The Pack

by Jason Starr

  When Olivia sank her teeth into Simon’s neck, he didn’t even try to fight back. The bite itself was painful, but the rest of his body was strangely relaxed, as if he were suddenly in a deep meditative trance. He wasn’t experiencing his pain, he was observing it. But though he was extremely calm and unfazed, he was also hyper-aware of his surroundings and knew exactly what was happening to him. He knew that a crazed werewolf was biting into his neck, gnawing on him, and he could hear Diane screaming for her to stop, and there was another voice, a man in the hallway saying, “Hey, what’s going on in there?” But despite all of the chaos surrounding him, Simon’s mind was at rest and he didn’t feel any anxiety or fear.

  Only when Olivia ended the bite and looked down at him with blood—his blood—mixed with the drool on her teeth—did his rage return. He lashed out, pushing her away with his hands, and this was surprisingly effective, as she toppled onto the floor. Simon had no idea where this sudden strength had come from, but he loved the domination and control. For years the world had been beating him up, having its way with him, and now in a millisecond he’d gone from bullied to bully. He stood over her, panting, breathing, really breathing for the first time in years, or maybe ever.

  Then, making angry, guttural sounds, Olivia—or the crazed wolflike version of her—got up and charged him again, but he grabbed her hair before she could scratch him and easily flung her away. She toppled over the table, falling hard onto the floor. This time she seemed dazed. She was about to come after him again, then hesitated, as if thinking better of it, probably realizing she was overmatched.

  The guy outside was banging on the door. “Hey, Diane, you okay in there?” Then he banged some more.

  For several more seconds, Olivia remained there—panting—trying to assess the situation, and then she started to transform back into her human form. Hair and teeth receding, she seemed terrified and confused.

  “Wha-wha-what’s going on?”

  “Hello?” the neighbor said.

  Then, as if instinctively knowing that she was in danger and had to flee, Olivia darted toward the back of the apartment. She unlocked the gate and went out the window to the fire escape. Simon considered going after her, but the neighbor was still banging on the door and Simon didn’t want to leave Diane alone.

  “Tell him everything’s okay,” Simon whispered to Diane.

  Diane, who appeared beyond shocked, clearly traumatized by everything she’d seen, didn’t answer.

  Simon nudged her and whispered, “Come on, say it. Tell him everything’s fine so he’ll go away.”

  After a few more seconds of stunned silence, Diane said weakly, “Everything’s fine.”

  “Louder,” Simon whispered.

  “Everything’s fine!” she suddenly shouted.

  “You sure?” the guy asked. “It sounded like there was fighting or something going on in there.”

  Simon nudged her again, and she shouted, “Yeah, I’m positive! Everything’s totally fine!”

  Long pause, then the man said, “Okay, if you say so.”

  But the man didn’t leave. Simon’s sense of hearing seemed even sharper now; through the door he could actually hear the man’s shallow breathing. He could also hear music and TVs from other apartments, and street noise outside—horns honking, car engines. He could even make out conversations—a woman telling a man something she’d heard Jon Stewart say on The Daily Show, a guy talking about his wart medication, an old woman laughing.

  Finally the man in the hallway walked away. Simon listened to his creaky footsteps, and then a door at the end of the hallway opened and slammed shut.

  Looking around at the apartment, with chairs tipped over and the knife and frying pan on the floor, Diane said, “None of this actually happened, right?”

  “You didn’t call the police, did you?” Simon asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Good,” Simon said. “If you told them about this, they’d probably want to send you to Bellevue. You have to leave New York immediately. Olivia’s going to come back, and the others might come too. Especially now that you saw all this, they won’t leave you alone, I promise.”

  “How . . . how is it possible?” Diane said. “How could she . . . change.... How could . . .”

  Simon was terrified and in shock himself, but somehow he was able to stay calm. “That’s not important right now. Just think about your own safety. That’s all that matters.”

  Simon heard more of the conversation about Jon Stewart.

