“The night has teeth. The night has claws, and I have found them.”
―Eyewitness account of the Wolf of Magdeburg, 1819
On my first day of kindergarten, I bit a kid. Hard. In my defense, he deserved it. During recess he tormented a small dog by throwing stones at it from behind the long chain-link fence that encompassed the schoolyard. When the bell rang and we were corralled back inside, I confronted him about it. I didn’t know better at the time. All I knew about justice was the kind I’d seen in Disney movies and on TV. He threw the first punch. What happened next is a blur in my mind. The only thing I know for sure is that I bit him. Hard enough that in my memory the first thing that comes to me is the metallic smell of blood. And, if I’m being honest, the taste of it. I lost control. Whether it was for seconds or minutes, I have no idea. I wasn’t just a little boy acting out. A wildness took control. Something inside me was unleashed that day and left another boy scarred for life.
After it happened, I just stood there watching everything unravel around me like a new universe spinning into existence. Somehow, I sensed the world as I knew it would change once the stars finally aligned. By the time it was over, the other kids were crying as the adults worried over the sobbing boy. I remember feeling confused by the eyes staring at me ― glaring at me ― as though I was the one who had messed up. Their long shadows colluded with each other in the morning light that spilled into the classroom. My own silhouette crept across the linoleum floor to linger amidst patterns of blood. In the mix of scarlet swirls was a single red handprint that made it look like my shadow had just signed a finger painting.
My parents, mortified, pulled me out of the public school system that afternoon. We never talked about that day. Not that I can recall. They paid someone else to do that. The message I got was loud and clear: little boys aren’t supposed to bite other little boys. I was a freak. An anomaly of nature. For years afterward, that’s how I felt. Like that dark figure of mine was nipping at my heels, eager to rear its ugly head again. And all I could do was keep running from it.
I have only vague memories of seeing a child psychiatrist. For how long, I really couldn’t say. I guess we just kept talking until she was sure she’d quashed whatever had risen within me on that brisk September morning. What I can tell you is that it didn’t happen again. For the rest of my childhood and into my years as a teenager, it was laid to rest. Or so I thought. I never imagined that first day of kindergarten would eventually come back to bite me.
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P.S. The picture on the side is from the book trailer.
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The Night Has Teeth (Book One) EXCERPTS ONLY
Werewolf#WATTYS2014 HQ LOVE AWARD! There's a darkness that lurks in the City of Light Seventeen-year-old Connor Lewis is chased by a memory. On his first day of kindergarten he bit a boy hard enough to scar the kid for life. Since then he's been a social ou...
