by Terry Yates
He turned around and looked at the children in the back seat. They’d been gone less than five minutes, but all of them were asleep, or appeared to be asleep, but one. The Down Syndrome’s boy. He was wedged between the twin boy and girl and the small black girl was asleep on his lap. Kyler smiled at the boy, but the boy gave him nothing in return. Just a blank stare.
“Look out!” he heard Potts shout. He turned around just as Potts grabbed the wheel and swerved the jeep to the right, just missing an oncoming SUV.
“Sorry,” Kyler said sheepishly. He watched as Potts turned around to check on the children. With the exception of Lauren and the Down Syndrome boy, they all remained asleep.
“Jesus, what have these kids been through?” he muttered to Kyler aloud.
Kyler didn’t answer. The tight squeeze from Lauren’s hands on his shoulders told him everything.
CHAPTER 20
“Who do you think you are!” Gen. Mueller exclaimed, red-faced. “I run this base, Dr. Kyler! Not you…or Col. Potts!”
The men stood in Mueller’s office, the general standing behind his desk, and Kyler and Potts in front of it.
“Should we have just left them there, General?” Kyler retorted, his face almost matching the same crimson hue as Mueller’s.
Potts simply stood at attention, his face grim and staring straight ahead.
“Doctor Kyler, in case you haven’t noticed, I have several thousand people I’m having to deal with right now! I don’t have…”
“You don’t have time for eight abused children that God knew who…maybe it was you, let those children be carted off to their own little living Hell!”
“I had nothing to do with those children being taken away!”
“You signed the order, didn’t you…or can anyone just walk in here and take out whomever they want?”
“You have to turn them over to Child Services!”
Kyler was incensed. “Why, so they can go to some other family who’ll treat them exactly the same…or worse! Hey, who knows, if they’re lucky, maybe they can go to the same family again! Wouldn’t you just love that!”
Mueller’s face was beet red by this point. “What are you saying, Doctor?”
“I believe…” Potts interrupted, seemingly searching for the right words. “That the doctor is…uh…trying to tell you to…um…let’s see…uh…grow a set of balls, Sir.”
“Get out of here!” Mueller screamed at the two of them. “Get out of here before I lock you up, and you become the first man bucked from colonel to private!”
“That went well,” Kyler said, as the two stepped out onto the makeshift porch.”
“Why can’t you just keep your big yap shut?” Potts asked, glaring at Kyler with his one eye boring a hole into the doctor.
“Me? You’re the one who told him to grow a set of balls!”
“Aah!” Potts grunted, waving Kyler off as he stepped off of the porch.
Kyler watched him as he walked away. As he was about to step off of the porch, he heard the door open behind him. He turned to find Tara Mueller walking outside, closing the door gently behind her.
“Hello,” Kyler bade her, looking down at his feet guiltily. He wasn’t sure why he felt guilty. He guessed that it was the fact that inside, he was cussing the girl’s father to High Heaven, and here she was standing in front of him, plus she’d probably heard every word that they’d said. EVERYONE probably heard every word that they’d said.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Doctor,” the young lady said. “His heart’s in the right place, but he’s under a lot of pressure trying to keep this place from becoming an anarchic loony bin.”
Loony bin? Kyler hadn’t heard that one in a while.
“I’m sure your…he’s a good man,” Kyler returned. “It’s just…”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Thank you.”
Now the both of them were rotating as to who would look down at their feet, and who would look at the other one.
“You sure do take after your father,” Kyler spoke, breaking the achingly long silence.
“Wow, you sure know how to flatter a girl, don’t you, Doctor?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Telling a girl that she looks like a large, balding, bulbous nosed, bad tempered, Irish army general, would turn any girl’s head.”
Oh no…please…I didn’t mean…”
Kyler felt like an idiot. It wasn’t a wonder that he didn’t have a nametag that had Giganta-Ass engraved across it in nice large letters.
“It’s all right, Doctor,” the young lady said, chuckling. “I know there’s a family resemblance…” Tara paused for a moment. “He does love children, Doctor…”
“Richard.”
“Richard. He raised four daughters, and he did it with as much love and kindness as any army general could possibly muster.”
