Haitian Wolf Queen: Uprising!

Dear lord, why am I always besieged by idiots? That's the question I often ask myself these days. Seriously. As the leader of the Pack, I've made numerous sacrifices for the well-being of those who depend on me. It seems that lately, all we do is fighting. The internecine wars between rival Packs have claimed many lives. I seriously wish my people would stop fighting one another but trying to get them to play nice with one another is like herding cats. That is simply the way of our people. Honestly, I think it's something in our blood and we cannot change.

In case you're wondering who in hell this is, the name is Rachel Etienne-Julien, and I was born in the Republic of Haiti on July 4, 1894. As I write these words, I am in New Orleans, Louisiana, with my husband Miguel Julien in the townhouse we've lived in for the past decade. Our oldest son Arthur lives in Montreal, Quebec, and he's the leader of a fast-growing network of our brethren down there. Or should I say up there since it's the great white north? Anyhow, he recently married a young Nigerian woman he met over there. Her name is Odile Adewale and she is of our blood, and one of us. It is my hope that she will tame my son's raging spirit and that he will settle down into a quiet life thanks to marriage and upcoming fatherhood. It seems that he inherited my fierce temper, which was forged in the darkest of times.

In 1915 I was twenty one years old, the year the island of Haiti got invaded by the American military, and the year I became what I am today. While wandering in the vast fields near the town of Cap-Haitien on the north side of the island, I was attacked by a ravenous beast that resembled a large wolf. Well, it wasn't a wolf. Rather, it was an ancient creature that was old when the human species was new. The beast's side changed me, and from that moment on, I've never been the same. Indeed, I stopped aging the day the beast bit me. And that wasn't all. I changed in other ways too. I've become stronger and faster, with sharper senses. And I've also developed the ability to sense in others that which changed me into what I am today.

You see, in ancient times, all kinds of primordial beasts walked the earth and preyed upon mankind. One of those primordial beasts was the ancestor of the creature that bit me and turned me into something half human and half lupine. As a superhuman creature of awesome power, I have nothing to fear except others of my kind. You see, we aren't people turned into wolf-like beasts by the light of the moon. Rather, we simply become what we've always been. Most people die as a result of being bitten by the beast. Only a select few are changed into something else.

Those who make the cut get to become what I've become. We have so many names. Native Americans call us Skin Walkers. To the ancient Norse, we were the Berserkers of legend. People around the world have encountered my kind and learned to fear us for our strength and ferocity. The names that seem to stick to us is Werewolf or Lycanthrope. I've been called worse, to be sure. When most people look at me, they see a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned and curvy young woman of Afro-Caribbean descent. I don't look a day over twenty, and that's how I'll always look until the end of time or until someone or something comes along and kills me. You stop aging physiologically the day you become one of us. Superhuman strength and speed, keen senses and the ability to become a lupine beast when sufficiently provoked, those are the gifts and curses that come with being what we are.

After the beast bit me, I returned home, and since I didn't understand what had happened to me, I tried to resume my life. I was dating a handsome young man named Miguel Julien back then. He was something else that one. Tall, fit and handsome, with light brown skin, curly black hair and light green eyes. Half black and half Hispanic, born to a Haitian father and Dominican mother. I was in love with Miguel, and I thought we would be together always. When he proposed to me, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I went ahead and married him and I honestly thought everything was going to be alright. You see, the mind can play tricks on you. It can make you believe that some things that are blatantly and obviously real might be a figment of your imagination.

After being bitten by the large wolf-like creature, I was changed. I got stronger and faster, and my senses got sharper. Somehow, I convinced myself that these things weren't happening and I desperately tried to live a normal life. The island of Haiti around 1917 was a tough place to be. Thanks to the actions of invading American troopers, the island was filled with chaos. Many of our young Haitian men died in the fight against American soldiers, for they thought they were fighting a second war of independence. The idea that Europeans might come back to our island and invade us as revenge for our defeating the French colonial forces in 1804 was a grim reality in the minds of many Haitians for generations. So, with my people in turmoil, our society shaken to its foundations, and chaos everywhere, I had to deal with the fact that I was slowly losing my humanity to the change happening inside my mind and body. Does that sound like that?

Anyhow, I tried my best to focus on my life. I had just about completed my business administration studies at the prestigious Roi Henri Christophe University in the City of Cap-Haitien, and I was looking for work in the private sector. I saw myself as a secretary in a law firm or perhaps even clerking for a judge in the big cities like Cap-Haitien, Port-De-Paix and Port-Au-Prince. Miguel had recently enrolled at the Academie De Police Du Nord, one of the largest police academies in the entire country. My new husband wanted to be a policeman and I supported him one hundred percent in his dream. I couldn't fathom about what was about to happen to us.

As much as I tried to deny otherwise, I was human no longer. I tried to hide it from all those around me, but eventually the truth came out. It happened one night as I was walking in Cap-Haitien, near College Notre Dame Du Perpetuel Secours, this Catholic school which my younger brother Ernest attended. I'd gone to C.N.D.P.S. to pick up my brother but he'd gone home without me. He was getting to that age when young guys didn't want their sisters or mothers around, smothering them in front of their guy friends. I walked into a darkened street, and came upon a trio of white men in American military uniforms. They looked at me and whistled. In their eyes, I saw lust and hunger. I didn't speak a word of English so I asked them, in Creole and in French, to let me pass in peace. The fools wouldn't listen, and before I knew it, one of them had grabbed me while the others tried to undress me. It seemed they had decided to rape me.

