Wolfkind

by Stephen Melling

  He realized dimly that he was face down with the weight of the car on his legs. He clawed frantically at the squashed roof, but could not efficiently shift the weight to free himself. Flames raged through the interior, heat upon heat bore down on him, he could smell his own flesh burning, feel his strength departing. To the left he saw only buckled steel and broken glass. To the right the incline of the forest floor allowed him a narrow window to the outside. Through darting, lapping flames he saw the two cars negotiate the road.

  Beyond the rear window of the first car he caught a glimpse of Genna, her hands pressed to the glass, her horrified expression. Beside her, the silhouette of someone holding her back.

  Seeing Genna gave him strength; he called upon the terrible power within him. He wriggled and kicked and fought in the blazing inferno. His clothes were all but burned off him. His hair was gone and his skin blackened. The energy flow required to fuel his partial metamorphosis became interrupted and began to ebb away.

  With his free hand he clawed and scraped at the wet earth, dragged a fistful of mud and smeared over his face. He thrust the hand out again and his probing fingers clutched a protruding tree root. With all his might he pulled on this, dragging his trapped body free. The whole car moved with him as he wriggled and squirmed and pulled. Inch by inch he dragged himself away until only his feet were trapped. With two hands he gripped the bole of a pine and dragged himself clear. A sharp edge of buckled steel gouged the flesh from his left calf. Red hot steel scraped his bone.

  Fire raged through the BMW, its rubber burned and its metal buckled under the heat, and acrid smoke billowed from the burning seats and flooded his lungs. He lost all knowledge of his quest, his brother, Barlow and Genna. He abandoned all cognizant thought and became composed entirely of instinct, wishing only to free himself of the all agony shrieking along his nerves.

  With the last dregs of strength in his body, he rolled over, away from the burning wreck. Faintly aware that he was still on fire, he rolled again, the declination of the land aiding him. He came to rest in a hollow at the base of a tree fifteen feet from the gutted car; his strength all but gone.

  The crackling of the wreck and the rays of sunshine filtering through the swaying branches faded. He felt himself tumble headlong into an oil-black nightmare in which he held Genna Delucio in his arms. She was streaked with blood. She wasn’t breathing. Genna was dead, and he could do nothing to bring her back.

  Through the Sedan’s rear window the ensuing fireball reflecting in Genna’s pupils. Although flames swallowed the wreck, she thought she saw flailing arms and legs, burning with the rest of the car.

  “No!” she pressed her hands to the window. Even through the glass she felt the heat. By Joshua’s own admission, fire would kill him. Surely no one and nothing could survive that furnace. Not even Joshua. She caught one last glimpse of the searing pyre before the car spirited her away.

  Serefini dragged her away from the window and slammed her into the seat, letting his hands linger on her breasts. He leered at her.

  The suddenness of Joshua’s demise rendered her momentarily catatonic. Her breath caught in her throat. Their ruination had come about swiftly and completely. The time they shared painfully brief; had passed so abruptly that for a moment her mind refused to accept it. Her mother was gone, Suzanne was gone, now Joshua was gone – she had no one left.

  The horrific image of Joshua, thrashing in agony against the flames, imprinted on her mind like a branding iron. She recoiled from the though, turning her head and gasping. After a moment, she finally remembered to breathe. A wall of blackness threatened to overwhelm her and she bit her lip, drawing blood. At last she looked round at Serefini.

  He sneered. “Now that’s what I call a ‘fuck and die’ movie.”

  Genna swung her hand to his face with all her strength. The resulting slap was loud as a starting pistol. Her palm tingled from the blow. Several of his wounds reopened, and more to the point, it wiped the look off his face.

  George Decarius’ eyes were wide in the rearview mirror.

  Serefini’s lips went gray and his jaw tensed. He slapped her back – hard, rocking her head on her shoulders. Then he grabbed her by her chin, slammed her against the seat back, and thrust his hand between her legs, squeezing hard. He moved his face to within an inch of hers. His breath stank. “Be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to you.” He then let go and playfully slapped her cheek.

