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Once in a Blood Moon

The camera was heavy in my hand as I lifted it up and out of the small plastic stub that I had stored it and the rest of my photography equipment in when I wasn't using it. The plastic cube felt familiar and comfortable in my hands as I played around with the switches that adorned its top and back. A quick flip of the power switch confirmed that it still had a charge, albeit only a small one. I would need to charge it before I left for the mountains. I didn't want anything to go wrong tonight.

I set aside the expensive camera that had cost me nearly two grand last summer when I had spied it at a local photography shop at the mall down the road. It had come with a tripod, several lenses which seemed ridiculously massive for the size of the camera that could fit in both of my hands without any discomfort. I thought it was a steal since the lenses alone should have cost what I paid without the camera and now I was going to get to put it to good use since it had spent the most of its time in my possession in the plastic tub.

I didn't consider myself a photographer of any professional measure, I just liked the idea of being able to take good pictures whenever I had the opportunity. I didn't want to look back one day when my own memory would fail me and see only a bunch of grainy and blurry photos, I wanted a crisp, clean image of the past. I took a few hours to look at the different settings that I would need to mess around with for optimal images, such as ISO and shutter speed. It didn't seem that complicated and that made me more confident in making tonight a worthwhile venture.

The blood moon wasn't an everyday occurrence and I had missed the last one earlier in the year due to overcast. The only thing I saw was a sliver of rust colored light seeping through a small gap in the cloud cover. That had been a disappointing night for me, but the news called for a perfectly clear night.

I had a place all picked out, an overlook high up the mountains that faced the east, right where the moon was going to rise. I wanted to get photos of it as it transitioned from a metal gray to its blood colored hue as the Earth blocked the light of the sun.

Before long, I had the camera's battery out of its case and charging along with a spare that I was going to bring along just in case. On top of that, I had my full array of lenses out. I was just going to bring the one that the camera came with originally since it didn't really seem to need much adjustment. I admit that I had no idea what the difference between the lenses were. Somewhere were really tall, others were fat, others were somewhere in the middle and sticking with the one that was already on the camera scared me the least.

Satisfied with the simple set up, I went about getting the rest of my supplies ready. The blood moon wasn't going to happen until late at night so I needed to get some food and cooking supplies ready since I had no intention of going hungry as I sat out in the cold.

I raided my pantry of any food that I thought I could prepare out in the woods with the little gas burner that the previous owners of the house had left behind. I had checked it in the past and it worked just fine.

The first pantry yielded a box of Ritz crackers and some peanut butter, a good snack. The other pantry had canned foods. I took the beans and some mini sausages that I set aside on the counter next to the crackers and peanut butter. The last pantry had some mac and cheese which was quickly added to the collection. I finished it up with a pot to took in and I was feeling good.

I had started preparations early in the day, around noon so I had plenty of time to make sure that I didn't leave anything behind. It was around three when the camera batteries were done charging and a knock came at the door.

Opening the door, revealed a pudgy face of my oldest friend.

"Rob!" I exclaimed and opened up the door fully and stepped back to let the large man step. He was dressed as if he was preparing for a blizzard with a scarf, a heavy jacket and a thick pair of carhartt pants that were more suited to stopping a chainsaw. Rob had never liked the cold and with Fall coming around, he quickly changed from his normal attire of shorts and flip flops to what he was wearing now.

"Hey, Sean." Rob stepped in, but not before shuffling his feet across the welcome mat. He began to unravel his face from the scarf and I quickly stepped in to help him remove his outer protective shell against Jack Frost.

"What are you doing here?" I asked and hung up his coat on the nearby rack next to my much smaller wind breaker. The rest of his cold weather garments filled the rest of the hooks shortly after, leaving Rob in his carhartts and a green, wool sweater. "Y'know I'm going to be leaving here in a bit."

"That moon thing, right?" He asked. I had told him about my plans, the whole don't go out without letting someone know where you are thing that was taught to us in school, though I don't think he had been listening very well when I told him.

"The blood moon." I confirmed and walked back towards my living room with Rob right behind me. My home wasn't large, but it wouldn't be described as 'cozy' either. It was just right in its spacing that I never felt like I was living in an empty shell nor did I feel crowded. "Last one in a long time." I added as I came back into the living room where all of my supplies were. I wasn't one to take chances. Early snow was always a possibility so I had a sleeping bag rolled up and ready to go, waiting on the single couch in the room. I had a ten gallon water container, hand warmers, some extra clothes that Rob would approve of and other things that I was sure that I wasn't going to need to use.

"Yeah." He said as he looked around the room. "About that."

I turned around and crossed my arms and waited for what he was going to say.

He hesitated for a moment when I stopped and turned to him, but quickly got back to normal. "You should just stay here."

