Tamed

by Douglas R. Brown

  When she finished three miles, she was hardly winded. She felt like a twenty-year-old again, and even though she seldom ate meat, she had the strangest craving for a greasy fast-food hamburger. The mere thought of eating a juicy, fattening burger brought her a twinge of guilty excitement.

  Without a shower or even a change of clothes, she hopped into her car and sped to the local Culver’s fast food restaurant. She downed both of her double cheeseburgers on the ride home and found herself slightly ashamed that she wished for a third. It had been a long time since she had eaten a single fast-food burger, let alone two at one sitting. Her belly was stuffed, yet she craved even more. She wondered if she might be having one of those pregnancy cravings she had heard about, but considering the state of her love life, it wasn’t likely.

  After five or so minutes of bloated waiting, she shoved her door open and climbed from her car. As she dragged herself to the front door of her condo, a slight twinge in the center of her chest stopped her at the porch.

  “Uh,” she moaned and pressed her hand against her sternum. “That’s why I stopped eating junk like—” A sudden squeeze gripped her chest, ripping the breath from her lungs. She doubled over, dropped to her knees, and then collapsed to her side.

  Indigestion never did this to her before. She wondered if she was having a heart attack, and her medic training ran through the symptoms. Crushing chest pains? Check. Shortness of breath? Check.

  She pictured her cell phone sitting on the armrest in her car and realized she was in too much pain to get to it. Silently, she prayed for one of her neighbors to come out and see her, but no one did.

  She lay on her porch for what seemed like an hour or longer, the invisible weight on her chest squeezing the life from her body until, as suddenly as the pain began, it ceased.

  After a few seconds, she sat up with her back pressed against her condo door. Her hands shook.

  Her neighbor from two doors down stepped onto his porch. “Christine? You alright?”

  “I’m fine.” She struggled to her feet. “I just tripped, but I’m okay.” Where the hell were you five minutes ago?

  He nodded, climbed into his car, and drove off.

  12

  NEVETS DAY THREE

  STEVEN looked up from his dirt bed and to his throbbing, tingling thigh as maggots squirmed within and around the still-open wound. He thought of a show he had seen on TV years ago about maggots being somehow good for open wounds, though he couldn’t remember why, and he used that hopeful thought to push away the queasiness.

  It was daytime. He was alone. The pain that gripped his chest the day before was gone. The sunlight was warm on his face and filled his fenced-in stall.

  As they had each day since his abduction, two guards entered, gave him a shot in his arm, and left again. He no longer fought against their grip. The fluid they injected into him burned within his veins for an hour or longer, but he barely cared anymore. He didn’t know what they gave him, but the day before one of them said it stunted his growth, whatever that meant.

  As the burning sensation coursed through him, he thought about his wife. Though he had thought of her hundreds of times, maybe thousands, over the past several years, he could no longer picture her face. That suddenly he could no longer remember her smile was worse than any physical pain his captors had inflicted upon him.

  A low, static buzz slowly filled his head. He couldn’t think clearly and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

  A slight breeze sent a chill along his spine. From the many other stalls he heard the grunts and groans and snores of what were probably werewolves. Aside from their sporadic noises, the world around him was quiet, almost peaceful, and he wondered if he were in purgatory on the verge of heaven. For a brief moment he was excited at the prospect of seeing his wife again, but just as quickly, the familiar lingering smell of manure brought him back to reality. He wasn’t in heaven. He was the victim of a torture unlike any he had ever dreamed. These people, these evil people, were screwing with him. He imagined them watching through some closed circuit video camera, laughing as he realized how beautiful the world could be right before they fed him to their pet once again.

  Steven extended his middle finger at whatever invisible puppet-master might be watching, though he was unable to lift his weakened arm more than a couple of inches from the ground.

  His mouth was dry like he had sucked on cotton. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was rough and blistered. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he sat up and surveyed the rest of the stable. Less than ten feet away, though it might as well have been a thousand, was a wooden horse trough. He knew the chances of making it across the dirt floor in his weakened state were slim, but he also knew he would die of dehydration if he didn’t.

  He didn’t want to die. The mere fact he was still alive gave him a glimmer of hope he might actually survive this entire ordeal, if only he could get some water. What if the trough was empty? What if it was full of piss instead of water? He couldn’t taunt himself with what-ifs; he had to fight. If not for the promise of water, he had to fight for his own sanity.

  He rolled onto his stomach and used his foot to push at the dirt with all of his strength. He didn’t move far, maybe two or three inches but it was something. His success bred confidence, and he struggled to use his good arm to help pull him along. With another heave, he pushed with his leg and pulled with his arm to move a few more inches toward what he had convinced himself was salvation.

  Inch by painful inch, he slithered closer and closer until his hand struck the base of the trough. He grinned and lay motionless, catching his breath. He grasped the rim of the trough with one hand. Using all of his strength, he managed to pull himself up. By some miracle, the trough was full. He ducked his head over the rim and slurped the water into his desert of a mouth. The water was warm and stale, if water could be stale, but it was wonderful.

