Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) by James Roy John; Daley Jonathan; Everson James; Maberry Michael; Newman David Niall; Lamio Wilson

to Rayleen Connelly would go down in local history as one o’ my hometown’s worst crimes ever recorded.
    Buck Cooter and his gang ignored Rayleen’s screams for mercy as they drove into the thick, black woods borderin’ Full Moon Falls. In fact, I think her shrieks might’ve been, to them animals’ ears, like high-pitched cheers goadin’ ‘em on.
    They proceeded to have their way with her.
    All six of ‘em.
    Again and again. And again. All night long.
    When they was done, they dumped her on her daddy’s doorstep. Left here lyin’ there like yesterday’s garbage, all bloody, bruised, and barely breathin’.
     
    * * *
     
    That’s not the worst of it, though. Oh, no––
    What them sumbitches did to Rayleen that night was just the beginnin’ o’ her ordeal.
    Ya see, there was somethin’ the citizens o’ Full Moon Falls never knew about Buck Cooter and company.
    We knew they was trouble. No doubt about it. What the old-timers called “bad news.”
    What none of us had known, before that night––was that them bastards wasn’t even human.
    They was a pack. A pack of–– things. Supernatural, hell-spawned creatures that ain’t supposed to exist outside o’ Stephen King books or them cheesy monster movies we all used to love watchin’ over at the Full Moon Drive-In.
    Poor lil’ Rayleen. Nobody deserves what happened to her.
    It shouldn’t have even been possible.
     
    * * *
     
    So––what’s all this got to do with you?
    Oh, I think you know.
    Here––I want you to put the barrel o’ my gun in your mouth.
    Yeah. That’s it. Slow and easy––
    Suck on it. Just like you made her do.
    It took me thirteen long years to find all o’ you. Travellin’ from state to state. From Kentucky––to Tennessee––Georgia––South Carolina.
    The huntin’ skills my daddy taught me when I was younger? They’ve come in purdy handy throughout my quest, as if I have to tell you.
    Some o’ you were already down n’ out, by the time I got to you. Gut-shot in bar brawls, shanked in prison. Livers eaten away by a lifetime o’ hard drinkin’. All that was just fine with me, o’ course, though I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t wish I’d got there sooner, so I could be the one who pulled the trigger, or stuck the blade in and twisted it.
    Funny, though, ain’t it, how every single one o’ your gang survived such confrontations unless they involved silver. Maybe you just barely survived, but you were still alive––
    At least till I came callin’.
    Now––finally––there’s just you. And me. Right back where we first started. I should have known you would never leave Full Moon Falls. You love it here, don’t you? Wouldn’t wanna live anywhere else in the world than here. You’ve got your truck, your trailer, your case o’ Pabst Blue Ribbon, and your black-and-blue wife back home (does she know what you are, I wonder?). This place––this life––it’s all you ever wanted.
    You’re gonna die here too, ya know.
    You’re the last. The last o’ your pack, you piece o’ shit.
    I found you.
     
    * * *
     
    Rayleen couldn’t help what you fuckers did to her. She couldn’t help endin’ up pregnant, with a litter o’ lil’ monsters squirmin’ around inside o’ her belly––yippin’ and whinin’ every time the moon was full––
    You want to know what they did to her, when they was ready to come out?
    There were nine of ‘em.
    Them things ripped her apart.
    They chewed their way right out of her.
     
    * * *
     
    Open wide, Buck.
    Eat my last silver bullet.
    This is for my sister.
     
     
    THE TROJAN PLUSHY
    DAVID BERNSTEIN
     
    The courtroom was silent, the air thick with anticipation, as the foreman stood. The elderly man looked at the judge who was peering over his spectacles awaiting a verdict. All eyes of the room rested on the foreman. He cleared his throat, breaking the room’s silence like a sad drum roll before a dangerous act.
    “We, the jury, find the defendant,