by Mia Archer
“It’s the kind of thing that’s such a small worry you shouldn’t bother with it. You’re much more likely to get killed in a break-in.”
“Okay, could you please do whatever you need to do? I want to get the hell out of here.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Just as soon as we find a wolf who’s just right.”
“Just right?” I asked.
She pulled open one of the drawers and stared down at the body of a young woman, but she wasn’t a young woman I recognized.
Which could’ve meant she was off in a part of the party I didn’t get to, I’d only been in the front entrance and the kitchen before the shit hit the fan, but still. I’d bet good money she was a werewolf.
“Here we go,” Kirsten said, her face splitting into a grin.
“How do you know this is a good one?” I asked.
“Simple,” Kirsten said. “She’s trying to pretend she’s not breathing.”
“She’s what?” I asked, looking more closely at the girl for some sign her chest was moving.
Then Kirsten did something that was completely at odds with the bad ass werewolf hunting image I’d been cultivating of her over the past day or so. She reached out and started running her fingers lightly along the girls ribs.
I’ll admit I felt a pang of jealousy watching her running her fingers along this girl. For all that the girl looked dead. Though she didn’t look like she was dead for long. No, Kirsten must’ve known what she was doing, because the corpse started to giggle. Which sounded a little off considering she was also starting to transform.
“There we go,” Kirsten said, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and ripping her out of the drawer as hair sprouted all over her body.
It wasn’t nearly as violent as with the other werewolf, but it was still a sight to behold. No sooner had she hooked her arms under the girl’s armpits and started pulling than she started fighting.
It was then that I realized the girl was completely nude. That made sense if she’d, say, been transformed into a werewolf when she was knocked out and brought to the deep freeze.
“Let me go!” the girl shouted, her voice way deeper than it should be. We’re talking she made Bea Arthur sound like a soprano in comparison.
The claws came out. She swiped in the air around Kirsten, but Kirsten held her tight. Then she walked over and slammed the she bitch against one of the drawers that hadn’t been ripped open until she was nice and bruised and bloodied.
“Are you ready to play nice yet?” Kirsten asked.
“Fuck you!” the girl growled.
She turned to me, and I was treated to a mouth filled with pointy teeth and glowing yellow eyes that looked deeply unpleasant.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” she growled.
It sounded like a genuine growl. Like a creature that was about to kill me. It was enough to make me take a step back, because of course you’re going to take an instinctive step back when an alpha predator turns and looks at you and hits you with a growl like that!
Only Kirsten continued to be singularly unconcerned with the threats. Damn. Talk about bad ass!
She whirled the girl around and slammed her against the wall. The werewolf blinked a couple of times and reached a clawed hand out. We’re talking the kind of hand that looked like it could do some serious damage if this bitch actually managed to land a hit, only no sooner had that hand shot out than Kirsten grabbed it and then she was looking at the girl with a sexy little smile.
The smile was sexy on Kirsten, that is. The smile she was getting from the werewolf girl, all full of sharp pointy teeth, was as far from sexy as you could get. She looked like she could really do with a trip to the dentist.
“Tell me what the fuck you’re doing here on my campus,” Kirsten said.
“Fuck you!” the werewolf spat at Kirsten.
The spit landed on her face. Kirsten stared down at that spit, then looked back up to the girl. I was more afraid for the werewolf girl than I was for Kirsten. She’d already shown what she could do to these werewolf motherfuckers when she had half a mind.
She looked like she had more than half a mind right now.
“Do that one more time, and I’m going to end you,” Kirsten growled.
“Go fuck yourself, hunter,” the werewolf said, throwing her head back and laughing.
Of course the whole throwing her head back and laughing thing was ruined when she banged her head against the brick wall, which had her shaking her head in a daze.
Kirsten kept right up with the badassery, too. She pulled her fist back and slammed it against the werewolf’s face once, twice, then three times. After the third time the werewolf finally looked like she was in more of a talking mood than before.
“You’re never going to win,” she hissed. “The plan is already in motion. This isn’t going to be your school for long!”
“That’s interesting,” Kirsten said, nodding like she really was interested in what this crazy werewolf bitch had to say. “The only real question is what the hell you’re doing to make it your campus.”
“You already know what the plan is,” she said. “I heard the two of you talking about your favorite horror movies, well we’re going to make sure this is one basketball game that ends the right way!”
Kirsten cocked her head to the side like she wasn’t quite sure what the werewolf bitch meant by that. I’ve gotta be honest, I had no idea what the fuck she meant either. The only movie I could think of that involved werewolves and basketball was Teen Wolf.
I guess I could understand why werewolves might be pissed off about that movie. It’s not like Michael J. Fox upheld their terrifying reputation looking all cute and cuddly in that movie, but it seemed like an odd reason for them to get pissed off to the point that they were going to take over an entire campus.
