The department rarely had cause to venture this far, not due to a low crime rate, but because few who lived this far would even think to call, unless there was a fire or a corpse. Even then, folks mostly just took care of it themselves. Trust in government tended to dissipate in direct proportion to degree of isolation.
Hudson did a quick and discreet once-over of his troops’ faces. Dennis was green around the gills, and a little shell-shocked, but at least he was moving his head with the music. Armed, almost laughably with brass knuckles and a hunting knife, it was doubtful he could be counted on for more than helping to get the hostages to the Durango. With luck, he wouldn’t get himself killed.
There was no doubt Pedro would fight and follow orders. The question mark was his focus. His first priority would be protecting Dennis. Hudson didn’t have the luxury of trying to keep the punkers uninvolved. If he tried, they would only set out on their own. As long as the musicians carried their own weight, the entire group had a reasonable chance of success.
“Otto here with you—make that “Oddball” through the Halloween season,” sang-spoke the radio deejay. “Sure beats what they call me around here when I come in a coupla minutes late! Sheesh! You’d think some folks around here were scheduled to change into pumpkins at midnight. Anyhoo, that was Lords of October with “Autumn Fire,” finishing up a “howler hour” of seasonal tunes. I’m right back with tonight’s “trick or trivia” tune from Haunted Hollow’s very own The Chalk Outlines. What ever happened to those kids, I wonder? Last I heard they were on the rise. And then? Nuttin’! Back with that, after these squares pick your pockets.”
Hudson discreetly lowered the volume as he cast a glance in the rearview. The boys were facing away from one another, staring out their windows. Feeling Yoshida’s nervous glance in his direction he tensed against the weight of sudden silence that made it all the more apparent how desolate their location was, how ruined the road was and what it was doing to the department’s SUV.
“Damn this crap,” Hudson said, loud enough for Dennis and Pedro to hear. He cranked the radio back up. “I guess this is the only way I’ll get to hear you dummies doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”
When the song came on—“Freakshow Radio,” a club hit that always got the creepy kids grooving—Hudson sang along in his off-key baritone and got everyone laughing. Then Dennis moved his head, and Pedro air-fingered along with his own chords.
* * * *
Before venturing into the black hole again the boys hyped each other like soldiers heading into a suicide mission, reminding one another that lives depended on them.
They descended into the abyss without hesitation and did not knock at the cracked old door this time. DeShaun tugged the old door latch, and when daunted, gave it a good shoulder bash. It gave easily.
DeShaun stumbled several steps into blackness. “Jeez! It’s a cracker box, dude.”
Stuart expelled a deep breath, his resolve dissipating. “I don’t know, man…”
“Come in, already.” DeShaun, barely visible in the dense dark, waved him forward.
Stuart felt the beginnings of panic at the prospect of stepping into such unknowable, possibly endless black space. He could not seem to make his feet cross the threshold.
DeShaun huffed his exasperation and moved to take Stuart’s wrist. That was when something swept from the murk and covered the bigger boy’s face.
Still immobilized, Stuart spasmed and screamed. It was a sound that a girl would make, a girl younger than Stuart, and it was like a rocket booster driving Stuart back and away from the door, which slammed like a coffin lid.
‘DeShaun!?” Despair rose, shame close behind.
Finding a quick burst of courage, Stuart lunged for the latch and violently shoved at it. He bashed his shoulder into it as he had seen DeShaun do. But it did not move.
Because you are too small. Weak.
“Shut up!” Stuart told his head, as he bashed again, harder. And failed.
Stuart stepped away and away from the door until his back met the rock wall behind him. “DeShaun!”
All he could hear was the lingering echo of the door slamming—and his own squeal of helpless, childish terror.
Stuart tried the door again and again, squinting his inner eye against the sight of the inhuman appendage—rough and brown—that had emerged from the darkness to cover DeShaun’s face.
As small and helpless as he felt, he knew there was no time to shrink into his doubt. His friend was in danger.
