Short story:

Camping during full moon

By Pierrot90 (4799 words)

Gerald goes on a long trekking journey through a large forest. After making a mistake reading his map, he ends up deep in the forest. Luckily he finds a small clearing with a campfire. However, the place seems deserted...

Contains werewolves and a transformation.

Warning: strong language, violence, blood and gore.

Camping during full moon

Do you have everything with you?

Yes.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Do you have your rations?

Yes.

Have you packed extra socks?

Yes.

Are you sure you haven't forgotten anything?

Yes.

Gerald sighed. That was the day before yesterday. Mothers... He thought back about the day before yesterday when his mother nagged him about his packing while he walked on the path. Yes, he thought that his mum was too overprotective. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

He kept the same walking pace as his walking boots crunched on the gravel path. Small pebbles skidded away because of the weight transfer onto the ground. Gerald looked up. The weather was perfect. The clear blue sky gave way to sunrays, illuminating and heating up Gerald's light brown hat. He was happy that he took his hat with him. The edge went around the whole hat to give him the needed shadow prevent any sunburn. Although the dark green pine trees on both sides of the narrow path offered some shadow from the scorching sun, he still found it hot. At least he had left the urban area a few hours ago. The forest was much cooler. His short green summer trousers and the light colored yellow shirt reflected most heat. Also, it was air breathable and water-repellent. But still. He started to become tired and worn. He had walked all day fully packed and his back and legs hurt. He couldn't stop now though, he needed to continue walking until he could find a safe clearing to sleep through the night.

Tired, he peeked at his watch. The digital numbers showed 19:14. It would soon be time to come to a halt. When he would find a clearing, he would still have to put up the tent which, he'd rather not do in the dark. He also had to prepare dinner.

Slowly Gerald noticed a painful aching in his boot. While he pondered about his plans, he had not noticed that a small pebble had slipped into his boot. Gerald sighed and stopped. He unfastened the belts of his large green backpack and dropped it next to the path. Then himself he dropped down and put out his shoe after unlacing it. "There's the little bugger!" Gerald said when he saw the small pebble fall from his boot. He put his boot back on, tied the long laces back and stood up. When he picked up his large backpack, he shortly gazed into the endless amount of high pine trees. The pine trees grew thin and high, with their tops crowded with branches and needles while lower branches were less prominent and nearly barren. But nevertheless, the thick bushes right next to the path prevented Gerald to see far. One thing was for sure though. He noticed that the forest was starting to become darker. Twilight was entering the deserted forest and soon darkness would cover the woods. A tiny speck of fear entered his mind when Gerald came to that conclusion. He looked at his watch again. 19:20. "I should've paid more attention at the twilight..." He said. Then he took out his geographical map and a compass from his pockets. He unwrapped the small square into a large map showing small ponds, rivers, paths, but also height levels, vegetation density, vegetation sort, visual landmarks and finally, open clearings. First he searched on the map where he approximately was. He knew that not long ago he had passed a small bend in the path. He quickly found the small bend on the map. To his dismay, he also saw that the next clearing next to the path would be too far to reach before nightfall.

Gerald sat down onto the grass next to the path. Where should he go now? "Stupid me..." he cursed. He had made a mistake when calculating his day's journey. Now he was stuck in the middle of nowhere instead of being in a nice open clearing and be amongst the safety of other travelers.

The sun had already started its own journey towards the horizon, changing the sky's blue into an orange hue. Warm sunrays now escaped the shadows of Gerald's hat and shone onto his face. Gerald enjoyed the low sun, but it also reminded him he had to come up with a solution. Then his eyes stopped at a light green spot on the map. Not far from the path, there was a small clearing. He would have to risk entering deeper into the forest and leaving the path but at the moment he had no choice. In any way, the small clearing would be safer than camping near the path. Travelers were not the only ones to use the path; the animals of the forest used it too. Gerald looked at the map again. Yes, he decided. The small clearing would be his destination tonight. He flipped open his professional compass and placed it on the map, pointing the red needle to the north. The path headed to the south and the compass indicated that the clearing was to the east at 94 degrees. After turning the compass wheel to the right until '0' was pointing 84 degrees, he took it from the map and let the red needle rest on 48 degrees. Then he looked through a little hole with a wire in it, showing the precise direction. Clumsily he wrapped his map into his pocket and stuffed the compass in his other pocket and took off.

