Movie Monster

All filmmakers must die.
Especially the ones who think it’s a good idea to make a movie about werewolves.
I hate to say it, but most werewolf films suck, and not because they show us as mindless, man-eating monsters - there are some of us who are like that.  I’m like that myself, actually, on a few occasions, when it’s necessary.  No, the reason most werewolf films suck is because the makers have no idea what a good story is.  They either have a plot full of holes, characters so bland and underdeveloped they don’t exist in the third dimension, or even worse, both.
This doesn’t bother my little sister Pam.  She’s almost twelve, and she watches any and every movie she finds (and is allowed to watch).  Werewolf movies, however, we watch together so we can share in the experience of tearing it apart.  We usually perform this ritual on Friday nights when I’ve get home from the college campus and she gets home from school.  After supper, I usually fry  a bowl of bacon and we sit down on the living room sofa together to re-watch movies we’ve already torn apart or find a new movie to sink our teeth into.
Tonight, it was an old familiar foe - 2021’s Roandswolf, sequel to 2019’s Direwolf.  I hated this movie with a passion.  It was technically impressive and even had a decent plot, but come on - I hate bummer endings, especially bummer cliffhanger endings, and that damned Adam Guzik saw fit to leave us dangling just after the protagonist had suffered a devastating defeat.  Not to mention the whole tired metaphor of drug addiction with that Peter guy’s taste for human meat.  It’s like he didn’t set out for any originality at all.  
“You’d think the public would learn by now,” I ranted out loud.  “They’re just suckered in by the special effects.  There’s no emotion to this.  It’s all shock value.”
“Shh,” Pam hissed.  “Lucy’s about to fight Marie.”
I shot a mildly annoyed glare down at my little sister.  It irritated me sometimes how easily she was suckered into any and every movie, book, or song she was exposed to.  She couldn't tell a good story from a block of wood.  
“Oh?  And what makes you the expert on movies all of a sudden?” I asked.  
“I just like this movie,” she replied, never taking her eyes off the screen.  “Is that a bad thing?”  She peeked at me from the corner of her eye quizzically.
“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms and glaring at a spot on the floor.  Pam giggled and hugged me around my neck.
“You think too much,” she said, grinning.  “It’s just a movie.”
“It’s too simplistic,” I argued.  “Nobody ever finds another way.  It’s always kill or be killed.  There’s more to life than that.”
“Not all the time,” Pam pointed out.  She shrugged her shoulders.  Then a swell in the music and sound effects drew her attention back to the movie and she was quick to shut me up.  “Now hush up!  Lucy’s about to win!  C’mon, Lucy, kick her butt!”
I rolled my eyes and wiped my face as Lucy dealt the killing blow.  Just another shock moment value.  Just more pointless, avoidable bloodshed.  She’d had wolfsbane.  She could’ve just held the plant under Marie’s nose and she would’ve fall en asleep and then she could’ve escaped, but then the whole plot of the next movie wouldn’t exist, would it?  I stretched myself out on the couch and waited for the credits to roll.

“Hey, Juna!  I want to show you something!”
My head turned around as Mack Porter came jogging up to me, his usual Monday routine.  I scooted over on the bench and he slid in right next to me without missing a beat.  Before he could ask, I handed him a stick of gum, which he took without a word and plopped it in his mouth, wrapper and all.  Mack and I had this deep friendship that extended beyond words, almost to the point where we could read each other’s thoughts.  We’d known each other since the fourth grade, and as luck ordained it, we’d both decided to major in cinema production.  It was almost scary how much we could gleam from each other just by a look.
Mack swung around his camera bag and fished out his DSLR.  
“So, I was out in the woods this weekend,” he began.  “I was on this shoot for my newest film project, right?  So I’m just taking video of all the lovely trees, trees, and more trees, and then - I caught something.”  He turned the camera on and navigated to the image folder.  He scrolled until he came to the video he was looking for and hit the play button, holding the screen for me to see.
“What’d you find?” I asked, leaning in close to get a good look at what he’d captured.  It began as a rack focus shot in the forest, with the trees slowly coming into focus, and then the camera panned to the left.  It stopped at a point overlooking a low-lying hill, and after a second or two, something dashed into the scene from the right and stopped, almost like it had fallen down.  Apparently Mack had seen this, too, because he zoomed in.  Once he’d adjusted the focus accordingly, I saw what the thing was, and my heart stopped.