"Oh?" I said and sat down on the arm of the couch. If my mother was here, she would yell at me, but that was the glory of owning the couch. "Why's that?"

"Well." He walked around me and sat down on the couch. I slid around to sit on the cushion, next to him. It was very apparent that he was a large man, especially with me, a smaller guy who stood just shy of fifty-eight inches and weighed one-fifty. He on the other hand was over six feet and two-hundred and twenty pounds. Some would say he was fat, but in reality it was genetics. He was very healthy, it was just that everyone on his father's side was large. "The rangers have been saying that something's scared off the elk herd." Oh yeah, he worked for the Forest Service.

"Elk are skittish." I said in a confident tone. "I could honk the horn at them and they would move across a mountain." It wasn't entirely true, the elk herd moved away each time hunting season came along. "Plus, they always move this time of year."

"Yeah." He didn't deny it. "But, they aren't even in the state anymore, they've run off to Canada."

"Canada?" Did i mention that I lived in Northern Washington? Canada was just a stone's throw away from my backyard. "What are they doing in Canada, don't they migrate south?"

"That's birds." Rob corrected my and I grinned to show that I was just joking with him. He gave me a light shove and went back to being serious. "Sam, out main ranger, said that something must have scared them off. He thinks it's a wolf pack, probably the one that was just introduced last spring."

"OK." I said unamused.

"OK? Wolves, man." He said it as if it should be something to be worried about. "Giant ass dogs that will tear you to pieces since the elk herd was supposed to be where you were planning going, um...something Point."

"Green's peak."

"That's the one." He pointed at me. "The elk herd is normally at Green's Point this time of year and they aren't which means that the wolves must be."

"Wolves don't just attack people." I knew that he had just watched The Grey last week and he was a gullible person, very trusting and believing. It made for good fun every once in awhile, but he never learned and would often believe anything that was told to him, even if it was a movie about man eating wolves.

"They can." He insisted. "Why take the risk? You can see the moon from here." He got up and looked out the window.

I would be able to see the moon from my backyard, but I wanted to see it and take pictures of it with the mountains as a backdrop. I rarely got a chance to go out and do something like this.

"It's not the same." I said and leaned back into the chair and rolled by head back to look at him behind me where he was messing with the shades. He pulled one of the strands that did nothing and instead just pushed them out of the way instead.

"It's the same moon no matter where you are in the world."

I sighed. "I'm going, OK." He looked away with a sad frown. "You worry more than my mother and she home schooled me for all of grade school. She probably would have kept me for all of high school if she hadn't gotten a job."

"You're my best friend. I just want you to be safe."

I laughed. "You really are worse than my mom. OK." I said. "I'll bring one of my dad's old guns with me."

"You still have those?"

"Yeah." I snapped up from the couch and ran down the hall into my bedroom. I got onto my knees and reached under the bed where there was a large gun case with a combination lock on it. I set the case onto the bed as Rob walked in. I had the thing opened up in a minute revealing the weapons.

I picked up the first one I saw, a bolt action rifle with iron sights. It was an old gun from when I dad was a child. It was his first full sized gun and had given it to me when I moved out. It, unlike the camera, felt unfamiliar in my hands, though I knew how to handle it. I opened up the bolt and handed it over to Rob who grabbed it.

"I almost forgot you had these." He had a grin on his face.

"Yeah and I remember that I never could hit anything." I laughed and grabbed the second weapon, a newer pump action shotgun that was used for home defense. My mom had gotten it into her head that we were going to be robbed one time when the wind had blown open the front door during the night. She thought that someone had snuck in during the night and forced my dad to but the thing.

"Nope." Rob giggled and set down the rifle onto the bed where it sunk into my thick covers. "Not from one hundred yards or ten yards."

"That's why I'll bring this." I tested the pump on it and it gave off a satisfying sound.

"OK." Rob raised up his hand. "Go on your little excursion, but if you see a wolf..."

"I'll come straight home, mom." He gave me another light shove.

---

I lost cell service about half way up the mountain which was between me and the nearest tower. It was a good sign, that meant I was almost there. I had been up here several times over the years, just on little nature walks when I had nothing to do back home on my days off. Washington was a beautiful place, especially eastern Washington with forest covered mountains as far as the eye could see. There were some mountain peaks that had snow on them most of the year, some already had a light dusting now, but I wouldn't be going up high enough to need to worry about that.

My truck, an early 2000's model Chevy crawled over the uneven dirt road that wasn't marked on any maps I had since it had been blazed by a logging company and no one had bothered to record it, nonetheless, I knew it was there and the logging operations had finished a long time ago so there was no danger of running into anything that would force me off the road.

I bounced in my seat as I slowly made my way deeper into the woods. I had the heater going at about half power and thankfully the radio was still good so I had some tunes going as well. At the moment it was playing some country.