He had been walking for half an hour now. Every ten minutes he had opened his map again and checked his position without his compass, but the map didn't make any sense. He couldn't find the landmarks and the vegetation density wasn't right. Stubbornly he still kept walking. Twilight had made the forest into a dark area. Every few ten meters he tripped over a branch or some tree root, scratching his lower legs. Above the trees' layer of branches and needles it was still light enough, but beneath the cover of the trees, darkness reigned, only dimly lit by this evening's new full moonlight.

Then it struck him. "Jesus Christ..." He stammered. He had gone the opposite way. Instead of turning the compass wheel to the left, he had turned the wheel to the right, resulting in going off course 168 degrees. He couldn't understand how he could make such a stupid mistake.

Slowly he started to realize in what situation he was and started panicking. He was in the middle of nowhere, away from any path, in the dark and the woods were quickly becoming colder. "Come on, think." He took out his map and his compass. But it was too dark to read the map. He put down his backpack and took out his torch. A bright beam of light came from the small Maglite torch. "Ok, if I'm right. I'm here at the moment." He mumbled as he pointed with his torch at the middle of a big dark green blob on the map. Doubt entered his mind. He knew how to read maps and use them. But as he was surrounded by mere darkness and trees with no landmarks at all, he could be anywhere on the green blob. Panic gripped him again as he looked around. Only faint moonlight through the cover of branches entered his fully widened pupils, his eyes attempting to catch every fleeting photon. What now? "Think!" He said while he forced his brains. A mosquito annoyingly flew around Gerald's hat. But then something shot into his mind besides the mosquito's needle in his skin. "Eureka!" He had walked about... Quickly he peeked at his watch. 20:01. He had walked about half an hour. And he knew where he left the path, and of course he knew in which direction he had walked. Thankfully to his previous short trips, he also knew his average walking speed. He calculated and hopefully laid out his thoughts on the map while another mosquito found Gerald's sweaty skin a perfect place to set its needle. "Damn..." He cursed when he concluded that he was near the border of the green blob. He had come further than he expected. Thinking about all his possibilities, he decided to leave the green blob and camp at a less dense vegetated area of the forest.

"This direction!" To the mosquito's dismay, Gerald vigorously picked up his pace again with his Maglite torch brightening the forest ground as the mosquito hopelessly saw his dinner walking away. The dense forest slowly gave away to less dense forest. Although the layer of branches and needles was thinner thus allowing more light to fall through, twilight was becoming darker. Soon, after walking a full hour when only moonlight instead of sunlight shone through the layer, Gerald stopped. He could camp here even though it was almost too dark to build his tent. Suddenly not far away he heard a wolf's long wailing howl.

As a small kid he always first went to the wolves at the zoo. He really liked wolves, but at the moment he felt rather uncomfortable at the thought of wild wolves running around him. Another lone howl sent shivers down Gerald's spine although he knew that wolves were very wary of humans. A third howl echoed through the forest from behind him. He quickly gazed into the darkness although the chance of seeing a wolf was near nihil. Then something caught his attention. There was no wolf. But photons from a small speck of flickering light in the distance had entered his eyes. A campfire! Because of the bright light from his torch he had not noticed any other faint light sources.

With new hope he trotted towards the yellowish light while another howl echoed through the forest. It made him even walk faster. Slowly the light became less faint and much brighter. This could be his place to sleep! Suddenly a fifth howl startled him. This howl was very close. Frightened, Gerald increased his speed to running. From the heavy backpack, small 'clings' and 'clangs' sounded every time when one of his feet stamped onto the ground. Beside the full moon's pale light, the torch's light moved in various directions in front of Gerald, the beam of light jerking left and right at the same rhythm of his footsteps.

Panting, he came to a halt at some bushes. To his confusion, the small campfire was in the middle of a small clearing. As far as he knew, the map didn't indicate any clearings in this area. Well, whether it was on the map or not, he now had a place to sleep. He stepped through the bushes into the clearing, hoping to meet other travelers. But his confusion only grew when he saw nobody. Only two large sport bags laid lonely five meters away from the campfire. One was a black Adidas sport bag and the other was dark blue. Why was there no camp? Tents were nowhere to be seen. Who started the campfire? They may have left it burning, but with these dry seasons it would be insensible to leave such a bonfire burning. And finally, from who were those sport bags? The sport bags didn't look like any survival or travel bags. Just regular sport bags you would expect at the dressing rooms of a gym.

"Hello? Is there someone here?" Gerald called out. No answer. "Helloooo?! Ayone?!" Gerald cried out again. But again there was no answer. Strange, he thought. But he was at a small clearing with, thank God, a campfire. Whether deserted or not, he could camp here. He approached the campfire and put down his backpack about five meters away. There he detached a cylindrical bag from the top of his backpack and opened one end of it. Quickly he pulled out the canvas and tent poles to start building.

