Silver bullets were expensive and, for the monster hunter on the street, usually hard to come by. Most used hollowpoints tipped with silver or iron, which were fine for mongrels and half-breeds. But for a purebreed, a wolf to the bone, you needed solid silver and a steady aim. Thanks to one of Nash’s contacts in Roseburg—who’d supplied them with a few boxes of silver ammo, mostly in .308 and 9mm—Red had at least one of the two.
The bullet caught the wolf along the right side of its snout, tearing its way along its head in a spray of blood, taking its right ear off on the way. The creature let out a sound that was half-yelp and half-scream as it toppled out of the window, falling back into the rainy gloom. This happened at much the same time that Red, off-balance and unprepared for the kick of the rifle, fell backwards off the platform.
He lost the rifle halfway down, but it was the ground he was worried about. It hit him a second later, slamming the wind from his lungs. Outside the open doors, he heard the injured werewolf land in the sodden grass.
Red dragged himself up as quickly as he could. The werewolf by the ladder turned, its vicious yellow eyes boring into him. As it began to move Red scrambled to his knees, his hand going to his waistband. He came up with a compact Beretta and opened fire, sending hot silver through the dank air. The first two rounds hit nothing but wood, the second punching a hole through the windscreen of the van.
The werewolf jumped, leaping clear over his head. It landed heavily on the wooden platform above him as he tried to bring the gun around. Wood splintered and cracked and the platform gave way, sending the wolf tumbling back to the ground in a shower of fur and broken wood. Red was already charging for the side door.
He burst out into the pouring rain at a full sprint, making for the house. Wet grass splashed under his boots as he ran, doing his best to see through the rain. Hulking black shapes were moving in from his right, only half-visible in the downpour. They came at a loping gait, eyes flashing, claws spraying up mud as they ran. Red raised his gun, firing sideways in a wild volley as he dashed towards the house. One of the lumbering shapes spun around, crimson splashes arcing through the rain as it fell. The others veered off to the left and right, two of them vanishing around the corner of the house. Red could hear someone screaming above the gunshots, and was only dimly aware that it was him.
His gun ran dry just before he reached the house. He half-jumped, half-fell over the broken porch railing on the south side, throwing his shoulder against the side door and tumbling into the corridor beyond. The door bounced shut behind him as he hit the rough wooden floor.
He immediately rolled onto his back, bringing his gun up to cover the door. It took a moment for him to notice that the slide was still locked back, and he fumbled to eject the spent magazine and load the spare. Hastily chambering a round, he aimed at the door again.
Several long seconds passed, but no wild eyes or snarling fangs came through the door behind him. He stayed put, gun raised, until his frantic breathing had slowed and his heart was no longer trying to crawl out of his mouth. Finally he got up, with some difficulty, trying to keep his gun trained on the door as he moved back down the short corridor he’d found himself in.
He came out in what looked like the front room of the house. A flight of steps led to a landing above, and an archway on his left opened into another hall.
“Nash?” Red lifted a hand to check his headset, and realized that it wasn’t there. Presumably it was somewhere on the floor of the barn, or anywhere on the stretch of muddy grass he’d covered between there and here.
Looking up to check the landing, he made his way towards the archway.
Moses looked up as the last of the gunshots echoed away outside. “Sounds like things are getting hairy out there.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hugo growled.
“Red,” Nash called into his headset. “Red? Was that you?” He waited for an answer, but none came.
Cursing, he dropped to one knee and shoved his gun in Moses’ face. “Okay, we’re getting out of here, and you’re going to lead the way.”
“What about Samson?” Hugo protested.
“Fuck Samson,” Nash replied. “We need to pull out. You,” he said to Moses, “don’t make a sound, and don’t try to wolf out on us. Got that?”
Moses grinned through yellowed teeth. “Couldn’t if I wanted to, boy. Old Moses don’t have it in him any more.”
Hugo laughed a short, desperate laugh. “Old man can’t get it up, huh?”
