“It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon” Frank’s voice was muffled, his face buried in the telescope.
Trish rolled her eyes and threw a look to Sara. If Frank thought that quoting famous dead Italians would impress her, he was sorely mistaken.
Sara, standing by the observatory door, seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Profound, Frank. Did you translate that yourself? You should cite your sources when you plagiarize one of the most famous astronomers in history. My niece could tell you that was Galileo.”
There was a pause; Trish smelled burning rubber as Frank’s brain worked valiantly to catch up. “…Well, it’s a nice moon.” He sounded sulky.
“That’s more like it. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.” Sara grinned at Trish. “I need to go grab something out of my car. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.” She turned and left, leaving Trish alone with Frank.
Great, not only were they pulling the graveyard shift to perform some truly routine observations, but now she and Sara were going to be stuck with a moody prat the rest of the night. Trish felt her back teeth begin to grind. She wondered vaguely whether she’d be able to send her dental bill to whomever in scheduling had stuck her with Frank “CasaNova” (get it?) Mundell, a man who’s patronizing attitude was only surpassed by his wildly optimistic perception of his own animal magnetism. At least Sara was there too. The only other woman in her program, Trish felt immense affection for the younger woman, who always seemed ready with a quick comeback whenever the guys got mouthy.
The Haverford Observatory (or “Ho” as the purported “men” liked to call it. Hardy har) was no one’s idea of an ideal work environment. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The guys—mostly PhD candidates with big ambitions and tiny little consciences—seemed perfectly content with the atmosphere of mild perversion that hung around the place.
As one of the two women pursuing an astronomy PhD, Trish had found herself the unwilling recipient of all kinds of “guidance” that ranged from “a tighter shirt would help you see the moon better,” all the way to “look at my telescope.” It was all Trish could do to keep the undergraduate women away from the leers of men twice their age who made Pepe Le Pew look like an intersectional feminist. Off the top of her head Trish wasn’t sure what the attrition rate for the Navy SEALs was, but she was fairly certain it didn’t hold a candle to women in the sciences.
That attrition meant spending most of her workdays (and nights) in a fog of Axe body spray, apparently piped through the HVAC system for maximum dispersion. Women, unsurprisingly, had never outnumbered the men at the observatory. Trish wasn’t sure how to celebrate spending a work-night with Sara and only one guy, but it deserved some recognition. They weren’t exactly drowning in work. They were supposed to take some observations of the full moon, record a few star positions, kid stuff. The professor heading the Haverford University Astronomy program, Dr. James Halpern, never seemed inclined to assign her or Sara on much beyond the most rudimentary observations. Interesting research went to the men in the program, many of them knuckle-dragging gargoyles who couldn’t distinguish a black hole from Uranus. Dr. Halpern routinely asked her to get him coffee. Coffee! Like a fucking intern!
The indignant thought gave her an idea, though. “I’m gonna go grab some coffee.” Trish spun on her heel and headed for the door. The sludge that they served in the kitchen tasted like Carl Sagan’s heated piss, but it would help keep her awake. And with her hands on a hot cup she’d be less likely to strangle Frank.
“Hold on, I’ll come with you.” Frank bolted out of his seat and hit the button to close the shutter on the observation dome. “Nothing’s supposed to happen until three anyway, and that full moon is just polluting the rest of the sky.”
Trish sighed and held the door for Frank and they headed off down the hall. Neither of them saw the flash of fur that darted across the telescope lens before the shutter doors slammed shut.
In the kitchen Frank grabbed two mugs while Trish pulled the pot off the stove. The liquid inside was viscous, responding to movement only belatedly. “Have these people never heard of a Keurig?”
Frank chuckled “They’re terrible for the environment. Scientists can’t get caught with single-use plastics. We’d lose our funding.”
Almost in spite of herself, Trish smiled.
“That’s why I reuse all my Ziploc bags as condoms,” Frank continued, winking at her.
Her smile vanished. Frank seemed to realize he’d gone too far, but appeared unable to think of a way to reverse the steam engine he’d driven through the middle of the conversation. Trish was idly wondering whether to fill Frank’s mug or to “accidentally” beat him to death with the coffee pot when they heard a scream.
Trish and Frank looked at one another for a moment before rushing into the hall. Frank was a few steps ahead of Trish as she had taken a moment to return the coffee to the stove. She took a hard left out the kitchen door and crashed directly into Frank’s back where he had stopped short. Trish, already adrenaline fueled, almost swore at him, but a glance down the hallway interrupted her. A long, red smear glimmered in the fluorescent lights on the hallway’s dirty linoleum floor. It began right at the corner and continued out of sight.
