by Terry Yates
Just as he turned the wheel to the right, he saw a shadow move on his left side. He turned his head just as the male slammed against his door. Its yellow eyes were angry and it was snarling. Even though its breath was leaving a small circle of fog on his window, Scott could see that its face was smattered with what Scott guessed was his three friend’s blood.
He jammed his foot on the gas. The truck pulled to the right just as the creature took a swing at the glass, smashing the window and sending the shattered glass inside the cab. Fear and the pain in his cheek kept Scott from feeling the shards of glass that were cutting the left side of his face.
A dust cloud flew up as the Ford fishtailed. As the vehicle straightened out, the trailer began to roll over. Through the mirror, Scott saw the trailer roll over the large beast, then dislodge itself from the truck. Scott screamed in triumph as he straightened the truck up and began to drive away. The dust continued to swirl around the truck as Scott made his getaway. He was just about to punch the accelerator for the final time, when he saw the she-beast standing straight up, claws out, and growling.
“Fuck you!” Scott screamed as he slammed into the monster, sending it backwards and up in the air, a yelp expelling from its mouth.
Scott cheered again and floored it. He had beaten the smelly bastards. He wanted to stop and look at his face, but he wasn’t going to stop the truck until it ran out of gas. Scott took his hand off of his cheek, reached up, and placed it on the rearview mirror. He adjusted it downward to look at his face. As he moved the mirror, something in it caught his eye. It was too dark to tell, but it looked as if…no, it couldn’t be. They had to be trees or shadows of trees in the road, because for a moment, he thought he saw three sets of yellow eyes glaring at him from the middle of the dirt road, but he knew that couldn’t be true. He had either killed or maimed all three of them. There was no way in Hell, he thought to himself as he looked at his face in the mirror.
CHAPTER 2
The little girl wailed as Kyler stuck the needle into the small cut on the bottom of her foot. It had taken Kyler, a nurse, her mother, and a soldier who just happened by to hold little Gloria Ruiz’ body still, while Kyler gave her a tetanus shot. She was only three years old, but she had the speed, tenacity, and foot power of a twenty-five year old kickboxing champ. The tyke had been playing with some of the other refugee children in the camp and had stepped on a nail. She’d let out a wail that had carried across the compound and had sent most people running for cover, thinking that there was some sort of tornado warning, or at least an air raid. Before they had subdued her, she had given Kyler at least half-a-dozen kicks to his jaws, nose, chin, and forehead, alternating body parts with each kick and doing it all in the span of no more than three seconds. He had stood there holding a syringe in one hand, her foot in the other, while his head simultaneously went backward and forward like a punching bag being hit by Oscar de la Hoya. He wondered if he could sue a three year old for whiplash.
Kyler rubbed a cotton ball soaked in alcohol over the wound. Gloria let out another wail, her face the same shade of red as an extremely embarrassed tomato. Her mother, Chita Ruiz put her hand around her daughter’s head and began to coo her as she rocked the child back and forth. The nurse quickly placed a bandage over the wound and secured it with a metal fastener.
“And there we are,” Kyler said, smiling. “All done.”
The child immediately stopped crying as if his words had made the pain go away. Her eyes remained wide and her mouth open as her mother put a clean sock over the bandage.
“Don’t go stepping on any more nails,” Kyler told the little girl, tickling the bottom of her foot. She giggled as her mother kissed her cheek and picked her up.
“Gracias,” Chita said to him, smiling, but with her eyes lowered.
“Eh…uh…of course,” he stammered before giving Gloria’s foot one last tickle before Chita carried her away.