After a few minutes, looking satisfied at his temporary sleeping room to be, he pulled out cooking gear from his back pack. By now, the twilight had changed into night. The flickering flames of the campfire now and then lit the dark trees orange. Sparks and snaps sounded from the burning pine wood as Gerald threw in a few fresh branches. The soothing pine scent smelled good in his nostrils. For a few seconds he looked at his cooking tools. In fact he was too tired to cook. So he put back his cooking utensils back into his backpack and took out a nutritionbar and some canned meat. He ripped open the bar's packaging and sunk his teeth into it. It tasted awful but he kept chewing because he knew that it contained all the nutrients he needed. Then he opened the can with a can opener and emptied it in an aluminum bowl. As he chewed on his bar, he gazed at the two sport bags. Gerald wondered what was inside them. He grabbed his bowl, not wanting any insects to feast on it, and approached the two bags. He quickly looked around if he were about to steal something and opened the zipper. "That's odd." He noted with his mouth full of nutrition bar when he saw numerous pieces of regular clothes, shoes, underwear and even valuables such as wallets and watches.

Suddenly he heard a branch breaking from the side of the clearing. He turned around and tried to see if someone was coming back to the campfire but saw nothing. He grabbed his torch and walked to the side of the clearing, while still munching on his bar and holding the alu bowl with meat. With great effort he swallowed the remaining chewed bar and called out. "Hello? Someone there?" But again, there was no answer. To his fear, a loud howl behind him made him turn around. The howl came from not far away from the other side of the clearing. Panic crept up his stomach. He switched his torch on and shone at the other side of the clearing but he couldn't see anything other than bushes and trees. He didn't hear anything, except the continuous chirping of crickets and insects flying by, attracted by the fire. Now behind him a menacing growl sounded. At once, panic shot up his throat. Quickly he turned back around his axis, aiming the bright beam into the dark forest but the leaves of the bushes diminished most of the light. Then he understood, he gazed at his aluminum bowl filled with meat. Fear gripped him. Those wild wolves must were after his food. Against the will of his own stomach, he grabbed the chunk of meat and threw it into the forest. A quick rustle of fallen needles sounded a few meters away. "Good boys... Go eat it..." Gerald mumbled and backed away from the edge of the clearing without averting his eyes from where the growl came from.

Shivering he sat beside the warm fire. Heat radiated from the yellow flames but he was still shivering so he stood up and fetched his The Northface jacket from the tent. But with his jacket on, he still didn't stop shivering. Not because of the chilling temperature, but from anxiety, he realized. From a distance away he heard another lonely call of a wolf. "They are gone for the time being" Gerald thought while he gazed skywards at the blue round moon while in the background snaps from the fire and the chirping concert of crickets and other night insects continued like nothing happened.

After an hour of lying down, gazing at the dark blue sky, fully of white little specks, Gerald decided to go to sleep. Before he entered his small tent, he peered into the vast darkness, knowing that there somewhere some wild wolves lurked around munching on his dinner.

The safety of the bonfire eased down Gerald's fears of wild animals and the day's exhaustion brought him quickly to sleep. For two hours he slept peacefully but another loud howl from a wolf woke him up. "Damn wolves, let me sleep..." Gerald grunted while he turned around in his sleeping bag, fighting to get himself to sleep again but to no avail. An annoying mosquito bite in his neck kept pleading for a quick scratch. Not in the mood, he admitted he should have checked his medic kit before starting this trip just like his mum said because he realized he forgot his mosquito bite ointment.

Turning and scratching in his sleeping bag for a while, he finally gave up. The little bump in his neck was now scratched open and some pain was taking over from itch. At least he could sleep now. But that was what he hoped for. Because before falling back to sleep, he heard bushes moving and footsteps on the clearing's grass. At once Gerald kept quiet. As silently as possible he reached for his torch. He also wanted to reach his Swiss pocket knife, but as it was in his backpack outside the tent, it was impossible to get it without making any appearances. With the turned off torch he aimed at the closed flaps at the end of the tent like it was a gun. Then he heard a man laughing. Another man joined him. Fear gripped Gerald as he didn't know what to expect. His question was quickly answered when something poked against his back. A tube-like object pushed against the tent's fabric against Gerald's back. "Get out or my finger becomes cramped." Realizing that someone was pointing at him with a firearm, he froze. "Come on, we don't have all night. Arnold, get him out." Footsteps approached the entrance of the tent where the unseen man was cut through the fabric, tearing it with a butterfly knife. "Oh hello boy, sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep but you heard my colleague." Shaking, Gerald slowly crawled out through the hole in the tent wearing only his shorts. "Hahaha, beauty sleep it is!" The first man laughed. "Harharhar!" Arnold joined. Gerald looked at the two men. The first man was wearing hunting camouflage and carrying a bolt-action rifle with a rather large scope, possibly a nightvision scope. The second man, called Arnold, wore a dark green bodywarmer, carried a long double-barrel shotgun slung behind his back and holding the knife in his right hand.

