Jacob Derring didn’t want to be there.

He stared at the moon through a cracked, wood-framed window. It cast a cool, blue glow over the desk in the study; he couldn’t help, but think of that old silent movie where the spaceship crashes into a face painted on the moon’s surface. Old books, strewn untidily all over the room, appeared older and more tattered in the dark light.

‘Please excuse the mess,’ said a voice from behind him.

A newspaper caught his attention. Its page was just visible with a tall lamp in the corner of the room offering the only artificial light. It sat on the desk, open at his one and only column: Fantastic Pets and Eccentric Owners. Every week he interviewed loners, weirdos, and pensioners about their pets, while the rest of his time was filled with making coffee and taking memos around headquarters. He’d watched the frontline journalists get the juicy stories, the celebrity gossip, and the free tickets to stadium concerts and Manchester United football games. Being a junior journalist at the Brunstoke Herald wasn’t what he expected.

‘Very good read that, very good read indeed,’ said the voice.

Jacob turned to see the man he’d come to interview pointing at the paper. Terrance Cunningham addressed him with a slightly hunched back, his sixty – maybe seventy - years of life clearly taking its toll. He wore thin, silver-rimmed spectacles that sat neatly on the end of his nose, a red shirt with the top button undone, and brown trousers. He had white hair rather than grey which spread to his beard. He could look like Father Christmas if that beard was any longer, Jacob thought.

‘Do you like old books?’ The old man bent his back as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far, and tried to push the books into some kind of order.

‘Erm,’ Jacob hesitated, ‘yes, I do. They’re-’

‘You should read these, they’ll tell you the truth they will.’

Jacob picked up the nearest one. ‘Werewolves and the Great Beyond…’ He picked up another. ‘Beware the Full Moon. You like gothic horror then, Mr. Cunningham?’

‘Werewolves!’ He said abruptly. 

Terrance moved more books, stacking one on top of another.

‘…and please call me, Terrance.’

The old man moved towards a rocking chair and slowly lowered himself into it. ‘Please, sit down,’ he said, gesturing towards a wooden chair by the desk.

The chair had another stack of books on top of it.

‘Just put those on the desk,’ Terrance said.

Jacob picked up a few of the books, but something dropped to the floor. It was the current edition of the Brunstoke Herald.

Terrance watched it fall to the ground. ‘Oh, terrible business that,’ he said, shifting in his seat, uncomfortably.

Jacob viewed the front page of the newspaper. The headline read: ‘Another Two are Brutally Slain’, while the picture showed a bloody stretch of pavement. Why can’t I get that story, Jacob thought?

He removed the final books from the chair, picked up the newspaper and placed them all on the desk. Sitting down, he said, ‘…so, unusual pets, when do I get to meet yours?’

Terrance chuckled. ‘I don’t have any pets Mr. Derring.’

Jacob hated writing page eighteen’s two-hundred and fifty word page-filler, so his first thought was relief. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Cunningham. I was told to meet you about our Fantastic Pets feature…’

‘Call me, Terrance, please. I must apologise for any misunderstanding, at least on my part. Your editor was right, I did tell him I had cats, and that they wrestled when I put Gardening World on the television. But that was a means to an end.’

Jacob stood up. ‘Well, if there’s nothing for me to do here, I better-’

Terrance waved his hand in the air as if pushing Jacob back into his seat. ‘Please, sit down. The-’ He stopped in mid-sentence clutching his stomach and groaning quietly.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ he answered, hesitantly as if unsure, ‘I’m fine, it’s…it’s nothing.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The reason I told him I had pets was to get the guy who writes the articles.’ He pointed at Jacob.

‘You wanted me?’ Jacob let the question hang in the air, unable to hide his surprise.

‘Are you sure I can’t get you a drink?’

‘No…,’ he said, quickly, and then corrected himself. ‘I mean, no thank you.’

‘Why are you here, Mr. Derring?’

‘I don’t follow?’

‘I don’t mean to be intrusive,’ he said, looking up at Jacob who was still standing. ‘But it’s a simple a question: why are you here?’

‘Well, it was to interview you-’

‘Exactly - what for? Because you want to be a writer. Don’t lose sight of your dreams…that’s what I did.’ He let his head fall, his eyes now facing the floor. He appeared pensive, sad even.

