The pain was unbearable.
He grabbed a tuft of hair and pulled it until he tore it away. Others sprang out, dark and hard, replenishing the bloody layer of skin.
The pervert cowered against the wall, grabbed the blankets and brought them to his throat, mumbling in terror.
Manuel raised a fist and his sharp nails pierced the inside of his hand. He brandished it over the head of the inmate, spraying it with the first drops of blood that dripped down his wrist. The man closed his eyes, waiting for death, but when he opened them again the scene he saw stunned him more than the punch that would have cracked his skull open.
Manuel was mauling his own face with his bare hands.
He struck viciously, cutting his lips, cheekbones, forehead. His eyes had disappeared behind a bloody shroud. After a final punch that dislocated his jaw, he seized the hands of the other inmate, staining them with blood, then yelled loudly: "Guaaaaaaards,"
He barked again, twice, three times, then threw himself on his bed, blinded by blood soaking his eyes.
In a moment, two young guards came running.
"This man attacked me, take him away, please!" Manuel shouted from his bed, pointing at his cellmate. The darkness prevented the guards to see what he was changing into.
"It was him, he's crazy!" the other prisoner shouted, rubbing his bloodied hands on the sheets. "He started hitting himself!" he roared, moving closer to the bars.
The guards looked at one another in alarm.
"Get me out of here before he kills me!" the prisoner pleaded.
"Step away from the bars," a guard threatened him, with a glance to Manuel who was slowly rising from his bed. His bones bent, an invisible weight bent his spine, forcing him to hunch. When the light of the moon illuminated him completely, the guards stepped back, supporting one another.
In the cell, in that moment, there was only one inmate.
The other had been replaced by a hellish creature, which was coming forward jerkily like a praying mantis.
"Don’t go, you must help me," the prisoner cried as he saw the cops back off. The creature grabbed him and tossed him to the farthest side of the cell.
The guards raised their weapons.
Barking furiously, Manuel hoisted the prisoner against the bars of the window until the contour of his head matched the outline of the moon. He raised his other paw and slashed his chest with a strike of his claw.
The prisoner slumped to the ground, and the eclipse he had produced, darkening the moon, vanished instantly, allowing the moonlight to revive the creature.
The policemen opened fire simultaneously, but the reaction of the beast was the same as that of a child hit by a blowgun.
There was a second burst of shots, more intense and prolonged.
The creature dropped to the floor, crawled a few feet then stopped.
When the guards moved closer to the bars again, the alarm sirens were already wailing.
"Shit!" the man who had fired first said.
The other could not speak, his gaze was fixed on the inmate mangled by the bullets.
July 15 – 22:53
The night that Manuel died, Alida decided not to chain herself. She faced the moon free from any constraint. She wanted to blow steam off, let her body burst without brakes, abandon herself to her instinct, maybe thinking about...
Riccardo?
The preparations were the same as the previous month, except for the artist she put into the stereo. This time it was Muddy Waters, of whom she chose the album "Sail On", published in the '69.
She entered the room naked and was surrounded by music.
I'm a Howlin' Wolf
I've been Howlin' round to your door
She thought she would not mind letting Riccardo spy her, let him look at her elastic and nimble physique.
I see your smiling face
You will not hear me howl no more.
Sex, in Alida’s life, had always been a secondary factor, since once a month, her body suffered so many upheavals that she couldn’t demand more of it.
When I start Howlin'
Dig me a hole down into the ground
Not that her desire was weak. The problem mainly concerned Luca; he had never done much to please her.
Been there, done that.
Yeah, she understood why now, even though such a thought had not even touched her back then.
Some people call me a black panther
But my baby, she knows the way I sound
A few minutes before midnight, the moon pierced the black sky like a bull’s-eye on a desert stage.
The metamorphosis had the usual devastating effects, but even without the chain the situation seemed to be under control, at least for what concerned the injuries that Alida caused herself with bites.
