Caught The Werewolf

This morning, my son Corey called me again. He once again recited his infamous catchphrase to me. “Hey Dad, I caught another werewolf.” My son, Corey, hunts werewolves. He has hunted them ever since he was a child. He caught his first when he was nine years old.

Back then, there were no cell phones or computers to entertain every kid. They had to use their creativity and more practical games to have fun, Corey was no different. He was a very imaginative kid and spent his days talking about fantasy worlds, movies, and books with his classmates. That and playing ball. My son had an amazing throw. You wouldn’t think it was a kid’s arm that chucked an object judging by the force. We haven’t played ball in a while, but to be honest, I don’t think I could keep up with him at my age. Corey grew up to be something of a giant. He got it from his mother’s side. I am certainly not that big.

Anyhow, at some point the entire town was talking about some Ape-man lurking around at night with shining bright, flashy eyes. Nobody knew what the hell that the thing was. Some people thought it might be Big Foot or a Yeti or something. I personally never took it seriously. I thought it might be some bear running around looking for food or just some drunk stumbling around. I assumed the flashy eyes were just an invention of some passionate storytelling.

At some point, the kids picked up on that thing too, and it was all the rage. Kids spoke about a great, human-like shadow walking around their windows at night. Others claimed they’ve met the creature or had spoken to it. Apparently, Beaton’s kid called the thing a talking gorilla. While some people were getting concerned, most of us didn’t get too bothered with childish imagination and conspiracy theories. No one was getting hurt, so none of us adults ever bothered checking what was behind the sightings.

One morning, Corey came to have breakfast and said that the Ape-man was actually a werewolf. I asked him why he decided it was a werewolf, so he told me he watched it from his window. The creature showed up at night and its bright eye shone at my son, waking him up. Looking at the window, he saw a strange creature covered in hair with its back turned to his window. He said the creature was moving its arms back and forth near its legs before howling and running off into the darkness. My wife wasn’t too pleased with my son being awake in the middle of the night. I thought it was probably just some local fauna that caught Corey’s attention.

Corey wouldn’t stop talking about the supposed werewolf for months. Werewolf this, werewolf that. He tried to convince his friends that the strange creature was a werewolf, which led to a fight between a few of them. It was getting tiresome to hear constantly about this werewolf, but what could we do? The kid had an active imagination. Some kind of wildlife was roaming around our small town at night. The kid thought it was a mythical beast. What do we do? Catch the animal to prove him otherwise? We let him have his fun.

One day he asked me, “Dad, what should I do if the werewolf gets too close?”

I told him, “you have a strong arm, just throw something at it and it’ll run away from you.”

He smiled, thanked me, and ran off to play with his friends that day. I thought little of it.

Three days later, in the middle of the night, Corey comes to our bedroom and nudges me awake. “Hey, dad…”

“Yeah, kiddo?” I asked him, still half asleep.

“I caught the werewolf,” he says, the glee obvious in his voice.

“Buddy, it’s the middle of the night you should go to bed… Just like the werewolf probably went to bed…” I groaned, turning in my bed.

“He’s In my room right now. I saw his bright eye shining through the closet door. It…” as he said that, I felt a knife twist itself in my chest. My whole body turned cold, and I bounced out of bed.

He’s never had his imaginary friends or monsters come over. This werewolf thing, no one ever said it showed up in their houses, just lurked around the windows at night. It began to click for me.

“Come on, Corey, show me this werewolf…” I whispered, attempting to maintain my composure as I walked my son towards his room. My wife woke up and asked what had happened. I told her Corey put the werewolf to sleep. She raised a thumb in approval, smiled her beautiful smile, and returned to her slumber. Corey and I walked straight up to his room.

The door was wide open, a familiar sight caught my vision, a camera. My mind went into overdrive, “his shining eye…” singular. Every single time Corey mentioned a shining eye. It was one eye. A single eye. A lens. It wasn’t an eye. It was a lens. Everything started making sense and my body tensed up, my stomach knotted and my heart was trying to break through my ribcage. I was so worried something had happened to my Corey.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

The closet door was open ajar, and Corey exclaimed pridefully, “Look, I told you it’s a werewolf!” I stood there, confused, angry and fearful. My mind was racing, my heart was struggling to follow, and my stomach was about to eject its contents through every orifice I had. I was losing touch with reality for a moment there.

Corey’s triumphant calls urging me to look at the fallen creature refocused my mind, but only for a second.

Imagine my shock when I was a freakishly tall, hairy man with a gigantic beard lying naked next to my son’s bedroom with a pen stuck deep within his eye.