Chita and Gloria Ruiz were just two of eleven-hundred Cubans stranded in Tallahassee after the two hurricanes…named Donna and Esteban…by the Weather Bureau, and the tsunami and tidal waves that followed, sank the lower half of Florida along with the lower portions of Alabama and Mississippi into the Gulf. Two hundred thousand people had died and another two million plus had been left homeless. Kyler was at the first makeshift military relief camp in Tallahassee, which was already being referred to as the New Coast. Actually the new coast lay forty miles south, but Tallahassee was the nearest large city that wasn’t under fifty feet of water and the capital of Florida, so they made it home base. The president declared Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi disaster areas even though most of Alabama and Mississippi were intact. There was no more Birmingham, Biloxi, or Gulf Port, but the rest of the Alabama and Mississippi were doing well, except for the sudden influx of refugees. Other than a lot of rainfall, Louisiana and Texas were completely skipped over and that was good, but they were also receiving many of the homeless. Cuba had also received a lot of damage, but was also, for the most part, intact.
With such devastation, and the destruction of so many oilrigs, gas prices soared in just a matter of days. In twelve days time, they had skyrocketed to six-thirteen a gallon, to eleven-thirty three a gallon, to finally twenty-four eighteen a gallon and it looked like it wasn’t stopping there. The price of food soared, as did milk, and pretty much everything else that people needed in their everyday lives. Mother Nature had pitched a real shitfit and the American people were paying a high price for it. England and France had sent soldiers to help in the relief effort, as did the other states, and Mexico, who sent several thousand soldiers across the border to help keep law and order.
Kyler stretched his back as he looked out over the refugee camp. There were at least twenty-five hundred refugees milling about, homeless, lost and confused. There were probably four hundred soldiers on hand to aid in the relief, as well as over twenty doctors, which wasn’t enough, a hundred nurses, several hundred people who just felt the need to help, and of course, the celebrities who came in droves. He recognized about thirty actors, singers, and news people. Some even had their agents, as well as camera crews and photographers, following them around. Initially, Kyler had been disgusted with them. Half of them just seemed to be there for publicity. Good for the career, ya’ know. But there were a few that he was really impressed with. He’d seen a famous actress washing clothes, and a country singer had helped him dress some rather nasty wounds, so he guessed that they weren’t all there just to be seen. Maybe, they realized just how good they had it.
Kyler was still a bit flummoxed about how No Name Island had survived the two hurricanes…and of course, the werewolves. Werewolves. Jesus, had it only been a few weeks since they had fought off six werewolves and a group of people dressed in once-piece uniforms, all wearing baseball caps and sunglasses? Kyler was amazed at how the world he knew had changed in just a matter of days…and it wasn’t just him. The other No Name survivors seemed to be going about their lives as if nothing happened. They had witnessed the hurricanes and werewolves, as well as the deaths of several people that they had been close to during that time. Every night that he had been there, Kyler went to bed thinking about Nurse Walling, Gringo Boots, Samantha Gould, Sylvia Morrison, Sgt. Cohen the MP, Burt Burns, Rob and Leanne Olsen, Pvts. Hawkins and Gibson, Opal and Wilbur Munn, and Locklear and Ariella O’Hearley. He also found himself thinking of the Dixon family. Marcus, Shelly, and their son Oliver had all become werewolves, and it had been his belief that they had all died on the island, leaving Oliver’s twin Kayla as the sole survivor of the family, but after having read a small article in the paper about a group of hunters that had been killed by a small pack of wolves across the border in Mexico, he wasn’t so sure. Three men had been killed, and one was missing by what looked to be a family of three wolves. The tracks that were found were all of different sizes, which made it hard for Kyler not to think of the Dixon’s, even though he had seen Shelly drop in a blaze of gunfire, the bullets having been
made up of dog saliva and mercury, and he’d seen Marcus Dixon, while a werewolf, fall through the top of the secret government building. He didn’t know about little Oliver. The last Kyler had seen of him, he was being chased through the high grass by Joe, their half lab, half Rhodesian Ridgeback, golden-eyed, golden-coated hero. Whatever enzymes Joe’s bite contained weakened the monsters, so they had put them, along with the quicksilver that Prof. Locklear O’Hearley had found, into their bullets and had defeated the creatures, including Nicholas Klefka, the jet crash survivor who had been burned to a crisp, and then had summarily turned into a werewolf, killing many on the island before finally being killed by the special bullets that Locklear O’Hearley had made.
