by Tom Bont
“Was he successful?”
“Yes. Sort of. The victims all ended up as psychotic monstrosities. Intelligent psychotic monstrosities. Insane Frenatus.”
“So, we’re not looking for a Dr. Frankenstein. We’re looking for a Dr. Mengele wannabe.”
“Right.”
“Is there an antidote to Mengele’s serum?”
“Not that I know of. The real lupus infection might inoculate you. It fights off everything else.”
Angela frowned. “But wouldn’t that make the person a werewolf?”
“Yes,” he admitted. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “The alternative though, is being a monster. A true monster.”
Angela wasn’t sure of the difference, but she didn’t argue the point aloud. However, she had to admit, if it made a werewolf shiver, she didn’t want to run into it.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat, ahem, silver bullet.
“Why would the Forsaken Dweller want to create a pseudo-lupus?”
He tightened his lips and shook his head. “No idea.” He snapped his fingers. “You know, some supernatural rituals use lupus blood. Summoning demons and the like. Maybe that’s what’s going on here. Creating their own lupus blood bank, kinda like humans using pigs for the Type-Os.” He took another drink.
“Seems like a lot of work. Why not just get some blood from a real werewolf?”
Danny snorted water out through his nose and stared at her in disbelief. “You volunteering to hold one down long enough to stick a needle in its arm?”
Angela read the sign as they whooshed past it. Hallsville, Texas. Population 3,775.
Just call it what it is. Hicksville, Texas. Why can’t the bad guys hang out in a city?
Propped up on the car door’s window frame, she rested her chin on her palm. A deep sigh fluttered past her lips. “I’m completely untrained for this type of work.”
“Pardon?” Danny asked.
She glowered at him. “Do you realize they don’t teach one, not one class on the supernatural at the FBI Academy?”
He scoffed. “Why would they?”
She sighed again. “Because this baptism by fire shit is starting to get next to me.”
He turned the radio down. She didn’t like country music, but they’d agreed on a truce; the driver picked the station. “Don’t sell yourself short, Angela. You’re more equipped for this than you think you are. You don’t know all the lore behind the scary stuff, but you’ve astounded me with your investigation skills. In the couple weeks I’ve worked with you, I’ve learned more than I did in the ten years I was a cop in Redstick.”
She shook off the compliment. “What good is my tradecraft if I don’t know what the hell a mad scientist’s lab looks like from the outside?”
“It was good enough to tell you we needed some thermal imaging of the area.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t good enough for a search warrant, though.”
“So? It’s good enough to go snoop around. Maybe we’ll see something wrong.”
“True!” They shared a conspiratorial smile. “And there’s always that nose of yours. I suppose you could smell something you shouldn’t.”
“Exactly!”
They’d left Fort Worth early to investigate a barn aerial surveillance showed to have a massive thermal signature. If they’d been with the Drug Enforcement Agency, they would have taken a particular interest in it but for entirely different reasons. Pot growing operations used lots of solar lamps. Technically, Task Force W didn’t care what the owners were doing in their own barns as long as they weren’t creating new versions of werewolves, hiding a renegade succubus, or disturbing ancient Amerindian burial grounds. Oh, and summoning Cthulhu monsters.
Yes, summoning Cthulhu monsters was right out.
Especially ones with a name like The Forsaken Dweller. She surprised herself by knowing what a Cthulhu monster was, but ever since Speed had mentioned Lovecraft, she’d been reading his stories. She’d even found a small bookstore in Arlington that carried those types of books.
“Besides,” Danny said with a crooked grin, “You can’t feel sorry for yourself. I look up to you too much.”
“Just shut up and drive, smart ass.”
“Someone went to a lot of expense to make that barn look old and rundown,” Danny murmured. “Artificial siding. Corrugated metal roof. Definitely retro.” He ran his binoculars over the large pasture surrounding it. Tall pine trees shrouded three sides. A 200-yard gravel trail ran from the barn’s massive doors in a locked metal gate next to the main road. “Jump the fence?”
“Nooo,” Angela pronounced, drawing it out as if it was the only answer. They both knew the lawsuit the owner would slap them with if they trespassed.
“What do you suggest th—” He lowered his binoculars and blinked rapidly at her. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“A woman screamed.” He tilted his left ear towards the barn.
“I’m not pulling a fake probable cause out of my ass, Danny.”
“No, seriously,” he exclaimed as he stood.
She knew he wasn’t making something up. He did hear something, something her human ears couldn’t. She rushed back to the car with him.
A light chain and combination lock secured the gate. As she requested backup, Danny drove through the gate, ripping apart the chain, and raced up the driveway, a long trail of caliche dust spiraling behind them. He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop as they closed in on the barn, kicking up even more dust. They both leaped out, pistols drawn and racing for the side door.
Screaming, whether it was a woman’s or not, came from the barn. She’d heard girls cry out in their sleep after a kidnapping rescue, but what pried its way out through the cracks in the walls and around the doorframe made her palms sweat and knees tremble.
Danny opened his eyes wide. “What the hell was that?”
“Together!” she hissed while Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? sang in her head.