* * * *
With Aura pressing a bone-handled butterfly knife against her neck, Jill kept up a constant litany of insults and threats at her captors as they led Candace and her out to the collection of Matilda’s belongings piled in the front yard.
Candace cooperated fully. She offered no expression, and only one cryptic sentence. “We should all leave here, before Everett comes.”
Nico, now bare-chested to prevent the soon-to-be resurrected Ruth from destroying his vest in nymphomaniacal zeal, greeted the captives with a self-assured tilt of his chin and a puff of cigarette smoke, inspecting them like livestock.
“Light it up, Pips.” In minutes the bonfire was well underway, flames eagerly overtaking the furniture, books and knickknacks for which the Fireheads held no regard.
Aura and Pipsqueak roughly shoved Jill against one of a pair of tall planks driven into the ground a few yards from the fire. Pip held her arms behind the board while Aura tied a length of rope around her wrists and waist.
Nico went to Candace, removing his sunglasses for once, to speak to her. “Don’t worry little one. You’ll bleed to death before you burn,” he said. “I ain’t that cruel.”
“When you’re dying,” Candace began, as if she didn’t even hear him, “please remember it’s not his fault, what he is.”
The bikers all laughed, Nico throwing his head back to cast his humor at the sky, as if defying God, or karma.
“You, though,” Nico aimed his cigarette at Jill. “Hell, you’re philanthropist of the year! You get to feed us and clothe my Ruthie. How’s that strike your fancy?”
“Tell your ol’ lady congrats,” snarled Jill. “This is her only chance at ever being anything more than a psycho skank.”
Nico took a quick step toward her, losing only the smallest measure of his icy composure. “I’ll mention it, while she’s riding me like a rodeo champ,” he sneered, “gandering at me with your eyes.”
As he ambled away, Jill smiled at Candace to offer some comfort, some love. The little girl bore a serene expression, eyes closed.
“Crack that book,” Nico told Pipsqueak. “Let’s check our math real quick.”
Aura sidled up to Jill and taunted her with the butterfly knife, whipping it open and closed near her face. “I’ll make you scream like your boyfriend never could, when I start cutting.”
“Oh, you don’t know my boyfriend, bitch.”
“Please don’t hurt my friend,” Candace murmured.
Aura peered at the little girl and saw that she was finally streaming tears.
“Hey!” Pipsqueak called, his finger on a passage in Matilda’s grimoire. “Maybe we oughta use that little pig sticker the silly bitch tried to gank Jiggy with. It has some kinda ritual relevance.”
“Where is it?” Nico asked.
“Still in her, I reckon,” said Jiggy.
“Let’s go.” Nick tossed his cigarette in the fire and headed toward the barn.
Pipsqueak concentrated on the grimoire, referring to the pocket Latin dictionary he had stolen from the library.
Her cocky expression waning, Aura examined the farm, the fire, Candace, and then Pipsqueak. She strode over to Jill and smirked. The petite punker responded by spitting at her. “Oh, you little bitch,” growled the Amazonian marauder. “Maybe you should hear what I’m gonna do with your guts.”
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br /> She strode toward Jill, dodging a flailing kick as she reached to clutch Jill’s chin and push her head back against the post. “Listen good!” Then she leaned in, nose to nose with Jill. “The little girl’s really messed up, ain’t she?”
Jill didn’t understand until Aura drew her face back a few inches. There was genuine concern on her face.
“She’s been through more hell than either of us,” Jill answered through clenched teeth.
“She don’t deserve to die like this.”
Jill didn’t respond. She was far from trusting the towering wolf bitch.
Chapter 24
Hour of the Wolf
There sure is a shortage of so-called capable effing adults around right about now, Stuart thought as he pumped the pedals of his bike, scrolling down an internal list of grown-ups he knew and trusted. It was short.
Panic, helplessness, sadness—Stuart had plenty of experience with these. But not at this level. He could almost adjust to seeing his brother slowly self-destruct. He had no precedent for the sudden terrifying loss of his friend.
“Is every town this freakin’ scary?” he heard himself ask, as wind stroked his sweaty face.
