Bite of the Moon

By Joshua Winters

Jason, a young single father working an average job, was always looking for something new in life. Little did he know new would come to him, as one night he's lured out to be prey to a monstrous wolf-like under the full moon. Now a beast himself Jason must contend with keeping it from eating those he loves, living as normal a life as possible, finding himself in a new society of things that go bump in the night, and facing a new threat killing those around him.
First of The Bite series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joshua Winters
• Release date: Oct 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005312015

Joshua Winters

Joshua Winters is an independent author in search for a career in his favorite field, fiction writing. He currently lives in San Antonio Tx with his son and mother, working low wage.

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Bite of the Moon

A Novel by Joshua Winters

This work is Copyright Joshua Winters 2022

Edition 1

Cover Art by Giusy D'Anna

If you bought an unofficial version, please support this author at official e-book retailers.

This novel is dedicated to my son, for whom I strive to become an artist that can work at home so I might see him more in a life I’ve missed so much of. It seems yesterday you were my little curly-haired toddler I was chasing around the playground so infatuated with trains and life. Now you’re fourteen, almost as tall as me, I can’t lift you, and you’re in your first years of teenage angst. Where’d all that time go?

I also have a handful of people to thank, my mother Natalie for caring for me and my son by no small means of having to work through your retirement years as we work to hold the house. Jack Winters who gave my first completed draft such a good spanking I reworked the entire novel because he’s my best friend and wouldn’t let me shell out trash, Jessica Alvarez, and Rae Bennett for their ideas under reviews, Nicole for always supporting my writing dreams when we were in high school, and Brey for giving me the idea for this novel about a decade ago.

Content Notice: This book contains themes of graphic violence, gore, and sex, and may not be suitable for a young audience.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Midnight Snack

Chapter 2: Turning Point

Chapter 3: A New Life

Chapter 4: A New Friend

Chapter 5 Unexpected Visit

Chapter 6: A Chance of Change

Chapter 7: The Pack

Chapter 8: Nigh Life

Chapter 9: The Morning After

Chapter 10: One of the Pack

Chapter 11: The Waxing Moon

Chapter 12: Of Wolf and Man

Chapter 13: The Loan Wolf

Chapter 14: Of Lies and Men

Chapter 15: Cause and Effect

Epilogue: When September Ends

Afterword

Chapter 1: Midnight Snack

The moon called to me, shining in through my window from above the crowded oak woods behind my house, a giant silver orb whose light reflected on the hardwood of my bedroom floor while keeping the unlit recesses shrouded in shadow.

Weightless as if in dream, every step through the house chilled by the cold night floor, I walked out of my room in nothing more than my loose white boxers. The ringing of shrill bells in my head, and the howling of a thousand torrential winds in my ears, called me out of my room to descend the wooden stairway and walk around it into the living room. I walked to where my blond lab slept on the brown leather living room couch, nearly hidden by the shadows, peacefully chasing rabbits in his sleep with the twitches of his right front paw, Mom snoring away in her room, both blissfully unaware of the call.

Unable to stop or cry out, my awareness separate from my body but still within it, I stepped carefully around the mess of my son's Hot Wheels littering the living room floor, glinting dark greens and bright reds in the nighttime light of the planetoid that hung overhead, and unlocked the back door to walk out without bothering to pull it closed behind me. There was a flash and my body rose up to the top of the trees, their leaves white with moonlight, riding the wind snuggled against something soft and warm.

It was a giant beast that had taken me in its arms and curled me to its warm chest, to carry me in this dream away from my house, I at once imagined this was another one of those lonely night dreams, having not had a person to call my own in years. Its warm embrace relaxed me, enfolding me in a sense of security, the euphoria lasting even after I was unceremoniously thrown to the dirt cooled by the night. Clambering to my feet I saw with doped perception, the creature was far away and the trees to my sides were rounded, a reality seen through the bottom of a whiskey glass, which could have explained my swimming head and loose thoughts.

