Keysport

A howl tears through the night. From the window of the empty guest room, thunder sounds, although there is not a cloud in sight. Through the window the sky is clear and dark. The only thing lighting the world is the almost-full-moon. The room has been empty for weeks, ever since the article was published. The guest room is in the only hotel in the small town of, Keysport, which has only a few hundred residents and is located in the middle of nowhere in Iowa. 

The floorboards creek above the empty room, and more thunder rattles the building. The article claimed strange things were happening in the town. Most specifically about the murder of Mr. Wiltkins. The article claimed it was by supernatural means, but the actual murderer was escaped convict from a prison about 50 miles east of Keysport. The article said that the ghost of a woman who used to live in Mr. Wiltkins house killed him. Of course it was not a ghost. This was the work of something else entirely. A killer. 

The article caused a stir in some of the population of Keysport. Three families moved away, either thinking that the town was haunted or that it was too close to the prison. People in other towns read the article and soon the news spread. People who were on long travels and might normally stop for the night stopped coming out of fear, hence the room being empty. 

The entire hotel rattles when another round of thunder rolls across the long expanse of fields around the town. Another howl echo's the thunder. There are no wolves in Keysport, so it must be one of the resident’s dogs. Everything goes quiet. 

Suddenly, a loud knock shatters the silence. The innkeeper yelps and there is a sudden clatter, probably from a midnight snack falling to the floor. There is a creak as the door opens down the stairs, and loud footsteps as the visitor comes in. The manager squeaks and then the visitor speaks in a low growl. Of course the visitor is not actually growling, he is speaking like any other human, but out of all the people in the world, this man’s voice sounds more like a growl than any other human. 

The manger speaks again, and the footsteps get closer t     o the empty room. The lock clicks, and a hulk of a man appears in the door. He had to be more then six feet tall, and his eyes were cold and dark. He has no bags, and his clothes are very worn, and he doesn’t seem to have any money, so how did he pay for the room? 

The man quickly locks the door. Then he moves to the window. He opens it quickly, and when it creaks, he winces. The empty room has never had a guest this suspicious. The man looks out the window, and then he quickly jumps out of it. There is a quiet thump as the man hits the ground a floor below, and then everything is silent. 

The world stayed silent until another crack of thunder tore through the quiet town. The empty room had never seen anything such as this happen. The visitor didn’t have any money pay the manger, unless he gave him everything he had. The room guessed the man had nothing to pay with and the manger was desperate enough to let him stay if he payed before he left Keysport. 

There had been no sign of a car or truck, so the man probably walked into town by himself, or was one of the few residents of Keysport. And the man had jumped out a window, after locking the door. The man didn’t want anyone to know that he had left the room. 

From the room, you could not hear anything but the manager munching on his snack and the occasional clap of thunder. Nothing changes for hours, but then, just before dawn, a noise echos of the horizon. From the room you can’t tell what made it or what it is. There is just a long, low sound. 

Around seven am, the man appears below the window. He looks exactly like he did last night, except he is holding a bundle of something. The wall is covered in ivy, and the man looks at it cautiously. After a moment he grabs a vine and starts to climb up to the window. 

The man seems to be a very fast climber, and reaches the window in less than a minute. When he reaches the window he carefully gets back into the hotel, and then he turns to where he put the key. He reaches for it, but changes his mind and turns to the bathroom. The man quickly washes his face to get rid of any sign that he never slept. After that he grabs the key, unlocks the door, and marches down the stairs to the main floor.  

The entrance door closes behind him, and you can see him walking into town from the window. He soon disappears between the buildings. This visitor seems to want his excursion stay quiet. And there was that noise too. That long moan. That could have been him. Of course, it was more likely it was a cow, but you never know. 

In the after noon, the man comes back. He has several packages in his hands. He goes in the entrance, and after a moment he walks in. He sets down the bags, one seems to have clothes, and the others have what smells like food. After a moment he changes into a polo shirt and jeans. He also takes out some new shoes, hiking boots, and puts them on. He pulls a credit card out of his pocket, and goes down to the front desk. 