I never understood why so many people hated country, it had its good songs and bad ones just like any other genre. I hummed to the tune as I gave the truck a little more gas to push it over a boulder that had been exposed from a recent rain storm that hit the mountains. At least there would never be a drought like in California, we were having troubles with flooding while they were drying up.

I reached my final destination just as the song ended. I turned off the truck, the engine dying instantly and engulfing me in utter silence. I stepped out and into the cool, thin hair. It was refreshing to having the clean air fill my lungs. It reminded me why I lived here instead of the city. I didn't have to worry about traffic since the roads in the small town I lived were barren most of the time, people preferred to walk the half mile to the grocery store. I didn't have to hear any horns blaring or smell smog. There was nothing but nature here, and I loved it, but only for so long. I pulled out my phone and popped a single ear bud into my ear and turned on my music on shuffle.

With a steady beat to work with, I set up my little camp. Some rocks in a circle create a fire pit which I dumped some sticks into so it would be ready when I needed it. A foldable chair was set up along with a cheap plastic fold table where I set the food. Rob had called it a gross over exaggeration of the amount of food I needed, but I called it a little slice of home.

Next was the camera. I grabbed the travel bag and its tripod and set out on foot away from camp up the mountain. Green's point wasn't official, just like the road I had used, it was just a little something a few people in town knew about. Every time I stepped out of the immediate woods and onto the rocky outcropping, the sight took my breath away.

Green's point looked over a bowl shaped valley that had a small lake in its center. Either side of the valley was surrounded by low mountains with the one I was on being the tallest. The emerald green carpet stretched over the mountains where they extended beyond and over more and more mountains as far as the eye could see. There wasn't any sign that mankind had ever been here before, not single rooftop, smoke pillar, not even the sound of a plane passing overhead. It was just me and the world.

I unfolded the tripod and set it down. I grabbed a few small bags I had and filled them with rocks until they were weighted and tied them to each of the legs of the tripod since I did get windy and that could shake the tripod and ruin an image.

Once I was happy with the set up, I pulled out the camera and screwed it onto the small nub on the top of the tripod until it was firmly secured. Everything was all set, now I just had to wait for night to set which meant I had time to make dinner.

The water was set to boil on top of the gas burner for mac and cheese while I fiddled with a piece of magnesium and flint I had bought the last week. I scraped a few shavings onto the small pile of tinder I had meticulously broken down from larger sticks, between the folds were also wads of paper as well. I put a good amount of shavings down until the sticks and paper looked like little snow capped mountains. I then pulled out the piece of steel and flint. The flint was just a small bar and the metal a rectangular piece with a grooved edged. I pointed the bar towards the volatile pile and gave the flint a sharp strike.

Sparks flew but nothing caught. Several more strikes confirmed that I was by no means a survivalist so I went ahead and pulled out my lighter instead. It caught instantly and the fire was roaring fast.

A few holes were punctured into the tops of the cans of sausage and set down next to the fire where they would heat up. I tended to the water which was just beginning to simmer, pouring in the milky white elbow macaroni and stirring it so it wouldn't stick to the bottom of the pot.

Once the noodles were soft, I drained about half of the water and added the powder cheese mix and stirred it in until it was a nice creamy sauce that I then poured out into a plastic bowl that I had brought along. I filled the pot, the sides still covered in cheesy goodness, with the beans and set that to warm. I retrieved, with some difficulty, the sausages and added those to the mac and cheese. The day was turning out just fine.

At some point, I had fallen asleep. I woke up when my phone died and the music stopped, the sudden silence shocking me back to lucidness.

I rubbed my eyes and stretched. It was dark, but not so dark that I couldn't see. The fire had died out and the beans were as dry as a salt flat. Luckily nothing had caught fire when I was out and luckily I didn't freeze because I was freezing.

Slowly, I got up to my feet. My body was sore from sleeping in the uncomfortable chair for what I assumed to be a few hours since the moon wasn't out yet which was a relief.

I stretched my arms up to the darkening sky and yawned, undoing all of the knots that had coiled themselves in my back. I looked around my little camp, it was as I had left. Not that I thought that anyone would have come and moved anything. After Rob's concerns about wolves and such, just falling asleep in the woods out in the open with the smell of cooked food wafting through the woods, it made me feel a little vulnerable.

The woods were quite minus the chirps of a few robins that were above me and fluttering from branch to branch. It was soothing. I went to go check on the camera after plugging my phone into one of those portable usb batteries, stuffing it and the battery into my pocket.

It was, like my camp, just fine. I stood next to it and looked at the landscape which took my breath away. In the middle of the day, the view was fantastic, but in twilight casting deep shadows across the entire valley, it looked biblical or more of something out of Lord of the Rings. There were so few places left that were like this and I was honored to be witnessing it and to be able to see it whenever I liked.