It opened its giant moist muzzle full of yellowed crescent razors in which I wanted nothing more than to envelope myself and let out a breath of pleasant musk that for some reason aroused me, my boxers doing nothing to hide my rising lust. Its giant form was hidden deep in the shadows of the trees but resembled a wolf under the moon that hung overhead, threading silver shards through the dark branches of the woods.

Fear should have overcome me as it came to hold me close, its teeth piercing my neck with a wet chop, its rancid breath running into my nose, a wet mixture of warm blood and saliva trickling down my bare chest. The pain of dozens of sharp needle points lit my neck, but it was a pain that further stirred arousal, not fear. The pinpricks sliding into my neck sent euphoria rushing through me, hardening my nipples and my cock which brushed against its soft, warm legs from within my boxers, pushing me towards the greatest release of my life.

Then the thing pulled away, sniffing the air in noisy gusts, its pupils dilating. No the weak cry escaped my throat, I reached for the beast, needing him to finish me. The wolf slapped away my arm, shredding the fragile skin of my forearm with one meager swipe of its black talons, exposing the meat below which immediately bleed like a river around the arm and down onto the earth. The sudden absentminded violence was a hammer to the glass of whatever fragile spell had taken me.

Blinking several times, I watched the blood pour from the gash in my arm, expecting to wake from this dream turned nightmare, but realized my dream was reality. The wound was not as debilitating as it looked, aching akin to a pulled muscle. Reaching up with my left arm to touch my neck, the pain was manageable pinpricks though my hand came away covered in more warm blood that also ran down my chest.

This was real. The thought struck me with cold dread, a monster was on the verge of eating me and here I desired it like sex, my thoughts dreaming in poetry, a hard-on pressing through my boxers.

Backing from the creature in mindless fear that softened my lust, no longer attracted to the rotten stink which wafted from it, I drew its attention. Noting its prey was attempting to escape, the monster lost interest in whatever it had detected to stalk back towards me, its pupils dilated, its lips curling back from shining crescent blades that dripped a foamy pink. Stumbling to my backside on my way back into a tree, fear shook my body, causing me to gasp for air like a fish drowning in it. I palmed a palm-sized rock, lifted it, and bashed it into the monster’s snout when it crouched close. The thing covered in plush, dark auburn fur over tight gray skin let out a small nasally whine, following the force of the rock to the side to lessen the impact. Its quick reflexes showed me a beast that could think to fight like a human. This thing was intelligent.

The monster looked up at me from its downcast snout, a small trail of blood leaking from one black flaring nostril, and roared.

To say it roared understated the sound which escaped its open snout full of curved needlepoint teeth. What escaped that beast's throat along with thick strands of saliva that coated my cheeks was the cascade of a hundred animals screaming in fury at once mixed within the airy sound of a strong gust. The thing rose on its back legs, eight feet of height, raising a five-fingered hand covered in fur, padded on the palm, tipped with glassy obsidian claws to finish me off. Crossing my arms before me, I waited for death with a whimper. Later, I’d realize how selfish that was, thinking only of my death and not the many I’d leave behind.

Death never came. After a moment’s wait, parting my arms I could see the creature had stopped, distractedly sniffing the air again.

A twig broke overhead and it was off in a flash, south through the woods that ran behind my house, gone before the broken piece of wood smaller than my pinky hit the ground where it had stood. Something followed it through the trees, casting a flash of shadow over the patch where the monster had been just about to eat me, and the markings of large canine paws were still etched into the earth.

After a moment, I rose from my muddied blood-soaked seat, cradling my now useless right arm against my chest and grimacing at the pain of it and my neck, exhausting amounts of relief and terror rushing through me in equal amounts. The blood rushed from my head as my long legs straightened and the world swayed, relief was replaced with fear I had lost more blood than realized. The longer I remained in the woods the closer I came to passing out and bleeding to death.

