Wolf Cowrie is back in his second adventure!
After the events of Sheep's Clothing, Wolf finds himself recruited by the governor of a mining town in the Nebraska Territory to find out what has happened to the mine on which the town depends for its livelihood. Wolf is about to discover the terrifying effects of a curse that causes the dead to rise, hungering for human flesh, thanks to the influence of a wendigo—as well as the healing power of love in the wake of Kimimela's death.
Hungry as a Wolf contains examples of:
- Feed It a Bomb: Wolf's strategy for getting away from the wendigo and taking out the tunnel it's in amounts to shoving a dynamite bundle into its mouth and running out, hollering for Hartford to set it off from outside the mine.
- Gutted Like a Fish: Narrowly avoided in the fight between Wolf and the wendigo—Wolf doesn't get gutted but he gets clawed down his front, and even with his Healing Factor he requires a lot of stitches in the aftermath.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: Wolf uses his Stetson to preserve his modesty when Susannah walks in on him as he's getting out of the bath.
- Hellish Horse: Wolf managed to develop an "understanding" with one of Russeau's horses from the previous novella. He named it Lucifer.
- Made of Iron: Wolf has survived a lot of abuse over the course of his life, thanks to his supernatural healing factor. A brief catalog:In the course of my life, I've been shot, stabbed, hung, dragged behind a horse, buried alive, and tangled with creatures that would give you nightmares.
- Naked First Impression: Susannah walks in on Wolf as he's coming out of the bath, leading to the Hand-or-Object Underwear moment above.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The zombies are called "screamers", as neither zombies nor ghouls are in the common lexicon of the setting.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The screamers:
- Flesh-Eating Zombie: Because of the Wendigo's influence, the screamers constantly hunger for human flesh (and only that).
- Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: The only way to put down a screamer. Wolf gets a screamer's brains all over him in the process of discovering this, thanks to a point-blank shotgun blast.
- Rise from Your Grave: The previous town doctor of Goldwater does this when he reanimates as a screamer.
- Silent Snarker: Lucifer the demon horse might not be able to talk, but he is intelligent enough to communicate his opinions when he has to.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Wolf manages to bury the wendigo with a well-place dynamite charge. And by well-placed, we mean shoved into its mouth.