I shivered from the cold just as the top of the moon crowned over the top of the far off mountains. It was almost time. I checked my watched, it was still a few hours until the moon would turn its rusty red color so I briskly walked back to the truck. I opened the door and leaned partly into the truck to grab my fleece that I had draped over the passenger seat.

There was the shotgun as well, propped up against the center dash with the only five shells I had for it in the cup holder. I had brought it for Rob's benefit. He seemed really concerned about wolves. I mean, sure they were massive canines that could bring down something as large as an elk, but they rarely attacked people. I thought about grabbing it, there were other things in the woods other than just dogs. Cougars were known to hunt people, stalking them in the dark. I read the stories about campers who went an entire night, hearing things outside their tents only to see a cougar in the morning. I hated that feeling that I was being watched, but there were no reports of cougars in my area. I grabbed the fleece and left the gun behind. What were the chances? Once in a blue moon, or more like once in a blood moon.

Covered up and warm, I closed the door and grabbed some crackers to snack on before heading back to camera where I decided that I should take a few photos of the landscape. It was still gorgeous with the last bits of sunlight pulling at the tops of the mountains.

I turned on the camera that happily beeped at me and lit up with a dull light that was meant to preserve night vision. I went through the settings and set it to auto. The camera was good enough at its job that I was confident that it would be able to auto adjust to the low light.

I kneeled down and looked through the viewfinder. It was perfect. I could get an image of two mountains on the sides with the valley seated right in the center of the image. A few snow capped mountains seated themselves against the horizon with half of the moon rising up, filling in the picture with the violet sky above where I could see Venus beginning to shine. It was still too dim to show up in this image, but I had all night. I wondered if I would be able to get an image with both Venus and the moon together. Only time would tell.

When I pressed the button to take the image, there was a slight delay as the camera changed its setting to get the most optimal image and then the shutter clicked. The image appeared on the display, it was perfect. I gleefully took several more and the hours quickly ticked by along with nearly a hundred high resolution images. I had a large memory card in the camera that could hold several hundred images, so wasn't worried about running out of room.

The moon started to shift red, taking on a light, brown hue as it climbed higher and higher into the sky. I stood behind the camera, at the ready and tilted it up. I clicked a few more pictures, thinking that it would be a good idea to sew the images together later to create a cool picture to show off later.

At this point it was very dark, with only the low light from the camera and quickly diminishing light of the moon, I was in my own little world, bordered by darkness. I couldn't see anything beyond that world and the birds had stopped chirping, it was total silence. The smallest sound was intensified and it was a sound, other than my own shuffling feet and the camera that snapped me out of the tunnel vision that I had with the moon.

It was a the crack of a twig and I snapped straight up, having been hunched over the camera. I squinted as I looked into the dark and I strained to hear. There was another crunch of a twig. If i wasn't sure if i heard something the first time, I was certain now. It was a light and slow sound as if something was walking slowly and carefully, but was failing at being stealthy.

My mind automatically went to all of the little bedtime horror stories of monsters in the woods. It was silly, but there's a reason why humans have an innate fear of the darkness. We grow up fearing the dark even though nothing ever came from it to harm us. Our ancestors on the other hand weren't so lucky, that carried on through history and now I was feeling like how they must have felt.

"Hello?" I said with little confidence. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone, unplugging it. I fumbled with it to turn on the light.

*Snap*

It was closer. I turned on the light and shined it right at the source and I nearly dropped my phone.

Before me was the largest wolf I had ever seen. It stood only twenty feet away, hunched down on its massive paws. No matter why it had made so much noise, something like that never could move through the woods without making noise, but it had managed to get this close before I had noticed. The thing was as tall as me even hunched over, it must have weighed four hundred pounds, all muscle no doubt.

It's yellow eyes that seemed to glow stared straight at me. There seemed to be an intelligence behind them as they bored holes through my head.

I took a step back.

It took a step forward, closing the distance between us due to its size.

"Fuck." I whispered to myself. I should have grabbed the gun, but I had been so sure that nothing would happen, because what were the chances of running into what must have been the largest wolf in the state, no, the country?

Once in a blood moon.

---

Rob sat at his desk and shuffled through his papers. It was the same stuff as any other day. Poachers were becoming an issue ever since word got out that there were wolves. They wanted to get their pelts and sell them since a pristine, whole pelt could go for a lot of money. But the issue wasn't that they were killing the wolves. No, a few rangers had picked up a few poachers in the woods. They were terrified out of their minds, raving and incoherent. They were more than glad to admit their intentions of setting up their traps as long as they were brought off the mountain.

When interviewed once they had time to calm down in a cell, they told us their story.

They had gone up into the mountains with traps that resembled bear traps except without the teeth, but rubber gums that would hold an animal in place without damaging its pelt.

