door between her at this madness.
She backed away from the conservatory doors and was preparing to turn and scamper away when she saw something dark block her view through the glass. It grew like a black stain on a lace tablecloth, and then the wood of the door bowed inwards, and the glass shattered.
Shards rained down around her and Jennifer found herself sprawling with her hands against the carpet. Tiny cuts covered her legs and hands, none of them deep enough to cause concern but everyone deep enough to draw blood.
She felt no pain; she felt nothing except sudden debilitating terror.
The creature that climbed through the doorway filled the hall from wall to wall. Two huge paws padded forward, and she saw powerful muscles move under a sleek dark grey pelt. At first, she though it was a bear, but then she saw its face, a long muzzle that resembled a dog and a part of her brain knew instantly what she was looking at.
She pushed backwards, leaving streaks of blood on the carpet.
Her brain shut down, preferring to lie dormant rather than accept what her instincts had told her. Gunfire boomed through the corridor, around her holes appeared magically in the walls as if the two things were not connected in her mind. The beast bellowed as a hole appeared in its side, bright blood a geyser. It drew back its head and howled a sound she had heard in many a horror film. Its teeth gleamed as more gunfire accompanied more spilt blood.
The beast swung one paw, and someone was toppled back into the conservatory. The gaggle of men behind it raising their weapons. Its eyes turned to Jennifer, wide and surprisingly disarming eyes that seemed filled with their own fear. Instinct raised Jennifer’s hand in a useless attempt to ward off the beast as the beast lowered its head, thrashing in what must have been death throes.
She felt the sharp point of its tooth pierce her palm and the back of her hand burst as it exited. The bones of her hand were driven apart, one bone bending until it shattered.
Jennifer screamed as the pain broke through her brain’s malaise.
The gunfire was deafening, each shot a shock wave over her, and her vision turned red; then black.
The local newspaper carried the story and for the briefest time the national news showed an interest. For the next week reporters visited the small village called Carlin Cove for soundbites but by the following week the interest had all but disappeared.
The disappearance of Peter and Jennifer Brookes was considered an accident at sea when locals reported that on the morning following their arrival, they had chartered a small boat to tour the coast.
“I told them I’d be willing to go along as skipper,” a local reported, “but that fella was just too dang arrogant to accept… Not that I want to speak ill of the dead ‘o course.”
Most who knew the couple conceded that Peter Brookes had become difficult over the last few months. He had been attacked by an animal on a trip some months earlier and there was speculation the trauma had caused some psychological injuries. This led to the idea that Peter had snapped and done away with himself and his wife.
The police looked, the coastguard searched, but sooner or later there had to come a time when lack of interest and resources forced them onto more immediate concerns.
The she-wolf walked in circles around her lair, eyeing the stout steel gate that held her in confinement. Occasionally men would approach the gate warily and throw in food, but they would never get too close. One had and she had taken his arm, the memory of his flesh still lingered, and she would recognise it when she tasted it again.
When she wasn’t the wolf, she was a woman, and the woman started her confinement with the pleading and the begging but eventually she had given in to the wolf inside her, the wolf knew what to do, the wolf was patient. The woman had learned that she and her mate had been led here by promises of treatment and though her mate had lied to her he was still her mate, and the she-wolf remembered his death. They had all lied to her, her mate, her captors; the whole world it seemed, but she felt no bitterness and no anger. She did not rage in her underground lair; and though they might think of this place as her cage, but she knew different.
They kept her confined out of fear, but they knew this space was hers and when she found the opportunity the village above would become hers too; until then she would wait.
She was, after all, a patient creature.
She lay on the earth facing the gate and rested her muzzle on her crossed paws.
It concerned her that she did not know what they wanted of her, why they had tricked her mate and why they had confined her after his death. She knew they were afraid of her, she could smell the fear in the village above even through all the earth covering her, so the rewards must be great.
She hoped they were because she intended to make them pay the highest payment.
Eventually Carlin Cove returned to normal, the reporters left, and they were once more less than a footnote even in local news. The fishermen returned to their trawlers and the farmers returned to their small farms.
An outsider, if there were any in the village, would have seen the eager anticipation in the eyes of the locals and, if particularly observant, may have heard the occasional whisper about The Festival; but little else. The Festival itself would likely raise no great interest, festivals were common in rural communities and usually amounted to little more than the re-enactment of half remembered pagan practices with the addition of cake and burgers offered on side-stalls.