It was me.  As a beast.  Transforming back into a human.
“You never told me you were a werewolf, Juna,” Mack said quietly.  I looked up into his eyes and saw they were staring me down, wide with what looked like greed, and I felt myself trembling.
What have I done?  How - how did I not see him?  How did I not smell him?  How did I completely miss his presence at all?  I’m a freaking werewolf - I should’ve been able to sniff him out from more than two miles away; I should have been able to hear him from even farther!  It was the biggest plot hole in the book, and yet, here I was, landed in this predicament with no clue how I got here.
I got up from the bench and started walking at a clipped pace to the nearest building I could find.  Mack wasn’t far behind, and his face was excited.  There was a gleam in his eye that made my stomach writhe.
“Juna, wait,” he called after me.  I kept walking.  He caught up with me and grabbed my arm, but I easily pulled out of his grasp and involuntarily whirled around to snarl at him.  For just a second, fear flashed through his eyes.  He saw the wild in my eyes, probably saw the flash gold, and he backed away two steps.  If he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure then that I was a werewolf, he was now.  
But he still smiled.  
“This changes everything,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper.  “Do you know I was being made to work on a freaking vampire film?  I wanted to make a werewolf film, but they said it was too expensive and not worth the time.”  He started laughing a nervous, ecstatic laugh.  “But now I have you!  A real werewolf!  Everybody won’t believe it!”
With just those few words, I felt my blood boil over and a growl ripped from my throat.
He wanted to use me for a movie.  He wanted to make a werewolf movie.  For just a moment I forgot my grave mistake and spat on the ground at his feet.
“Don’t even think about it.  You so much as take one more picture of me -”
“I’ll tell everyone,” Mack replied coldly.
And just like that, my heart dropped into my stomach.  I stared at him, trying to make out some other meaning in his words, but there was none.  I could see it in his eyes that he wasn’t bluffing, just a surely as he could see the naked terror in mine, and suddenly I wanted to weep.  Mack had been my best friend for the past ten years.  For ten years, he and I had shared the same lunch table, written stories, make silly home movies and even written a song for Pam when she’d gotten sick with pneumonia once.  And now he was blackmailing me to make some stupid movie?  
My life had just become a bad monster movie.  Plot holes?  Check.  Inconsistent characterization?  Check.
But I’d be damned if I let there be a bummer ending.  I wouldn’t budge.  He could make all the threats he wanted, but I wouldn’t do it.   There was always another option.  I swallowed hard and opened my mouth to speak, but Mack beat me to it.
“I’ll tell everyone,” Mack repeated.  “I’ll show them the video.  I’ll expose you and your family.  It’ll make national headlines.  Unless you star in this movie - fuzz and all.”
“I won’t - ”
“Yes you will.  You will because you’re my friend.  You’re my friend, Juna,” Mack said, in a softer voice now.  His blue eyes seemed to twinkle in the mid-morning sun, and he had his head tilted to one side, almost as if he was trying to look cute about blackmailing me into exposing a thousands-year-old secret.  “You’re my friend and I need you.  You’ve always been a versatile actress.  Help me out.”
 “No, no!”  I cried.  “You have no idea what you’re doing!”
“The choice is yours,” he said.  “Either you work with me, or against me.  Either way, I hope to see you bright and early Saturday morning by Orvill’s Falls, in costume.”  Mack stowed his camera back in his bag and turned to walk away.
I ground my teeth.  “You’re insane,” I spat.  “Why do you even want to make a werewolf movie anyway, huh?”
Mack stopped and looked back to me over his shoulders.  His eyes were as bright as the new moon.
“I want to show them in a new light,” he said simply.  “I want to show that they don’t all have to be monsters.”

I want to show that they don’t all have to be monsters.
Mack Porter had officially ruined my life.  
He’d cornered me into a situation I could’ve easily avoided and left me with only three and a half options:  one, I could do as he requested, star in his little werewolf film, and expose every one of us the world over; two, I could just kill him and get myself out of this mess, but then I would have to cover my tracks or it would all lead back to me and the werewolf race might get exposed in the process; three, I could turn him, but that wouldn’t solve anything.  In fact, he might even be ecstatic, because then he wouldn’t have to rely on somebody else to get him the most “realistic werewolf” for his sick little film; or four, I do nothing, and I can’t even consider that a whole option.
