by Mac Flynn
"Precisely."
"So what are we supposed to do with this knowledge? Take over the world?"
"Perhaps later, but for now we should focus on keeping you safe and out of that pine box."
"How are we going to do that? We're just a couple of kind-of-normal people. I don't even think we have a gun between us," I pointed out.
Garrison tapped the side of his head. "But we have these."
"Temples?"
"Brains, or rather brain."
"Hey!"
"Kidding. Just kidding."
"Well, Mr. Brain, what are we going to do about this mess?"
"We do nothing."
"That sounds like death. I don't like that."
"It smells like victory."
"No, it smells like death, too. I don't like that, either."
"Just hear me out." Garrison scooted his chair closer to me and lowered his voice to a whisper. "We need to see what intentions they have for you. No doubt they'll figure out you couldn't possibly have taken on those guys like that, and want to get at your rescuer."
"Maybe I did beat them up all by myself," I countered.
"And tore them limb from limb?" he argued. I imagined that scene and shuddered.
"Or maybe I didn't."
"Stick with the truth, it's easier to remember. Anyway, we need to wait for the gang to make their next move. They have your word and the police report stating you were rescued and don't know who your rescuer was, but they might think you're lying to protect him."
"That's a lot of guessing."
"I like guesswork, but we see how they're going to follow you, and we'll counter follow them. You follow my train of thought?"
"I don't even think we're on the same railroad system."
"If we follow them we can learn their patterns, take pictures, and show that proof to the police. They can nab the gang and free us both."
"Us? I'm the one being stalked," I reminded him.
The color drained from his face. "Well, when I get involved like this it'll be us. You and me, that is, because I'll be doing the counter following and when they find that out they're not going to be too happy about it."
I scrutinized his pale features. "Which leads me to ask why you're getting yourself into this much trouble. I don't want to be paddling in the shallow end in this turd-pool and here you are diving headlong into the deep end."
He leaned back and shrugged. "Maybe it's because I like you."
"Maybe it's because you have a death wish that will be express delivered by the Green Bandanna gang," I guessed.
"Or maybe it's because I like you."
"You already said that."
"You weren't listening the first time."
I sighed and stood so I could pace the room. This was getting complicated, and not just because I'd gone from normal office girl to marked girl overnight. I stopped in front of Garrison and put my hands on my hips. "I can't let you do it. I can't let you risk your neck for me."
He smiled. "And I can't let you get hurt. It's not in my nature."
"Didn't nature teach you about the survival instinct?" I countered as I waved my hand toward the laundry room. "Those guys don't care what damage they cause or who gets hurt. You could really get hurt, and I just don't want to blame myself for that."
"Then don't."
I blinked in bewilderment. "Don't what?"
"Don't blame yourself." He stood and clasped my hands in his. "I'm going with you of my own free will." I looked in his eyes and saw only determination.
"You're really stubborn, you know that?"
"Very much so, but feel free to remind me when I'm doing something really stupid."
"So every minute of every day?"
"I walked into that one, didn't I?"
"Practically strolled," I corrected him.
"Well, at the risk of sounding like a complete sap I'll stroll anywhere you're going."
"Yeah, that was sappy."
"Do girls have a monopoly on sappiness?"
"Yes. It's our invention, and the patent is still pending. Do any more sappiness and I'll sue."
He let go and playfully raised his hands on either side of his head. "All right, I'll keep the sappiness to myself-for now."
At that moment Cranston and his fellow officer came back from their inspection. "Looks like Servino is long gone, and we couldn't find any of the other members around," Cranston told us.
Garrison sniffed the air and raised an eyebrow. "You know what they look like?" he asked the cop.
Cranston shrugged. "I've run into them plenty of times, same with Officer Brandy here." He nodded at his buddy who was both cursed and gifted with such a name. "Between us if there was any of them around we would have recognized them."
"Very useful knowing your enemy so well," Garrison commented.
Cranston shot him a glare. "What are you saying?"
Garrison held up his hands and stepped back. "Nothing, just complimenting you."
The officer scowled at Garrison and turned to me. "If you have any other problems here's my private work number." He handed me a slip of paper. "Call anytime you want, my phone's always on me."
"But what about this Servino guy? Aren't you going to arrest him for assault?" I asked them.
"We would if we could find him, but that won't be easy," Cranston replied. "We'll call you if we have any leads. Good day." The officers left for good, and I slid down onto the couch cushion with disappointment heavy in my heart and kidneys.
"I wish they would've been a little more useful," I grumbled.
"Perhaps they were, and didn't mean to be," Garrison spoke up.
I glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"You said something about this Servino guy smoking, right?" I nodded my head. "And you described the smell as roadkill?"
"Yeah, fresh roadkill, too. What about it?"
Garrison nodded at where the officers had gone. "They smelled like that when they came back, but I know they didn't smell like that when they left."
I glanced at the closed door through which they'd left, then looked back to Garrison. "Are you sure? I didn't smell anything."
"I have a good sense of smell, but it all makes sense."
"It does?"
"Just think about everything they said. Cranston admitted he and that other officer knew what the Bandanna gang members looked like, and Cranston is in charge of the case and would have access to the police report."