Suddenly she felt excited as never before. Her vagina throbbed to the point of hurting, and the desire to be dominated drowned every other impulse. The explosions of anger became so violent that, within a few hours, the rabbits were exterminated from the first to the last. Hungry and disoriented, suffering for the orgasm she would not reach, she raged with nails and teeth against the remains of the animals, achieving no satisfaction whatsoever, then started tormenting herself, biting on her right paw until she saw blood.
It wasn’t enough. She threw herself against the wall, hitting with her head the iron rings of the chain. Blood flowed down her muzzle and into her mouth. She pulled out her tongue and lapped it eagerly, then her vision became dark and her legs wavered. She fell to the ground, unconscious, at the same time when the guards in Rebibbia pressed the triggers of their guns.
July 16 – 08:18
The news of the death of Manuel Bracconieri bounced from one medium to another. News, online news and press, vultures that feed on horrors and misfortunes, did not waste time to sniff the smell of carrion, and inflated the news pages with what was described as the cold-blooded execution of an inmate by two guards.
Alida, survived to the massacre she had subjected herself to, learned of the news by connecting to the first page of an online newspaper.
She had medicated her wounds, but as soon as she read the article she felt the bandage around her thigh dampen suddenly. Her heart pumped faster and blood began to well in the wound again. She kept reading, and when she ascertained that the report did not mention anything concerning creatures out of nightmares or wolfmen, she thought that Manuel had been killed before the metamorphoses affected his physique.
She heaved a sigh of relief and went hobbling to the bathroom to replace the bandage.
Manuel hadn’t made it. She was saddened, but at the same time relieved that he had been killed during his first night of full moon. He would no longer suffer, and by his death the danger of being discovered had been buried too.
The secret of the moon was just hers again.
She unwrapped the bandage and touched the wound to make sure that it didn’t need stitches. It was an extended cut, but not too deep. It would heal if treated properly.
July 16 – 08:31
That same morning, Romano D'Abbagli, one of the two policemen who had fired on Bracconieri, could have slept all day, as he had been suspended from service, but habit, clinging to him more than the sense of guilt, had made him start the day as if he had to work.
Except for the bartender, the bar under his house was empty.
Romano leafed absentmindedly through the Corriere dello Sport and noticed the man who had just walked in only when he ordered a coffee in a glass and some orange juice.
Romano ignored him, took a bite of his croissant and sipped the coffee, scalding his lips with the hot cup.
"Be careful! This is why I always take it in a glass," the impeccably dressed man said. The bartender put the coffee on the counter and he drank it in one gulp. "And no sugar," he said after having tasted it as if he was playing a part in a commercial.
Romano turned. "Do I know you?" He was sure he had seen him before.
"Not yet, but I’ll fix that in a
n instant. Mauro Betti," he said, holding out his hand.
Only then did Romano recognize the LA7 television presenter who he had often called, to annoy his wife who stood vacantly in front of the TV watching his show, a scoundrel and, to use his exact words, half a fag too.
The finest moustache of a musketeer (now he could say for sure, having him a few inches from his nose) was not painted as it looked on TV, and the tan did not come from a layer of foundation, but by the clear overuse of lamps.
Romano was still a cop, and the best cops, his father used to say, are those who observe. He had never paid much heed to those words, but had to change his mind because he was convinced that the guy was up to no good. If someone like him had gone up to that miserable Tiburtina bar for breakfast, it meant that the news of what had happened in the cell of Bracconieri had somehow leaked.
After losing his job, Romano had been strongly reprimanded by his superiors, who told him never to mention what he had repeatedly reported during the interrogations.
The investigations were still ongoing, and awaiting the tests on Bracconieri's body, so that no one could have any doubt that it was the same prisoner transferred from solitary confinement a week before.
The newspapers already had enough filth in which to feast, there was no need to stuff them with more shit, especially not with stories of monsters and werewolves.
"Mr. D'Abbagli, if you have a couple of minutes, and I think you do given the events of the last few days, I'd like to offer you an opportunity. How about if we sit down?" the reporter, as well as presenter of 2030 – which was the broadcast time as well as the title of the show – suggested sweetly.
"I have