The TRANSFORMATION

by Unknown Author

Originally appearing in Forbidden Worlds comics #20 in 1953.

The moon rises late tonight, and I am alone. For three weeks, I have been awaiting this night, my dread and terror growing until now, I can no longer stand it. It is almost with a sense of relief that I sit here now, writing these last few words so that the world may know the horror I feel in awaiting my ghastly fare; a fate I will see when the moon rides high in the skies, the full moon which will turn me into a werewolf.

It was twenty long nights ago that I was bitten. At the time, I thanked my lucky stars that I had escaped death altogether, but now I know I would have been more fortunate to have perished. But let me tell you my story from the beginning, in the few minutes that remain to me, for already darkness shrouds the moors surrounding my lonely house, and the rim of the pale moon shows off on the horizon.

That terrible night I speak found me walking across these moors alone near midnight. The moors were dark, and mists swirled everywhere. Suddenly there was a low, fierce snarl behind me. I had only time to turn before a huge, ravenous wolf was upon me, its slavering jaws seeking my throat.

I am a tall man, young and well-built, but it was all I could do to keep the creature from tearing me to shreds on the spot. Fighting for my life, I jammed my forearm into its mouth, at the same time directing a single terrible blow at the animal's head with my heavy cane. The creature's skull shattered, and its heavy body collapsed in death.

Swiftly I bound up my bleeding arm with a handkerchief, and minutes passed before I turned to examine the creature I had killed. It was then that I thought I had been struck mad, for it was no longer a wolf lying dead at my feet but a man!

In that terrible moment, I knew that the old legends of this lonely corner of Scotland were true, that there were werewolves still roaming these moors. And when I looked at my cane and realized that its top was wrought of silver, I knew how it was that I had managed to kill it, for the legends also tell us that silver is the ancient enemy of all the ghastly denizens of the supernatural world.

After I had buried the man, an awful thought knifed into my brain, for then I remembered the ancient warning: He who is bitten by a werewolf becomes a werewolf himself...at the next full moon!"

Tonight the full moon rises. Already I feel a quickening in my blood, and terror sweeps over me in great crashing waves. All last night, as I stared fascinated at the almost perfectly round moon, I felt a strange excitement in me, heralding the thing I am now to become.

I know there is no escape for me. I know that after tonight I will race across these moors as a hairy beast, hungry for human prey. I cannot escape my destiny, yet I hope desperately that something will happen to save me from my fate.

But already, a shaft of moonlight falls into my darkened room. My heart beats like a fast drum, and I feel my limbs growing strangely stiff. The hand that holds my pen is growing dark, darker! I can barely hold the pen; for now, long brown hairs are sprouting swiftly over my hands and face. My teeth seem to be emerging from my face!

The end approaches! I know it! An insane desire to leave my home forever seizes me. I wish to join my kind out there on the moors. I long to lift my throat to the moon and howl with all the madness sweeping over me. I cannot hold the pen a moment longer. Already hideous growls and snarls fill the room, and I know that it is me!

I am staring at the full moon directly now, and I must go...

END