Grave Intentions

by Ty Schwamberger

They probably had no more than an hour and a half, at best, before daylight broke through the dark night and then, Craig figured, they would be in danger of being spotted. They had to hurry.

  The flashlight might attract the attention of the werewolf, so over the next half hour, they cleaned the blood and bits of the girls off the headstones, trees, and bushes by moonlight. The full moon was sinking fast toward the horizon. Neither one talked much.

  A sprinkler head popped out of the ground between Craig and Derrick, and a spray of cold water burst out in every direction. The sound of more sprinkler heads and the spray of water hissed through the quiet cemetery. Derrick’s pants and all of Craig’s clothes started to get soaked.

  “Well, shit.” Craig threw his blood-soaked rags into the cooler. “It looks like we didn’t have to wash stuff off…the sprinklers look like they would have taken care of everything. It’s time for us to haul ass.”

  “Figures,” Derrick said as he shrugged his shoulders. “We might as well just add this to the list of fucked-up things that have happened tonight.”

  “Yeah, ya figure a place like this would want to keep their grass looking pristine, so they’d almost have to water every day during the summer.”

  Another howl, more like an angry roar, ripped through the water- and blood-soaked cemetery.

  Chapter Eight

  The cemetery grew eerily silent. Not even the leaves rustled with the soft breeze that blew across the hallowed grounds. Gooseflesh popped up all over Derrick’s exposed chest and arms. Craig, fully clothed now, hugged himself, trying to keep some heat inside his weary body.

  Derrick’s dad, the werewolf, attacked.

  There was no warning, not another howl or growl, before the lanky but fierce-looking werewolf came flying from behind the headstone and landed between Derrick and Craig. Derrick froze with the thirty-four-ounce bat hanging loosely down by his side. The effort to lift Craig’s bat would more than likely be futile. Craig screamed and began slashing wildly through the air with his knife. A relatively little blade would not do much to the beast before him, but at least he could attempt to defend himself and Derrick.

  Derrick’s dad spotted the knife and roared. The echo bounced back from the far recesses of the still-dark cemetery like a freight train. Derrick dropped the bat and covered his ears. Craig continued slashing.

  Even though they had seen the werewolf up close and personal out in the street earlier in the night, this was the first time they really saw the thing. The werewolf, possibly still Derrick’s dad somewhere underneath it all, was lanky but had well-defined muscles under its long, dark fur. It was well over six feet tall, though Derrick’s dad in human form had been no more than five-six. Long, black curved claws ended its gigantic hands and long, narrow feet. The knees and elbows looked to be double-jointed. All of that was topped by a huge head with pointed ears, large yellow eyes, and a monstrous snout that encased long, razor-pointed teeth.

  If Craig were watching this creature in a TV movie instead of standing this close to the real thing, he would have thought it was pretty damned cool. But, of course, that wasn’t the case. Oh no. Instead, they were standing toe-to-toe with one bad-ass creature of the night, and it looked super pissed at them. Perhaps it was angry with them because Derrick had seen how it had changed into the horrible-looking beast or because they were still inside the cemetery instead of fleeing to Craig’s parents’ house. As an experienced hunter, Craig figured it probably had a deeply rooted instinct to destroy anyone fucking around on his territory. But no matter what the reason, the situation was what it was, and they would have to deal with it.

  Low guttural growls rumbled out of the werewolf as it stood, too close for comfort, between Derrick and Craig. The wolf kept its feet planted firmly, swaying its large head from side to side to keep an eye on both boys at the same time. Craig continued to fidget with the knife in front of him, while Derrick stood motionless, barely breathing. Long, billowing breaths puffed out of the beast’s nose and open mouth. Its long blood-stained teeth glistened in what was left of the light coming from the sinking moon.

  The werewolf, Derrick, and Craig all waited for the other to make the first move. And then it would be on like Donkey Kong. It would be a Rumble in the Jungle, or a rumble in the Parkside Cemetery.

  Finally, Craig took his eyes off the werewolf and looked over to Derrick. He nodded to his friend, glancing down to where his baseball bat still lay at Derrick’s feet. Craig wasn’t sure if Derrick could actually see what he was motioning at or not, but hoped that Derrick would get with the program, and soon, or they would be dead meat…or worse.

