“Down,” the man shouted. “On your belly.”
What the hell?
The man swung his weapon again. Steven’s ribs roared in pain as the air hurled from his chest with such force he feared his lungs would collapse.
“Down,” the man shouted again.
Stunned, Steven dropped to the ground.
“Good boy,” the man said.
Steven looked up, locking eyes with his tormentor. The man drew back and then swung his club against Steven’s lower back. “Don’t look me in the eye,” he shouted. “You aren’t a man anymore; you’re nothing more than a filthy dog and we are your masters.”
As if on cue, another man entered through the metal gate. Steven stared to the ground. He was a fast learner and didn’t want another beating. However, he was able to take a quick peek at the approaching soldier. The man held a long pole and wore a mask over his face.
“Is he ready?” the man asked.
The first man nodded.
“Walk,” the man with the long pole ordered.
Steven slowly got to his feet. The man shoved the pole against Steven’s right flank, sending an ungodly jolt through his entire body. Unable to control his fall, Steven collapsed to the dirt with a thud and a quiver.
“On your hands and knees, animal,” the man shouted. Then he leaned over to the other man and whispered, “I thought you said he was ready.”
The man answered, “Sorry, sir,” and then slammed his foot against Steven’s ribs.
“Put this on him,” the man with the electric pole directed.
The first man hooked a cold leather strap to the chain around Steven’s neck.
Steven’s blood boiled. He shouted, “What am I? A do—” Before he finished, the chain around his neck jerked tight, yanking his head to the side. His words ripped from his throat, replaced by an uncontrolled yelp and choking pain. He grasped his neck and fell to the dirt again. Before he could recover his senses, the bastards jerked upward on the chain, sending a second rush of stabbing pain through his body. Steven coughed and gasped, unable to catch his breath with the cold metal digging into his throat. He fought back to his knees, hoping to do whatever it was those assholes wanted.
The man started walking and hissed something; it might have been “heel.” Steven crawled next to him, all the while waiting for another horrible jolt or pummeling. The man walked in quick figure eights while Steven stayed planted against his hip. Steven’s knees ached as he crawled and his back stung from their blows, but he needed to buy time to figure his way out.
Their “training” continued for several painful hours. By the time they were finished for the day, Steven’s knees and palms were bloody and raw. The chain around his neck dug into his flesh.
He lay on his side, exhausted, and licked his wounds.
15
NEVETS DAY FIVE
ON the fifth sunrise since his kidnapping, Steven lay motionless in the corner of his stable. He hadn’t slept for two days, afraid of being beaten if he did. His stomach begged him to eat something and his eyes repeatedly went to the decaying cow carcass on the opposite side of his prison. He held his swollen, itchy hands in front of his face and saw they were covered with fur. New, pointed, black nails poked from the flesh of his fingertips.
The guards didn’t give him his shot this day.
He knew from the previous three days that sunrise meant his “trainers,” as they called themselves, would arrive soon. He was going to pay attention this time, the pairs of tiny reminder burns speckled across his body from their cattle prod guaranteed that.
Maybe just a bite of the meat, he decided.
The stable gate opened before he got a chance. Steven scrambled to his hands and knees, which drew a smile from the guards as they entered.
“Here,” snapped the man with the cattle prod. A part of Steven wanted to reject the order and fight back, but a different part of him, a part foreign to his once proud and independent brain, fought against any rebellious thoughts. The more he focused, the more he found it difficult to have any conscious thoughts at all. He scurried to his masters’ sides and sat between their hips.
One of the men scratched behind Steven’s ear, as he would do to a dog. “You have a big day today,” he said. “I wish I could say it would be pleasant.”
“Why do you insist on talking to them at this point?” the other man asked. “You know they don’t have any conscious thought left.”
But they were wrong—Steven did understand them. Though he couldn’t find the thoughts that allowed him to fight back or think clearly or even move without their orders, he knew something was wrong with how they treated him. He sensed he needed to do something different than what he was doing, but for some reason there was a wall within his brain preventing him from doing so.
The man stopped scratching behind his ear, which had surprisingly felt incredible, and answered, “It helps me sleep at night. What if they do have some conscious thought?”
“Impossible.”
“Even so, if there’s any chance, shouldn’t we take it easy on him today? You know, with what they’re about to do to him and all?”
“I could care less. Better him than me. You keep that hippy attitude and you might find yourself heeling next to him.” He was smiling, but his tone said this was no joke. He snapped the leash to the side and said, “Heel.”
Steven and the other guard followed him through the gates.
As Steven and the guards entered another room, they passed two more guards who were escorting a werg out. The werg held his head below his shoulders and didn’t look up when Steven passed. The room had stainless steel walls and three stainless steel beds along one of those walls. There were several men dressed like janitors and wearing dust masks, aprons, and gloves working around the bed in the farthest corner. The pungent smell of bleach filled the room, and Steven nearly gagged. The janitors were scrubbing the stainless steel and mopping around the table. The other tables glistened in the overhead florescent lighting. Steven hesitated as he watched the men clean. His master snapped his attention forward with a yank of the leash and then led him toward one of the other tables. A blue sterile pad next to the table held forceps, syringes, scalpels, and clamps.
