The Nouveaux Lycanthrope

List One: Birthday chatoyant, decadent, luxuriate, spellbound, thrill

The Nouveau Lycanthrope

2,114 words

Doctor Dempsey got out of his car and surveyed the long road lined with bungalows. What a way to spend his birthday.  He should be at a restaurant, enjoying dinner with his wife. Instead he was on emergency call out.

He peered at the number on the gate of the nearest bungalow. Even illuminated by the street lamp it was hard to read, so small and dirt-encrusted was the sign. Number twenty three.

The doctor sighed, returned to his car and drove slowly up the street, counting the bungalows until he reached number sixty two. The moon emerged from behind a cloud as he parked his car and took his medical case from the boot. It startled him with its brilliance. He glanced up. A full moon! Wispy clouds made changing patterns on its face and there was something in its chatoyant coldness that made him shiver.

The doctor made his way up the uneven path. At least the moonlight enabled him to avoid the potholes and encroaching weeds. He paused at the door. Should he ring? He looked doubtfully at the bell, which hung forlornly at the end of a couple of wires. Then he noticed that the door stood ajar. He pushed it open and entered the bungalow with trepidation. The air inside was cold and smelt of urine. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“Mrs Helen Stuttard?” he called, not wanting to frighten the old lady who had telephoned for a doctor.

“Yes, dear, I’m in here.” Her voice was frail.

“They gave me your address at the emergency-call centre,” he said as he stepped into the shabby sitting room.

“That’s all right, dear. I’m glad you’ve come.” She sat huddled in an armchair by an unlit electric fire.

“It’s very cold in here,” Dempsey said, and reached out to turn on the fire.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” she said. “I don’t need a fire; I’ve been given the injection.”

He stared more closely at her. By the light of a dim bulb, he could see that she was unusually hairy.

“You must be a Nouveau Lycanthrope,” he said, fascinated by her strange appearance.

“A what?”

“You’ve been genetically modified not to feel the cold,” he said.

“That’s right, dear,” she nodded happily.

Dempsey frowned. The Medical Council had refused to countenance the injections without sufficient research, but the Government, desperate to reduce CO2 emissions, had over-ruled them. “Why have you called emergency services, Mrs Stuttard?” he said. “Has the injection made you feel unwell?”

“Ooh no, I had the treatment months ago, Doctor. Look, I’ve got a lovely fur coat.” She rolled up a sleeve of her cardigan and he could see that her arm was thickly covered in long, grey fur.

“Then why have you sent for me?” he asked. He noticed that her voice was becoming husky and he wondered if she had pleurisy.
“I’m feeling a bit odd. Last time I felt like this I ate the budgie.” She looked forlornly across the room to where an empty cage stood, its door dangling from a broken hinge. “Poor Benjie, he was such a dear little bird. I only meant to kiss him, but I came over all queer and bit his head off.”

Dempsey stared at her, appalled at such decadent behaviour. Then he noticed that her appearance was changing. Her face, originally merely whiskery, was now sprouting hairs all over, so that her eyes seemed to be peering at him through a hoary thicket. More worryingly, her mouth was protruding into a muzzle. She was beginning to look less human and more like a wolf.

“What’s happening to you?” he gasped, feeling a shiver of fear.

“I don’t know, Doctor, that’s why I’ve sent for you.”

His mind raced, trying to remember everything he had learnt at medical college. “Perhaps a sedative might help,” he said. He unpacked his bag and started to rummage through the contents, desperate to finish his visit and escape.

Far away he heard the sound of howling. It made his blood run cold.

“What was that?” he said, spinning round to face the old woman.

Her expression became blank. “I don’t know, Doctor. I can’t hear a thing.”

Nervously, he crossed to the window and looked out at the moonlit street. For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of movement at the entrance to the nearest side road, but when he looked again there was nobody there. The little hairs on the back of his neck prickled and he gave a startled jump when the old woman spoke.

“Excuse me, Doctor, please would you pass me my walking frame. I need to go to the toilet.”

Dempsey gave the old woman her walking frame and watched her struggle to her feet and hobble out of the room. A few moments later he heard the front door open and shut. What was going on? Had the crazy old biddy left the house? He hurried to the window, again, and saw her tottering slowly down the road to where shuffling figures were making their way towards her.

He packed his bag hurriedly. Medical transgression or not, he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

He opened the front door and realised that his escape was blocked. Elderly Nouveau Lycanthropes were approaching him from both ends of the road. Some were completely unclothed, thick pelts providing ample protection from the cold night air. Their faces in the moonlight looked so lupine that he realised, with a thrill of terror, that he was looking at werewolves.

He turned to seek sanctuary in the house, but the door was shut and though he pushed against it with desperate strength, it did not yield. He had no alternative but to try to get to his car.

They were at the gate now.

“Let me through, I’m a doctor,” Dempsey yelled. He seized the wooden gate and pushed it hard.

“A nice, young doctor, yum, yum.” There were murmurs of approval.

The gate slowly opened against the pressure of bodies. It unbalanced an elderly woman, who crashed heavily onto the pavement and started to cry.

“He’s hurt Daisy!”

“Ooh, what a brute! Call himself a doctor?”

