Graveslinger

by Darren Compton

  She recognized that kind of howl. Drawn out, hoarse, and taunting. Wolves may be rare in Washington these days, but they weren’t unheard of. However, this howl did not come from ordinary wolves. Fiya knew better, and she knew they were near.

  As routine as a soldier waking from their cot to the morning sound of a trumpet, Fiya slid out of the Challenger and pulled her duffle bag from the trunk. She wasn’t concerned about car headlights randomly driving by at this time at night, this deep into the woods catching her naked while changing her clothes.

  The horrible howls continued as she pulled off her oversized comfy sweater. Now, a black Kevlar and Spandex composite-weave long sleeved shirt with a hooded Kevlar jacket adorned her torso. The base of the jacket came down to the bottom of her ribs, leaving her midsection exposed entirely to the form-fitting Kevlar-Spandex shirt. The jacket sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, while the shirt continued to her wrists. It didn’t serve as heavy duty armor, but it proved protective enough against most slashing and piercing attacks, particularly ghoul bites. At worst, ever since she’s sported this attire, she developed bruises from such blows. Before developing a hunting wardrobe, her wounds were numerous.

  A bright magenta inverted V-pattern above her breast line and two symmetrical magenta pinstripes ran down the front of her abdomen. A dark-grey scarf of soft canvas wrapped loosely around her neck. She swapped the baggy linen pants for more form-fitting Kevlar-composite that resembled black denim. She laced up heavy black boots and then rested a fiberglass magenta mask on top of her head as she put on black motorcycle gloves with hard knuckles.

  There were minor scratches on the mask from previous battles, but otherwise, it was a very smooth and sleek surface. It had white lenses over each eye, shaped like thin triangles to appear angry, with black paint trim giving them stylized, sharp eyelashes. It was something she had custom made from a shop that specialized in hockey masks. Though it kept her protected, it wasn’t the most comfortable thing.

  She placed the duffle bag back in the trunk and reached for the guitar case. After opening the latches, the inside revealed not a guitar at all but a beautiful longsword resting diagonally in the case. With a razor-sharp, 33-inch 1060 high-carbon blade, a tactical TPR no-slip grip, and stainless-steel pommel, reaching a full length of 44 inches, it seemed comically huge in Fiya’s hands. Engraved at the base of the blade near the hilt was the KNIV rune, signifying this was an officially blessed weapon of the Knights of the Immortious Venandi against the undead. The very same rune that helped a certain rat identify a specific building the night before.

  “A shame it isn’t silver,” she sighed. She held the blade against her upper back, with the grip above her left shoulder. It snapped to a set of magnets sewn into her vest, which allowed for quicker unsheathing than a standard sword sheath.

  She shut the case and set it back into the trunk. Closing the lid, she lowered the fiberglass mask over her face.

  It howled again.

  And then another. And another. A chorus of cruel howling. The barking that followed had begun to sound more like laughter.

  Thomas and Liama ran through the woods, tired, huffing for breath. Thomas was amazed they hadn’t run across a single person after all this time, and he grew increasingly scared for their lives. Did he just make a really bad judgment on what direction to go? The question kept clouding his mind, but he refused to let Liama know how scared he was.

  They followed some of the roads, hoping to find gas stations, diners, rest stops, or even a ranger station, but the roads only continued snaking for miles with no end in sight. They occasionally left the road to hide in the woods the moment they heard a vehicle drive nearby. Thomas hoped it wouldn’t be one of the unmarked moving vans, but that was exactly what it was every damn time. The vans were searching to reclaim them.

  Earlier in the afternoon, they took a break in the woods for much-needed rest and slept for far longer than expected. The best sleep they had in days, truthfully. Thomas knew he could push himself further, but for Liama, he didn’t want to test how exhausted she could get. As far as he was concerned, she’s already gone through too much for him to continue pushing her.

  They were hungry, almost starving, but they couldn’t concern themselves with that because whatever chased them was even hungrier. The howling woke them, and though they continued to run, the howling continued to follow.

  Another terrible howl.