According to Klefka, and Kyler had no real reason to doubt him, he had been over five hundred and fifty years old, and had been a werewolf for most of those years. He had been a kind man with a huge case of self-loathing, but Kyler couldn’t blame him. He had told him that he had probably killed a thousand people in his half-millennia, including everyone on the jet that had crashed into the ocean next to No Name Island. But Kyler had watched him die as a werewolf, so perhaps he was finally at peace. Hopefully, they all were.
Of the No Name survivors, they were all still in the camp except the infant Kayla Dixon, who had been claimed by a grandparent in Tennessee, and Zora LeMarque, werewolf tracker, and active member of the Order of the Knights of Kravania, a five hundred year old order that kept werewolves and whatever else there was out there contained. She had left two days ago, telling no one that she was leaving. Zora had left a note on his door simply saying…”I must go”. So that was it. So long. Farewell. Sayonara. Later, Sap. She had never told him whom she was tracking on No Name Island…probably because he hadn’t asked. He didn’t know why he hadn’t asked. She had duped him for four days into believing that she was an island scientist. His unmasking of her happened to coincide with the battle between the island survivors, the ball-cap wearing army, and five werewolves, and after their rescue, they hardly talked about it at all…any of them.
They had all been separated, debriefed, and his case, quarantined because of little Oliver Dixon’s bite to his hand, but it hadn’t been that bad. When they reached the camp, General Mueller, the camp commandant had talked with each of them about what they had seen on the island. The man either knew what was going on there, or he had the greatest poker face Kyler had ever seen, because none of what they told him…the four full moons…the werewolves…the white building’s secret floors…the jet crash…or the hurricanes seemed to phase him one bit. He would just smile and thank them for their time. Kyler had half expected it to be like The X-Files where any witnesses to anything involving government secrecy, disappeared and were never heard form again, but they’d had it pretty good. They ate together and spent rec time together for the first ten days, but then the real refugees moved in…the southern Florida survivors who arrived by the hundreds each day. Either Mueller and the scientists were satisfied with their stories all-corroborating, or the camp was becoming too busy and too crowded to even care anymore. When they’d arrived, there had been maybe two hundred people, now there were over three thousand when you included the army and the relief workers. Kyler had lived by himself in his little barracks, but now he had two roommates, a Dr. Willette and a Dr. Hebman, both young doctors, only a few years older than Kyler’s thirty-one. He also worked roughly twelve hours a day, which was a nice change after having worked almost nonstop for the first week. Having the twenty doctors come in was a godsend for Kyler…well nineteen of them anyway. Dr. Millard, head of No Name Island Hospital had shown up from God knew where, and started pretending to be a caring doctor. Kyler had seen him getting out of a jeep…and he was smiling. Smiling! That’s what Kyler hated most about the man. In his three months under Millard, he noticed the man always smiled a particularly annoying, phony smile. It almost looked like a nervous smile, but Kyler knew that the bastard was so damn arrogant, that there was no way the man could ever be nervous, unless of course, he got caught doing something unethical, and even then, he would probably smile, because he would know that no medical board would ever find him guilty of anything less than being the greatest general practitioner in the world.
Kyler had not spoken to him since his arrival, until the two of them had been forced to work together on a family of refugees. Millard had acted surprised when he saw Kyler.
“Richard,” he had said with that sick smile on his face. “I see you made it off the island.”
Kyler glared at the man. Millard was in his early fifties, a few inches shorter than Kyler, paunchy, and had one of the worst comb over’s that he had ever seen.
“I see you did, too, Doctor, leaving a half-dozen patients for Nurse Walling and me to deal with. She’d dead, you know.”
“I heard that,” Dr. Millard answered, trying his best to show concern, but having no real luck. “How did she die?”
“Why did you leave before your patients and staff?” Kyler asked.
“What do you mean?” Millard replied, still trying to feign concern.
