A little brown bottle never looked so ominous. On the tiny white label encasing the bottle, he had drawn two eyes, filling in the circles of the iris and pupils with black magic marker. It felt like the bottle was watching him, so he thought he should at least give it eyes to see. On the label that was yellowed and peeling, "Aconite" was printed, and that word ran through his mind in a silly little kindergarten mantra over and over again.

"Aconite" when he finally dragged himself through his front door, hair matted with dirt and blood, shoes missing and clothing tattered. "Aconite" when he doubled over on the carpet just before the bathroom door and vomited across the wood. "Aconite" when he recognized pink stubs of toes swimming among the sick.

"Jesugod," broke through the monotony of "Aconite", but it did little to deter the thoughts that succeeded every glance towards the brown bottle.



In the morning, he was better. He cleaned the carpet, took a shower, managed to stain a bit of the white porcelain a nasty red color along the way, but all in all, he felt better. He managed to get to work on time, choke down some Pepto and even greet a few of his coworkers on the way down through the center cubicle aisle. At his desk, he was able to drink a small cup of coffee, focus on his paper work, and by noon, he went out to get a gyro at the Greek restaurant across the street.

It was in the evening, when he was back at home listening to his over head clock tick, that he couldn't ignore the feeling that the bottle was watching him again. He tried to ignore it for a while, settling down on his expensive leather couch to read that days newspaper for the third time today, that he began to equate the clock ticking to a death watch, and the bottle was the harbinger of death. "No," he said out loud, covering up the sound of the clock. "It's just a problem, and every problem has it's solution, goddammit. I can be normal, I can be clean. I don't have to do this, there's got to be a..got to..be-" He stood up abruptly, nearly spilling the glass of wine he had poured not five minutes ago.

The wind outside felt cool, the air light with the onset of night and the street cars that soured through New Orleans a passing collective blur of neon color. He joined the fray, falling into step outside his apartment complex among the other city dwellers. He found his way to an open bar, advertised by the same neon colors that made him think of city traffic. Inside, it was blessedly loud, noise pounding into him like a headache shot out of hell. The jukebox, the tinkle of women's laugher and the uproarious cries of drunk men; it was all so numbing... so wonderfully numbing. It made him forget little brown bottles and death watches. Made him forget little pink toes and red rings around the drain.

After the bar tender had brought him a drink, he hunched over his seat, taking a quick swig from the shot glass and swallowed the liquid.

His eyes closed and his throat muscles worked, feeling the burn of the alcohol as something purifying rather than destructive. A woman with eyes so dark they made you believe that there was some romance left in the world caught his attention. She was seated on his left, swirling a tiny straw amid some ice cubes that floated in a very fruity smelling drink...

Smelling? Jesus...can I smell that from here? The woman shifted, crossing one butter cream leg over the other, and he felt a flush creep along his cheeks that enhanced the burning sensation the alcohol had given him. To his surprise, she looked over in his direction and smiled, leaning forward to speak: "Hello".

Her name was Mary, and her lips were as soft as they looked, and her eyes danced with a fire that he wasn't ever sure he'd seen in a woman before. The top buttons of Mary's shirt had gone missing, the collar dipping open to expose a slender neck. Her lips were red even when the lipstick wore off, and her little sighs and gasps were just as captivating as the rest of her. They were pressed against the trunk of a tree, the bark rough against the layers of clothing that seemed to become less and less as time when on. The park was quiet, at least in the south end.


His head was tilted upwards, his fingers tangled in Mary's long strands of flower scented hair. His eyes had caught upward on the shifting of clouds. Light had begun to stream through them, arresting his attention so completely that he swore his heart had forgotten to beat in those last two seconds. He all but shoved Mary off of him, her red red lips pursing in a pout before they parted in anger and muttered "Lobo." The sound of her retreating footfalls made him wince outwardly, though he didn’t hear her exact words. Still, he gazed upward at the moon.

Not full. "The moon isn't full...Jesus! So stupid, stupid." He rubbed his hands over his jaws, detaching himself from the tree trunk, feeling idiotic and childish for spooking over moonlight when the moon wasn't even full. Chances like Mary had been didn't saunter in much.

Mary stayed in his mind even when he slept that night. He saw her laugh, toying with the woven strands of silver chain that glimmered from around her neck. She would laugh, and the sound would ring in his ears, and then her lips would move, speaking that parting word that he had missed. The meaning was lost, he couldn’t understand that word, but he felt it’s gravity. It seemed accusatory, and it made him feel foul. The dream ended with a flurry of ticking noises, coming from the base of a gigantic brown bottle akin to the one that sat, night and day, on his living room table.






The next prospect of the next few weeks’ relief was spurred on by a series of bad weather. The seasons were shifting slowly, winter ambling along like an elderly person with a walker. To most of the town’s folk, the prolonged gloom outside began to morph into a mirror for the gloom that stuck on the edges of their own moods. His mood wasn’t stunted. He enjoyed overcast weather, for the only reason that it hampered the glow of the moon.

He didn’t go to bars at night, but he did order pizza and buy six packs of beer to accompany the meals. He ate in solitude in front of the computer, scrolling around cyberspace for hours on end, soaking up all he could about old legends and folk remedies. He concluded that his problem was rare, though there were pages on pages that dug into solutions and possible causes. The trouble was separating fact from fiction. Would Aconite kill him, or would it induce a change? Choices like this could mean a lot in the end. The search itself made his eyelids heavy, and when the hour had grown late and the pizza still left in the box was stale on top of a concentric pool of grease, he gave up.