After finishing laughing Arnold came up with a question. "Hey Fred, what do we do with him?" Fred looked at him, pondering why he didn't come up with a question like that before but then he remembered. "First things first." And he walked up to Gerald while still holding his rifle at his hip.

"You are poachers, aren't you?" Gerald couldn't even finish his sentence as Fred punched his bare stomach with the butt of the rifle. "Shut up boy. Only speak when asked to." Moaning, Gerald nodded against his will. He always has hated poachers.

"Now, boy. Have you seen any wild animals around here?"

"There are animals here everywhere."

"Answer the question kid." Arnold kicked Gerald's naked leg.

"It's ok. I think I wasn't specific enough. Now, have you heard any wolf howling or anything like that?"

"Wolves?"

"Answer the fucking question kid." Arnold kicked Gerald's shinbone who grunted in pain.

"Arnold! Just let him finish. He said the word 'wolves'."

"You won't find them, you bastards." Gerald replied, only to be answered by a few hard kicks from Arnold.

"Arnold... Calm down. He practically answered my question. So there are wolves around here. You seen any of 'em?"

"I only heard them growl..." Gerald moaned as he recovered from Arnold's kicks.

"Ah, did you hear that Arnold? They're close! Now guard the boy, I'm going to hunt them down."

And with that, Fred raised his rifle, camouflaged with netting around the barrel, and walked through the bushes outside the clearing. Every few seconds he scanned the surrounding through his nightvision scope before continuing his hunt.

"On your knees kid!" Arnold yelled, while he pushed against Gerald's back with the heel of his army boot. "And stay there."

After a few minutes, Arnold got bored. "Hmm, let's have a look at your stuff." He said when he walked over to the two sport bags, interested in finding any valuables it might contain. While he was joyful to find a few wallets and watches, he also was distracted. Gerald took his chance and silently crept on his bare feet to his backpack which lied next to his tent. Quickly he took out the Swiss pocket knife and flipped open the blade. Intending to force his captor to surrender, Gerald stalked as silent as possible behind the happy Arnold, who was smelling the banknotes from one of the wallets. "Hmm hmm! The sweet stench of fortune! Hey kid..." But he was too late. "Wat the...?! AAAARGH!" Gerald had no choice but to stab Arnold before he could grab his shotgun. Blood seeped through the blue square pattern shirt on his upper arm. "Aaaaah!!" Arnold grabbed his right upper arm with his left hand and painfully pulled the blade out. "You're going to pay for this!!!" He dropped the Swiss knife and grabbed with effort his long shotgun from his right shoulder. Gerald panicked. It wasn't his intention to stab him. But he was in deep trouble now. Not knowing what to do, he started running away from the mad man.

"How about some lead shot in your ass huh?!!" With his left hand he raised the long heavy double barreled shotgun. "Eat this!!" He cried and pulled the trigger. As he was aiming with his left hand and was painfully wounded, the first shot missed and it ended at Gerald's feet, causing grass and dirt to fly up. Angry and mad as he was, Arnold fired again but hit his target this time. Gerald cried out in pain as he fell on his face, immediately grabbing his left calve which was shredded to pieces. Screaming in pain he rolled and shook when he writhed on the grass in front of the bushes at the edge of the clearing. A stream of blood flowed out of the severe wound through his fingers onto the grass.

"Gotcha now!" Arnold laughed and walked to Gerald. Gerald was still in terrible pain and was loosing blood. "Arnold!! I heard someone shooting!!" Fred came running through the bushes from the other side of the clearing. "No problem, I have everything under control." Arnold replied. But as soon as he had finished his sentence, a huge black thing dashed from behind Fred, pushing all its weight on Fred who then fell straight down. Fred cried out alarmingly from surprise and pain, but he quickly had his neck snapped by a powerful muzzle. Arnold turned around to see his friend nearly being decapitated by the biting force of the creature but quickly turned back as he heard a snarl from the bushes behind Gerald. Gerald was too much in pain to bother, but Arnold raised his shotgun to squeeze the trigger when a giant grey furred thing jumped out from the bushes. Too late he realized that his gun only held two empty shells and the trigger only produced a faint click, barely heard over the creature's loud growl. The creature's front paws ended on Arnold resulting breaking Arnold's shoulders because of the momentum and the weight of the immense wolf. Arnold screamed in agony like never before. The wolf quickly ended his suffering with one mighty blow with one of his clawed paws, breaking the man's skull.

