by Michael Dunn
5
“What time you got there?” Elmer asked Tank. Although there was the large clock on the wall, Elmer had to say something to someone to keep himself sane.
The Sarge looked at his Timex. “Five ’til ten.”
“We’ll wait five more minutes for Jack, then we’ll go.” Ralph said.
“Where the hell is he?” Bruce asked. “He’s never late for a meeting, especially not one like this.”
“I bet his wife grounded him. You know how Dee is,” Tank said, exhaling cigar smoke.
Then they heard noises outside the south wall.
“Tank,” Ralph asked. “What’s going on out there?”
The gunsmith looked out the window toward the up and coming Burger King, then shook his head. “Just some kids joyriding in the bulldozer.”
Tank was ready to go, Jack Keaton or no Jack Keaton. He had silently objected to Ralph taking the lead of this dirty dozen at first, because he was the Sergeant, outranking all the old vets. Yet, he deferred to Ralph, who had a more outgoing personality, and these guys were more apt to taking orders from him, but when the shooting started, Tank knew they would follow him.
“I say we all form a circle and say a prayer,” Ralph suggested.
Corny as it sounded, the men formed a circle, without holding hands, and bowed their heads as Ralph led them in prayer. They believed prayer would cleanse them and make their crusade righteous. In the grace of God, they believed they would be saved, like in the stories of heroic knights they had heard as small children. The monster that was protected by those in the Paradise Trailer Park was their dragon, their witch, and their Grendel. Ralph began.
“Dear Lord, we ask for your protection and guidance in our endeavor to rid our community of the evil that has plagued its sanctity and virtue for decades. Let us be your hand that we would smite the darkness that covets our town. We are your humble servants and your soldiers. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” The men broke away from the circle and took their ready positions.
The old vets heard a wolf howling in the distance, and they tightly gripped their weapons, crowding around each other for support and in fear. Another wolf howled from behind the lodge. Elmer Geitz’s knees were shaking so badly he could no longer stand and hid under the bar. Two more wolves howled and it sounded like a cacophony.
Bruce fell against the wall for support, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as a quake shook his body, hands clenched around his rifle.
“Oh my God, they’ve found us! They’ve fucking found us!”
“Shut the hell up, Rivetts!” Tank growled as he grinned around his cigar, lifting to his feet and readying his gun.
Like a kicked puppy, Bruce obeyed, slinked back into the corner, and held tightly to his Winchester, shaking violently.
As quickly as the howling cacophony started, it ended and the night was once again eerily quiet. The vets waited on edge with quickened heartbeats, and baited breaths, their senses razor sharp. It appeared that instead of them going to find the monster, the monster had come for them.
A knock on the door made everyone jump and the sound of multiple rifles being cocked and aimed at the door was deafening. Everyone stopped because of a collective thought in the old vets’ heads. The knocking on the door was odd, because Jack Keaton would have just walked right in, and Jack was not going to miss this, wife or no wife.
In a deep, mocking baritone, the person behind the door said, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in.”
No one in the lodge recognized the voice, but it sounded like the voice of an adolescent boy.
The voice behind the door changed to an equally absurd, mocking soprano, “Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chins.”
The voice then returned to its laughable baritone, “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll…”
The roar of the bulldozer blared behind the young voice, as the windows of the south wall filled with light. The roar grew louder as some of the men aimed guns towards the windowpanes like scared children hiding behind their parents.
“Blow your fucking house in,” continued the young voice from behind the door as the adjacent wall imploded.
Chapter Five: The Last Stand of the VFW
April 10th, 1971
Belated member Jack Keaton cursed his wife all through his high-speed drive to the lodge and hoped the guys would be still there waiting for him.
Probably not, he thought. Not the way Ralph and Tank wanted to get started.
He had been planning to arrive at least an hour earlier, so he would have time to mentally prepare for what they were going to do and have a few drinks as well, but would his wife let him do that – Nooo!
