Werewolf of Vegas

By Teresa Perrin

What are the animal drives that govern us? What happens when our animal natures take on a life of their own?

John never wanted to move to Las Vegas, but his wife Gwen convinces his to move back to her hometown. Maybe she will be happy there. Gwen comes from a troubled background of abusive men, and happiness isn’t something she’s ever been good at. Before the couple can work through the issues in their tumultuous marriage, John is attacked and wounded by a mysterious stranger, the survivor of an attack by notorious mass-murderer Jonas Evermann, awaiting punishment for horrific crimes in Virginia.

As the moon wanes and then waxes through its cycle, John undergoes physical and mental changes. Gwen’s psychic friend warns him that he is cursed. He is becoming—something animal. When the full moon arrives, a beast emerges, tracking Gwen through the streets of Vegas in a murderous rage.

The cycles of the moon govern this story of love, pain, sacrifice, and terror.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teresa Perrin
• Release date: Aug 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310972959

Book preview

Werewolf of Vegas

Teresa Perrin

Smashwords Edition

Werewolf of Vegas earned a Runner-Up award in the 2012 3-Day Novel Contest. This is its first publication, August 2015.

Copyright 2012 Teresa Perrin. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced or distributed without written permission from the author. Contact the author if you have questions or requests.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Chapter 1

The moon was full, a bulbous white smudge behind a gray lace of clouds. It made him angry, angry that even in the middle of the night, he couldn’t find a darkness to be in, couldn’t find a place that was private and alone. The moon reflected, not the faraway sun from the other side of the world, but the ever-burning neon of the strip, the spotlight of the Luxor drilling into the night sky.

No darkness here. Even away from the all-night noise and light of the strip, there was always a glow on the horizon. And the moon. The blasted full moon, never letting him forget the constant bombardment of ringing bells and glowing letters. And money, money, money.

All he wanted right now was to close his eyes and block it all out. But when his eyes were closed, the moon still seemed to burn into them, right through the lids, through the irises and the rods and cones, right into his brain, illuminating everything there that he wanted to shut off.

She had come home at two o’clock in the morning. John hadn’t been able to sleep, had been locked in a mire all the time. He couldn’t seem to turn off the conflict in his head, the anger and frustration. All the negative, pounding feelings made things worse. They spiraled things downward, into the black pit in his stomach. Gwen came home at two o’clock, and by the time she came, the black pit was roiling, acid.

She was drunk, but not too drunk. You’re not being fair, she told him. It’s not all about you, you know. I need to have a life. I have a life here.

But I don’t. I don’t have anything here. Nothing.

That’s not my fault. Do something. Go somewhere.

I might as well leave.

Why don’t you?

You want to go out every night, you want to sleep every day. You don’t want a life together, a home, you don’t even want to come to bed with me. Why should I try to make a life here for myself, in this wretched place, if you’re not going to be in it? Why don’t I leave? Why don’t I?

He slammed the door and it echoed in the darkness. No response from the closed-looking houses on the street, each crouching away from the curb, huddling in its own yard, secure for now. A slight mist hung in the air, a complex filament of clouds spattered the sky.

And the moon hung heavy above it all.

He walked and walked and walked. Why was he here, in this blasphemous desert, where the land was all sucked dry and barren, a desert that stretched from the outskirts of Los Angeles and seemed to reach out wherever it could grasp its dusty fingers to the north and the east; why was he here, where the cavernous air-conditioned mazes of the casinos ran for miles and miles, though fluorescent malls of Icee-machine margaritas and overpriced clichés, through ringing dungeons of slot machines that spewed glittering coins of deception; why was he here, where the veneer of ecstasy failed to cover the smell of rot?

He was walking and walking and walking, with the black acid swirling, and the only thing holding him here was a hope, such a small hope, a shrunken and dried up apple-core of a hope that there was an end to this journey and a place that they could get to where the promise that he’d struggled and sacrificed for, that he’d worked for and been patient for and tried for, that seemed like for a moment was possible, would be fulfilled. He didn’t want to let go of that hope, let it break, let it float away.

Nothing.

He looked up into the sky, into the ethereal strands floating gray against black. Empty and meaningless. How had everything shrunk so small?

From the distance came a baleful howl. It fit so perfectly with his mood and with the ugly night that he never questioned it. He just kept walking, kicking up the dry dust and loose dirt that covered the life-giving Earth like a shroud. He kept walking, as the ugly cement gave way to ugly spindly, grasping brush.

And the howl came again, closer.

The first image of her: at a party, in a crowded room, backed into a corner, with a lost look on her face. He went to talk to her then, and she surprised him. He was not surprised that she seemed frightened and insecure. But she did surprise him.

"The Bluest Eye," she said. He always asked about books; asking about books always told him something.

I could barely get through it, he told her. I don’t think I could bring myself to read it again.

It’s beautiful.

It’s heart-wrenching. It’s terrible.

That’s where the beauty comes from.

I guess I can see that.

The human condition. Constant tragedy, everything is wrong, and we show ourselves pretty pictures of imaginary ideals to try to keep ourselves happy... in the end, they just make us hope for something we can never have.

Pretty grim... is that really how you see the world?

"Or maybe So Long and Thanks for All the Fish."

He saw her again the next week. They went to a fair, he always liked the fair, and she wore a long flowing shirt with burgundy sleeves that wafted around her wrists, hiding her hands.

They rode a Ferris wheel and ate cotton candy, but mostly they