UNE

On the shortest night of the year, Alfie Knopfler, who runs the Chat 'n Chew, Tarker's Mills' only cafe, polishes his long Formica counter to a gleaming brightness, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to past his muscular, tattooed elbows. The cafe is for the moment completely empty, and as he finishes with the counter, he pauses for a moment, looking out into the street, thinking that he lost his virginity on a fragrant early summer night like this one -the girl had been Arlene McCune, who is now Arlene Bessey, and married to one of Bangor's most successful young lawyers. God, how she had moved that night on the back seat of his car, and how sweet the night had smelled!

The door into summer swings open and lets in a bright tide of moonlight. He supposes the cafe is deserted because the Beast is supposed to walk when the moon in full, but Alfie is neither scared nor worried; not scared because he weighs twotwenty and most of it is still good old Navy muscle, not worried because he knows the regulars will be in bright and early tomorrow morning for their eggs and their homefries and coffee. Maybe, he thinks, I'll close her up a little early tonight-shut off the coffee urn, button her up, get a six-pack down at the Market Basket, and take in the second picture at the drive-in. June, June, full moon - a good night for the drive-in and a few beers. A good night to remember the conquests of the past.

He is turning toward the coffee-maker when the door opens, and he turns back, resigned.

"Say! How you doin'?" he asks, because the customer is one of his regulars ... although he rarely sees this customer later than ten in the morning.

The customer nods, and the two of them pass a few friendly words.

"Coffee?" Alfie asks, as the customer slips onto one of the padded red counter-stools.

"Please."

Well, still time to catch that second show, Alfie thinks, turning to the coffee-maker. He don't look like he's good for Long. Tired. Sick, maybe. Still plenty of time to-

Shock wipes out the rest of his thought. Alfie gapes stupidly. The coffee-maker is as spotless as everything else in the Chat 'n Chew, the stainless steel cylinder bright as a metal mirror. And in its smoothly bulging convex surface he sees something as unbelievable as it is hideous. His customer, someone he sees every day, someone everyone in Tarker's Mills sees every day, is changing. The customer's face is somehow shifting, melting, thickening, broadening. The customer's cotton shirt is stretching, stretching ... and suddenly the shirt's seams begin to pull apart, and absurdly, all Alfie Knopfler can think of is that show his little nephew Ray used to like to watch, The Incredible Hulk.

The customer's pleasant, unremarkable face is becoming something bestial. The customer's mild brown eyes have lightened; have become a terrible gold-green. The customer screams ... but the scream breaks apart, drops like an elevator through registers of sound, and becomes a bellowing growl of rage.

It - the thing, the Beast, werewolf, whatever it is-gropes at the smooth Formica and knocks over a sugar-shaker. It grabs the thick glass cylinder as it rolls, spraying sugar, and heaves it at the wall where the specials are taped up, still bellowing.

Alfie wheels around and his hip knocks the coffee urn off the shelf. It hits the floor with a bang and sprays hot coffee everywhere, burning his ankles. He cries out in pain and fear. Yes, he is afraid now, his two hundred and twenty pounds of good Navy muscle are forgotten now, his nephew Ray is forgotten now, his back seat coupling with Arlene McCune is forgotten now, and there is only the Beast, here now like some horror-monster in a drive-in movie, a horror-monster that has come right out of the screen.

It leaps on top of the counter with a terrible muscular ease, its slacks in tatters, its shirt in rags. Alfie can hear keys and change jingling in its pockets.

It leaps at Alfie, and Alfie tries to dodge, but he trips over the coffee urn and goes sprawling on the red linoleum. There is another shattering roar, a flood of warm yellow breath, and then a great red pain as the creature's jaws sink into the deltoid muscles of his back and rip upward with terrifying force. Blood sprays the floor, the counter, the grille.

Alfie staggers to his feet with a huge, ragged, spraying hole in his back; he is trying to scream, and white moonlight, summer moonlight, floods in through the windows and dazzles his eyes.

The Beast leaps on him again.

Moonlight is the last thing Alfie sees.