“Up,” he said with a slight upward jerk.
Steven leaped onto the table with surprising ease.
“Down,” his master said as he patted the tabletop. Steven lowered his chest, which had started hurting again, to the metal surface. The guards loosely tied straps from the bottom of the table to his wrists and legs. Steven easily wiggled one of his hands free, but the chain around his neck snapped, sending pain through his body. His master shouted, “No,” before maneuvering his hand back into the restraint.
Steven looked around the room. His two masters backed away from the table. The door swung open and a man wearing surgeon scrubs and a surgical mask entered.
“Is he ready?” the man asked.
Steven’s master nodded and answered, “His brain is as docile and primitive as a dog’s.”
“Good. Let’s proceed.”
The pain in Steven’s chest grew until it was unbearable. He writhed on the table. His master ordered him to be still with another jerk of the chain, and he fought against the pain to comply.
The door opened again and two more guards came into the room, each carrying the dreaded cattle prods. The doctor stretched latex gloves over his hands and lifted a syringe from the tray. The straps around Steven’s wrists and ankles cinched and pulled his extremities outward until he lay flat, face-first against the cold steel.
The doctor pressed Steven’s cheek against the table and a guard laid a leather strap across Steven’s temple, fastening the ends beneath the table.
The doctor held out the syringe, squinting at the fluid within. Satisfied with what he saw, he jammed the needle into Steven’s arm. As the fluid raced through Steven’s veins it felt cold, unlike the medicine from before.
His face tightened and his head
ached deep within his brain. He grunted and moaned. The doctor smiled and leaned in with a scalpel in his hand. The first slice to the back of Steven’s neck was excruciating. He flinched and thrashed at his restraints, but the guards held firm. Another slice made him roar like an animal and he no longer recognized his own screams.
“Come on, you bastard,” the doctor said. “Change for me. Release your inner beast.”
“No,” Steven answered with a feral growl.
The doctor gouged the scalpel against his back. Steven pressed his head against the restraint, causing it to give a little, and then banged his own cheek against the unforgiving table.
“I thought you said he was ready,” the doctor said, annoyed.
“I-I-I thought he was,” the guard answered.
Steven looked to his stammering master with pleading eyes.
The guard shouted, “He had the rear paw-like feet when he got up this morning.”
The doctor sliced again.
A red haze crept into Steven’s black and white and green vision. He roared again. His face went numb. Something in his nose jerked with a bone-cracking snap. He watched cross-eyed as his nose and mouth stretched outward away from his face.
“Gooood,” the doctor said. “Thataboy.”
Steven pushed his head against the restraint again, but it didn’t give. More guards rushed in and surrounded the table.
The doctor shouted, “He wasn’t ready, you fools. He shouldn’t be acting so wild. I’ll finish here, but you have work to do. Calm him down now or I’ll report your failure to Mr. Henderson.”
One of Steven’s masters yanked his leash, snapping his attention from his fight. “Calm, boy. It’ll be over soon,” he said.
Steven strained and pushed against the table, lifting his chest inches from the steel. The doctor backed away. The room continued filling with guards until there were too many to fight. They joined the struggle at the ends of each strap until they pulled Steven back against the table. Another guard zapped a cattle prod in front of Steven’s face.
Steven growled. The guard directed his weapon toward Steven’s side. Steven’s struggles drained his fight, and he relaxed before the guard blasted him. He lay winded and defeated as the doctor moved in again.
Steven stared past his attackers to the distant wall. The doctor cursed the guards before shoving something foreign into the wound on the back of Steven’s neck. Steven no longer cared. The doctor worked within the wound for a few minutes before pressing a medical staple gun against his flesh. Eight painful jolts later, Steven’s ordeal was over.
The doctor said to Steven’s masters, “Those staples need to be removed before his trip in the next couple of days. And obviously you have work to do this evening in his taming.” The doctor pulled his surgical mask from his face, wadded it into a ball, and discarded it into the trash before leaving through the door.
The back of Steven’s neck itched and burned and he would have given anything just to scratch it. The guards filed from the room behind the doctor, leaving only Steven and his two masters. They pulled him from the table.
One of his masters approached with a canine surgical cone and wrapped it around Steven’s neck. “This is to keep you from scratching your surgical site.” He held his cattle prod out. “And this is to remind you not to remove the cone.”
They walked him back to the stables.
Alone in his stall, Steven scurried to the slab of rotten, maggot-infested meat, fidgeted his cone around it, and devoured it to the bone. Then he curled into a ball and slept until the guards arrived for more of his re-education.
16
CHANGES
IT had been a slow second shift back at the firehouse for Christine, and she was starting to feel like she was getting back on track. Though she thought about Billy every time she saw his gear sitting on the rack or passed by his bunk, this was the first day she was able to put him out of her mind long enough during emergency calls to be halfway proficient.