Trish looked at Frank. He was breathing hard, his eyes wide and panicked. She put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, but her mind was racing. Sara should have been the only other person in the building. But it looked like something or—Trish’s stomach clenched—someone had been dragged toward the outer door.
Cautiously, Trish approached the corner; Frank followed, annoyingly close behind. Every now and then he plucked at her arm and she was forced to shake him off. An unfamiliar, guttural sound was coming from the corridor to the front door. Trish stepped around the corner and stopped in her tracks, a scream stuck like a fish bone in her throat. A hairy form crouched over a lifeless body. The noises Trish had heard seemed magnified as it tore at the flesh of the figure on the floor. The beast, whatever it was, shifted, and a face came into view. Sara’s lifeless eyes stared right through Trish. Her slack body occasionally jerked as it was mauled by the predator.
Trish stood there, frozen. Her mind was blank and her feet remained rooted to the floor as she watched her friend’s carcass twitch in the flickering fluorescents. Her brain still hadn’t registered quite what she was seeing when Frank stuck his head around the corner and swore. “What the fuck is that?!”
The awful rending stopped as an even more terrible silence fell. The creature hadn’t yet moved, but its ears were pointed right at them, and its whole body had tensed at the noise.
That appalling stillness snapped Trish out of her reverie. She bolted back around the corner, pushing Frank ahead of her. Her only thought was to get to the fire exit. She could already hear the sounds of pursuit: the scratch of claws on the hallway’s flaking, cracked floor and the gravelly breath of their pursuer.
Yet Trish’s muscles seemed to be revolting. Every step felt like she was running through water. Her legs moved like granite, ponderous and slow. She could never make it. As she stumbled down the hallway like a drunk, Trish cried out “Observatory!” to Frank, who, some steps ahead of her, miraculously responded and shouldered open the door to his left. With the last of her strength, Trish flung herself at the open doorway and hit the floor hard, frantically dragging herself inside and pulling her feet in behind her so that Frank could close the door and bolt it shut.
Trish was gasping for air. Shock and adrenaline coursed through her, and she shook on the floor. Frank, too, was breathing heavily. He held his ear to the door, but his eyes were wide with terror, and his hands were trembling.
“Trish, what the fuck was that thing?”
Trish shook her head, slowing her breathing. She put a finger to her lips and dragged herself to the door. It was a heavy, steel thing, designed to prevent light pollution and disturbance to the researchers making observations. Still, Trish was sure she could hear a rhythmic rasp coming from the hallway. The door shifted a fraction of an inch as something rammed into it from the other side. Trish and Frank let out panicked gasps and looked wildly at the deadbolt, still securely in place. For a few moments, the door hung there, suspended, before settling back into place and Trish breathed fully, almost choking on the sudden influx of oxygen.
Trish and Frank looked at one another. He looked as scared as she felt. He wasn’t trying to make conversation anymore, but she felt someone ought to say something.
“I don’t know what it is, Frank. I only saw it from behind.” She cast her memory back to try to identify the animal. She saw its lank, knotted fur, its protuberant spine, those sharp ears. “It looked like…like some kind of wolf. But the way it was crouched over…” Trish hesitated. In her momentary frenzy at the door, she’d forgotten about Sara. Anguish flooded back, but she managed to fight it down. “… it was almost like an ape.”
Frank snorted, regaining a measure of bravado. “You’re not telling me we just ran away from a werewolf?”
“I said I don’t know what the fuck it was!” Trish was exhausted. Wracked with sorrow and guilt, she was not in the mood to answer questions, and his snicker snapped something in her. She stood up. Frank might have had a three-inch height advantage, but he just stared, dumbfounded, as she shoved him in the chest. “I don’t have a fucking clue what it was but I know what it looked like and I know it just ATE the only fucking friend I had in this whole fucking place.” With every “fuck” Trish shoved Frank, so that by the time she got to “place,” he was pressed up against the smooth, steel wall of the observatory.
Frank looked terrified. “I’m sor…”
CRACK
Trish’s palm exploded against Frank’s right cheek. Four years of college tennis snapped his head to the side and the echo reverberated around the room. Trish sank down to the floor, sobs leapt from her chest in hacking coughs, guttural and scarcely human. Her fear, her grief, her desperation, it all poured out of her, and she did not know how long it continued before it left her, panting and dazed.
She came to herself, still curled on the floor, and pressed herself into a seated position. Trish looked at Frank. He had slid down the wall, right where she had slapped him, and was looking at her with some apprehension.
“I’m sorry.” He said again, and winced a little as Trish shifted positions. “I just didn’t…I don’t…I’m just really scared.” His voice came out soft, a little frail.
“Me too.” There wasn’t much more to say.
