Werewolf: The Apocalypse

309 Pages·2000·100.34 MB·English

by  Brian Campbell

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Easy now. Just keep taking deep breaths. Slow down if you can. That's it. Try to
o tth troi oennho lykatar xTrd. abo ehluatt st half hour. Keep calm.
That's a rfi rmgiehm 'aInt'.. dI. .. cousinm h, 'erIo reu ht lteudaao eonlsyllptA y .
e nhitghI tt .hink a wm teio'nvgue te before we're got eaio wnghtg aa oyvt ef rom
here, so just keep breathing slowly and try to calm down.
You might have known ths caiwso e mhdt triin esaagWm. s? Sometimes ite'hst
dream— sd reamsf or unninl laf gnoo urs, smelling blood from miles awaye h,tm oon-
light. .. Or maybe it was the other kids. Did they treat you differently, like they could
somehow see something dangerous about you? That'll happen, too. And it all got
worse as you got older. Once you started getting into your teenage years, the dreams
u sotayt rowo t fegtdoed ernsl aes ,omething botp tilnuesd ide you. Your classmates !
avoided you. Maybe teachers thu wooeurygeh atcting d ftuhnneanyy s,tarted asking;
if you were on drugs. And the pressure inside kept building. - <
YeahI k, ne ohswtto ry. Particulae rhnlyte t xoptgu pusahoo fYroeattd. r . Some-
thing inu ssonidaypee pnheeTdx .t u tkhu onwionyeegwy re , coven rbeild ood,
staa npd f d d gfiobnnllinueeno aitsagns h e r a tppho eeae rot—bs pou lnsoe e.t d ;
It's okay! It's okay.... This time, it's okae yhpT. eople here were tryingo tk ill you.
d gr idotou jh uououeoYosdmYty. n. saewo eIltdte ara nl ittle more control.
i

r
Yeah, you guessed it. This happened to me once, too. And I was scared just like you.
Co, mnito'es . Ho tg, iuhmy ohOet?ea h, right. Sorry.
My name's Evan. And the spears are for self-defense — for times when the weap-
onry Mother gave me just isn't enough.
Let's move.
WoA/es f K fAe Fo/4
I thinke w mighte b safe herea rof while. I've a tog friend coveringr uo tracks. I've
s aawfr Ia d —ih'Id auo ohtv y otaeot do gntr u aatdoiyg l ong w. ieYtmh ou'tvoge
good instincts. Timo t ufoyie ronf dt uow here they come from.
No, we can't go back. Your old life's dead — and if they catch us, there's a fair chance
that yw oleiufnre won't last much longer. They'll probably have silver this time.
You don't knou owyj yuhw st shuddered whenI saidsfjltto d,y ou?r O maybe you've
guessedy b now? ($'••••'.' :'-':y :"'• •'•'•'^
You've just gone through your First Change.
You're a werewolf.
You want to deny it? It sounds crazy, I know. Werewolves don't exist — that's just
common se epnresaoep, t lyrteuih ghsiBhtne Widtkl?h la rast kcb .?afotroiue td
othde yy shtiWll o kthidlel ywy hoh oalhvWvteae sv? e their campindg ngeaa r
SUVs and bike paths and carefully controlled parks?
Because something inside them knows. They know we're out here. You knew, too.
Even thon uact ughoy hlila nk rig, s"ih wTotn his freak wit ehhts pearss ic ompletely
fucking nuts," part of you understands I'm telling the truth.
Don't w oab? nLte teloiomekv e at|our handa l.i Ntetlareia lls ong, aren't they?
t
You're really nervous right now, and it's Showing. Relax, calm down a little — there
you go, back to normal. And try to keep calm. If you change right now, you aren't
going to have a lot of control. The control comes later.
Gl rlioAgohdt ,. e hsethorrety' s.
