The Account of Dr. Theophilus Pirard, Concerning the Volkulak, 1893

The Account of Dr. Theophilus Pirard, Concerning the Volkulak, 1893

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Peradventure it will come to pass that an unprejudiced person shall read the account I make here, an account of the true history of the curse which came to haunt the distant Ciuluc hills in the troubled year of our Lord 1893; of the manner in which that curse consumed the lives of Christian men and women, destroying their purest and most innocent, and of the divine providence that established me capable of bringing this terror to an end, consigning it to the awful hell which was its origin.

I write this account for one who can speak no longer- a memorial and eulogy of truth to sweet Mariya Mozgovoy, whose life I could not save, though by my righteous vengeance, her tormentor and murderer troubles this world no longer. I further write this account so that posterity will be schooled in the strange science which brings this curse to ceasing, should it break loose once again.

I, Theophilus Pirard, native to Brugge, have spent the greater part of my life and career as an alienist studying and researching strange and exotic superstitions and the allied supernaturalism of primitive peoples. I have fathomed the secret doctrines of spirit-worship, discernible in the mythologies of Europe and abroad, and in the rude dances and chants of foreign peoples still untouched by civilization's light. In Europe, the eastern peoples of Roumania, Bessarabia, and the Bulgarian hinterlands still maintain something of their dark past of spiritism, as do the Hindoos yet further east.

I had taken it upon myself to travel in these lands, and collected many volumes of lore and accounts of preternatural phenomenon, some witnessed only briefly by myself, but the larger bulk second and third-hand accounts of others. Before my recent sojourn into Bessarabia's dense forests, and the curious sequence of events which brought me into the house of the distressed Mozgovoy family and further into soul-imperiling conflict with the curse of the Volkulak- the beast which emerges from a man- I had been skeptical of the claims of savage peoples.

I had been skeptical as a man of science, owing to the irrational and oftentimes morbid states of fascination with animals, heathen gods, and magical tales of wonder held by these children of the world. But no longer; the subject and true events of my present account passes beyond all reason. What I have seen, I cannot un-see.

In the late summer of 1893, I traveled by rail and coach to a remote eastern portion of the Bessarabia district, tucked below the Ciuluc hills. While attending lectures on brain-anatomy in Prague, I was drawn by vague reports of a savage and unknown beast preying on the scattered mills and farmlands of that benighted country, and upon its simple peoples. A brief study of the folklore of the region revealed the expected macabre array of vain-seeming superstitions mingled with tales of demons and the restless departed, but my experience upon arriving at my lodging- a small inn in the village of Strasenia- was out of character with the reputation of the place.

The inn was comfortable and well-arranged, and the innkeeper, one Vasily Mozgovoy, was a superlative and gracious host; he was a well-favored gentleman, blessed with a faithful wife and thriving children, the oldest of which was Mariya. My inquiries into the disturbances of the mysterious creature did not meet with much conversation from my host, but the local priest of the tiny church of Saint Helen and Saint Constantin was more forthcoming, for it was clear that he believed in the demonic thing called "Volkulak" by the gentry.

All of the villages in the lands of those hills had tales of it; what stood out among the tales was the grotesque nature of the beast: a twisted parody of the natural order of creatures, comprised of portions that were beast and others that were man. It went upright, but stooped when it bounded with unnatural speed; it was long of tooth and taloned, equipped with the keen senses of the predator.

The fiend slumbered by day in the form of an innocent man or woman- a hapless carrier of the curse who had no conscious awareness of their fallen state. Those whose bodies and souls housed the cursed Volkulak received it (so it was believed) from the Drazivod, an ancient god or demon of the hills and forests whose beastly emissaries were sent upon the earth to bring God's kingdom and the world of men to ruin. I was aware before this date of legends relating to lycanthropy, from haunts as far apart as Greece and Wales, but never before had I encountered legends which suggested a relationship between some ancient god or spirit, and the beastly marauder of this age. The kindly priest informed me that the Drazivod was to be equated with the devil, thus hastening my understanding.