His thoughts kept returning to Bernard Riesling, who was struggling with some sudden separation anxiety of his own.
Stuart cut through Bill Gault’s yard, prepared for the old man’s squeaky back door to open just before an earful of profanities. But they never came. It seemed strange that no one sensed the horrors so very near to them all.
He came to the Riesling house and jumped off his bike, alternately jabbing the doorbell and hammering the door itself until Bernard appeared.
“Stuart? Is everything all right?”
“We gotta talk, Mr. Riesling.” Stuart was already pointing toward the church. “DeShaun. Your wife…”
“Stella?” Bernard’s face grew hopeful, then frightened. He took Stuart by the shoulder and pulled him inside. “What’s going on?”
“Something bad!” Stuart said. “The church. DeShaun got grabbed!”
“Grabbed by who?”
“I don’t know man!” Stuart gulped and pointed toward the church again. “We went up there to show her the stuff!” Stuart gulped air to finish. “Listen. We gotta get back there. Save ’em both before it’s too late.”
“Okay!” Bernard shuffled quickly to the key rack at the door.
“Quick thing,” Stuart said. “You know those mushrooms?”
“Yeah?”
“Any ideas on how to fight, um…mushroom monsters?”
Bernard slowly lowered the keys into his pockets, maintaining eye contact with Stuart, perhaps awaiting the punchline of one truly epic Halloween prank.
“I promise I’m not goofing around here!” Stuart said. “…Sir!”
Bernard contemplated his wedding ring. “We’ll need a few things.” He breezed out of the room and returned a minute later stuffing a flashlight into a backpack.
* * * *
Nico tossed the padlock and key from the barn doors off into the weeds. “Hope you ain’t too rank yet, ol’ biddy!” he called, as he swung the door open.
Jiggy sniffed. “Can’t tell, with all the other weird-ass smells in here.”
The lights did not come on when Nico elbowed the switch. He and Jiggy both sparked their lighters. Matilda’s corpse was not where they had tossed it near the doorway. Bloody spots led several yards into the barn, then stopped.
“She had some gas left in the tank, I guess,” noted Jiggy.
Nico smirked. “Check right, I’ll take left.”
Jiggy raised his lighter as he sidled between a pair of tall steel shelving units filled with jars, pots and boxes. Some of the clear jars reflected his flame in strange ways, as if their contents were phosphorescent. Jiggy picked one up to find dozens of tiny eyes leering out at him. He laughed as he put the jar back. He took two steps and tripped over something.
* * * *
Twilight lingered, yet the canopy of tall trees left the road in full dark.
Piles of leaves filled and obscured the road’s ruts and dips. The jarring irregularities of the terrain multiplied the hunting party’s stress with every inch.
Bravo remained intent, standing rigid and disciplined between the front seats, his nose and gaze adjusting slightly to the right or left as his senses honed in on Candace. No one in the party harbored any doubts that the dog knew exactly where to go. His focus was unlike anything they had ever seen.
Then he pricked up his ears and growled. Not just a deep warning growl, but an alarm. Hudson slowed and unsnapped the holster of his .44.
“Whatcha got, boy?” Pedro whispered, taking up the sawed-off double-barrel he had promised Hudson he would hand over, once the girls were safe.
Dennis slid on his brass knuckles. Engraved with the inscription “PEACE THROUGH PUNK,” they were a gift from a fan.
Yoshida switched on the mounted spotlight and shone it forward as Bravo started barking—not at the road—at the upper edge of the windscreen.
“Son of a—” Pedro jammed the shotgun’s twin barrels against the roof just before a jolting impact crumpled it down several inches.
Bravo’s robust bark was loud, but the screeching, unearthly roar of a much larger canine drowned him out, jangling nerves and reducing seasoned battle reflexes by half.
“Hold on!” Hudson gunned the engine and jerked the wheel to the side. He hoped to use the rutted road to dismount the attacker.
A massive paw, inch-and-a-half talons curving from the fingers, smacked the windshield. Spiderweb cracks spread where the claw tips hooked. The beast on the roof was bracing itself.