  With his thirst momentarily satisfied and his strength still waning, he flopped onto his rear with his back against the trough. He didn’t have time to savor his new-found hydration, as a padlocked gate across the stable jingled for a second and then flew open. Two men wearing flak jackets over old-fashioned, Viet Nam-era army fatigues, helmets, and Hannibal Lector-type face protection dragged something through.

  One of the two men shouted, “Enjoy,” before they heaved their cargo into the stable and cautiously backed out.

  Flies swarmed the raw chunk of meat that appeared to be the hindquarters of a cow. Do they think I’m an animal? Steven wondered. I’ll starve before I’ll ever eat a piece of that.

  The long day dragged on, and with the rumble in Steven’s gut, it seemed even longer.

  13

  BACK TO THE GRIND

  CHRISTINE’S stomach turned with the feeling of first day jitters on a new job. The pain in her chest from the day before was still fresh in her mind, and she worried that she should have gone to the hospital. As a medic, she would have told a patient with similar complaints to go to the hospital, yet she didn’t heed her own advice. She prayed she hadn’t done damage to her heart.

  As she pulled into the parking lot, her concerns over her chest faded to worries of how she would be accepted by her crew. She was never injured on the job before and didn’t know how they would treat her. It was and always had been important for her not to show them any weakness. She knew, fair or not, that she was always under more scrutiny than her male counterparts. Though the doctor had given her two more duty shifts off, she wanted to get this moment over with and return to some sort of normalcy.

  She pulled into a parking space at the firehouse, turned off the ignition, and sat in her car for another fifteen minutes before finding the courage to continue. She took a deep breath, got out of her car, and strolled into the open bay, trying her best to portray confidence even though her insides were a tangled mess.

  A few of the guys from the off-going unit stood around the station truck, jabbering about their busy night. She w
alked past them, hoping to avoid their attention. One of the guys, Brett, made eye contact and nodded to her before rejoining his conversation. The bay where the medic truck usually sat was empty.

  Christine crossed the bay to the small office watch booth where a couple of her coworkers stood.

  Willie, the first to see her coming, smiled. “What’s up, corndog?” he said in his usual way.

  The other two guys, Jed and Mick, twisted around to see her. “Hey,” Mick said with a smile.

  “How’s the healin’?” Jed asked.

  “Good,” she answered. “Doc says I’m healing faster than he expected.”

  “Good, good. Glad to see you again so soon. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the hospital. I wanted to stop in, but I’ve been so busy. You know, with the new kid and all.”

  “That’s alright. No worries.”

  Her lieutenant, Alex, saw her from the kitchen and hurried over. “Christine, good to have you back.”

  “Thanks, Alex. I’m glad to be back.”

  “You look tired. You sure you should be working so soon?”

  She grinned. “’You look tired is a polite way of saying I look like hell, right? I am tired, but I’ll be fine.”

  “You been sleeping well?”

  “Sure,” she lied. “I just need a hot shower and a good breakfast.”

  “Well, good luck with that—the breakfast part, I mean. Willie’s cooking today.”

  “You guys are too hard on Willie. He’s a fine cook. Hey, have you heard anything about Billy?”

  Alex lowered his head. “Not yet. All of the guys here went out yesterday and helped with the ground search, but no one has heard anything. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure the cops asked you,” Mick said, “but what happened the other night?”

  “Honestly, I don’t remember much. I remember going up to the house with Billy, but that’s about it. The next thing I remember, I was in the hospital.”

  “Well, we’re going out tomorrow when we get off duty if you want to come. We’ll search every day we are off until we find him.”

  “Thanks, Mick. I’d like that.”

  Working without Billy her first day back was tough. She understood she had to work, that people still needed fires put out and heart attacks dealt with, but part of her believed the fire department should stop functioning until Billy was found. He was part of their family, after all.

  She had worked with Billy’s replacement several times over the years. He was an older guy who had been on the job probably longer than Billy had been alive. It wasn’t that working with Chuck was a problem, other than the fact he was slower than a root canal when it came to finishing reports at the hospital, but he just wasn’t Billy.

  Their first call of the morning was to a gated community within the suburb of Bexley. This particular community was full of the ridiculously wealthy. Her first indication the call wasn’t going to go her way was a sign on the wrought-iron gate reading Werepets Within. Whether it was coyotes that attacked her or not, she had definitely had her fill of the whole werewolf movement.

  As she drove through the gates, her eyes were drawn toward a distant, intimidating beast of a figure lurking next to a garage. She continued the medic forward at a snail’s pace. Something moved alongside her window. She spun her head toward the movement. Another werewolf paused, standing on his hind legs less than ten feet away. She flinched. The creature sniffed at the medic truck as she and Chuck passed. Christine realized she was rubbing her cheek in her old nervous tick and pulled her hand away. She glanced to Chuck, hoping he didn’t notice.

  “Nervous?” he asked with a sly grin.

  “Ah, you know ....”

  Chuck nodded. “You just stay here, young lady. Not everybody likes these wergs. I’ll see what’s going on and let you know if I need anything. Besides, I don’t think there are any coyotes around here.” He winked.