And I hated that these were the only options I could think of.  This wasn’t me, giving in so easily under pressure.  There had to be another way.
All week during classes I sat and stewed in enormous anxiety trying to work a plan out for every crazy idea I came up with.  I could try and convince him not to go through with his plans, but I’d seen in his eyes that he was dead set on his goal.  Only death would stop him, and I wasn’t going to kill my former best friend.  I thought of maybe hypnosis to try and make him forget the whole thing, but then I’d have to get rid of the video file on his camera, and by the time I learned hypnotism or hired a professional, he would’ve probably already exposed me.
And all week, Mack made it a priority to see me at least twice per day.  He would find me wherever I went, and he would say, “Can’t wait for this Saturday!  It’s going to be great, right?  We’re going to kick ass.”  And then he would leave me with my guts freshly scooped out and a panic attack threatening to burst into life in the hollow left behind.
By four o’clock Friday afternoon, I realized that what I needed was a fresh pair of eyes and ears.  So, when she came home at four thirty, I sat Pam down on the sofa in front of the TV not to watch a bad werewolf movie but to have a talk.
“What’s this about, Juna?” she asked hesitantly, twirling her hair nervously about her thumb.
“You’re not in trouble, we’ll watch a movie after supper like always,” I promised.  “I just wanted to ask you something real quick.”
“Yeah?”
I cleared my throat.  “Okay, so, my one friend is writing this story for class, and it’s about werewolves, actually.  He has the story so that this one guy finds out that the main character is a werewolf, and he wants different opinions on what he thinks the main character should do.”
“Because the one guy found out he was a werewolf?” Pam asked, her big green eyes locking onto me.  
I gulped and nodded.  “Yeah, I mean, well, we’re werewolves, so I thought it might help him to have some actual opinions from actual werewolves, you know?”
Pam’s eyes stayed locked on mine for a second longer than I was comfortable with.  Then she shrugged, a simple smile stretching the corners of her lips.
“He should protect what’s important to him,” she said.  “Just like Seth Fharlay.  I know you don’t like him, but he protects the ones he cares about, so I think that’s what everybody should do.  They shouldn’t even have to think about it.”
Sometimes I have to remind myself Pam’s only eleven years old.  For a child not even in her teens, she’s remarkably decided about a lot of things.  And there are times I wish I was as decisive as her.  
I laughed, scratching the back of my neck and getting up from the couch.  “Well, okay, great,” I said.  “That’s all I needed.  Now, lets go fry some bacon!”
 “Alright!” Pam cried delightedly.  She hopped up from the couch and ran for the kitchen ahead of me, calling, “I call dibs on whatever you drop from the frying pan!”

I scrunched dirt and crackling dead leaves between my toes as I waited for Mack to arrive.  Saturday had come, and here I was, standing twenty feet from the edge of the gorge which Orvill’s Falls emptied into.  I’d gotten up early that morning and left before anyone else was awake, traveling deep into the underbrush before I crawled under the gnarled, matted roots of tree and transformed.  The shift was painful this time; it’s always painful whenever I’m stressed out.  Usually there’s just a few smarts and it’s over.  This time, I was biting down on my fist to stop myself from screaming, hard enough to draw blood and soak my hand through.  It was a nasty looking wound when I finally unclamped my jaw from my hand, coagulated blood clumping around the bite mark like mushy hills of maroon paste.
But by the time Mack showed up, dressed in a light blue denim jacket and muddy khaki pants, it had already healed completely over.  I tried not to say anything, tried to keep my eyes to the ground, but then I heard more footsteps behind his.  My head snapped up and I saw two other boys I’d never seen before following him.  When they saw me, they stopped short and started whispering nervously to each other.
“That’s a costume?”
“Apparently.  Mack didn’t tell us Perriwain could do this.”  They both looked at me, gave a short wave, and quickly turned their backs to me to set up the equipment.  Mack himself was getting out his camera when I stormed up to him.  He’d never seen me in this form this up close before, so when I stomped up to him, his eyes bugged and he staggered back as I advanced on him.
“You didn’t tell me you were bringing more people!” I said, my voice a deep, throaty growl.  “This wasn’t part of the deal!”