He pointed his head at the doorknob, raised his eyebrows, and Angela gave him the go-ahead. He twisted the knob, and the door swung in with a quiet squeak. Angela followed it, taking up position on and scanning the inside right. “Clear,” she whispered loud enough for only Danny to hear her.
Her little talk from the church about working together as a team must have stuck because he stayed with her the whole time. He shadowed her, taking up position on and scanning the inside left. “Clear,” he echoed back to her. “I feel like I need a lead vest,” he added under his breath.
They both stared at a scene from Mary Shelley’s worst nightmare. Flashing arcs of lightning shot across the inside of the barn, and they undoubtedly did more to ruin their night vision than the brightness of the East Texas afternoon sun they’d escaped from on the other side of the door.
Tall Tesla coils with jagged spikes failing to obey the standard laws of geometry poked out along their length, appearing and disappearing from sight. The longer she stared at them, the harder she clenched her teeth from frustration until pain shot through her jaw. She had to look away. Dark crystal chains with glittering loops connected the coils to pulsing blobs of pasty, blue-veined flesh. Another set of chains attached the fleshy bulbs to the feet of three metal stretchers forming a three-pointed star in the middle of the floor. The heads tilted up at the center, forming its heart, where a tall, thin, and naked man stood. He faced away from them, but his skin was as pasty white and translucent as the fleshy pods around him. His organs convulsed each time a bolt of lightning flashed, and she imagined a sickening squelch along with them. A bank of switches, knobs, and analog dials reminiscent of the worst monster flicks Hollywood had to offer formed a semicircle around Angela and Danny.
Angela took the lead and crept to the right across the dusty, wooden floor. Danny stalked left. They stayed hidden behind the control consoles should the alien, or monster, or whatever Task Force W called these things, chose to swivel around. As she got to
her side of the console, she chanced a peek around the corner. One stretcher contained a woman, the second one, a man. The third one held one of those chupacabras…chupacabri…
What the hell is plural for chupacabra?
All three were restrained. Danny crouched below the other end of the console, one eye on her and the other on the alien. She nodded once and stood up.
“Freeze! FBI!” she yelled, “Cease all…cross-universe experiments and put your hands behind your head.” Considering the FBI refused to train her on how to arrest cross-dimensional beings, she was quite pleased with herself and her ad-lib adjustments.
The monster spun around and stared at her. Its face comprised a mixture of insectoid eyes, beavertail nose, and a tri-jawed mandible for a mouth lined with long rows of needle-sharp teeth. It looked like the drawings produced from Felicia’s description.
Angela wasn’t sure how she knew it, but the look was a glare. The mad alien scientist did not appear to be happy with her interruption. The lightning didn’t cease, but it did dim as the Doctor took two steps towards her. Its shoulders flinched as Danny put a three-shot set into it, center mass. The lightning show increased again and struck the creature multiple times.
The bullets spawned no damage whatsoever.
Oh, fuck! Not Dr. Mengele!
It spun around and tilted its head in Danny’s direction, folded its jaws shut, and lowered its nose flap. Three stalks with large bulbs on their ends flowed out from the crease and pointed in his direction. The bulbs pulsated and glittered for a moment before slipping back out of sight. Its mouth unfolded again, and it chittered. It sounded happy. Too happy. Angela guessed a ready supply of Lupus sapiens blood showing up unannounced was more than it could have hoped for.
She squeezed her trigger in rapid sets, knowing her shots were scoring, until the slide on her pistol locked back, telling her it was time for a new magazine. Each shot made the monster twitch, but it didn’t drop. Lightning bolts continued to fly. She stepped out from behind the safety of the control console and dropped her magazine from her pistol.
The creature ignored her as it spewed a long stream of rotten mushroom-colored webbing at Danny. He screamed when it hit him. It was hard to tell if it was in agony or abject terror considering his aversion to spiders. Smoke roiled from where the strands landed on him. By the time she’d inserted her second magazine and cocked her pistol, the monster had entirely cocooned Danny in its smoldering webs. He toppled over.
The creature whirled back on her and unfolded its mouth.
“I don’t think so, scooter!” she yelled as she dived behind the bank of consoles, belly crawling while she peeked under them. The monster was walking towards her end of the machinery. She sprung to her feet, dashed over to Danny, and stood over his still body. “I’ll burn in hell before I let you near his carcass,” she screamed.
The creature paused and regarded her. It rested one arm on the top of the console and wagged a finger in annoyance at her.
Her situational awareness training kicked in. Two magazines. Target armed with a…web-shooting…mouth-thingy. Immune to kinetic energy. And silver.
The last few moments flashed through her mind. Every shot she and Danny had made resulted in a lightning bolt striking the creature.
Time for my own experiment.
She pointed her pistol at it and squeezed off a round.
A lightning bolt crackled from the three Tesla coils, merged in mid-air, and struck the alien. The bullet hole sealed shut as if it had never been there.
Lightning heals it!
She whipped around and shot three rounds into one of the jaggedly spiked coils. The bullets disappeared as the area around the otherworldly twines warped as if she’d dropped three pebbles into a still pond.
Deja vu struck hard, harder than in the church basement.