“That was impressive hearing us talking about horror movies all the way in the elevator. Someone’s been playing possum for awhile,” Kirsten said.
The werewolf grinned a toothy fanged grin. Like she’d pulled one over on us by listening in on our conversation. I’d also learned that these fuckers could hear way better than I’d thought.
The one two nights back in the nature preserve must’ve really been distracted by its Bambi main course.
“Thanks for the info,” Kirsten said, then she pulled her sword up and did the same thing to this werewolf that she’d done to the other one just moments ago.
“So why do those werewolves get the cutlery treatment, but your friend got a bullet?” I asked.
“Werewolves get the painful way out,” she said, ripping open another drawer looking really pissed off. A hand shot for mer, but she was faster as she slammed the sword home. The hand that’d reached for her twitched, then went limp. “People who didn’t have any say in what they became get the mercy of a bullet to the brain. For now.”
“Right,” I said, standing back and letting her do her thing.
It would appear there was more than one werewolf playing possum waiting on someone to come along and open their drawer so they could surprise the unfortunate bastard.
Only in this case the unfortunate bastard was them since Kirsten was the one opening the door.
When it was done the room was covered in blood. Like it looked like some of the early demo reels from Dragon Age: Origins my brother had shown me when I was way too young to see something like that where everything was covered in blood because apparently that’s what passed for edgy in the far off past of 2009 that seemed so long ago now.
Kirsten stood in the middle of the room covered in blood. She seriously had a major Sissy Spacek vibe going, and I wasn’t sure if I should be disturbed or interested that this look was getting something going with me.
She looked at me, and for a moment I worried she might’ve gotten a little too into the werewolf slaughter. We’re talking she was hitting me with the kind of look that said she was about to do the same to me if I didn’t get the fuck out of the way.
Then she blinked once, and suddenly it was my Kirsten. She shook her head as she looked around, and then she walked over to the doors without another word.
“Okay, so I guess we’re leaving now,” I said, looking at the bloodbath and thinking, not for the first time, how very glad I was that she was on my side.
28
Kirsten
I walked over to the door that’d been locked behind us. I stared around the top of the thing for a moment.
“So how do we get out of here?” Cara asked.
“You might want to stand back,” I said.
“Um, is this the part where you pull out an explosive or something?” she asked. “Because I’m going to have to step through werewolf guts to get to the other side of this room, and I’m not sure…”
“Get back please,” I said.
My voice was quiet, but there must’ve been something about how I said it because Cara nodded and moved back. She grimaced as her feet squelched when she stepped in some werewolf guts, but she got out of the way. I looked over my shoulder at the camera and nodded, and the door started to open.
“Oh,” Cara said. “I mean if you knew a way to open that thing from the inside then all you had to say was…”
She cut off as she saw the big hulking monstrosity waiting on the other side, blood dripping from its fangs and its claws out as its eyes glowed yellow.
It would’ve been a surprise if I wasn’t totally expecting it. That was the problem with werewolves. They weren’t crafty like vampires. They were actually way more predictable. Like your garden variety zombie that was hairier and mostly id driven rather than brains driven.
Which made it easy to figure out their next move. I ducked under the clawed hand that shot out in an attempt to relieve me of my head and shoved my sword out.
The slice landed between the thing’s legs, which is exactly where I’d been aiming, and a moment later the werewolf that’d been about to relieve me of my head let out a pained yelp that turned to a howl as it stumbled back.
“What did you do?” Cara asked, her voice breathless behind me. Whether that was from the terror or from watching me work was anyone’s guess, but I had to admit that it was kinda nice to have an audience.
It was a far cry from what’d happened at the theater a couple nights back, that was for damn sure.
“Don’t feel too bad for him,” I said. “That’s the kind of operation that’ll cost you at least a few hundred dollars at the local vet.”
“I mean we had a free clinic at the Humane Society where I grew up that did it for nothing if you were willing to go there at the right time of the week,” Cara said, giggling as she realized what I’d done.
I punched the werewolf back and shoved the sword down into his heart. Some silver right where his blood was pumping should be enough to keep him from ever getting up again, and on the bright side for the werewolf it wasn’t like he’d have much time to think about what he’d just lost.
I figured that made it a win-win situation for both of us.
I stepped into the room and glared at a werewolf sitting on the edge of the guard’s desk. It was hovering over him with his blood dripping from its fangs, and when it heard me coming into the room it turned to look, its yellow eyes narrowing as it realized it had company.
“That’s right,” I said. “Time to have a little fun! It was awfully nice of you to unlock that door, by the way.”
“I don’t think the wolf was the one who unlocked the door,” Cara whispered.
My eyes went to the guard. He had his hand on a big red button that’d been hidden by a pile of books before. It looked like the last thing he’d done before that werewolf got him was opening the door.