Most would think that if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all; but if these hypothetical visitors had hung around, and if the locals hadn’t moved them on, they’d quickly find out that they’d never seen anything like this one; and they would have been thankful for it.
Construction began at the Northern most part of the harbour on the third day of the month, traditionally this would continue until the twentieth when the horseshoe of wood and steel built over the cove’s waters would be required for use, and not a day later.
The boats that usually used this part of the dock were moved elsewhere and the platforms were cleared and painted. Then the integrity was checked, the docks would have to take a great deal more weight than usual, and then the tiers of benches around it were constructed. As usual concerns were raised about the possibility of collapse and building was halted when divers were sent into the darkness beneath the waves to check the steel supports. The Council approved the diver’s findings and building continued; if all things went as planned this was set to be the most memorable Festival ever.
As the day approached eyes were set searching for outsiders, none had been seen but the locals could not be too careful, and people were selected to act as guards at the roads leading into the village. This was not a job people fought for, especially for this particular Festival, but it was necessary. They all knew these people would miss The Blessing and so would have to be well rewarded in the coming year. On the morning of the 20th Carlin Cove woke to a glorious day, the small community rose early and most busied themselves in preparations for the day. The main high street was little more than a lane that followed the curve of the cove, from this another street ran out from the coast at right angles and from this ran other roads like whiskers. From the air the village looked a little like a stylised drawing of a bull’s head, with its horns pointing towards the cove and its chin towards the hills that effectively isolated the place from further inland.
As the village approached midday the shops began to close and an hour later the village was a ghost-town. As the evening wore on families began to emerge once more, all dressed in their festival best, and made their way down to the docks. People would meet in groups and an anticipatory murmur swam though the villagers as the benches began to fill.
Jennifer Brookes knew none of this, she did not know she had made national news and she did not know she was dead according to it. She also had no idea that preparations were underway, though she knew something was happening above her, she could sense this much, but she knew none of the specifics.
The first indication that anything was different was when no one arrived to feed her. At first this realisation caused her panic, then hope, then panic again. Perhaps her captors had decided to let her die, perhaps they had been caught and her survival depended on clever interrogations by dedicated police; or perhaps the time had come to find out what they wanted her for and she couldn’t decide which option was the one that brought most hope; and of which she was most afraid.
She did not know if it was day or night, but as she was herself again, she assumed it was day. There were also no guards and of a night there always seemed to be at least one man sat a safe distance from the gate.
Jennifer didn’t exactly remember this fact; it was closer to say that she dreamt it. She believed that she dreamt of the she-wolf’s actions and thought it likely the she-wolf dreamt her own. In the daylight the she-wolf slept, while of a night the woman would. She knew that throughout the night the she-wolf would pace and plot, sometimes testing the gates strength or terrorising the guard behind it, but always Jennifer would awake rested and more relaxed that she had any right to be under the circumstances.
Jennifer had faith in the she-wolf; it was herself she was worried about.
She heard a noise from above, a heavy door shifting, and she peered around the floor of her cell. In the corner was what was left of her clothes, Minnie Mouse distorted beyond all recognition. She pulled the rags to her and dressed as best she could. Most days she would sit in the gloom naked, her nudity no longer the issue to her it once was. Had the wolf taken her modesty from her or had her confinement? She wasn’t sure, but she knew she did not miss it.
She stood and waited as footsteps walked down stone steps.
She was different now. It was not just the confinement that had changed her, it was not just the wolf. The woman she once was had died a death of a thousand cuts, and those cuts had begun long before the visit to Carlin Cove.
The men approached the gate and produced a key. One carried something folded over his arm and as the gate opened for the first time of her captivity, she considered her options. There were three men and she thought that her chances of getting past them was good. She felt the slumbering wolf in her mind smile a toothy smile, anticipating carnage no doubt, but Jennifer knew that above them the village waited, for something; and she thought that she was an integral part of that something.
There was no fear in her anymore and she realised that there hadn’t been much fear in her for a very long time and the single most terrifying thing she had ever seen was what she had eventually become.
She was the monster now.
Jennifer did not know she was smiling until she saw the shock and fright in the men’s eyes, one of them stopped his approach and another backed away from her slowly. The third licked his lips and held out the item he had carried into the cell with him. It was a simple white dress. She stripped off the remnants of her nightdress and took the dress from him.