Jack thought, She knew I was going out tonight with the guys. Why did she have to pick a fight about Suzie’s boyfriend tonight of all nights? It could have waited until tomorrow, then I would’ve been more than happy to argue with her about it tomorrow, just not tonight. Suzie will still have her white trash boyfriend tomorrow, won’t she? Of course, she will. They’ve been together for nine months now and from the way she looks when she gets home, she has no intention of breaking up with him anytime soon. She’s probably seeing that lowborn mongrel just to spite me, showing her independence as an emerging adult who can make her own choices. And Dee always sides with her! Is it a female thing I don’t understand?
Jack knew girls had a thing for the bad boys, but the poor boys? What kind of liberal nonsense was that?
Jack’s hands tightened on the wheel, his top lip curling slightly in frustration.
“‘He’s a real sweet boy, Jack.’” Jack whined in a mocking tone, imitating his wife. “‘He’s not what you think he is.’”
God, he couldn’t wait to get there. He was so riled up by his wife he needed to shoot something.
2
A deafening thunder tore through the stillness of the Moosketeers’ safe haven as the large blade of the bulldozer broke through the South wall, splintering the wood, shattering the glass of the windows, and ripping apart the jukebox.
Two of the vets seated at one of the tables lining the South wall didn’t even have time to react before being caught under the tracks of the bulldozer. Their screams were cut short as the two men were crushed beneath twenty-seven tons of steel. The tracks of the machine stained red as their bones shattered. Two pools of blood stained the hardwood floors. Ralph, Tank, Elmer, Bruce and the others stared motionless, trapped in their horror as surely as deer in the headlights for just a moment while a couple of the other dropped their guns, and dove under the tables for cover.
A high-pitched scream tore through the air as Elmer curled to the ground in a fetal position, concealing himself behind the bar as he cried for his ‘Mommy.’
As terrible and shocking as a wayward bulldozer crashing through the wall might be, the drivers were worse. They were two werewolves, one with thick black fur and one with hazel colored fur. Their heads were like wolves on top of the bodies of large, hairy men with sharp claws. Their eyes, yellow like miniature full moons, stared menacingly at the vets.
At that same time, the cigar fell from Tank Bolin’s mouth, singeing his beer-gut before bouncing to the floor, ripping him from his awestruck trance. He took aim and blasted round after round, hoping to hit the shaded figures driving the bulldozer as he tried to reach cover himself. As Tank fired his brand new M-16 at the bulldozer he thought, Oh my God, Bruce was right. He was fucking right! They really are werewolves!
He fired his shots at nearly the same rate as his heartbeat, blasting through his magazine within two seconds. Bullet conservation had escaped him, his mind focused solely on the adrenaline pumping in his veins as he shot at the heavy steel bulldozer. Each of his rounds missed their mark, bouncing instead off the raised blade, essentially making it a gun-less tank, the mechanical equivalent of Superman. Some bullets buried themselves in the walls while others hit a trio of unfortunate hunters who had not recovered from their shocked state.
Two silhouettes dashed fro
m the bulldozer, one to the left, the other to the right.
Five dead in five seconds. The cacophony of carnage had begun.
3
Bruce, on the other hand, stood frozen in front of the bar, his gun held firmly by his side as he stared up, forcing his eyes to adjust as the dust settled now seeing there was now a third one.
Its massive body appeared, revealing defined muscles that rippled under its white fur, even a tail visible between the tri-jointed legs, revealing its inhuman size. The long snout of the creature was twisted into an almost smile, leading to a pair of burning yellow eyes, staring directly at Bruce after scanning the remains of the Moose Lodge.
The white werewolf’s claws uncurled in front of Rivetts. Bruce, shaking horribly, raised his gun to shoot, before the white wolf slashed into his chest. Bruce screamed and fell to the floor like a discarded paper doll as the skillet sized paw of the fabled ‘Beast of Bestiavir’ collided with his ribcage. The wolf was about to finish Rivetts off, but something caught its eye.
Tank Bolin slapped a fresh clip into his M-16 and brought it to eye level getting the white wolf in its sights. The taunts he heard just seconds earlier,
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me in…”
seared in his brain and he wanted nothing more than to empty every round into the wolf’s body.
