Man-Man

"I still love you. Despite all this, I still do. Don't ever forget"
She held the tip of his finger with both of her hands. They dwarfed hers.
"I know. I'll never forget. I love you too"
She ducked her head into the the cab door. Turning before sliding down the seat, she smirked.
"You better, we're two of a kind"

The Taxi sped off. She would be safe away, far away from him on a night like this.
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Fred looked up at the full moon, all too cognizant of the pain it caused him, and thought of that fateful night decades ago. His face did not reflect the time for he was unnaturally young beyond his years. He remembered was holding a lantern. Walking down a cobblestone road.


ptt was the only sound it made as it quietly stalked the bumpy terrain; a calm and deadly street predator. Fred's senses would later change and he would look upon the world with new eyes but back then, he was unaware of what lurked behind him. It pounced! Teeth bore into his shoulder, a pain dull and sharp at the same time as they sunk further in. He screamed but there were far less people around then and for all their simple superstition, they knew better than to be out on a full moon's night. It tore into him and threw him to the ground. Fred thought he was going to die. All the things he wanted to do, all the people he would leave behind. Countless unanswered and even unasked questions. They urged him to stay, bound him to this Earth. He would live.

The beast was merely having fun. It did not truly hunger for it was not a natural. It raked its nails into his back as a parting shot and bounded off, howling.His shoulder would heal before the night was over. Fred's body seemed to leap from near death to unnaturally alive overnight. It would be another 30 days before he too felt the curse. Before he transformed and transformed again; month after month, year after year.
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Standing in his bathroom, Fred prepared. He breathed slowly. He anticipated his own increasing heartbeat and tried to hold it off as long as he could. His muscles tensed. They were changing, shifting and becoming something else. Fred had stripped naked. He learned a long time ago to save his clothes from being torn apart. He wish he could say the same for himself, for his home, and loved ones.

The worst part was the hair. It split its way through his skin, scorching down his arms, back, and stomach. He screamed, his voice deep and bestial. He lurched forward, still after all these years not used to the added bulk. He vomited, a normal man's diet unsuited for what he had become. He tried to avoid the mirror, for the image scowling back at him was not Fred, not at all.

He could not bare to see his cursed reflection that only arose on full moon nights because it was not him but that of horror, disgust, and tragedy. Once a month for three, awful days, Fred was cursed to TRANSFORM into a





slightly different man.



Fred could kind of recognize himself in the stranger's face. It looked like he was halfway between himself and whomever bit him on that night, close to a hundred years ago. It was a dark but within what could be called "Caucasian". Maybe he was Greek, Italian, Portuguese or something? Fred thought Portugal was a city in Spain if it matters. The man Fred became once a month was not a handsome man. He was sketchy and unsympathetic. One of the few lonely people you'd think that deserved to be alone. For no reason other than you just had a hard time tolerating his face.

Ever since Fred was bitten by this lunatic, he would become him when the sky was right. At first Fred did not really feel different, other than kind of fat and unmotivated. It took him a while to realize that his transformation would affect his mind too. Fred's attacker was not evil, he was just kind of a dick. That one fateful evening so long ago was a "bad day that lined up with a bad night".

Fred was a little disappointed with the answer, after spending years of his newly cursed life tracking him down. He planned on killing him to "reverse the curse" but the attacker told him he had done that to his attacker about a hundred years ago and it did not work. Upon hearing this, Fred dropped the silver fire poker from his gloved hands; his enthusiasm for revenge and redemption died with its clang. Before he left, he told his attacker that he thought curses like this turn people into giant wolf-person hybrids. The older monster told him that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

Forty years later, he would turn down his attacker's request to be Facebook friends. Fred settled down and tried to live a normal life. A few times even. He had to fake his own death twice once his wives and children began to wonder why he never aged. One time he was run over by a semi and just choose to lie there. He waited to be be zipped up and taken away. He was getting tired of being a Mormon insurance agent anyways. He later snuck out of the morgue and started anew again. His wounds sealing, his bones straightening out as he hopped off from the pavement.

This time was different. He took a risk and spread the curse to his new wife, locking her in at 27 years old. It was awkward biting her. While the "kiss" of a vampire has an erotic appeal, a bite from a were-man like Fred just felt odd and smelly. It worked and before long, she too turned into the greasy, creepy man who rocked Fred's life. It was even worse for her, because she was beautiful and he was ugly. The half way look between the two was no fun for either of them. They tried having sex once when both of their cycles lined up. It was awkward and put them through a rough patch. They are past that now. That's a good thing because its harder to get more invested in a relationship than making your partner an immortal, unnatural, involuntary shape shifter, just like yourself. So think about that next time the toothbrush of an other is making you uncomfortable as it stares at you on your bathroom counter.