It did not seem important that she was naked and alone, it did not seem important that three men stood there watching, all she could think of was the wolf slumbering in the back of her mind; and the distinct belief that it would take very, very little to wake her.
The small van pulled away from the building and turned left onto the road that led towards the docks, the journey would take little more than five minutes. Sat in the back, the three men flanking her, sat Jennifer dressed in white, her eyes focused on the closed doors and the thin sliver of light that managed to find its way between them.
The men were silent and so was she, so when the crowd saw the van approach, she could hear their cheers. She felt her body shift as the van slowed, then turned and backed up. The men looked at each other nervously, then at her.
She wore no restraints and at first, she thought this a foolish oversight, but then she realised as she heard the crowd that there was little hope of escape.
She knew that now she should have been afraid; but she wasn’t.
The doors opened and the light poured in, she squinted raising a hand to shade her from the glare. Her fingers were slim, and she was struck by their elegance. She had not seen herself since her transformation and she wondered whether the wolf was the only transformation she had endured.
Unbidden she moved forward and slipped from the back of the van, the three men hurried to catch up, furtive glances between them betraying their unease. When Jennifer stepped into the light, she saw the crowd for the first time.
It must have been every person in the village sat in neat rows in a semi-circle around her. Before her was the ocean and further than that the red streaks of the sky as the sun began to set.
Around her the cheering petered out as the village watched. Jennifer did not know it, she would never learn this fact, but collectively the village took a breath at the sight of her.
She looked the same as she had when she had arrived in the village those short weeks previous; but she was a perfected kind of same. Her shoulders were broader and waist slimmer, she stood taller, and her chin was raised as if in challenge. Somewhere in the crowd a woman turned to her husband and used the word “regal,” somewhere else a child muttered “angel,” and somewhere else still a man said “beautiful,” and with these words doubt washed in waves through the crowd.
One of her guards pointed and she walked forward, a ladder led to a platform that was suspended in the water at the centre of the semi-circle. She took it. It occurred to her that none of the men had touched her during the journey, not once had one placed a hand on her to guide her or hurry her on; and she knew this was out of fear of her, not out of fear of the wolf inside her.
Moments later she was on the platform and the ladder was removed. Jennifer turned in a slow circle. Even if the wolf woke it would be unable to reach the dock, it could not leap from the platform and would find no purchase in the water.
Perhaps she should be afraid, she thought and then she smiled.
Another time perhaps, she thought, and this thought brought on laughter.
A murmur broke through the crowd, a sigh of anticipation that flowed until people began to stand. Jennifer’s laughter was replaced with confusion, the crowd’s eyes were not trained on her but somewhere behind her, somewhere out over the waters of the bay. She turned.
At first, she didn’t see it in spite of its size. The waters spread out from the twin horns of the dock until it met the red stained sky on the horizon. Either side she could just make out the land of the cove that hooked around creating the isolation the village enjoyed. Amid all this was a black mass that she originally took for a small island somewhere out in the middle of the bay. On it she could see trees swaying but there was no breeze she could detect with her newly developed senses.
Then she realised that there was no breeze and those were not trees that swayed; and that what she saw was no island.
Then there was more movement, the whole mass seeming to shift.
No, it was the platform she was on, she told herself, the water had moved, and the platform had shifted.
But then the thing tilted to one side, dipping into the ocean as the other edge lifted into the air high enough that Jennifer could clearly see under it to the sky beyond. Then it shifted the other way and Jennifer’s jaw dropped open in amazement.
It was a creature; and it was rising from a sitting position.
Its bulk swayed back and forth as it moved closer, its detail uncertain against the dying light behind it, its shape uncertain because of its constant movement, but its size; this became more apparent each moment.
It towered over the dock and dwarfed all it surveyed. Around her the crowd fell to their knees in supplication, the murmur breaking into individual cries of joy. She thought of Fay Wray being tied to a stake as an offer to Kong and everything made sense to her now.
The creature was close enough that she could start to pick out details.
Her breath quickened and her heart began to pound. She could not pick out a shape because it had none; it was a mass of flailing appendages as if made up of a multitude of creatures. It was as if Victor Frankenstein’s less talented brother had invaded an aquarium with needle and thread. There was no order she could discern, no logic to the writhing tentacles and hard-edged fins. Here she could see the mass of muscle that might have been a thigh, while there she saw the shovel flatness of a fishes’ tail.