I was satisfied with the information I had acquired, and happier still to travel about the nearby river-valley on horseback and speak (with the help of the before-mentioned pastor's aid) to the country-folk. I learned further that the Drazivod was a creature of eternal hunger, whose attempts to devour the sun and moon thus explained- to the minds of the simple- both the occurrence of eclipses and the monthly darkening of the lunar body.

The moon, I was further told, being too stony and hard for the Drazivod’s stomach, was slowly regurgitated, but it emerged from his entrails much sullied by his evil, making the full moon the most wicked moon, and the natural time of the Volkulak's emergence. The Volkulak-beast had the power to stalk the world for a week's time beginning with the full moon of any month.

The moon was darkened new when I had arrived, and circumstances were such that no reports of new predation from the beast came to me while I was staying at the inn of the Vozgovoys for a long while. Nevertheless, a dense fog of fear was certainly settled across that countryside, for in the month before my arrival, the Volkulak was blamed for the death of two men found gruesomely slain in lonely fields a few hours distant and south of Strasenia, and for the disappearance of one small child, lost near a thick stand of woods in the same locale.

It was upon the first night of the full moon that I dreamed of a terrible presence pursuing me through a dark and impenetrable forest. The terror of my dream was broken by the scream or cry of some hapless person on the streets outside of the inn. It was a woman's shriek, and though I could see nothing from my window, I pulled on my trousers and coat with desperate speed, racing for egress with nothing more than a lantern in my hands, snatched from a table in the hall outside my door. While I was in haste, I heard a sound from the dark outside that could only be described as an immense dog growling, or a pack of feral dogs arching their backs in unison, such was the strength of the din.

Downstairs, sire Mozgovoy and his wife huddled in terror, along with two other travelers from parts unknown. They bade me stay, not to venture out, for certain death waited in the street, but I was compelled by the pathetic cries for help from the outside. The scientist in me also strained to know the true origin of this fantastical threat.

Outside, the moon was covered by thick clouds, and my lantern gave only a weak illumination. The piteous screams of the woman had gone silent, and I walked in the eerie stillness, straining to fathom my surroundings. As I walked nearly blind, I could describe the shape of a rugged cart in my path, heavily filled with pungent hay alongside a tall building with a single light burning in its upper window. The sound of dripping water or fluid from above encouraged me to lift my lantern and strain through the night to discover the source, and as my eyes climbed higher upon the wall before me, the cloud-shrouded moon suddenly appeared, bathing the world in silver light.

My earthly eyes were not prepared to receive the horror which the moonlight revealed: the torn and savaged body of a woman, her clothing shredded away, exposing gore-stained legs and naked flesh. There she floated in the dark, her head and long dark hair rolling limply as something darker and more massive behind seemed to hold her aloft. The creature which was dangling her from the rooftop was impossible to make out, but undeniably covered in a layer of woolly and matted hair, its head crowned by bat-like arches of fur, not unlike ragged ear-stalks.

The body of the poor woman suddenly moved through the air and collided with my person; I was cast to the ground quite stunned, and my lantern fell alongside. The beast above me sprang wide through the air and landed easily but heavily upon the stones of the road, towering as it stood and released a horrendous and harsh call into the night: a demonic roar that shook the air and made wooden shutters on windows rattle. It then lurched about with fiendish speed and locked yellow eyes upon me, as I struggled in abject horror to clamber away from the bloody remains of its victim. My heart weak with panic, I dove beneath the hay-cart just as the creature struck out at me, causing the cart to tilt and shake, but sparing me for another moment.

I believed at this time that my sojourn upon this earth was finished; the fiend hurled the cart over with ease, exposing me to the moon-filled sky and its towering and terrible form. A sudden commotion of cries from down the street distracted it before it could seize me and make crimson ribbons of my flesh- a large commotion, a man screaming in fear, the sound of feet pounding the stones, and a woman crying out in panic. The beast leaped away from me and towards this new commotion, and there was a loud booming crack, followed by another, followed in a few moments by the dark smell of a discharged firearm. Then only silence.

May the God of my forefathers take mercy on all those affected by the events of that terrible night! For I gathered myself, my innards weak, and gasping for breath, and hurried back towards the inn, only to discover a scene which inspires me to tears as I recall it again, as I have recalled a hundred times since.

