The Curse of the Were-Lawyer
by luke field
Riiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK.
Riiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK.
The grotesque, repetitive sound of staples being pulled from the corners of legal documents, collated and penetrated with a three-hole punch. This was the daily, monotonous torture that plagued Philip Wolfe, a low-level legal assistant at the law firm Waggner, Marshall & Paul. Sitting at his desk, covered with pillars of paper and manila folders, cast in the sickening green light of fluorescent bulbs, Philip toiled away at this menial task, day in and day out, nine to five…
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK.
The only other sound in this drab office was a frequent, furious yelling, muffled slightly by the door to an opulent corner office. This was the voice of Philip’s boss, Mr. Charles Waggner, Esq., a ruthless corporate lawyer who prowled the corridors of this grey dungeon, armed with a Blackberry and a brown leather valise. Philip both feared and hated Mr. Waggner - feared because of his powerful, unrelenting presence, hated because he was the source of all this torturous, mind-numbing work that he must deal with every day, the sounds of which haunt him even when he goes home…
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK.
It was a Friday and the heaving mound of paper on Philip’s desk seemed particularly overwhelming. Philip hoped and prayed the day would pass without incident so that he could swiftly and silently escape back to his home and luxuriate in the weekend, a brief respite from the manufactured Hell of the work week. Minutes, seconds passed, each slower than the last, until the final hour of the day approached. The end was in sight; Philip allowed himself one moment of joy that he escaped another week relatively unscathed. This moment was shattered, however, when he heard the sound of familiar approaching footsteps, accompanied by the squeaky-squeak of a large metal cart, groaning under the weight of an oppressive load of files. From around the corner it appeared: Mr. Waggner shoving a cart bursting with complaints, affidavits, summonses, and, most terrifying of all, print-outs of electronic mail. With one swift motion, he slid the cart into Philip’s cubicle and continued down the hallway, uttering one sentence as he left the building, a sentence that pierced Philip’s heart like a dagger:
“I need you to stay late and finish these.”
Despair set in as Philip looked at this crushing amount of work that cruelly had been thrust his way. Resigned to his fate, knowing his monotonous existence would be extended well into the night, Philip mindlessly began sifting through this added work, still bathed in the putrid glow of corporate lighting in this now-vacant office.
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK.
Little did Philip know, buried deep in these piles of paper and manila folders, was a single folder different than the rest: pitch black, made of a hard, chitinous shell with undecipherable runes on the front. The numbness pulsated through Philip’s head as the last day’s light faded beyond the horizon and the full moon rose into the night sky. And Philip kept getting closer…
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK…
And closer…
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK…
And closer…
Riiiiiip, shuffle, ka-CHUNK…
Then pain. A single, searing pain on the edge of Philip’s finger. Philip pulled his hand back in shock and saw a small, hair-thin sliver of blood bubbling up from beneath his skin. Philip of course had had paper cuts before; one simply does not handle as much paper as he does without some nicks and cuts. But this one felt different. It was hot and throbbing intensely. Philip looked down at his pile of work, fearing he had gotten blood on one of these precious documents. And that’s when he noticed it: the singular black folder, the cause of this most recent injury. Philip had never seen a folder like this before and its presence there frightened him. Perhaps it was the fatigue of working well into the night, but he got the very brief yet distinct sense that this folder, the one that cut his finger, was permeated with a malevolence reserved strictly for myth and fairy tales, an anthropomorphized evil that was what he imagined settled deep in the core of Mr. Waggner.
A sharp, jabbing pain rocketed up Philip’s arm from his wounded finger; such a wound should not cause this intense a feeling. Sweat beaded on Philip’s forehead and upper lip and he was overcome with a wave of nausea. For fear that he might spill any more of his own bodily fluids on to these precious files, Philip quickly got up and absconded to the men’s room.
Philip stumbled into the bathroom where the cool blue light of the full moon cascaded through the window and onto the tile floor. His heartbeat quickened to an impossible pace and the pain in his arm was so intense, he nearly blacked out. After splashing some water on his face, he looked down at his finger and, surprisingly, the paper cut that had once been there was now gone - no trace of blood, no scab, nothing. Yet the pain only got worse, radiating throughout Philip’s body, as if his skeleton was trying to escape its fleshy prison.
And then it began. Beneath the skin of his palm something began to move. Roiling and bubbling, convulsing in a most unnatural way, until finally…
Riiiiiip…
Two leathery protrusions burst from the palm in his hand, extending against the force of gravity. Growing, growing, mutating, changing its form, Philip screamed out in both shock and anguish. He watched as this unknown force took shape until finally, his fingers twisted round its end: the handle of a brown leather valise.
And then his left hand…
ka-CHUNK…
The bones in his fingers breaking, one by one, melting together, taking the familiar form of a late-model Blackberry phone. The hair on his head, becoming viscous, slicking itself back…
Shuffle…
The skin along his spine, splitting down the middle, sloughing off onto the floor in bloody piles, revealed beneath it not muscle and bone, but a bespoke three-piece Tom Ford suit.
Riiiiiip…
And erupting from his Adam’s apple, a powerful, boldly-striped Giorgio Armani tie, tied in a perfect full Windsor knot, found purchase in the center of his chest, the tip resting at the exact right place slightly below the upper edge of his belt.
Philip was no longer Philip, both in body and mind. He caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror and saw that his formerly schlubby self had been transformed into a heaving, monstrous corporate lawyer. His mind raced with ravenous thoughts of the law: filthy piles of stock certificates, ludicrous, exploitative building contracts, and enough pleadings that could fill a warehouse ten times over. His worst fear realized: he had become what he hated most. Suddenly, Philip felt the urge to run free, pushed by his litigious blood thirst, to find someone, anyone, he could do law stuff to. He scrambled from the bathroom, down the fire stairwell and burst through the emergency exit into the night. An animalistic tunnel-vision set in as he sprinted through the woods behind the Waggner, Marshall and Paul office building, now on the prowl, seeking, looking for his chance. In a small clearing, silhouetted by the full moon, Philip let out one frenzied, bloodcurdling howl:
“I’LL SUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEE!”
Philip was never seen again after that night. Police searched his home after he went missing and found a mess of paper: hastily drawn-up contracts, written in the scrawl of a madman, that were both executed and notarized by Philip, the only signatory on these incoherent documents. The search was called off after a week, and the memory of Philip was quickly forgotten. However, every month, when the moon was at its fullest, locals recounted strange sounds coming from the woods at night and waking to find subpoenas nailed to their doors. And as time passed, the legend of the Were-lawyer began to grow, and mothers would whisper this warning to their children as they drifted off to sleep:
Even a man who’s pure of heart
And says his prayers ‘fore bed
Could become a lawyer under the full moon
Once his contract’s been writ and read.