e was sitting in front of his campfire, which he had built in the stone fireplace which was next to the fence that separated the parking area from the campsites. He was taking a well earned break from his busy but mundane job. He had specifically chosen this camp site located in the Wombat State Forest, because of the peace and quiet and the abundance of wildlife. His hobby and passion was photography, his intent was to take as many photographs as he could with his latest acquisition a Nikon Digital Camera. He was a tall good looking young man with longish dark brown hair and blue eyes; he had a good body as he walked a lot and worked out using a home gym. He lived on a property located between Bacchus Marsh and Werribee. The property had been left to him by an elderly aunt, the bulk of the property he had sold to the farmer next door retaining only the original homestead and twenty five acres located near the main road. He was by nature a loner preferring his own company. He did not make friends easily; his only friends were in fact work colleagues. Being shy by nature he avoided as much as possible the work organised social functions. He no longer used the name that he had been born with; he had changed it when he turned eighteen. He had lived with a relative, a cousin who had used the boy as a punching bag any time he felt like it. When he finally left the cousins place, he had previously run away three times, he decided to change his name to erase the memories of the beatings that he had received and the memory of being treated like a slave instead of a member of the family. He sipped his coffee and looked at his surroundings and the camping area, which was being illuminated by the rising full moon. He thought that he saw a dark shape in the tree line at the edge of the camping area, he looked again and he saw a movement in the trees.

          ‘What the hell was that then? It can’t be a bear as they are not native to Australia, so what the hell is it’ he thought watching the dark shape. The shape disappeared from his view and he looked again and the shrugging his shoulders continued to sip his coffee, still scanning the area looking for the mysterious shape. He thought of reports that he had read of the Yeti like creature that had been sighted by bushwalkers in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, he tried to recall the name that the creature had been tagged with, as he knew that the name Yeti referred to the Abominable Snowman of the Himalaya’s. Lighting a smoke he remembered the name the creature had been given was Yowie. “Shit, if I can get a photo of one of them, it will be just awesome” he exclaimed.

          Building up the fire he shrugged deeper into his polar fleece jacket and scanned the campsite looking for the shape as the moon rose higher, illuminating the campsite with a soft light. He saw the shape standing in the trees looking at him. It was panting and he could see it breathing in the cold night air.

          “What in god’s name are you” he asked out loud.

          The creature looked at him and growling softly it stepped forward into the now bright moonlight. He saw it was almost seven feet tall, dark furred and it resembled an upright walking wolf. He watched horrified as the creature came closer growling loudly.

          “You are a werewolf, my god they do exist” he said as the creature stood directly in front of him.

          The werewolf stood still looking at the young man, it appeared to be trying to decide what to do, wether to attack or not. The young man looked at the creature seeing the well muscled body with not an ounce of fat on it; he also saw that the creature was male. He picked up his camera but when he pointed it at the werewolf the creature growled and shook its head, as if to say no photos allowed.

          “So Mr Wolf, you don’t like photos being taken of you, is that it” the young man asked?

          The creature growled loudly and shook its shaggy head, as if he was agreeing with the young man. It then leapt at the young man shredding his jacket and shirt with its sharp claws as it raked the young man’s torso, it also bit into the victims shoulder causing the young man to scream in pain. The werewolf was about to bite into its victim again when it heard someone approaching, so growling in frustration it loped off into the trees. The victim had fainted from the pain and had fallen to the ground next to the fireplace where he lay bleeding from his wounds.

           Just after the ...