The Beast in Aisle 34

1

The werewolf squatted on the roof beneath the quieting sky. A fast-moving storm had passed through, gleaming the trees. Overhead, through clouds, winked an absolute moon.

Between the werewolf’s lips glinted knife-sharp eye teeth. He examined his hand, which resembled a raccoon paw the size of a skillet. His claws, like arrow tips, could pierce a buck’s flank, pluck the heart from its chest and pop it like a water balloon. How he loved to erupt their organs above his face and let the hot blood cascade! His mouth grew moist with the thought.

His wife was out of town, as she always was during the full moon. The werewolf, whose name was Sandy Kurtz, had come up with the brilliant idea of enrolling Pat in Continuing Education at the community college back in Cadillac. Sandy had checked the schedule and learned that Night Skies Astronomy met Thursday evenings for eight weeks. It sucked that it had to be in Cadillac (he’d made sure to say this to Pat), but he was willing to make the sacrifice. This class would get Sandy through October, until the next cycle, when he would have to come up with a new excuse to separate him from his wife so he wouldn’t be in danger of revealing his secret, or worse, eating her.

A fly landed on one of the werewolf’s wide, pointed ears. Covering his body was a layer of hair, coarse as hay and two shades darker than the dead leaves carpeting the lawn. He rose onto two legs and sniffed the breeze, letting his tail wag, shaking bits of asphalt shingle from the clumped hair on his rear end.

The moon, fat and brilliant, slid from behind a cloud. Adrenaline laced through him. He erupted into a spasm of howls, and then, snarling, launched from the roof.

He scampered across the lawn into the awaiting clump of trees. The Kurtz’s ranch-style home stood on West Sparling Road, miles from the nearest two-lane highway in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. Dozens of acres of wooded land, state-owned, stretched behind it. For a werewolf, the location was a fucking bonanza—and Sandy hadn’t even chosen to live here. Deer were so plentiful that Sandy was sure he would never have to kill a human. He probably wouldn’t even be seen. Nobody entered these woods except hunters in season, and they never stayed after nightfall. As far as Sandy knew, there were no plans to develop the acreage. Hikers rarely entered because the terrain was tough, densely treed. The numerous ponds and creeks created a swampy feel, the air teeming with mosquitoes.

The nearest neighbors were the Olsens a mile away. That Olsen farm, Sandy admitted, was a temptation, with its hen house and twenty head of cattle, but in six months of lycanthropy, Sandy hadn’t needed to wander near it yet. Whenever he envisioned pouncing upon one of those big juicy cows, he pictured being frozen in a spotlight by Farmer Olsen, then catapulting through the air and decapitating the elderly man with the swat of a claw before feasting on his brains. Although repugnant while in human form, at moments like this—during a change—thoughts of Farmer Olsen’s soft, flavorful head-meat nearly doubled him over with desire. He battled to restrain the compulsion.

Envisioning Pat’s look—betrayal, disgust—helped with the struggle. He would never be able to live with himself.

The werewolf sniffed a doe on the wind; intense, maybe sixty yards off. He sidled beside a tree and lowered his body to the forest floor. He had wandered into a thicket of pines, shrouded from both moon and whisper of wind. The blanket of needles beneath his paws felt spongy. This meant fewer branches for the doe to step on. He wouldn’t hear her no matter how heavy her musk grew in his nose.

He remained crouched for five agonizing minutes. Then, turning his head, he spotted movement.

Trees shadowed her. She wasn’t even a doe: not yet. Still a fawn, though on the cusp of womanhood. With a bowed head she picked daintily at the scrub, unaware of his presence.

It would have been simple to spring forth, claws and teeth a brilliant flash, striking before she even knew what was happening. She was undoubtedly quick but would be no match for his speed. Experience told him it would be over in seconds, his maw overflowing with blood, the salty fist of meat still thumping as it descended his esophagus like Santa down a chimney.

But tonight, he wanted to savor the hunt. Soundlessly, he crawled. He was in the moment now, allowing his desire to simmer like water on a stove, simply studying her as she nibbled along the ground in search of sustenance. She knew nothing of her impending death. He envied her innocence, her peace. We all had to die sometime. We could only hope to go in a blink, feeling just a glimmer of fear before the curtain closed. Pleasure coiled inside him, a tickle that hastened his breath and loosed saliva from his mouth.

At that exact moment a shrill cry—not unlike the one the werewolf had unleashed when he vaulted from his roof—echoed through the night. The doe bolted, crashing through the undergrowth before the werewolf could pounce.