They went late at night and went into the woods and began to set their traps. After a few hours, they noticed that some of their traps were gone. They thought that they had been discovered and quickly tried to get away, but they had one problem.

Their vehicle was gone as well, forcing them to walk off the mountain.

Through the night, they got the feeling that they were being watched. They couldn't tell why, but they had that feeling as they walked down the dirt path that had taken them up into the mountains. Around midnight is when they said they saw it first.

"It was right there." Rob recalled one of the poachers who was covered in scratches and had a bleeding gash across his face that was wrapped up in bandages. "We didn't see it until we were right on top of it, it's fur was jet black." The poacher paused and took a deep breath in, having trouble to maintain his composure. "It was massive too, more like something out of Greek mythology than real life."

"What did it do?" Rob asked. He was there along with a few rangers. Rob wasn't a ranger himself, but he was the one filing the report and since the poachers weren't hostile and very cooperative, the rangers let him come in and ask some questions for the report.

"At first, nothing. It stood there and stared us down." The poacher shivered and held onto his sides. He wasn't handcuffed or anything. There was little worry that he was going to do anything and the ranger station wasn't a police station, things were less stringent here. "Johnny, Bren and I were frozen in our tracks. We didn't want to go back, but we couldn't go forward either." He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Go on." I encouraged him. The man was getting agitated retelling the story and while Rob could have had multiple sessions since the police weren't going to arrive until late evening, he wanted to get as much as he could now.

"Could I get some water?" He asked and one of the rangers, Taima, a tall, strong woman who was part Chinook on her mother's side went and left the room to go get a cup. The man didn't say anything else until she returned with a paper cup and a water bottle. "Thank you." He said and poured himself a helping and drank it down in a long gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

Rob waited patiently for the man to finish.

Once the man finished, he continued his story. "We stood like that, facing each other, for a good ten minutes before Bren decided to try and scare the wolf away. Not by raising his arms and shouting."

"What did he do?" I asked, though I knew the answer. Bren was found with a weapon, a hunting rifle, one bullet fired, four left in the magazine.

"He took out his rifle." He answered. "Slowly, as to not make any sudden moves." He then added. "He raised it up, the wolf watched him raise it up. I remember how it turned its head, you know." The man gave a quick chuckle. "Like a dog that is curious and for a moment, the wolf wasn't that scary, but only for a moment. As soon as he fired the gun, the wolf pounced."

The man couldn't say anything else after that, he broke down into tears and had to be led away. That was a week ago and now Sean was up there, at the exact same spot. The place hadn't been closed off, in fact, the details about the poachers was being kept under wraps. Not only because it would cause some panic and a public outcry since Bren's rifle wasn't handed over by Bren, but taken off of what was left of his body. People would want to go on a hunt for the man killer wolf. While that would cause one hell of a headache for the small ranger station, there was something more sinister and more frightening.

The two remaining poachers were handed over to federal authorities and taken away. They wanted to conduct an investigation, but Rob and a few others had convinced them that while it was a tragedy that someone had been killed, they had startled the animal which was just acting on instinct, therefore there was no sign that the wolf was actively hunting people.

With the feds taken care of and the poachers gone, the station, or rather the rangers were doing their own investigation. The area around the scene was scouted out for signs of the wolf, but none were found. No tracks, nothing and so it was determined that the wolf had left, that was what Rob had been told. The rangers were their own little cult, all coming from Native American ancestry and a few from the same family, or rather, pack.

Rob knew their secret and they knew that he knew. They were werewolves, all of them. They used the Forest Service as a legitimate cover for themselves to protect their interests from outside parties since recently things have become complicated.

Rob knew little of what his former employers did today, but he did know that something had kicked the hornet's nest. The Inquisition had come to the states in force, something had forced them out of Europe which had been their base of operations for hundred's of years.

Rob once worked for them. He had been sent to Washington years ago to scout the area due to a rumored wolf pack. Rob had never really cared for the Inquisition, not when his father, a devout member, brought him in for Guardian training where he learned how to use all sorts of weapons and how to defeat a werewolf in a fight. He knew that werewolves, upon transforming into their beast modes, temporarily had bad depth perception due to the physical change in their eyes. They would tend to overshoot and even the most experienced of werewolves had trouble compensating. He knew where to strike with a silver blade if he got into hand to hand combat. He was tutored in martial arts to use the mass of a wolf against it. While in the end, the wolf was faster and stronger, he had some chance of coming out victorious against what would most likely be a werewolf that had never fought and would go into a fight with overconfidence.

That was some time ago. Rob used the opportunity of coming to Washington to disappear. He vanished, never reporting in and hid out for a while. He was sure people were sent to look for him, but they never found him. Now Rob was working for the Forest Service, a calm relaxing job with people he could call his friends.

Yes, he considered the werewolves, the very beings that he had once sworn to kill, friends. They weren't the horrible monsters that he had grown up hearing about, they were just ordinary people with an extraordinary ability.

