Good Monday to you all! Hope you had a great weekend!
My little blog today is actually a bit of flash fiction I wrote last Thursday at my Kingston Library Writer’s Group. Our estimable leader, BJ Gillum, always gives us writing prompts during our meeting, to sharpen our wits and give us a chance to hone our writing chops, encourage ideas and help each other out in case someone is in the ‘stuck’ position in their writing.
So, I have a little tale, encouraged by my fellow howlers: Toneye, Michelle, Becky, and all you others (You know who you are!) 😉
I hope you enjoy my little contribution and remember – you can get an idea for a story anywhere, any time. Trust your gut, guys!
The three inch claws dug into the bark of the tree, digging grooves four feet long. The bugs skittered out from the rents, giving the creature the chance to press his snout to the rips and lap up the insectile protein running around the bole.
The moon was full, the rays seeping through the burned and warped branches that now passed for the world. The apocalypse had happened months earlier, and what the bombs and weapons of mass destruction did not decimate outright, it warped and distorted that which survived.
The creature had been caught during his transformation, the eye-searing blast and subsequent deafening roar engulfing him as he made a desperate attempt to outrun the all-consuming light. He made it to an old badger’s den and dove in, head first, pulling his legs into the damp, root entangled cave just as the evaporating wind and blast hit his location.
He had no idea how long he lay there, only that it seemed like an eternity, his fur-covered arms firmly gripping and crushing his legs up against his chest, head buried beneath one armpit.
The silence and lightening at the den opening was what finally coaxed him out of his refuge. He almost wished he had stayed underground.
Crouched on all fours, he put his nose into the wind, lips curling back from elongated canines, scenting the air, trying to find anything familiar. The woods were gone; blackened, burned shrubs, singed grass and gnarled stumps now the only things in sight for as far as he could see.
Giving into his fear, he howled;
AAAARRRROOOOOWWWWW!
then held his breath, waiting to see if he got a reply. Nothing. Terror began to grip his brain, and in desperation, he attempted to ‘change’, but his body refused to comply. His desperate search began.
For the past seven moons, he’d been travelling across the country, finding some places not as desolate, others even worse than his original home. Every night, he would find the highest point and pointing his nose to the now yellow/red moon, would call out:
AAAAARRRROOOOOWWW! AAAARRROOOOWWW! WHUFF! WHUFF! WHUFF!
Yet never received an answer. Though his brain was still human, thinking and functioning like a homo sapien, his physique was forever locked into it’s animal state; the condition he was in the night his world ended.
Tonight, he once again climbed to the top of a barren hill, pointing his muzzle toward the moon, and began to howl, but, something stopped him cold. A smell – a scent that was similar to his – blew across his face on the foetid air. He turned toward the smell and gave out one of his most vocal bellows:
AAARRRROOOOROOOOROOOOOWWWWW!
This time, in the near distance, there was a response:
AAAAWOOOWOOOWOOO!YIP!YIP!YIP!
The crushing loneliness disappeared in one fell swoop. Giving out high ‘yips’ in response, he bounded toward the encouraging cry – the world’s loneliest werewolf was alone no more.
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