Written for Hillstar's Lycanthrope B-Movie Contest.

Prompts used: How to Make a Monster (story title) and Full Moon Massacre.

Disclaimer: I'm not Rowling.


Till the fifteenth of March, 1996, she has an ordinary life.

She is six, she lives in Houghton. She has a mum, a dad, a granny and John, who goes to Cambridge. They live in a thatched cottage which has rose bushes all round the picket fence, and honeysuckle over the windowsill of her bedroom, where butterflies flit through all day.

In the morning, she plays with Sammy (her tabby kitten) until Mrs Steil, her governess, comes to teach. When she grows up, she wants to go to Cambridge like John (she doesn't understand what the fuss is all about, but she wants to join just because she can't stand how smug and proud he looks when he comes home for the holidays). But the books he has are so fat and heavy, she doesn't know how she will manage them. For now, she is quite happy to play around in the swing that Daddy has hung from the branch of the giant oak tree in the backyard (he's such a darling) and eat Mummy's gingerbread cookies (Mmm) and tease John about it because he misses them out, and she loves every bit of her life.

That is her life, until that night, fifteenth of March.

Mummy and Daddy are out to visit Uncle Jack and Aunty Em, and are going to stay the night at their place. They have told her to be a good girl, and so she has been; she has had her dinner with Gran and helped her clean the dishes, and she has let Sammy out in the backyard for the night. The clock shows nine thirty, and she is so dreadfully sleepy, she tells Gran goodnight and climbs into her bed. It is a full moon night, and the moon is so round and white and bright. She loves it so much. And she stares at it as long as her eyes stay open.

She wakes from her peaceful slumber with a start, unsure what woke her up. The room is swathed in darkness, with a trickle of moonbeam entering through the open window. The clock on the wall shows two o' clock.

Then comes the sound which probably woke her up — a soft scuffling noise and the rustling of bushes, towards the backyard. She is curious; perhaps it's Sammy, poor little thing. She moves out of the room on tiptoes, and carefully unlatches the back door.

"Sammy?" she calls softly, wandering around. "Are you there?"

There is no answering mew, but the rustle in the bushes close to her intensifies.

"Sam?" she tries again, suddenly afraid and cold and feeling dreadfully alone. She should just go in. "You there, kitty?"

And then it happens. It happens so fast that she has no chance to back away. Something pounces at her from the bushes, something large and hairy and fierce. She has only time to utter a terrified scream before it has her on the ground.

She can feel it (hot), she can smell it (foul), she can hear it (panting and snarling and growling, and God, she is so frightened), its maw drips saliva on her. She screams and screams, but to no avail. Mum and Dad aren't here, and Gran is almost deaf, she won't hear. No one comes to her aid. The creature's claws tear through her dress, drawing a sticky liquid from her which causes her to hurt (and it hurts so much). And as she struggles and kicks, its jaws, its hungry, open jaws snap around her arm. And even as pain overtakes her, driving her mad, she slips away to darkness.

-o0o-

They find her in the morning, barely alive and mutilated almost beyond recognition. She is rushed to the hospital, where the doctors are puzzled at what hurt her.

She barely makes it through, but she does, and that's all matters to Mum and Dad and Gran and John (he skips his exams to see her, and he cries, God, John sobs like a child).

And once she returns home, she swears that she will never, ever step out of the house at night.

Things are normal for the while; she is so weak that she can hardly leave her bed, though. But Mum gives her her favourite cookies twice a day, and that kind of makes up for it. The scars hurt; they show no sign of fading in the slightest. The one on her arm, which was where the creature bit her is the most prominent, and she can never repress a shiver when her eyes fall on it. There's quite a stirring in the neighbourhood after the attack; some people even call for a 'wild dog hunt', as that was what everyone assume had attacked her, but all they end up killing are jack rabbits which they cook on spits.

Things are slowly getting normal. She is now able to skip around in the garden again, and even take her lessons. Which is why the next incident comes completely without warning.

It happens exactly a month from the attack. She knows it because it's full moon again. She had been ill a few days since; mum doesn't know what's wrong with her, but she feels weak and sickly and ill-tempered, and her body aches all over. The sun sets in the west as the evening draws in, and she retires to her room (the aching in her bones is almost unbearable now). She watches through the window as the orange hue fades from the sky to be replaced by inky blue-black, and how the stars appear slowly into view.

And it is with the moon rising that all hell breaks loose.

She knows something is wrong as she sees the bright disk appear in the sky, showering everything with its soft glow, and suddenly, oh so suddenly, she feels strange. It is as if the moon holds a pull over her soul; she can't tear her eyes from it, and she stares helplessly as it pulls something dark, something primal from within her depths. She can feel her body shifting, changing, and yet she can't stare away, and suddenly, there is this pain, all-consuming, burning, terrible, terrible pain which wracks through her very core, and she screams and screams, and God, it hurts, hurts, hurts so much, andsomeonejuststopitstopitohGodhelp...