The mood of the crowd became ugly. Dempsey could hear growling and feel hands clawing at him as they tried to stop his progress.

“Has everyone brought their teeth?” said an old man, who was blocking Dempsey’s way. He was obviously the leader. He held himself more upright than the rest of the shambling throng and seemed to luxuriate in giving orders. He carried a walking stick as if it was a weapon.

“Yes, Colonel, but they don’t fit in our mouths,” said one of the pack. “Not when we’re like this.”

The whole thing had been a trap, Dempsey realised, and he cursed the fate that had brought him to this place. He was past the Colonel now and nearly at his car. If only he could escape, what a tale he would have to tell the Medical Council. Nouveau Lycanthropy would be finished.

He heard the Colonel say, “I’ll show you how to do it.” Dempsey tried to turn but he was too late, the stick was brought down heavily on the back of his head. It must have had a weighted handle, because he fell, half-stunned, to the pavement.

Immediately the mob tore his coat off and started attacking him. It felt as if he was being pinched. He turned to try and fight them off and realised that his attackers were holding their false teeth in their hands and trying to bite him manually. Most were ineffectual, but one managed to get a painful grip on his nose and another was gnawing at the skin above his jugular.

“Ooh, my fingers are killing me,” moaned a voice. “We’re never going to kill him this way.”

“We managed to kill a cat last month,” said the Colonel.

“Yes, it turned out to be my poor little Tiddles.” A woman started sobbing.

“Yes, yes. We’ve apologised about that, Enid,” said the Colonel irritably. He turned to Mrs Stuttard. “I know it’s not playing by the rules, but have you any knives in your kitchen, Helen?”

“Yes, I’ll go and get them.” Dempsey heard the sound of a walking frame scraping along the pavement as his erstwhile patient departed. Oh my God, if the ineffectual werewolves were to have knives, they would kill him with ease. With an heroic effort he managed to shake off his dizziness and stand up, with a small werewolf still attached to one arm.

He made a dash for his car, banging her heavily against the bonnet as he did so.

“Oh my Gosh, the doctor has killed Mary!”

The dazed werewolf lost her grip and in the commotion Dempsey managed to get into the car. Where were his keys? Oh my God, where were his keys? His mind raced in panic, and then he remembered that they had been in the pocket of his coat. The coat which had been pulled off and now lay on the verge.

He locked the doors as the pack crowded around, banging uselessly against the windows and trying the handles.

“We must stop him driving off,” said the Colonel in full command mode. “Jim, you and Enid lie down in front of the car.”

“I’m not lying in the road,” protested Enid, “Not with these hips.”

“And I’ve got a dodgy knee,” said Jim. “Why don’t you use Mary and Daisy? They’re on the ground already.”

The Colonel issued orders, and with much heaving and arguing, the two incapacitated werewolves were dragged into position against the front wheels of the car.

“What about the back wheels?” said Jim.

“I’d already thought of that,” said the Colonel huffily. “Mrs Haddock? Please wedge your husband’s wheelchair under the back bumper.”

“What? I don’t understand? How?” A nervous looking woman was holding the handles of a wheelchair in which a hunched figure sat wrapped in a blanket.

“Like this,” said the Colonel, grabbing the wheelchair, bumping it down over the kerb, then turning and tilting it, so it was jammed against the back of the car.

“But he’s still in it,” wailed Mrs Haddock.

The pack clustered around the car.

“I bags his kidneys,” said one. “I need something soft - I broke the spring in my teeth, trying to bite the fellow.”

Dempsey stared at the dashboard, trying to look like a man who hadn’t lost his keys. If the pack was to search his coat, he would be dinner.

There was a commotion outside as Mrs Stuttard reappeared with a bag of knives. The Colonel handed them around.

“I’ll slash his tyres,” said Jim, jabbing hard. The knife ricocheted off the rubber and stabbed him in the leg. “Ouch.”

For a bizarre moment Dempsey worried about the number of casualties that would be arriving at the surgery the next day.

“Has anyone got a sledge hammer?” said the Colonel, looking around hopefully.

At that moment a mobile phone started ringing. It took Dempsey a few moments to realise that it was his phone. The call centre must be ringing with details of another patient. Unfortunately, his mobile was in the pocket of his coat and the pack was starting to take notice. He sat spellbound by the knowledge that his end was near.

The Colonel picked up the coat, took the phone out of the pocket and listened to it for a few moments before turning it off. “I wonder what else he’s got in here,” he said

Time seemed to stand still for Dempsey as the werewolf searched his coat pockets then, faint and far away, came the sound of a cock crowing.

“I’ve found his wallet,” said the Colonel. But the others weren’t listening, they were all standing, facing east, to where the dawn was breaking.

“And his keys.” The Colonel lifted them up triumphantly. The pack took no notice but started to collect their wounded. The two werewolves lying in front of the car were helped to their feet and supported away; Mr Haddock’s wheelchair was dislodged from the back; and Jim limped off with his arm around Enid’s shoulders.

“There’s still time,” called the Colonel to his departing troops, but even Helen Stuttard, the bait in the trap, was making her way back into her house.

The Colonel glared at Dempsey. Dempsey glared at the Colonel. Then, without another word the old soldier accepted defeat, put the wallet and keys back into the doctor’s coat pocket and padded away.