  “Your neck,” Diane said.

  Simon touched his neck and then looked at the blood on his fingers. Since Olivia had bitten him, Simon had been in such a heightened state that he hadn’t fully thought through the possible consequences of what had happened to him. He didn’t know if getting bitten by someone other than Michael could make him into a permanent wolf, but something was definitely different about him. His senses of hearing and smell were even sharper than they’d been before, and what about his sudden incredible strength?

  He went to the kitchen sink and rinsed the bite. It was a deep wound—she’d had her teeth deep inside him—but it wasn’t bleeding as much as it should’ve been.

  “You should go to a hospital,” Diane said.

  Simon knew that a hospital was out of the question. A visit to the hospital would inevitably lead to a visit from the police, which wouldn’t lead to anything positive. Besides, if he was a permanent wolf now, there was probably nothing anyone could do to save him.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” he said, realizing right away what a ridiculous statement that was; he’d be anything but fine. He added, “But promise me you’ll leave New York now. You saw Olivia—now you know I’m not lying to you. The police will never believe you, and if you stay here, she’s going to bite you one day and maybe even kill you.”

  Simon was giving her the hard sell because he didn’t want her to mention his name to the police, and because he honestly believed it was in her best interest to leave the city.

  “No,” she said weakly.

  “What?” Simon asked.

  “No,” she said louder, and picked up the knife from the floor. “Get the hell out of my apartment, right now, you crazy son of a bitch.”

  “I’m telling you,” Simon said. “You’re making a big—”

  “Leave!” she shouted.

  Afraid the neighbor was going to come over again, Simon warned Diane again not to call the police, then rushed out of the apartment.

  He knew she was going to call the police, and he couldn’t really blame her. She was terrified right now, and if he were in her position and had witnessed what she’d witnessed, he’d probably call the police too. If she mentioned his name—and he had no reason to believe that she wouldn’t—in connection with a pack of alleged werewolves, it could cause problems for him, especially if the police decided to give him a blood test and they found wolves’ blood. Then they’d link him to Tom’s murder, and that wouldn’t even be the worst of it. He imagined the media circus and news stories—a real-life werewolf discovered in Manhattan! It would cause the media frenzy to end all media frenzies, and Alison’s and Jeremy’s lives would be ruined forever.

  He might have been contemplating suicide again if it weren’t for one indisputable fact—he felt amazing.

  Since Olivia had bitten him he’d felt a major surge of energy, and his senses of smell and hearing were incredibly sharp. As he went downstairs, he could make out conversations in every apartment he passed, and he also heard TVs, music, people having sex. And his sense of smell was incredible too. He could detect garbage, somebody eating shrimp with lobster sauce, somebody else eating roasted chicken and mashed potatoes, and the exterminator must have been to the building recently because the smell of insecticide on the first and second floors overwhelmed everything else.

  He’d never been so attuned to his environment; he felt more alert and, well, more alive than he ever had before. Remembering his surge of stren
gth after Olivia had bitten him, he wanted to test it, to see if it was a onetime thing—some kind of adrenaline rush—or if the effect was long-lasting. He looked around for something heavy to lift. A garbage can? Nah, that was too easy. How about a car? Or, better yet, an SUV.

  There was an Explorer at the curb in front of him. He squatted behind the car, found something to grab on to below the license plate, and lifted. He wasn’t using all his strength, so he didn’t expect to move the car much, if at all. Yeah, he’d been able to push Olivia around, but there was a big difference between a woman and an SUV. So he was surprised, even shocked, when he not only moved the SUV, but easily lifted it several feet off the ground. It was so unexpected that he let go of it suddenly, and when it fell to the pavement the alarm started blaring. To Simon, the noise was excruciating and, partly because he wanted to get away from the noise and partly because a few people on the street were already looking over, he sprinted away toward Avenue A.

