Chapter 2

I didn’t have long to wait. It seemed like only moments later that I was facing an arc of monster dogs or wolves. Hell, I couldn’t tell the difference by just looking at them, and I really didn’t think that it made any difference. All I could say for sure was that I believed that the creatures were going to kill me if I gave them the chance.

All of the creatures were larger than the largest dog that I had ever seen. Based on what I had seen on TV, they were larger than dire wolves. Well, I was not about to take any chances. I aimed at the nearest creature and fired my pistol. There was only a mild WHOOSH! of air coming from the gun as the bullet was fired.

This bullet is generally shaped like the common pistol bullet that everyone is familiar with. The big difference is that the bullet is coated with a very thin plating of copper that is rubbed away as the bullet is expelled through the barrel. Therefore, there is some bit of exposed steel by the time the bullet reaches the werewolf.

The copper plating eases the movement of the bullet down the barrel, acting very much like oil does when two metallic pieces rub together. That reduces the wear by the steel bullet on the steel barrel, yet peels away enough to allow some portion of the steel bullet to come into contact with the flesh of the werewolf. The werewolves are immune to any other metal but the “cold iron” of the bullet or of a knife blade. Why? Nobody knows at this point, but the fact remains. The stories of silver being the metal of choice are just a fabrication by the movie script writers imagination.

I hit the animal in the head, and it dropped to the pavement immediately. I assumed that it was dead, but I would worry about that later. The remaining three creatures ran toward me, though not at full speed. I quickly changed my aiming point and fired again. Ah, another head shot, and another werewolf was down.

I was now facing two charging wolves, both on my left side. I swiveled enough to face them, but only had time to fire one more shot. This shot was fired in such haste that I only clipped the beast’s shoulder. The bullet disappeared somewhere into the night, but that creature also fell immediately to the ground.

Fortunately for me, my knife was pointed at the last wolf, and it leaped at me. My knife blade hit its rib cage and did not penetrate, but it did cut a long gash along its chest between its two rows of teats. About all I had time to note during the attack was that this werewolf was female. I didn’t know the gender of the three other creatures.

I had no time to try to block that gaping mouth and mind-numbing teeth before it grasped my neck in its mouth. It died, apparently from the knife slash, as it tried to clamp down on my neck. I was lucky in that my neck was protected by the scarf! The jaws closed on the scarf instead of bare skin, and that undoubtedly saved my life!

As the teeth closed on the scarf, they came into contact with the steel mesh screen. The teeth got no farther than the mesh in the scarf. They seemed to turn into powder as they closed on my neck. I was bruised by the clamping action of the jaws and the impact of the werewolf, but no tooth penetrated the scarf. I fell to the ground and banged my head hard enough to knock me out for a few seconds.

When I came to, the first thing I thought of was, “I need a steel helmet with padding inside.” Thank God that all of the werewolves were now dead; otherwise, I would have been easy meat for them while I was knocked out. My knife had flown one way and my pistol went the other. I had no trouble finding either one, but I was scared for a few moments.

I was still inside Sterling’s jurisdiction, so I called them to report the battle with the werewolves. I also called the Massachusetts hot-line to report werewolf attacks. I identified myself and asked them to send somebody to report on the skirmish on Rt. 12. Very shortly thereafter, Sterling police and Massachusetts state police showed up.

Not far behind were several TV camera trucks and three helicopters from Boston. I don’t know who called them, probably the Sterling police. The death of four werewolves had to be welcome news all over New England. While I was reporting what happened to the state police, there was a puff of smoke at each of the dead werewolves and suddenly there were four nude dead humans lying on the service station apron. Luckily, all of this was caught on camera, so we now had a full record of what happened to dead werewolves.

It was obvious that two of the bodies were male and two were female. Probably, the edited film would appear all over the world. I knew how the film would be edited for showing over most of the world, but I did wonder what the Muslim TV would do with the naked women. All of the bodies were identified through the FBI fingerprint library. Three of the people were from New England, but the fourth person, a woman, was from Canada. We assumed that she was a tourist who had been trapped somehow by the werewolves.

Over the next few days, all four bodies went through an autopsy. The startling thing was that the woman from Canada was pregnant, and the fetus was that of a wolf! Since the woman had disappeared about a year ago, she must have been fertilized while a werewolf by another werewolf. The question was why did she change back to a human upon her death, but the fetus did not change? Was that because the fetus had never been human? That was enough to convince us that we had to kill all of the werewolves—we sure as hell did not want to leave alive a breeding pair of werewolves!

Here I go again! I was interviewed by a gazillion scientists and technical people. Everybody was delighted to learn that just a scratch by an iron implement was enough to cause the immediate death of a werewolf. The human body of the werewolf that I had shot the glancing hit in the shoulder still showed the bleeding scratch from my bullet, but the bullet had not at all penetrated the wound. Did that mean that just brushing against iron could kill a werewolf, or did the skin have to be broken. The smart money was on breaking the skin, but we needed more data to have a definitive answer.

I did score one major point by proving that protective clothing could be made from steel mesh and cloth. A research crew at the Natick Laboratory was put to work on the design of the machinery needed to make a fabric suitable for pants, shirts, shoe uppers, gloves, and hoods. I spent a lot of time in Natick going over with the technical people what I thought should be incorporated in the clothing. I was promised a full set of the outfit as soon as a prototype could be made. At my request, they made gloves the first item of interest.

It was four weeks later that I was called in to try out a pair of gloves. They were awfully close to what I really needed. They should have been called gauntlets instead of gloves because there was an extension that I had not thought of that would work in place of the bracers. I tried on the prototype, and they fit so well that I asked for them to be used on my next patrol. I would try these out right away and let the lab people know if any changes were needed.

During that four weeks, I had walked the length of Rt. 12 between Leominster and Worcester without encountering any more werewolves. We weren’t sure that me not encountering werewolves meant that we had gotten them all, but we had no positive way to find out. Somebody suggested a tracking dog, and I thought that was a great idea. However, we had no way to provide a scent for the dog to follow, so that idea was shelved, at least at the moment.

The period of zero apparent activity from werewolves dampened the enthusiasm for further work on the subject. We rocked along for another month without any incidents that we could attribute to werewolves, so the project was canceled. However, I was lucky in that the Natick Lab had been able to finish one full set of protective clothing. They gave it to me as a parting gift with a little ceremony at the Natick Lab. I thanked them for all of their effort, and damned if I wasn’t moved to tears. They seemed to really care about doing the best job they could for me!

Three days after my TDA was canceled and I returned to regular duty, there was a death on Cape Cod that looked exactly like it had been done by werewolves. The governor of Massachusetts pushed his political weight around and I was again sent on temporary duty to try to get rid of these werewolves. The trouble on I-190 had been bad enough, but werewolves on Cape Cod was an order of magnitude worse!

Winter was approaching, so there were not many tourists to inconvenience, but the territory had to be cleared by the next spring, or there would be economic hell to pay! So much depended on a quick solution to the problem that I was again put on TDA to clear out the werewolves. This time, there was no foolishness about setting up a committee to handle the situation. I was given what amounted to a free hand and ordered to “get rid of those damned werewolves!”