  She wasn’t amused, but appreciated his gesture despite the joke. “Are you sure you don’t mind, Chuck? I feel bad not doing my jo—”

  “Nonsense. A lot of people don’t like the werewolves. I rather enjoy them.” He stretched and added, “But, to each his—or her—own.”

  She pulled the medic to the front of the address of the emergency call and thanked Chuck for understanding. Once he climbed out of his seat with his report tablet in hand, she pressed the power-lock button. He grinned at the audible click. He removed the first-aid kit from the back, and when he closed the back door she locked it as well.

  A werewolf met him on the front porch and Christine cringed. The werewolf dropped to his front legs, arched his back, and stretched as though he had just awakened. The beast lowered his head next to Chuck’s hip like a docile puppy. Chuck scratched behind his ear, turned and smiled at Christine, and then disappeared into the house.

  From behind the medic, a werg howled, startling her. A glance in the side-view mirror revealed another werg crossing the driveway near the entrance gate.

  My God, how many are there?

  With a thump, the medic wobbled. Her eyes shot toward the right side mirror. The werewolf from the porch, the one Chuck had pet, was now leaning against the side of the medic, rubbing his back up and down against the rear corner as though he had an unreachable itch.

  Another werg came from a house across the street and moved toward the medic. He seemed to be magically drawn toward the vehicle or, more ominously, toward her. Christine wondered if the flickering lights were drawing them in, so she turned them off. The werg continued across the street.

  Farther down the lane, yet another werg exited a house and approached the medic. Then another one followed from somewhere behind that house. Christine rubbed her cheek and kept a constant watch on the door Chuck had entered, hoping to see him emerge.

  The werewolves kept coming until the medic was surrounded by seven of the creatures. They sniffed and snorted and circled as if waiting for her to come out. They were about to be disappointed, because there was no way in hell she was going to oblige them. One of the creatures, a brownish-tinted beast, lifted his leg and marked the grill as his territory. Another, more aggressive werg slammed against him, knocking him to the concrete before lifting his own leg at the grill. The brown werg scrambled back to his feet and bared his teeth. The two wergs circled each other, snapping their jaws with intimidating growls. One of the other wergs joined the standoff.

  Christine had little doubt they were claiming something, but wondered whether it was her or the truck they were after. She held the radio mic to her lips, debating whether she should call for help or if she would be laughed at for overreacting. Instead, she slipped the gearshift into reverse and eased backward, hoping the wergs would simply move out of her way. One of the wergs behind the truck slammed against the back as if telling her to stop. She mashed the brakes.

  Come on, Chuck.

  The werg from behind rounded the side and moved to her door. He sniffed the handle, the step plate, and anywhere she may have touched. He grabbed the door handle and wobbled it in the same way a human would. That settled it—they weren’t coming for the truck, they were coming for her.

  She smashed the air horn foot pedal, releasing a deafening blare. The wergs flinched and scattered from the locomotivelike blast. Chuck raced from the house’s front door.

  “Christine, are you alright?” he shouted.

  With the wergs scattering and their owners exiting their homes, Christine lowered her window a crack. “Are you ready?” she shouted.

  He nodded and said, “We aren’t going to the hospital, so let me get a few signatures and I’ll be right out.”

  “Just hurry,” she said.

  She turned her attention to the onboard computer to see how long they had been there. A knock on her window startled her again.

  “I’m sorry,” the stranger said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She lowered her window. “That’s alright. I’ve been a little jumpy lately.”

  The middle-aged ma
n said, “I wanted to apologize if Boone was bothering you. I saw all of the wergs around your truck, but by the time I got my shoes on to come and get him, you’d scared them off with your horn.”

  “That’s okay,” she lied. “Do they always act like that?”

  “No. It’s strange. Boone has never acted like that before. In fact, I’ve never seen any wergs acting so aggressively, especially any of the neighborhood ones. Hell, Boone is still acting funny in the house. I had to put him away because he kept trying to come back out. He isn’t listening very well, all of a sudden.”

  Not completely comfortable with her window opened, she asked, “What do you mean, put him away? He does open doors, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah. We had a room built without knobs on the inside so we could keep him in while we are out. Mostly, the neighborhood wergs have free rein inside the gates.”

  “Well, you really should keep them away from strangers. Not everyone likes them like you do.”

  “Point taken, ma’am. My apologies.”

  Chuck came from the house. Christine thanked the neighbor, pressed the unlock button, and with Chuck barely inside she sped from the neighborhood.

  14

  NEVETS DAY FOUR

  “WAKE up, animal!”

  Steven jerked himself awake, confused and paranoid. The radio static in his head was more intense than it had been. He blinked over and over, shaking his head until the world, though still black and white, came into focus. He was facing the stable fence.

  “Wake up, animal,” the voice said again, and Steven turned in time to see a stick-like weapon, similar to a police baton, hurl toward his back. He cringed away from the impact.

  The pain stung for an instant before sinking deep into his shoulder blade. He cried out, as much from shock as from the horrendous pain. His fingers went numb. He his left fist to get the blood flowing into his hand again.