Assuredly this is a most terrible disease, and yet not necessarily fatal, not even if it lasts for months. Indeed I have read that after several years it was completely cured. The treatment is the same as that when dealing with lunacy—Girolamo Mercuriale, Medicina Practica. lib i, cap. xii, De Lykanthropia, as quoted in Montague Summers’s The Werewolf in Lore and Legend, p. 54

*

The word werewolf has its origins in Latin. Versipellis (verto-pellis). Adj. That which changes its skin, or, that which changes its shape or form (Summers, p. 26).  

One werewolf itself is not a pandemic. 

That didn’t stop the French from deeming La Bête du Gévaudan’s three-year killing spree as such. April 1764: a young woman tending to her cattle in the small, wolf-infested province of Gévaudan survived an attack by what she could only describe as “like a wolf, yet not a wolf.” King Louis XV placed a hefty bounty on the beast’s head. French nobility devoted money and military resources to killing the beast. And they did, several times in fact. But dismembered corpses with gaping wounds in place of throats just seemed to keep piling up in spite of their efforts. The Beast was a dead thing that didn’t like to stay dead; it came back and continued to claim the lives of unlucky citizens who dared to step outside their homes. Within the next three years, the Beast of Gévaudan amassed hundreds of victims, all found partially eaten and often with their throats torn out. 

Through the tangle of lupine chronology this fact gives me pause. Only hundreds in the span of three years. Aren’t they lucky? 

A long-dormant desire to escape my humanity revives itself two months into isolation. I try rewatching True Blood but can’t romanticize the unliving any longer, and they kill off the only werewolf supporting character. I binge Soul Eater instead. My mind is a broken record of Wolf-Wolves, Wolf-Wolves. 

I visit ilovewerewolves.com on a whim for the first time since middle school and satiate the ancient beast thrumming beneath my skin. What has fangs, claws, and is more weird, scary, and abnormal than this year? (Not me. Not yet. Check back soon.)

@Faolan: “I think that I am a werewolf. I am not sure, however. I am American, but in no way do I disbelieve the supernatural, as I recently found out that a close friend was actually a vampire. I have a few possible symptoms of being a wolf, including the heightened senses and furriness. I hope it is not true.” [12/9/15]

@Alpha: “a lot of people believe and trust what i have to say. there aren’t really any symptoms, the main one i can think of is that we are very territorial.” [12/1/16] 

*

With too much time on my hands, I start reading 18th century English cleric-turned-author Montague Summers because I can understand him more than the world right now. Because I recognize the insistent belief of beings beyond our realm of humanity, know what it’s like to have one foot in God-fearing religion and the other steeped in the heady world of the occult. I start with Vampires and Vampirism but give up after a few dense, sanguineous chapters and switch to The Werewolf in Lore and Legend. I finish the book in a day but its words claw at my brain long afterward. Months holed up inside and I feel feral, unsocialized. Half-beast, half-woman. I scroll through dismal news headlines and my fingernails habitually imprint crescent moons into the palms of my hands. I decide I prefer reading about werewolves instead. 

Reginald Scot in Discouerie of Witchcraft Book V, Chapter 1 states that Lycanthropia is a disease, not a transformation. I don’t know what happened in the three centuries since Europe’s werewolf pandemic that so gently shifted popular opinion on lycanthropes from devilry, but I do know that all the middle school girls swooned over Taylor Lautner in Twilight. How flat is the curve in Forks, Washington right now?

From an epidemiological standpoint, werewolfery is much safer for the population than our viral pandemic. Forget about the lupine outliers that take to slaying humans as their favorite pastime—that’s so 18th century—and consider the health benefits of sprouting hair and fangs every full moon: immunity to illness, brute strength, increased speed, heightened senses. The antithesis of our current malady. 

I’d much prefer to hear the eerie, protracted howls of man-beasts serenading the moon rather than the spectral wail of ambulance sirens racing down empty roads. 

*

“It is amply evident from the etymological history of the word ‘werewolf’ with its many cognates and equivalents in every European language, that the tradition is not only most anciently and universally diffused throughout the whole of this great continent, but that it has further indelibly impressed itself upon the common speech and struck deep into the imagination of the Western peoples. Nor is it merely a grim superstition; it is a terrible and dangerous truth, and one, moreover, which is by no means confined to Europe alone.”—Montague Summers, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend, p. 30

*

A hollow sort of silence permeates the outside, don’t you think? In those first few months when we weren’t quite sure what beast we were dealing with, I could walk a few blocks and not encounter a single soul. Wolves like that kind of solitude, I’ve heard. Have you been gazing longingly at the moon lately? Me too. 

I’ve let myself recede, withdraw from even the most innocuous invitations, and find solace in my newfound seclusion. WEREWOLF967 says, “Less people means less eyes, which means more freedom for the werewolf.” Maybe urban werewolves have reclaimed the streets. 

I am telling you this because I want to help you: allow me to be your were-guide and consider this contagion a cure. I know being bitten blatantly contradicts CDC guidelines, but trust me when I say it will work. Look into the jaws of the beast you fear so much and embrace the agony of transformation. 

If you’re unwilling to break social distancing mandates, opt for scratching instead (warning: cannot guarantee the rate of successful contamination). 

You see, I’d go for a less violent means of transmission, but when it comes to drinking from a wolf’s paw print I wouldn’t know if someone else came along and sipped from it first. They say holy water fonts are a risk factor for COVID-19, so I’m sure the same goes for the watery mud cradled in the imprint of a wolf’s paw. Proceed at your own risk. 

On the inside, I’m falling apart and reforming.

*

@Lycanhope: “Science may be wrong all the time, but maths is numbers, and numbers don’t lie. The likelihood of a virus that complicated occurring in nature is next to none. Add on to that the fact that it apparently popped out of nowhere, with no indication of evolution to its current form, makes it next to impossible.” [3/14/13] 

*

The cure coincided with Halloween; how lucky are we? October 31st’s beautiful blue moon shone high in the sky like an unwavering beacon of hope. Roughly two weeks later I awoke with an inexplicable thin gash—no, I swear it wasn’t from the dog I let sleep in my bed—tracing the curve of my shoulder blade. I keep waking up in the middle of the night believing it’s daytime. I bare teeth at my reflection and my nails grow too quickly. The moon seems brighter these days. 

So, what about you? Can you feel the lupine pull yet? Let go of that government-mandated isolation and run with the wolves. I promise it’s good for your health. 

I’m here, fearfully alive. If you squint at my pixelated face on the Zoom window, perhaps you’d think my canine teeth jut past my lips a little more than usual. I sat out there, you know, under the unblinking gaze of the moon as I listened to the distant chatter of the few masked trick-or-treaters traipsing down my block. I didn’t howl, but it was a near thing. 

*

WEREWOLF967: “Give in! Embrace this feeling. Today, find a werewolf pack, and join it, if only for a little bit.  Break your solitude and get outside. Feel the freedom of being yourself during this short time.” [10/17/09]

 

Browswer History: 

The Werewolf in Lore and Legend
Gilles Garnier
Lycaon of Arcadia
When is the next full moon?
Beast of Gevaudan
I love werewolves
Les Lupins
Werewolf Heart
Teen Werewolves
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Brooke Werdlow is a fourth-year undergrad student in the Cinema-Media Studies program at the University of Chicago. You can read her music and entertainment writing at onexthree.xyz, and follow her at @brookewerdlow on Instagram.