Vasily was on his knees, smoldering rifle cast aside, endeavoring to lift his eldest daughter Mariya from the street, and all the while his wife was shrieking, pulling at the girl’s hair and arms, trying to rouse her. Mariya, knowing that her family and tenants would do nothing to aid me in my vain and fatal task, had rushed out into the perilous night to help me- and had fallen victim to the Volkulak’s final predatory assault of that evening. The girl lived, but had been bitten by the monster twice- once deeply on her left arm and more shallowly on the back of her youthful neck. Her dark blood pumped freely in the moonlight, rising like fountains from those fresh wounds as she gazed in shock into the darkness.

Bringing my own knowledge of medicine to bear on the injured girl for the rest of that night, and into the troubled daylight of morning, I staunched the blood-flow and cleaned her injuries, aided by a local herbalist and healer hastily summoned from the corners of the village. The Mozgovoy family was inconsolable, and their dismay at me was plain, for had I not hurried into the night as I had, Mariya would not have felt urged on by her conscience to follow me. But there was more in the girl’s injuries which concerned them and which alarmed the folk-healer: those bitten by the Volkulak, it was believed, sometimes came to harbor their own demon within, and would join in the flesh hungry moon-scourge at some point in the future.

The healer brought fresh boughs and long stems of thorned roses and made from them equal-proportioned crosses to hang over Mariya’s bed, and over all the windows and doors of the inn, and she boiled many strange herbs in mixture to wash the wounds and give Mariya to drink in her weakness and delirium- all attempts to keep the Volkulak-demon spirit at bay in the girl’s blameless soul.

Though at the time I hoped these treatments would yield her salvation, with a heavy heart I report now that they did not. As I stood there, a helpless witness to Mariya lying in the grip of hell and death, I was inspired to an anger and pity that I had never known before. That day, I set out single-mindedly for the destruction of this unnatural foe, whose demonic reality I could not now ignore or consign to mere superstition.

I knew that my time to assay the destruction of this beast would be short; in another night’s passing, the moon had already begun to diminish. In only a handful of days and nights, the fiend would fade away until another lunar cycle had replenished itself. I did not know if it would emerge again forthwith, but owing to the grimness of my surroundings, and weighted down by my unbearable knowledge of the awful reality that lurked under the guise of folklore in this tormented land, I guessed that its reign of crimson mayhem would not cease unless I acted quickly. With the passing of another day, Mariya had sunk further into fever and fugue, and her constant moans of agony seared me to my core.

I spent my days with the local pastor poring over ancient maps of the province and reading all I could on the traditional weaknesses of the beast. I learned of its revulsion to the sign styled by the ancients “Kosuny’s victory emblem”, a cross of equal proportions composed of whitethorn and oak branches or twigs of equal age and thickness. The bark of a lightning-struck tree, well reduced and seethed in the milk of a white cow created a brew that would torment the devil if it were cast upon him. The thorns of roses were anathema to it; but it was the force of elemental fire that could end the Volkulak with the most efficiency, for its cursed frame was most vulnerable to that living, ageless substance of grace and warmth. The accounts varied with regard to its vulnerability to common steel or shot, but agreed that the demon was possessed of preternatural endurance to such things.

I spent my nights roaming about on horseback, armed with a repeating rifle and wearing about my neck the emblem of Kosuny which I speedily made from the boughs of the trees that flanked the doors of the church of Saint Helen and Saint Constantin, both planted on the same blessed feast day by the Patriarch who had consecrated the building a century ago.

A farm near Strasenia was terrorized by the Volkulak on the coming of the next evening; sheep and horses were butchered by the monster, and the son of a farmer had been laid low by the creature’s talons when he boldly moved against it and attempted to dispatch it by rifle shot. A second attack on the following night was north of that ill-fated farm, in a small hamlet below the mountain peak called Kawula by the folk there. With my time even further diminished, I strove to detect a pattern in the beast’s predations. I could only divine from the church maps that the attacks occurred further and further to the north each evening. I inquired as to what was north of Kawula mountain, and was told only a darkly wooded valley, enclosing a small village and the ruins of an old monastery.