The poor bastard. I’d been sure he was working for the werewolves, but it looked like he was just security trying to keep things on lockdown until he got someone with more authority down here to deal with all the craziness coming his way.
And it’d killed him because the vast werewolf conspiracy got to him first. The poor bastard.
The werewolf on the desk let out a bellowing roar. We’re talking that was the kind of noise that was loud enough they probably heard it in the cafeteria and now they were no doubt looking around wondering what the hell was going and how they could get the hell away from whatever was making that noise.
It was just my luck that I was stuck in the room with the thing making that noise, which meant it was now my responsibility to deal with this furry motherfucker.
I wasn’t in the mood. The thing stepped off the desk, the wood cracking under its claws and its weight as it did so, and I was just so fucking over everything. The last thing I wanted was to deal with another physical fight with one of these motherfuckers.
You wouldn’t think going from drawer to drawer killing the things would take it out of you, but it did. I just wanted to lie down, take a nice nap, and forget about everything.
Only I couldn’t. The ancient TV on the security guard’s desk was tuned to the campus TV station carrying the game tonight. It was just local radio personalities doing some color commentary for the moment, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before the actual game started.
I had a pretty good hunch they were planning something to do with that game, and I was going to do something about it before they got a chance to fuck over the campus, damn it.
So I did an Indiana Jones. The werewolf was about halfway across the tiny room when I raised my gun and fired. The werewolf’s head flew back and its brains splattered against the back wall, then it transformed back into a human now that there wasn’t any blood pumping.
I never had been able to get a good answer out of my dad as to why werewolves did that. It was just one of those things that Hollywood got right. Which made me think there was someone out there in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s who’d survived a werewolf encounter and then translated that into some of the classics of the genre that’d come out around that time.
“Harsh,” Cara said.
“I mean I could’ve asked if it wanted to sit down and have some tea or something if you really wanted me to,” I said.
“No complaints from me,” Cara said.
I walked over to the security guard. The dude had his neck ripped out, and as I got a good look at the werewolf that’d been attacking him I had a pretty good idea of how she’d managed to get so close to him.
The girl was pretty. At least she would’ve been pretty if she didn’t have a hole in her forehead where her brains had been. I also saw the tattered remains of what looked like a very tight tank top and some shorts that would’ve made Daisy Duke blush on the ground next to the desk.
They’d distracted the dude with the sexy, transformed, something they could do very fast, and all he’d been able to do was open the door before the shit hit the fan.
I looked down at the security guard and shook my head. On the one hand I felt bad that he’d died like this, but on the other hand he was the guy who decided to lock me in that room rather than leaving that door open.
If the door had been left open then there was a pretty good chance I would’ve been able to get out here in time to save his ass.
“Poor guy,” Cara said. “All he was trying to do was his job, and he got killed for it.”
“Just remember he also locked us in that room with a bunch of hiding werewolves,” I said. “So don’t feel too bad for him.”
“Fair enough,” Cara said. “So where are we going now?”
I turned and grinned at her.
“The first place we’re going to go is wherever nurses and doctors can get a shower around here,” I said.
“And after that?” Cara asked.
“We’re going to hit the big game, of course!”
Cara looked confused, but whatever. I’d explain along the way.
29
Cara
It didn’t take much time for Kirsten to find a shower for doctors and nurses to clean up in after their shift. It took even less time to clear th
e place out since she was covered head to toe in blood.
Emergency sirens had been going off in the hospital for a little while now. The whole place was going on lock down. I kept glancing out the windows as I listened to the shower, worrying that the cops were going to pull up any moment now.
She was a badass, but there were probably enough cops on campus police force that they could take her down with some difficulty.
“The cops are going to be here any moment now,” I shouted.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Let them come!”
I looked out across campus again. The evening twilight had given way to night. So I was looking for dark shadows moving in that night in addition to the reds and blues that’d let me know Barney Fife was on his way.
I knew werewolves were out there, and looking at all the trees that dotted campus had me a nervous wreck.
I’d never realized how many trees dotted campus until I had to worry that there might be a werewolf behind every one of them. Sitting here in the hospital, one of the highest points around campus aside from the teacher’s college, really drove home that the place looked like a forest from on high, for all that those same trees felt sparse when I was walking through them.
“What if more werewolves come?” I shouted.
“The gun is in my purse,” she said. “You’ve already shown that you know how to use it.”
I glanced at her purse. Then I walked over and pulled the gun out. I didn’t feel a lot more confident having it in my hands, but it was better than nothing.
Even if I was pretty sure the only thing I was going to get if I fired in this enclosed space was a rapid onset case of tinnitus that’d last for however long it took the werewolf I was firing at to kill me. I didn’t hold any illusions about my shooting ability. I knew I’d been lucky last night.
“Almost done,” Kirsten said from inside the shower.
A moment later the water finally stopped and she stepped out, looking gorgeous. I hit her with a goofy grin.