Episode 2 – Conclusion

HOWL LONG WILL YOU LOVE ME, HOWL LONG INDEED?

OR

BLUE MOON, YOU SAW ME HOWLING ALONE

 

L.T. was laughing himself right into his plate of eggs and sausage. And he didn’t care. Mal joined him in his eggs. Claude was a bit more sedate, but only a bit.

Claude sat in their booth looking for all the world as if he might be a kind of lord or king. He sat with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had found his true calling, his inner nature, his primal self, the essence of his higher being.

And then he farted.

His fellow wolves, in human guise, burst out laughing. For them, the passing of gas was one of the funniest ways they could bond.

Hank Hull had had enough.

     A regular at the Good Morning Cafe, like most of the fellas in town, Hank could not stand, could not fathom, could not abide the kind of uncouth behavior far too many men in the area seemed to consider acceptable (if not outright hilarious). Walking right over to their booth, Murray counted to one billion twice and then said, calmly, “Gentlemen, you’re in a public restaurant. Could you please act like it?”

The four of them froze. And then burst out laughing.

“Oh Lord in heaven! I’d give a million dollars if I could let one fly right now!” screeched L.T. He started laughing uncontrollably again. “But I can’t!” Trying his hardest to ‘squeeze the old duck’ (but failing) his face turned beet red.

Claude was slamming his hand on the table over and over and looked like he was convulsing. He was laughing and laughing until he shouted, “I just pissed myself!”

All four of them began laughing even harder.

The rest of people in the Good Morning Cafe looked at them, but only a little. These men were only in their thirties and forties, quite young by Wisconsin male maturation rates, and so this kind of behavior was not unheard of. Indeed, many of the older men at the cafe had engaged in just that kind of behavior before really settling down in their fifties. It was clear to everyone that the men had already been out hunting, that they’d already been drinking, that they were just being a little too rowdy. Nothing none of these men hadn’t seen or heard (or smelled) before.

Besides, the television bracketed up in the corner was reporting a missing person from the area and many of the cafe clients were watching intently…but then it turned out that the person was just a runner, so it mattered a little less to the hayseeds.

But Hank Hull had a different focus, a different purpose, a different level of irritation with the four men at the rancid booth. He had stood there silently, waiting for them to compose themselves enough for him to speak.

He waited quite awhile.

But Hank Hull, being retired, had all day. So he stood there, silently looking down at the four morons as they spit on themselves and chortled and slapped the booth table. The rest of the people at the Good Morning Cafe were also quite accustomed to Hank and so everyone resumed eating their eggs and sausages and talking about the just completed harvest and the upcoming six months of winter and the damn idiot runner who’d gone missing–if the idiot had done some sensible exercise like hunting or four wheeling, perhaps they would have had more sympathy. Perhaps not. Again, there was nothing new here, nothing they hadn’t all seen before.

Growing tired of the tall, stoutly built, old man standing right on top of their happy little booth, Lon finally stopped laughing and farting enough to sneer, “You gonna say something mister, or you just gonna stand there smelling the better part of my breakfast?”

The others started laughing again, with renewed vigor.

Hank slammed both his impressive hands on the table.

And there was silence.

“Now look you idiots, I’m not against anyone having a little fun, a little party, a little free for all…I don’t even care if it is only seven in the morning and it smells like you’ve been drinking all night.” They looked at him and saw he was the kind of all too familiar older man this area was filled with. He had white hair lining his impressively wrinkled brow. He was wearing work overalls while out for breakfast (but half the men here were wearing them). They saw his hands and arms were sinewy, the result they knew, of a thousand plantings, a thousand harvests, one million fence posts pounded, one billion bales of hay thrown. But it was his eyes which really froze them.

Crystal blue, pale blue, almost white, they looked like snow flakes. Now Hank brought those eyes down to them, hunching over their booth, his shoulders still a hulking bow of muscle. He spoke to them, as any wise animal trainer does, with a whisper.

“I don’t care about the fun, the drinking, the carousing…but I’ve been up all night, I’ve been up all night and you four are either going to keep it down or…”

“Or what old man?” asked L.T. stupidly.

“Yeah, or what?” echoed Mal, sounding even dumber.

“Or…this,” said Hank Hull, who then slid his granite hands to the edge of the table they were sitting at and began lifting. And even though the table was screwed right into the floor, was immovable, it began to shake and then, with what was clearly only some of his possible effort, it moved. Hank’s eyes were furrowed and he was clearly accessing his inner anger, but again, it seemed there was a lot more there, he was only getting started.

