"Jack? Jack, can you hear me?"

"You have to get up, Jack."

"You have to cut it out of you!"

That's my dad, Baron Gregor Alexander Russoff, yelling at me. Dad liked to yell at me when I was a kid, when I'd get caught sneaking a peak at some of the nasty magic that he was experimenting on. Now that I think about it, he caught me a lot when I was a kid.

"Jack, are you listening to me?"

I hated my dad when I was a kid. Well, I guess 'hated' is kind of strong. Children really can't know the meaning of hate, know what I mean? That comes with adulthood. So I disliked my dad when I was a kid, considering he cared more about spending time in his laboratory fucking around with spells then he did about spending time with me. I didn't hate my dad until adolescence, specifically my eighteenth birthday.

"Listen to me! I can't help you, son! I'm not able to do what needs to be done!"

When I first wolfed out, it was scary. Not 'I think I'm gonna pee myself' scary, more like 'this shit's so cool it's scaring the shit out of me' scary. By this time, my father had long ditched us, having sent us to America when one of his experiments blew up in his face. Said experiment involved a book called the Darkhold, the Satanic Bible for Advanced Sorcerers or some shit, which inadvertently triggered the lycanthropic gene that had been in recession since our ancestor had been bitten. Dad was killed by a mob, the nice old Frankenstein-torch-wielding-mob you see in movies, when he wolfed out for the first time.

Or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I found out he hadn't died after all, having moved his experiments to a place called Wundagore Mountain in central Europe. He's dead now, though, this time for sure. I went to his funeral a little over a week ago, after he'd apparently died of natural causes.

"God damn you, Jack! You're going to die!"

But yeah, that's him standing over me, yelling his lungs out. It's kind of funny, what with me lying on my back on the cold stone floor of my ancestor's castle and the ghost of my father talking to me like he's still flesh and blood. Then I realize what's going on.

The reason that dad's been screaming at me all this time is due to the blood that's pouring out of the golf ball-sized wound in my abdomen. I think I've been shot, to tell the truth.

"JACK!"

"Dad, can you shut the fuck up for a second? I think I've been shot..."

"Jack! Thank god, Jack, yes, you were shot! The bullet, it was silver!"

"Oh...fuck."

For Mature Readers Only

#5
August '02

Strange Tales Presents

Werewolf by Night

Funeral Song
Part 5

Written by Chris Munn

I can feel the hairs rising on the back of my neck before he even speaks, his simple presence enough to instill an air of fear into the air. Louisa, her arms wrapped around my neck tightly, tries to fight back her tears as I help her from the prison cell that she'd occupied for days. I want to assure her that she is going to be okay, that we are going to make it out of here alive.

"Russoff, I expected you sooner."

The Transylvanian Count known as Vlad Dracula materializes out of the dungeon's think cloud of mist. I know what he is, the inhuman creature of the night that the nobleman had long ago relinquished his soul to become, but the knowledge doesn't make facing him any less fearsome. His mouth opens wide, revealing the two fangs that protrude from his mouth, and a scream pierces the air.

The scream belongs to me.

"Run, Louisa!" I shout, pushing my wife away from me, toward the stone staircase that rests twenty or so steps down the hall. Knowing how dangerous Dracula is, I throw myself at the creature in hopes that my sacrifice will grant Louisa time to escape. What my lunge propels me toward, however, is not the flesh of an undead abomination, but a wall of stone and mortar, the mist that is the essence of Dracula swirling around me. Regaining my senses, I turn, only to see the one thing I'd hoped to prevent.

The mist form of the vampire lord re-materializes in front of my beloved Louisa, blocking her from the stairway. His fangs flash forward, sinking deep in her neck. I try to scream, but to my surprise no noise escapes my throat. Louisa falls to the ground, dead, a moment later.

"Surely you must have realized, Russoff," Dracula taunts as my wife's blood runs down his chin, "that I would never suffer another being to live in Castle Dracula."

I lunge again, my fury propelling me across the length of the dungeon. As I run, I remove the wooden dagger from my coat pocket, determined to end the life of this immortal adversary. Dracula again fades to mist, allowing me to collide full-force with Louisa's drained body. Her cold body rests in my arms as I attempt to protect myself from the vampire's inevitable attack, but try as I might, I can't pry my eyes away from my dead love. Her face, contorted into agony, reflected what my legacy had done to her. My Louisa is dead, and though it was not by my hand, I am just as guilty as her murderer.

"Just so you know, dear Grigori," Dracula's malicious voice mocks from behind me, "your wench screamed my name in passion as I raped her. Based on my experience, it's always the women you least suspect that end up being whores."