Whatever you've seene mahbtoo vn— umiite f so rwiotos'es t rVewTo lnvoes
pure garbage. People tell these horror stories about peopleo hwt urn into murdering
animal tsutb, hey don't understand where exactly they camp euw ite hhit deao St. hey
gt i feow tolt a rongo .T them, werewolvese rat hese solitary monsters that tca like—
well, they don't act like wolves, I'll tell you that. But people think a werewolf is some
kindf op erson that turns intoa wolf whene htm oons if ud lnagl oea mnso indless
killing spree. Now, I'd be lying if I said that has no basis in fact — yeah, fact — but
humans don't understand that werewolves aren't cursed humans. We't orrnee ally
human at all, although we're often born from human — or wolf — mothers or fathers.
We're our own people. We're the Garou.
Righn attc e.I ll your subconscious recognizee hswt oru daoYl. ready understand
so ehmlta foen guage swep eak when we're wearing wolf skin— is t n'ais nborn gift from
r Muoother. SI given of gifto sth elp e tnhoat kueopyt
ff.-TAeAp
u wwoheryee ent nhataotta cmeke haets mknhdtue a,oos tn mseteahs wrktsue a,s r-
riors — that's the one that's hardest to deal with. Unless I miss my guess, tonight was
dt uhwaao— ehttrh ye ga uic ft taopf ayR eobfailh rge tu sfettuo .otuoinmyd e
n Yhacee ue aahochtrya , pital letter, can't you? Ity 'psa ewloi ekphetl e stree shdsti ffer-
ence betweea g"n od "ndGa" od." Everyone gets angry. Hell, these days, with people living
so close-packed that they don't hy apnveare sonal spao crtee tr, eoaantt t gmoel roa'sr e
common. Whene htt emperature rg icibs eoeht nnsi crete cities, they start killing each
other over lost tempert olms a ore oftend nAt. hat's nothing comparedo tw hat's beating
inside your heart tIf. eels like fire, doesn? Tt'it hat'a ss pecial ge ihwfat a agv — ireof t
curse, depending on how you look at it. If there's one thing the movies get right, it's that it
doesn't take muco htm akea w erewolf angry enougo hkt ill you.
Well, the movies also get the silver thing right, but more about that later.
Your First Chana bgsalweo —ot hdeneyo y always are. WhenI chaneghte rodf
first time, I was running for my life, same as you. But when the change came over me,
I stood and fought. And I killed. That's usually how it goes. You're born with Rage,
although you don't know it^r and it keeps on building up inside you as you get older,
until something happeno mtsl leaaxk tf piyeo lo otuudI ok. e now Gao wrhoweur e
beatr oew —no s racs —he ildren, until they finally couldn't takey nmiat oreehT.
first blood they drew as werewolves was that of their abusers. It could even have '
happened ta schoolu ,oy fwi ere cornered dna attacked.d nA that's whene ht killing
fe heftrv e—enr —zryi des you. There o'nms ore serious thing thana f renzy. When
your Rage overpowers you, you can't control yourself. All you want to do is flee or
killu coY. ould kill anyone, even your family, whilen i that state. That's where the |f
rjljilt of the legend comes from. You were lucky — when your First Change hit the
v
•my ones around you were enemies.
e Yhwaevs ,e en degmaifhtise r I esfMsu .rwaooiodm t her, re ihgWhavt? e supernatural
speed, strength, n staatcak ema ewb e iu hh—nlte ald o eaknttre at ep fighting, tear apart
r awca ithout breakinga s weat, evene phcto e anhwElotl afeorr th itseo lstf trike down
our foes. The Mother wouldn't have given us all these things if we didn't need them.
We're Her warriors, born and bred. You, me — we were designed to kill. There's a war
rr atahgwian tga s ,tretches acr eowhsths ole gd lobnbeaye d ovnniAcdi. ous kil-laimng
— we gheo 'rtoee dr mwr aeguonfu rOe dyscemesnh .r.iiaaens eus oliyke
Okay, I'm losing you. Let's see if I can put this a little more clearly.