  “It sounds closer, Daddy!” Liama’s wet eyes watched her surroundings as Thomas led the way through the trees. He actually hoped he could find a road again, but now that he was looking for one, he couldn’t find it.

  “Just a little further, a couple more hills, baby.” He replied as calmly as he could. It wasn’t an empty suggestion: he saw some light reflecting off the hill, like a large pane of glass— before the sun fully set. It could be a ski lodge, a cabin, or a whore house; he didn’t care which if it could provide safe shelter. Any of those places would have a landline or a CB radio for an emergency. At least he believed they should. They could have been there by now had they not stopped to rest. Now it was night, and he feared he had lost sight of the pane of glass.

  Something large leaped in front of their path. Thomas stopped immediately, and he pulled Liama back before she ran into it. It towered above them as it rose from a crouched position, and the moonlight revealed a massive beast. It had the head of a large wolf, but somehow more monstrous, on a muscular body resembling a man but with broader hands and vicious claws for fingertips. It had coarse hair everywhere. Its wide upper chest, shoulders, and trunk bulged with muscles, but its waist was narrow and slender. Its legs did not have the typical human knee, but two primary joints: a stifle and hock, just like a wolf.

  At first glance, they thought it bared its fangs at them like ferocious dogs would, but Thomas quickly realized it was grinning. A twinkle in its bright, luminescent green eyes sent shivers down his spine.

  “Hiya,” it growled. “Where ya off tuh in suchuh hurry?”

  Before they could answer, it swung its hulking claws at Liama, but she dropped to the dirt fast enough to completely dodge it.

  “Oh, my God, they’re real,” Thomas uttered. He froze in place, astonished at the magnificent beast in front of him. He knew the howls didn’t quite sound like real wolves, not like anything in any nature documentary, but he still thought it had been wild dogs or wolves chasing them. Not … whatever these were. He didn’t want to say the word, even though he knew deep down what stood in front of them: a werewolf.

  And it spoke, fueling his hope that this was all just some insane nightmare, and maybe he never even left the cage in the first place.

  “Puh-please don’t hurt us. We didn’t see anything,” he stammered. If it spoke to him, perhaps it would listen? “We don’t want any trouble. W-we just w-want to go home!”

  The beast cocked its head, squinting its nasty green eyes at him, and calmly replied, “But we’re sooooo hungry.”

  Another pair of bright green eyes appeared off to Thomas’ side, announced by the crack of a branch, and a third approached at Liama’s side.

  “Let them tremble,” the one from behind growled. “It makes them more tender.”

  Liama froze as she stared at the claws of the beast in front, and then grabbed her father’s legs. Thomas had begun to crouch, aware they were completely surrounded and ready to shield his baby girl. Soon, Liama cried.

  Before the leading beast could reply, he spasmed. His grin quickly faded.

  SCHUTK! SCKRRRRRRTK!

  It coughed blood, spraying Thomas and the other gawking werewolves.

  “Reb?” one of the other wolves asked, perplexed.

  Thomas ducked to shield Liama from more blood while covering his eyes from the horror, as Reb twisted, and the moonlight revealed a large blade piercing through his torso. Then Reb collapsed to the dirt, with the gaping hole pulsing with blood.

  Liama stared at the hole with amazement as a figure with a black hood and
a magenta mask appeared where Reb the wolfbeast originally stood, casually resting a bloody sword on a shoulder. “Most people come out to the woods at night for some peace and quiet,” Fiya said, “and you buncha lycanthropic assholes sure fucked that up.”

  The other two werewolves snarled into attack mode. Their ears folded back, and they bared their cruelly huge teeth. The coarse hair on their upper backs and neck spiked.

  “We get a bonus body!” one of them cheered as it lunged toward Fiya. Its huge body could absolutely pulverize Fiya’s five-foot-two frame, especially if it crushed her into one of the trees. Even with her custom-made Kevlar-weave materials, her bones could easily shatter on impact.

  Without so much of a turn of her head, Fiya swung the enormous sword with such might that she sliced through the nearest burly forearm.

  Dumbfounded, the werewolf stared down at its paw, now twitching in the dirt, and didn’t see Fiya’s follow-up thrust plunging into its muzzle with a distinct SPLATK!

