- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What's wrong with him?
- Dr. Druten: He's had a fit.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Doctor, you were third in your class. I never went to college. I knew he was having a fit when he started having it.
- [news of a brutal murder spreads rapidly, and causes a large number of men to gather at the scene]
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Who else knows about it?
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: Only Preacher Biggers. I called him after I called you.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What for?
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: Well, I figured somebody oughta tell her brother what happened to her. Preacher Biggers' the only one in Frenchtown that's got a telephone.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Well, we're lucky you ain't got a pocketful of dimes, aren't we?
- Louise Rodanthe: Aaron! Aaron it... it's his dialect! Lu-ka-luk! He's saying Loup-garou! Werewolf! He's saying werewolf! He says I'm his next victim!
- [after Louise has killed her brother who is a werewolf]
- Louise Rodanthe: Oh, Aaron. He knew. He made me fire at him. He knew. The bullets. He must have had them blessed. He must have done that. He knew. Aaron, look.
- [Andrew has returned his human form]
- [the sheriff shows Andrew the locket]
- Andrew Rodanthe: I gave it to her.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: When?
- Andrew Rodanthe: The night she was murdered.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Now, Mr. Rodanthe, maybe I oughtn't to be questioning you in your present condition. Although the doc did say he was gonna send you home tonight. Now, if you don't know what you're saying ...
- Andrew Rodanthe: Oh, I didn't kill the girl, Sheriff, and I know perfectly what I'm saying. I gave her that bit of bright work in return for, uh, certain favors she did me over the past year.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Favors?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Not the kind you're thinking, Sheriff.
- [he groans and lays down in bed]
- Andrew Rodanthe: You ever heard of Seibert's Syndrome? Well, it's an offshoot of blackwater fever, the one form of malaria they don't know anything about, really. And once you got it, you got it forever. And the only time you know you had an attack is when you wake up after it's all over. I've had it for over a year now.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What do you do about it?
- Andrew Rodanthe: You take Trakpyradone. It's the only thing that keeps it under control.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Where do you get that?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Here, at the hospital.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Well, then Doc Druten woulda known about it.
- Andrew Rodanthe: No. Sheriff, I have an interesting aversion to my maladies being paraded around the town, being the subject of gossip in ballrooms in bathrooms. Ellie Burrifor used to bring me the medicine in the evening, a month's supply at a time. And those were the favors she did me. In return for some money and, uh, the night she died, that locket.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Mr. Rodanthe, are you telling me that Ellie brought you some medicine on the night she was murdered?
- Andrew Rodanthe: That's right.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What time?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Oh, between eight and nine o'clock.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What was she wearing?
- Andrew Rodanthe: I don't know. It was a pretty dress, it was, uh, sort of brown, I think with checks. But she wasn't in a pleasant mood that night. She had something on her mind, it seemed like. So I gave the locket to Ellie, saying, "Here, maybe this'll brighten you up a little."
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Did it?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Not noticeably. But she thanked me and I hung, hung it around her neck and closed the catch and then she went away to get murdered.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What'd we do after Ellie left?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Something stupid, Sheriff. Nothing.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Nothing?
- Andrew Rodanthe: I should have gone right back upstairs and taking two of the pills, but I didn't. I just sat there, thinking to myself what a pretty girl Ellie Burrifor was, just sat there thinking. And, um...
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: And?
- Andrew Rodanthe: The next thing I knew I was taking a shower and it was about five o'clock in the morning.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Mr. Rodanthe, when you came home last evening, after hunting, what'd you do then?
- Andrew Rodanthe: I dined with my sister.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: And after that?
- Andrew Rodanthe: I went straight to bed. It tired me out more than I thought, that hunting. So I went to bed early, couldn't have been later than nine. Slept the night.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Without waking?
- Andrew Rodanthe: Straight through to breakfast. And that's when I learned from my sister what had happened in the night to Lawrence Burrifor and your deputy. It was the same person wasn't it, Sheriff? All these murders they've been committed by the same person, haven't they?
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Well, it seems so. If there is a person that can tear iron bars out of a brick wall. Well. Mr. Rodanthe, you don't have to be left handed?
- Andrew Rodanthe: I'm ambidextrous, Sheriff. I can sign my name with both hands at the same time and it would take a handwriting expert to tell you the difference. You know, there've been five of us in my family who inherited that interesting trait from my great great grandfather.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Well, take care of yourself.
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: [opening lines] Oh sweet Jesus! It's Ellie Burrifors, Pa!
- Tom Gurmandy Sr.: Ellie Burr?
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: Ya!
- Tom Gurmandy Sr.: Dead?
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: Ellie dead I think by an hour!
- Tom Gurmandy Sr.: Wild dogs got themselves a taste of human blood! Ain't nobody gonna be safe out on the island! We get together, or they wipe out the island! You go call the sheriff!
- Tom Gurmandy Jr.: Yes Pa!
- Louise Rodanthe: Well?
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: They didn't find him, but they're still at it.
- Louise Rodanthe: Aaron, Aaron, come in here. There's something I want you to see.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What is it?
- [She shows him a book]
- Louise Rodanthe: "Lycanthropy and Lycanthrope-Like Diseases."
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: What's lycanthropy?
- Louise Rodanthe: Werewolves.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: [skeptical] Louise, you don't believe in that...
- Louise Rodanthe: What I believe, what I want to believe is that it's what Andrew said it was, a disease that you can take pills to control. But after what Dr. Druten said and after what happened at the Burrifor house and grandaddy's fits and now this book...
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Let me see.
- [He reads from the book]
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: many diseases resemble lycanthropy and some of its symptoms. These quasi-lycanthropic diseases are relatively harmless and easily controlled by a series of modern drugs.
- Louise Rodanthe: Well, that's what Andrew said it was, those pills.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Lycanthropeia veritum. True lycanthropy may also respond favorably to the same drugs for a time and then the disease develops an immunity to the drug. In true lycanthropy, the victim's yearning for the taste of blood turns him into a most powerful, dangerous and deadly killer. Mythology has it that werewolves are repelled and rendered temporarily harmless by the smell of sulfur. And it is also recorded, though with no scientific basis whatever, that certain person's sensitive, sorcerers, exorcisers of evil, claim to be able to
- Louise Rodanthe: No, no, no. Go on, read it.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: It's mythology. I'm not interested in mythology.
- Louise Rodanthe: Well, I am.
- [She reads from the book]
- Louise Rodanthe: Claim to be able to see the shape of a pentagram in the hand of the werewolf's next victim.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Louise, it's 1972.
- Louise Rodanthe: I heard he looked into Lawrence's hand, just before Andrew killed him.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Well, that's what Sara said, but Sara's superstitious...
- Louise Rodanthe: He just looked into mine!
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Louise, he is your brother.
- Louise Rodanthe: Andrew is a--
- [howling is heard]
- Louise Rodanthe: He's out there.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: He's in the barn. Stay right there.
- [He shuts the windows]
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: Come on. Come on! Stay here, Louise.
- Louise Rodanthe: Aaron, he tore iron bars out of cement.
- Sheriff Aaron Whitaker: And he was born in this house. Maybe he'll have more respect. And after I leave, lock and shutter this door. Then go in there and lock and bolt that door. And don't leave the room. I don't know what I'll do when I find him, but it won't be what they'll do. Now, don't leave the room. Don't answer the door until you hear it's me, Aaron, saying it's me, all right?
- Louise Rodanthe: Aaron. If he has to be killed... Not their way.
- [He leaves and she locks the door]