I was tasked with picking off any wolves who tried to flank our location, of which there turned out to be more than a few.
We managed to hold our own for a time, as the makeshift militia of citizens and police hit the first wave of werewolves with enough firepower to topple a small nation. I ran back and forth like a chicken trying to keep its head from being cut off. Hitting hard, fast, and without mercy was key. I knew that if I stopped and thought about my actions, it could be disastrous. So I put my head down and made with the swift savage action, doing my damnedest to ensure the brave souls defending this town from my selfish stupidity didn’t need to worry about their backsides, too.
It seemed we were making progress, or at least not giving ground, but then a trio of pickups pulled onto the far end of Main Street. Their beds were packed to the gills with werewolves. No surprise there. What none of us were expecting, though, was for some of them to be armed.
Whether it was ignorance or arrogance, we all assumed that the creatures attacking us would act like monsters from a movie – feral creatures attacking with fangs and claws. Up until that moment, it had seemed a safe assumption. But I should have remembered my father and the other wolves I’d seen up close. Though they took on the appearance of beasts, they retained their human minds ... as well as their opposable thumbs.
The trucks headed toward our makeshift barrier, picking up speed while the wolves in the back opened fire. It didn’t matter if they had little chance of hitting anything. Moving at the speed they were, they effectively neutralized our defenses as the people holding the line either ducked or scattered.
I had just finished dispatching a werewolf who’d leapt down from the fire escape of Burt’s Hardware Emporium when I turned and saw all of this happen. The wolves and drivers jumped from their vehicles at the very last second, sending their trucks slamming into the street-wide barrier at three different spots, leaving it a mass of burning and broken metal.
Most importantly, it upended what had been a semi-organized defense, leaving people dazed as a good dozen wolves cleared the blockade and tore into whoever they could get their hands on.
Cries, screams, snarls, and gunshots erased any semblance of what should have otherwise been a nice, quiet evening. All the while, the blood moon stood high in the sky, continuing to bathe us in its eerie crimson glow.
♦ ♦ ♦
My back to the ground with snapping jaws only inches from my face might be someone’s idea of fetish porn, but it wasn’t really a kink I was into. My hands were bruised and bloodied as I held the wolf barely at bay, but bloodied was a lot better than instantly amputated if it managed to close its teeth on my fingers.
Sadly for me, it had two arms to go with the living chainsaw that was its mouth. I had my legs wrapped around it, adding to the strange fetish feel of it all, but that was more to keep it from gaining any additional leverage. Unfortunately, my defensive strategy did nothing to keep it from sinking its claws into my back.
Sooner or later it was simply going to lacerate me to death if I didn’t...
“Hold on!”
Darla McIntyre appeared behind the creature, silver spike held high. She’d been a cheerleader back in high school, not to mention a racist asshole who used to give Riva shit on a daily basis. Probably would have done the same to me, too, if I didn’t have a reputation for letting my fists do my talking for me.
The irony of her being a backstabbing bitch wasn’t lost upon me as she slammed the weapon into the werewolf – not that I was complaining about the save.
It wasn’t exactly a lethal blow, but it was more than enough for the wolf’s eyes to open wide in pain and for its jaw muscles to ease up on the pressure long enough for me to...
Crack!
I pulled and twisted, breaking its muzzle and ramming its broken jaw into the soft spot of its throat.
The result was immediate. It collapsed atop me, several hundred pounds of dead meat pinning me to the ground. Sadly, I was in no position to take what was soon going to become a much-needed rest.
♦ ♦ ♦
I thanked Darla once I’d shoved the dead wolf off, making sure my blood and sweat soaked mask was still in place. It was, if barely. That was good, because now really wasn’t the time for two high school rivals to learn an important lesson in bygones being bygones.
She tried to pull the spike from the wolf’s heavily muscled back, but it was stuck fast – for her anyway. I yanked it free and handed it to her with a nod. I doubted we’d ever be friends, but seeing her here was a definite boost toward my faith in humanity.
The moment over, I turned away to see what else needed to be done.
What a joke! The entire street was chaos as far as the eye could see. Broken windows, warped metal, snapped or burning wood ... and that was the least of it. Gunshots continued to ring out – from both sides – the lull between them filled with snarls and howls. The worst of it, however, were the bodies littering the street – some dead or dying, but many more injured. And that wasn’t even counting the wolves.
I’m not an inhuman monster. Though I was doing what needed to be done, that didn’t mean I had no heart. How many of their kind were fated to die today all because of my uncle’s stupid fear? I had to imagine at least some of them didn’t want to be here. They couldn’t all be bloodthirsty beasts. I at least knew my father wasn’t. Yet here they were anyway. Fucking pack mentality. And people wondered why I hadn’t joined a sorority back at school.
Sadly, compassion for our enemies was a luxury that wouldn’t buy us much leeway in this fight. Sure, I’d seen a few werewolves do little more than knock down their human opponents before running off to attack someone else, but I’d seen just as many lay into their victims with all the glee of a rabid dog. Unfortunately, the wolves weren’t wearing nametags to differentiate themselves.