‘I’m sorry – erm – Terrance, but this isn’t about me. I’ll let myself out.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Mr. Derring…’

‘No pet, no story, I’m afraid.’

Terrance let out a hearty laugh. ‘Oh, I think I can find you a story.’

He reached over another stack of books piled on the floor and picked up a silver lighter. Taking a cigar from his top pocket, he lit the tobacco with a few quick breaths, allowing the smoke to drift carelessly into the air.

‘Do you write anything else, besides pets and their owners?’

Jacob didn’t know whether to answer at first, but decided to be polite. ‘A song maybe, some film reviews, I like writing short stories-’

‘Short stories you say,’ Terrance interjected, ‘I wrote a short story once, though it wasn’t any good. Sent it to a magazine…oh, what was its name…something like Terrible Tales from Under the…Hill or…?’

‘Terrible Tales from Under the Bridge?’

Terrance smiled, but it was restrained, as if he knew Jacob would know the answer.

Jacob shrugged and let out a sarcastic laugh. ‘I wouldn’t submit there if I were you. They steal your work and pretend they wrote it.’

‘Really…’ Terrance said only to become disinterested in the topic. ‘You remind me of myself when I was your-’ He quickly sat up straight like a soldier coming to attention. ‘How old are you…twenty…twenty-one?’

He didn’t give Jacob a chance to answer.

‘Dreamers, that’s you and I. It’s something children have but as you grow old you lose it – but not you. I used to be a dreamer too,’ he said, sitting on a wooden rocking chair. ‘Used to - being the operative words, of course. My dreams were lost a long time ago.’

Terrance allowed the smoke to slowly drift from his mouth. ‘Dreamers will always be afraid of the dark, what’s under the bed, who’s hiding in the closet. I bet you still wonder if there’s something out there,’ he said, raising his hand to the window and the full moon’s light streaming in. ‘You know, hidden deep in the woods, or a long, lost traveller from outer space.’

His eyes surveyed Jacob’s face as if he was trying to work out a puzzle.

Terrance appeared easily distracted. ‘The murders…in town…terrible things…how many now?’

Jacob thought for a second. ‘Over ten I think…’

Terrance shook his head in sadness. ‘Actually, there have been twelve, and the police are no nearer getting him.’

‘How do you know it’s a him?’

‘It’s always a him, isn’t it? Of course they won’t catch the killer because they don’t open there minds.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if your editor said: here you go, cover the Brunstoke Murders for us, what would you write?’

‘I don’t think I follow?’

‘Well, what angle would you go with if you had the…scoop, the juicy headline?’

Jacob mused for a moment. He was intrigued by the question, but it didn’t take him long to know his answer. ‘The timings…’

‘Go on,’ Terrance said, a grin beginning to appear.

‘…that every murder occurs almost exactly thirty days apart…’

‘…and…’

‘…and the…’ Jacob paused. ‘…the fact they happen when there’s a full moon.’

Terrance was now smiling from ear to ear. ‘WEREWOLVES,’ he exclaimed, enthusiastically. ‘And they should be on high alert tonight, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Jacob was about to ask why, but he held his tongue, as his eyes followed the tranquil light to the window, the full moon shining brightly.

Terrance suddenly grabbed his stomach once again, grimacing in pain.

Jacob stood up even though he had no clue how to help the old man.

‘No, no, it’s okay.’

‘Why did you ask me here,’ Jacob said, uneasily.

‘I’ll show you, Mr. Derring, I’ll show you.’

The old man stood up, gingerly. ‘We don’t have much time. Wait here, would you.’

Jacob was now becoming impatient. ‘Err…Mr. Cunning…I mean Terrance, if there’s no story I really must go.’

‘Humour an old man,’ he said, already advancing down a small hallway to the kitchen. He eventually passed out of sight.

A minute or so went by, nothing.

Jacob couldn’t wait any longer. He stood up and marched down the hallway. He entered the kitchen to find an open door leading down to the basement.

‘Are you down there..?’ he called.

‘Ah, Mr. Derring, just the man I want to see,’ Terrance said, from somewhere under the house.

‘Do you want me to come down?’ he said, hoping the old man would say ‘no’.

Terrance seemed to ignore the question.  ‘I’m a writer too…’

‘Really,’ Jacob answered, before saying sarcastically to himself ‘that’s interesting.’

