"Something inhuman has come to Tarker's Mills, as unseen as the full moon riding the night sky high above. It is the Werewolf, and there is no more reason for its coming now than there would be for the arrival of cancer, or a psychotic with murder on his mind, or a killer tornado" (Chapter 1, January, p. 14).

"The cycle of the Werewolf has begun" (Chapter 1, January, p. 16).

"Later, no one will be able to say where the sound came from; it was everywhere and nowhere . . . Others hear it as well. One of them is a boy in a wheelchair" (Chapter 3, March, p. 31).

"At school, he has laughed at his schoolmates' fanciful tales of the werewolf they say killed the drifter last month, Stella Randolph the month before, Arnie Westrum the month before that. But he doesn't laugh now. As the moon turns April dusk into a bloody furnace...