A blinding bluish light appeared, huge! It roared by with a scream, Jesus Christ! I dove off the pavement shaking, hiding my tail between my legs. I felt how delicate and easy to hurt it would be.
What in the name of god! Big, hurtful loud, and so fast, I had no idea cars were that fast.
I had to cross the road. Cars appeared right there in front of me almost before the sound registered.
I stood close to the edge of the road on the extra pavement and tried to sense them. My eyes weren’t my best thing, just an afterthought. I listened and didn’t hear one coming so I took a chance and ran, dodging, fast, panicked, across the road. An anticlimax. No cars, no horns, no big deal. I picked up the scent and continued. The trail kept to darker areas away from the houses.
Dogs and cats, possums, coons, squirrels, a dim track of two horses screamed at me to follow. I ignored the distractions and stuck with my quarry.
Dangerous, dry and musty, the old dead thing dragged along in bloody rotted hides. Houses huddled close, pavement everywhere, the track stayed off the sidewalks and the pavement. Cars roared by; sudden boiling fumes, loud tires on the pavement, here then gone.
Mists appeared as distant wisps, then surrounding me after a few minutes, dimming the moonlight and muffling sounds. The night grew old, the scents I followed got stronger. I crossed a large expanse of stinking pavement and came to a flat expanse of wall. The dry dead rotting scent clouded one spot like a blanket.
A door, I pushed, there was no give. I stood on my back legs and clawed. My prey moved on the other side. Quick thuds, the door rattled, I jumped back, the door opened.
The hulking mass of stale rotting hide and blood boiled out and slammed me away. I landed on my side in the parking lot and slid and the thing was on me again.
Blinding light appeared with the noise of a car, the monster grabbed me by the skin on my side and picked me up. I bit and caught nasty hard leather. I snarled and shook my head to tear. Filth and hair on my teeth, no blood.
The car screeched to a stop. “What the hell you doin! I’m calling the law, hey!” someone in the car shouted, the door squeaked open. The thing lifted me and ran. My bite slid off.
“Hold up there! Jeff, call the law, that son of a bitch is beatin’ the dog to death.”
The man from the car pounded after us, we moved fast. I got a bite on the arm that held me. This time I had a lot better grip. Dead rot and dead dry meat. I shook my head to tear. Thick, rich, scary blood filled my mouth, shocked my tongue. My mouth puckered, wonderful and horrible at the same time. I was delirious, white noise filled my head, I flew. Sudden impact knocked the air out of me, I hit something soft and moving.
“That bastard!” I was across the chest of the man from the car. He wrapped an arm around me. Trapped, I snapped his arm but didn’t crunch.
“Ok, here now, easy, I ain’t gonna hurt you” speaking in nice, low tones, the man didn’t move his arm in my mouth.
The other man from the car, Jeff, ran up. I growled around the arm, Jeff stopped “Oh hell, you ok?”
The man under me spoke “Yeah, she’s just scared, not bitin’ down. Give her a second to calm down, that bastard beat her, then he throwed ‘er.” easy tones, calming, pleasant.
He lay still under me and pulled gently at the arm in my mouth. I opened my jaws and released him, wary he might grab me.
He placed his other hand on my head between my ears and stroked, moving slow and confident, good got better. He didn’t hurt me or grab me, he wasn’t scared. There was a worked up, excited sense about him, some anger, but he calmed.
He sat up, forcing me into his lap. “She looks ok. She’s got blood on her mouth.”
Jeff said, “I hope she got a bite of him, good for you girl.” He kneeled down, much less of a threat not towering over me.
The man holding me said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. That dude left. She’s a good dog, purebred something. Damn sure big enough to hurt somebody but she’s careful.”
I got off him and checked me out. I had sore spots and my neck hurt but that was all. They coaxed me to the car and invited me to jump in the back, clicking and making encouraging small talk.
Lost, day breaking, I didn’t want to try crossing that road with morning traffic. I had no idea where I was in relation to Carl and Andy. I got in the car. Hopefully we’d go somewhere familiar. I put my head to the window. The driver, not Jeff, noticed. The window whined and rolled down,
“There, that’s better.” I put my head out the window and enjoyed the smells boiling past. I opened my mouth and let the wind suck the heat out of me.
