Hair of the Dog

Hair of the Dog
By Billy Mau



The shaking doesn’t stop, but it is manageable after the third shot of whiskey. Duggan called it “The Hair of the Dog.” He forced the stuff on me after my first night.

“Drink it,” he said, pushing a coffee cup with a double-shot in it in front of me. “Cures what’s ailin’ ya.”

I didn’t even know where I was. I was naked and burning up. The skins were in a heap next to me.

Interesting lycanthropy fact #144: The skins bleed. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just taken them off or not. The longest I’ve ever been able to go without wearing them was fifty-two days. They bled the whole time.

It’s pretty traumatic when the skins come off, so the booze is a must. Whiskey is the best. Don’t ask me why. You can get by with vodka or even really strong rum, but it ain’t pretty. Whiskey does the trick. Store-bought is fine, but homegrown moonshine is like a little glass of heaven. Most skinwalkers have their own stills and private stock.

Duggan taught me how to make the stuff on my own. He was the one that put the skins on me for the first time. I don’t know where he is now, but if I see him again I’m going to rip his lungs out and use them as boot covers. This is not a life I would have ever chosen for myself. There is no place for werewolves in polite society.

That’s why I live in Wyoming now. Helps me stay away from society. Duggan helped me get a job as a park ranger. It’s a good enough job, I guess. It’s fairly solitary and I can do my business without much interference.

Interesting lycanthropy fact #90: A surprisingly large number of park rangers, game wardens and self-styled survivalists are indeed skinwalkers.

Duggan is one of those survivalists. Some of my old buddies and I hired him as a hunting guide a few years back. He seemed a little odd, but the man knew his stuff. He knew every game trail and the best places to set up blinds. He promised us that we’d finish our week with more meat that we could carry home. And we believed him.

There were five of us. Tommy, Chris, Jake, Ty and me. You can understand if I don’t give my name. There are people that would hunt me down and kill me. Maybe one day I’ll be ready for that, but not today. Jake and I were the only ones with any hunting experience. Tommy, Chris and Ty had never been more than five hundred yards from a paved road in their life. They were uneasy with Duggan from the get-go. Duggan, with his long beard, cammo fatigues and bushman hat. He was a little too earthy for their like. It was fine because they were a little too manicured for his like.

Despite his suburban nature, Tommy bagged the first deer of the trip. He got a nice nine-pointer early on the second day. He got him with a clean shot that even garnered an appraising look from Duggan. “How’s that for a happy accident?” He produced a huge knife from inside his vest. “Now you get to dress the thing.”

We all had a good laugh as Tommy gagged his way through his first field dressing. Even Tommy was laughing after we had our third kill of the day. Duggan led us back to the cabin early so we could get the venison on ice. Of course we kept enough out for a big dinner of venison steak and baked potatoes. We all got good and drunk in celebration of our conquest of nature.

Duggan stayed separate from the group, spending most of his time staring out the window. He only broke into our conversation once during the night.

“You slicks are better than I thought. We’ll have a full moon tomorrow. Good for night hunting. We’ll sleep in come morning. Best have our rest up for a long night.”

Interesting lycanthropy fact# 201: Full moons have nothing to do with werewolves. They’re no more or less active on those nights than any other. The only difference is that when you’re in the skin, that full moon is just a big, shiny thing begging to be howled at.

We set out after lunch the next day. Each of us packed up our rifles, extra ammo, a knife, some food and a bedroll. No tents. Duggan insisted we sleep under the stars. One with nature, he said. Duggan didn’t pack a bedroll. Didn’t pack any food, either. He took his gun, his knife and this big duffle bag. None of us knew what was in the bag and he didn’t tell us.

He led us out after lunch on a hike to the hunting grounds. We walked for almost five hours. The rest of the guys were pretty cheery on the trip, but all I could think about was hiking all that way back with whatever we killed. It would be brutal.

The campsite was in a small clearing surrounded by dense forest. It didn’t seem like it had been too long since it had been used last. There was a fire pit full of ashes and a loose circle of stones large enough to serve as seats.