Had I been any other hapless young woman, I'm sure this would have been my fate. Fortunately for me, the beast within chose to manifest itself fully in this most dire of circumstances. In a flash, I wasn't myself anymore. Instead, I became something else. A wolf-like creature covered in shaggy black fur and saw the world through a red haze. A howl escaped my massive jaws and I lashed out with a clawed hand, slitting the throat of a tall, blond-haired and blue-eyed would-be rapist. As his friends looked on in shock, I pounced on them. The second white male soldier suffered a fate even more grisly than his companion, for I ripped his head off his shoulders and blood spurt out of the stump like a crimson geyser. The third G.I. ran, but no human shall ever outrun what I had become. Catching him as easy as can be. I mauled him, tearing him to pieces and leaving his mangled corpse on a tree as a warning.

The deed done, I ran into the night, and didn't stop until I had left Cap-Haitien proper and found myself in the wooded areas near Vertierres, and there I hid until dawn. When morning came, it found me lying on the grass, my dress torn to shreds and covered in blood. And I remembered everything that happened the night before. When I made my way home, Miguel had a fit when he saw me. He embraced me and clutched me in his arms, swearing revenge on the men who touched me. I looked into his eyes, the man I loved, and wept. If only I could have told him the truth! How could I tell him that the woman he loved was an otherworldly monster? I couldn't reveal that to him. He wouldn't believe me and if he did, he'd think me a monster and wouldn't love me anymore. And I needed his love. When Miguel looks at me, I see so much love in his eyes that it makes me melt inside. I'd rather die than to lose that.

The deaths of three American soldiers in Cap-Haitien hadn't gone unnoticed, either by the U.S. Army commanders or the treacherous Haitian politicians who cooperated with them. They doubled their patrols in our towns and villages, invading homes and checking them for 'insurgents'. They desperately wanted to catch whoever had the temerity to challenge American military might and white male power and authority. Little did they know that what they faced wasn't a group of angry Haitian men but a Haitian woman with shape-shifting powers. Quite a few Haitian men got harassed and even beaten during those sweeps that the American military forces did in our cities.

I cursed myself, not for slaughtering my rapists but for causing more trouble for my people. When three innocent young Haitian men got shot by these imperialist goons in Bel-Air, thousands of people took to the streets in protest. We fought against the soldiers, and they fired into the crowd to disperse us, killing several dozen of our men and women. After this, I decided to fight back against these invaders with the only weapon I had. Alone, I am only a woman. The bestial entity inside of me is much more than that. It's stronger and faster than anything human. It can move so fast it makes a striking snake seem slow by comparison. And it shrugs off bullets the way an elephant's hide might shrug off pellets. The beast isn't afraid of any human, whatever their race, gender or nationality. I will use the beast against the enemies of my country.

Understand that Haitian culture is rife with myths and legends from a thousand places. Among us, the myth of the Loup-Garou, a wolf-like entity walking around in human form, is a particularly well-known element of our folklore. My husband Miguel and family members sensed a change in me in recent times but didn't know exactly what was going on. With the American military invasion going on, they had a lot on their minds. The only person who noticed was my grandmother, Granny Michelle, or Mimi as everyone called her. The wise old lady who used to read me stories and tuck me in sensed that I wasn't quite myself, and she sat me down and talked to me. Privately. It's not spoken of aloud but lots of Haitians are involved in the Voodoo faith, and they openly acknowledge the power of supernatural entities. Maybe it's that knowledge which led to Mimi sensing what I was. She told me that my newfound powers were a gift from the Creator of all things, and that it was my duty to use my powers against the enemies of our homeland. With tears in my eyes, I hugged her and promised to do my very best.

Thus I became the nightmare of legend, preying upon the foreign soldiers and inspiring my countrymen to rise against them. Eventually, the U.S. military declared the island of Haiti a lost cause, and decided to leave, but they installed their puppets in the Haitian government to dictate their will to the people. From that moment on they would rule us by proxy because they knew that imposing direct rule upon the first independent black republic in the world, the place where white power was first defeated, isn't a sound idea. They left. Miguel and I resumed our lives. One day, I revealed my true self to my husband and instead of rejecting me, he embraced me. I shared my blood with him, and he became like me. Immortal, and blessed with supernatural strength and speed, along with primordial bestial ferocity.

We shared many happy years on the island of our birth. We traveled to many places in the Caribbean and also in Africa. For decades we used our powers to change the world around us. Wherever the evils of racism and imperialism showed their faces, they were met by a supernatural foe. Us. We were there when the African-American population had a peaceful revolution resulting in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1972, we left the Republic of Haiti for New Orleans, Louisiana, where we've lived ever since. Our son Arthur Julien was born to us in 1974, and he was a great blessing to us. We knew we would have to be careful with him because he's a pureblood wolf-man, unlike Miguel and I are, who are merely half-breeds, transformed humans. Arthur is vastly stronger and faster than us, and although he looks totally human, inside he's less human than us. Raising a superman with a sense of morality and decency isn't easy, but we did it.

So, here we are. Just a couple of long-lived Haitians living in the American metropolis of New Orleans, a place that we now call home. Like this town, we've been through a lot and we're still standing. Over the course of several decades, this country has changed for the better. Progress is a slow process but it is absolutely worthwhile. Even though I still look like a young woman in her twenties, I feel the weight and burdens of my century-plus existence. Miguel and I travel the world like I said before, and we've quietly become legends among our species. Never before have wolf-men and wolf-women used their powers to become a force for social change. While Miguel and I try our best to help those in need around the world, we are wise enough to know that anyone who seeks to rule humanity is doomed to failure. Look at how many great men and women have tried and failed. Both humanity and the wolf-man are the offspring of Mother Africa, and we must coexist. It's best if we're only myths and legends in the minds of many. We're the world's protectors in times of darkness. Angels with fur, if you will. Our protégés don't need to see us.