Midnight Snack

Some People turn into werewolves from time to time without the least desire to do so. Moonlight is what does it to them. The moon that matters in cases of involuntary lycanthropy is not the full moon, as many imagine, but the rather lopsided moon that rises exactly at midnight from five to twelve nights later, depending on the season. On that night, the unfortunate victim, who knows from bitter past experience what to expect, tries to be in the area that is his to haunt or range; he knows what difficult problems he encounters if he is late. Western werewolves, with their wider and less populous terrains, are somewhat less troubled by this consideration; Connecticut werewolves must be very careful, indeed.

We are, it happens, concerned with a Connecticut wolf; and on this particular night of the midnight moon, he was late, by reason of a flat tire incurred just as he left home. Now, halfway to his destination, he was obliged to park his car and make a dash for the trees; for the midnight moon was already rising and about to cast its pale glare over the hillside. He was running through an orchard when the light struck him; poor fellow, he emitted a low moan. He hurried on; the moon rose higher above the subdivision. Our Connecticut chap's moan became a subdued howl; his hurry became a scamper and then a lope. He raised his face---or was it his muzzle?---to the source of his torment. Exhausted, he dropped to his hands and knees---or was it to forelegs and hind?

It was the latter; and now the sleek gray wolf loped with lolling tongue and blazing eye toward the cemetery of the First Unitarian Church of Darien, which was his beat. (Students of lycanthropy have long disputed the question of what happens to the human's clothing when he assumes lupine form. We are now able to provide the definitive answer to this question. The clothes, being in a very real sense a part of the man---they make him, in fact---are involved in the transformation and become the pelt of the animal, which, in turn, makes the animal. Vide the leopard that cannot change its spots or, for that matter, the wolf whose sheep's clothing is a fruitless disguise.) Anyone seeing this beast from a distance might have supposed it was someone's German shepherd on the make for some German shepherdess; but it was, in fact, poor Freddy: by day and on all nights save one each month, a very respectable and much respected research chemist, who was, moreover---how deplorable in a wolf!---a vegetarian. Thus, inconvenience was conjoined to jeopardy; for, obviously, his community status was endangered by his compulsory excursions into quadrupedality. Furthermore, he was at a loss how to explain things to his girl, whom he hoped, not unnaturally, to marry. She was a sweet, conventional, quite proper young lady, who was not likely to receive his news with equanimity. But it had to be told; and one evening, when they were nice and cozy in her apartment, he managed to get it out into the open.

"Darling," he said, "there's a big problem we have to talk about. Have you ever noticed that we never have any dates or even see each other on nights when the moon rises just at midnight?"

She pondered the question. "Why, no," she replied. "I hadn't noticed. Does the moon rise at midnight sometimes?"

So Freddy had to explain to her first about how the moon rises 48 or more minutes later each night, and all that, before he could go on. But he stuck with it, and his summation was as follows: "Well, it's true that we don't meet on those midnight-moon nights. And the reason is that ... well, darling, I know this will come as a shock, but once a month, I turn into a werewolf."

As he had feared, she didn't believe him; she took it as a joke and tittered. "Oh, Freddy. You, a wolf. And you want one whole night a month to be unaccounted for? But I'm not complaining---you can be a wolf when the moon rises at midnight. That will be your night to howl." And she tittered again.

"You poor sweet kid," he said gently. "I can see how you'd hope I was just pulling your leg---but I'm not. I really do get that way; and when I do, I'm a very dangerous animal. I mean, this is something we have to be clear about. Suppose, after we were married, I was home in bed with a cold or something on that night. I'd turn into a ravening beast. I mean, I really would."

"Oh, Freddy! You, a ravening beast. Like Little Red Ridinghood's grandmother? Oh, you're so cute!" The humor of it would not leave her alone and she asked, just to prolong the yaks, "Tell me, sweetheart, why do you turn yourself into a werewolf?"

But Freddy remained serious, of course. "I don't want to do it," he said. "It just happens to me. And I'll tell you something else. This sort of thing is a lot more widespread than people imagine. Maybe you wouldn't think so from the look of our neighbors, but I'm not the only werewolf around here. Either that or some mighty big police dogs run around Darien at night that you never see during the day."

Obviously, she still did not believe him. It was only after long and earnest persuasion, and more from the evident (continued on page 180)Midnight snack(continued from page 95) sincerity of his manner than from his words, that she tentatively accepted the proposition that her guy might really be what he said he was. During this stage, she showed more curiosity than anything else.

"What kind of wolf do you turn into?" she asked.

"I'm a timber wolf," he said proudly. "Canis occidentalis. The kind you find in Ernest Thompson Seton. Of course, that's not surprising, in view of my family's being of such old American stock. But I happen to know of a German immigrant over in Westport. He turns into a miserable little coyote, Canis latrans. Back in the old country, he was nothing but a Steppenwolf."

"And what do you do when you're a wolf?"

"My territory is the graveyard of the First Unitarian Church. I sort of run up and down among the headstones and pretend to look for victims. Actually, I don't like that part of it---maybe because I'm a vegetarian. Anyway, I'm glad the church is so far out of town. Other werewolves enjoy getting victims in their power and take a positive delight in rending people to pieces---but not me. Though sometimes I just can't help hurting somebody myself."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if I come right on top of somebody suddenly, with no time to pretend I didn't see him, there's nothing I can do. I have to act. Do you remember that scandal last year when a couple of high school kids were making out in the cemetery and the boy was allegedly attacked by a mad dog? It was most unfortunate."

She was aghast. "Freddy, that was you?"

"Yes, it was. That's why we have such a problem. If we were together when my time came around, I just couldn't help going for your throat."

Her curiosity was turning to alarm.