Forcing any regrets I had to the side, I immediately dove back into the fray, tackling a wolf before it could do the same to Mrs. Carnesworth as she paused to reload her comically oversized handgun. It went down with me on top. I grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, pulled back, and rammed it face-first into the asphalt, resulting in a disturbing crunch that was either its face or the street cracking. It was hard to tell which.
Regardless, it had the desired effect and the monster fell limp beneath me.
Mrs. Carnesworth threw me a thumbs up. “Thanks! Keep up the good work.”
“I’ll do my best.” I stopped dead in my tracks as the words – my go-to excuse during high school – slipped automatically from my lips.
By then, she’d turned away to open fire on a pair of werewolves advancing on Chief Johnson’s position. If she heard or recognized me, she gave no indication, instead focusing on the fight all around us.
Whew! Close one.
Terrifying as this all was, if there was one benefit, it was seeing so many people having the backs of their neighbors. But singing Kumbaya would have to wait.
No sooner had I stepped away, to see who else needed an ass-kicking, when I was blindsided. Something large, heavy, and furry plowed into me from the side and we both went tumbling end over end.
Luckily, it was one of the smaller wolves. Less lucky was that it still had at least two-hundred pounds in its favor, maybe more since I was sweating pretty hard by then. Say what you will about being attacked by a horde of monsters, but it made for damn good cardio. CrossFit had nothing on this shit.
We both regained our feet at the same time and launched ourselves at each other. I grappled the werewolf and spun, keeping our positions ever shifting. Friendly fire was definitely an issue, but of greater concern was the wolves that were still armed. They’d be less likely to care about firing into hand-to-hand combat, knowing their side healed from just about anything.
Fortunately, it seemed everyone and everything else in the area was currently occupied, leaving me to continue dancing with my furry friend.
“Mind if I lead?” I threw an uppercut that slammed its jaws shut with
a click of teeth.
I lowered my shoulder and drove it into the beast’s midsection, lifting it from the ground for a moment before slamming it back into the pavement, hard enough to knock the wind out of it.
“Time to say good night, asshole.” I got back to my feet and prepared to plant the heel of my shoe into its windpipe.
That’s when it began to change.
It was the first wolf I’d seen try to shift back into its human form this night. Everything else had stayed ugly and hairy, even as death took hold. I had actually begun to wonder if maybe they were incapable of changing back during the blood moon.
Apparently not, though. The creature’s form shrank in on itself and the fur began to recede, revealing pink flesh beneath.
Why now? What was different about this one that caused it to...
“Please.” Its voice was guttural at first, but rapidly taking on a human intonation.
A moment later, the transformation completed itself and it all became clear to me as the scared young face of Melissa Haynes, the girl I used to babysit – and the same wolf I’d put in the hospital the month before – stared up into my eyes.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
CHAPTER 33
“What the hell?!” I cried, my voice muffled by my frayed mask.
That bastard Craig. He’d sent them all on his mission of petty vengeance. Melissa was fucking thirteen years old, barely a teenager, and he’d sent her here to either kill or be killed.
“Please, no more,” she begged again. “I don’t want to be here.”
“Then why...”
A low-pitched howl rose up in the night, increasing in volume until I could hear the few windows remaining on the street beginning to rattle. I could feel it reverberating in my bones and when I looked up, I saw the reason why.
A massive wolf stood atop the roof of Penneker’s Bakery, looking down at the street and the chaos contained within. In the light of the blood moon, it appeared to have nearly crimson fur, but its size gave it away. It was Craig, the alpha of the pack.
Uncle Craig raised his muzzle to the sky and again let out a howl, one that echoed through the street.
It was as if a switch had been thrown. The wolves on the ground disengaged from whoever they’d been attacking and went bounding away, all in the same direction.
Craig looked down and I was certain his eyes locked with mine. I heard a strange guttural chuffing coming from him and realized a moment later the bastard was laughing. What a fucking cock. He’d unleashed hell upon this town and had the gall to think it was funny.
All at once, I realized what he was doing, where he was sending the others. Here there was resistance. Though many lives had been lost in the fighting, there was no shortage of werewolf corpses littering the street either. Deeper in the town, though, lay the residential areas. I’d run into wolves there earlier, but I realized now they’d been mere scouts, forerunners sent to stir up chaos. Now he was sending the bulk of the pack.
Going door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, it would be a slaughter.
I turned and looked around, finally spotting Chief Johnson. “They’re going for the homes!” I screamed out. “They’re...”
“No!”
I turned back toward Melissa. She had regained her feet and was standing nude in the middle of the street with her head turned skyward. No? “What are you...?”
“I don’t want to.”
I followed her gaze up to where Craig stood looking down at us. He let loose a snarl at the girl that faded into a low-pitched growl.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry? About what?”
Goddamn, I could be so stupid when I wanted to be.
I should have seen it coming. Should have guessed it. But I was tired, having been running or fighting for what seemed like hours now. Melissa caught me off guard. She spun, her body morphing even as she moved.
The change wasn’t an instantaneous thing. From what I’d seen, it took at least several seconds to complete. But sometimes a full transformation wasn’t necessary. And it only took an instant to change a part of their bodies.
