Tainted Love

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

1

Russell was feeling old.

He'd felt it for a while, but now, it was more than feeling. It was a fact. He was old, and he knew it.

That morning had been no different than any other. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened to make him think or feel any differently; he just had an epiphany. A sudden realisation that there had once been a time when his mornings weren't like this at all. Mornings when he didn't struggle to get up, and his body didn't creak and groan like the floorboards in his bedroom.

This epiphany dawned on him once his grogginess wore off, and he lumbered into the bathroom. Out of breath from the short walk across his corridor, he flicked the switch and squinted as the energy-saving bulbs popped dimly into life.

At the back of his mind, it was then that he randomly remembered when those damned bulbs were first introduced. How expensive they were and how he hated them for how long they took to reach full brightness.

How long had it been now? How long had it taken to go from grudging acceptance to not giving it a second thought?

How long.

It was this fleeting observation, the "huh, remember when...?" that prompted him to observe himself and do precisely that – remember when. Remember when there was no such thing as energy-saving bulbs. Remember when climate change and global warming were a conspiracy, a myth.

Remember when werewolves were just a myth too.

There was a time before but now the time after was longer.

Russell leaned on his sink and stared at the man in the mirror – I was eight when that was released! he thought. So much had changed since then, too much to process. Music, movies, politics. Hell, Michael Jackson died ten years ago! But like him, Russell had lived through two millenniums. Yet, it hadn't been a moonwalk into the twenty-first century for the werewolf but a series of crawls.

2

Back when he could afford to have friends, Russell was asked to be a best man. He'd known George since they were in primary school together, and they were simply fulfilling a promise they'd made as boys. To be at each other's weddings because they'd always be in each other's lives.

But George's wedding day never came. And his life ended on the stag do.

The pub crawl was Russell's idea. Nothing is more manly than men marching from pub to pub. It was simple; ten pints in ten pubs. Everything was going swimmingly until the sun set.

It was winter, so night fell fast while they were in pub four. Usually, this wouldn't be a problem. The party knew the pubs and the route linking them, but they were drunker than usual. It was a special occasion, and when lads get rowdy, they get stupid ideas. Stupid ideas like, "Let's walk on the moors!" Russell was the only one who voiced concern, but he caved into the peer pressure - "Don't be a pussy!" So, the men acted like boys and strayed off the country path. Thanks to the Full Moon, it was lighter on the hills, but they still didn't see it coming and dismissed the warning it gave. The others laughed at Russell when he jumped at the howl.

'It's just a dog,' George tried to reassure him with a pat on the back. But it didn't do the trick. He knew it wasn't a dog; soon enough, the others would too.

In the end, it wasn't the sharp rocks they climbed or the steep drops they teetered over that killed the band of merry men but the Big Bad Wolf.

They were hiking up a hill, grass as far as the eye could see. In any other circumstance, plenty of space to run. But the stag party weren't quick enough. When the wolf came, they either tripped on random rocks, unsteady on their feet from the beer, or the beast of the night caught up with them.