"Monster!" I scream, turning in rage to see the vampire's fangs bearing down on my throat. I fall backwards, catching the descending Dracula with the bottom of my boots. Though his strength is inhuman, and the pressure of his weight feels enough to snap the bones in my legs, I manage to push him back. As my legs extend, my free hand shoves forward, dagger at the ready. To my surprise, and Dracula's as well, I am sure...my aim strikes true.

Straight through the demon's heart.

The look of confusion on the vampire's face as he dies is my only solace. I stand, tears streaming down my face as I look at Louisa's body. My cowardice has killed her, the only woman...

"Jack!"

I turn, bewildered at the sound of another voice. My eyes catch upon that of another woman, this one quite young, in the cell across from the one occupied by Louisa. Her haunted eyes penetrate my soul, the sadness within her touching me on the innermost fundamental level. She is a beauty; her red-hair, though dirty from only God knows only in this pit, still glistens; her voice -

"Jack, you've got to wake up."

- is that of a man's.
-
"This isn't real, son. You're hallucinating, a side effect of silver poisoning."

"What devilry is this?" I ask in bewilderment. "This place truly is the den of Satan himself!"

"Shut up, Jack." The woman continues to stare as a pale mist forms around her body. Rising above her, the mist begins to form a rough shape. The man of mist scowls as he attempts to hold his physical form together.

"What is...I don't understand...Dad?"

"Finally," the mist-man says, "time to move on."

"FUCK! Get it out! Get it out!" I scream, finally realizing what's happening to me. The silver bullet lodged in my abdomen is slowly poisoning me to death, eating away at my insides like a bad case of jungle rot. My dad had managed to shock me back to reality, but now I'm of the mind to think that that was a really bad idea.

"Son, calm down, please. Panic won't help the situation."

"God damn...ooh, man...I'm sorry, but panic is the most logical thing to do right now!" I argue, barely able to move even the tiniest bit.

"Jack, the silver is infecting you, spreading through your body. It's probably already locked up your nervous system, and if you don't get it out, it will kill you!"

Thanks, Dad. Jesus, talk about being no help at all.

Looking back on it (or maybe it's just my way of thinking these hallucinations are something I'm doing consciously), my little European vacation had not gone the way I'd hoped. I'd been stuck in the dungeon for, at my best estimation, about three days. It's funny how slowly time can go by when you've been doped out of your fucking skull on psychotropic drugs, especially when the only thing you've got to keep you entertained are the repeated ass kickings I kept getting from my captors.

The Cult of Nature's Atrocities...such a pleasant name, huh? They'd evidently been occupying the Romanian castle that was once owned by my ancestor, Grigori. I came here on a tip from a man that knew my father, in search of some deep, dark family secret that I wasn't aware of. That alone was enough to scare me half to death, considering that up until now I thought lycanthropy was the darkest secret any family could have. But anyway, I arrived in time to see one of their little cult seances and ended up on the receiving end of a good ass kicking.

It was a couple of hours before my big escape plan was to come into affect. They'd kept my transformations suppressed with mood altering drugs, which addled my mind too much for me to concentrate. I had an ace up my sleeve, though. In just a few hours, the full moon would be ascended into the sky, triggering the full effect of my curse. No amount of drugs were going to be able to hold off the werewolf, and for once I was actually glad that I was going to turn into a feral beast.

"Have you ever heard of the ancient civilization of Valusia, Mr. Russell?" That was Glaucon, all bald and scarred, trying to do his best Christopher Walken impression. I still hadn't quite figured out what his deal was...actually, now that I think of it, I still don't know what his deal was. He'd imprisoned me...freaked when he found out who I was...drugged and beat me...and had treated me to the kinkiest bondage scene I could imagine with a chick I'd previously seen fucking an animal. I couldn't really respond to his question at the time, since I was still pretty messed up by the drugs.

"Valusia existed sometime near 16,500 BC, 500 years before the sinking of ancient Atlantis. It was ruled by a young warrior named Kull, as he was dubbed by his fellow barbarians as 'The Conqueror'. He was constantly at odds with two rival nations, the Picts and the Lemurians, but after a time peace between the three finally began to take shape. It was during this time that our group first made itself known to humanity, as a clan of werewolves led by a sorcerer named the Demonolater, who attempted to fracture the three kingdoms into a state of war. Kull slew the leader of the Valusian Wolf-Men, and it was thought that the group was long destroyed. What Kull and the others failed to realize, however, was that the Valusian clan was one but one faction of our kind, formed during the times of the Elder Gods."

In case you were wondering, yeah, Glaucon was usually this long-winded.

"The two men responsible for Nature's Atrocities long since parted ways, but our goals forever remain the same. The demon responsible for the wolf aspect in man, Jack...the demon you defeated years ago...will become ours to control. You, my friend, just gave us the means to do so."