Melissa’s claws, now far longer than her fingernails had ever been, raked across my stomach, cutting deep furrows through my shirt, skin, and muscle.
A choked gasp escaped my lips as fire seemed to erupt in my gut. Within the space of a second I could feel blood soaking my shirt and beginning to drip down into my pants.
“Please forgive me...”
Before the pain took over and sent me to my knees, I hauled off and backhanded Melissa, sending her flying. I didn’t want to hurt her, but there was no time for restraint, and though I couldn’t understand the growls coming from above, I was pretty certain that he was ordering her to finish the job.
Melissa and I both crumpled to the ground at the same time, but where she lay unmoving, unconscious at the very least, I pressed my hands to my stomach and rolled over onto my back, trying to keep from crying out.
Craig again let out that chuffing laugh. I fully expected him to leap off the building and use the opportunity to gut me good and proper, but the bastard instead turned and loped off into the night, following the rest of the pack.
Son of a bitch!
He had me dead to rights. Could have finished me off and ended this. But I saw now what a petty dick he was being. His meaning was more than clear. I wasn’t enough. He’d promised to destroy the town and he meant to do just that. He’d make sure I suffered for the sin of being born different, and only then would he come back and finish me off.
I squeezed my eyes shut as a spasm of pain roiled through my stomach, and when I looked up again, he was back, standing atop of the bakery, his massive form staring down at me.
Had he changed his mind?
But he just stood there. No laughing, no howling, just looking at me.
After a moment, I realized my mistake. It wasn’t Craig.
“Dad?”
Unfortunately, before I could tell for certain, the pain became too much and I passed out.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Hold her still. This is going to hurt.”
I heard a brief clicking noise, followed by the pain of what I was sure was teeth biting down into my already agony-wracked gut.
My eyes flew open and I flailed out.
“I said to hold her!”
“She’s as strong as a fucking ox! You hold her.”
I tried to sit up, and a hand pushed down on my shoulder. My first instinct was to grab it and break the arm it was attached to into multiple pieces, but fortunately, a voice stayed me before I could do any harm.
“Relax! It’s me. We’re trying to help you.”
I blinked several times to clear my vision and found myself surrounded by people – humans fortunately – including Chief Johnson, who was kneeling in front of me next to a guy with a big stapler in his hand. “Ugh, how long was I out?”
“Just a few minutes.”
That was a relief. I turned to the guy with the stapler. “Don’t bother hanging up flyers. Pretty sure those things ate your lost dog.”
Chief Johnson smiled. “Sorry, best we could do for now.”
“Best for...?”
“To get you back on your feet. That thing got you good. We’re trying to close up your wounds. You’ll probably want a tetanus shot later, but at least you won’t bleed out.”
“Thanks,” I replied weakly.
“Don’t mention it.”
I reached up to rub my eyes and realized my face was still covered. “You didn’t unmask me?”
“Wasn’t my top priority,” he said. “Besides, didn’t seem sporting considering all you’ve done for us. Oh, and don’t worry, I’m not even going to try telling you to sit this one out.”
“Yay for me.”
I dared a glance down at my midsection. Part of my shirt had been torn away, although not enough to reveal anything that could cause me to start throwing punches. Two ugly gashes conti
nued to ooze blood, while two more had been closed up in a manner best described as pretty fucking nasty. “Good thing bikini season is over.”
“Sorry about that,” Johnson said, inclining his head at the other guy. “And even more sorry because we’re not done yet.”
Oh shit. Still, it was better than bleeding to death, if just barely.
I laid back down and gritted my teeth. The sooner I was back in this fight, the better chance we had of ending this.
CHAPTER 34
Lying there listening to them staple my guts back together gave me some time to think. It was far better than concentrating on what they were doing, or the biting pain that followed each click of the stapler.
Fortunately, I had a little secret. Werewolves healed fast, but so did I. Pity it wasn’t fast enough to not make this hurt like a motherfucker. So instead, I tried to focus on how to stop this mess without leaving the town a lifeless ruin.
Thankfully, my uncle was good enough to provide the answer. He’d finally shown his face, no doubt to gloat in his wolfish way about how he planned to be an asshole to the very end. But Melissa had proven that at least one of the pack wasn’t all that keen on what he was doing. If there was one, then there had to be others. He was somehow forcing them to do his bidding. I wasn’t sure if it was instinctual pack mentality, some sort of psychic ... I dunno ... compulsion, or the others simply being afraid of him. Maybe it was a mix of all the above. It didn’t really matter. What did was that he was the puppet-master here, whether or not his people liked it.
But what if he wasn’t?
If someone else was calling the shots, then perhaps this entire thing could be stopped with little more than pointing a finger toward Morganberg and telling them all to go fetch. Would it work? No idea, but I had to try. Both Mom and Dad had given me enough clues to make me think I had a shot, such as Dad’s bruises the night after I first discovered my abilities. He’d challenged his brother as cover for letting me get away. That told me the position of alpha was fluid. Might made right. Yeah, I wasn’t a giant dog, so there was no telling if he’d accept my challenge, but I was pretty sure I had that one covered if he tried to weasel out.
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