“Okay, okay,” said Lon, wisely, “We can take a hint mister. We’ll finish up and take our hunting party elsewhere.”

Hank Hull stared at them. The table lifted off the floor, three screws popping out of place.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Lon repeated himself, this time with much more worry. “We’ll leave. Right fellas? We will just take our party home. Let’s go guys.” Throwing a couple of twenties down on the table the four men started filing out of the booth being extremely careful not to bump into Hank.

As Lon walked gingerly past him, Hank whisked his head up and next to his ear, whispering, “I know what you been up to fella. You and your boys. You goddamn idiot faced, half wits. Did you even notice that the television is reporting a missing runner?” Lon’s eyes stuck out of his bloated beer face. Hank continued, but now he lowered his voice so that it seemed as if he was speaking in an actual growl, “How long before they find out about the other…two? I know those two weren’t from here but sooner, sooner rather than later, the authorities are going to figure out they were up here too, up here in Spooner, up here, not too far from your…cabin.” Now Lon’s eyes were shaking the way his legs were. Who was this jerk and how could he possibly have known about any of this? And what did he mean about the other two? They hadn’t hurt anyone…not really. Questions were whirling around Lon’s slightly inebriated mind when Hank Hull grabbed him by his collar and pulled his face right up to his bared teeth.

“If you and your boys,” said Hank, “If you and your whelps really want to hunt, come to Fagnan’s woods, just outside of Hayward, tonight at dusk. You really want to see what hunting is, come there just as the sun is setting, and let an old dog show you pups a new trick…or two.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about mister,” lied Lon. “We been out hunting deer and ducks like everyone else. Nothing to it really. Sit in a stand, drink some beer, sit, drink. Shoot. Game over. We don’t need no new tricks.”

Now Hank grabbed Lon’s neck by the nape, his long fingernails biting into his neck, and pulled Lon even closer to his mouth and he almost purred into Lon’s ear, “I said, I know what you mutts have been up to, I know all about it. So if you don’t want to get in real trouble, if you don’t want everyone else in Spooner to know, like the families of those runners you were after…you’d better be there at sundown. Be there, at Hayward.” Then Hank took one last smell of Lon’s entire being and, in complete disgust, pushed him away from himself and towards the diner’s door.

…

Murray walked up to Hank. “Will they be there?” he asked.

“Oh yes indeed Murr, they’ll be there. You can’t snap at a dog like that without him wanting to find a time to bite you back.”

“Good,” said Murray, “And, hey, thanks for making Hayward the rendezvous point. He’ll appreciate it.”

“Yes, I know he will,” replied Hank, wiping his hand off on his overalls. “Everybody knows how he feels about Spooner, Murray. Spooner doesn’t suck…”

“Spooner blows,” answered Murray, smiling, just a little.

 

FINALE: FULL MOON FEVER (RIP THOMAS PETTY)

 

Sophie Hofts was running for her life. She was certain of it. One minute she’d been taking a leisurely jog down the quaint main street of Hayward, admiring the neat tourist shops, the candy stores, the fudge factories, the clean sidewalks, the men, and then she’d felt something hit her hard on the head and her world had gone black. Impossibly, she’d woke up to the rattling of metal on metal, the sound of a cage reverberating on the bed of a pick up truck.

And she was in the cage.

Now, there are many, many things which probably go through one’s mind when they awake to find themselves in a cage but certainly, in almost all cases, the most prominent one is: Escape! Sophie had pulled at the bars of her cage as the truck had sped down some country road on the dark, dark outskirts of Hayward. There were no lights out in this land, save the stars and rising full moon. But not even the moon in all her autumn glory could provide enough light for Sophie Hofts to gather a single clue as to her whereabouts.

The truck had taken a sharp right and driven on what Sophie assumed was a field road. The bumps and harshness of the ride clanged her aching head against the cage and she held onto the bars trying to steady herself. After another ten minutes of rough riding she could tell the truck was pulling into a woods. Her view became even more obscured and she could just make out the jaunty outlines of packs of trees. Sophie was no cowering fool though, and she was not going to go easily. She checked her shoes and she assumed the best starting position for running that she could. If her cage opened, she was going to bolt–make a run for it, for as long as she could, for she knew if she was given even a small opportunity to run, she just might make it.