Nash hauled Moses to his feet. “Move.”
The hallway led to the empty kitchen. Red rounded the corner and stopped, his eyes falling on the body by the stove. Trying not to look too closely, he moved to check the pantry. “Damn it, Nash, where are you?”
He was moving back towards the hallway when he heard the front door collapse.
Nash and Hugo were halfway along the landing, pushing Moses ahead of them, when the front door went. Broken splinters bounced across the floor as a huge grey shape ploughed through, shaking off the collapsing door as it came. Three others followed, claws tearing at the splintered floor.
Hugo turned, startled, and Moses seized the moment, lunging forward to drive both hands into the big man’s back. Hugo pitched forward with a scream, the old railing breaking under his weight. He fell into the room below, hitting the floor in the midst of the werewolves.
One of them came thundering up the stairs, mad yellow eyes fixed on Nash, while the others bore down on the fallen Hugo. Nash raised his Smith & Wesson, firing wildly. The charging werewolf stopped in its tracks, its chest and face splitting open with bullet impacts, before it tumbled back down the stairs. At the same moment the big grey wolf leapt, scrambling up the wall towards the landing. It clambered over the edge and lunged, catching the running Moses with a swinging claw, tearing open his shoulder and hurling him against the wall. As he fell, the beast turned its attention on Nash.
Nash turned and ran, firing his last two rounds. They went wide, striking old wood and crumbling plaster. He hit the door at the end of the landing and stumbled through it, slamming it behind him.
Down on the floor, Hugo got one badly aimed shot off before the shotgun was knocked from his hands and he was pulled to the floor by grasping claws. Blood sprayed the floorboards, his screams and pleas cutting through the air as one of the wolves dragged him back from the stairs, the other one grabbing him around the throat. On the landing, Moses was crawling back towards the bathroom, leaving a trail of blood behind him. The big grey wolf ignored him, moving slowly towards the door where Nash had disappeared.
Nash backed away from the door, loading his spare mag with shaking hands. He could hear the ruckus downstairs, hear Hugo screaming, but it was too late to worry about that. There were three of the damn things still out there, three purebreeds, and he couldn’t…
He stopped, feeling something soft beneath his boot. Looking down, he saw fingers.
He was in a large bedroom, the windows boarded up, most of the furniture gone. There was an old armoire in one corner, and a mattress on the floor with a few pillows and blankets. Lying against the far wall was something that might, once, have been a girl. Nash was standing on her left hand, which was at the other end of the room. Other parts had been carelessly scattered around the floorboards, dark and slick with blood.
From the far corner, Nash heard a low, rumbling growl.
Red rushed down the hallway, approaching the front room with his Beretta in hand. There were two werewolves there, snapping and snarling at each other as they dragged a bloody, broken shape around the floor. Whoever it was, he was still screaming.
One of them saw Red coming and peeled away from the slaughter, charging towards him in a mad rush of hair and fangs and streaming spittle. Red raised the gun, but the galloping beast slammed into him and sent him sprawling back down the hallway. He struggled to get up, half-crawling back to the kitchen, abandoning the Beretta as it slipped from his grasp. Somewhere behind him he heard a final anguished sh
riek, then silence.
Red was almost into the kitchen before the werewolf caught him, tearing his jacket as it bore him to the ground. He scrambled at the floorboards, but the wolf pinned him down with powerful claws, and he felt the hot, wet scrape of its fangs as they closed around his neck.
A shape rose in the darkened corner of the bedroom—a big, burly shape, with a shaved head and tattooed arms, yellow eyes glimmering. Nash took a step back, lifting his boot off the girl’s severed hand as the monster in the corner stepped into the light.
“Samson Clint,” Nash breathed.
Samson smiled, his face criss-crossed with old scars, the dead girl’s blood still staining his teeth. He was covered with it, streaks and splashes of the stuff all over his naked body. “And you are?”
