This was just a stroll down memory lane for me as I read this last in 8th grade (that would be 1987). I think I spotted this sucker on the shelf in the good old Red Lake Falls public library.
My favorite monster is the werewolf. And it's not even close. I think it dates back to when I was very young and my mother was visiting a friend, Mrs. Magers, and I was left to roam around the house. I found my way into one of their son's rooms and on the wall was the a painting from Disney's The Three Little Pigs.
It looked something like this -
There was just something so evil in his grin as he chased down those pigs. It terrified me. But I couldn't stay away from it. I kept creeping back into the room to leer at the picture. All these years later it dawns on me: I enjoyed the fear that the wolf made me feel.
And that explains the hundreds of horror novels and films I've seen since. Many of which revolved around my favorite monster, the werewolf, which brings us to Robbins' 1983 take on the werewolf legend, The Wereling.
In the novel, the werewolf is an almost eternal being who seeks to corrupt humans with its spirit. In the prologue, we venture back in to the mideval past in Germany where a traveler's wife has been snatched by the werewolf. Eventually, a pack of hunters locate the beast's lair, and what is left of the poor European's wife, and kill it with a bullet to the head. But not a silver bullet, which would have killed the spirit of the wolf.
The book then shifts to the spirit of the wolf up in the sky waiting for a new opportunity to corrupt a soul and take form again.
This time the wolf spirit chooses to occupy a werewolf costume - made of real wolf fur - and then corrupt and shape shift the person who buys it and puts it on. Every time the person, Harvey, a horror fan and werewolf afficianodo himself, dons the costume, he literally transforms into a werewolf.
Harvey prowls the dunes, which are located by the fictional town of Ocean City (what an original name that is), which is somewhere by Atlantic City. Initially, Harvey just scares a few rare people who visit the Dunes or have the misfortune of traveling on the highway that runs by the Dunes. But eventually the spirit of the wolf takes more control over Harvey while he is in werewolf form. He starts to remember less about his nocturnal adventures and gets a severe headache until . . . he takes his first life.
When I read this in 8th grade, I thought it was brilliant. Now, though, I see that the writing is trite and incredibly full of adjectives.
I recall as an 8th grader being shocked when Harvey - after his first kill - wakes up with no memory of the night before. He ventures into the bathroom to brush his teeth only to discover bits of meat in his teeth. Harvey thinks this must be the remnants of a late night hamburger, but the reader knows it was really the remnants of the woman police officer her savaged! I thought that was brilliant when I was a kid.
There is another key scene that still holds up. A reporter who wants to break the story of the serial killer in Ocean City with a large newspaper, is staking out an isolated area that he believes the werewolf will prowl next since the police are overrunning the Dunes to catch the beast. The reporter is right. The werewolf attacks, but he is lucky enough to stumble into a shallow pond. Of course, the werewolf ventures in after him, and the reporter thinks he's toast for sure. But the werewolf is unable to swim and once it looses its footing, it must retreat back to shore. It prowls the perimeter of the pond trying to find a way to its prey, but finally it gives up and bounds over a hill.
When I first read that, I couldn't believe the guy's luck. Who knew werewolves couldn't swim, right? The part that creeped me out the most was when the guy finally decided to leave the safety of the pond and venture back to his car. All the while I was just waiting for the werewolf to pounce on the idiot, but he got lucky and made it to his car. And on his way, guess what he found? Harvey's check book, which must have fallen out from his pocket while he was on the prowl. Now, how this happened, I'm not sure as once he has the costume on, he fully transforms into a werewolf. I'm not sure what happened to his pocket and how his checkbook fell out. Years later, I can see that it's a convenient plot point for the reporter to identify the werewolf.
But it doesn't work out for him as he does confront Harvey at his house, only to have him don the werewolf costume and run off into the house, leaving our hapless reported to make another mad dash to his car. Just like on the golf course, the reporter makes it away . . . only for a block or so before he realizes that Harvey was lying in wait for him in the back seat and promptly rips him to shreds.
When I read that in 8th grade, I was shocked. I hadn't read a book before where one of the main characters gets killed off. But in re-reading it now, I see that the reporter wasn't a main character. His plight must have just resonated with me all those years ago to have me think he was a main character.
The rest of the plot revolves around the Ocean City police force that tries to stop the werewolf and his rampage. There is a pretty cool scene where the werewolf decides to forgo prowling the Dunes and attacks tourists on the boardwalk, killing dozens. Until a tracker is able to pinpoint the werewolf's location and the cops are able to close in and kill it just as the German killed the werewolf in the story's prologue.
Of course, in their infinite wisdom, no one thought to cast silver bullets (though the authorities seriously consider the murders to be that of a werewolf), so the spirit of the wolf is able to escape yet again and bide its time to return. And that is the stories epilogue.
But it's been 36 years and no sequel.
All in all, it was a quick read that required little thinking. Sometimes that's the best kind of reading.
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