  The moment the pressure of his hand left her chin, she hawked up as much spit as she could and put it in his face. The saliva struck his left eye, closing it. “Be nice to that you sack of shit coward.”

  Serefini’s face turned bright red. Only his lips remained bloodless, stretched thin as string over his teeth. He drew back his hand, his fingers curling into a tight fist.

  “Hold it down.” George Decarius said from the front seat. “If a cop sees you struggling in the back….”

  Serefini wiped the spit from his face and glared at George Decarius until the older man dropped his gaze. To Genna, Serefini said. “I owe you some fluid.”

  So crushed was she by Joshua’s fate, Genna did not notice the tension in the car until they rolled up to the entrance of Stromboli Mansion. Serefini phoned ahead, and as the car pulled up the gates were already swinging open. Those in the car became increasingly restless, staring owlishly at one another, Serefini included.

  Genna frowned dully, looking through the window as the car turned. The usual number of two or three gatehouse guards had increased to nine or ten, most of them new faces. At least four of them wore body armor. Others were armed with machine guns. But the expression of dread was universal. Tension hung around them like flies around a dead crow.

  Curious, Genna sat upright and pressed her face closer to the glass. Posted at regular intervals along the driveway were more armed guards. Several technicians were perched atop stepladders, installing floodlights. Between the two outer fences over a dozen Doberman Pincers padded to and fro; their continual sentry work carving paths in the mown grass. Closer to the house, tucked away in a corner, she made out what appeared to be a gun emplacement, protected by a short wall of concrete building blocks. Two wide-eyed guards dressed in combat fatigues manned the weapon.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked no one in particular. Serefini’s demeanor had darkened markedly. The intrinsic smugness evaporated. The restless look in his eyes told of a more pressing concern.

  “I want to see my father.” She demanded. Since passing through the gates, Serefini had made no further attempt to restrain her. Perhaps because he knew that her fleeing now would be pointless. Stromboli Mansion was a fortified cage, designed and manned to keep out intruders. Preventing one unarmed girl from escaping would not be too difficult. The car drew to a halt right of the main entrance.

  Serefini politely opened the door. “After you.”

  She clambered out and hurried up the steps. Four gunmen flanked the entrance, each of them armed with brand new automatic weapons. On the west corner of the building she saw another gun emplacement.

  Entering the building, Genna felt a prick of fear at the base of her neck; the charged atmosphere, the sense of impending doom and the over-population of guards painted a grim picture. A pregnant silence held sway, creating the atmosphere of a library or a funeral parlor.

  Finally it dawned on her. Her father feared no rival gangsters because none were left in the city. He was fortifying his defenses against an attack from the Invisible Assassin. Of course.

  They had brought her back to his house presumably to be ‘safe’.

  Into the Lion’s den.

  “Dear God.” She turned to Serefini. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “Believe me,” he said grimly. “We know.” He grabbed her shoulders and steered her toward the stairs. “Your father’s relocated to the east wing.”

  She pulled away from him and ran up the stairs, stopping at the first guard. “Where’s my father?” The guard ignor
ed her.

  Serefini strode past her. “This way.”

  “You’ve got to listen to me,” she said, trailing him down the corridor. “You try to defend this place you’ll all die. You have to get out.”

  He didn’t answer her, but he gave her a curious look, perhaps wondering how much she actually knew. Along the east wing he led her to a door, turned the handle, and pushed it open. “Go tell it to your father.”

  She pushed past Serefini and marched into the room. “You son of a bi-” Her words caught in her mouth. No one was in the room. Just a conference table and a few other items of furniture, a drinks cabinet, and a large couch. Steel bars shielded the windows. “What-”

  Serefini shoved her smartly between the shoulder blades, knocking the wind from her. She tumbled headlong, colliding with the table. Sunlight glinted off a glass decanter in the table’s center. It toppled over, didn’t smash, but rolled off the table and dinked onto the wooden floor. “Your old man’s busy,” Serefini quickly closed the door and locked her inside.