Bom fe> Fower
I said the word "supernatural" before. It's an interesting word for what we are. It
means "beyond nature," right? Well, that's sorf oat ccurate eWa. ren't really literally
beyond nature, of course. It's just that humans have a limited perception of what
nature is. All they see is the physical side of things. Oh, sure, they keep trying to
reach for some greater cosmological truth — just look at those New Age types, all
convinced they're reincarnatif oRond aCs mnle esaceohhs putr a rlOtoctrahoa gk. o-
ecrao nohvewirns ced th fatiht o eedyx actly w ehphatrt iest says, theyo d'glil rectly
>ffA< : TArowK fo fke \\fofves

o t Heaven where theyn ac look downe ht lla no people they haten i Helld na laugh.
But theyt 'orlneo oe khritin gngih t place. Humanity wane hqttsu ick fix. They suS'
pect there's something bigger than them in the world, but they want to be told ex-
actly the right words to say and the right things to wear so that they can get instant
gratification or enlightenment. And the more they look for the quick and easy way to
something sublime, the farther they get from actually touching it.
We'ra le ittle luckier than they are. We're born wita ph e owhrtot irfolodn 's soul
r uob niodies. That's wherr euop ower comes from-—we nera ature. We're spirits
made flesh. We're creatures of the two worlds — man and beast, flesh and spirit.
It's this way from birth. You weren't born human; even though no doctor, no blood
or DNA test coulde dtheiftlfl erence, There's no geo entxe press what mas kwuehs at
wl laean aryoroFen. e could tell, we're normal human childrer Onw. olf-cur tbohsfa, t
MM" matter. That's an important thing. We Garou can't mate with each other — well, we
ct auitnb's, like incr eubsOlot. oo pdoo'ts teo pnoott, wero fputrl oduce healthy children
ife w mate with each other.e W haveo t dilutet i withe ht bloodf o humansd na wolvesfi
we waa nh tealthy generatf e icocouWan bns' .t just bite somed mbnoaadky e ethneom
of us — and it's for the best that way. Because we need humans and wolves to pass on
our lin eehw, avo etp rotect humanid tnwya olvn ewgso o arouls oidwa k roeefs lal >s"
theirs d.nA believ tie fi ,wem eren'tr of that, humanity might have diedt uo long ago.
ijLllgJLJLU
There are too many of us who see humans as the enemy.
Tke Moo K-Ktep^f 'j
Now, the w&y I've been talking, you might assume that all of our p&wer comes
from some sort of invisible supernatural gent deIo . esn't work that^w-ay. Like I said, |
wefe tied into the entire world, both physical and spiritual, antf those connections**'
ffoo rte tomadWlkr saa.e wr pusooo mwfoee r f rrbuooimr thright, st tuuoirtBn'es .
alwayo shwy ou're born .ot Sometimes it's when you're born that makesa difference.
You know the legends about the full moon — that's when werewolves change,
right? Well, there's a full moon toniflit. I tfte feel it pulling on my blood; you can
fe ehsetal me thing, can't ye ohfuTu?l l moon's^^/arrior's^e rhm^to osnAo. n
waxes and wanes, so does our Rage. ^H«^
••$&' ""••His,,
That connection to the moonff||/ith us from b||||. Luna — the spirit of the moon
— kisses each one of us as we're and gives usvplar anger. The more of her light in
the sky on the night of your birth,'f|ie more Rage you carry within you. Forget astro-
logical signs and planetary influencil. The phase of the moon is what marks our
destiny sawb. I orn under a half moone :ht judge's moons abw. I orn halfn i light, half
n i shadow,o s it'sy m tasko t keepe ht laws,e es ot both sidesf o every problem.
They didn't get a chance to tell me what your moon affinity is before I left. Maybe
you're a Full Moon child. That would be lucky, on a night like tonight.
Who are "they"? "They" are the werewolves who guard this portion of the land.
