"Night Runners" is a French-Canadian tale.

Once upon a time, Jean-Luc and Marie lived in a cottage near the edge of a forest. Life was good for many years.

Then Jean-Luc decided he would no longer attend church.

"You must," Marie begged, "or you will surely be punished, and your punishment will be a terrible thing."

Jean-Luc just laughed. "What sort of punishment will come to me?"

Years passed with no punishment, and so Jean-Luc calmed his wife's fears.

Then one late October night Jean-Luc sat upon the front porch staring out into the night.

"What are you looking at, Jean-Luc?" Marie asked.

When he turned to her, his eyes looked strange somehow. "I'm watching the jack-o'-lanterns," he said. She looked in the direction he pointed.

"Nothing there, my dear," Marie said softly, but Jean-Luc stood up and began to walk toward the dancing light he saw.

"Come back," Marie called, but Jean-Luc walked on as if hypnotized, following the light he saw, for that is how it is sometimes, when the light of the jack-o'-lantern isn't what it seems to be but is, instead, a bewitching light. Those under its spell have no choice but to follow.

Jean-Luc followed the light through the orchard and into the forest, and there the transformation began. Hair sprouted from his arms and legs, chest and chin; claws replaced fingernails; teeth turned to fangs.

Now Jean-Luc realized that he was being punished, turning into a loup garou, a wolf. He cried for his wife, but his voice had become a trembling growl, the call of a ferocious beast, and then he heard the sound of panting nearby and paws pounding through the dirt. In the next moment he was running through the forest, the last in a pack of raging wolves.

Back at home, Marie called for her husband, but the night grew darker, with no sign of him, and soon she fell asleep.

In the morning when Marie walked into the kitchen, there was Jean-Luc, sitting at the table, his eyes ringed with red, but otherwise the same man she loved.

"Where did you go last night?" she asked.

He looked up and scowled. "Do not ask me questions," he said in a tone he had never before used.

That night was the same, and so was the night after that. Each night Jean-Luc vanished, and each morning he was home again, angrier and more silent.

On the fifth night, after Jean-Luc had disappeared, Marie went to put some kindling into the fire, but no kindling remained, and the night was cold.

"I must fetch some," she said as if Jean-Luc were there. Tears came to her eyes; she missed her husband, but there was nothing to do about that.

Marie walked into the fields, knotting the corners of the shawl around her neck to serve as a carrying bag. As she walked she collected twigs and small branches, but she knew she must go to the forest if she hoped to find anything more.

It was late, and dark, and suddenly Marie heard noises behind her. Her heart began to pound. The noises came closer, and with a chill of terror, Marie realized it was a pack of loup garou coming toward her.

Clutching her shawl to her chest, holding the wood she had carefully gathered, she ran as fast as she could.

Now everyone knows forest beasts are faster than humans, and the pack of loup garou was gaining on her. She tripped on a branch but caught herself and ran faster, and when she spied her house in the distance, she gave up on her wood, letting it fall from the shawl. The shawl streamed out behind her as she dashed for the house.

Gasping and panting, Marie had almost reached the yard when all of a sudden the pack veered off in another direction.

Marie slowed to catch her breath just near the house, and then suddenly her heart nearly stopped, for she heard a low growl. She turned to see that one of the loup garou was still following her. His eyes glowed like fiery coals, his fangs were bared, and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up.

That's when she remembered that the only way to free a loup garou from his spell is to spill his blood while he is running. Surely, she thought, this must be Jean-Luc under a spell, punishment for his misdeeds. If only she could spill his blood tonight, she might save him.

She turned to face her attacker, and reached to her side to grab a rake. Just as the loup garou leaped into the air to attack her, she lifted the rake above her head and struck him right between the blazing eyes.

She thought then she would die, for surely he would bite her to death, but even as she struck, the loup garou began to transform, and before it fell to the ground it had turned back into Jean-Luc, with blood streaming from his forehead.

"My husband," she said, "I am so sorry."

Jean-Luc smiled up at her. "No, my dear, you saved me from the spell. Now let us go to pray, and remember: We must never speak of this, or something worse will happen to us."

Jean-Luc was saved, and never again did he look at the light of jack-o'-lanterns, for he understood that many who had been friends were lost still, running with the loup garou.