  Genna threw herself at the door. “You fools! Let me out. For Christ’s sake you don’t know what you’re doing.” She banged the wood with her fists. “You have to let me go.”

  His footsteps receded down the corridor.

  Genna turned and looked frantically at the barred window. Two other doors led to adjoining rooms; she tried them, but they were locked. Her window looked down on the front gardens. Through gaps in the trees she saw sections of the electric fence, beyond which the guard dogs endlessly patrolled. Beyond that the view became obscured by denser shrubbery and the outermost fence. She could see nothing of the street. Pairs of armed guards patrolled every scrap of land.

  She gripped the bars and in frustration shook the steel. They were immovable. She might as well have been in prison. “Oh no.”

  While the fire that engulfed the wreck burnt itself out, Joshua slipped into a state of disunion with his physical self. So great was the extent of his injuries and so low were his reserves of energy he could not exist on both a physical and a psychological plane. He sensed the cellular activity endeavoring to regenerate his damaged tissue. Much of this occurred on a sub-atomic level, molecules jumping about erratically, cells rebuilding, dividing – the supernatural mitosis fueled by the protein scavenged from his body. Unless he found sustenance soon, he knew he might never reconstitute.

  First to benefit from the recuperation was his brain, and then his nervous system, synapses snapping and neuron’s conveying messages of pain and relief. All too slowly his body worked to recover from the massive trauma. Whenever his disembodied thoughts turned to Genna’s kidnap, he instantly encountered a power drain. The simple act of contemplating her fate consumed him. He dragged his thoughts away.

  Gradually his five senses returned; he became aware of the damp forest floor pressed against his back, the smell of burning, the gentle breeze. And then something touched his face; something alive. The alien appendage, wet and curious, was followed by the exhale of a wild animal. His spirit sank. If this was a bear or a coyote, or even a wolf, he was in trouble.

  His fear grew at the touch of a heavy tongue lapping across his cheek, evidently tasting his flesh, most likely a prelude to devouring it. Eaten alive by a wild animal – an end he never foresaw. Even in his depressed state, he still saw the irony.

  At a rate too slow to assist him, a precarious state of consciousness slipped back into place. Through one eye he saw the wild animal about to make him its lunch. Sizable canine teeth glowered over his face, slaver dripped from jet black jowls onto his cheeks. A single word, frail as tissue paper, escaped his throat. “Benji?”

  His coat blackened by soot and singed in several places, Benji whined and nuzzled his cheek, licked his wounds and sniffed at him. The dog was alive and reasonably well, and had not, as Joshua had feared, perished in the fireball. How the pooch escaped only the pooch knew. Probably he was thrown clear after the car flipped, for the fire damage to Benji’s coat was minimal.

  Unfortunately the dog could not bring Joshua any food. Lassie he wasn’t.

  Already the process of cellular regeneration was sapping his strength. Wave upon wave of dizziness rippled through him. His mind swooned, as though he had drunk too much wine. Abruptly he withdrew from the world. For one horrible moment he felt a sensation of plunging down a black well, with the concerned canine peering down over the rim, unable to offer assistance.

  Sometime later when the dizziness subsided, his eyes regained focus and presented him with a sideways view of Benji lying close by, head on paws, watching him. The sun had reached past the tree tops, its brightness dappling his face through the upper branches. How long he had lain unconscious he had no way of knowing. He felt weak as a kitten and confused, and when he moved, the world rocked sickeningly on its axis.

  As his vision reluctantly righted itself, and the land became still, he made the first agonizing movement toward the cabin. All but drained of strength, he pulled himself along no farther than a few yards before succumbing to euphoria. The cabin stood a hundred or so yards distant. At this pace he figured to cover the distance in about two hours – if at all.

