Mongrels

by Stephen Graham Jones

This is the way werewolf stories go. Never any proof. Just a story that keeps changing, like it’s twisting back on itself, biting its own stomach to chew the poison out.

“He’s not a bad wolf either,” he went on, shaking his head side to side. “That’s the thing. But a good wolf isn’t always a good man. Remember that.”

And none of Grandpa’s stories were ever lies. I know that now. They were just true in a different way.

and if there are any real answers about werewolves, then it’s a picture of them right there doing that, a picture of them right there trying to find each other.

I pushed the gas pedal of the LeSabre hard, stabbed us deeper into the night.

I’ve never seen one, but these man-wolves, these moondogs, they’re what the movies are based on. They can’t go the full distance, can’t transform like you can if you were born into it, but they can get half the way there, anyway. The claws, too much hair, the ears and the snout. The teeth. Their body, it’s trying to fight the blood, to keep it down. But the moon, it sings that blood up to the surface like a tide.

He’s the one who finally figured out the real way to recognize a werewolf. They’re the ones who never grow up.

It’s like the world wants us to be monsters. Like it won’t let us live the way normal citizens do.

“Being a werewolf isn’t just teeth and claws,” she said, her lips brushing my ear she was so close, so quiet, “it’s inside. It’s how you look at the world. It’s how the world looks back at you.”

People say werewolves are animals, but they’re wrong. We’re so much worse. We’re people, but with claws, with teeth, with lungs that can go for two days, legs that can eat up counties.

This is how it is with werewolves. Even when they lie, it’s the truth.