Thoughts of dying alone brought a cold fear to my chest. The fear of it was childish but at the moment real, fueling my worn body with adrenaline, allowing me to drag my feet through earth dampened by my life fluids and covered in the natural fall leaf waist of a central Texan wood that was a collection of oak, ash, and cedar in what I hoped was the right direction. The woodland behind my house was smaller than a mile in a rough rectangular diameter each way; one way led to the neighborhood, the opposite way I'd stumble onto the highway. Another led towards the main street of the neighborhood, and the last to the edge of a ranch where I'd likely tangle with barbwire.

It wasn’t my first time in the woods. As a high school student it's where I took my romantic interests to experiment and as a young child it's where my curiosity dared to explore and my friends joined me to play paintball. But it had been years since then and I found myself moving in circles more than once, stepping into my own trail of bloodied mud which became tacky and stuck to my feet, my head lighter, my thoughts murkier every minute. I was ready to sit and collect leaves to make a compress for my wound, to do anything to give me more time to reach for help when I came through a line of brush and nearly fell right into the back of my own fence among a row of backyards.

My good hand on a knee, my eyes scaled the pale wooden wall aged gray by age. The outside of the fence flat and smooth, lacked any footholds of any kind, Mount Everest to my injured body. Trying to work a shout for my mother, the world turned completely on its side, blood loss taking its toll on me, forcing me to close my eyes and realize it was now or never.

To my right was a short pile of logs we kept for winter firewood. The wood normally warmed me with memories of Christmases past and outdoor pit fires during the few weeks it remained cold enough to enjoy them. Now they gave me hope I might survive to enjoy the next one, a Christmas so close, made many times more special by the little boy I was able to share it with.

I tentatively stumbled up the pile, giving me a foot of extra height, not enough to do any good.

This is going to hurt, I assured myself. With my good arm over the fence, gripping the splintered wooden supports on the reverse side and pulling, I tried to climb by pressing my feet against the boards, only to slip off, hit the firewood in my fall, and roll back into the dirt below.

Fuck! The curse was spat from my lips as I rolled onto my injured arm, jerking up to a sit while my hand clenched spasmodically in pain. With a frown at the fence, pissed off at it for being there and doing its job protecting my house, I uncurled the hand of my dirt-caked bloodied right arm, rose, and ran up the logs. Leaping for the top, I used both arms to haul me over as a cloud of stars rose from the pain in my wound up to my head, encroaching my vision.

When that cloud cleared, my view was that of dirt ground on the bottom level of my yard, stinking of dog waste, the large moon still overhead, a mocking eye watching my struggles. I rolled over and put one hand before the other, gripping the earth, my legs weaker than my injured arm, to crawl up a set of concrete stairs that scrapped at the skin of my belly and chest, over the porch, and to the open door, dragging a trail of blood and mud behind me.

Jason!? my mother screamed, her pink slipper stepping out of the door. Oh my god!

Glass shattered, hot bitter liquid slapped my face. It scorched me as the smell of coffee overcame even the copper of blood, but I was too gone to notice. My mind fell away from the world, away from my mother's panic, away from the pain.

***

Consciousness returned but not without reluctance. My head still swam in clouded confusion, though this time I suspected it was at the hands of drugs, not blood loss. Though the pain was dulled, my body ached, and my skin felt scorched by a light feverish heat.

Blinking away sleep that wished to pull me back under and the stinging salt of sweat, I surveyed my room from my stiff hospital bed amongst beeping machines, the dull smell of sanitizers, and an IV dripping something clear into my good arm. The gash in my arm had been sutured with a black thread. Red with irritation where it met like the divided ridge of some fleshy mountains and about a foot long, it didn't look that serious considering it had nearly killed me. Not wanting to disturb the machines attached to my good arm I lifted that arm with a grimace against sharp pain and the pull of the fresh sutures, running a finger across the side of my neck where more stitching was lined in two rows of three, six stitches in total, I surmised.

As it had happened, I hadn't been sure if the meeting with a monster had been truth or fiction, half expecting to wake in my bed in sheets soaked in the sweat of panic and hopefully not urine. The reality of it hit me instead; I had been mauled, nearly killed, by a kind of man-wolf thing. Cold fear gripped me again. Even though I was safe here, the idea of what happened last night might never allow me to feel safe again.

