I felt my blood boil and my spine coil. I arched my neck up to the sky, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and ruffle. My fingers cracked and popped like the best, most satisfying knuckle-crack you've ever done, and claws shot out the edges. I had maybe two minutes to realize what was happening--or at least what I thought was happening--and make myself safe, or at least make my kids safe from me. I had no idea how strong I'd be, or if I'd still be smart enough to undo locks, but I did what I could and dragged them into the garage and locked them in the car, then locked the garage, and then hurled myself down into the basement and pushed the worktable in front of the door. I vaguely realized that I couldn't have moved the worktable on my own before, and I wondered if it would be enough to keep me in. It wasn't. I have only fragmented memories of the rest of the night. I remember finding the bag of dog food under the sink and thinking it was the best granola I'd ever eaten. I remember Rex confronting me, stiff-legged. I remember him rolling onto his back and submitting, and I remember deciding not to rip his throat out. Good Rex. Smart Rex. I remember breaking the front porch window and bolting out onto the street to go for a nice run and chase the cars.


Inspiration: "Werewolf, Baby!" - Rob Zombie
Story potential: Medium
Notes: Triggered by, say, an asteroid that only comes close and swings into an accelerating orbit every however often. Instead of the moon. So suddenly there *are* werewolves. Go go gadget mayhem!

On the nights when the full moon is rising, we must all answer to the master's call. His pack will sniff out any who remain in the village. Instead, it is time for us all to gather in the town square, free of silver and fire--though they find it great fun if we bring other weapons. One is chosen to be prey, and then the Wild Hunt pours after him or her. Usually they come back the next day, shaken, maybe injured. Sometimes they never come back at all, and then the death-gold shows up at the door of the person's hut. Very, very rarely, they come back bracketed by two other people from the hunt in their human form, wearing the uniforms of their master. Then they don't stay. They simply say goodbye to their families, write out a will for everything they owned when they crossed over to the hunt, and go. They never hug their wives, never embrace their children. The other ones see to that. I didn't understand until it happened to me. I never would have guessed that I would be one of those who came back to say goodbye.


Inspiration: "Answer to the Master" - Def Leppard (and yes, I'm a bit embarrassed about that)
Story potential: High, which surprises me.
Notes: I thought this was going to be boring until I got to the ones who come back. And I know the character who's speaking--a young village girl who doesn't look like much but was somehow impressive enough on the hunt to be "recruited." Boy howdy, culture shock awaits! From village life to guarding/acting for European royalty? And secret history politics? Maybe. Not sure if I want to do all the history research to really get a secret history going, since I have a crap memory and I'm not a history buff, but anyway...could also just be a world with magic and still all the European political crap to deal with.

The werewolves ran wild over the surface of the planet, always in their skins, never in their more human forms. They howled and mated and killed and formed pack and dominance. The younger ones had never been human, did not even understand the idea of humanity. The older ones had a slow burning anger deep in the back of their skulls, an anger that resurfaced whenever the others came to visit the planet. And so soon, no others did, because all knew what would happen when you landed on the planet of the werewolves. She wouldn't have chosen to land there, if her ship hadn't made a burning wreck of itself going through re-entry. She didn't know that it was a planet of werewolves--that information had been locked and buried under seals that would--

Inspiration: cvalenti saying something about creating planets of werewolves.
Story Potential: Maybe high potential? If so, only because everybody and their sister seems to be able to sell these stories.
Notes: What scared 'em wasn't the wolf form, but the human? And instead of Siberia, they get a planet that always has a full moon. Or almost always. Almost almost always.