A Werewolf by the Mantle Wearing a Smoking Jacket

A Cautionary Tale

On that evening, after dinner, Mrs. MacElroy spooned the last bit of Mulligatawny into a tupperware container and placed it in the fridge. It was this that kept Jason awake past midnight. He was not particularly hungry, but he and his wife were entertaining house guests for the weekend. The Fitzsimmons. And what if one of them awoke early to finish the leftover soup?

Jason crept down stairs, leaving the house dark so as not to rouse anyone. On the ground level he navigated the parlor by memory. On the other side was a door to the kitchen. The light of a full moon made the trip easier, casting furniture as long shadows across the floor.

He breezed past a sofa and coffee table, his bare feet finding a rug near the door to the kitchen. It lie in the one pitch black corner of the parlor. A few steps more and he would be there. Except...

He stopped and sniffed the air. Something was burning. He turned away from the kitchen and glanced back into the parlor. The room was vivid by daylight, but under the illumination of the full moon, it stood in grayscale. Silent and foreboding.

And by the windowsill, a thin column of smoke flittered through the moonbeams. Jason squinted at this, but he could not see the source. Strange. So, so strange.

And odder still, from the darkness, a clearing of a throat. "Kheck-hummph."

"Hello?" Jason called out. And then he saw a reddish glow of embers move through the air as if a wand were waved. It glowed brighter for a moment and then its intensity receded.

Jason fumbled for the light switch, which was near the door to the kitchen. It was one of those round, dimmer switches. Jason let the lights on low at first, but as the figure with him in the parlor took shape, he quickly spun the brightness to full strength.

There, at the mantle, was a werewolf in a smoking jacket. It had a cohiba wedged between two gnarly fingers. The wolfman's backhands were covered in orange hair and its long, claw-like fingernails were black. Like an animal's.

"Geez!" said Jason as the werewolf squinted back at him.