A rank, soggy odor assaulted his nose: humans, three of them. Judging by the texture of their funk, these were overweight men who hadn’t showered in a week. Not a trace of deodorant. If in his current form he could have spoken, he would have growled the words, but instead he could only think them with a pitch of pure disdain: Squatch Cops.

•      •      •

Sandy awoke in the morning with a whanging headache. Fierce daylight ringed the perimeter of the blackout curtains. A bright, gorgeous day, no doubt. The weather had been pleasant lately, a temperate and picturesque autumn that had made last evening enjoyable but this morning hell. Normally after a transformation Sandy felt as if he’d run a marathon, although he had never run a marathon and only guessed that this was how runners awoke: worn, depleted, grimly satisfied but cursing the sunrise. Today as he slipped from bed and staggered into the master bathroom, he felt like he’d finished an Ironman fueled by whiskey and candy bars.

He performed a thorough tick-check using a combination of the handheld mirror and the mirror above the sink. Satisfied, he urinated for what felt like four minutes. He estimated his lycan bladder to be three times the size of his human bladder, which meant he had to pee buckets whenever he transformed back. He scrubbed his face and hands, inspecting for abrasions, happy to find none. He downed four Ibuprofen with a handful of water from the tap. Those idiot squatchers had ruined another meal. He had fooled himself into believing that the last full moon had been an anomaly, but now, for the second month in a row, they had scared off a deer. Last night after their whooping Sandy had put a wide distance between himself and them until the wind was free of their repulsive stench. But then he couldn’t find any more deer. Those buffoons had cleared the forest with their caterwauling. He’d settled for a pair of squirrels and a stringy wild turkey, hardly more than a snack. Lack of protein equaled a mega-hangover.

To his surprise Pat was at the kitchen table reading a textbook. She offered a lifeless smile before saying, Coffee’s old. You should make a fresh pot.

Sandy went to the cupboard and retrieved the mug that read On the Eighth Day, God Created Caffeine. Wasn’t expecting you until this afternoon. He tried to sound pleasantly surprised. He poured a cup of dregs and microwaved it for thirty seconds.

Nice to see you, too. Her expression shifted briefly, a flicker of disappointment. He couldn’t tell if she was truly angry. After ten years of marriage, her emotions had become more befuddling, not less.

Grimacing from the headache, he managed to walk over and kiss her cheek. This part was the worst: wondering if Pat was suspicious. Could she smell raw guts on his breath?

The microwave beeped. He retrieved his coffee. When did you get home?

Two hours ago, she said. The wall clock read 9:18.

Wow. I thought you were spending the night at your brother’s.

He got called in for emergency surgery at 6:00.

Didn’t feel like hanging out with Braden and the nanny?

She gave him a what-do-you-think look that made him realize everything was OK.

She suspected nothing. But eventually she might. Some evening Pat would glance out the window and see him staggering across the lawn in the pale moonlight, his body morphing from drooling beast into naked, blood-streaked Sandy Kurtz.

If she ever saw such a thing she would shoot him dead, wedding vows or no. Pat was no shrinking violet. She was the youngest of three, with two older brothers. Her parents had been avid hunters of deer, duck, pheasant, and turkey. Although she didn’t hunt these days—she claimed it took too much effort—she was likely a sure shot with the twelve-gauge in the basement gun case.

To the great disappointment of her brothers, the twelve-gauge remained Pat and Sandy’s only firearm. Bill and Russ had purchased the cherry gun cabinet as a wedding gift, expecting Pat to fill it. But Sandy had never hunted, never even fired a gun. He wondered if his own disinterest had ruined it for Pat. She did, however, keep a box of shells handy, and in social conversations touted the intelligence of keeping firearms in case of trouble.

At the table Sandy slid out the chair and sat gingerly, his body screaming. Strands of black hair fell around Pat’s eyes, which were cradled by dark crescents. He calculated what time she would have woken up in order to arrive home by 7:30 and said, You must be tired.

She turned a page of her textbook.

Can’t get enough of those stars, huh?

The final’s on Monday.

You going back to campus for that?

Online exam.

Oh, he said. Cool. Inwardly, he was disappointed. Not because of the change—he was done with that for the month; truly full moons only lasted one night—but because he’d been hoping to have Ben and Jerry—Dammit, Jerry and Ben, he corrected himself—over to watch the Lions on Monday Night Football. The office with the computer, however, was next to the TV room, so that wouldn’t be happening.

Learning a lot? he asked.