I shuddered in my seat on the couch. "So you're saying that the inside cop is the guy who's supposed to be helping protect me?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Not half as afraid as I am."
He sat himself down beside me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "You still have me," he pointed out.
I nervously snickered. "Yeah, all one hundred and fifty pounds of you."
"One-eighty, and I have my brains," he corrected me. "That's more than the police can say."
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help the smile that slipped onto my face. "All right, Mr. Brains, when do we start this Operation Save Tasha?"
"Greg."
"Is that a time zone?"
"No, it's my name. I want you to call me that from now on."
"Greg Garrison?"
"My parents liked continuity."
"I can see where you get your weirdness. All right, Greg, when do we start?"
"Tonight we rest, and tomorrow we'll start."
Chapter 8
The sun was setting when I returned to my apartment after my long talk with Greg, and I flicked on the lights so I wouldn't stumble into any furniture. The coffee table had a grudge against me for spilling coffee on it and sometimes it moved so I'd trip and kill myself over it if I wasn't careful. My long day of rest was exhausting, and I flopped down into my chair with a deep, weary sigh. "All this conspiring is hard," I whined to my empty apartment.
Only I didn't know it wasn't empty.
When I'd gotten really comfortable my stomac
h decided that was the perfect time to growl with hunger. That reminded me that I hadn't had much to eat that day, not with the whole being-threatened-by-a-thug, another interview with the corrupt police, and plotting possibly the end of me with Greg. Greg. I leaned back my head and sighed. Things were getting heavy between us, and not because I was gaining more weight. He was a nice guy, sure, and definitely brave in helping me out, but I just wasn't sure I was that into him. I would have placed him in my friend-zone rather than my boyfriend-zone.
Another gurgle from my stomach. It was getting more demanding than my boss. I sighed, and hefted my lard butt over to the kitchen. That was located off the hall that led into the bed and bathrooms. I was rummaging through the cupboards searching for my prey when I heard a creaking noise at the rear of the apartment. I froze and whipped my head around to the backrooms. Everything was quiet, but I felt it was a calm before the storm.
I grabbed the closest weapon within reach, a box of elbow macaroni, and crept over to the hallway. The bedroom and bath lay around the corner, and when I peeked around I smacked my head into something hard. It wasn't the wall, though it felt hard enough. It was a large guy's forehead, and he wasn't very happy with my knucklehead greeting. He wore a dark coat like Servino and there was a green bandanna wrapped around his head. His height towered over mine, and his ripped muscles bulged out from beneath his clothing. His large arms swung to grab me, and I screamed and shoved the cardboard box into his face. The wimpy sides exploded in a hail of uncooked chaos as macaroni flew into every crevice of his face. With macaroni sticking out from his nose, eyes and mouth it changed him into this hideous pasta monster, which was an improvement over his normal look.
The man wiped off the macaroni while I dashed toward the door. He chased and caught me around the waist two feet from freedom, and clamped a large, rough hand over my mouth. I was dragged away from the threshold back toward my couch and the windows overlooking the alley. I dug my feet into the crappy carpet and my heels caught on the decades of grime and dirt. That jerked us to a stop, and I sucked in my gut and dove down out of his clutches like a stick of soft butter. I ran to the door and grabbed the knob, but he slammed into me and prevented me from opening the door.
"Help!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Somebody help me!"
The intruder grabbed me and tossed me back toward the windows. I fell and scrambled backwards on my hands and feet as he locked the door and menacingly stalked toward me. That's when things got a bit hairy, literally. Something large crashed through the windows at my back and landed with a thud beside me. My head snapped up to the wolf thing, which was as good a description as I could give considering my brain was screaming like a little girl.
The wolf thing stood on two legs with thick, long hair like a girl who hadn't shaved in four days. Bent over as it was its arms dragged the ground and ended in hands that had long, sharp claws. Its body was covered in the fluffy, long fur and through that thick stuff I could see it wore a pair of shredded jeans. It had wide shoulders, and its face protruded out like a long snout filled with razor-sharp teeth. There was a pair of fuzzy ears atop its head, and it had a pair of familiar yellow eyes.
"What the hell?" was the intruder's brilliant comment on the beast. The man stumbled back toward the door to escape, but the beast snarled and leapt at him. The creature landed in front of the guy, a straight jump of a dozen feet, and grabbed him by the throat. It tossed the man over the furniture and against the exterior wall between the windows. The man blubbered and pressed himself against the wall as the creature stalked up to him. "Don't hurt me!" the intruder screeched. "Please don't hurt me!"
The beast thing hurt him, and pretty bad. The creature lifted the man up by his collar and tossed him out the broken windows. The man screamed and clawed at the air before he disappeared over the sill and down into the alley. I heard a hard thump when he hit the ground, and then silence. Well, except for the breathing hulk of fur and muscle that stood at the window. The creature turned to me and I let out a tiny squeak. It tromped towards me and I scrambled back along my hands and butt until I hit the side of the couch. The thing hunched over me and leaned its head down to give me a good sniff. I turned my head away and tried not to loose my bowels into the bowels of my underwear.