Glaucon turned to walk away from the cell, addressing the two thugs behind him with a very specific order. "Kill him."

I think it was right around then that the howl erupted from my throat.

"Well, um...ante up, god damn it."

Jessica was always terrible at poker, even after the few years she spent in fucking Madripoor. One would think that she'd pick up something over there that would help her gambling, you know? She couldn't bluff for shit, and there was the tiny problem of the cards wanting to stick to her adhesive fingertips.

"The Living Vampire calls your bluff."

Michael, on the other hand, had the best damn poker face this side of a corpse. Maybe it was the bug eyes, or maybe it was the fact that he never, ever smiled...but he always seemed to fake us out.

"Oh shit, Jess. Looks like Mike's ready to suck some more life out of your bank account."

Now, you may be wondering where I fall on this little poker spectrum. Jess liked to bet big, despite her fallibility at the game, and Mike never bet more than he knew he could win back, regardless of how many times he won. While these two aficionados tear into each other, I just sit back and watch. I'm the poker king around here, because I never bluff and I always bet big. Nobody fucks with me, mainly because I roll too high for 'em.

"Fucking son of Methodist crack whore BITCH!" Heh heh heh, that's my Jessica, queen of the potty mouths. We've been playing for about an hour and a half at this little dive called the Bar With No Name. Apparently, the place was part of a franchise set up by some loser super-villain as a place where criminals could hide out and have a little fun without worrying about John Law. Naturally, we had to show our villain credentials before they let us in the door. Mike and I got in without many problems, as a vampire and a werewolf are kind of automatically assumed to be bad guys. Jessica, however, had to prove that she was retired from the super-hero game. I guess considering that Spider-Woman hadn't been active in about ten fucking years was enough to convince the door guy that she was cool people. So now, seven hands of poker later, Morbius and I are the only ones with money left on the table. Jess downs the rest of her beer, still muttering profanities under her breath.

"Excuse me. The Living Vampire must urinate. Please deal again, but he will know if you look at his cards."

"Tell me again why we hang out with that guy," Jess asks as Morbius floats to the bathroom. I laugh slightly before lighting another cigarette, knowing how rhetorical her question really is. The three of us, man, we're inseparable. The wolf, the bat, and the spider...I mean, how much of a connection do we really fuckin' need?

"So how's the love life these days?" I ask, tossing a wink in Jess' direction. Her eyes roll and a middle finger extends from her right hand, though the smile on her face tells me more than any obscene gesture can. "You know, I think Mike's single now...you two should hook it up, know what I mean?"

"Oh, fuck you, Jack!"

"Hey, does that girl look familiar to you?" I ask, catching a glimpse of a new arrival to the bar out of the corner of my eye. Jess shrugs, lighting a cigarette of her own and pretty much ignoring my question. This chick looks like he had just stepped out of a Harlem stage production of Barbarella, what with her afro almost hitting the top of the doorframe as she walks into our area.

"I got it!" I yell, standing from my chair with a finger extended toward the newcomer. "Deadly Fucking Nightshade!"

"Um, Jack?" Jess starts, tugging on my shirt in an effort to get me to sit back down. "I think you're drunk, sit back down and let's finish our game."

"No way, Jess! I know that chick, she controls fucking werewolves!"

"Yeah, okay, whatever."

"I'm serious, that chick turned Captain America into a werewolf! I was fucking there, I couldn't make that shit up if I tried!"

"Jack, this isn't where you need to be!" Jess continues, only this time something is very different. Jessica's voice isn't Jessica's voice...it's a man's.

"Um, excuse me? Jess?"

"Jack, you're in shock. Living in a memory isn't going to save your life, no matter how comfortable it may be!"

"Jessica, I don't...where's Michael? This isn't...Dad?"

"That's right, Jack. Now WAKE UP!"

"You have to cut it out, son. Dig into your flesh and remove the bullet, before it's too late."

I snap back into reality, screaming at the top of my lungs. The spectral form of my father still hovers over me, unable to do anything but watch me die a slow death. He points to a spot on the floor a few feet away from me.

"The piece of glass beside you," he says, "you have to reach it. Cut the bullet out, Jack. I can't watch my only son die like this..."

The two guards had no idea what was going on as the bones in my body made the obscene cracking and snapping sounds. My face extended as the row of knives grew inside my jaw. Skin ballooned and burst under the force of rapidly growing fur. Within moments, I had been replaced by the wolf, which was grinning a toothy smile at my captors. The drugs in my system had been overpowered by the curse, and for once, I couldn't be happier.