“Looks lived in,” Ty said, as he relieved himself of his backpack and took a seat on one of the stones.

“It’s a good spot,” Duggan said. “I bring groups up here pretty often. Very good hunting grounds.”

Chris was making the rounds of the clearing. He always had to check out where he was staying. “What’s all over this rock?”

“Looks like blood,” Tommy said.

“Probably is,” Duggan said. Tommy and Chris stared back at him.

“What?” Duggan said. “It’s a hunting camp. There’s always blood.”

That seemed to satisfy everyone’s curiosity. We settled our gear and Duggan led us into the woods. His good hunting grounds were anything but. We stalked around the woods until after dark without seeing anything at all. It wasn’t that we didn’t see any game, we weren’t seeing anything at all. No birds, no squirrels, no nothing. The silence was total. There weren’t even any crickets too accentuate how quiet everything was. We had been walking most of the day and it was starting to look like it would be a wasted trip.

“Some spot you have,” Jake said. “What do you hunt out here? Snipes?”

Duggan brushed off the jab and waved back to camp. “We’ll go back to camp and rest up a bit. Hunting will be better later.”

“Are you sure about that?” Jake asked.

“I’m positive,” Duggan said, a slight smile flashing across his face. “Best hunting I ever do is out here at night.”

The guys got the fire started when we got back to camp. We all snacked on the venison strips and Power Bars we had brought with us while Tommy struggled to brew up some cowboy coffee. Duggan stayed back from the group the whole time. He’d answer questions we had, but offered no conversation of his own for more than an hour. Finally he picked up his duffle bag and started to the woods.

“You guys sit tight,” he said. “I’m going to go on a quick scouting run. I’ll be back soon, then the real fun begins.”

He struck out into the woods leaving us with our snacks and burned coffee. We couldn’t have cared less. We’d already given up on the hunting part of the trip and settled into more of a “Guys’ Night Out” mode. The jokes were flying fast and furious when Tommy excused himself for a nature call. He went a little way into the woods to relieve himself and came back laughing.

“This guy ain’t as tough as he acts,” Tommy said, dragging something behind him. “Look what I found stashed out there.”

It was a blue sleeping bag. “He didn’t bring a bedroll because he already had one out here. Hell, he’s probably out there in the woods munching down on a stash of meatloaf or something.”

Chris walked up to Tommy, eyeing the sleeping bag. “I don’t think it’s his.”

“What do you mean?” Tommy asked. “Who’s else would it be?”

Chris took the corner of the bag Tommy was holding and pulled it farther into the
light of the fire. “It’s all tore up and--“ his voice trailed off.

“Is that blood?” Tommy asked.

Then we heard the first sound of the night. It was a howl.

It bounded out of the woods on all fours and was on top of Tommy before anyone could get a look at it. A big swipe from one of its forepaws caught Tommy in the throat and nearly took his head off. The momentum of the swipe turned it towards the rest of us. It was on two legs now. A thick coat of reddish-brown hair covered a frame of rippling muscles. The head wolf-like was silhouetted against the fire. Chris had fallen down while trying to retreat and the thing dove on him. The two of them were dead in no more than five seconds.

Jake and Ty bolted for the woods. I tried to follow, but we ended up all going in different directions. I don’t know which way the thing went, I just knew it didn’t go after me. I wanted to find my friends, but I also didn’t want to risk running into whatever it was that was chasing us. Ty’s voice cut through the night. He seemed close by, but I couldn’t get a fix on where.

“We’re going to die,” he said. It wasn’t very loud, but it wasn’t a whisper either. His voice was warbling. He was cracking up. ‘Where are you guys?”

I didn’t answer. Jake didn’t either. We didn’t want to give away our location.

Interesting lycanthropy fact #12: Being quiet doesn’t help you hide from a werewolf. We can hear your heartbeat and smell your fear. Especially if that fear manifests itself as you pissing or soiling yourself.

Ty called out to us again, this time louder. “Where are you? Please. I don’t know what to do.”