The monastery, now just fallen stone walls, was the very first establishment of God in these lands, the first missionary seat of an ancient bishop who carried the sign of the cross from the Christian lands south. With his brave men he faced the tide of heathen darkness in these valleys, where the Volkulak and other monstrosities once walked in greater numbers.

My intuition, perhaps aided by divine providence, directed me to the conclusion that the beast was reaching out to strike at the center of God’s presence in this dark realm. Its rage was reserved for all farms or hamlets that lay on the ancient road reaching north to the old church lands. I resolved to spend the coming night in the village of Kisnau, beneath the hill of the ruined monastery. Taking four large, sturdy branches from the oak and whitethorns of the church, I set my horses’ hooves upon the old dirt road north.

On my journey’s way, I stopped by the farm of the family which had suffered the cruel loss of their son two nights before, and told them of my mission and implored their aid and blessings. The grieving mother and sisters could offer nothing to me but the sadness of their eyes; the father and remaining son showed me the devastation done by the creature and applauded my resolve.

I was heartened to realize that the cows of this farm had not been touched amid the rampage, owing to the presence of a white cow in the herd, a rare blessing in these parts. I pointed this out to the farmer, and as though he was prescient of my next question, he produced two large earthenware pots of boiled milk, created just as my research had told. Though this charmed milk was not able to spare his son, it had spared his family as surely as the presence of the white cow had kept the beast from his cow pasture. Taking a sheepskin full of the milk, I continued on my way.

Mariya had lost all manner of her humanity and become violent and irrational, and needed to be restrained by rope in her bed and sedated by night. A formless and unbreakable darkness was settling on Strasenia and the poor hearts of Mariya’s family, who knew the days left on this earth with their daughter were now short.

I arrived in Kisnau as the sun began its descent to the shades below. I hurriedly endeavored to purchase a young sheep from a local farmer, and rode up to the ruins of the old monastery, which sat brooding over forests that had felt no woodsman’s axe for many generations. Walking into the old sanctuary, now open to the dark gray sky, I took it upon myself to kneel and offer a short prayer before the ruined altar, praying for the mercies of the God of righteous men. With as much mercy and swiftness as I could, I dispatched the sheep, letting its hot blood trickle from its throat all over the mossy altar, and in a long trail back to my waiting horse.

Lashing the bleeding carcass behind my saddle, I rode slowly back to Kisnau, leaving a crimson trail which I knew might lure the monster in only a few hours. An abandoned barn outside of the fields of Kisnau was my objective- here, the contest would be decided. Dragging a few stray but massive bales of hay into the barn, which maintained a solid integrity of structure despite its disuse, I cast the sheep down and rode away to fetch cans of lamp oil and a length of broad-linked chain from the sullen and suspicious folk of the village.

I soaked the bales of hay with oil then set about cutting a shaft into the stomach of the bloodless lamb before me. I filled its body with the birch-boiled milk and then made the slit good again- or as good as I could- with rough thread and a thin white bone-awl.

As the darkness fell outside, I perched on one of the beams above the wooden doors of the barn, my chain and bare knife at hand, rifle slung over my back. A small candle flickered at the end of my concealing beam; I lay as still as death, glancing anxiously outside towards the old monastery towering in the distance, through a well-worn hole in the timber. It seemed to me, as old night towered above, that the distant ruin began to shimmer faintly with its own luminescence.

At length, when the moon achieved mid-sky, a hideous moaning howl broke the strange stillness of the night, silencing what errant birds had dared to sing in the darkness. It began in the west, towards the poor remains of the old home of God, and grew louder and more savage as the beast took up the trail of blood left by me. My heart pounded as the moonlight revealed a great dark shape racing towards the barn in which I sat, my whole body twitching with a nerve-ruining mixture of dread and excitement.

As surely as hell’s vengeance, the stride of the beast carried him into the barn and directly beneath my perch, where it sniffed loudly at the sheep’s carcass, and seized it. Though I could not see what transpired then, I know that the Volkulak must have taken a greedy tear from the sheep’s corpse, and been rewarded with a geyser of the holy milk which seared its mouth and eyes with a terrible vengeance.

I didn’t spare a moment to revel in the symphony of horrible sounds that spewed forth from the dripping maw of the creature; I seized the candle and cast it below upon the bales of hay, and just as the flames burst good into blaze, I dropped to the earth with my knife and chain, landing poorly.

