Chapter 5

I found out about all of this much after it happened:

The US ambassador to North Korea made an appointment with a high ranking official at the North Korean “palace.” “Sir, we have recently discovered that your country is behind the sudden appearance of werewolves in North America. This is an unforgivable action on the part of North Korea, and it must stop immediately!

“My country considers it an act of war, and will respond vigorously if it happens again. Your government must know that the military forces of the United States of America cannot be matched by your military force. We simply cannot tolerate such an attack on your part, and we will bring all of our military might if necessary against your country.

“That is all I have to say on this subject. My staff and I have been ordered home, along with our dependents. This action will begin today, and will end on or about five days from now. We expect that your country will do the same for your people in America. At this point in time, all North Koreans connected to your embassy in the District of Columbia and anywhere else within the borders of the United States of America will be considered persona non grata and will be expected to leave the United States of America within the previously mentioned five days from today.

“Please make sure that all of the appropriate officials of your government hear the recording of my words that you have covertly made. Good day to you, Sir.”

The next day, several outbreaks of werewolves were reported in New York City. As one might expect, Central Park was the place where they were first noticed. Later on that day, werewolf activity was reported in several of the low-income areas of the city, with the worst being in the Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods. The police department had been stocking up on combat shotguns on the chance that this might happen. They also brought in thousands of rounds of 12-gauge buckshot shells armed with the now conventional steel balls.

All of the radio and TV stations canceled all regular programming to broadcast warnings against the creatures. People were told that these werewolves were man-killers, and people should not take any chances. They should call 911 immediately if one was spotted. The werewolves were described in some detail, but the important point was that they resembled black dogs, and the size could range from as small as a lap dog to as large as a small horse.

Further warnings were to avoid any sort of body fluids that could come from one of these creatures. Their saliva, semen, urine, and feces could cause the conversion of a human into a werewolf simply by absorption through the skin, it was not necessary for a werewolf to bite you to make the conversion from human to werewolf.

It was said that a werewolf could change from the form of a wolf to the form of a human at any time. The phase of the moon had nothing to do with the ability to change, and the creatures were not affected by daylight or darkness, so precautions must be taken at all times.

The stories that werewolves were sensitive to silver were completely bogus, a tale dreamed up by Hollywood screenwriters for dramatic purposes. The only thing that could harm a werewolf, short of complete destruction by fire or explosive, was by iron or steel. Just touching any form of iron or steel would be fatal to a werewolf, but anything else that most people might have would not work.

Werewolves were not affected by crucifixes, so one of them was no protection at all unless it were made of iron or steel. Also garlic, wolf bane, or other herbs were not effective as protection from werewolves. The only known protection was remaining behind closed and locked doors.

Furthermore, a werewolf when in human form could not be identified by inspection as a werewolf. The only way to be sure that what looked like a human was not really a werewolf was for him or her to touch a piece of iron with bare skin. If the suspect could do that and live through the experience, then he or she was still human and not a werewolf.

Therefore, if someone wanted to enter a person’s house, that person should be tested with a piece of iron or steel before the door was opened. No one could be trusted unless he or she proved that he was not a werewolf by touching iron or steel. Even friends or relatives could have been converted to werewolves, but were acting as if they were the same as they had previously been just to get to you to convert or kill you.

In other words, DON’T TAKE ANY CHANCES! Your life can depend on that.

As a result, the 911 dispatchers were flooded by panicked calls. Police were dispatched to investigate the calls that seemed valid, but a lot of people called because they thought that they had glimpsed a werewolf through a window. The police were so overloaded with calls for help, even from people who normally wanted nothing to do with a cop, that the Army and National Guard were called in to help. All most of those people had that was fatal to a werewolf was the bayonet fastened to the end of the rifle. That defense was problematical, but it was all that was available. At least, the bayonet blade was made of steel.

The appearance of the werewolves in New York City after the message was delivered to the North Koreans was enough to trigger a military attack by the American military forces. The first step was the bombing of the “palace” that reduced it to rubble. Fortunately, the smart-bombs that were used were adequate to keep down the collateral damage. A few civilians outside the palace were injured by flying debris, but none were killed.

It turned out that the well publicized nuclear capability of the North Koreans was nothing but a hoax. The Chinese had made a point of that. They did not want an unstable power so close to them to have nuclear-tipped missiles. Therefore, they had warned the North Koreans to expect a massive attack by the Chinese Army if they ever actually had such weapons deployed. However, the North Koreans had done a masterful job of hiding their biological research and production from their neighbors to the north.

Now that they knew what they were looking for, the American intelligence groups had done a meticulous study of photos taken by satellites and had pinpointed the location of the labs and production facilities being used by the North Koreans to manufacture the DNA-trigger that produced the werewolves.

Delta Force went in with some special weapons and wiped out the defenders of the operation. The production facilities were destroyed, and that included the death of anyone who worked there. On the other hand, the R&D (Research & Development) part of the operation was treated differently. Wherever it was possible, the scientists and workers were captured and not killed so they would be available for questioning by experts in the field of biology.

The North Koreans had not had the time nor opportunity to destroy the careful records and research notes associated with the operation, so they, too, were available for study.

It turned out that the original purpose of the research effort was to try to find a way to make super soldiers. If such an agent could be found, then the whole North Korean Army would have been treated with the agent to make them an unstoppable force for conquest, first of South Korea, and then of the rest of the world. Fortunately, they never discovered an agent that would do that, but they did find some other very gruesome agents.

One of the agents they found was the one that converted ordinary humans into the werewolves. This agent was certainly not exactly what they had been looking for, but, of the four agents they found, this was the one that was determined to be an effective weapon.

Of the other three agents they found, the next most useful was one which massively increased a person’s brain power. The problem with it was it worked with only about 2% of the people it was used on, the other 98% died a horribly painful death. The fact that the experimental subjects died the painful death was of no concern to the power establishment, but the fact that the agent was so unreliable caused further work on it to be dropped after nine people had lived through the trauma of being dosed with this particular agent.