We bumped and slowed down and stopped. They let me out of the car and I explored the unfamiliar place. The first man unlocked the door of the house, disappeared through the door and banged around for a minute. He brought me a metal pot full of water. Thirsty, so very thirsty, I almost choked drinking too fast. He repeated the process, with a chunk of cold, greasy hamburger. Hunger struck me and I wolfed the nasty stuff down, swallowing fast to get done.
“She acts like she’s starved damn near to death, but she looks healthy. No collar. She ain’t no stray, I wonder if that dude stole her?” He talked to reassure me, I didn’t answer. Carl and Andy waited for me. I should worry about that.
“I’m out man, long night. See you this evenin’. Holler if you need me.” Jeff didn’t wait for a reply as he walked away.
“Yeah, see you.” The man told me “I gotta sleep, I don’t want you gettin’ killed in the road. Come on.” He made that fascinating clicking noise with his mouth, held the door open for me and I trotted inside.
He stripped and showered and got ready for bed, walking around naked. Not thinking, when he walked near me I ran my nose into his crotch and identified him. Not a mate, but clean. I caught myself, Jesus Christ, don’t lick!!
He laughed, “That’s just irresistible, huh? I’d like if more girls acted that way. You get me up if you gotta go out, ok?” Not waiting for an answer, he climbed into bed and snuggled in with the TV on. I curled up on the living room couch and waited for him to go to sleep.
The man snored. He choked, gasped, and inhaled, huge rough honking snorts that hurt to listen. He muttered in his sleep.
I reached out to Dirt, formed my image and pulled the trigger to change.
Nothing happened. Inside like this the walls or floor might interfere or block me. I tried to get out. The door beat me. The round doorknob slipped too much in my mouth for me to turn.
Dirt was far off, thin. Another dim presence wanted attention, I reached, a kind of memory, a part of me! I got the jolt I needed to resume my human shape, took the nudge and snapped back sprawled in front of the door.
Now I’d get out… no, that wasn’t what I wanted, I needed a phone. Awkward, I had a hard time swapping back from smell to sight. No house phone. He had to have a phone somewhere. I tiptoed into the bedroom. No need to sneak. The raucous snores vibrated the windows.
I found his shirt and pants in the bathroom chunked carelessly, the phone in a holster on the belt.
Fingers crossed, I called Carl’s number. He picked up on the first ring; I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Carl, this is Rosalee, I’m in a man’s house. He’s asleep. Can you come get me? And bring my clothes?”
“Yeah, been waitin’ on you to call, where are you?”
“Good question. Hang on, I’ll find the address.”
Mail lay on the coffee table. I read the address off a light bill to Carl. He said he’d be right there.
I found a shirt in the dirty clothes that covered me like a dress. I didn’t want to open drawers and shake the place down to find more. Even a heavy sleeper would wake if I made enough noise. I watched out the window, Carl pulled up as I reached for the phone to call him again.
I locked the door behind me when I left, I didn’t want to leave a Good Samaritan to get robbed. Outside was still and dim and foggy, that part of the day just before light. I got in the back at Carl‘
s gesture and we hauled ass.
“Your clothes are in the back. You doin’ ok though if you in there somewhere.”
“I should get this back to the guy who rescued me.” I filled Carl in and put my clothes on, a lot safer with my stuff in my clothes on me.
“Did you find them? What got them?”
“The one I saw is a vampire, I think. The one Andy mentioned, Chen; he wore rotted hides. He had the ghouls. Oh shit, I have no idea how to get there. I tracked and found the place and fought with that thing.”
Putting on pants in the back seat is hard.
“We drove a while to get to the house where you picked me up. Dog ain’t got no sense of where she is.”
Silence filled the car. I thought about what I’d seen, where the vampire was.
“An old, abandoned hotel, one level of rooms, well, maybe two story. I don’t know. In a ‘C’ shape, maybe. Parking lot in front. Right off a main road, old houses. A chain-link fence around a yard on the… right side looking at the front.” It was hopeless but quitting wasn’t an option.