  He was running much faster than he’d been able to run before, and he wasn’t even pushing himself. Although he was soon twenty blocks from where the car alarm had gone off, when he focused he could still hear the alarm among the many other city sounds. If he could somehow avoid being arrested and could get used to the sensory overload, this didn’t seem so bad. Nothing would ever undo what he’d done to Tom, but if the police didn’t find enough evidence to arrest him, maybe he could put his new abilities to good use somehow. He didn’t feel unstable or homicidal, but the wolves’ blood seemed to be having a much different effect on Olivia. She was clearly out there, capable of wreaking serious havoc. Maybe when Charlie and Ramon were bitten, they would become as crazy as Olivia. Or what about the people Charlie and Ramon might bite? It was easy to do the math—within weeks there could be dozens of homicidal werewolves roaming the streets of Manhattan.

  But did Ramon and Charlie have to get bitten tonight? Though Simon hadn’t been able to persuade them not to go to the brewery, maybe with his sudden new strength he could physically stop Michael from biting them. Then if, as Volker claimed, the wolves’ blood eventually wore off or left their systems, maybe Charlie’s and Ramon’s rationality would return and they’d realize that living the rest of their lives as werewolves wasn’t necessarily such a great thing.

  Looking into the window of a closed clothing store, he saw a clock: 11:36.

  He didn’t know if he could possibly make it all the way to the brewery in Brooklyn in twenty-four minutes, or if he was strong enough to stop Michael from doing whatever the hell he wanted to do, but he was going to give it his best shot.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Sprinting downtown, Simon was amazed how fast he was going. Were these really his legs? He was probably doing four-minute miles, going so fast the wind was making his face feel numb, and people were stopping to watch and occasionally cheer him on as if he were running in the New York City Marathon. He zipped through the Bowery, Chinatown, and the City Hall area to the Brooklyn Bridge. It had stopped raining and the sky was clearing. The moon was big and full—maybe it was a harvest moon—and it seemed to be positioned directly over downtown Brooklyn.

  Crossing the bridge, Simon slowed to a normal pace because he didn’t want to attract attention from a few cops he passed. It was hard to believe that about two hours ago he’d been contemplating jumping from this very bridge. Now it was clear to him that suicide wouldn’t only end his life, but would ensure the fate of any future victims of Michael and his pack. Okay, so maybe grandiosity was another side effect of being a wolf, but when he reached the Brooklyn side of the bridge, the idea that he was the last hope, a savior, gave him the motivation to run even faster toward the old Hartman Brewery.

  Simon didn’t need GPS anymore; he instinctively knew exactly which direction to head in, weaving through the dark, rain-slicked streets. He had no idea what time it was, but if it wasn’t midnight already, it was damn close.

  The door to the building was closed. He didn’t have time to scream for someone to open it for him, so he rammed it with his shoulder, breaking through easily. He could smell the guys—Ramon’s and Charlie’s colognes and sweat, and Michael’s much stronger scent; they were definitely here, but was he too late? Maybe he had another minute or two, but time was definitely running out.

  He rang for the elevator, didn’t hear anything, and then saw a doorway to his right. He creaked it open and saw a dark stairwell. He could barely see anything—just the bottom few stairs—but this didn’t matter because his other senses overcompensated and he instinctively knew where he was going. He charged up, three steps at a time, ignoring the odors of urine and musk and feces. It wasn’t human feces—it was animal feces, probably from mice and rats. Although he was in pitch-darkness, he didn’t miss a single step and knew when the stairwell turned. He went up maybe ten flights. If the floors were marked, it didn’t matter because he couldn’t see them, but the smell of the guys’ sweat was getting stronger, so he knew he was getting closer.

