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It Comes With The Moon

A Black Bayou Tale

By Lori Beasley BradleyPublished 4 years ago 5 min read
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Ryan screamed with the pain as his body began to contort and change. What was happening to him and who was laughing ? The maniacal laughter rang in his ears and grew more distinct and unavoidable to hear as his ears changed along with the rest of his body.

He tried to fight it but he didn't know what IT was. He'd never experienced such pain in his life. It was worse than when he'd broken his leg as a kid in a motorcycle accident. This was intensified a hundred fold as every bone in his body seemed to be breaking and reforming into something different--something that wasn't Ryan Wright any longer.

Then the laughing stopped and he heard a voice in his head--her voice. Would he never be shed of the witch?

"I think we should give this a rest for a while. It's not really working for me anymore and I don't think it's working for you either," Ryan had told Althea Rubidoux over dinner at La Petite Paris in St. Elizabeth, Louisiana, that night. La Petite Paris was the nicest restaurant in town--actually the only restaurant in town--and he'd wanted to make the break up with her in a nice and very public place.

Althea was know for her explosive temper and Ryan thought being in the restaurant might ease it somewhat. He'd been wrong and the scene she'd caused would likely be gossiped about in St. Elizabeth for weeks to come. She'd thrown her glass of wine in his face, screaming obscenities, and flung the dinner dishes onto the floor as people looked on in horrified delight at the young woman breaking up the dishes and their boredom.

They'd eaten a big dinner of rare T-bone steak and all the trimmings, so Ryan couldn't understand why he suddenly felt so hungry, but he was ravenous, thinking about the juicy rare steak he'd consumed that evening and he wanted more--more of the salty, warm blood running from the charred flesh that had tasted so good as it ran down his throat.

"You thought you could use me and then cast me aside like some back alley whore, Ryan?" Althea's voice whispered melodically in his head along with the sultry laugh. "Well, now you will pay like the others who've sought to cross me." More laughter echoed in his head as the pain began to ease for the first time and Ryan felt strangely stronger and invigorated for the first time in what felt like hours. "And others will pay as well for your rejection of me, Ryan, when the hunger consumes you and nothing will sate it save the taste of warm flesh and blood--warm human flesh and blood, Ryan. Perhaps the blood of your bitch mother or the latest slut who's attracted your attention. "Ah," she sighed softly into his ear, "the first transformation is complete, so run free, my young Loup Garroux, run free and hunt for your first kill. This will happen to you with every full moon, Ryan, and now you belong to me forever," Althea said, laughing maniacally again as Ryan began to run on powerful legs--four powerful legs.

Ryan woke in his bed with his body throbbing and more exhausted than after a long workout at the gym. He glanced over at the clock on his bedside table and sighed. The alarm must have woken him. That had been the worst nightmare he'd ever experienced. He wiped sweat from his brow and rose on shaky legs to hobble into the bathroom where he took a long dump and mumbled to himself, "Something I ate last night certainly didn't agree with me."

He glanced into the mirror as he passed the sink and he flipped on the light. Something didn't look right and he screamed when he saw the blood and gore covering his face and muscular naked torso. "What the hell?" he exclaimed and hurried into the bedroom to switch on the light and look for the clothes he'd worn the night before.

"Jesus," he gasped when he saw his bed. The white sheets and pillowcase were a mess with blood and he began to inspect his body for a wound of some sort but found none. "What the hell happened to me last night?" He slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

Ryan's mind went back to the nightmare and the voice of Althea Rubidoux whispering into his head. Had she called him a Loup Garroux? Wasn't that French for werewolf?

His head began to spin as he tried to recall the rest of the nightmare. He remembered running and chasing after something. He remembered the all-consuming hunger and the need to satisfy that hunger with sweet, warm blood and glanced in horror at his bed. Had he actually killed and eaten something--or someone? He wondered as he heard all her words again in his head about needing human flesh and blood to satisfy the terrible hunger that had consumed him.

"Only the flesh and blood of a human will satisfy the hunger, Ryan," he remembered Althea's sultry, giggling voice in his head telling him as he ran after his prey. Surely he hadn't killed another human being. No, it was just some sort of nightmare. Althea must have laced his wine with some sort of drug before storming out of La Petite Paris last night. That had to be it--just a drug-induced nightmare and he'd clear his head with a hot shower.

Ryan trembled as he stared at his bloody sheets. Where had that blood come from? Maybe he'd vomited it up after his dinner, he rationalized. He jumped up and stripped the bed, throwing the sheets into the washer before the blood could set and added a whole container of Adolph's Meat Tenderized to the load. Then he got into the shower to watch the blood run from his body and disappear down the drain. If he'd really attacked someone last night, he needed to clean up the evidence before the police came for him.

Later he would call his friend Sarah DuBois. She was a good listener and would help him to straighten this mess out in his head. She'd warned him not to get involved with Althea but he hadn't listened to her and let his little head do all the decision making where Althea Rubidoux was concerned. That had obviously been a mistake.

supernatural
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About the Creator

Lori Beasley Bradley

I write Historical Fiction set in the Old West. It wasn't all Little House on the Prairie. My Black Bayou books are fun reads if you're into the paranormal. All my books are adult fiction with graphic scenes. Thanks so much for reading.

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