Pat shut the book and rubbed her eyes. When you suggested an astronomy class, I thought you wanted me out of the house so you could have an affair. She smiled, perhaps too widely. Was the idea that Sandy could attract a mistress so preposterous? As her grin fell away, however, it became evident that an emotion other than happiness had rooted behind her eyes.

She licked her lips as if lubricating them, so the words would come out more smoothly. Can I tell you the real reason I came home so early?

Sandy didn’t answer. He felt weighted to the chair.

Pat’s face took on a serious, composed look as she continued: "I mean, Bill was called into surgery, I wasn’t making that up."

For a moment he thought she was going to say that she’d been with him again. She was going to confess that being back in Cadillac these past few weeks had been too much of a temptation. And while this possibility was not pleasant, Sandy experienced—for a fleeting instant—a strange, unmistakable sense of relief.

Instead, with a flatness of emotion that terrified him, she said: I’m pregnant.

•      •      •

The obstetrician soon determined that Pat was two months along. She and Sandy decided that it wasn’t tempting fate to set everything in motion. Sandy phoned his parents in Milwaukee.

Dad, I’ve got news, he said.

Spit it out, his dad said.

You and Mom are going to be grandparents.

We’re going where?

You and Mom are...I mean, me and Pat are...Pat, that is...is expecting.

She’s expecting us to go somewhere? Lorraine, I can’t tell what this boy is saying.

Dad, listen. It’s a big deal. We’re having a baby.

Speak up!

We’re having a BABY.

Lorraine, quiet down. He’s saying something about big savings.

His mother said they would visit when the child was born, but Sandy knew it was an empty promise. In a physical sense, they lived only five hours away by car. In an emotional sense, it was as if they were separated by a couple of oceans. It was nothing personal; they just weren’t the type to telephone, or to see each other every holiday. His sister Chelsea lived across the country in Seattle, waiting tables at a breast-themed sports bar called Twin Peaks. She wasn’t home when Sandy called, so he left a message with her roommate.

•      •      •

Two weeks later they invited Pat’s parents, along with her brothers and their families, for Sunday dinner. Sandy didn’t know the etymology of the word strapping, but if it suggested the ability to strap on a refrigerator and lug it up staircases for fun, then it described Pat’s brothers Bill and Russ to a tee. At six-and-a-half feet and 240 pounds, they gripped Sandy’s hand in greeting as if they intended to maim him.

The brothers were pleasant, although loud, overconfident, and unnecessarily jokey. Bill was a cardiovascular surgeon who lived in a three-thousand-square-foot house with his wife Elissa, who ran an Internet business selling perfumes and body oils. Their eight-year-old Braden was diagnosed ADHD and was never seen without a video game in front of his face. Sandy feared for the kid’s neck.

Russ looked so much like Bill. Too much. Why did they have to sport the same feathered haircuts? The same goatees? The same tucked-in Polo shirts? They referred to themselves as Irish twins because they were eleven months apart. They weren’t an Irish family. German roots: their surname was Wiesenberger. Russ was a tax attorney who lived in Detroit with his wife Barbara and their two teenage sons, whose names Sandy tended to forget. The boys hadn’t made the trip today; something about a wrestling match, although Pat claimed that the boys disliked her because I dared to discipline them when they were little.

Pat’s parents were a sweet couple from Rochester Hills: active, wealthy, conservative, sentimental. Her father had worked as a general practitioner for decades before taking an executive position at a pharmaceutical firm, where he’d amassed a small fortune. A fortune by Sandy’s standards, anyway. Sandy’s parents were retired teachers. His father taught gym; his mother, early elementary.

Pat’s father had given generously for the down payment on this, Sandy and Pat’s first house. At every turn, her parents wanted to throw money at Sandy and Pat, and it was sometimes difficult to say no.

At least you’re not shooting blanks! Bill’s voice was pitched between a holler and a caterwaul. He stretched a hairy arm across the deck table and slapped Sandy’s shoulder.

Seriously, dude, congrats, Russ added. The three men clinked beer bottles. Sandy rubbed his shoulder.

It’s been great having Pat stay with us while she’s taking that class, Bill continued. You ought to come by. We never see you, buddy.

Sandy mumbled a string of words including work, time, hectic. In social situations he tended to speak in incomplete sentences. It had been this way his whole life.

Sandy stared across the backyard at the perimeter of trees, leaves painted in crimson and gold. In precisely two weeks he would be out there again, stalking the woods, feasting under the burning moon. For now, though, he was stuck sipping summer shandy with his bombastic brothers-in-law while the charcoal took its sweet time heating. On the grill shelf a plate of bloody meat, covered in plastic, waited to be consumed.