The pains that lanced through the sinews of my leg were not enough to overcome my zeal, nor my fear-laced certainty that the lumbering, shrieking monstrosity who writhed in misery but ten feet from my back would recover to seek vengeance. I dashed to the doors of the barn and dragged them closed. I pulled the chain through the thick metal rings on either door and thrust my knife through the links, as tight as I could manage, just as a great force from within made the doors buckle heavily. The monster shrieked and roared like the entire choir of the abyss- I fought the strong urge to press my hands over my ears to block out even a little of the damnable noise.

The fire inside the barn had now spread to the other hay-bales; the golden light pouring from within, and the thick plumes of smoke forcing their way from the cracks told the story well. I stumbled backwards, unslung my rifle, and began to retreat from the barn. I began desperately praying to the good Christ that the beast would be cowed by the flames and not able to force his way through the wooden walls.

But God in his unknowable wisdom had other plans for this terrible evening; though my heart fluttered with hope as the devilish howls of the beast within became shrieks of pain, the northern wall of the barn exploded and the monster emerged, its eyes full of murder and its stinking hide draped in flames. Swift as a devil, it began to run erratically through the fallow fields for the nearby forest-wall. I got off a wild and panicked shot at it, re-chambered and began running as fast as I could after the beast. The nauseating smell of its burned hair and flesh was everywhere; and though injured, it made a diabolical pace towards the sanctuary of the forest.

I knew I wouldn’t match it before it made the shelter of the grim trees, so I stopped, drew my ragged breath inside me and aimed as carefully as I could, my arm trembling and heart pounding. It was then that I knew God’s grace had finally arrived, for in one strange and peaceful moment, with Mariya’s face in my mind, I knew a calmness which steadied my aim and my shot was true. The beast rolled forward from the impact and struggled to stand.

I ran forward another fourteen paces and lined up a second shot. The beast had stood, but my next bullet shattered the thing’s spine. It fell forward and appeared to try to crawl, making a guttural groan. The fury of the fire in the barn had truly weakened the devil; But still I knew that these bullets of heavy lead would not prevail to end the creature. As it began to rise again, I arrived alongside it and began to smash its skull again and again with my rifle, wielding it as a club.

This was not the end of my struggle; after taking three crushing blows, the beast burst forward with an unexpected surge of strength, barreling into me and throwing me at least ten feet backwards into a thick trough of mud. My bloodstained rifle sailed off into darkness, and the beast lumbered about, confused, looking for my flesh. Its hateful eyes raked over me, lying in the dark, tense but still- and when my moment was good, I let out a cry to regain my courage and dashed to where I hoped my rifle would be. It was as I hoped, and I grasped it sturdily just as the monster reached me. My wild swing was blessed; the creature buckled as its face shattered, and it fell to the ground before me.

I think the toll of the creature’s gruesome burns are what finally brought it to ground; taking the time to fire from instinct range, I discharged all the bullets I had left into the creature’s head and neck, as well as I could see them, till only a tattered ruin remained there. Under the now strong moonlight, I could see that the burned and savaged body of the Volkulak became that of a man- though what face God gave him at birth was long burned and shot away. Neither myself, nor the people of this lonely country would ever know who carried the curse that cost them so dearly.

With the passing of the Volkulak from this world, Mariya’s fits and struggles ceased, but she never regained consciousness enough to speak thereafter- she lay still, her breathing shallow for the three days and nights it took her to finally respire her last. I was there, at her bedside, when her soul fled to God; I slumped back in the chair near her bed and prayed as earnestly as I could that her innocent soul would be in the safekeeping of Heaven, safe from any detestable power that could pursue it to its hurt ever again.

Her final serenity was evident on her face; my own serenity, like that of her parents, would not find us, we feared, for many years to come, if it found us at all.

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I had begun this story many months ago, when I lived in Maine, working with a bright young lady who had emailed me, but we fell out of touch, and I had to re-do the story as a "solo" project, so this one's just by me, Robin. A shame, really, as this IS supposed to be "Co-creation", after all; but such are the realities of our virtual times.