  He went through the room he’d been in his previous times in the brewery. The odor of steak was prominent, and he didn’t know if it was today or from previous days, but the odors of the guys were getting weaker. He went back toward the elevator and stairwell and down a hallway into an area of the brewery he’d never been in before. Well, he thought he’d never been there before, but then he passed a large pool table and remembered the guys telling him he’d played pool that night he’d blacked out. But, wait, was he losing the scent again? He stopped and inhaled deeply; the guys were close, and when he focused his hearing could make out the sound of Michael’s voice. He rushed through the room and found another stairwell leading upward. Michael’s voice was getting louder and the scents were getting much stronger, and then he came out onto the roof.

  The moon was bright, like a giant spotlight, and the lights of Manhattan across the river seemed to be flickering like stars. Charlie and Ramon were standing near the ledge of the building, facing Michael, who had his back to Simon.

  “Don’t do it!” Simon shouted.

  Michael looked back at Simon, typically expressionless. There was no way to tell whether he was shocked or surprised or couldn’t care less.

  “You came,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, I came,” Simon said, “and I’m leaving right now with Charlie and Ramon.”

  “Hey, come on,” Charlie said. “We talked about this already, bro.”

  “Yeah,” Ramon said. “You gotta chill, man. If you don’t wanna get your bite tonight, that’s cool, but don’t mess it up for us.”

  “Sorry,” Simon said, “but I can’t let him do this to you.”

  Simon knew Charlie and Ramon were thinking, Yeah, and how are you going to stop him? He knew this because he was thinking the exact same thing himself.

  Then Michael’s nostrils flared. “You have odor on your body,” he said.

  “That’s a nice way to say hello,” Simon said. Then he sniffed and said, “So do you.”

  Michael’s scent had never seemed so dominating. It reminded Simon of the way some of the animals smelled at the Central Park Children’s Zoo.

  Michael’s nostrils flared again, this time in a slower, more exaggerated way. He said, “You smell like the woman I’ve had sex with.”

  “Wow, you’re good,” Simon said. “I’m getting better at odor detection myself, but I have to say, that was impressive.”

  “You met Olivia,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, I had the pleasure of meeting your girlfriend this evening. Small city, huh? She’s a little on the, well, eccentric side, but I’m sure she has her strong points. I can see why you two are a couple—you have a lot in common.”

  No reaction from Michael, but Simon could sense fear in him. Charlie and Ramon looked clueless.

  “Oh,” Simon added, “and she gave me a little parting gift.”

  He pulled down his shirt collar a little and turned his head slightly to show Michael his bitten neck.

  “Stupid little bitch,” Mic
hael said.

  Simon had never seen Michael react so strongly about anything; he was usually so even-keeled. The guys noticed the change in behavior as well.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie asked.

  “I was bitten tonight,” Simon said, “by a woman who is clearly out of control and psychotic. If you get bitten, the same thing might happen to you. Do you want to roam around the city like lunatics trying to bite people?”

  “Diane bit you?” Ramon asked.

  “No, her friend did,” Simon said.

  Michael turned away from Simon, toward Charlie and Ramon, and said, “There is no time for discussion. I will now give you the ultimate gift—the power of the wolf.” He said to Ramon, “Come forward.”

  Ramon hesitated, glancing at Simon briefly, then took a couple of steps toward Michael.

  Wanting to get Michael’s attention, Simon grabbed the object nearest to him—a picnic table with an umbrella—and easily lifted it above his head even though it must have weighed three hundred pounds. Then he flung the table and it crashed against the brick wall.

  Michael turned toward Simon with an expression of—was it fear? He was at least startled.

  “Let them go right now,” Simon said.

  He held his ground, trying to sound and act as menacing as possible.

  “The pack is your family now,” Michael said. “Let the others join us.”

  “I don’t think you understand me,” Simon said. “I don’t care about you, and I don’t care about the pack. I just don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”

  “You need to accept who you are,” Michael said. “You have received a wonderful gift, and you must learn to cherish it.”

  “I didn’t ask for any gift.”

  “A baby doesn’t ask to be born.”

  “You’re not God, you’re just a psychopath.”

  “And you’re exactly like me.”

  “I’m nothing like you.”