As Tank was about to shoot, the wolf saw him and dropped Bruce’s seemingly lifeless body.
Tank and the white wolf locked eyes. The wolf snarled revealing sharp, pointy teeth. Tank squinted as the wolf charged on all fours, then fired. Because the M-16 was new, Tank had not been able to practice with it and assumed it was just like shooting a Thompson submachine gun, which Tank had plenty of practice. It wasn’t. Also, silver bullets didn’t have the same effective destructive power as good old lead bullets, which Tank learned the hard way. His aim was off and he misfired wildly, his bullets lodged into the wall next to the bar above Bruce’s fallen body. When Tank tried to fix his aim, the wolf was too fast and pounced on the old soldier, knocking his gun out of his hands, and then slapped his head off his shoulders.
Six dead in fifteen seconds.
4
As Tank blasted through his rounds, Ralph Mullins tightened his grip on his own Winchester. He staggered backward, pressing his back against the corner of the Moose Lodge, He should have gone on that camping trip with Albert.
What had he been thinking? His wife (and his mistress) had warned him against listening to Bruce.
Ralph kept his back to the far corner and fired off rounds in all directions. All his predeterminations of Divine Glory dissipated and he just wanted to escape this nightmare alive. He believed if he kept firing, the wolves would leave him alone, and it was a good plan until he ran out of shells. Ralph thought the bulldozer crash was a brilliant move. It was a terrifying distraction which trapped them all in one place. He thought whoever planned this ambush was a genius and wished he had that man in his unit back in the day. He also wished that man were on their side at the moment.
Ralph watched as the white werewolf knocked Tank’s head off his shoulders.
“TANK!” Ralph screamed.
He took aim at the white wolf when he saw a hazel haired wolf staring at him. This new wolf snarled, showing sharp, bloody teeth. With the hazel-haired wolf eyeing him, Ralph got scared, dropped his aim off the white wolf and began to panic. The hazel-haired wolf pounced, leaping over his white haired friend, and landing on Ralph Mullins. At over seven-feet-tall and close to five hundred pounds, the wolf crushed the Normandy veteran before its claw and teeth did their job. Ralph’s last thoughts were of his wife and his sons.
5
Desmond Reed, a veteran of Midway and Guadalcanal, stood almost hiding behind the large, wooden bear, and was about to shoot the hazel-haired wolf that was feeding on Ralph, when he heard first, then saw a brown haired wolf man crash through the North wall window. Desmond screamed and ran for the new South wall exit, the one the bulldozer created. The hazel haired wolf chased him, and it wasn’t much of a chase. It leapt on Desmond’s back and took the fleeing soldier down, crushing him in the fall. The hazel haired wolf then feasted on Desmond.
Eight men dead in twenty-five seconds.
6
Elmer Geitz hid behind the bar, sobbing as he heard the final agonizing screams of his dying friends. His eyes were closed, and he gripped the shotgun as tightly as he could, praying that none of this was real, only some very intense nightmare. In a few seconds, he would open his eyes, and the sun would be shining, and it would be time to get up to go to work.
Just a few more seconds, he thought and then he heard a growl that was too close, and then felt the breeze of a missed swipe above his head. Elmer opened his eyes screamed, and then scampered like a rabbit to the opposite corner of the bar.
Elmer looked up and stared in the yellow eyes of the black haired monster on the bar. The wolf snarled, staring down at Elmer, who held the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder, pointing it at the black haired wolf. Elmer was trembling so badly that his aim was all over the place and the best he could hope for was a lucky shot.
“You stay back, you hear?” Elmer pleaded. He wanted it to sound forceful and commanding, but it didn’t come out that way. It came out like a whimper.
Saliva dripped from the black wolf’s mouth and onto the bar.
“I gots silver bullets in here. I do! Lots of ’em!”
The wolf lurched forward, head low, with gleaming yellow eyes, its long sharp teeth bared, and it was growling.