She was convinced the other guys recognized her lack of focus, but nobody said anything about it; instead they picked up her slack.
After dinner, Alex joined her in the watch booth and closed the door.
“What’s up, Lieu?” she asked.
“How are you doing now that you’ve been back a couple of shifts?” He had always been a good lieutenant and Christine considered telling him how crushed she was that Billy was still missing. She considered confiding in him about her recent chest pains, which had gripped her twice more since her first episode. She wanted to tell him how her toenails had fallen off and how unquenchable her hunger had been since her attack.
She decided instead not to burden him with her problems. She nodded and said, “It’s been good.”
“I’m glad to hear that. If you need any more time off or anything, let me know.”
“Sure, Lieu. I’ll be fine. I think I’m going to get a shower and turn in early tonight.”
“Sounds good. Hopefully, we’ll have a quiet night.”
“You can say that again.”
Christine excused herself from the watch booth and went to her locker. She gathered her towels, shampoo, and a change of clothes and headed to the shower. The women’s shower was tricky because the hot water knob had a leak at the handle which caused it to spew scalding water over it. She spun the knob in a game of roulette and then yanked her hand back before the scalding water poured out. If she didn’t get the water temperature right on the first try, she knew the second try was going to hurt. Luckily, the spray from the showerhead was tolerable.
She stood in the shower, absorbing the comfortable heat until her shoulders were red. The threat of an emergency call blaring over the loud speaker at any moment kept her focused and conscious of hurrying. While she lathered her hair, she glanced to the shower floor. As the water ran down her face and poured from her chin, the white suds of her shampoo mixed with a strange hint of red and disappeared down the drain. She paused, her hands buried within her lathered hair. She pulled her hands away and the bloody water ran down her forearms and dripped from her elbows. She turned her hand over and stared in horror at her fingertips. Her fingernails had fallen off, just as her toenails had the day before. She lifted her other hand back to her head. As she combed through her wet hair with her fingers, she felt something tangled within.
She backed against the cold tile of the shower wall while staring at her mangled fingertips. Her stomach turned and she nearly vomited. Her chest muscles seized worse than before. She staggered and grabbed the shower curtain for support, only to rip it from its thin metal hooks as she fell. Her hip crashed against the ceramic bathroom floor with a painful thud.
Christine’s hand jerked and twisted and deformed before her eyes. Black, pointed claws protruded from where her fingernails had been. A patch of coarse black hair grew from the top of her hand in seconds. The muscles in her face twitched and ached.
She struggled to stand, wrapped a towel around her body, and staggered through the locker room into the engine bay.
The bay was empty—the crew was likely in the TV room or in the kitchen. “Guys?” she shouted.
No one answered. She wobbled and stumbled toward the exercise room where there was a phone she could use to call for help on the PA. Before she made it, a second wave of pain gripped her chest, knocking her to her knees. She crawled into the room. The weight room door swung closed behind her. She hoisted herself back to her feet with the help of a bench-press machine.
With her deformed hand, she fumbled with the telephone on the wall. She pressed the intercom button with her knuckle and collapsed to her rear, the receiver in her hand. “Alex,” she said in a deep, scratchy voice even she didn’t recognize. “It’s Christine,” she growled, her voice deeper and scratchier. “I’m calling off. I’m sick.”
She dropped the phone to the cement floor and released an uncontrollable howl that echoed throughout the firehouse.
“Christine?” Alex yelled from the bay. “
Where are you? Are you alright?”
A low growl rose from her gut. She muffled the snarl with her hands. Alex’s voice came closer to the exercise room door. Her hands twisted and snapped, her fingers elongating. She wanted his help a few seconds ago, but now she didn’t want him to see her. She crawled to the dangling receiver, summoned every ounce of feral restraint, and said, “I’m fine. I just need to go home.” She scooted her foot against the door and braced it closed.
“Chris?” Willie shouted from the bay. “Where you at?”
She panicked. She dreaded them seeing her, seeing what was happening to her. She scanned the room for somewhere to hide, but there was no cover. She smelled Alex’s shaving lotion before the door pressed against her foot. She held it closed with all of her strength. “Chris? Are you in he—”
“Don’t come in,” she blurted. “I’m not dressed.”
The pressure from the door against her foot subsided. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“Yes,” she growled.
“You don’t sound alright. Let me in.”
The overhead speaker blared a fire tone, ending their debate. Oh, thank God. Christine rolled to her side and curled into a ball.
“Chris?” Alex shouted. “I gotta take this, but I can’t leave you if you need help.”
“Just go,” she yelled. “I’ll be alright.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just go,” she roared.
The engine flared to life and within seconds the firehouse was empty.
Christine lay in agony as her bones cracked and mangled before her eyes. Her jaw snapped and popped and pulled away from her face. As she lay on the cold, lonely floor writhing in pain, a strange thought filled her mind. Though she could hardly bear the agony, her mind went to a deep, primal hunger in her gut, a hunger for meat and blood.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped.
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