Sleep was heavy, absent of Mary, but filled with voices that echoed what he’d read. Words like “skin” and “ enchanted wolf suit” drummed about his dreams, dominating his unconscious mind with images of gorgeous women and men, standing bronze skinned and naked under the light of the full moon. Their fingers were long, each tipped with a pointed nail. They would clutch their chest, and cry out in one eerie howl, using their devilishly sharp nails to dig a hole in the center, just where their sternum would be. Images of scalpel knives, driving with precision force down the torso of a deceased domesticated animal in one vertical gash lit his mind; memories of high school biology, as unpleasant and realistic in the dream as they were during life. The cut was shallow, but deep enough to draw blood. When they had finished dragging their fingers downwards, he saw their skin open like an old wound, the rip sliding back easily to expose a long line of something that glinted a dull silver. Something that would open them up further, akin to a zipper on a fall jacket.



As the nights nearing the full moon grew closer, his irritability peaked and he was hardly able to speak to his coworkers without feeling a knot of frustration at the back of his spine. The anger, the aggression, it coiled within his belly, like a caged animal; a caged wolf. The ticking from the little brown bottle was more persistent, fiercely burrowing into his skull so that it didn’t just stop when he left his house anymore. It was all around him, making him paranoid, his teeth set permanently on edge. The moon, it would be full the next night.



The bar was smoky when he entered, coils of it fanning out around his earlobes and stinging his eyes. He sat on a stool, ordered a drink, and hunkered down. His eyes settled only on the wood of the bar in front of him. Tomorrow night, he knew his condition would worsen. He felt a tingling, like the gnawing sensation of hunger spread itself slowly up his abdomen, burning a solitary line of feeling from his sternum to his navel, and all the while sitting to his left, a girl named Mary watched him closely.

Their conversation had been quiet. He’d ordered her a drink, the same fruity concoction he had seen her sip on the night he had first met her. She still twirled it the same way, her hand arched delicately so that he could appreciate the fluidity of her motions. Nothing by way of an apology crossed either of their lips, but they went home together anyway, Mary insisting that they go to her place to talk.

Inside, he was reminded of a gypsy caravan. Shawls and shimmering fabrics were draped along doorframes and hung from ceilings as makeshift curtains. Some twined around each other, resembling gorgeous snakes that glittered like an oil spill. The air was heady, the perfume of Mary’s hair intensified sevenfold, and he felt his head swim and his eyelids begin to droop, falling prey to the enclosed heat that enveloped them both. She had him sit on an overstuffed couch, and he nodded once, mumbled a short “Thanks” before sinking back. Mary stared at him, her dark Spanish eyes heavy lidded, though not from fatigue. The softness of her features had changed since they walked in the door, and now in this dim light, she felt harsh and un real. A halo of moonlight curved about her head adding to the disorientation. His mind hummed, telling him that something in the air, behind all the perfume, smelt very, very wrong.

Through all the smoke and mirrors, a deep foreboding smell lingered, and he caught it on the edge of his senses each time he inhaled. It was sharp, and near made his tongue click in distaste. It was the smell of something tangy and sharp, acrid in the way poison or spoiled juice smelt. Fingers curled to his palms, sharp red crescents indenting into the softer flesh. He felt a growl threaten to rise from deep within his throat, but he stopped himself, bewildered at his actions, and that he had no idea where the threat had registered from. Except maybe for Mary, who had turned from him now, her spine curved and her hands darting forward to grab something that hung, brown bottled and tiny on her wall.

An unearthly shriek filled the air, and Mary had turned around, her dark eyes crazed and her hands clasped around the little bottle that was near identical to the one at his home. She held it out, closer to him, and he could see that where there should be a stopper at the top, there was a tiny spray nozzle. Just as he inhaled, preparing to lunge, she screamed “Lobo!” and sprayed.

He felt the mist stick to his face, and on his forearms, and now that particular smell had nearly covered him completely. He groaned in agony, prepared for the sting and pain that would accompany a full frontal blast of the one thing that could kill his condition and him on contact, but the sting didn’t come, and neither did the pain. Instead he felt a blast of aggression so deep that it manifested into a full out roar from the back of his throat. He felt his nerves sing with power, and his muscles began to contract.

Mary had backed away, the little brown bottle falling from her fingers with a gentle “clunk” on the carpet below. Her brown eyes were wide, rabbit like and terrified, and in the glare from the streetlights outside, he saw his own eyes reflected in hers, glowing only as an animal’s would in the darkness.

The change came on fast, quicker than it ever had before. All his personal memories, his identity, even his name halted once the change began. What he once was had been tucked away, the mind completing it’s change to something bestial before the body even began to shift. The wound had opened by itself, the gash ripping from his sternum downwards, exposing the thin line of a zipper. His flesh had begun to sink backwards, the pink and cream of human dissolving into thick patches of dark fur. Bits of pearl white bone could be seen, churning into a sick fleshy mesh along side the fur and the emerging musculature of the beast. The wolf surged forward, all strength and aggression, as the last bit of human melted away, dripping into nothingness, wax like and fluid.

This time, when Mary’s red lips had parted to speak, he understood each word that she whispered. “Human suit. Jesus, it’s a wolf in a man’s clothing.”

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