“Dammit!” Yoshida raised his personal ten-gauge, which he had often boasted was better than anything in the department’s armory.
Hudson whipped the wheel back and forth, braking hard as he crested a hump.
There was a quick sound of metal shearing and surprised shouts from Dennis and Pedro.
Hudson checked the mirror and saw five black claws gouge through the roof. Pedro placed the shotgun barrel in the middle of the claws.
“Don’t waste the silver!” Hudson shouted.
Dennis punched at the huge talons with his brass knuckles.
Bravo snarled and roared, dashing from window to window to get at it.
Hudson saw another bump in the road and hurtled toward it.
Just before the tires met it, Hudson caught the shine of feral eyes, ahead just a few yards and closing.
A second wolf.
“Holy hell!” Yoshida shoved the ten-gauge at Hudson. The significance was not lost.
“Everybody out!” Yanking up the emergency brake, Hudson opened his door and jumped out, as did Yoshida. Losing their breath to the impact, the men rolled diagonally over sharp rocks and sticks.
“Take the twelve o’clock!” Hudson shouted to Yoshida, pointing to the forward position from which the transformed Hobie was approaching with terrifying speed.
Dennis and Pedro jumped out of the Jeep and spun. “Holy hambones,” murmured Dennis, seeing the giant unearthly predator—Rhino—in its fullness for the first time. It set itself to attack but Bravo had something else in mind. Snarling, he made a cat-like scramble onto the open door and then to the roof, attacking without hesitation.
Hudson had a bead drawn, but stopped short, worried he’d hit Bravo. The skinwalker arced its terrible hooks, but Bravo ducked, then sprang for its hairy throat.
Yoshida fired at the incoming second wolf and missed, throwing up leaves and dirt inches from its quick dashing feet. It veered toward Yoshi and pounced, as the deputy pumped his next shell.
The wolf grasped Bravo in its massive claws and chomped into his neck with bear trap power. But instantly, the monster released the unharmed mastiff with a shrieking yelp and pawed at its snout.
The chain of Jerome Barcroft’s silver St. Christopher medallion, wrapped around Bravo’s collar by Stuart just an hour earlier, burned right through the protective magick of the skinwalker spell, raising smoke from the wolf’s maw.
Bravo charged the distracted lycanthrope, knocking it off the roof to crash at Dennis’s feet. Pedro rushed to reach them.
The Hobie wolf snarled as it slammed against the passenger door, pinning Yoshida between it and the doorway. His weapon was out of position; useless.
Yoshi could only watch as the first monster hit Bravo with a backhand swipe, sending the dog sailing through the air. Bravo yelped as he smashed ribs-first into a tree.
Dennis stamped four quick rabbit punches onto the Rhino wolf’s skull as it tried to stand.
It issued a strange whine and fell again. Dennis raised the knucks. “Silver plated, you stinking mongrel.”
Pedro aimed his double barrel, but the Rhino wolf, recovering quickly, rolled past the big Mexican. Hobie wolf lunged, knocking Pedro’s shotgun flying. The bassist stopped the snarling toothy snout in both hands less than an inch from his face.
Dennis switched the knucks to his left hand as he drew the hunting knife. He hurled it at Rhino, then spun to land a flying punch to Hobie’s lupine skull before the wolf man could bite Yoshida’s face off.
Rhino was distracted long enough for Pedro to toss him off to the side. As he searched for his double barrel, the monster slapped the knife out of its haunch and lunged again. Its teeth sank into Pedro’s calf like a bear trap.
A resounding boom rose above Pedro’s shriek of agony. The wolf man’s ribcage exploded from both sides.
Hudson.
Just a few feet away Dennis raised his arm against the dark wolf’s slashes. The swipes tore through his thick leather jacket and thermal shirt, shredding forearm meat like strawberry jelly.
Free of the monster’s crushing force, Yoshida stepped out from the passenger door and aimed his shotgun.
The dark wolf lashed out and knocked the weapon away—but not before Yoshida pulled the trigger.
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