After a minute he comes back. He turns to the bag with food in it, and takes out a very large amount of lunch meat. He also takes out some bread and cheese, and starts to make a sandwich before he gives up and eats all of the food. The man doesn’t seem to want to eat, but he eats it all very quickly, and the room braces itself in case the man throws up, but he doesn’t. After eating he glances at the clock, which reads 7:00 PM, and turns to the door again. He leaves the hotel and goes back into town, but after ten minutes he comes back. 

The first time he probably got a credit card, and that seemed to take a while. He comes back in with another bag. This one is filled with books. A lot of them seem to be actual books, but one of them is a book of puzzles. The man seems to want to pass the time. After looking at all the books for a minute, he chooses one and starts to read. 

He reads for a little less then an hour, until he quickly glances at the clock and jumps up. Then he grabs the couch and shoves it at the door. The locks the window and shoves the sofa closer to the door. Then he adds the table to the barricade. He is muttering, “Oh no... should have worked... all my fault...” He peaks out the window and pales. “A perigee moon... oh no!” He shouts. Then he kicks the mini fridge. 

By now the man was panicking and trying to hide under things he had not thrown at the door. He settled on hiding under the bed, and closed his eyes. After about ten minutes, something very strange happened. Then the moon appeared in the window. The mans eyes grew terrified and he started to whimper. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them they were different. His pupils were smaller, and the whites of his eyes were more yellow. 

Then he growled. This was not like when he was talking to the manager down the stairs, this was a animal growl. It ripped through the room, and then the man got out from under the bed. He was even taller then before. He was changing, transforming. The thing yowled in agony, and then fur sprouted all over him. His ears seemed to move to the top of his head, getting longer and changing shape. 

This man was most definitely a werewolf. 

His clothes were already just as ripped as the first pair had been. He jumped at the door and clawed at the furniture blocking the door. He howled so loud it shook the room, and after one last slash at the table, he ran to the window and jumped out of it. The werewolf didn’t seem to care about locks or glass. The entire thing shattered and he landed on the ground. He let out another earthshaking growl, and then he ran into the woods. 

For a moment the room remained completely destroyed. The furniture was only the tip of the iceberg. The werewolf’s claws had ruined the rug, he had torn up all the plastic shopping bags he had brought the food, clothes and books in. And the books. There were pages all over everything. 

Another howl shatters the night, and there are some screams from the town. The ruined room guessed that the man had tried to stop becoming werewolf. Or, rather, because he knew he couldn’t stop it, he’d tried to prevent it from hurting anyone. This did not explain why the man had left the night before, unless he was rigging a trap for himself off in the woods, and this trap involved a cow. Perhaps he had eaten all the food so that the wolf would not eat anyone. 

This beast must have been what murdered Mr. Wiltkins. Hopefully no one would die tonight. After a minute of the room being empty again, there was loud banging on the door. It was most likely the police. The manger was much to cowardly to come himself. 

Eventually the banging stopped. They were probably setting a trap for the werewolf. After around six hours, the screams in the town slowed and stopped. From the destroyed window, there is a quick moving black shape. The werewolf climbed the wall and jumped into the ruined room in about five seconds, and then it prowls in a circle. The moon drops below the horizon, and the werewolf becomes a man again. 

The man lies in a heap for a moment, and then he jumps up, looking around. “Oh no...” He looks at the ruined room. He stares at the barricade, and then he slowly stands up. He goes to the door, and opens it slowly. Before he could do anything a dart landed in his neck. He collapses and police come out from the shadows. 

“Here he is.” One says, he moves towards the werewolf and tries to lift him. 

“Hopefully he doesn’t get out again. We’ll never be safe.” Another one says, reaching to help the first lift the man. 

“What if he bites someone and they become like him?” Another shudders, “even Mr. Wiltkins didn’t survive, and that was just because he was stabbed by one of the claws.” 

“Poor Mr. Wiltkins...” The voices trail off, and the room is left alone. 

In the weeks that followed people started to come back into Keysport. An updated news article said that they had apprehended the fugitive, and that Keysport was safe again. It said the man was felt guilty for what he had done. He had no control over anything that had happened. The residents kept quiet about the werewolf, although several more families moved away. 

However, the next full moon, the werewolf escaped. Ever since, every full moon, howls echo through the fields and sometimes in the middle of nowhere cows are found dead. The man himself has no confirmed sightings since he was in prison, but some days right before a full moon, the guest room sees him go into Keysport and get provisions.