Werewolf Stories to Tell in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

succulent. It was dry and tough; some of us thought it was venison but it had a much ranker taste. However hungry I was, I could barely swallow it and I could see that Ela felt exactly the same. I chewed a small piece and then spat it out, feeling as if I was going to be sick.
    â€˜It’s horrible,’ said Ela.
    â€˜Disgusting,’ I replied in deep disappointment. Our anticipation had been so great – yet the result was nauseating. And we were starving! I tried again and sodid Ela, but we simply couldn’t mange to eat the smallest piece.
    But this was not the case with the other kids. They wolfed the meat down with enormous, almost painful, pleasure, and when they saw we weren’t eating they fought to get our portions and were eventually, and only with difficulty, separated by the adults.
    I lay in bed that night feeling bitterly frustrated. What was more, having smelt the cooking and anticipated the feast I was now hungrier than ever, and eventually I fell asleep dreaming that I was eating Fidov’s meat – and that miraculously I could swallow it.
    â€˜What’s that?’ Ela was in my part of the corrugated iron hut that we called home and which was freezing cold at night and baking hot by day. Father, who usually slept beside me, was out, no doubt still talking around the smouldering embers of one of the fires.
    â€˜I can’t hear anything,’ I replied.
    â€˜Listen!’
    Straining my ears, I could just catch a faint sound – and then silence.
    â€˜They’ve gone,’ she said at last.
    â€˜What are gone?’ I asked impatiently, exhausted and still ravenously hungry.
    â€˜The wolves. I heard them. They were round the fence.’ Ela was only ten and easily frightened. She also had a vivid imagination.
    â€˜They can’t have been. There
aren’t
any wolves in this area now, Ela. They all died out years ago. I suppose there might be the odd one or two that –’
    â€˜They were round the fence,’ she insisted. ‘I
saw
them. They were waiting.’
    *
    Next morning there was a noticeable absence of children, and I asked my father where they had all gone.
    â€˜They’re sick,’ he replied. ‘Nothing serious.’
    â€˜Food poisoning?’ I asked. ‘I thought that meat tasted rank.’
    â€˜They’ll be fine,’ he snapped. ‘At least they had some nourishment.’
    â€˜I don’t call that nourishment,’ I replied and he stamped away, looking angry.
    Then Ela came up to me. ‘Have you looked in the hospital?’
    She meant a large and dilapidated ex-army tent which was now a damp and draughty makeshift hospital. ‘No. Why?’
    â€˜It’s full of kids.’
    â€˜So Father says. Apparently they’re sick – after eating all that meat.’
    â€˜They’re running a fever,’ she said. ‘And I think they’re going to die.’
    I was sure that Ela was over-reacting, but directly I walked inside the tent I knew that she was right. It was dreadful to see all my friends – and even some kids I disliked – lying on dirty mattresses, running in sweat and turning this way and that, their faces contorted with pain.
    I was just about to retreat when Divik, one of my closest friends, called out to me and I knew I couldn’t be cowardly enough not to go over to him. ‘Andros,’ he whispered. ‘Andros.’
    I knelt down by his mattress. ‘You’re going to get well,’ I said, staring down at him as he writhed.
    â€˜No,’ he replied. ‘They’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for all of us.’
    â€˜What do you mean? Who’s waiting?’ I asked.
    But he turned away from me and I knew poor Divik was delirious. He began to mutter, but I couldn’t catch anything he was saying at all and eventually I left him, his two lucid sentences beating in my mind. ‘They’re waiting for me.