Full Wolf Moon

40

Logan glanced over. It was Laura Feverbridge, advancing on them, moonlight glinting off the shotgun in her hands. In his preoccupation, struggling with the thing that had been Laura’s father, Logan had not noticed her approach.

Feverbridge, too, turned toward her with a snarl. He advanced a step, snarling again. But then it seemed that recognition burned its way through the madness that had overtaken him, because he raised a hand over his face — perhaps to shield himself from Laura’s terrible expression, perhaps to prevent her from fully seeing the change that had come over him. He retreated, one step, then another, and then his foot slipped on the edge of the cliff. He reared forward away from the edge as a group of thicker clouds began to scud across the bloated moon.

“You lied to me,” she told her father in a voice choked with anger, betrayal, and grief. “After all the effort, all the deception, all I’ve done for you — you’ve been lying the whole time.” She brushed away a tear with an angry gesture. “I found the journal in your private lab. I read your notes. Jeremy was right. Instead of trying to find an antidote, you’ve been secretly working to concentrate the serum — and you’ve been reinjecting yourself with it. Whenever we found a promising new avenue of research, you’ve paid lip service to the advance, pretending to be excited — and then you’ve subtly managed to undermine it. Every time. When I think of the hours, days, months I spent, worrying about you, trying to help you — all wasted, totally wasted!”

Logan tried to rise, realized from the sharp pain in his shoulder that it had been broken by the single, brutal blow from Feverbridge, and sank back. Feverbridge himself had gone still, staring at Laura. Exactly how much he could understand in his current state, Logan could not be sure — but he sensed the man-thing comprehended most, if not all, of what she said.

“And Jeremy was right about the other thing, wasn’t he? You don’t see what’s happened to you as an affliction — you’ve started to enjoy it. All those full moons you said you spent locked in your private room so I wouldn’t be burdened with the sight of your transformation — that violent impulse you said we managed to nullify after you murdered an innocent man in this very spot — those were lies, too. Weren’t they? Weren’t they?” Her whole body trembled with emotion; the shotgun shook in her hands. “And what’s even worse, the killings have been accelerating. They aren’t months apart anymore — they’re days. You killed those two hikers. You killed our very own lab assistant. You killed the ranger, Jessup, who’d begun to have suspicions of his own. Each murder more brutal than the last. And now you’re trying to kill Jeremy, as well — Jeremy, who only wanted to help!”

Suddenly, she raised the shotgun and pointed it directly at her father, openly weeping. “You’ve murdered five people. And that’s all you want to do now — kill again. Oh, my dear God, what kind of position have you put me in? What choice have you given me? No choice at all!”

The moon was now fully covered by clouds; Madder’s Gorge was reduced to a blue-black outline, illuminated by the palest ivory haze. As Logan watched, the madness in Feverbridge’s eyes seemed to waver and lessen. The mahogany hue of his skin began to shrink, grow paler. Maybe now I can get through to him, he thought. Maybe now he will listen. Laura had the shotgun trained on her father, but she seemed unable — or unwilling — to pull the trigger.

“Dr. Feverbridge!” Logan shouted.

After a minute, Feverbridge turned from Laura to him.

“We know the truth now — all of it. This can’t go on. Will you let us help you? Can you stop yourself, work to undo what you’ve become? Or are you going to keep on killing innocent people to satisfy an ever-growing bloodlust? Or… are you going to force your own daughter to kill you?”

As Logan spoke, Feverbridge stood motionless, like a statue. The red light died away in his eyes. The sense of wrongness, of nature perverted, that Logan had sensed emanating from him eased. He seemed to be wrestling with a deep inner conflict. He opened his mouth, but it was a low whine, not words, that came forth. He turned back toward Laura, her shotgun still pointed, tears streaming down her face, and his expression softened. He lifted one hand, reaching for her almost tenderly. At the same time, he took one quick step backward, then another — and then disappeared over the face of the cliff.