I twitched at the sound of a step as a beige hiking boot preceded a man through the open door into my room. He was of average height, wearing a well-aged, wrinkled face with white curly hair pushing out from his short-brimmed cowboy hat. The badge which hung unfolded from a pocket on his chest said Sheriff, which was not uncommon since my neighborhood was outside the San Antonio city limits. Emergency responders could not come from the city, according to an archaic law, meaning we had to rely on volunteer fire departments and the Bexar County Sheriff.

Morning son, how’re you doing? he said with a kind voice cracked by age, a voice you'd expect from a grandfatherly country man, especially one that wore such a hat and was fronted by the mustache of gray that wiggled in front of his hidden lips.

Like a bear tried to eat me, I groaned, lowering my arm.

The man smiled, his mustache twitched as rosy dimples formed around it. Was it a bear?

I shook my head, Dog. Dog what? Dog-man and be thrown in the nut house for saying that? Big friggin dog.

Coyote? the older man asked, taking a chair from the side of the room and settling in it. He had a fresh Starbucks latte, and my mouth ran dry for a sip of that candy in a cup.

The lips my tongue ran itself over were cracked, the surface of a salted desert. I found concentrating difficult, racked with exhaustion and high on whatever they were shoving into me to dull the pain. Too big. Had to be a wolf or big dog, I spoke in broken sentences.

Can you describe it? Noting he didn't bother with a notepad, I hoped that his memory was not as aged as his body.

Sure, it had dark gray medium-length bushy fur, like that of a husky, I started, delving into what professional experience I had with dozens of breeds. The fur was soft but not plush like a poodle’s, Coarser, resembling a Labrador’s. I think it was reddish or brown. I'm not sure its actual size but I swear when it rose on its hind legs it was well over seven feet.

The man nodded, his green eyes scanning the room in thought. Rare but does sound similar to a wolf. However, I think it's too big. The man squinted at me, making his eyes wrinkle kindly. You sure know a lot concerning dogs, how come?

I work at DogCo., I noted plainly. I liked my job at DogCo., but it was corporate retail, and I wished it paid us like it appreciated us.

Nodding again, he fidgeted with the brim of his hat. What were you doing out there in the woods?

That gave me a moment of pause as my mind raced. I'm not sure.

Bushy silver brows rose with curiosity, eyes glinting with suspicion any good cop had during interrogation. Son, if you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing don't worry, you're not under interrogation here.

No, I interrupted him. I mean, I don't know why I went into the woods. Maybe I was sleepwalking. I remember walking downstairs against my will, retaining no control over my actions, and heading outside, then… Well, this is going to sound funny, a sheepish grin took me as a heat lit my face, but it was like I was flying through the trees. There’s no memory of climbing the fence but it was as if the wolf was holding me in its arms and taking me to where it wanted to go.

The old cowboy's eyes scrunched tighter, his lip twitched. You weren’t high?

No! I waved his question away with my good arm, causing the machines to beep warnings. I don't do drugs, my head was becoming light, sleep or another fainting spell beginning to pull me back under, except whatever good stuff I'm on now.

Never? I shook my head again, lightly annoyed at his persistence. He wasn't the first to question my substance use. During a recent ER visit, the attending nurse pressured me concerning prior drug use during a bought with the flu. As a tall lanky white loser that lives with his mother, suddenly I'm supposed to have track marks on the insides of my arm and meth rotting my brain. Any time during the day someone might have slipped you something?

The questioning was getting tiresome and exhaustion crept into my head, massaging my will to sleep. Shaking my head again made me dizzier. Only I handle my food when I eat at work and we haven't eaten out in over a week now. I didn't add it was because we could not afford to.

So, only you or your mother had access…

Wait a minute, I stopped him again, sitting up, my mother did not drug me.