‘I write under a pen name of course.’

‘What’s that,’ Jacob said, elevating his voice down the stairs. The wooden steps were in need of care, white paint torn off. The paint was coming off the walls too.

Jacob moved down the first step. He ran his finger against one of the cracks where the paint was no longer and felt a deep valley in the stone where it had been torn away. Further along three long indentations ran down the wall as if an animal had clawed at the paint.

Terrance laughed again. ‘Terrance Wolf is my pen name.’

Jacob suddenly realised he recognised that name. ‘Terrance Wolf,’ he said, advancing down a couple more steps.

‘You heard it before?’

Terrance Wolf had written The Disappearance of Eve and won the Horror Circle’s Order of Merit. The prize not only awarded the winner £5000 but a book deal and the respect of their fellow writers.

‘Yes, I’ve heard it before! Where did you get my story?’ Jacob asked, smartly, anger emerging.

‘I must apologise, Mr. Derring, but when I read it, I knew it couldn’t fail to win.’

‘Where did you get it..?’ Jacob advanced further down the stairs, his foot nudging an old Yashica SLR camera sitting on the step.

There was banging of chains. ‘I never wrote for Terrible Tales from Under the Bridge, I owned it, it was my magazine. But it never took off, you see…so,’ he paused, there was more metallic movement. ‘…so I entered the best story I’d received into the Horror Circle’s competition…’

‘You had no right..!’ Jacob snapped. ‘Why did you ask me here?’

‘Only a writer of the macabre could tell-’he broke off with a draw of breath. It sounded as if he had been hit in the stomach. ‘I’ve…’ he struggled, ‘…got a story I want you to tell.’

‘Forget it,’ he answered, knowing he couldn’t leave without hearing what the old man had to say.

‘Pick up the camera!’ Terrance said with bated breath.

‘What?’

He realised the old man meant the Yashica on the step. He picked it up as another groan of pain rang out.

Jacob moved down the last few steps and noticed the paint was not only torn away from the wall, but great rivets had been dug out, as if a dog had been trying to hide a bone in the stone.

‘If your nightmares are real, doesn’t that mean your dreams can be too,’ Terrance said, softly, as Jacob entered the basement to see the old man inside a huge six by six foot cage, chains locked around his ankles and wrists.

Jacob stopped. He held his breath, unknowingly.

Terrance suddenly let out a guttural scream of pain and fell to his knees. He bowed his head and swallowed, allowing the pain to subside. ‘Take a photo…’

Jacob looked from the cage to the camera as if neither made any sense.

‘Take a photo!’ Terrance demanded.

Jacob raised the viewfinder to his eye, aimed, and pressed the shutter release button. The flash sent a bolt of light around the room.

‘It’s time,’ he said, clearly now struggling to speak, ‘to tell my story…to tell the world of my affliction. I want you to tell it, Mr. Derring. I’m sorry I took your story…’ he stopped as another wave of pain seemed to envelope him. ‘…but I think I can repay my debt.’

He let out another terrible scream which grew deeper and louder.

‘What…how …’ Jacob said, panicked. He moved towards the cage.

‘No, move back,’ Terrance shouted, his voice now different somehow - like it was being amplified around the room. ‘Perhaps…you’ll get the story you came for…and I can give back what I took from you…’

Terrance arched his back and let out another exclamation of pain.

‘I want to stop hurting people…but they won’t believe me,’ he shouted through his anguish. ‘It isn’t me that does it…’ His words trailed away.

‘What is it, what’s wrong with you..?’

Terrance suddenly looked directly at him and roared like an animal in the zoo. His eyes had changed, they were cat-like, thin, and their colour had changed, Jacob was sure about that.

Terrance writhed in pain, pulling at the chains that bound him.

Jacob backed further away. His eyes did not leave the cage, but his foot searched for the first step.

His arms broke free of the shirt, ripping it to shreds. His slippers flew off his feet, and his legs seemed to break backwards. Brown hair sprouted from the roots of the grey all over his body. His nose cracked and pushed itself forwards forming a snout. His incisors dropped down, pointed and sharp.

Jacob had seen enough. As this beast smashed its bulk against the bolted cage door wanting his flesh, his instincts told him to run, but something forced him to stay still; to watch, to feel afraid, to believe. He raised the camera to his eye and began taking photos, one after the other.

He had his story.