They're your relatives, your godparents: your tribe.
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TAeWoftWocvf
Woln vip ne uaukosrcy n k—es w that. They're social ctrueB a.etwu errae ssa,
r uRo age keeps suf rom living among humanr sow ol ewvb feei ssla onged theretI.
r huud sor wcbwunh aivornioaleuodr de sfl s sor,rdfabeinfene en' tdws efvien
could. LiI kse aid, w tewa'rae r.
e hoTnly on arnce eeawsl ly e rereaa lnyco h other. It's been th ysaaiwnt cehet
First Days. And since the First Days, we've kept the traditions that, some say, were
given to us by the Mother Herself.
That's right. The Garou have been a society since before Christianity and before
Egypt. We're pa as forotc iety that's kept m ehstoa fmsot e laws since before humans
learned to bake mud and straw into bricks.
The war's been going on that long.
They weren't always good laws, though. We'Ve fought each other in civil wars,
slaughtered humo aohnwfsf er nuddoi, semsnudto a arnadwte cousins. We'tvoge
rivers of blood on our collective hands.
•'''^fat
See, there a'rs eason humans still bes dluiee envpie down somewnere alfltaer
these years. There ar's ey tahhsewoye n ihdlateu atg ae thm hwai egt trbuehab tl ,
have nightmares about our fangs and claws. They forget most of these nightmares.
Most of them. But they still remember, deep down. They remember that long ago,
even before the dawn of agriculture, wolf-beasts leapt from the forests to kill them
when they o gnrouetwm e rrauonOucse .stors culled humanity, kile lyihdnotgnu nag
d a eo llpkihokoteep et pu elahtiton doo "wrten asonable" numbers. They caltlied
"the Impergium."
d hnuAmanity still remember Ist .hink ty htt hhaudewtco'ys wn fodrensats
kill wolves whenever they can. I think that might even be why they have families
that are too large for them to support, why they kill more than they need to sur-
vive, eat more than they have to and throw away the rest. Somewhere in their
subconscious, they're trying to survive as best they can—• and fight back against
e uhtp sni rocess. Evenf ir lfey don't remember tn|f we're real.
We are real, though. We've been here almost forever. The tribes of the Garou have
managedo t hangn o untie lht Final Days.
Well... not all of them. Once there were 16; now only 13 remain. Thirteen tribes
o —f swu ell, 12 that still talko t each othera dn,1a 3th that's decidedo t striknoe tuo
2 t1s hot iaweth nTre e. Ghmt aearrioan u Nati— oyno ur people.
Yes, your people. They couldn't raise you among them — it was too important that
s huu fmo lalna -dbynooaur n Garou n ghir upomuw an socieo ttysh e,c waot uld
understand humans. Ie ths'tsa y wmawe ieth lhut pe uwhst, olf-born; they havoet
s wao otl hvpsgeer ysuo wu nderstand jus tshti ew yth'irae t fighting for.u Wohyen
were bu wooerynre , ma asr pykiebruido to wtwy as hstaocawhs eu o bosvooyeljr e
Werewoff:
grew up and then to come and tell your kinsmen when you Changed that it was time.
s tii tmi den.A
But your relatives — your tribe — are under attack. The enemy chose to assault
them and you at the same time; I guess they hoped to separate you from your tribe so
they could capture you. They always capturef it hey havea chanceA . young
werewolf's worth much mo otrthe em alive than dead.
t. yDk oowesNNoht.any '. t
If you think the guys who came to collect you were bad, you should see the people
— the things — that your relatives are fighting right now. They needed their strongest
to help defend their territory, and they couldn't be sure that a younger one could
reach you in time. So I volunteered.
No, I'm not one of your kin — at least not directly. We might be tribemates, but
that remae ibsn eos stvae win sI. itine hagt re noba usineu ssoesYe. , I am' tvogei ssion
of my own. Everyone has a purpose, and once we get you safely back to your kin, you
can start finding out about yours.
m* A