"Another thing," he went on. "Like all werewolves, I'm much more bloodthirsty when I can't get to my territory. Suppose we were on our honeymoon in Jamaica---isn't that where it'll be? I'd have to sweat it out there. Even if I tried to get off by myself, I'd be sure to get into trouble."

"But this is terrible!" she cried. "Freddy, what can we do?"

"Now, don't you worry," he said reassuringly. "I'm working on it. It's a lucky thing I'm an organic chemist. I've already figured out that the change to animal form takes place because my system is upset by moonlight of a certain intensity. By measuring the wave lengths involved, I've got to the point of producing in the lab a hydrosol solution that has a definite effect on the mutation process. In fact, I tried it out last month."

"And what happened?" she asked with intensity.

"It was very interesting. At midnight, the time of transition from man to wolf was quite markedly prolonged. For a while, I thought it might not take place at all. Then, at dawn, the transition back to man was equally protracted. For a while there, too, I thought I might not make it back to human form."

"But, Freddy! Then you'd have been a wolf the rest of your life!"

"Yes," he said, "that's true. But the funny thing is, that wouldn't bother me too much. It's this damned switching back and forth that bugs me. I want to be either the one thing or the other. Of course, as a vegetarian, I might not be too happy in the form of a wolf. I've worried about that."

"A sheep in wolf's clothing," she said bitterly. "That's all that worries you. You don't even think about us."

He took her in his arms and placed little kisses on her neck and collarbone and in her ear and behind it. "More than anything else in the world," he said, "I want to make you my wife. You know that."

"But how are we ever going to do that, Freddy?" she asked tearfully. "If you get stuck in Lupusville, I'll lose you to that bitch next door."

"You mean Lassie?" he asked. "But that's ridiculous. She's not my type at all. And it's not hopeless," he said strongly. "I've improved greatly on my colloidal solution. I've isolated the active ingredient that, in its pure form, must keep the moonlight from having any effect on me. I'm going to try it next week, darling, and I have every hope of success."

In a shared community of concern, Freddy and his girl lived through the intervening days. The night of the full moon came and went, and they waited for the moon that rises at midnight.

"Do you look in your almanac to know just which night it is?" she asked.

"I don't have to," he answered. "I just feel it coming on. I think it must be something like an epileptic's premonition of an attack."

"Or," she murmured shyly, "like a girl about to get the curse?"

At last the crucial night arrived, and at 11, Freddy took his prophylactic. His girl expressed the wish to accompany him to the cemetery, in order to observe (from a safe distance) the events at midnight; but she did so in a voice so laden with apprehensiveness that Freddy sternly rejected the idea.

"You wait here," he said. "If it works, I'll be back in half an hour. If it doesn't, well, I'll see you tomorrow."

"No," she said, "I couldn't stand it. I'm going home right now and take a sleeping pill. I'll know the worst, or the best, tomorrow morning."

So Freddy went to the graveyard alone, and waited. The moon rose over the mausoleum of rich old Mr. Frisby, deceased 1906. Freddy prepared himself for the familiar frisson---and it never came. The witching hour passed and he was still Freddy, not Whitefang.

"It works! It works!" he cried. "I'm free!" He hurried to take the glad tidings to his girl, but his repeated rings could not penetrate her drugged sleep and she did not come to the door. She was joyous, however, the next day. Then and there, they made plans for the wedding; and, indeed, they were married three weeks later (but not in the First Unitarian Church of Darien). The ceremony was preceded by several showers for the bride, the rehearsal and dinner and the groom's stag farewell to single blessedness, during which many dirty jokes were told; and it was followed by a reception and a wedding breakfast and, that night, by a consummation devoutly wished by both participants, which lost none of its delight for having been anticipated several hundred times. The next day at noon, they emplaned for Jamaica on their honeymoon.

Ah, the fun they had in Jamaica! The gaiety, the swimming, the snorkeling over the coral, the water-skiing, the lying in the sun, the daiquiris to steel-band music and the dancing, the calypso singing, the limbo competitions. And every night, after hours, the sweet communion of the flesh.

"Are you frightened, husband?" she asked the night of the midnight moon and while they were still entwined. "I mean, about what will happen an hour from now?"

"Not in the slightest," he declared. "I can tell already: I don't even have to take a second dose. I'm cured. Boy, if I had to be an involuntary werewolf, was I lucky to be an organic chemist, too!" His voice became humble. "You know, sweetheart, some people would say that I was terribly unfortunate to be born with those werewolf tendencies. But I don't see it that way. I see how very favored I was not to have been one of those really vicious types, the kind that gain the confidence of those close to them and then attack them when they least expect it. Oh, how lucky I am not to have been that sort!" He snuggled up to her.

"And, oh, how lucky I am, too!" she murmured, and fell asleep on his shoulder, his tender bride. Ah, how his heart overflowed! And so he fell asleep also, at about 11:30.

What was it that awakened him at midnight? He was still in human form, so it was not that he had mutated, after all. Was it the persistence of his ancient habituation, which woke him up for an event that was not to take place? Or was it the interruption of a newer and sweeter habitude, the proximity and warmth of his beloved wife?

For the space beside him in the bed was empty. It was the first, mindless gropings of his arm for her body that brought him fully awake. He raised himself on his elbow and looked about the room and called, "Darling?" The moonlight was streaming through the open French doors in its peculiarly intense tropical way; and now the poor schlemiel understood, in a flash of ghastly insight, why his wife had never noticed his absences on the nights of the midnight moon, and why she had not answered the doorbell a month ago. For in the path of its light, her silhouette etched sharply against the sparkling sea, with her tongue lolling and her fangs gleaming, sat the sleekest, largest and least conciliatory coyote he would ever see.