  Craig nodded, again.

  Nothing.

  Damnit all to hell, Craig shouted inside his head. He whispered, “Derrick…Derrick. Pull your nuts down outta your body and grab the…”

  The werewolf, with its keen hearing, craned its long neck back toward Craig. Craig swallowed, hard. His eyes went wide and gripped the leather handle of the old knife so tight that he felt like his knuckles were going to shatter. Adrenaline raced through his cold veins. A sweat broke out over his body and made his tight baseball pants and dirty t-shirt cling to his skin, spreading a rash across his body. He wanted nothing more than to drop the knife and scratch out the rash with all ten fingernails. But he didn’t. Oh no. He gripped the handle of the knife even tighter and looked past the werewolf’s glaring eyes and back over to Derrick.

  The big bastard of a man-wolf in front of him just dared one of them to try something.

  Craig screamed, “Derrick! Come on, motherfucker! Pick up that bat and crack this fucker’s skull open! I wanna see blood and bits of gray matter, motherfucker. Yeah, beeotch…yeah!”

  Derrick’s blank eyes were not showing any signs of life, so Craig snapped and attacked first.

  He charged toward Derrick’s dad, arm extended, bringing the tip of the old, sharp hunting knife closer and closer to the wolf. The werewolf’s dark hair stood on end, as he seemed to anticipate the human’s ballsy attack. Craig screamed out one more time for Derrick to get his head out of his ass and help take down the beast between them. Craig lunged, but the knife penetrated only air. The werewolf, with its long arms and big hands, backhanded Craig across the face. Craig let out an oomph and flew backward with the cold air on the back of his head. His grip on the knife gave way and it went flying away end over end. First his back, then his head, collided with a headstone, knocking him out cold as he landed on his buttocks. His limp body fell to the ground, unconscious, and slipped sideways. Blood and drool spilled out of the side of his open mouth, which had, luckily, been spared the beast’s long black claws. His body involuntarily twitched then lay still.

  The impact of the back of his dad’s hand across his friend’s face snapped Derrick back into reality. His dad, once a sonofabitch of a parent who treated him and his mom like shit, was now standing in front of him as a full-blown werewolf. His mother actually having been a wolf-in-human-clothing explained why his father had always been on edge while he was growing up. Still, that secrecy added to the present circumstances, sent long-dormant feelings of his childhood into pure rage.

  With its back to Derrick, the werewolf slunk toward Craig’s prone body. Derrick bent down slowly, always keeping his eyes on the beast, and grasped the bat with his right hand. He twisted the handle, trying to get the best grip possible for hitting a homerun to the back of his dad’s skull, hopefully killing him with one swing and ending the brutality of the night, so he could save his friend.

  The werewolf continued toward Craig. Even from behind him, Derrick could see plumes of rancid breath coming out of the beast’s nose and mouth, surrounding the thing’s head and then drifting backward and up. Clutching the bat tightly with both hands, he slowly followed his dad. Derrick took his eyes off the werewolf’s hairy back and looked down at Craig. Spittle and blood leaked from his friend’s mouth. Derrick squinted but couldn’t see if Craig was still breathing.

  Just before it got to Craig, the be
ast stopped. It bent at the waist and sat on its haunches. Derrick came within swinging distance of his dad’s back and stopped. Even from Derrick’s point of view, it appeared the beast was studying Craig, waiting for him to all of a sudden leap off the ground and attack, again. But, he didn’t. No, Craig continued to lie silently in the grass at the base of a headstone. Finally, after twenty or thirty seconds that seemed like eternity, the beast rose from its crouch and continued toward Craig. Suddenly, it let out a roar and charged, leaping into the air in what looked like slow motion. A creature that was supposed to only be in the movies, attacking innocent women and children. Now it flew through the air and landed on all fours on top of Craig. Craig didn’t make a sound, not even a grunt, as more than two hundred pounds of pissed-off werewolf crushed him into the damp earth. The werewolf tilted his head toward the sky and let out a howl.

  Derrick took the opening and charged with the bat high overhead.

