,

Chris Jennings (March 4, 1969 Pt. 1)

Yesterday, late afternoon, as Barnabas and I were standing in Eagle Hill Cemetery, he asked if I had no memory of what happens after I change. That’s the most agonizing thing, not knowing what I did the night before. I asked how he knew that. He claimed I attacked him the night before last. Ah, I had wondered… the next day he was hurt.

I told him it was a wonder he was still alive. He said that when I attacked him, he fought me off with the handle of his cane. He said that silver is the one thing he can kill me with.

We entered the mausoleum and I asked him if this was the place? I thought he was going to bring me someplace I couldn’t get out of. He said he did, but I explained it wasn’t going to work. Believe me, once the transformation takes place, the iron gate wasn’t going to hold. He said no, it wouldn’t, but showed me a door that would.

We entered a tomb and I asked what it was. Apparently, it was originally intended as a storage place for ammunition during the revolutionary war. I asked how he knew that and he explained that he was a Collins and knows a great deal about his family’s history. I noticed a coffin in the middle of the chamber.

Obviously, it was used for another purpose after the revolutionary war. I asked him who was buried there. He said the coffin was empty. Well, then who was buried there? He said that was a bit of family history he knew nothing about. (He didn’t know or he did and can’t tell me about it?) Regardless, it had nothing to do with the reason we were there.

Why were we there? Barnabas said it was to keep me from committing other violence. That’s not what I meant. I asked why he was helping me? He said because he wanted to help me. It must be more than that, after all he’d taken a great risk to help me. There must be some underlying reason why he’d be willing to do it. 

He said it was because he knows I’m not responsible for what happens and what I do… when the full moon rises and the transformation occurs. I asked if he thought the room would solve the problem? He said, for now it would. I asked if he planned to bring me here every time there’s a full moon. He replied until he found a better way of helping me.

What other way could there be? He said he hoped to find a cure for my… condition. Forget it. He’s wasting his time. There is no cure.

He asked when the first transformation occurred. He wanted me to tell him about it, but there wasn’t time. He said there was still time; the moon wouldn’t be rising for a while. When I said I would rather just not talk about it, he said that if he was going to help me, he needed to know a great deal more about me. I had to talk sometime; I may as well talk now. When I reminded him he wasn’t safe with me, he held up his cane and said I was forgetting he had it.

I took a long pause, then reflected. It was seven years ago, just a few days past my 21st birthday. I had just graduated from college and was going to be an architect. Oh, I was going to be an architect to be reckoned with! Bold… Imaginative… Revolutionary… I thought nothing could stand in my way. And something did. Something I thought happened only in fiction.

One night, just after sunset, I started to feel a great pain overcome me. And as it began to increase, I was going out of my mind. All of a suddon it stopped. But then I got the most shocking thing that ever happened to me in my life. I looked down and my hands… my hands had begun to grow hair all over them. And I looked in the mirror and there was hair growing all over my face, too. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then I blacked out. Just blacked out.The next morning, I woke up and was myself again. I thought it was just a nightmare… until I looked around and saw the evidence. It must have been 100 times since then… Muddy tracks on the floor… My clothes torn… Furniture tossed all around the room. Always the news that someone had been attacked… and killed… by a vicious animal. And I knew… I knew it was me!

He told me this morning would be better for me. But how could he be sure even this place was going to hold me? He explained that the walls were made of solid granite. There are no windows and the only way out was the door which he would close after he leaves. My doubts persisted; there must be some way to open it from inside. He said he deliberately left the door open while we talked so I wouldn’t see the way it operated. 

Is there anybody else who knows where it is? He said a few, but they would not be there that night. He guaranteed it.I interrupted him as the first waves of pain erupted from inside my body. I told him it was starting and was going to happen in a few minutes. He needed to get out! He said he wished there was some way he could help me. I said, no, just close the door… close it good… and pray… pray I couldn’t get out.

He quietly left and said he would be back for me in the morning. 


Leave a comment