For Sophie Hofts was no ordinary runner. She was a veteran of many long distance races, many ultrathons where she had run thirty five, fifty, even one hundred miles! She was accustomed to running in the woods, accustomed to running in the dark. Whoever had done this to her, well, they’d chosen the wrong damn runner. Hundreds of miles run under extreme duress had taught Sophie a thing or two about mental toughness, about…survival, survival of the fittest!

The truck barked to a hard stop and Sophie heard the driver’s door open and slam. “Get over here and help me unload her!” yelled a voice, a voice laced with impatience, irritation…hunger.

Sophie did her best to mimic helplessness, display vulnerability, feign weakness. She was certain the element of surprise was one of her only weapons. She managed to let out a shrilly scream as she felt the cage lift out of the truck and she gave a terrific grunt as it was set onto the forest floor.

“Now what are we gonna do? She’s knows she’s in a cage you moron.”

“Yeah, this ain’t how we do it moron,” said another voice.

“But, ah, my young friends, this is how I do it,” said a distinctively older voice, a voice Sophie instinctively knew came from the driver.

“What?” yelped yet another voice. “You mean, you done this before?”

“You boobs can’t possibly think you’re the first hunters to ever think of this sport,” said the older voice. The sentence was followed by a sinister laugh, a laugh Sophie did not like at all. She used that fear though, she used it to fuel her muscles and her mind, to prepare her for the ultimate race.

“Well we did think it was a pretty freaking original idea mister. So there!” Sophie could tell, whoever had just said that, had been drinking, drinking heavily. Concentrating, she realized she could smell him. Sophie tilted her head to the other side of the cage and realized she could make out the same rancid smell from at least two others. She flexed her leg muscles, girding her courage.

She saw a pair of large hands come to the front of her cage. Her senses were on fire and she could see the hands were older yet still teeming with readily apparent strength. He wasn’t one of the ones who reeked and Sophie knew that made him the most dangerous of her captors. Sophie heard one of the smelly ones ask, “Well ain’t there even no plan or nothin’? I mean, geeze, real wolf packs have plans you know.”

Sophie arched her back. She felt the time was here. Then she heard the older voice say, “Here’s the plan.” Then suddenly, the old hands whipped open two latches and as they did, Sophie burst through the unlocked cage door! She had been right, no one in the “hunting party” had expected this of her and she took off further down the rough path the truck had pulled onto in the woods.

At a distance of twenty yards, Sophie risked a quick glance backwards to see if she was being pursued. In the halo of the full moon’s light she gasped to see five men standing, staring at her. But four of the men had wolf heads…or their heads had wolf heads on them? She thought it looked like at least two of them had…paws?

Sophie shook her head and thought maybe she’d been drugged and she also thought it didn’t matter–whatever she’d seen, whether or not she’d been drugged, nothing mattered now except that she was loose and she was running free.

“Goddamn it! Who’s the ‘moron’ now old timer?” was the last voice Sophie heard as she ran further and further away from the wolf men. She never did hear anyone following her and she suspected that, part wolf or no, they were not long distance runners. After a solid twenty minutes of rumbling over the forest trail road, Sophie had come to a small clearing and was able to find her north. She then had found a road, a real country road and she had really run then, run back towards the only lights she could see, the lights which could only belong to sanctuary, the lights of the Safe Haven on the southern side of Hayward.

 

 

THE ONE WHERE MICHAEL JACKSON HAS WOLF EYES AT THE END

“Well, now were screwed,” said Mal.

     “We are so screwed,” added L.T. He tilted a can of malted raspberry tea up into the moonlight and licked the edge of the opening, wishing for one more drop.

“I can’t believe you did that you moron,” said Claude to Hank Hull. But Hank Hull stood there, serenely, moonlight bathing him.

Lon stood serenely as well. As usual, he was the first to understand. “Relax guys, we’re not screwed at all. Not as long as we get out of here.”

“Huh?” said Mal.

“Yeah, huh?” repeated L.T. while throwing his can away into the woods.

“I can’t believe you’re siding with that moron Lon,” said Claude, “You moron.” Now it was his turn to look for salvation in the bottom of an empty can.

Hank Hull laughed. “How in the hell is it that the four of you have gone this long without being caught?” He was completely incredulous but his incredulity was so sincere that it was one of the worst insults any of these much insulted men had ever received.

