Just before they could fire, however, the black wolf padded around to the opposite side of the farmhouse.

“Damn!” hissed Sam, removing his finger from the trigger of his Winchester, just grateful that no one had fired a shot that would have set the wolf to flight again.

“Come on,” said Murray Senkans starting to scale the fence as quietly as possible.   Although despite his best efforts the wire-mesh squeaked beneath him.

“For God’s sake keep it quiet!” hissed Sam, starting after Senkans.

Bear Ross and Brian Horne started forward also, not so concerned about killing the wolf as seeing it didn’t attack Rowena or Ernie.

Seeing his brother start into the yard of the farmhouse where they often came in the evenings to visit, Weird Warren bounded eagerly over the fence crying, “Black wolf!   Black wolf!” as he went, to the annoyance of Sam Hart and Murray Senkans.

“Look, keep that freak back there!” hissed Sam.   However, Warren had already skipped past him and now was at the head of the procession.

*      *      *

When he finally crept around the side of the farmhouse, the black wolf was surprised to find his bedroom window firmly shut.   Leaping up onto his back feet, he pulled himself up along the outside wall, until he was able to peer in through the window.   Seeing Rowena sprawled on her back in the middle of their bed, he did his best not to wake her, as he began to scrape at the window, trying to force it to slide upwards.   However, although the window was not latched, the wolf’s clawed paws were not designed for gripping smooth surfaces, so try as he might he could not push the window up.

Desperately he tried to shape-shift back to human form right where he was.   But, despite him having achieved the transformation outside on rare occasions in the past, he knew from experience that he usually had to enter the house before he could return to human form.   As he expected the change failed to take place.

Hearing excited barking coming from the dog yard out back, he looked round and pricked up his ears in the hope of hearing whatever had set the dogs off.   However, after a few moments he gave up the effort and turned back toward the bedroom window….

Where he saw the face of his wife Rowena staring out at him.

*      *      *

Rowena Singleton stood by the end of the bed staring out in horror at the large black shape that stood on its hind legs peering in at her through the window.   As she watched the black wolf began frantically leaping up off the ground, scratching and pushing at the window pane with its front paws.

‘Let me in!   Let me in!’ the black wolf tried to call out to his wife.   However, in wolf form his vocal cords were not designed for human speech.   So all Rowena heard was a series of throaty snarls as the wolf threw itself repeatedly against the window, making the glass rattle alarmingly in its frame.

“Ernie!   Ernie!” called Rowena, backing deeper into the bedroom, not daring to take her eyes off the leaping wolf, not wanting to be caught alone in the room with the creature.   “Ernie, where are you?” she pleaded, uncertain in her terror whether she had voiced the words aloud or merely thought them.

*      *      *

The black wolf heard Rowena calling his name, even as he heard the hunters around the back of the house.   At first he thought that somehow she had recognised him as her husband.   Then seeing her look of abject terror, he realised that she was calling to his two-legged self Ernie Singleton, to rescue her from his four-legged self the black wolf.

Not wanting to frighten Rowena any more than she already was, the black wolf turned away and started toward the chain-link fence a dozen metres away from the farmhouse.   But catching sight of Weird Warren leading the procession of hunters around the side of the house, the wolf stopped in his tracks.   He looked toward the empty paddock beyond the fence, wondering whether he could make it across it to the start of the forest a quarter kilometre away before the hunters gunned him down.

Eyes shining with fear the black wolf turned to face Warren again, then looked back toward the farmhouse.   After a second’s hesitation he sprinted forward and, using his powerful hind legs like springs, leapt straight through the bedroom window.

The window shattered with a report like a gunshot, showering the double bed with shards of glass and causing Rowena to shriek and faint.

“Get out of the way you bloody freak!” growled Sam Hart, trying to force his way past Warren Horne.

Des Hutchinson and Murray Senkans followed Sam past Warren and the three men arrived at the bedroom window together.

Instead of the black wolf, however, they found the naked figure of Ernie Singleton kneeling over the prostrate form of Rowena, who lay unconscious on the bedroom floor.

“What happened here?” asked Des.

“She fainted when she saw the black wolf,” replied Ernie truthfully.   “Luckily I was here to frighten him away.”

“Well, where did the bastard go?” demanded Sam Hart.

“Back out through the window,” answered Ernie, pointing back behind them.

The three hunters looked around surprised.   They had expected to corner the wolf inside the farmhouse.   However, the few seconds it had taken to force their way past Weird Warren could have given the wolf just enough time to reverse out through the window again without being seen by any of them.

“Here we go again!” said Sam Hart.   He started to lead the procession off again, allowing Bear Ross to run back round the house to notify Jim Kane of the latest development, so that he could cut around the back of the house in the Land-Rover.

They crossed the chain-link fence and were almost at the start of the forest, before realising that they had lost all trace of the wolf’s spoors.

*      *      *

As the hunters slowly disappeared from sight, with Warren Horne happily chanting, “Black wolf!   Black wolf!” Ernie Singleton stood by the broken window, ignoring the broken glass that cut into his bare feet.   His heart raced from fear as he watched the retreating men, wondering whether they would give up the hunt when they failed tonight?   Or whether they would be out again tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that, until finally his luck ran out.   ‘Sooner or later they’ll get me for sure!’ he thought going back to tend to his unconscious wife.

*      *      *

“Where the hell could it have got to?” hissed Sam Hart.   “It’s as though the bastard just vanished into thin air after it left Ernie’s place!”

Although weary from their all-night vigil, the hunters parted at dawn promising to continue the hunt again that night and every night until the black wolf was finally killed.   However, Bear Ross put paid to that idea, when he arrived back at Glen Hartwell in the early hours of the morning, only to be told the tally of that night’s hunt.   A black Labrador shot dead in Howard Street, three black Barb Kelpies killed (in Wentworth, Lawson, and Boothy Streets), and the naked corpse of a mysterious black woman…who was never identified.

THE END

(c) Copyright 2011

Philip Roberts, Melbourne, Australia