The bushy gray stash covering the old man’s mouth twitched left and right as he worked to recover his thoughts from my interruption. Right, well, I know you say that, but everyone's a suspect ‘til something is figured out. Why go out into the woods in the dead of night in such a trance if not slipped something? I shrugged as the sheriff rose. What was I supposed to say, the monster-wolf hypnotized me with sex? Well, I got what I needed. Think you'll be out and heading home soon enough, take care.

I looked behind him for any kind of team. What about CSI? Don't criminalists need something with me? The thought of criminalists working me over was appealing, getting to see up close what I've only ever seen on television as the detectives collected evidence off of me.

The sheriff flashed a crooked-toothed smile stained brown. Judging from the tar in the crooks of his teeth not only from his coffee addiction, you’d think chewers would try to floss more often. They got what they needed from you while you were out, which was your clothes and trace off of your wounds. The team’s been in the woods behind your house the past few hours and I’m heading to see what progress has been made now. We'll inform you if there's news to update you with.

The sheriff exited to be replaced by a young, curly-haired doctor with lightly tanned skin and one heck of a nose on his face, I'd wager of Jewish heritage. He wore a white lab coat typical of doctors and reading glasses rested on the tip of his nose which he looked over to see me. How are we doing Mr. Abraham?

With a shrug, I settled back onto my pillow, glancing into the mirror beside my bed with a wince. Within it was a skinny, pale, six foot twenty-five-year-old, with stitching dotting my neck that looked red with irritation surrounded by deep purple bruising, and a mess of medium-length dirt brown hair. No worse for the wear I guess.

The doctor nodded. Yeah, quite a scare you gave your mother. She'll be along shortly to take you home, I just need to look at your sutures before releasing you.

I gave him permission and he leaned over me to breathe in my face and poke and prod at the tear in my arm. Satisfied with my arm, he ran his softly gloved hand along the underside of my neck which was becoming rough having missed my morning shave.

By the time he was done shoving his fingers into my new holes, my mother, a short, slightly overweight woman with brown hair showing strands of gray, was waiting patiently in the chair the sheriff had vacated, her cream brown eyes watching me with concern.

A dozen minutes after the doctor had okayed my release, a young male nurse released us with papers while Mom had me dress in clothes she had brought: a button-up white shirt with horizontal blue stripes and a pair of jeans that fit me too snug. Thankfully my legs were uninjured though my unmentionables groaned at being packed up too tight.

Still high on painkillers, my legs weak from exhaustion, she supported me with an arm around my waist, being too short to put one over my shoulder, and led me to the lobby where she gave the hospital her insurance information. I was still covered under her for now thanks to the 'evils of Obamacare', for at least a year longer.

It was long past noon when we arrived at home, our red bricked two-story home with white wooded siding, after a quiet drive where I replayed the night before over and over again in my head, the sun drawing its final quarter through the sky above us, further in its position than I had last seen the moon. That meant my stay in the hospital had lasted thirteen hours with most of it being sleeping. Never had I slept that well, maybe bleeding half to death needed to happen more often.

Flee, our blond Lab, had been locked in my mother’s room most of the day to keep him from disturbing the detectives rummaging through my room and was eager for exercise the moment we let him out. He dashed out of her room, half crashed into the sofa separating the living room from the dining room, and barely stopped short of crashing into the back door which he clawed and then looked at me expectantly.

The old door creaked with age as I swung it open and stepped out with him onto the concrete patio. With the sun disappeared behind the front of our house, casting a shade that reached the woods where the attack had taken place, the air was cool and dry, comfortable for early fall, and I settled into throwing his favorite yellow rubber ball which came back slimier and muddier with each throw.

Our backyard wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either, consisting of a graying, cracked, concrete porch above a lower yard. Once upon a time the lower level had been grass, now it was mostly dirt, or mud, depending on the weather and how much time Flee spent wearing a path along a light brown fence I thought shorter than it had seemed last night. The boards nearest us had been splattered by dark red stains that were my blood, blood had hardened in the dirt below, but the porch had been washed clean.