“Juna,” Mack said through his teeth.  He reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small grey pistol.  I thought it was fake at first - until he pointedly pulled out the four silver bullets and loaded them into the chamber.  He stared me dead in the eye, and I clenched my jaw.  
“Now Juna, here’s how this is going to work,” Mack said evenly, “The way it’s written in the script, this is your land, your territory, and these chumps have invaded it.  You try to reason with them, try to make them turn back, but they won’t listen.  They want to kill you, see.”
 “So where’s the script?” I asked acidly.
“We’re not doing spoken dialogue,” Mack explained patiently.  “We’re just doing an action shot right now.  Right now, all you have to do is jump Ted here and wrestle this gun out of his hands.”  He gestured with the grey pistol, and I saw in his eyes the veiled threat.  His gaze lingered on mine for a moment, and then he turned his attention to one of the two boys.  “Alright, Ted, here we go!  You ready?”
 “Yep!  Camera rolling!” Ted replied, jogging over and taking the pistol from Mack.  Mack gave me one last look before he waved me off towards a thicket of mulberry bushes.  Once I had hunkered down, he backed out of the shot and cupped his hands around his mouth.  “Quiet on the set!  And… action!”
Ted was a short boy with curly brown hair.  The pistol, small as it was, almost seemed too big for his hands, and when he moved through the trees in a poor imitation of stealth, pointing the gun this way and that, he looked in danger of swinging himself off balance.  He looked so young, with a round, blue-eyed baby face, rosy cheeks; he almost looked as young as Pam.
And now he would always look that young.
I sprung out of the bushes like a bullet and descended on Ted before he even had a chance to react.  I landed on him with a loud thud, the pistol flying out of his hand and landing somewhere behind one of the trees.  Before Ted could even utter a startled cry, I grabbed his head and twisted it completely around.  His neck snapped like a twig between my hands and his body fell limp under mine.
A shot rang out through the air and a bullet grazed my back.  I didn’t even look up to see who had fired the pistol.  I let instinct take over, going into fight mode.  I let my ears and nose find the next target.  I heard a heartbeat spike to my right, smelt the sudden dew of sweat, and I pounced as another shot rang out, this time embedding deep in my left shoulder.  I grabbed the head and twisted it around, and another cracking spine shattered the air.  When I looked down, I saw I had killed the other boy who’d come venturing into the woods with Ted.  And now all that was left -
A flurry of leaves crunching and twigs snapping a staccato beat made me whirl around just in time to see Mack pull the trigger.  I felt the bullet shoot into my gut and slice through my innards.  I stopped a moment, frozen by the pain, and gave Mack a wide-eyed, accusatory stare.  Mack stared back at me, dumbstruck, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done, and somewhere beyond the pain and the betrayal, I wondered if he might be feeling an ounce of regret for ever having made me do this.  And then, a cool wave of relief started washing through my gut.  Looking down, I saw the bullet being pushed out of the wound and the mangled flesh started to knit itself back together.  Mack saw it, too, and suddenly he was scrambling to cock the pistol for the last shot.
He had just set the chamber when I grabbed his hand and crushed it in mine.  He screamed a long, drawn out, throaty scream, dropping the pistol to the ground.  In two seconds, I snatched the pistol up off the ground, pointed it straight between Mack’s eyes and pulled the trigger.
Mack fell like a sack of potatoes.  His body thudded on the ground and disturbed a small flurry of dead leaves.  They resettled, and suddenly, an eerie silence pervaded the forest.  No birds sang, no crows cawed, no bugs buzzed, and nothing breathed.  I stood above the three dead bodies and knew that I would have to burn the clothes, scatter the ashes, and consume every last bit of them in order to keep my family safe.  I’d have to go away for a week, at least, deep into the forest.  Pam will wonder were I’ve gone, and no doubt she’ll Spanish Inquisition me the moment I get back, but it’s all necessary.  I’ve got to protect the ones I love.
Suddenly, I heard a shutter snap, and when I looked back, I saw the camera sitting a ways off, still recording the scene.  I wandered over to it and saw from the LCD screen that it was still recording.  Carefully, I pressed the button to stop the recording and I played back the video.
It only took fifty seven seconds for the whole scene to go down.
I turned the camera off and stood there quietly for a moment, listening to the silence.
And then I put the camera between both my hands and crushed it into broken plastic and electronics.  
All filmmakers must die.
Especially the ones who think it’s a good idea to make a movie about werewolves.