Excerpt: WT: Arthurian Redux

The door burst open vibrating the entire house and the quartet at the table were faced with a very irate and very large man. Carl Rupert found himself quite unable to comprehend what he was seeing, because it really didn’t make any sense. There was some passing attempt at comparing the scene before him with what the Incredible Hulk was supposed to do. The man was large, he had rippling muscles and they almost seemed to be growing as he snarled his anger at his whore of a wife for bringing some other man into the house and in front of the children too, and then the voice became so angered Carl couldn’t make it out and then a table near the door splintered in the man’s grip, but then he wasn’t a man any more, his face was distorted, and there was a noise that had to be just the sheer agony of what was happening and then it just made so much more sense to go to sleep and then he could ignore the fact that there was urine soaking his trousers and the man, not man, white hairy creature, yeti (maybe?) would be gone and he would find that he was back at school or had been in a hideous car accident or something like that…fortunately, in some ways, for Carl Rupert, that meant that he wasn’t aware when his chest was ripped open a few moments later by the angry “yeti”.
“John! NO!” Megan screamed, “He’s from the kid’s school. My God! What is WRONG with you? Boys, get back, get out!” she tried to shove J.C. and Jared towards the door, but John’s wild swings were very close, and J.C. was countering trying in turn to push Megan towards the door, a huge jumble of limbs and angry words ensued, as they did at least make it somewhat closer to the door, but then John’s swipe raked a hefty portion of flesh from one of Megan’s arms and as she screamed and dropped to the floor in pain J.C. turned to his father, his own body was growing and changing as he turned, and his nose widened and elongated as he too became covered in thick coarse white fur and shed the majority of his clothing.
Jared tugged at Megan, “Mom, can you move? Mom, please…can you…can you ‘get’ the phone?”
Megan’s eyes lost their momentary glaze, and she pressed one hand into the wound on her shoulder, and then massaged the blood around in her palm. Jared swallowed looking at the angry battle between his brother and his father. A pit of sick was forming in his stomach as he realized his father looked off, there were sores in his fur and thick clumps had fallen out, not from J.C.’s attacks but from something else, if his father were a common street mutt he would put it down to mange.
Megan reached into the inside pocket of her coat and pulled the phone handset that had been sitting on the cradle in the kitchen out of her coat pocket. She winced and took a deep breath and got to her feet as she handed the phone to Jared, “Stay over here. I’m going to have words with your father,” as she stood up she picked up the lamp lighter and a can of bug spray from the bookshelf nearby and walked towards the fight.
“John, John, please!” Jared heard her call as he punched the MPs phone number on the speed dial, “John, aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to lay down?”
J.C.’s smaller form backed away from his father a few paces as the larger wolf-man stumbled and started to swoon, but then he shook off the fatigue and with a throaty, yet watery growl he batted Megan backwards into the nearby counter and as J.C. angrily tried to tear into him in retaliation he ripped into his son’s chest with one hand and pitched him across the house. J.C. crashed into one of the book cases and then landed painfully on the dining table, buckling it under his weight. As the table and J.C. hit the floor, the metamorphosis reversed, and both Jared and Megan cried out in horror, and then anger.
Megan lit the flame on the lamp lighter and then brought it in front of the aerosol can, as she focused and muttered to herself she seemed to be making the fire dance and roll like a small child turning a snow ball into enough mass for a snow man’s body, and then with the skill of a major league pitcher she hurled it towards her husband, “They warned me!” she screamed, “Wolves go mad! But did I listen? I thought you would be different damn it! If your son is dead, you rat bastard--I’m going to raise you and KILL YOU AGAIN!”