“I don’t get you mister, you’re the moron who let her out before we were even ready to get her!” said Mal.

“Yeah, moron,” said L.T.

“No, no, no…the old timer is right guys. We are the morons here, we are the idiots, we are lucky beyond belief we haven’t been caught yet, but, again, I’m right in saying that as long as we get out of here, right now, we’re in no danger of anyone finding us,” said Lon, exasperated.

His buddies looked at him, needing the explanation. “Hank did all of this to prove a point…and he’s made his point. We’ve been lucky so far, we haven’t heard a damn thing from the skinny guy or that chick by the cabin or that stuck up snot who can’t finish a race, I’m guessing because Hank covered our tracks. And we’re in no danger now because this last lady, she never even seen our faces or our trucks, just his and it’s too dark to identify it any more than as just a truck, and there’s ten thousand trucks just in Hayward!

They stood, slack jawed.

Just then, a new voice entered the conversation and it was coming from a new person. “You boys don’t know how lucky you are, lucky indeed.”

It was Lowell.

He was wearing his overcoat, carrying his case, standing with an authority and eeriness which scared the wolf pack. His skin seemed as white as the moon and his black hair and black fedora blended seamlessly into the black night.

L.T. wet himself a little.

“Gary’s head got bashed in. Aimee’s neck was broken. And that Fitz fella…well, he finished all right, finally.” The four idiots shook their heads.

Mal took off his wolf head and threw it on the ground. Lowell stood passionless. He averted his eyes for a moment and then eyed Mal relentlessly. Mal quivered, “Ain’t nothin’ happened to those people mister, except maybe they got banged up a little, twisted a knee or an ankle. We didn’t hurt nobody.”

“Yeah, maybe an ankle is all,” said L.T.

“We just scared those morons, gave them a little something to think about when they’re out there being all high and mighty with their running,” said Claude.

Hank Hull gave Lowell one final look and said, “I’ve heard all I need to hear Lowell, I’ve got better places to be. You tell these would be wolves to get back to their little cabin, get back to their beers, get back to the ‘hunting’ they know best.” He laughed because he knew his words stung. He knew these clodhoppers were going to do just that–sulk back to their pitiful cabin with their even more pitiful tails between their legs and drink and commiserate about the night.

He and Lowell exchanged a look of certainty and Hank climbed back into his truck. He looked at the wolf pack and said, “I trust you fellas have learned a thing or two about what hunting is really all about, it’s not just about ambushing, and baiting, and striking out at harmless, defenseless animals, it’s also about an equal playing field, it’s about tactics, it’s about anticipating the next move of your prey.” Putting his truck into reverse, Hank Hull backed out and then, throwing it back into drive, went out the field and disappeared under the light of the circled moon.

Lowell, still cool, still the director of this farce, asked, “Had enough fellas? Ready to call it a night? Before the county mounties come prowling?”

L.T. started to protest saying, “But we ain’t never even–!”

But Lon, his pack leader, cut him off. “I mean it guys, stay here and debate the fine points of just what did or didn’t happen all you want, but this big, bad wolf is getting the hell out of Dodge while he still can!” Lon disappeared twenty yards down into the field adjacent to the woods and quickly reappeared in his truck, the lights shining right through Lowell. Lowell’s only response was to raise his eyebrows, first at the remaining three wolf men, and then towards the truck. Again, L.T. started to say something but this time Claude did the sensible thing and cuffed him upside the back of his head.

Howling, L.T. opened the door and climbed into the truck. Mal and Claude lifted the empty cage up and onto the back on the bed of the truck and then followed it, sitting on the sides. The wind came rustling through the woods to their right and it blew Lowell’s coat, causing it to look sinister, like a cloak, like wings.

Lon eyed him, but not too much. The air this stranger carried, the dignity and danger, it was too much for him, he wanted to get his pack out of these forsaken woods, get them back to the safety of their cabin, and he wanted to get them there before they saw any police lights. Rolling down his window, he said to Lowell, “I’ve never seen you before mister…and”

“And you’re never going to see me again,” said Lowell, cutting him off. “Now do what Mr. Hull told you to do, go back to your cabin, drink some beer, and act like you’ve been there all night should any police happen to stop by. From the looks of it, from the smell of it, they’d have a hard time believing you were anywhere but there.”

Lon did the only thing a man can do when he has been presented with the hard truth, he nodded. The others nodded too.