Nash slowly raised the gun, aiming it between the Alpha’s eyes. Despite everything, he managed a smile. “I’m the guy who killed Savage Sa-”
Something slammed against the door from the other side, splintering the wood. Nash turned his head and Samson moved, lunging forward with a snarl. A powerful claw sent the gun flying, taking two of Nash’s fingers with it. He had no time to scream before Samson’s other claw swung up, catching him under the chin, snapping his neck even as it sent him crashing into the wall.
Samson smiled, watching Nash’s corpse flop to the ground. “You don’t say.”
The door burst inwards, falling from its hinges as the big grey werewolf barged through it. Its mad yellow eyes fell on Samson, and it lowered its head with a dangerous growl.
A slow grin spread across Samson’s bloodied face, looking the werewolf up and down. “I know you,” he murmured. “Sheila send you out here? My little angel getting nervous, is she? Sending you little pups to finish me off before I can come back for her?”
The grey wolf took a step forward, baring its fangs. Samson mirrored the motion, his muscles beginning to shift as the change began.
The grey wolf charged.
Red screamed as the wolf dragged him along the floor, sinking its teeth into his neck and shoulder. He felt the flesh tearing, pain shooting through his chest and arm, blood splashing his face. He tried to pull way, shift the thing’s weight off him, but he couldn’t move. Twisting around, he struggled to pull up his right foot, scrambling for the knife in his boot.
The werewolf reeled back and howled as the silver blade slid between its ribs. As its weight lifted off him, Red lunged up off the floor and swing the knife around to catch it in the neck. It tried to fend him off, claws rending down one side of his chest, but he roared and cursed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until its neck was a gory mess of blood and meat and tangled fur.
Dragging himself from under the dying beast, he rose to his feet. His left shoulder was a bloody mess, the arm dangling uselessly by his side. Barely managing to keep his feet under him, he shuffled down the hallway towards the front room. Along the way he stopped, with considerable difficulty, to retrieve his Beretta.
The other werewolf was still in the front room, dragging the bloodied corpse on the floor around, like a cat playing with a dead bird. As Red staggered into the room, the creature turned its head to look at him. One side of its face was heavily scarred, and a bloody ragged stump was all that remained of its right ear.
Looking down through glassy eyes, Red finally recognised the mangled corpse the wolf was playing with. With a faint grimace, he lifted the gun in an unsteady hand.
With a bestial snort the injured wolf rushed at him, and he squeezed the trigger…
The grey wolf hit the bedroom floor in a bloodied heap, not far from what was left of Carina. It tried to rise, pawing at the wall as its mangled throat poured blood on the floor, then it slumped.
Samson stood in the middle of the room, his face cracking and shifting as it returned to its human state. He let out a short, bitter laugh, raising his arms to examine his newest scars. “Not bad, pup,” he said to the bloody grey shape on the floor. “Not good enough.”
Walking to the broken door, he stepped out onto the landing. The floor downstairs was a mess of blood and bodies. At least one of them was human, the others were fallen werewolves, slowly reverting to human form in death. In the middle of the carnage, blood dripping from a mangled arm, stood a grey-faced young man with a sparse beard. Raising his head, the man regarded the Alpha wolf with a dull expression. Then he lifted the gun in his other hand.
Samson dove back into the bedroom as bullets ripped through the wall and door behind him. Finding his feet, he ran the length of the bedroom and jumped, crashing through the flimsy boards covering the south window.
He landed in a sprawl on the wet grass below, rolling in the mud. It was raining harder now, flickers of lightning playing across the horizon.
Samson’s eyes moved to the barn. The van would still be there, unless Sheila’s wolves had destroyed it. He began to move in that direction.
A gunshot rang out, the bullet tearing through the rain to catch Samson in the side. He fell, letting out a bellow of agony as the silver tore and burned his flesh. He rolled onto one side, clutching at the wound, breathing hard and fast as his attacker came into view.