It raised one of its sharp claws and gently brushed the long nail against my cheek. Even with that soft touch my skin sliced open and I realized if this thing wanted to it could open me up like a can of tomato soup complete with chunks of chewy meat. "Y-you don't want to eat me," I pleaded with the creature. It pulled its hand away and tilted its head to one side. I took my not being immediately killed as a good sign. "I'm all fatty and high in cholesterol. All the fat in my feet would clog your arteries and kill you."
The creature made this strange, deep echoing sound in its throat, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn't a growl of imminent doom but a chuckle. The jokes were cut short when we heard voices out in the hall followed by a fist on my door. "Everyone okay in there?" Cartwright called out. I never thought I'd be glad to hear his voice.
I opened my mouth, but the beast clapped his hand over it. Its eyes swung to the door and his lips curled back in a snarl. I shuddered, not from the sound but from its awful breath. It must not have brushed its teeth after its last victim. Shoulders were put to my door and the hinges began to give way under the pressure. The creature grabbed me and slung me over its shoulder like a chubby boa just as the door broke open. One of its paws wrapped around me and settled noticeably on my butt.
I faced the windows so I could only hear the collective gasp from everyone in the doorway. Judging by the suction half the floor must have been there standing and gawking at the thing. The creature must have been shy because he turned tail and fled into the backrooms. I swung around on its shoulders and saw the gaping mouths of my fellow boarders, Miss Peabody included. She had a look on her face that was both terrified and overjoyed. "Werewolf!" she excitedly exclaimed.
I didn't get to hear the replies of the other villagers before we disappeared into the bedroom. The creature took a hard right, reached the bedroom window and jumped out onto the fire escape. The rickety old thing shook and rattled at our combined weight, particularly mine, and I clutched onto its back.
"Not so hard," it scolded.
"You talk?" I gasped.
"And wash windows, but don't pull out any of my fur when I let you go." That didn't sound good.
Chapter 9
It wasn't. The creature let me go, got down on all fours and raced up the stairs like a hamster on its wheel. Leaning over him as I was I had a great view of the ground and the guy he'd thrown from my window. Whatever he meant to do with me he'd never get another chance to try. We passed by the fifth floor apartment and I heard screaming from inside. The creature smashed its hand through the glass and I expected us to go inside. We were at the end of the fire escape, after all, and there was no other place to go but down. That's where I was wrong, but first Cartwright stuck his head out my bedroom window. The pervert better not look at my underwear drawer. "Their stuck at the top!" he yelled to his compatriots.
We weren't stuck for long. The beast dug its claws into the attic wall and the debris fell down the fire escape, forcing Cartwright back inside. Paw by paw it climbed up the steep roof and onto the top. It ran across the top and jumped down onto the flat platform Greg had shown me earlier that day. It leaned down and I hurriedly slid off onto solid ground. The creature was exhausted and lay down for a breather. It had carried me up all those flights of stairs, after all.
I took my chance and dashed over to the door, but I found it was locked. Behind me came that same growling chuckle, and I swung around to find the creature stared at me with those bright yellow eyes.
"It's locked from the inside, remember?" it reminded me.
I gasped and spun around to find not a beast, but a man. Considering some men, I just repeated myself. It was also a familiar man because it was Greg, and he was only slightly more dressed
than a newborn. He wore a pair of pants that looked like they'd been mauled by a pack of dogs, played with by some tigers, and then thrown to a kindergarten class to rip as they pleased. I lifted my arm and pointed a shaking finger at him. "Who-? What-? How-?" were my ingenious questions.
"Me, werewolf, and bad luck on a mountain pass one dark night," he replied. I had to sit down, and my legs obliged me by collapsing beneath me. I fell to the ground with a soft thud and in a puff of dust. Greg rushed over and knelt in front of me. "Are you hurt?"
I tapped my temple. "Only here because what you just said is so ridiculous." I admit now that I was in the first stage of good-grief: denial.
Greg smiled. "I just carried you up two flights of fire escape stairs and up the side of a roof. Why is this still ridiculous?"
"Because people just aren't werewolves," I protested. "Those things are just in old movies, they don't really-" He grabbed my hand and placed it against his bare chest. I could feel his heart beat beneath my fingers. He looked into my face, and I stared back with a flat expression. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to prove to you that I'm real," he told me.
"I'm not doubting you're real, I'm doubting that you're really a-werewolf!" The reason for my excitement was his hand over mine. It wasn't a hand anymore, but a large, clawed paw with five fingers. Fur sprouted halfway up his arm and his eyes took on a yellowish tint. I tried to pull away, but he held me in a vise-like grip.
"Now do you believe me?"
"I-I'll believe anything if you let me go," I pleaded with him. He set me free and I pressed hard against the door to give myself that extra inch of space between us.
"You don't have to be afraid of me, I'm not going to hurt you," he insisted.
"Tell that to my cheek," I shot back. The thin slice of blood from his claw wound trailed down my chin. "It may never recover from the traumatizing experience." The rest of me wasn't doing so well, either.
Greg chuckled, and leaned back to sit on his butt. His arm morphed back into its original human state, but I didn't morph out of my panic state. "I don't know how you do it."