  Fiya glared through her mask at the remaining werewolf. It hesitated and glanced down toward Thomas and Liama, its intended targets for the night, and grunted back at Fiya.

  Thomas moved his fingers from covering his eyes to see what the hell was going on, amazed they weren’t dead. He saw two hulking, hairy beasts lying on the ground: one violently twitching and the other a lump of furry, bleeding flesh. Then he saw their savior, a small woman with a bloodstained sword, who actually made the sole remaining werewolf stop to think about its next action.

  The beast didn’t linger for long as it returned Fiya’s burning gaze. Its muzzle wrinkled, black lips peeling back. With a short bark, it pounced, leaping over Thomas and Liama with ease, and aimed to grapple Fiya, its claws ready to maul, and its teeth ready to tear into her neck.

  Unfortunately for the beast, Fiya anticipated this maneuver and took a great, slicing swing upward, like a champion golfer making a long drive. She struck the flying werewolf across its neck and upper chest but didn’t kill it.

  Her attack only knocked it off course, smacking into the nearest tree. Its force shook the tree all the way to its top. A loud cracking sound reverberated through the woods, but neither Fiya, Thomas, nor Liama could tell if it came from the tree or the beast’s back.

  Thomas scrambled to his feet as Liama stayed low to the ground, still watching. He was fixed on the werewolf carcasses, while Liama watched Fiya with amazement. Her eyes sparkled.

  Fiya stepped toward the broken beast. It shook as it attempted to lift itself off the ground. It leered at Fiya with its eerie green eye, enraged and gave her a low growl. “You can’t stop …” it spoke, weakly, but before it could finish, Fiya was already in mid-swing and lopped off its head.

  She took a moment to consider what it had to say, wishing she would have had the control to stop on a split hair to let him finish.

  She quickly shook off her regret and turned to face the man and the little girl. Liama appeared on a level of excitement usually seen only on Christmas morning.

  “Thank you,” Thomas said, and then added, “I think?” His eyes were fixed on her bloody sword. The blank expression from her mask didn’t ease his concern, either.

  She seemed to watch him for a moment, not replying to his gratitude. She turned her attention to look around, examining the trees … and the shadows lurking behind the trees. Her lens helped her see better at night than her natural eyes.

  He couldn’t see or hear anything but knowing something else had her focus made him nervous.

  “You need to get out of here,” she said. There was a stern authority to her tone but was slightly muffled by the mask. She didn’t design it for conversation, a rarity for her in the heat of a hunt. Fiya also wasn’t aware of how it sounded to others outside of the mask.

  He watched Fiya put the sword away, snapping it to the magnets on her back with a definitive metallic clink. He marveled at just how strong the magnets must be to hold up a sword that large. He couldn’t help but think that the design was pretty cool.

  “Please, miss,” he begged. “We have nowhere to go, and we have very dangerous people after us.”

  “Those weren’t people,” Fiya replied, pointing at the werewolves.

  “Holy crap,” Liama said, kneeling close to one of the bodies for a closer examination. She was inches away from poking into one of the wounds.

  “Stay away from that, baby!”

  Liama froze and relaxed on her knees, still looking at the broken werewolf body.

  Thomas turned back to Fiya. Though it was a cool night, the man had broken out in feverish sweats. “We just escaped from a place that kept us in cages. We were kidnapped, and not by … these things.”

  Fiya circled around the bodies, monitoring them, saying nothing.

  He continued. “There are others in cages too. I don’t know why we were being held, but the guards were really creepy and smelled like the trash bin outside of a butcher shop.”

  Watching the surroundings again, Fiya had her back turned toward Thomas.

  Thomas felt like he was talking to a cat, totally listening but not giving a damn and going off on its own thing. He took in a deep breath and glanced down at Liama. “We need your help.”

  Fiya turned to him. “I just did.”

  “She’s like, super strong!” Liama cheered to herself.

  Thomas pulled Liama away from attempting to touch the severed arm of the werewolf. “Liama baby, stay away from that! You don’t know what that is.” Then he turned his attention back to Fiya. “You’re clearly a very capable person, and you seem to know what you’re doing, but something weird is going on at this place we were at, and I feel like you are the exact person we needed to run across. We really need your help.”