She came from the corner of the house, bare feet padding through the wet grass. She was tall, lithe and naked, rivulets of dirty rainwater running down over her skin. Wet tangled hair hung from her cocked head, hair the colour of arterial blood, clinging to her face. She held a Remington hunting rifle in one hand, the barrel resting over her shoulder.
“Hey, sweetie,” she greeted him with a smile.
Samson blinked through the rain. “I should’ve known,” he spat. “You always liked getting your hands dirty.”
“Didn’t trust the boys to get the job done by themselves,” Sheila replied, with a shrug. “Looks like I was right. Oh, well…” She worked the bolt on the rifle.
“Using a gun, bitch?” Samson said with a sneer.
Sheila grinned, yellow eyes flashing as she aimed the rifle. “You know what a modern girl I am.”
As her finger touched the trigger, the side door of the house slammed open. Sheila turned to see a man with blood on his his jacket and murder in his glassy eyes, staggering out onto the porch. He was already raising the compact Beretta in his hand.
Sheila blinked. “Who the fuck are…?” was as far as she got before a silver 9mm struck her in the left eye, exiting the back of her skull in a shower of blood and brains, dropping her to the ground like a broken marionette.
Red swung the gun around, but Samson was already up and sprinting. He fired anyway, sending his last three bullets whining into the rainy gloom, but his vision was beginning to blur. He heard the rogue Alpha crashing his way through the woods, then there was nothing.
Red regarded his empty Beretta with mild disgust, and tossed it away into the rain. Turning awkwardly on his heel, he shuffled back into the house.
Moses was slumped against the bath when Red walked into the bathroom. He watched the man stagger to the window, leaning back to sit on the sill. He had Nash’s Smith & Wesson in his hand.
“So,” asked Red. “Where’s he going?”
Moses frowned.
“Samson,” Red explained. “Where’s he going?”
Moses sighed. “Gnarlswood. He’s working a deal with Snarl. Gonna be his new Beta. Probably won’t work out.” He snorted. “We were s’posed to meet him here at midnight, but y’know…” He waved a bloodstained hand. “Plans change.”
Red nodded weakly. “That’s your van out there, right? Mind if I borrow it? I gotta see a man about a…” He let out a ragged chuckle. “You know.”
Moses’ eyes were on the young man’s shoulder, torn and soaked with blood. “You’re bit.”
Red looked down at his shoulder with a grim smile. “Yeah,” he replied. “Lycanthropy, on top of everything else.” He raised the gun in a shaking hand. “That’s all I fuckin’ need.”
“Who are you, kid?” Moses asked, with a sharp-toothed sneer.
Red sighted alon
g the gun, aiming it between the old wolf’s eyes.
“I’m the guy who’s gonna kill Savage Sam,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
Rob Pegler is a teacher from South Auckland, New Zealand. He’s also one half of the collective brain at Darktomorrow.net. He has a strong interest in myths, legends and folk tales from around the world, and likes to use them in his writing wherever possible. This is his third published story and his second monster hunter yarn.
Victims
Mike Phillips
Deep in the forest, a fire was burning. Little more than a flickering tongue of flame, it still licked the underside of nearby trees with heat and light. Usually a thing to be feared in the wilderness, the fire was welcome now. Winter had come and frost was deep in the ground. Any amount of warmth in these bleak times was a treasure.
Though it was only a small fire, built in a hollow to protect it from the wind, it could be seen from far away. Snow, thick upon the forest floor, carried the light of the fire much farther than it could have traveled on its own. The light of the fire stepped over fallen branches and old stumps, odd stones and the holes animals dug to make their homes. The light of the fire landed upon the cave of something wicked.
Within the stony halls of its daylight refuge, Nightmare Bird awoke; she was often the first to come out at night. She was far cleverer than the others, and knew that only through hard work could the best of life’s riches be had.
This night of all nights she arose even earlier than usual, knowing her duty, the thing that must be done before the night was through. She had caught the scent in her sleep and thought it a dream, but when she crawled to the mouth of her cave, she saw the light of the fire in the distance.
Use Enough Gun (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 3) Page 23