As the creature moved into the harbour the crowd began to chant. They were not in a language that Jennifer could understand, but the purpose of the words was clear, nevertheless.
They were praising it; they were praying to it.
It turned in a slow arc, and Jennifer could make out its head and in its head an eye discernible by a huge curve of glistening black. She could hear noise from it now, a chittering she associated with the clicking of crab claws only far lower in tone. The chittering grew and the crowd grew quiet. It turned to her, and Jennifer could see its maw surrounded by a multitude of mandibles clattering against the curves of stake like teeth. The teeth parted and inside more things squirmed.
Its head twisted and lowered towards her, the things inside its mouth reaching for her with a life of their own. Jennifer screamed and the wolf inside her woke.
It was Jennifer who leapt from the platform, but it was something else that landed on the flesh of the sea-beast. It was not the wolf exactly, but neither was it the woman it inhabited. The wolf lived while the woman slept, while the woman lived while the wolf slept; but there was a moment in the in-between when both were awake, and both saw the world through the same eyes; and it was this Wolf-Woman who climbed the sea-beast. It was the wolf who rendered the seeking tentacles into threaded flesh, while it was the woman who grasped them and climbed further. Hand over hand they climbed and fought, and with each foot gained the Wolf-Woman’s legs became leaner and fingers shorter. Claws slid from pink human flesh and into the sea-beasts scaly side and newly grown fur was matted with the brine of the deep.
What emerged next to the sea-creatures head was no longer a woman but a She-wolf with a hunger; and sea food was on the menu.
The She-Wolf dove for the beast’s black eye; claws slashing and teeth gnawing. The crowd screamed in unison, the sea-beast thrashing in agony as the Wolf-woman ate her way through its eye and into its skull. Tentacles writhed and struck the dock. The wood was splintered, and people were dashed aside. The force of the sea-beast splintered their bones and burst their bodies. Many more hit the cold sea and were dragged under by the debris. Some ran in terror while many more stood transfixed watching the death of their god. These too were crushed under its death throes.
Against the setting sun the God of Carlin Cove shuddered like so much meat as it began to slide back into the sea from where it came. Its coils of tentacles dragging the bay, and many of the villagers, along with it.
When Jennifer Brookes stepped from the sea the sun had begun to rise. She was naked once more, but she was used to it now, the wolf never left her fit for company, and the morning sun dried her almost as soon as she stepped onto the beach.
In the distance she could see the massacre of twisted wood and flesh that was the dock and she walked towards it. The cool waves lapped at her feet and washed away her footsteps in the sand, she neared the edge of the village and cut across the beach. There was a slow rise and then she was on the southernmost point of the main road that ran along the coast; she took it.
The buildings she eventually encountered were silent. Jennifer wondered if many had survived the night before, and she wondered how the encounter might go if she came across someone who did. She smiled to herself and inside her the wolf smiled too.
Jennifer crossed the road and walked towards a tiny clothes shop, still closed. She looked around and found a rubbish bin. Moments later the shop window was in shards and an alarm was sounding. Jennifer waited, looking up the street, then down it. No inquiring heads poked from doorways and no curtains moved aside for interested eyes.
She stepped over the glass and into the store.
She selected a sun dress in her size but found it to be too large, as well as shorter than she’d expected. She found something that fitted better but was dismayed to find this one was shorter still. She supposed that this was something she would have to get used to. She found some shoes, had a similar problem, and eventually had to settle for sandals.
It was probably for the best, she thought, I’m tall enough as is.
Across the street was a newsagent. This time Jennifer found that a good hard push was all that was needed to persuade the lock to give, and she stepped inside.
She looked at the date on the newspapers there for a long time. So, it had been almost six weeks. She looked through the paper but when she got to page seven, she stopped, and her knees buckled.
The headline read “Couple Presumed Dead” and under it was the picture of a smiling couple. She was dressed in white, and he was in a jacket and tie; Jennifer looked at the man’s face.
“I’m sorry Peter,” she said and carefully tore the picture from the paper.
She carried the picture with her as she left Carlin Cove; if there were any survivors of their encounter with her; they didn’t show their face, and for this Jennifer was very glad.
She was far too tired; and for the moment at least the wolf was still full.