“I’ll shoot you! I swear to God, I’ll…”
The wolf dove on top of Elmer and he screamed, dropping the shotgun. He cried for his “Mommy” before dying.
In less than thirty seconds, the blood bath was over.
7
Bruce Rivetts was suffering through his last agonizing moments of life in silence. The white wolf tore through his chest, not deep enough to kill him instantly, but deep enough for the wound to be mortal. His ending would come as a blessing as the pain proved unbearable, but the process of dying was taking too long.
This whole plan was a cluster-fuck, Bruce thought, but also thought he and his friends were out of their league. These wolves were so fast, so organized, Bruce thought. He wanted death to come, but even more so, he wanted revenge.
There was a bloody and discarded shotgun just beyond Bruce’s fingertips. He inched his hand toward it, but his body was so hard to move, because it was no longer responding to all of his commands. It was also getting very hard to stay awake. He was not sure what he wanted more: the pain to cease, or to take a nap, but first, he was going to get them back. He was determined to get it before dying as he inched his way toward the nearby shotgun. He got a couple fingers on the butt of the shotgun and began wiggling his fingers bringing the gun closer to him.
That’s it, he thought. Just a little bit more. Come on.
Finally, he slid the gun across the blood-slick floor stopping at his ruined chest. He was thankful the blood was still slippery and not yet sticky. When Bruce lifted the gun, he never thought a shotgun could weigh so much. With the last amount of strength he had left, Bruce pointed the gun in the general direction of the congregating wolves and fired.
The black haired werewolf flew backward when the shell exploded in its chest. The wolf hit the East wall, just under the moose head. The moose head slid down the wall and landed on top of Ralph Mullins’ corpse.
The other three wolves growled when their comrade was shot.
Bruce watched as the hair and wolfish features retract into the body of the dying werewolf, and reshaped itself into the body of a dying Hispanic teenager. To Bruce Rivetts, this was the most amazing and horrible thing he would ever see in his quickly dwindling life.
My God, Bruce thought. He was just a kid!
Benny Naschy tried to speak, but he could only take quick shallow breaths as blood bubbled from his mouth then dribbled down his chin. He then closed his eyes forever and slump
ed his body down a little further. The three surviving werewolves stared at Benny’s corpse.
Larry, the hazel-haired werewolf, hovered over his friend’s body, eyes moist and whimpering. He slowly turned his head toward the dying Bruce Rivetts and snarled. Enraged with grief, and suddenly very hungry, Larry morphed from hybrid man-wolf form to regular wolf form and slowly walked toward the expiring and virtually immobile sniper.
“No! Please, God no!” Bruce screamed the best he could.
Larry growled. The wolf bared its long, sharp teeth and dug deeply into Bruce’s throat tearing wildly and madly into his neck. The wolf became frenzied, ripping the dead man apart and began feasting on the fear of the fallen hunter.
“Larry, that’s enough.” Tony, the brown haired werewolf, reverted to his human form and yelled at him. Larry didn’t hear him, so JP, who had been the white werewolf, tackled Larry to get him off Bruce Rivetts’ body. When Larry came back to his senses, he reverted back to his human form.
Once they reverted to their human forms, Tony slugged JP.
JP put a hand to his jaw. “What the hell was that for? I thought I told you to stay in the car.”
Tony seethed, jabbing a finger into JP’s chest. “You said, ‘no killing.’ You said, ‘no one was going to get hurt.’”
“They were coming to kill us,” JP said, rubbing his jaw. “We all knew this. It was self-defense.”
“Since when is a pre-emptive strike self-defense?” Tony asked, horrified. “This is not something Bordeaux would’ve approved of.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“Doesn’t have to know?” Tony asked with exhaustive incredulity. “Are you kidding me? We can’t hide this! In a few hours, everyone in town, in New Mexico, hell, probably the whole country will know about this. This is too big to hide.”
“I did it to protect the community,” JP said, crossing his arms.
“Falling back on patriotism, huh? Just like Goering at Nuremburg.” Tony only knew that because he just finished that chapter in history class.
All JP could do was snarl, and then said, “C’mon, let’s get outta here,”