The creature squeaked and hurried towards her with long strides. Its mouth stretched open and quivered. Webs shot from it like cotton candy from a spinner run by a deranged Dr. Seuss.
She darted towards the back of the laboratory, away from the creature, to give herself time to figure out how to stop the lightning. She stepped closer to one of the pulsating blobs of flesh. Glittering sparkles of static electricity traveled up the crystal chains to the coils. She filled the blob with silver rounds. It burst in a loud schlorp of gooey, greyish pus.
She held her hands to her ears as the creature’s shrill and fearsome screech pierced them like a hot needle.
She poked her head around a large crate in the back shadows to investigate if her efforts did more than merely piss it off. It continued loping towards her.
Still invulnerable.
She slammed her last magazine home and aimed at the second blob. It took nine bullets to burst it.
The creature screeched again, but this time it heaved crates to the side as it stormed after her. She continued her circuit around the laboratory.
Options were limited. Shooting the remaining blob might burst it, but she’d be out of ammo. And defenseless. If she shot the creature, the lightning would heal it.
Math is math. I need more bullets.
Angry growls echoed across the barn.
He’s alive!
A howl stabbed the air.
“It’s about damned time, you redneck!” she yelled. Danny-werewolf made her decision for her. She fired her remaining shots into the final blob. Damaged, it still didn’t rupture.
Shit!
She glanced at Danny, at the werewolf. Every instinct in her monkey brain screamed evil incarnate. Every instinct except her first one; her first instinct was to hide.
Will I ever get used to seeing him like that?
The webbing had burned zebra stripes into his fur. He dropped to all fours and rushed towards the alien, snout snarling, and slaver dripping freely.
The alien quit chasing her and turned its attention to Danny.
Her curiosity nearly overruled her discipline. She wrenched her attention away from the battle royale evolving before her and raced around the outside of the control consoles to where Danny had dropped. She still managed to catch most of the scrap out of the corner of her eye.
Danny sprinted on all fours and launched himself at the alien.
It had the same idea because it dropped to all fours too.
They clashed in midair as a writhing tangle of fur, claws, and webbing, tumbling to the ground. Digging talons tore splinters the size of pencils from the floor as they both maneuvered for an advantage. Danny growled and bit while the alien screeched and shot burning strands of arachnid horror. Their claws tore mercilessly at each other. A lightning bolt from the remaining flesh pod healed the monster’s latest wounds. It struck Danny, too, but didn’t have the same effect; he scrambled back, shaking his head in pain.
Angela bent over, retrieved his pistol, and aimed at the remaining pod.
He blocked her view as he jockeyed for an upper hand against the alien. She sprinted off for a better position and glimpsed over her shoulder when he screeched in pain.
Another grey spray of webbing that would have made an abandoned farmhouse full of spiders proud webbed Danny’s left arm to his chest. The fur on his back and neck snapped out straight, like a pissed off porcupine. Wounded and one-armed, he leaped back in, clawing a swath through the alien’s midsection that would have gutted a horse.
Lightning lit up the barn.
Angela found herself standing before the last pod.
She took aim at the gelatinous, pulsing sac of goop and put half her magazine in it before it burst.
She turned, made eye contact with the alien, and let a slow grin spread across her face.
It unrolled its mouth towards her as she triple-squeezed the trigger in rapid succession. White, nauseating, goo exploded from the alien’s chest while Danny’s last act of vengeance separated its head from its body. Lightning exploded from its neck stump, catching her partner square in the face and sparking small fires in the lofts, the wooden crates in the b
ack, the walls, everything. As she reflexively ducked, the bolt threw Danny back into the console, hard.
The lightning trickled down to nothing after a few moments, but the fires spread. She scooted over towards Danny but slowed when her survival instinct told her he might be playing possum and snorted. “Werewolves don’t need to play possum.” The smell of bad hamburger meat pummeled her nose. Burned hair and flesh covered it up enough for her to get close to him, though. She considered slapping his snout to wake him up, but that annoying survival instinct got the better of her again.
She gently placed a hand on his chest. “Danny?” A heartbeat. Strong and sure. She pulled back an eyelid. His eyeball rolled back into his skull.
This is one hurt puppy.
She snorted at her own stupid joke as she took a leg and tried to pull him towards the exit. G.I. Jane, she was not. Seven feet of werewolf was heavy.
The man and the woman behind her in the stretchers screamed for help.
Angela walked over to the gurney when Danny sat up and removed his oxygen mask. “Welcome back, stranger.”
While the female paramedic checked his vitals, he blinked and scanned the scene around him in confusion. It no longer looked the same as when they’d stormed the barn earlier. Angela understood his confusion. A dozen police cars, all with their lights blinking, sat in various spots throughout the field. Men and women with a whole alphabet soup of big white letters on their backs hurried around. The fire department was busy watering a garden of charred ground where the barn once stood.
He twisted his neck one way and the other, releasing two long strings of cracks. “What happened?”
“You got struck by lightning,” Angela answered. “To the head. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She looked at the paramedic. “Burned all your clothes off but left you untouched. Even your hair.” They both knew he didn’t have clothes on.