  “I said you need to get out of here.”

  Fiya’s mask made him nervous again. He felt uneasy, not being able to read any kind of facial expression from her. “What? Why? These things are dead.”

  Sighing under her mask, she spoke slower, and with more volume. “Get ... away ... fast. If you think these things are dead, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. They are WEREWOLVES. Lycanthropes. People who shapeshift, into hairy carnivorous jerk-offs.” She paused again. Condensation built up under the mask, and she felt a mustache of sweat building up, tasting the salt on her lips. “They’re like roaches if you don’t kill them right.”

  “‘Kill them right?” Thomas asked, confused.

  “Silver, Daddy,” Liama added with a beaming smile of pride.

  “What, baby?”

  “Silver. She didn’t kill them with silver.” Liama pointed to Fiya’s sword. “Everyone knows the right way to kill a werewolf is with silver.”

  Fiya looked down at the little girl, impressed, and nodded. “Exactly.” Then she turned her back to Thomas again, looking off into the darkened wilderness that surrounded them. “These things will regenerate, and after enough time has passed, they’ll be on the hunt again. Time is passing right now as you continue to stand here. When they’re back up, you don’t want to be around. Regenerating takes a lot of energy, and if you think they were hungry before …”

  “Jesus.”

  “You need the distance while you can get it. You need to get out of here pronto, amigo.” She just realized this was probably the longest she’s ever spoken to a civilian while she was on duty in a very long time. She already felt exhausted from doing so, and also felt annoyed he didn’t seem to be listening to her instructions.

  Thomas put his hand on Liama’s shoulder, massaging it, ready to embrace her with a big hug. “We’re lost. Leaving us out here alone would be a death sentence.” He paused, gauging a reaction from Fiya. “I don’t think it’s in you to save us from these … monsters, only to leave us stranded in the woods with nowhere to turn to. Let us come with you, for now, at least until we’re far enough off their trail. Maybe drop us off at the nearest city where we can find someone who WILL help us. I beg you.”

  Fiya glanced down at Liama, who looked right back
up at her with infatuated admiration, a look she wasn’t familiar with. Fiya wasn’t in the habit of picking up strays, and as much as she hated hiding what she did from the public eye (corporate policy), she felt even more awkward when the people she helped thanked her. She didn’t hear it often, and she felt like she didn’t deserve it.

  “I can make bullets!” He sounded desperate, more so than before. “Silver ones, ones that could kill these monsters. Silver kills them, right? And I can make them from scratch. We can be useful; we wouldn’t be dead weight. Just please don’t leave us out here.”

  She slumped her shoulders, faltering. With a sigh, she said, “Okay, but keep up. I walk fast.”

  Liama’s eyes lit up.

  “And keep quiet,” Fiya added before Liama would start squealing. She twirled a pointing finger all around the trees, hinting that there could be something else out there watching them. Thomas nodded, and they did as she instructed.

  Something else was out there, watching the three walk away from the bloody werewolf corpses, brushing a branch out of its view with a single clawed hand. Long, black hair draped in front of its face, its thick beard blended into its fur. Hellish green eyes burned with a controlled rage, but it didn’t pursue. Instead, Kael chose to study his prey from a distance ...

  Two decades ago, Little Fiya Ann Pratt Diaz crawled out of bed late one night in the outer suburbs of San Antonio, Texas. She was a small child in baggy pajamas, barefoot, and dark-chocolate hair flowing in waves past her bottom who had a bad habit of being wide awake in the middle of the night. Sometimes she’d sneak down and watch whatever was on television, but, most of the time, she just went down for a snack, or in this case, to finish off a glass of chocolate milk she forgot to finish at dinner. Her parents, Gabriel Pratt and Ana Sophia Diaz, were aware of her nocturnal activities but since she didn’t cause much mayhem, they let most of it slide.

  Sometimes her Papa Gabriel would be up late, too, and she’d get to watch whatever violent, scary movie he was watching that Mama would never let her watch. It was their little secret.