Michael Rowe - Enter, Night

Praying under my breath, I remembered what I had been told in Trois-Rivières about this exact danger, and the importance of neither showing fear, nor running quickly, lest those actions provoke an attack from the marauding animal in question.

The first wolf lowered its head even farther and from its throat again came a snarl of the purest menace. It moved aggressively forward. I looked around me for a stick that I might use as a weapon, but found none.

Even if I had, while a stick might have been of some use against one of these animals, there were five of them in total and any attempt to charge one of their number would have doubtless provoked an attack by the others in the pack.

I backed away slowly, my eyes on theirs, and theirs on mine. Edging myself onto the trail, I realized that the wolves were “herding” me back onto the path, the path that would obviously take me back to the village, or at the very least, to open ground. They kept advancing forward with every step backwards I took.

I stumbled towards the village, walking tortuously backward, my eyes on my pursuers. I flailed behind me with my arms, trying to anticipate the sharp branches behind me before they jabbed into my neck and back. When I failed, I tried to stifle my groans of pain.

They followed me at a hunting distance, but did not attack. In the one instance where I stopped, however, to get my bearings, they began to growl again. One darted forward and made a feinting snap at my hand. I cried out and jumped back, and when I again began to move, the wolf kept its distance.

Step by torturous step, always looking back over my shoulder, or walking backwards and glancing behind me to stay on the trail, occasionally stumbling painfully while the wolves moved like shadows and smoke among the boulders and low-growing trees and foliage as they stalked and herded me, I inched closer to what I hoped was the safety of the confines of St. Barthélemy. My terror was such that it felt as though it was hours before I saw the village, but obviously it could only have been a fraction of that time.

And still, they did not attack, though they had every opportunity to tear me limb from limb. They did not break their deadly silence, nor was there any lessening in the obvious malignity of their intentions, and yet it was as though they were somehow tethered and held back by some entity I could not see. I doubted that whatever providential force held them at bay was Heavenly-if it had been, the force would have sent them back to whatever sylvan hell they sprang from instead of allowing them to stalk me like wounded animal prey.

And then, finally yielding to my panic, I turned and broke into a run.

In the minutes during which I ran, I had every expectation of feeling the foul weight of their heavy bodies hurling me to the ground, and their foetid, hot breath on my exposed skin, and the death-bite agony of their teeth on my throat. But I felt nothing of the kind, and made my way to safety inside Father de Céligny’s house without once turning my head.

Upon entering, I looked out the window to see if the fiends had returned to their wilderness. My heart sank when I saw that they had not. Instead, they sat, poised like living gargoyles in a semi-circle in front of the entrance. As I watched, they cocked their heads as though listening to some master’s whistle, or to some command only they could hear. The entire tableau resembled a grisly sixteenth-century German woodcut depicting the fell horrors of werewolfery in some dark, forgotten forest.

As the day progressed, the beasts sat, or lay with their paws crossed in front of them. They must have known that I was vulnerable, and doubtless they could smell my terror as I knelt to pray, and yet they did not charge the entrance.

At one point in the late afternoon, I reached out with my hand to touch the door. As my fingers brushed it, a commotion erupted on the other side. A cacophony of howling and snarling greeted me.

Although I knew it was impossible, still it was as though the wolves had somehow known that I had touched the door from the inside, and that I might possibly be contemplating egress from the safety of the house. The fury in their bestial voices left no doubt whatsoever in my mind of the fate that would be mine if I dared step over the threshold.

I stepped backward towards the opposite wall and immediately they ceased their furor, again almost as though they knew my movements without seeing them. I realized that this must be more of the same deviltry that had plagued me since I left Trois-Rivières and it came to me then and there that I would very likely not survive that night. It came to me also that Father de Céligny had fallen to the same forces. If I had not dreamed his appearance by my bedside the previous night, whatever I saw could only have been his shade. I mourned Father de Céligny in that moment, and knelt to pray, for I didn’t doubt that I would soon join him on the other side.

When I roused myself from my prayer, I looked out the window and saw that the sun had nearly set and the shadows were lengthening across the abandoned village. The wolves were no longer sitting or lying by the door. They paced nervously, sniffing the air as though they could smell the sun setting and the entrance of night.

As it grew darker, the wolves become more and more agitated. Two of them began to bark sharply and to whine nervously. Faster and faster the night came, more and more the wolves fretted and paced in circles. And then, in unison, they threw back their heads and began to howl. The plaintive sound, which I had heard before only in the distance, carried with it a quality of reverence, an aspect that was even somehow prayerful.

For several long minutes the wolves lamented. Then, to my amazement, they turned tail and ran, abandoning their guard posts in front of my door for the path that led back to the lake.

I stepped over the threshold in wonderment at what had just occurred. I looked left and right, but there was no trace of them anywhere.

Above the rise of the distant cliffs, a gibbous moon had begun its ascent, not full, but bright enough to illuminate, however dully, the deserted village and the surrounding forests, which I could hear coming alive. In the distance, the chorus of the wolves came again, this time louder, as though more of them had gathered to celebrate the awakening of the night.

Of a sudden, I imagined I saw movement among the huts-shadows flitting and darting. I rubbed my eyes, because the shadows were moving with inhuman, even preternatural, speed. They moved upright, and were human in shape, of medium height, and thin, or so they seemed-they vanished as quickly as the appeared, almost as if they were taunting me, for as soon as I was able to focus my eyes upon them they were gone.

I closed my eyes and said a prayer for my safety in the face of this wickedness and for strength to drive whatever evil had destroyed the village back to the Hell from whence it sprang. And I prayed for courage, for I fear I had none at that moment. I thought of the brave martyrs who had gone to their deaths praying for the souls of the Savages who were cutting their bodies and forcing them to eat their own flesh. If I was to meet my own death at more unearthly, numinous hands, I would strive to die with as much courage as they had shown, and with as blithe and open a heart.

“Come, demons!” I shouted, brandishing my crucifix aloft. “Do your worst! I have no fear of you, for the power of Christ makes my arm a hammer! You are powerless against His holy name, which commands you to be gone from this place!”

I swept the cross in front of me like a scythe. I imagined I felt the shadows leaping back in its advance, but again that could have been in my mind, for what I had seen before I did not see now-the blackness had become impenetrable.