“The captain is supposed to be the last one to leave the ship…you were one of the first…and it’s Doctor, by the way.”
“Well…Doctor…” Millard started, condescendingly, “the helicopter was there, I was there, most of the nurses were there, and someone told me to get on, so I did.”
“Without checking on your patients first?”
“I didn’t have the time. It was then or never, obviously…plus, I had you there.”
“You left a three month resident and a sixty year old nurse to deal with an elderly cancer patient, an Alzheimer’s patient, a broken leg, an inflamed appendix, a mother of twins, a broken hip, and a burn victim?”
“There was a burn victim?”
“A jet crashed into the ocean no more than thirty minutes after you left.”
“A jet crashed into the ocean?” Millard asked, a look of not so much confusion, but befuddlement, crossed his face. “And there was a survivor?”
“Yes, but there could’ve been a hundred, and then where would Nurse Walling and I have been…huh?”
“Richard,” Millard said softly, placing his hand on Kyler’s shoulder, who immediately threw it off. “You did an admirable job. You should be proud of that…but a doctor can’t blame others for the situations he gets put in.” He gave Kyler’s shoulder a small squeeze. “Now let’s get to work on these people, shall we?”
Kyler had wanted to punch the man, but he let it go and the two worked on the family in silence unless Millard needed something, then he would tell Kyler to fetch this or to fetch that, to which Kyler would reply, “I’m busy, Doctor.” Since their initial meeting, the two had tried to avoid one another whenever possible, but invariably the two would have to work together on a patient or patients, and they managed to get through it with as little hassle as possible.
It was almost lunchtime and Kyler was famished. The breakfast lines had been too long that morning and he had decided to forgo it. It had been embarrassing treating patients all morning with his stomach growling loudly, because it was usually met with a giggle from the patient. He had only been a hundred and sixty pounds, which wasn’t terribly bad for a six-feet-one inch frame, but over the last too weeks, he’d probably dropped ten pounds, which was NOT good for his height.
Kyler began to walk across the compound, dodging a refugee here and a celebrity or a soldier there. With so many of them now, it was becoming more difficult for him to spot the others, so he simply headed for their usual table, which wasn’t necessarily their usual anymore. With such a huge influx of people, their usual table was generally taken by the time they got there.
As he made his way through the crowd, he spotted their table. It was an old, weathered picnic table that had seen way too many seasons come and go. Its wood had gone from walnut to piss yellow, as did the two long wooden benches that sat on each side of it. It sat four on each side, but generally three of them had to s
it close together on one of the benches to keep the other side from sinking into the ground.
When Kyler saw the table, he saw that it was empty except for one lone man. As he reached the table, he was greeted with a hearty hello from Sam Fong, No Name Hospital’s maintenance engineer, who had gotten himself stuck in one of the elevators just before the storm, and had bravely weathered storms and werewolves. Kyler couldn’t help but think of the look on Sam’s face when the large pockmarked man with the cap and sunglasses, had lined the survivors up against the wall and was preparing to execute them. Kyler himself had been scared shitless, but Sam had just stood there, eyes ahead, face stoic and chest out, preparing himself to die like a man. Where Millard’s smile made him sick to his stomach, Sam’s youthful smile would make even the hardest soul return the smile.
“Hi ya’, Doc?” Sam yelled out.” How’ve you been?”
“Hungry,” Kyler answered, sitting down across from him. “Not eating today, Sam?
“You kiddin’ me, Doc?” Sam shot back. “Have you seen me not hungry? The only one with an appetite even close to mine is…well, you.”
“Why aren’t you in line then?” Kyler asked.
“Because…” Sam started, reaching under the table. “I got takeout.”
With this, he brought up a large bag, which he placed on the table.
“What’s all this?” Kyler asked.
Sam opened the bag and began to remove Styrofoam box after Styrofoam box of what Kyler guessed was food. The aroma was heavenly. He remembered Sam’s chicken fried steak and fillet mignon that he had cooked for them on the island.