Clach

I met a werewulf in Afghanistan who is commanding a company of paratroopers.

Clach was living in New Orleans when Katrina hit. He was a lobo solo, not a member of a pack, alone, living amongst people, wanting to take out his hatred on them as much as he could.

As the storm rolled in he stuck around. He was stalking a family, a mother and 2 daughters, who lived in his same house in the 9th Ward. He planned to kill and eat all 3 of them. Maybe let the youngest go. At the very least eat the mother. Something about her drew him to her. She was succulent.

A turn of events found him trapped in an attic with these 3, and their cat and dog, a small terrier. The water was so high that they could not get out without drowning. And there were no points of egress in the attic, no windows.

The women and girls did not give up. Nor the terrier, who made it very clear that he knew what Clach was and what he planned and the terrier was having none of it. "Don't even think about it! Don't even think about it!" the terrier kept barking. "I will tear you up!" The cat kept clear of him.

In a force born of desperation, with the water around their ankles in that attic, Clach kicked through the roofing, allowing them to escape onto the roof. It was still raining. Clach lifted all of them, including the terrier and cat, through the hole and onto the roof and to the crest, as high as they could get. And waited. For no one. They neither heard nor saw any boats or helicopters.

They saw a small boat, a shallow-draft fiber-glass shell, floating past nearby. Clach swam out to it and pulled it back, got them all in and away they went. They floated around that flooded city for hours until picked up by the Coast Guard.

When it was over the 3 women hugged and thanked him. The mother hung onto him much longer than necessary. The terrier even licked his face. The cat ignored him.

The experience changed him. Not just in regards to the woman and the girls, but in regards to everything, so much so that a year later he was in Iraq, surrounded by humans, taking and giving orders from and to humans.

Meeting him was troubling, for is Clach now a werewolf behaving like a weredog, or is he a weredog who was a werewolf. I have always been told, "Once a wolf, always a wolf." But I am not so sure anymore.