Tossing the ball again, watching Flee skip the stairs to land on the dirt ground below and race for his toy kicking a cloud of brown up behind him, my thoughts turned to my son. William had been with us last night, but on the way home my mother had told me after the incident she had asked his mother, my ex, Tabby, to watch him until I was sure the injury wouldn't get in the way of caring for him and whatever had happened last night didn't repeat. Tabby had been too accommodating, which meant she almost certainly was to use tonight as a reason to get me to do her a favor in the future.

Flee had the energy to run the night through, as time drew on and the orange sunset gave way to darkness the weariness of the drugs began to wear away leaving me more myself. Around eight, with the moon in its first act of waning shining beyond the lightless woods, my mother seared burgers on her coal grill. The charcoal-seared beef smelled as delicious as it tasted, though a bit overcooked, which was weird because normally I liked mine well done with a crisp burnt shell of grease covering them.

After dinner, we shared her large glass Hookah decorated with white swirls upon a light blue glaze purchased from the Sherwood Renaissance Festival, the coal smoking white atop a foil sealing in strawberry-flavored tobacco, along with a glass of rum and cola while Flee snored at our feet.

How you holding up? she started as we watched the forest of oaks dressed in the shadows of the night while sitting on her old blue plastic patio set. If the porch light was off, we could have seen stars twinkling near their distant worlds, but I wasn't ready to sit in the dark just yet; just being this close to the woods gave me the creeps.

Ok I guess, I whispered finishing off my burger and attempting to flex my right arm. The sutures still hurt, I took another sip of our spiked soda hoping a good buzz might take the edge off.

Isn’t that the oddest, she commented without continuing, taking a sip. I could tell she was spacing out, her low tolerance for both nicotine and alcohol breaching.

Yeah, the whole episode was weird. Stealing the glass back, I used the whisky concoction to swish and chase the remains of the burger from my mouth. I swear I was called out to that forest, a sacrifice for that thing. A humorless chuckle escaped me into the now empty glass.

Why you?

Why not? A nobody in a world of nobodies, someone easily whipped off the map and forgotten. Had the creature killed me, had the strange shadow in the trees not intervened, the authorities could have hurriedly ruled it an animal death, killed a random coyote and called the case solved. Surely no one cared enough to keep this investigation running since I had survived.

Mom kept silent, not in indifference but because she was high and drunk. With my own buzz deepening, I decided just to let the subject go and take another drag of our single shared hose, letting strawberry smoke filter warmly out my nostrils.

If the cops didn’t care, if I wasn’t dead, then what did it matter? Somewhere in the distance a dog barked viciously. It was quieted with a yelp, likely by an angry master.

By the time my mother turned in she was too wasted to handle glass objects, leaving me to empty the tobacco and charcoal out of the hookah and rinse out the glass that had held our evening’s alcohol before making my way to bed.

***

The next morning, the sun woke me through my wall-sized window at the foot of my bed. My cube of a bedroom was situated with my bed in the center to the side of the open door. To my right was a desk which held the alarm clock and stuff I kept near me at night, such as my phone currently on its charger. A white door termed cream in spots by years of age was beyond that, open more than not, and beyond my door was a bookcase set against the adjacent wall full of horror and fantasy, from the dark marshes of Derry to the majestic Misty Mountains of Middle Earth, a collection of unorganized escapes from reality when I needed them, and more than a little dust.

Left of the bookcase, the wall led to a small but lengthy closet for clothes, the doors never closed. Hung in it a bunch of t-shirts of mostly black color and rock band, anime, videogame or other geeky designs, jeans that were all torn around the ankles and knees from use rather than design, and shorts either hanging or shoved haphazardly into cubbies below. I had a penance for cargo shorts. Adjacent to this there was a computer desk, an old late two-thousands semi-thin PC monitor atop it along with my old white gaming PC that could barely run Minecraft. Behind it sat the mentioned window the sun leached through, a wall scroll sporting the final fantasy character Sephiroth and his obtusely long sword acting