The next and last thing we heard from Ty was a loud, but abbreviated scream. While I didn’t know where Ty and the thing were, I knew where they weren’t. I took off the opposite way from the scream and circled my way back around to the camp. The top priority was getting to my gun. I figured it might not help me survive, but it was certainly better than nothing.

I came back to the camp near where we left the weapons. We were all shooting Remington 700s loaded with .30-.06 shells. The rifles were bolt action models, holding five bullets. They weren’t exactly fast to reload, but that wasn’t what they were designed for. I checked that mine was loaded and slung it over my shoulder. My knife was sheathed on an ammo belt, so I put that on as well. I grabbed another and checked it loaded. Ten shots are better than five.

A noise from the other side of camp caught my attention. It was Jake. He was low to the ground and whispering to get my attention.

“Toss me one of those,” he rasped, pointing at the rifles. “Hurry up.”

I checked another rifle to see if it was fully loaded. Four out of five left. Someone didn’t reload. There wasn’t time to check every gun, so I stood up to toss the gun. Jake got up to catch it. The gun seemed to hang in the air forever. Jake extended his arms to catch it, but the wolf thing came out of nowhere and got him from behind. It took him to the ground just in time for the butt of the rifle to catch the it on the back of the head. It bit and tore at the Jake’s back as Jake flailed to get free.

I picked up the gun at my feet and started firing. I got the five shots off faster than I thought I could. Too bad the shots were all over the place. I hit it with two of the shots. That got its attention

Interesting lycanthropy fact #9: Bullets are bullets no matter what they’re made of and they aren’t incredibly effective. Most skinwalkers are content with the silver bullet myth because you can melt the bastards down once you get them out of you and sell the silver.

The beast stood up and howled. I pulled the other rifle down from my shoulder and took aim. One shot. Two. The gun jammed. I threw down the gun and turned to run, but tripped over one of the stones. The thing was charging across the clearing on all fours. I fumbled for my knife and managed to thrust it upwards just as the thing got to me. Blind luck guided it into the beast’s throat. The nine-inch blade burried itself up through the throat and into the head. The thing staggered back, unleashing a gurgling howl. I grabbed one of the remaining rifles and fired all five shots point-blank into its skull. It fell all the way to the ground, and so did I.

“What in the hell did you do?”

It was Duggan, completely naked save for his hat and the duffle bag he was carrying. He looked at me, then to the beast. “You killed him.”

I didn’t answer. I could barely move. Duggan walked past the beast to the last remaining rifle. He picked it up and pointed it at me.

“Take off your clothes.”

I was dumbfounded. The situation had gone from a monster movie to a scene from “Deliverance.”

“Do it, dammit.”

I started taking off my shirt as he walked back to the beast. It was smaller now. A lot smaller. He grabbed the back of the neck and pulled. The furry hide lifted off to reveal a man. A dead man. Duggan tossed the hide at my feet.

“Get your damned clothes off.” He pulled back the bolt on the rifle and chambered a round.

He motioned to the hide once my clothes were off. “Put it on.”

I said no and he smashed me across the face with the butt of the rifle. It spun me around and I landed on my stomach. I felt something wet and heavy land on my back.

The pain was instant. It was like thousands of nails driving into my body. There was heat and cold of unbearable extremes all at once. I saw Duggan pulling another wolf skin from his duffle bag just before I blacked out.

The next thing I know, it’s morning and Duggan’s pushing whiskey in my face.
He kept me around for a few weeks. Told me how the skins had chosen me. That’s why I was able to kill the one in the woods. He taught me how to focus when I was in the skins so I could have more control over my actions. He taught me how to make whiskey and how to hunt. He was a good teacher, but that didn’t change what he had done to me.

Interesting lycanthropy fact #1: It’s an addiction. You’re not technically bound to skinwalking. One could, in theory, toss aside the skins and never wear them again. In theory, of course. I made it fifty-two days and I felt like I was going to die.

I was going to attack him once I felt strong enough, but he disappeared. All that was left was a note about Wyoming. There was also one other thing. He’d rigged a firebomb on a delayed fuse. The house and most of the forest around it burned. The message was clear. He wanted me out of his area.

I did, but I’m going back one day. I need to hunt there one more time.