Caveat Venator

This week is the first full moon of 2021 - the Wolf Moon.

The Hunter had been tracking the loup garou through the countryside of Châteaufort for weeks now, from full moon to full moon, starting in August. Always it was the same – he arrived too late. Sometimes it seemed to him that this year of his Lord, 1768, would be a year of blood. This last encounter with the carnage the beast had left behind had been the grisliest. A whole family had been slaughtered, except for the adolescent daughter, she alone had survived. From what the Hunter could assess the family must have hidden her in a secreted closet behind an armoire before the beast broke through the heavy outer door. He had almost missed her himself, except he heard her whimpering, barely perceptible, above the buzz of the flies feeding on the corpses. Wrapping her in an unbloodied blanket he carried her outside and made a perch for her atop his saddle.

Initially he had thought to carry her to a local parish but he was so close, the beast was making a predictable path through the deep woods, that he decided he couldn’t risk stopping. Perhaps tonight he would finally catch up to the beast and end this horror from hell. Besides the girl was about the age of his own daughter, Gabrielle…she was only seven, only seven when the beast found her and his wife in the chateau. He had been hunting, hunting for a meal they would never share.

“Men do not weep,” he said to himself as he brushed away a tear. He had not eaten or slept for two days, afraid to lose this trail. If only he had ridden faster through the night this child’s family would possibly still be alive. No, he would not stop. He would carry this girl along with him. She would become his beloved Gabrielle, he would adopt her and raise her; it would be a second chance. But first he would pierce this monster’s heart with a silver bullet, and while it lay bleeding he would cut that cursed heart out before its very eyes. What love had lost his hatred would avenge.

They proceed at a brisk pace, deeper and deeper into the dark woods. As the day wore on the girl slept fitfully, moaning in her sleep, sometimes crying out, “Papa!” The Hunter remembered finding the father’s savaged body propped against the armoire; the last thing he had done was lock his daughter in that hiding place. “I will avenge you, Monsieur,” he swore.

The night seemed to fall upon them quickly. As they traveled in the darkness the girl became more agitated, crying and tossing. The Hunter stopped, in the darkness he could just barely see, and tried to hold the girl on his arms, to calm her down. He reached out to hold her hand, but she must have put mittens on, because her hands were hot and…hairy.

“Mon Dieu!” he started to cry out, but the cry was strangled in his throat as her fangs tore into him.