An odd sound echoes from somewhere in the dark—probably just some dog, howling at the moon—a sensible reaction that somehow offers little comfort. Suddenly, something is growling just beyond sight, somewhere in the trees. A heartbeat later, that something is right there, breathing heavily, a savage beast that could easily tear a person apart. The fear is excruciating—anyone unlucky enough to be nearby could soon be dead—or worse, cursed for eternity....
Welcome to the nightmare that is the werewolf, a frightening regression to an animal state, an often involuntary surrender to the savagery that lies within all human beings, just below the surface. According to some stories, a werewolf has the ability to turn from a human into a full-blown wolf, changing in both size and shape. In other stories, which have gained the most popularity in recent times, a werewolf turns from a human into a large, wolflike creature, a sort of human-wolf hybrid.