  He cocked the bat behind his shoulder and let the barrel fly. The beast lowered its head from the sky, and opened its mouth to take a bite out of Craig. The bat connected with the thing’s skull. A deep rumble escaped the werewolf’s mouth, as the crack of the bat to its head echoed throughout the cemetery. The beast went limp and slumped off Craig. Derrick ran over and hit the werewolf, his dad, a few more times with the bat till the hair on the back and side of the thing’s head split open and blood started leaking out. Derrick stood up straight, kicked the thing once, and then threw the bat onto the ground. He stared at what used to be his father, shook his head, and turned around to help his friend, if he was still alive.

  Derrick bent down over his bruised and bloody friend. Craig really did look like shit. One side of his face was puffy and turning black and blue. Blood was still leaking out the corner of his mouth. The front of Craig’s t-shirt and baseball pants were even dirtier than before, and now had a set of bloody holes by Craig’s shoulders and on his thighs from the thing’s claws as it had sat on top of him. Derrick shivered. Gooseflesh spread over his skin, partly from the chill in the air, but also from seeing his best friend in the world in such bad shape.

  Slowly, Derrick extended a hand toward his friend.

  He stopped a few inches from the side of Craig’s neck. He knew he had to check for a pulse. Not just for himself, but for Craig’s parents. Derrick knew he would have to be the one to tell them what happened. Sure, he could just take off right then and there, haul ass out of the cemetery to Craig’s car and go somewhere and lay low for a while, but that wasn’t the right thing to do. No way. Not after all Craig had done for him over the years—protecting him from bullies their freshman year, hanging out with him when Stacy had blown him off once again, inviting him over to spend the night during arguments between his mom and dad that now finally made a ton of sense, being there when his mom was killed in a car accident… Everything.

  He wasn’t sure he could take knowing he had witnessed his best friend being killed right before his very eyes tonight, especially not after everything else that had happened. Hell, no.

  Still hovering over Craig’s throat, Derrick’s hand started to shake. All the emotions of his childhood and tonight’s events came at him all at once. He withdrew his right hand and placed it and his left hand over his eyes and forehead. He began to cry. Long sobs huffed from his lungs. Warm, salty tears formed in his eyes. His palms blocked them from running down his face. He just couldn’t take it any longer. His entire world was shit. He was all of a sudden filled with dread that he would have to start at the bottom of the social ladder, yet again, at college in the next month or so, and he wouldn’t have his mother, father, or now even his best friend there for him. He would have to be a loner. He would more than likely start getting shit grades, when he had only ever gotten two Bs in his entire life, would just be picked on by the meathead football players at State, would get made fun of by all the girls, even the geeky ones, wouldn’t get to take the classes he wanted, and with his luck, would have the biggest asshole of a roommate in college freshman history. Then he would more than likely start drinking some Mad Dog 40/40, start smoking the devil’s plant, listening to “kill your mother kill your father” music even though they both were dead anyway, decide to shave all his hair off and become part of a skinhead group on campus, start beating the shit out of black people just for the fun of it, would get arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally, get thrown in jail for some bogus charges that his Aryan Brothers pinned on him, get raped in prison by some big black guy named Bubba, sit on death row for fifty years until all his appeals ran out and then finally executed for…

  Ugh. My life has turned to shit.

  And then there was a rustling sound behind him, followed by heavy, fleeing footsteps and then a thunderous roar. By the time Derrick took his hands away from his blurry eyes and twisted his head around, his dad was gone.

  Another roar ripped through the cemetery.

  Something grabbed his arm. Derrick nearly pissed his pants for the second time.

  He screamed out like a little girl and ripped his arm free from Craig’s grasp.

  Craig chuckled. “Hey, you think you’re gonna get rid from me that easily, buddy, you gotta another thing comin’.”

  “Real funny, asshole,” Derrick said in between sucking air into his heaving lungs.

  “No problem,” Craig winked at his friend and smiled.

  “Jesus H. Christ on a rubber crutch.”

  “Nope. No need to thank him, lil’ buddy. I’m much too of a stud to be killed off by some measly werewolf.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Seriously.”

  “‘Seriously’ my ass, man,” Derrick said, picking himself off the ground and then walking over to retrieve the baseball bat, which now had a long crack running from its handle to the end of the barrel.