It hadn't taken that long to figure out the rangers at the station were werewolves. While to the normal, untrained eye, they were normal, to Rob's trained eyes, they were very obvious. They acted different, had unusually tight bonds with those around them. They tended to avoid strong smells, especially that of burned tobacco, it all added up until one day Rob confronted one of them, Taima to be exact.

It was awkward when he approached her and simply stated, not ask, that she was a werewolf.

One thing led to another, he shared his story, leaving nothing out and they accepted him. It was that simple and now he occasionally got some information, like how the wolf up in the mountains was a werewolf. But, he didn't have all of the information, he just knew that it was a werewolf and he assumed that it was one of the rangers who knew about the poachers.

There's a reason why there's a specific saying about those who assume too much.

"That's a lot of paperwork." Taima stopped by Rob's desk as he was heading to her own office.

"Yeah." Rob chuckled and pushed the papers into a neat stack. "It happens whenever the feds come over. They want to know everything."

"But they don't need to know everything." She said with a sly smile.

"No." Rob answered. "Just enough to make them happy." Rob wondered how the government would react if it ever became known that werewolves were real. Would the reaction be violent? Would it be peaceful? It was impossible to know, but it he was still curious. The last time anything sizable got involved with werewolves, The Inquisition was created to kill them all.

"Doing anything tonight?" She asked and leaned over the desk, pretending to look at the papers, but ended up showing off her cleavage to Rob. It was a game that the two played. A sort of mix between flirting and just fun antics. She wanted to catch him looking and he wanted to look without being caught. It was too obvious of a trap, Rob kept his eyes on his desk.

"There is that blood moon tonight." Rob said, remembering that Sean had gone up into the mountains. He wondered how he was doing. He had tried to convince him to stay while the rangers finished up their investigation. He didn't want him to end up seeing one of them and panicking. He was sure Sean was in no danger, but when Sean was adamant, he had to shift tactics. He tried to make it sound more dangerous by telling him to bring a weapon, hoping that it would discourage him, but even that had failed. Now Rob just hoped that Sean didn't accidentally run across one of them since werewolves disliked being in their human form when in the woods. He was in no danger, none of the rangers would attack him, but it just would have been simpler if he had stayed home.

"Yeah." Taima stood up straight when it became obvious that Rob wasn't going to look. "I've never seen one. The one earlier in the year was covered up by clouds." She turned around and leaned against the desk which shifted a little. Despite her looks, which was slightly lean with toned muscles that gave her very flattering curves, she was extremely dense and much heavier than she appeared to be. All werewolves were like that. Matter can't be destroyed so all of that mass from when they're a wolf that stands as tall as a man, is condensed down into a human.

"Perhaps we could go somewhere and take a look." Rob looked at her ebony eyes and quickly looked away. No amount of training could condition a man for this. It wasn't much of an invitation, but it was the first step that Rob was looking for. Ever since he had come here, he had an eye for Taima. She was smart, funny, kind and one of the only werewolves here that talked to him on a daily basis. She was the most human of them all. "I know it's not of great taste, but I hear that the place where we picked up the poachers has a great view."

"I'm sorry." Taima said and Rob's heart sunk a little. "But, I can't tonight." She flipped her long, black and braided hair over her shoulder.

"Why?" Rob asked, wanting to know if this was about him or not.

"The blood moon." She answered.

"Blood moon?"

"You know how there are stories about werewolves and they all involve the moon?" She asked and he nodded. "Well, the moon has an effect on us. For some reason that we still don't know, the closer it is to full, the easier it is for us to change between forms since the act can be draining, but during a blood moon, we sometimes lose ourselves."

"What do you mean?" Rob needed to know. He was worried now. Sean was out there.

"A wolf who changes during a blood moon may lose his memory of who he is and end up becoming a beast. He won't know who he is or recognize other and more often than not, become violent. We're forbidden from going out on the night of a blood moon for safety."

"But you won't be changing." Rob said and swiveled his chair to face her. "We're just going to take a look."

"There's a wolf out there." She answered bluntly.

"You just said that you people can't go out..."

"He's not one of ours." She cut him off. "That's why we didn't tell anyone about the dead poacher and are conducting our own investigation."

"Not yours?"

"No." She said and tapped her fingers on his desk. "We think that this wolf was affected by the last blood moon. He's still in the area, but we can't get him until the blood moon is gone. It's too dangerous."

Rob stood straight up, starting Taima.

"What's wrong?" She asked him, his usual scent of calmness quickly changing into panic.

Rob didn't answer, He pulled open his top desk drawer and pulled everything out. A stapler, staples, tacks, pencils, everything was on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Taima said concerned and stepping back away from the clutter as Rob pulled the bottom out of his drawer, revealing a hidden space where there was a Deagle with two magazines filled with silver ammunition.

