Lupus Homine

Professor Talbot was overjoyed. The shipment of the supposed werewolf skeleton had arrived!  Now to debunk the superstitious rhetoric and to restore science and fact, he fancied this to be no more than a determined taxidermist's hoax.

There it was, skeleton of the body of a man with a wolf head, laid out in his laboratory with a silver bullet lodged in a rib, ready for his examination. Eager to start his work, he began...

Working carefully, taking measurements and making pen sketches he began documenting the creature, deeply intent on his task.  

Suddenly a loud scream permeated the room startling him, causing him to jerk his hand away, cutting it on a tooth on the skeleton and leaving a deep laceration. With blood dripping from his wounded hand he turned to the source, his housekeeper standing in horror.

"What is all this about?" he cried.

His housekeeper replied:

"Even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night,
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright!"

"Nonsense!" the professor admonishing the servant, "I will have none of that superstition drabble in my house!

She replied, "But Professor, it is evil and must be destroyed, there is nothing but misfortune from that devil that lays there!"

Professor Talbot replied, "There is no more evil in those remains than there are spooks in the attic!  Now get the coach ready for tonight's party and let Mrs. Talbot know to be ready, our time for departure nears and we cannot be late"

The Talbot's coach drove the dark lonely lane through the swamp on the way to the party, there were more well lit and less somber routes, but across the marshy land was the most expeditious.

“Oh the full moon is beautiful tonight what a glorius evening for a party!” said Mrs. Talbot leaning out the window and then turning to her husband she noticed his pallor and with concerned look on her face, she asked “Dear are you feeling alright?"

Sweat beading on his grey ashen face he replied "I am fine, I am fine.... probably too much work". He grimaced and leaned forward, the pain coming now.

Coaches lined the drive at the estate waiting their turn to discharge their occupants, the estate well lit with lamps along the driveway and the orchestra played away with the music and laughter from inside drifting across the gardens out into the swampy surrounds.  In the distance, the sound of a team of horses and carriage at full gallop could be heard, moving closer and closer .

Then the coach appeared, bouncing violently over the cobblestones, the horses terrified and lathered in sweat, a pool of blood for the missing driver, the door ripped from its hinges. 

The footmen gathered the team and calmed them and then grouped around the coach, each in turn looking inside gasping in horror as they peered at the gore that remained in the now empty coach.

"Thats the Talbots coach...where are the Talbots!?! There is no trace of them!  Where could they be?" the men cried out.

Just then, the mournful howl of a wolf carried across the dark expanses of the moonlit moor.


Story:  Copyright 2011 - Mansion at Midnight
Image courtesy of http://serendip.brynmawr.edu