“That’s enough—you’ve sterilized the wound.”

“What do you do for a living?” She asked.

Oh, here we go, Harold thought—the fatal question. “I’m unemployed.”

Her nose looked like there was poop under it. “Oh—sorry.”

Harold knew women were looking for security, so he never told them he had more money than Croesus. He limped out of her house, with the distinct impression that he had escape a dangerous beast. She was being supported by somebody—probably an ex-husband.

When he crossed the street, he began convulsing—not a full-blown seizure, but one that anybody could get at a Justin Bieber concert.

“You okay—son?” Came a voice. It was Harold’s next-door neighbor—retired from the assembly line at the Ford plant. He was smoking cigarettes and wearing a cowboy hat. Not a bad guy, if you didn’t mind bad breath.

“I’m fine. I just got bit by the neighbor’s dog.”

“Oh—you know what we used to do to them in Montana?”

“No—” Harold said.

“We gave ’em a lead pill with their breakfast.” He pulled out his six-gun. It was a colt peacemaker—he thumbed the wheel.

“That’s very practical,” Harold said. “I’m going to go laydown on the couch now.” He walked inside and curled-up on the leather lazy-boy like a dog. Three hours later, after the sun had gone down, he woke up to a shredded couch and a destroyed living room. He had been sleep-walking. The mirror wasn’t broken, though—and he looked inside, and saw the beast within.

“Oh—my god. I’m grandpa’s grandson.” Harold looked out the window. There was that bitch from the afternoon. She was bigger now, in all the right places. Harold walked outside, as if, in a trace, underneath the moonlight.

His flower garden was a romantic backdrop. He tried to speak to her, but it came out like a whimper. He had been waiting for her, his whole life. Then he jumped on her and rolled around in the grass.

Until… “What the holy hell!”

BANG. BANG. BANG.

It was Harold’s neighbor. The cowboy was being a cowboy, and Harold felt the wounds, but they quickly healed.

Harold was being Harold when he tore the cowboy’s limbs from his body, and his girlfriend, feasted on him in the moonlight.

The cowboy should’ve used silver bullets, but most people don’t know that, unless they watch movies—and if they do, they’re never prepared.

Harold howled at the moon, and his girlfriend did the same.

The End