  He dragged and pulled at the ground. Inching himself along snake-like on his belly. Drag-pull, drag- pull. Six feet into his journey he passed out again. He came round fifteen or so minutes later. To his dismay, when he finally opened his eyes, the cabin appeared no closer than before. He clawed at the forest floor, drag pull, drag pull.

  No amount of shouting, kicking the door, or throwing items of furniture provoked a response from Genna’s captors. The guard assigned to her door proved beyond persuasion. He spoke only once, to inform her that Serefini forbade him to communicate. She heard him shuffling his feet, un-shouldering his weapon, checking the workings.

  Fixed to a bracket near the ceiling, a miniature closed-circuit camera pointed down into the room. Genna stood below it, staring stonily into the lens, knowing those in the surveillance room watched her every move. She concluded there was no point in trying to escape under live surveillance. Instead she gave the camera the middle finger.

  Wherever she stood or sat she remained in the camera’s range. Her eyes wandered the room. By the door she saw a rack filled with walking-sticks.

  In the dim Surveillance room George Decarius observed the black and white image of Genna swinging the cane at the security camera in her room. On the third successive swing, the ornate brass walking-stick handle filled the screen and pooosh. In went the lens; the picture imploded and dark static replaced the image.

  “Shit,” Decarius picked up a phone and called Serefini. “Big man’s daughter just totaled the surveillance in her room.”

  The line went quiet. George Decarius picked out Serefini on another camera. Divo looked up at him, and then furtively over his shoulder, as though the man was thinking thoughts he ought not to be thinking. “Is Markus still guarding the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Leave it to me,” Serefini said.

  When Joshua finally stumbled up to the cabin’s side door the sun had long since begun its inexorable slide down into the western half of the sky. He remembered nothing of his snake-like journey across the lawn, but when he looked back, he saw his trail through the grass.

  Once on the sundeck he reached up and pulled on the handle; the door creaked open. Benji nuzzled through and raced into the house, ears pricked up, chuffing an enquiry into each room.

  Joshua fell across the threshold. Crawled through to the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. Both his eyes were open now and the wedge of light made him blink. A stream of frosty air flowed out, partly reviving him. Leaning against the unit next to the fridge he grabbed a half full carton of long life milk, and drank.

  As soon as the fluid reached his stomach his enzymes started working, creating a super-fast biochemical feeding frenzy. The calcium and proteins and fats instantly absorbed, and before the next carton touched his lips, were completely assimilated by his accele
rated metabolism. Sensation flowed through his body from his stomach to his extremities, tingling, healing, repairing, like a colony of a trillion tireless termites crawling over every inch of his being, inside and out. While he ate, he became aware of the dog running from room to room, searching for Genna.

  Joshua discarded the empty carton and reached into the fridge, grabbing anything edible. The shelves were well stocked with cooked and uncooked meat; Joshua needed most, if not all of it, to reanimate his fallen biological machine.

  His strength increased at a geometric rate. Flakes of burned skin peeled off his wounds revealing new, unblemished flesh beneath. Hair sprouted from his scalp and the charred remains of his clothes fell away from him and lay on the carpet like a reptilian carapace. Just like the mythical phoenix he grew from his own ashes. But with the accelerated healing came the fresh, sensitive nerves that transmitted fresh pain signals. He groaned in agony, closing his eyes, chewing on raw meat.

  With the surveillance camera disabled, Genna searched the room. In the cupboards and drawers she found only maps and old newspapers, alarm schematics, a cop’s nightstick, and other blunt weapons. Among them she found a genuine Swiss army knife. She picked it up and extended the four inch blade.

  The door to the right of the window led directly to a room she remembered playing in as a child. Through the keyhole she saw a four-poster bed, a closet and French windows that opened onto the balcony. She stepped up to the window, pressed her face against the bars, her breath fogging the glass. Yes – and beneath the balcony she saw roofs of the two cars used to kidnap her. Three other vehicles were parked alongside – two limos and a Bronco. No doubt these had keys dangling in the ignitions.