7 Doug & Dave #3
In the past, the plague would eventually burn out and run its course in wild wolf packs, and the wolves would return to normal, leaving them immune to recurrent infection, like any other pathogen.
I’ve hypothesized this may be where the moon part of the myth comes in.
The infection is transient, but it’s got nothing to do with moon cycles.
Maybe people just see monsters in the night more vividly by the light of the full moon.
Complications arise now that human populations have encroached so much on wolf territory—same old story with an unnatural twist. This recent Yellowstone outbreak is even more muddled because of the specific strain of the virus that’s running rampant.
The ranger who contacted me sent me a hair sample, and it confirmed my fears.
This variant of the pathogen is unnatural.
It wasn’t supposed to escape the lab where it was created, but it did.
I believe the creator was aiming to change the lycanthropy virus but didn’t anticipate the full ramifications of the end product, as too often happens.
Whatever its original purpose, the entire project was bungled.
The whole experiment reads as someone reckless with a half-assed plan, messing around with a dangerous virus, mutating random genes, just to see what happens—like a child poking at a dog, pulling at its tail and ears until they get a reaction.
I don’t want to think about the possibilities, how much worse it could have ended than some rogue werewolf packs.
Trying to curb outbreaks in wild wolves and limit the spread of this strain to humans is the least I can do to attempt to right a wrong, however unintentional it was.
It’s simple enough to cure the wolves. I have a combination antidote/vaccine loaded into tranquilizing darts.
I say simple, but that’s now, after years of painstaking research and testing, cobbling together equipment, building the gun from scratch.
Cursing the original creator of the problem the whole time.
But it was worth it, I think. It’s a streamlined process now that I can manufacture and keep a stock of the antidote on hand.
It becomes a matter of hunting infected wolves and taking them down for a heavy nap with the vaccine-laced tranquilizer darts.
I retrieve the darts and take any samples I need, and by the time they wake up, they’re as good as new.
Humans, though, remain affected forever if bitten, both historically and with this new strain.
And the infection manifests so differently in individuals, it makes for a hard study and an elusive antidote.
The human vaccine works proactively, at least, but hardly anyone knows about it.
And no human antidote exists for an active case.
A temporary suppressant is the furthest anyone has gotten in the search for the antidote.
For all its unpredictable effects, there’s one thing the lycanthropy virus never does.
Becoming a werewolf doesn’t fundamentally alter a person’s character—a werewolf remains the person they were before the bite.
Lycanthropy simply unleashes and amplifies what was already lurking under the surface, making the feral and free parts of the soul a little harder to ignore.
And it’s the depths under that surface that I can’t resist studying.
I’m no werewolf, but I find werewolves more relatable than most humans.
I think I might be a similar breed of creature.
Some days I win the battle, the beast inside me chained tight.
Other times I fear I’m only a marionette tugged along by a string, unable to be anything but the worst version of myself.
Maybe an antidote doesn’t exist; maybe I haven’t found it because it isn’t possible to cure the kind of monster a person harbors inside their heart.
But I don’t have to stop trying. I haven’t run across many werewolf humans, but they’re out there, and I owe it to them to keep searching for answers.
As night falls and the moon rises, I check and recheck my pack of supplies.
Basic first aid and survival gear, because that’s always a good idea.
Triple the amount of antidote doses I calculated I would need in a worst-case scenario, a safety factor OSHA would approve of.
What’s preloaded in the gun alone should be more than enough.
A bag of cheese crackers and jerky (beef, extra tender this time) and a thermos of coffee because stakeouts get long.
And of course, Goat, because no toddler can leave behind their prized stuffed animal, but no toddler can carry their own crap either.
A distant howl echoes as I shoulder my pack and heft up my loaded gun. Too bulky and too essential for the pack; it has to be carried. Eldi darts into the shadows ahead of me.
“Time to hunt some monsters, Eldi,” I say.
Moonlight reflects off her razor-sharp canines and gleaming eyes as she eagerly leads the way.
This time I leave my Chuck Taylors in the Winnebago.