“Still,” said Frank, gesturing at the telescope, “full moon tonight. It could be a werewolf.”
Trish wasn’t sure whether Frank was being serious, or just indulging her because he didn’t want to get hit again. She decided that she didn’t care. “Could be.”
“And if it is a werewolf,” Frank said, his voice strengthening, “we only need to make it a couple more hours. The sun’ll be up soon.”
Trish hadn’t considered that yet. “And the morning shift will be coming in not long after that.”
“Yeah! All we have to do is make sure this room is secure, and we can wait it out.” Frank got up and began walking the walls of the observatory. “Just the one door,” he said, sounding encouraged. “No windows or anything.” He looked at the massive shutter to the night sky. “As long as the shutter stays closed, we should be fine.”
Before he had even finished his sentence, the shutter door began to crank open. They both gasped and shrunk from the fissure. “Did you touch anything?”
Frank shook his head. His eyes were wide and alarmed again, but when he spoke his voice sounded almost thoughtful. “There’s a remote panel that opens the shutter from the control center, but you need an administrator code to work it.”
Trish strode over to the control panel and hit the shutter control switch.
Absolutely nothing changed. The shutter doors continued to open slowly. As the gap widened, night sounds rushed in. All seemed peaceful. The sky was clear, the breeze, fresh, and the moon hung, pregnant, above them, bathing them in treacherous light.
Trish found her voice. “Whatever’s doing it, we can’t stay here. You could drop a platoon of werewolves through that hole.” Was it her imagination, or could she already hear claws raking the outside of the dome? Was that rustle just the wind, or the monstrous rattle of some beast as it perched, ready to drop between them? “Let’s go!”
Frank was still staring up at the now wide-open shutter, mouth slightly agape, as Trish unlocked the heavy hallway door, grabbed him by the arm, and yanked him into the corridor.
Trish steered for the front door, lungs already burning with the effort. The shutter opened to the back of the building, so fleeing out the front should provide them the best possible odds of escape. They turned the corner, slipping slightly in the red smear that still marked the floor, and for the second time that night, Trish stood, transfixed, staring at the hairy figure between her and their only hope of escape.
It might have been human-sized, but the similarities ended there. The creature crouched on four long legs, its hindquarters bowed and painfully twisted. The animal’s ribs showed through the tangled fur and leathery skin, its stomach pulsed with each dry, hacking breath. The snout that grinned at her could only be described as wolfish, but it was unlike any wolf Trish had ever seen. Elongated and misshapen, it paired wolf and crocodilian features to create a truly alarming visage. It had apparently expected the opening shutter to flush them out, and Trish had obliged. She had run them right into a trap.
Trish’s shoulder bumped forward momentarily as Frank pushed past her and faced down the monster. “Trish, run, get out of here!”
The creature peered at Frank, as if confused. It looked over his shoulder at Trish and its eyes gleamed.
“I can buy you a minute if you go now!”
Trish wasn’t sure he could buy her a second, but he flung himself at the beast, shouting. As she turned to run, Trish heard his yell become a squeal of pain, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him slump to the ground. Trish ran back the way she had come. Pursuit hot on her heels. No chance of making the back door. She ducked into the kitchen, pressing the pitiful lock on the door, which couldn’t possibly hold the thing for long.
Trish opened every cabinet, searching frantically for a weapon as the werewolf (what else could she call it?) arrived at the door. She saw its baleful eyes staring through the window at her as its breath fogged up the glass. Trish’s hands trembled as she opened drawers, pulling out tin foil, sandwich bags, spoons.
The werewolf charged the door and Trish felt the whole room quiver. Staring at the door, she opened the drawer behind her, next to the stove and her hand found something. Pulling it out in front of her face, she found an old, serrated bread knife, its blade pock-marked with rust. The werewolf struck the door again and it bowed inward around its handle. One more blow should do it. Well, it wasn’t ideal, but at least she had something. Briefly, Trish wondered what she could have found that would have felt “ideal,” and the thought, unbidden as it was, forced a dry chuckle as she held the knife before her, blade pointed at the wreckage of the door.
The third blow came and the door blew open, scattering the room with fragments of door frame. Trish tensed as the monster entered the room, staring hungrily at her. Now that they were alone, the werewolf seemed in no rush to finish the deed. Indeed, it approached slowly, almost warily. Keeping the knife in front of her, Trish tried to edge toward the door. If she got the right angle, maybe she could slip out and run for it. But the werewolf seemed to anticipate every step and kept her hemmed into the corner by the stove. Trish attempted a couple swipes at the animal with her feeble weapon. The wolf seemed unfazed by these pitiful attacks until a hard swing grazed its snout. The blade’s uneven, rusty serrations caught at its skin and tore a ragged gash across the werewolf’s face.