She screams and screams as her mind unravels, as her thoughts lose themselves to chaos, and her bones snap as they elongate, she can hear it, and her gaze shifts and changes colour, and her face distorts, fur grows, and it is no longer her... She can hear someone coming, and the door opens, and someone's inside the room, shouting something; but all she knows is that she is hungry and thirsty, and lusting for blood, and she must, she needs to sink her teeth into that soft flesh in front of her, and... and...

... And the world is a haze of red.

-o0o-

She wakes up in the morning, light filtering through the windows onto her face. What happened last night? She can't remember. All that is there in her mind is a series of hazy, vague memories which make no sense to her. She tries to sit up, but hurts all over as soon as a muscle moves. Her groans echo across the silent room.

It occurs to her for the first time, then, that something is wrong. How she senses it she doesn't know herself, but she just knows, perhaps from the eerie silence and the stillness in the air, and as she painfully sits up, she sees that she is on the floor, and... and her hand is red, with what can't be, but what certainly is, blood. Automatically, her eyes, wide with alarm, scan the room. Everything is broken, and washed with red.

There are claw marks across the bloodied wallpaper. The chairs have limbs missing. The beautiful dining table has been broken into bits. And on the ground just two feet away from her, there is... there is a hand. A hand ripped from the body. A hand drenched in blood. A hand with Mum's wedding ring on one finger.

She can hear a shrill screaming somewhere in the house, and it unnerves her terribly, but it is only when she shuts her mouth that she realises that it was her making the noise. As much as she wants to close her eyes and fall asleep, and hope that it was all a bad dream, her eyes defy her and look around.

There are bodies on the floor, the floor which is bathed in red. Not really whole bodies, disfigured, ripped apart bodies. Shivering and trembling, half against her will, she staggers up and walks around.

The body closest to her is Mum. She can tell it by the flowery gown she wore last evening. But the daisies painted on the dress are hardly discernable, so swathed in crimson as they are. Mum's eyes are open, staring; her throat has been ripped through by claws; her hands and her right leg are gone.

It is a wonder she does not faint at the sight. She can't even scream; her horror is now past all sanity, and eyes wide, jaw hanging, she runs around the room like a person insane.

But Mum's body is perhaps the one which is the most intact. There is nothing of Dad left worth speaking — just scattered limbs covered in bloodied blue raiment, and strands of matted brown hair remaining on the crushed head that lies in a corner in a pool of dried blood. John is only recognisable by the intact bust; the rest is an indescribably sickening mess. And his eyes... his eyes scream just as his mouth does, in silent agony and horror. She doesn't recognise Granny; only a few clumps of long silver hair lie scattered in a bloodbath.

And even as she feels as if she is being sucked into a red, red vortex of endless horror and pain as she stares on at what, until last night, was her family, but now has been reduced to a scene more terrible than any horror movie made in history, she somehow senses her own hand at it. It has perhaps got something to do with the fact that whatever happened to her family happened last night, a night she has no memory of, and that she is standing unharmed on the ground, her bare feet and naked skin soaked in blood. Parts of her memory return in dim, hazy flashes — staring at the moon and feeling the horrible change, the elongation of her face into a snout and the dimming of her wits except the primal senses which became fuller and sharper than ever... and then she knows it, beyond doubt, that she is the culprit, not the victim. Somehow, she has become a monster, a monster which sees no sense, a monster which does not hesitate on turning upon its own people, a monster who lusts for blood, human blood. A monster with sharp claws and fangs, a monster who... who howls into the night at the full moon (for she suddenly remembers the howl issuing from deep within her, a tribute to the wicked full moon from her warped soul). The story that old Jaime Mackey used to tell round the Sunday bonfire, the one about werewolves, flashes in her head. And then she knows — she is one now (even though it is impossible, for surely werewolves don't exist).

She is surprised that no one in the neighbourhood heard the happenings of the night. A look at the open window reveals that it is only dawn; the light filtering through is young and silver. People will come and go by the house within an hour. Why, the milkman might be here anytime now. They will find out about this.

She knows she must run. The innocence and ignorance of childhood has left her, just as all semblance of normalcy left her last night. She knows she must run. They will catch her and accuse her of murder, maybe, or something. She cannot be around.

Her eyes, wild, dart across the room like those of a hunted animal, looking for the best way to escape. She is a monster; she must go away. She is a danger to everyone around her. Werewolf or not, she is not the sweet, innocent girl she was days ago. And so she must run and hide, like all monsters do.

And so she does — she runs, mad in terror and sorrow and shame, without bothering to wipe the blood from off her or put on clothes (because even if the blood is wiped from her body someday, it will forever remain in her mind). She flees by the backyard, and slinks away in the shadows of the trees, unseen by all that have awakened.

No one knows what happened to the six year old girl who disappeared from the little cottage round the corner; indeed few even remember her, but for years, Houghton talks about the Full Moon Massacre, and wonder what might have been the menace that befell the beloved family, and destroyed them in such a gruesome way.

And on the full moon nights, a distant howling floats across the quiet air.