Rob never expected to use it, but when he had first come here, he decided that he would need to keep it close by in case the werewolves ever turned on him. It was a precaution and now he needed it.

Taima's mouth dropped open. "What are you doing?"

"My friend went up there." He said and pulled the gun out. He hadn't touched the thing in so long. It was heavy, but evenly weighted, it felt right at home in his hands. He slid a magazine into it, but stopped short of chambering a round.

"What?"

"My friend is up there and I need to check on him."

"You can't go up there." She said to him and grabbed his arm and turned her to him. He had to look up. All werewolves were taller than average.

"I can and I will." Rob felt responsible for letting Sean go up there. He didn't try hard enough to convince him to stay. All Sean had was that shotgun which was certain was just going to sit in the truck and not be used. Even if Sean had gotten out the gun, normal ammunition wasn't going to have much of an effect. Werewolves were extremely resilient and could take a beating before going down, even the Deagle may not be enough since silver was slow acting, it needed to get into the blood to stunt their abilities and regenerative abilities.

"You can't fight a werewolf."

Rob looked at her straight in the eyes. "Don't bet on it." He pulled away and ran out the door.

---

I don't know how I did it, but I got to the truck. It just let me run off.

I know that every single video I had ever watched about wildlife said not to run, but in a panic, it was hard not to. Looking back on this, people would tell me that it was stupid, it was, but you don't think about such things in the moment.

The shotgun was there right inside of the truck where I left it. I grabbed it and the shells, one of which I dropped and it rolled under the seat. I didn't grab it, there was no time. It could be any moment before the wolf got to me. It could have killed me right there, but something about how it looked at me made me feel like it wasn't going to at first.

I finished loading the gun and got into the truck. I reached into my pocket for my keys. They weren't there.

"NO!" I screamed and slammed the wheel, causing the truck to honk. "FUCK! NO." Rocked back and forth and grabbed the shotgun and held it to my chest. I turned the knob on the indicator stick to turn on the lights. I quickly changed them to high beams.

It was there again, the wolf. The wolf stood in the lights and watched me.

Was there the entire time I was loading the gun? I thought so. It could have killed me at anytime.

I aimed the shotgun at it. I didn't care about the windshield. I didn't fire, but I was ready with my finger on the trigger. I had never shot anything before, but I wasn't going to have any issue tonight.

It must have thought that I intended to shoot right then, because as soon as I leveled the barrel, it moved. It moved far faster than I thought possible. It didn't move out of the lights, but towards them to get rid of them.

The truck shook violently as the massive beast slammed into the front. I was thrown back hard into my seat as both of the headlights were instantly destroyed along with the front of the truck.

All I had was the light from my phone and my shotgun.

I was terrified, not that I wasn't before, but I was experiencing pure terror now. I could barely hold still, I was shaking all over and my breathing was erratic. I was also crying. I didn't want to die, be torn apart by some animal in the middle of the woods like this. I should have listened to Rob from the very beginning. He worked for the Forest Service after all, he knew that it was dangerous and I didn't listen.

The truck shook again as the wolf hit it again, from the passenger side. I saw the frame bend into the cabin. The things trying to break in and get to me.

Another hit broke all of the windows at once. They cracked and shattered. Shatterproof my ass.

I covered my face as glass shards rained all around me.

"Go away!" I screamed out and fired a round randomly into the dark out of the non existent windshield. It disoriented me and made my ears ring as the sound of the shot was amplified.

I was answered with a bone chilling howl that pierced the night more than my shotgun blast and my ringing ears. I replied by firing in the direction of the howl, not caring that I was probably doing permanent harm to my hearing. I pumped the gun, the spent casing flying out to land somewhere behind me and I loaded the next one. I had two shots left and I didn't waste them like I did the first two.

It was out there, I could hear it pacing just out of sight. It took slow steps, rustling leaves and twigs as it made a full circle around the truck.

Why was it doing this. Wolves don't do this, they don't attack people like this, especially by destroying vehicles. It was beyond anything that I had heard. Rabies could cause an animal to be violent, but I doubted that it would cause something this extreme.

The pacing stopped and I brought up the shot gun.

It began to run at me and I fired.

There was a yelp as I hit it. I saw it for a blink of an eye when I shot. It was illuminated for a split second, mid air as it leapt at me. My barrel was aimed right at its face.

The wolf smashed into the truck again and fell to the ground. It didn't get back up.

I was breathing hard and was sweating. I could barely hold onto the gun, my hands were so slick with sweat. I slowly opened up the door of the truck that now had a massive dent in it that was pocked with blood as well. I looked down, shining my light.

There was the wolf on the ground, unmoving, laying on its side and eyes wide open. It looked dead and the massive chunk that was missing from its chest reinforced that.