It snarled and leapt directly at Trish. The knife clattered from her hand and she found herself pinned to the floor. The werewolf’s weight was crushing. Trish felt the air forced from her lungs as the beast lay atop her, and heard its ragged, greedy panting in her ear. She swung her arms and kicked her legs to no avail. She might as well have pet the creature for all the notice it took. Slowly, almost lovingly, it moved its muzzle to her throat. Trish sucked desperately for air, expecting at any moment to feel the final snap, that last burst of pain before the end.
It didn’t come.
She heard a squeal directly in her ear, which momentarily deafened her, and felt the weight suddenly recede. She looked across the room and saw, through blurred vision, Frank backing away, quivering with the bread knife in his hand, the werewolf advancing at him on all fours. He had clearly taken a swipe at the animal’s body, as a long, cruel laceration ran across its rib cage. Trish pulled herself to her feet with the oven door and stood unsteadily. Frank was swinging wildly with the knife, as if hoping to make contact by chance, but the werewolf now looked at him murderously, and crouched, preparing to spring.
Trish felt behind her for something, anything, and her left hand fell on the handle of the coffee pot, still bubbling dully on the stove. Without thinking, she grabbed it and surged toward the werewolf with a shout. It turned to face this new sound, as Trish swung the coffee pot with all her strength. The bottom of the pot connected with the werewolf’s jaw and shattered. The contents, with the consistency of wet cement and boiling, coated its face, and it let out a strangled howl. Trish swung the handle of the coffee pot again and again, plunging glass shards into the creature’s head and neck. Fear coursed through her. She wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Every thought in her brain had evaporated, leaving only this one solitary drive, to keep striking. She felt someone trying to pull her away and she fought back, shaking them off and continuing to thump the handle of the now nonexistent coffee pot into the motionless creature on the floor.
Eventually a pair of arms managed to slip underneath her own and pulled her away. A voice, suddenly audible, rang in her ear “Trish, Trish, it’s dead. You can stop now, it’s dead.”
Trish stopped struggling and blinked through the tears clogging her eyes. The werewolf lay, quite still, on the floor in front of her. Its face was a mess, covered in lacerations and glass shards, and coated in a congealed brown mask that gave it the appearance of an alarming swamp creature. No breath stirred its ragged body.
Trish inhaled deeply. The unfamiliar sensation stretched her lungs almost painfully. She turned to look at Frank, who feebly pulled back the edges of his mouth in an attempt at a smile and said “Thanks.”
Trish nodded. She struggled for a moment to find her voice, then said “How did you…? Didn’t it…?”
“Nope” Frank’s voice sounded strained. “Honestly, it didn’t seem all that interested in me. It knocked me down, gave me a scratch or two, but It was in a real hurry to get after you. I was just in the way.”
Trish nodded, unsure of what to say. If that was true, Frank had been left alone by the front door, with escape tantalizingly close, and he’d chosen to come back instead. “Thank you,” she said, her voice gaining strength.
“Hey, no problem.” Frank gave her a genuine smile. “It was the least I could do. Still, you seemed to have things pretty much under control.” He gestured at the hairy body on the ground.
As jokes went, it was a little lame, but Trish smiled, appreciating the attempt. She was saved from having to say anything more by the sound of screams from the front door.
It was a full year before Trish was able to return to finish her PhD. Just entering the observatory triggered flashbacks, causing her palms to sweat and her heart to thump heavily against her ribcage. She spent many work nights maintaining an annoying proximity to her coworkers, refusing to be left alone at the observatory, and jumping at unfamiliar sounds. She refused to abandon her degree, though, knowing how dearly she’d paid for it.
Frank never returned to the observatory after that night. He left science entirely, became an accountant. He and Trish spoke every day in the weeks after the attack, blatantly disregarding the gag order issued by the U.S. government. But when two people begin with little in common, and share only a nightmare, pleasant conversation withers. They slowly drifted apart, though they continued to call each other once a year, just to check in.
The werewolf was buried surreptitiously. FBI agents quickly replaced the first police on the scene, and were subsequently replaced by agents from the Department of Energy. Sunlight revealed no secrets as to the creature’s identity, so it was unceremoniously dumped in a deep unmarked grave in a remote field, far from prying eyes. Trish actively avoided the gossip around the events of that night. The first coworkers on the scene who had witnessed the carnage quickly learned not to ask questions or speak about that night in her hearing. Every now and then she caught whispers, however. They found it odd, it seemed, that the day after the attack, a letter arrived in the mail from Dr. James Halpern, head of the astronomy department at Haverford University. The letter contained only a single sentence, declaring his resignation, and Dr. Halpern was never heard from again.