Before starting my journey as a horror writer, I did work for several video game and comic book companies as a character and concept artist. Currently, I'm an aspiring horror writer hoping to break into the industry through what opportunity I may find. My writing credits are mostly that of published work in the music and comics industry as well as two self-published books so far, "Hellverse: Shadows of the Abyss" and "Hellverse: Bloodlines of Kaos." Whereas most authors these days cater more to modern audiences, my goal is to rekindle the poetic violence and debauchery of classic literature. I prefer a story to build to something instead of giving everything right from the start.
You can read more by Sean right HERE.
OF WOLF AND MAN
by
Sean Walusko
Five days had passed since I pulled the first bits of flesh off my face; a chunk of atrophied muscle and thick strands of attached sinew connecting my upper cheek to my lower mandible, that I accepted what changes were taking place. The shock of immediate horror had come and gone by the third day when a further examination of the bite on the nape of my neck had ceased to induce such a raucous pain.
Floods tainted in red malady coursed through pathways I once thought inaccessible to human curiosity.
A surge of pain brought my senses to the apex of their voyage, that release of intermittent hunger pulled and begged for release where canine prowess was taken aback by lesser urges.
I smelt more than I wished, peered longer than was necessary and heard creaks upon bits of rot laden wood where vermin scattered and went about their routines. What men saw as inconsequential dealings of happenstance, I plotted as reason to hunt.
It was upon the apex of a full moon within the third month when the affliction came to surface. I’d stayed my night, like many out in the cold winters of the Dublin countryside, when a visitor came to bring with it blessings I wished never to endure. The bloodletting was quick, and the pain washed over like a river emptied in grander waters. Over the next few weeks, I had vomited out entire sections of organ vital to basic need and expelled fluids enough to call for an exorcist. Beneath my fragile skin came pangs of exuberant distress. My ribs had broken thrice over and, where my ankles once sat, were an inverse set of clawed paws not unlike those of a hound. Upon the breaking of bone, and stretching of skin; bereft studied strands of muscle examined by the most prestigious of academics, came blackened bouts of memory missing from my endeavors.
Reports of men, women, and children, devoured and partially eaten by way of disembowelment and cannibal like ritual, had spread from the countryside and to the greater rural areas of whatever nearby hamlet would hear such nefarious tales. This creature, this man in wolf’s skin, had been sought about and hunted to no avail. In its wake were left families grieving behind the closed doors of the Lord’s house. Would-be adventurers with the promise of coin and fortune hunted under cover of night with the hope of killing such a beast. Only such hope never came.
Flashes that sparked from the heated end of loaded muskets did nothing but alert me to the presence of these hunters. Their lead rounds tore through my flesh, yet did no permanent damage. My wounds healed almost instantly as I saw my jaws set upon their throats, gouging their organs and making a meal of them. They screamed in virulent pleadings to be set free of my grasp. And, with a swift crack of bone and vacating of their entrails, I obliged.
By morning, all memories of the previous night’s escapades had ceased and shelter was all that called to me.
I found myself nude and vulnerable as a newborn babe, cradling what sanity I could within the safety of some far away respite. The farmhouse was uncounted for, owned most likely by a widower grieving the loss of a wife and child. What I could see of my externals was covered in blood, not mine by any means. Beside me were three, perhaps four corpses, torn to shreds by evidence of their nether parts vacated from their bellies and their stink still lingering under my fingernails. I gasped in abhorrent terror while suckling their crimson nectar with wanton abandon. Outside the barn, beyond the hazed horizon, I heard, felt, commanded the moons pull to my senses.
I’d dispatched the farmer, along with the ilk of his kin, without so much as a faded memory of their discovery. Only a disjointed collection of gore laden bones, draped with a blanket of stripped flesh, gave countenance to my interaction. They had died slow and brutal, hopeful that their efforts would bring fruition, but ultimately, the sheer will of unnatural change had brought about their undoing. Their efforts were not without merit, however, as I’d lost a tooth, an excess canine, as well as a few finger-tipped talons, during the skirmish. Ultimately, I’d prevailed in gorging them to a grotesque pile of human excrement. Before leaving the barn, I prayed for their ascent to better pastures.
Over the next few months, my hunger grew insurmountable, placated only by the devouring of fresh meat. Each night was an exercise in the limits of physical pain where organ twisted, bone cracked and skin stretched beyond human comprehension. My veins burst, releasing pockets of blue and purple bruises across my skin, only to be covered by patches of rough gray and black hair that riddled my visage. The very sting of the poison that flowed within the deeper part of my afflicted arteries drove me to lash out whilst the stars danced against pitch black skies. Those transformations teetered on the madness of my growing senses; in that with each shredded pull of my own body, came another victim hung from the grip of my lycan jaws.
It was unavoidable.
It was necessary.
When the winter of 1865 came rearing its morose melancholy, I’d outright given in to the beast nested within.
Finer foods no longer held their savory sway and more delicate dishes from Parisienne artisans had lost all luster in the coming months. I yearned for the vacating of my inner linings, to spew forth my guts, lungs and intestines, to become something better, something primal, something unstoppable.
When bones cracked, vision became clear. When muscle tore, lost senses awoke. When skin hardened, all life became prey.
My thoughts were more focused.
Mind only hunt.
Moon change.
Hunt. Kill.
Wolf.
Man.