Carl said, “Hey, I know a place like that. Let’s go by there and see if that’s it.” He pulled off the road and turned around. I had no sense of how long the ride with the Good Samaritan took. Fairly quickly we pulled up in front of a boarded up motor hotel.
Carl parked in the lot and I saw scratches on one door.
“Look at the scratch marks! That’s where I tried to get in. We can do this right now, the sun’s up.”
Carl turned the car off. “You sure we want to try this by ourselves?”
I finished fastening my pants. “Just you keep your eyes that way, let me get this done. Yeah, I’m sure, he ought to be asleep, we get the door open and let the ghouls out, we home free.” I scooped up the shotgun, checked; no shells. I scrabbled in my pockets for a couple shells and plugged them in the magazine tube.
“All right, let’s go. I’ll open the door and let them out. We’ll get in the car and leave. If the vamp’s there I’ll shoot it.”
At the hotel door, I twisted the knob and got about a half turn. I heard movement inside. If I turned till I broke the guts it would screw up and leave the door locked.
Carl shoved me out of the way, stuck a crowbar into the door and prized. Cars passed on the road. I moved to hide what he did.
“One more time…” Carl grunted and pried. The door splintered and popped open.
I pushed past him and stepped into the dark stinking room, gun ready. The stench of body waste hit me like a brick, damn near solid.
“Pshew, fuck, that’s bad!” Carl froze in the door and blocked the light. My eyes took too long to adjust to the change. I didn’t want to stand waiting to get hit, I scooted my back along the wall. The two ghouls were misshapen lumps in the dimness, hunkered a couple feet apart against the far wall. No furniture cluttered the room. The old musty carpet was torn, exposing a bare concrete floor. Armando looked… different. Hard to tell what it was in the dim light, something about his arms and legs was off. He raised his head to look at us. Megan lay with her head facing away. Please, not dead, but she didn’t move. They lay in their filth, alone in the room. I ran to Armando to untie him.
A bone jutted out of his thigh, the kneecap on the other leg made a bump under the skin halfway to his ankle. Both arms twisted and hung loose from his shoulders. That evil son of a bitch didn’t need to tie them; he broke them. I didn’t want to touch Armando and cause more agony.
Megan was in as bad a shape or worse. I worried he’d broke her neck; she still hadn’t moved.
I crouched by her. “Megan, I got to touch you. I need to check and see if we can move you. We’ll get you out of here.
She tensed, then trembled and spastically jerked. I heard a little moan. She cried, grunting, little moans. She didn’t know I was there till I spoke.
I looked inside her; her neck was fine. The beating left her with bruises, scratches, fingers broken. And raped, her most sensitive spots torn and abraded. I had to control my rage enough to function and help her.
Carl put his hands on her shoulders while I caught her torso and we turned her face up. A bite on her inner thigh, red and infected looking, seeped blood. Smeared fecal matter and urine stank and oozed. Her wrists were lumpy and her hands dangled; one elbow was bent backwards. He shattered both her knees, pieces of bone pushed out at odd angles. I hoped she’d pass out till we fixed her. How the hell was she even conscious?
We carried her to the car. We jostled and bumped her getting her in. She kept up a high pitched, agonized whining, her teeth clenched and eyes closed. Nobody in the passing cars showed any interest or slowed down.
Armando, heavier, muttered and tried to help.
“Y’all just settle down, we’ll get you fixed.” Dirt was a distant, faint sensation. The concrete and asphalt interfered.
“Hospital’s gonna shit when we show up.” Carl wore a grimace, I sympathized, the unpleasant coating on our hands made me want to gag the cool, distant place in my mind let nothing touch me.
“Hospital… setting bones… IV’s, I don’t know what sort of blood they got, hospital’ll shit if they seen these two. We need someplace out of the way. I can heal them, natural earth, you know the drill. Quicker is better. They’re hurtin’.”
Carl pulled out on the road. Light increased as the sun came up.
I recognized the spot he picked, the creek where we’d faced the magician. I opened my mouth to object. But with nobody else around, bare earth, it was good enough.
Carl pulled out of sight of the highway. Out of the car before he turned it off, I put my hands on Megan and felt for the connection to Dirt.