  Craig noticed the crack and said, “Weeelp, doesn’t look like we’ll be using that thing anymore. Best find my knife and go hunt down that sonofa…”

  “Hey,” Derrick interrupted. “I thought you just wanted to get the fuck outta here.”

  “Well…” Craig began and then cleared his dry throat. “I have to be honest, man. I really thought we should have just gotten the hell outta here when we had the chance, ya know? I mean, I’m all for re-burying your mom because of what she meant to you and even disposing of the girls so we don’t get caught and can live the rest of our lives without having to worry about being sent to prison and bunking with a guy named Bub…”

  “Okay, okay,” Derrick said. “And?”

  “That was until he directly started fucking with us, man. I mean, I don’t like to be fucked with, ya know? But when I see anyone…man or beast…fucking with my best friend, I just can’t take that shit anymore and it’s on like Donkey Kong, mothafucka!”

  “Thanks, man,” Derrick laughed a little at his friend’s strange outburst.

  “All right,” Craig picked himself off the ground and tried to wipe off as much dirt as possible from the back of his clothes. “You might as well just toss that bat, man. It’s toast…”

  “Sorry, man. I know you used this thing at every game our senior year.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it, man. Summer league was just to have something for the college applications. Now that I got in, to hell with the game tomorrow night. Do you think I would have really been out here with you, Stacy, and Joan if I were worried about playing, tomorrow?”

  “Nah, guess not.”

  “Damn tootin’, man.” Craig came up next to Derrick and put his arm around him. “Like I always said, man, we’re friends to the end. And if that means we have to go to college with big-ass boners from not getting it from Stacy and Joan, or possibly getting killed in the process by chasing down and killing your dad, err, a werewolf, then so be it.”

  Craig smacked Derrick’s ass and then walked off to look for his hunting knife. “Hey, did I ever tell you about the knife my old man gave me?”

  “Hummm…” Derrick said, thinking for a moment. “No
, I don’t think you did.”

  “Well,” Craig said, looking for the knife behind the headstone that he had slammed the back of his head against. “What are the two things from all those horror movies about werewolves that are always true?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Riiight. You were always a fan of werewolf movies, man,” Craig paused for a moment. “If a werewolf bites you, you become one, right?”

  “Uh, sure. Yeah, guess that’s about right.”

  “Ok. And what’s the second thing? Silver.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right there, too. But where are we gonna—”

  “My knife, man. My old man told me about where it came from. Now, all we gotta do is find the bastard and we’re in business. But we better hurry and find the knife and then hunt down and kill your pops with quickness before first light comes or we’re in some deep sh—”

  The first lazy rays of the morning sun were already breaking the horizon and drifting into the cemetery.

  Which wasn’t all bad, because one ray of light bounced off the blade of Craig’s knife and right into his eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  “All right, man,” Craig bent over and picked up the knife. “I estimate we have about thirty minutes left of semi-darkness to find your dad and put him outta his misery before the caretaker or some lonely old lady walking her dog comes in here to visit her late husband. We need to get a move on.”

  “Yeah, guess you’re right,” Derrick said, walking over to his friend. Then, “So, where do you think the best place is to look for him, anyway?”

  Craig turned around and looked toward the back of the cemetery. Before, they could only see twenty or so feet in any direction, but now that the sun was rising, he was able to see good hundred or so yards. He turned around and looked through the tall, iron fence that surrounded the grounds and out into the street. In the neighborhood beyond, Craig could hear the first sounds of morning—the faint sounds of alarm clocks going off in the nearest houses, engines of one sort or another sputtering to life, sprinklers shooting water on dried lawns. No cars moved on the street in front of the cemetery yet, but knowing that they soon would be, he turned and looked to the right and left at the cold headstones. The sprinklers had stopped a few minutes ago, and for that Craig was thankful. Oddly enough, he didn’t hear any birds chirping the start of a new day or squirrels gathering nuts for the upcoming fall. It almost seemed eerie that no animals were present in the cemetery, though Craig guessed that if he were a bird or a squirrel or some other small animal, he would more than likely be hiding out, too, when some huge creature was traipsing around what they considered their home. Finally, Craig turned around so his back was facing the street and stared toward the back of the cemetery, again.