“One more thing,” said Lowell, holding a hand up in accentuation, “I’m certain I’m not going to hear any more stories about you five “wolves” hunting innocent runners. I’m certain of it.”

Lon nodded again. Then he drove off leaving Lowell standing in the darkness, his face echoing the pale whiteness of the moon.

 

EPILOGUE

 

There was not much in the way of merry making as Lon and his boys made their drive back to their sad little cabin. Each man peeled off his wolf paws and claws and wolf heads and tails and whatever other wolf accoutrements they’d assembled from taxidermists, fellow hunters, or garage sales…Each of them sat in silent contemplation about how fun, how truly wonderful it had been to scare the bejesus out of them snotty runners, how good it felt to hunt man, even if it had been for show. They each started to wonder what had really happened to the runners but just as quickly dismissed that man’s talk as a bluff, a way to keep them in line. If something had happened to those runners, surely they would have heard about it by now…unless, at least one of them wondered, unless they hadn’t yet been…found?

“Okay, okay, we’re home, well, we’re back to the cabin,” said Lon. He was worn out, hung over, and still just a bit unnerved by that man in the fedora, to say nothing of that chick running away. “I vote we just finish off another case, look at some girlie magazines, and play some poker…in other words, let’s get back to hunting like we used to hunt.” He meant it.

L.T. woke up enough to add, “Yeah.”

The four men stumbled up the little stairway to their shabby “hunting” cabin and with each step they each grew a little braver, felt a little bolder due to the safety of their den. “Yeah, let’s drink a little beer and let’s look at some boobs,” said Claude.

“And I say, well, you know what I say fellas?” beamed Mal.

“What’s that?” asked L.T.

Mal grew a mischievous grin on his face, like a wicked wolf and said, “I say we should howl a little too. Just a little, to celebrate all the hunting we done!” At this they all laughed and indeed, they howled a little. “Arooooo!” bayed Mal. “Arooo! Arooo! Arooo!”

L.T. stopped short of the cabin door, in one, rare, complete moment of seriousness. “The only thing I don’t get is, I don’t get why that fella in the hat said, ‘Now you five fellas blah blah blah…you five fellas. I ain’t no Burgessian mathematician, but I know there’s only four of us. Couldn’t that idiot count?”

“No, you’re the idiot!” said Lon as he pushed open the door to their darkened cabin. “He meant us and the other fella, that makes five. Four plus one equals five even here in Spooner.” Fumbling for the light switch he added, “And I thought I told you idiots to leave a light on so we could see when we got home! I’m supposed to use the flippin’ moon to see my way in here?”

“That old fella wasn’t one of us!” protested L.T. but his words were cut short as he bumped into Lon, who turned to yell but he also was cut off as Mal ran into L.T. and was in turn, run into by Claude. The four semi-inebriated men fell like dominoes in a heap onto the floor of the cabin, Lon’s face crashing hard onto empty beer cans. They were all yelling and swearing and cursing one another and scrambling in the dark to stand up, stand up and reach the God forsaken light switch.

That’s when they heard the growling, the growling which came right before they heard the deep canine voice say, “You’re goddamn right I ain’t one of you. And you four, certainly none of you four is one of me.”

The four would be wolves, sprawled out on the floor spun their heads and eyes this way and that looking for the source of the insult, the source of the taunt, the source of the voice.

Just then a silver beam of moonlight pierced through one of the cabin windows. In the highlights of the moonbeam the four of them could see a massive man, a massive beast.

It was Hank Hull.

Or something like Hank Hull.

For his white hair was now standing on end. It seemed to have grown, grown everywhere–and it was immaculate, the coat of a purebred! His great hands now looked instead like great paws and his gross finger nails were now curled and yellow and looked like…claws! But it was his teeth and eyes that started the four men screaming, for in the moonbeam, Hank’s teeth seemed to have been sharpened, seemed to gleam with terrible ferociousness, and his eyes, his light, white blue snowflake eyes were now the color of bleached bones, perfect reflections of their mother, the moon!

Not needing the lights on to find the four men, Hank Hull tilted his shaggy head back and howled, howled at his beloved mistress of the midnight sky, bared his teeth into a terrible grin and then he slammed the cabin door shut.

 

And the hunt was over.

 

 

NEXT WEEK, A NEW EPISODE BEGINS! SOMETHING I LIKE TO CALL:

CRYSTAL METH BETH

OR

ONCE BITTEN TWICE HIGH