Dirt came in strong and clear. I looked inside Megan to fix the worse damage. Get her out of her agony and then work on Armando.
Her left leg twisted in the socket. Inflammation swelled the ligaments and tissue between the knob and the socket. She had broken bones and fragments floated in torn tissue. I needed Carl to align bones. She hung on to consciousness. If she’d pass out she wouldn’t experience all this pain.
“Megan, you need to let go. If you can faint or pass out, you can miss part of this. I’ll make it better, but we need to move you. Come on, just let go. Let us have this. Carl. Can you pull that leg straight? Catch it by the ankle and pull, straight as you can. Twist at the same time.”
Carl shook and sweated as he reached past me and caught her by the ankle. He swallowed and leaned against the car but he didn’t turn loose.
“Man, can you do this? We got no choice, they ain’t nobody else to help me. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine this is something else that ain’t that horrible.”
He firmed up a little and squatted down, which set him looking directly at her crotch. He turned his head to the side. “Don’t worry about looking or seeing anything. This so nasty and bad she don’t care and neither do I. Let’s get this done, you ready?”
He jerked his head up and down.
“You tell me when and I’ll pull.” Megan‘s feet hung out of the car, her torso lay on the seat, and she made a high, keening sound. All he had to do was pull on her leg and hold while I patched.
“All right, do it.” I closed my eyes and laid my hands over the hip joint, pulling on Dirt for to set all right.
The energy flowed into me but the healing didn’t happen, energy shunted elsewhere almost as fast as I pulled.
Carl pulled and Megan made a sound I hope I never hear again, a whining groan deep in her throat.
The joint turned the right way. Once aligned, I pressed the bones together with my hands. “Let up now. It’s in position.”
When Carl released the pressure, the ball slotted neatly into the socket and pressed the tissue out of the way. The knee straightened, bone fragments ‘crunched’ on one another, more of a feel than a sound.
I pulled at Dirt hard. I got a trickle of the energy I needed from the torrent. I worked the shattered knee fragments in place with my hands, molded them toge
ther, shouting in my mind, ‘What’s wrong, where is it all going?’
Dirt, a firm, strong presence, projected puzzlement. It had no idea about a problem.
The other presence, familiar and new, joyous and welcoming, made itself known and refilled me. Not the torrent of Dirt but enough. I used that.
Bone knitted, tiny veins restored, small bleeders made whole. I directed her body to dissolve blood clots and absorb them. Tendons knitted to bone, pushed cartilage in place where it resumed its natural shape and thickness. It was like sucking mud through a straw, hellacious effort for just a little reward. Something in me strained to the breaking part, like trying to move an ear, strange, part of me, but unknown.
I looked into the other leg, the knee and ankle mis-aligned and fragments mixed with tissue in the knee. I moved Carl’s hand to her other ankle.
“Pull steady, try not to snatch. Ok, You’re good, we’re done with that leg.” He applied a slow pull and she slipped down a little. She’d never stopped the noise, but at the movement she caught her breath and grunted.
“You hold on, baby, we almost finished, we have these legs done in a second and we fix them arms.” She had to be much older than me, but the ‘baby’ seemed right and natural.
The leg healed, seemed like seconds and we finished.
We moved her to reach her arms and shoulders. We dragged her out by the legs to get her arms and upper body. I dreaded doing that in a far off distant way, but we had to.
“Megan, we have to pull you out to get to your arms. You pass out if you can, this will hurt. Carl, you ready? Let’s get her all the way out and lower her to the ground.”
“Yeah.” He caught her ankles and set himself for the pull.
“Go.” I kept my hand on her leg and diverted the pulses from her arms and shoulders to numb them. She made pain noises, but more normal, god, I should’ve blocked the pain to start with. I grabbed her torso awkwardly as she came out of the car and we lowered her to the ground, patching while we moved. “Carl, straighten this arm out.” I handed him the wrist of the limp appendage, the bone twisted loose like the leg of a rotisserie chicken, hanging. He held it in front of her, leaned against the side of the car and puked. “You got this. Just keep on like you doin’. We over halfway done; just a little bit longer.”
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