I didn't spend any more time looking at it. I jumped out of the vehicle that was now useless. How was I going to explain this to the insurance company? My coverage covered damage done by animals, but there would be no way that they would believe that this had just happened. It was a nice truck. An expensive truck that was great at carrying large loads of firewood, now it was scrap.

I felt weak as I ran away from the scene on the dirt road. I was exhausted from the ordeal. The adrenaline could only do so much for my and it was fading fast. I jogged for about ten minutes before I just had to stop. I just couldn't keep running anymore, I was so tired.

I sat down against a tree that was next to the dirt road, leaning back against it. I kept my shotgun and its last remaining shell close to me. I should have taken the time to get the last shell from under the seat. I should have done a lot of things different, but luckily I did still have those crackers. I nibbled on them, concentrating on the salty taste. I was thirsty too, but my water was back by the truck and there was no way I was going back to get that.

A few minutes later, I got back up and began to walk. I needed to get a bar on my phone so I could call Rob. I needed him to come and get me as soon as possible. I was prepared to give him eternal "I told you so" rights as long as he got me away and back home.

Just like magic, I saw headlights ahead coming towards me.

"Hey!" I began to run towards the lights and raised a hand in the air and waived it. "Stop!"

The car, I think it was a car, the headlights were blinding me, came to a stop. I was so happy. The door opened and a figure came out. He had a gun and what looked like a large blade. What kind of crazy shit was going on here?

"Get down!" The person yelled. It was Rob, glorious Rob. "Get down, quick!" He yelled and raised his gun which looked like it was the size of my head. "Now!:

I ducked down, so confused as to why Rob, my best friend, was aiming a gun at me. except he wasn't.

He fired once. It was louder than my shotgun. I flinched thinking that I was shot, but I wasn't. Rob began to run and fired again and again, over me. He ran next to me and fired behind me and I looked back to see the wolf. It was running at us. Wasn't that thing dead just a bit ago and if it was already here, moments after Rob arrived... It had been following me down the mountain.

"Get in the car." Rob said to me as he fired at the weaving wolf. I obeyed immediately as he continued to fire until there were no rounds left.

I jumped into the car's driver's seat since the door was still open. I'm glad I did that because if I had jumped in on the passenger side, I would be sitting on what looked like a sword. It was a long bladed, not fancy or made for appearance of any kind, it was just a blade with a handle. Apparently there was a side of Rob that I didn't know about.

He never talked about his past and I never asked. It was rude to ask and I was never curious about the man who just showed up one day and got hired by the Forest Service.

I heard Rob reload his gun and then yell out, "Fuck."

I turned and looked out to see Rob duck under the massive paw of the wolf as it swiped at him. He tucked and rolled, brandishing the machete at the ready.

"Come at me." He said to the wolf as if it could perfectly understand me.

The wolf snarled and pounced at him, its mouth wide open showing an array of sharp teeth.

Rob twirled around to the side, just out of the way of the wolf and he managed to cut into the wolf with his machete, spraying blood.

The wolf landed on all fours, unfazed by the deep gash that was gushing blood. It glared at Rob who glared back, he was entirely focused on the matter at hand. The two ran at each other.

The wolf went high, Rob went low, sliding as if going to home base with his machete outstretched along with his gun aimed as well.

There was a loud bang as the two passed by each other.

The wolf didn't land this time, it went limp, hitting the ground and rolling off. Rob was fine though, he slowly got up, but he looked hurt though.

I got out of the car and stood by the door. "Rob!" I yelled out to him.

"Grab the blade in the passenger side." He yelled back and held onto his side. There was blood seeping between his fingers.

I ducked back in and grabbed the blade. It was surprisingly light for its size. I ran over to Rob and handed him the blade. He took it with the hand that he was using to cover up his wound. There were several long gashes across his torso. They weren't deep, but they were bleeding a lot.

Rob shuffled to the wolf that was breathing heavily, but wasn't able to get up. It laid there, barely able to lift its head to look at Rob as he stood over it. It let out a slow moan.

"Life's a bitch." He said as if in reply and raised the blade up before plunging it into the wolf's chest. It let out a gurgling grunt and kicked its legs sporadically before letting out its death rattle and ceasing all movement.

"What was that?" I asked. "What's going on here. Why did this happen. Why do you have this thing?" I had so many questions. Rob knew something I could see it in his face as he looked down at the corpse.

He wiped a bit of blood of his face. "Don't get any of the blood in your mouth." He pulled the blade out of the wolf and winced as he did so. "Come on." He began walking towards the car. "I"ll take you down to the station and I'll explain everything."

"I don't even know what you're going to explain." I grabbed my hair and followed him. "What is that thing?"

He stopped and sighed. "Werewolf." He said.

"Don't joke like that." I was angry and confused. "Not after all of this."

"Who says I'm joking?"