Lost in Lolo Without a Soul

The pitch black night along the outskirts of the trailer court is ominously silent, except for an occasional deep-throated snarl. All of the night creatures were hiding. All of the people were secluded behind locked doors and windows. No traffic could be seen, and the few outsiders that passed through avoided this particular stretch of road. Even the insects that frequent the darkness had moved away from the area. The terror that had set itself upon this area was readily apparent after sundown, and the tales of a blood thirsty creature stalking any living creature had once again started to circulate.

The people of this area have told a tale throughout the ages about a Werecat that has appeared every three years to hunt. It was told that the creature was human for eighteen years; he lived a very secluded life, had not so many friends and always surrounded himself with dozens of stray cats that he had taken into his home. The night of his eighteenth birthday he came up missing along with all of the stray cats he had taken in over the years. His mother and the local police had searched for him for days. A week or so had gone by and is mother was starting to lose hope. Desperate and lost without her only son she began to wonder around outside in the dark calling out his name in hopes she would bring her son home. She had been out in the cold for about an hour when she heard persistent meowing coming from an abandoned shack in a field behind the trailer court they lived in. She slowly peeked her head in and was reluctant to go inside, it was so dark inside that even the light of the full moon seemed to dim upon entering. She crept around broken wood and garbage that had been left here throughout the years making it very difficult to move. She found her way clumsily to the far back corner and came upon dozens of cats circling around an object lying on the floor. They were hissing and scratching at the object that appeared to be a pile of mucous covered blankets. Now you've always heard the saying curiosity killed the cat, but in this case curiosity was the cat. She grabbed a stick to push the blankets aside and underneath all of the sticky goo like substance she found her son who appeared to be dead. She lunged for him calling out his name and grabbing at him desperately, but the second she did so his skin began to tear away from the bone like overcooked turkey. At that very second he rolled over and hissed and growled and before her very eyes she watched her son turn into a fiery eyed monster she did not recognize at all. She cried and pleaded with him as he ran off into the night crying a shrieking sound you could feel all the way to the depth of your soul. Nobody believed her cries for help everybody assumed she had lost her sanity in the shock of losing her son. Over the years people in the small town of Lolo, Montana had seen the creature and described it as an animal that resembled a large cougar, but with more intensely large fangs and it walked upright on its hind legs. Strangely the sightings were only every three years on the full moon. Few brave people had tried to hunt it down and turn it into a wall trophy, but none had ever returned from the hunts. Nobody ever got close enough to actually see what type of creature it was because it would kill without warning or reason, until tonight that is.

That is where I come into the story. My name is Damien, and I have been a paranormal investigator/hunter for over ten years. The world around us is as not as simple, and safe, as most people think, and when situations arise when my services are needed, I pack up my tools and weapons and hit the road. Even though there are numerous other people like me, I am considered to be the best of the best, and am always in the forefront of the fight against evil.

I arrived in the small town shortly after the sun had fallen, so I immediately followed the hiking trail back into the woods were the last Werecat sighting had been reported. The full moon that shone overhead made the trek easy, and it was only about an hour before I reached the spot of the latest carnage that had been caused by the flesh eater. I walked out into a clearing and spotted a small cabin that sat back against the tree line. There were no lights burning inside, and as I silently approached it became apparent that something extremely large had forced its way through the door into the living quarters of the main room.

I reached around into by backpack as I glided towards the door and grabbed onto the hilt of my sword, which I have found to be the most effective weapon against any type of creature. I did not know if the creature was still prowling around its newest feeding spot, but it is always a good idea to be on guard and ready for anything.

As I stepped through the broken pieces of door I immediately realized that I was not alone in the cabin. A flash streaked across the room in front of me and turned in a direction that headed right towards me. In a flash of steel and a roar of power my sword flew forward and buried itself to the hilt in the chest of the creature. The forward momentum of the animal caused it to continue coming forward and the body crashed into me like an anvil, sending me flying backwards down off the porch onto the grass, where I landed flat on my back. The Werecat landed on top of me pinning me down, allowing the fangs of the creature to sink deep into my neck. The impact of the 300 pound creature knocked the wind out of me, and along with the unbearable pain from the bite, my mind joined the blackness of the night as I passed out cold.

I regained consciousness, the sun shining bright overhead birds chirping only to find myself lying next to the body of a young boy who had been lost for so many years. My sword, covered in bright red blood, lay next to him in the blood tinged grass. The wound in his chest had stopped bleeding, and the raw flesh had begun to pull itself back together, in complete dismay I was up and stumbling backwards only to find someone standing a couple feet behind me watching in complete silence and shock. She was familiar in so many ways and my mind began to spin trying to figure out where I had known her. Then it hit me, behind the sad eyes and tattered blonde hair there standing in front of me was my lost love who I had abandoned to fulfill my calling of slaying the evil and unknown so many years ago. As she wept and held the young man she looked up at me with so much pain and I knew when he opened his eyes and I seen a reflection of myself that I was the father of this lost soul and I was responsible for all of his self torment and the sacrifice he had made to the feline world to no longer be alone. After all it was my leaving him that had caused such a deep yearning to become what I so desperately hunted, and he knew it was the one way to bring me to him. I approached them slowly but before I could reach out and touch them the young man grabbed his mother by the waist and pulled her away from me the sad look in their eyes had turned to rage. My greed for blood had created a monster that for the first time in my life I could not kill and my vague attempt at doing so only left me to realize that in part I was responsible for all the deaths my creature, my son, had caused. With a tear running down her face she raised her hand out to mine as I reached for her with one swift swing our son tore the hot beating flesh from my arm letting me know she was no longer mine and he would never be. He carried her over his shoulder effortlessly as they disappeared into the trees. As much as I knew I should not follow I ran after but to my dismay they were gone no trace of them at all. Now the roles were reversed, I went to their trailer and waited alone and lost for years in that small trailer wondering if there would come a day where I would see them again. I got a job as a local cashier and lived an average everyday life, only to hear stories of the werecat and his kills and they were always the same until one day a man walked in and told me his same old werecat sighting but this time there was a twist in his story there were two and they had been killing together and running together as a pair, he had told me they had been spotted all over Montana together and they seemed to be making their way to Lolo. I knew at that moment they were coming for me and I would be the hunted this time around. Each night I would sit waiting and watching out the window anticipating there return. I was beginning to think they were never going to come for me until tonight as I sit here. The pitch black night along the outskirts of the trailer court is ominously silent, except for an occasional deep-throated snarl.