Pat’s brothers began talking passionately about their Fantasy Football squads. Or teams. Or whatever they were called.

Sandy’s mind drifted. He wasn’t ready for a baby. The thought of a demanding little blob squirming in a bassinette, issuing a parade of smells, terrified him. Even if things between him and Pat had been perfect, he wouldn’t feel prepared.

He rationalized his anxiety. After all, he had dealt with a major life change recently. He was finally getting accustomed to transforming into a seven-foot, 400-pound canine/human every full moon. After a stressful hundred days, he was at last feeling pretty good about the situation. Or at least OK. Naturally the details had to be tended to each month, and life would never truly return to normal, but things were looking up.

He didn’t consider himself a monster, although he assumed that’s how people would view him if they had the misfortune of running into him. Under a full moon he looked ferocious, spectacularly so, based on reflections he’d seen in the pond. But in his mind, he was just a guy. A gentle guy who had never raised a hand in anger. A dude who fled confrontation even when he was in the right. As a boy, he had stayed home from school because of skinned knees, canker sores. His favorite band was Peter, Paul, and Mary. Food spicier than black pepper upset his tummy.

Pat peeked her face out the screen door and asked when the grill would be ready. Sandy said five minutes, and she vanished.

The Wiesenberger brothers seemed irritated now, red-faced, debating their rosters (that was the term) as Sandy felt a mild beer buzz kick in. He was doing the right thing by living in the boonies. Out here he was surrounded by a steady supply of animal prey.

The most troubling aspect now was Sandy’s memory gap—that black spot of time that he couldn’t access.

He remembered living in the cramped apartment in Cadillac. He remembered Pat working at the Walmart pharmacy down the street. He recalled her standing at the kitchen counter and informing him she no longer was to be called Patty: "It’s Pat from now on." That sentence was clear as crystal, for some reason. And of course, he knew that she had revealed her affair with the other pharmacist—but this memory existed vaguely, amid dark swaths of fury and sadness. It was like a dim and unreliable recollection of a TV show from childhood.

The oddest things were what he didn’t remember. He didn’t recall discussing this Sparling Road house with Pat before buying it. He didn’t recall why they’d chosen it. He didn’t recall dealing with a realtor. He didn’t recall packing a moving truck.

One day he’d been in a hospital bed, post-attack; the next, he was here.

In his most optimistic moments he imagined confessing to Pat. I’m a beast now, he would say. He would snarl playfully. He would feel the rush of joy and relief as she squeezed him and said, You’re my beast. Now make me howl.

But that was a crock. Most likely she had stopped loving him long before this werewolf thing.

2

Mitch Barnes, Earl Caldwell, and Buck Coyote Diggs dubbed themselves the Squatch Cops. The three bachelors worked at McCormack Tool and Die, and their lives, like Sandy’s, had been irrevocably altered by a single event. Whereas Sandy had been gravely injured in a werewolf attack, these men had had a close encounter with Bigfoot.

Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Swamp Ape—the parlance varied depending on whom you spoke with and in which area of the country the sighting occurred, but the men all agreed they had stood forty yards from a giant bipedal primate that was covered in a thick layer of reddish-brown hair. The creature had been engaged in what was called in the Sasquatch research community tree-peeking as the men hunted in the woods near Sparling Road.

The creature had not threatened the men. It merely stared at them until lumbering away at startling speed up a ridge into thick foliage. The men had each experienced a physical paralysis upon seeing the creature, and Coyote Diggs claimed to have been gripped by a preternatural fear that cast him in a stupor as if tranquilized. The men’s subsequent research revealed that certain predators like the African Lion were known to produce ultra-low-frequency noises, like sonar, below the liminal hearing range of humans, in order to immobilize their prey. This, the men decided, was undoubtedly what the Sasquatch had employed during their encounter.

The Squatch Cops’ story was well-known in this area of Michigan. The men had appeared on a national TV program called Bigfoot: The Ultimate Truth and had guided the hosts and crew to the area where they had seen the animal. While recreating the encounter based on the men’s testimony, the hosts estimated the Sasquatch to be over eight feet tall. For a brief period, Grand Traverse County was on the national map.

Since that time nearly a year ago, the clamor had died down. Reports of Sasquatch sightings, which had risen by 5000% after the program aired, fell to pre-show levels of zero.

•      •      •

On November 7th, a Saturday morning, Sandy’s doorbell rang.

Three men in navy-blue T-shirts and