The Lunenburg Werewolf by Steve Vernon

Harold and Franklin off whichever direction they turned.
    â€œRun the other way!” Harold screamed.
    â€œWhich other way?” Franklin screamed back.
    In the panic and dizzying confusion of their breakneck run, Harold and Franklin had headed straight to the shore of the dark lake. They looked down into the water and were terrified to see something rising up out of the darkness towards them—something with a goat’s head and a horse’s body and a set of teeth that looked like a mouthful of cutlasses and rusty cleavers.
    â€œThe Bochdan!” the boys screamed out simultaneously. They turned to run, only to find themselves facing the three night hags, who were hovering straight toward them.
    â€œWe’re going to die!”
    And then, as quick as you could say, “snip-snap-gulp,” the Bochdan swallowed the three night hags whole.
    The boys stood there in the darkness, their knees knocking together in a state of pure and total fear. Too scared to run. Too scared to even think of running.
    The Bochdan leaned down and sniffed at Franklin. “Too skinny-thin,” it said in a voice of tombstone and thunder.
    And then it leaned towards Harold. “Go home and grow some more,” the Bochdan told them.
    Which is right around the time those boys started running.

The Quit-Devil
    In the early eighteenth century, the French colonized a small area around a harbour on the northeastern side of Cape Breton. The plan was to use the little settlement as a source of ready coal for their mighty fortress in Louisburg. They named the spot the “Baie de Glace”—the “Bay of Ice”—because they found that the harbour froze over completely every winter.
    By the mid 1940s, Glace Bay, as it became known, had grown into the most heavily populated town in the entire country of Canada. It was a town of coal miners—born storytellers—who told tales of dark deeds that took place in the shadows of the tunnels. Many have these stories have since been lost, but one tale the coal miners of Glace Bay will never forget is the story about a boy named Randy and his daddy’s deal with the Devil.

    Randy’s Daddy
    Randy’s daddy was a coal miner, picked and culled from a long seam of mining men, none of whom knew the meaning of the word “quit.”
    The men had to be built that way. Coal mining was hard, dangerous work and most coal miners died far too young. From father to son, it was a heritage and a legacy that fate poured Glace Bay men into.
    â€œA coal miner is one part owl and one part mole,” Randy’s daddy always told him. “From five in the morning to five at night, he spends his days in darkness rooting for coal at thirty-three cents a ton.”
    Thirty-three cents for every ton of coal mined. Less the cost of oil, powder, and timber. Less rent of a dollar-fifty a month. Less a doctor’s fee of forty cents a month. Less a school tax of fifteen cents a month. Less a payment of thirty cents to the man who kept the tally. Less a little more for sundries and the like. Eating cost extra. It’s no wonder that coal is the colour of an empty pocket.
    â€œA coal miner is a perverse thing,” Randy’s daddy always told him. “A coal miner is born in the damp cave of his mother’s womb, and then he starts creeping through the dank, wet darkness of the mine, picking and chipping his way down to Lord-knows-where. You’d think a man ought to know better than that.”
    You’d think.
    â€œTip your hat to the foreman, but trust the poor bare-arsed bugger who stoops and sweats at your side,” Randy’s daddy told him. “Trust the man who tells you where to get off when you’ve gone too far. Trust the man who curses in your face rather than the gentleman you must be polite to for fear of losing a living.”
    â€œIs that true?” Randy asked his daddy.
    â€œIt is a true-as-bone fact,” Randy’s