Back in the day, I used to have problems remembering what I did during the nights of the full moon. The wolf would take over, my consciousness would black out, and I'd wake up with no idea what had happened. Since then, I've learned how to control the curse a little, and things started getting clearer. That was a godsend, because there was no way I was gonna miss what was about to happen.

The wolf (I) lunged, the chains that had previously been attached to my wrists and ankles snapping like they were made of paper. The steel bars held the beast (me) for a few seconds, long enough for the guards to turn around and start to run, but a little more pressure applied and they folded like corn stalks.

The wolf was free.

I was free.

The two guards made it about halfway down the hall before the wolf (I) pounced, landing on the back of the first man. Claws and teeth dug into the man's back, bones snapping under the creature's (my) furious grip. The second man continued to run, but the wolf (I) wasn't about to let him escape. Ripping the first victim's head from his shoulders, the beast (I) threw the appendage with all its (my) might. The skull collided against the second man's back, caving in his spine. The wolf (I) howled in victory before bounding down the hall and up the stairs.

Only one thing was on the wolf's (my) mind. Glaucon must die.

The wooden doors exploded outward, surprising the assemblage of cult members. The wolf (I) continued to howl as the men and women ran for their lives, trying their best to stay out of the monster's (my) way. A few tried to fight back, firing shots from their rifles into the fur hide. The wolf (I) didn't stop, though. After roughly three minutes, over a dozen members of the Cult of Nature's Atrocities were dead by its (my) hands. Glaucon, however, was nowhere to be found.

The girl's scream pierced the room like a knife, catching the wolf's (my) attention instantly. The girl, the one that had so willingly taken part in my (the wolf's) rape, was cowering in the corner of the room. Slowly stalking toward the terrified female, the wolf (I) sniffed the air. Her fear was intoxicating, but another scent overpowered even that. My scent, spraying forth from her cunt, so strong that the wolf (I) couldn't help but be drawn by it.

She started crying as the wolf (I) rammed it's (my) drooling snout between her legs, enraptured by the scent mixture of sex, fear, and myself. The wolf whined in sadness. It knew something I didn't, something our link wouldn't share. I wouldn't get a chance to figure out what.

"Russell!" a voice exclaimed from behind, forcing the beast (me) to whirl around. Glaucon, rifle in hand, stood on the staircase that winded up and around, taking aim through the gun's scope. Before any action could be taken, our abdomen exploded from the force of the bullet. The transformation began immediately, and by the time I managed to roll over onto my back, I was back to my normal, human self.

"Come, Juliet," Glaucon said as the girl ran toward the stairs. Glaucon took aim again, determined to finish me off with another shot. The girl, upon reaching her master, placed her hand upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear. What she said, I have no idea. All I heard were the gunshot's echoes, still reverberating through the large dungeon.

"Know that your line will continue, Jack Russell," Glaucon said to me as the two made their way further up the stairs, "if there is any solace for you in that."

I think you know the rest.

"I can't...I can't move," I choke out, my body flailing uncontrollably in my attempts to reach the sliver of glass at my side. Dad just stares at me, a look of extreme sadness plastered across his face.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he says, finally giving up hope, "there was so much I wanted to tell you. So much you didn't know."

"Like...what?"

"The truth, Jack...about what you are. About the curse your family brought upon itself. It was all planned, Jack. Planned from the beginning."

I don't really understand what Dad's babbling about, but something tells me it's important. I make one last desperate grasp, throwing my hand toward the glass shard. Surprisingly enough, I actually manage to grab hold.

"Yes!" Dad exclaims as I pull the instrument of my salvation toward me. "Now Jack, dig the bullet out!"

"Will you...please shut...the FUCK...up!"

I shove the piece of glass, razor sharp corners and all, deep into my abdomen. Furiously I dig, carving chunks of meat and tissue and organs out of my body. The bullet has to be in there somewhere, I have to reach it. I can't die. Not like this, on my back. Not like an animal.

The bullet flies into the air, flipped out of my body by my crude medical instrument. Almost immediately, the feeling starts to come back into my body, the pain subsiding in waves. Dad's grinning from ear to ear.

"You did it! My god, I can't believe you actually did it!"

"It'll take a lot more...than a little fuckin' bullet...to take me out," I reply with a laugh. The wound in my gut begins to knit itself back together, but despite how painful it is, it still feels like bliss compared to the silver.

"I got a question, Dad."

"What's that, Jack?"

"How the fuck am I gonna get home?"

END OF ARC ONE

WEREMAIL BY NIGHT

Well, after eight months of stagnation, Werewolf by Night finally has a new issue. Hopefully, this will take care of the writing block that knocked me off track of this series, and a new issue will produce itself soon.

If not, then I'll see you again in February of 2003.

Chris Munn
8/2/02