Silence crept into the clearing as the two anthro werewolves approached Gerald. Gerald wasn't screaming anymore, now unconscious because of his blood loss. Normal wolves and other werewolves, some of which walked on their hind legs and some on four paws, joined the two who were now standing around the wounded Gerald. There was still blood seeping out from his calve. A regular grey timberwolf approached whined and started licking the severe wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Another black-grey werewolf looked at the black werewolf who licked the blood from around his muzzle. The black werewolf nodded. The black-grey werewolf then turned to Gerald who was still unconscious. The werewolves knew that he wouldn't survive, unless... The black-grey werewolf fell on his four paws and approached the wounded human. He gently pushed the wolf who licked Gerald's leg to move aside. Then he shortly bit in Gerald's shoulder. The row of teeth only left behind a bite mark. Small droplets of blood grew from the teeth marks. Then the pack of werewolves raised their muzzles to the full moon and howled. The other wolves joined the howling concert. For a full hour they howled and called out the message, announcing the arrival of a new pack member.

They continued howling when some cracking sounds and snaps sounded from Gerald. Gerald's body suddenly jolted as the body's immune system fought the lycanthrope invasion. First his calve started repairing itself, muscle fibers attaching each other again and tissue starting to cover the wound. His eyes changed into amber yellow eyes of which's stare would intrigue any living being on earth. Dark grey fur sprouted from numerous places from his skin to form a thick soft pelt any poacher would wish to catch. His ears started to move upwards while becoming bigger and more pointed like only wolf ears could be. His joints and bones started to reform to accommodate the bigger sizes of muscles and tissue as well as to take a more lupine form. His spine cracked as it lengthened itself, not only making him taller but also extending a furred tail below his back. His hands and feet cracked and crunched as they changed into paws with black pads, soft enough to stealthily stalk through the night and tough enough to carry the heavy bodyweight on hard and rough grounds. Finally his jaw started to make cracking noises as it pushed forwards with his nose to form a muzzle, strong and powerful enough to break the thickest bones.

The new werewolf puffed shortly and panted heavily. Gradually he breathed slower. Then his head rose up to see his new pack all howling in unison at the moon. The new one, the only one with shorts on which were stretched to the limits, quickly jumped up on his four paws, raised his head to the moon and happily joined his new friends calling out his presence.

"Blehr..." Gerald grunted, turned around to lie on his back in his sleeping bag and stretched his arms. He had slept very badly. Strange dreams about wolves had kept him rolling and turning in his sleep. Probably the howls from last evening had caused the dreams. He sighed. He had a journey to complete and the twittering and singing birds would keep him awake anyway. So he unzipped his sleeping bag and stood up. Then he noticed his shorts slipped off. The elastic had dried out. "Stupid cheap made-in-China shorts." He cursed while he swapped the worn shorts for a new one. After that he put on his clothes, crouching in the tent, after scratching his calve as it was itching terribly. There was no mosquito bit on his calve however. Luckily the bite in his neck was gone now. Else he would have two places to scratch.

He crawled to the end of his tent where he discovered that in one of the flaps a large cut gaped. "Crap... Who the hell did this?" He quickly exited the tent to find other travelers who might have cut his tent. But there was nobody. Only a pile of ashes from the campfire was still smoking and the sport bags were gone. Probably those stupid sport fuckers found it funny to cut his tent, he thought. Although he had forgotten his mosquito bite ointment, he did not forget to take a small sewing kit. He would repair the tent in the afternoon he decided.

He had a quick breakfast, broke down the tent and packed up everything into his backpack. "Chop chop, here we go again. Up to the next clearing." He said to himself when he looked at his map and compass. He didn't notice the fading full moon, the morning sun diminished the moon' outline. As he exited the small clearing, he almost tripped over a pile of dirt. "Yuck!" Gerald exclaimed. He assumed it probably was someone's toilet, not knowing that instead of manure, the dirt was covering a patch of bloodstained soil.

Gerald shrugged his shoulders and started his new day of new adventures, venturing through the forest, not knowing that the next night will be even more adventurous.