“I’m sure he did,” Kyler answered, shuffling his feet. “I don’t mean to disparage the man, it’s just…” He looked into her eyes. “It’s just that…if you could’ve seen that place. It was horrible…absolutely horrible. These children are…have been…who knows…”
Tara Mueller reached out and placed her hand on Kyler’s arm.
“Colonel Potts was right about you,” she said, looking into his eyes and smiling.
“How so?”
“I heard him say that you get more wound up than a chicken with the shits.”
Kyler let out a guffaw that he hadn’t expected to. “That sounds like our esteemed Colonel,” he laughed. Kyler stopped laughing and looked back down at his feet again before continuing. “You really should’ve seen him,” he told her. “He walked in there and from what Lauren told me, he whooped everyone in the house, and came out with all of them. It was amazing.”
“From what I hear, Col. Potts is a one-of-a-kind,” Tara came back.
“He is that.”
The two stood for a few more awkward moments.
“I’ll talk to my father,” Tara said, breaking the silence. “You have to handle him a certain way. Yelling at him will get you nowhere.”
“Thank you,” Kyler replied. “Those kids really need someone in their corner.”
Tara smiled at him, turned around, and then walked back into the office. Kyler stepped off of the porch and looked up at the now darkening sky. He looked up at the moon. It was bright orange and round. Extremely round. He wondered if other people were staring up at it at that very moment. People who would change once the darkness came.
CHAPTER 21
The sign read “Los Angeles 17 Miles”. The anticipation Simon felt was so strong that he thought he might just bust out of his skin. It had been more than a week since he’d been bitten by Scott Cargile. There had been no full moons yet, which he didn’t understand, because for the last several weeks, there had been an inordinate amount of nights with full moons. The scientists and astrologers had been stumped by this anomaly, but he didn’t care, because he was already feeling the effects of his turning.
He was driving a lode to of medical supplies to L.A. He’d made the trip in what had to be record time for any semi-truck long hauler. He had not slept or indeed even felt tired during the past two days. It must have something to do with his turning, because he felt right as rain at the moment. As a matter of fact, he had never felt better in his life. He’d only stopped for food and gas. He had to admit that there was one little drawback to turning. The food. Simon had always loved to eat. He was a steak and potatoes man and lately, it just hadn’t looked, smelled, or even tasted good. The aroma of a good steak seemed to repulse him now. He didn’t know if it was the grease or the flour or what, but the smell of cooked meat made him want to retch. Now raw meat, well that was a different story all together. His senses were so acute now that he could smell the blood wafting out of a piece of raw meat. It almost turned him on.
The only thing that Simon could stomach that came out of Los Angeles, was The Werewolf Harry Show, which was broadcast out of
LA. Werewolf Harry was the midnight DJ on 91.4 FM. He’d been a DJ since the late 70’s and his gravelly voice and his ability to insert the word ‘Howl’ into almost any situation had made him an icon. Here was a real late-night DJ and not just some repeat of a liberal or a conservative talk show. Harry just played music. He’d kept Simon company on many a lonely night. When Simon drove across country at night, he could pick up Harry’s wailing across six states. Maybe he would bump into him while he was here.
Simon knew that he was extremely close to turning. According to an online almanac, there would be a full moon that night…in just a little while, if he wasn’t mistaken, and he was excited. He’d looked in the mirror at a truck stop restroom that morning and had noticed a slight change in his appearance. His forehead seemed to protrude, casting a slight shadow across his eyes, and his canine teeth were longer, not much, but enough to where he noticed. He almost looked like some sort of bat. When he’d seen his reflection that morning, he had assumed that he was just tired and hallucinating, not like an LSD or mushroom trip, which he’d only done a few times his freshman year at UTEP, but more like those hallucinations he’d get when he drove for too many hours. When he was sleep deprived, Simon would hear voices talking to him from the sleeper bed. It could be anyone from Ozzie Osborne to his neighbor’s wife. It didn’t matter.
Another driver was originally supposed to take the shipment, but had come down with the flu, so Simon had been happy to drive the lode. He’d left early in the morning the day before. He’d had one little errand to run first. The little girl from the library who’d so callously glowered at him when he’d offered her the computer. He’d parked his rig close to library hoping she might return…and she did. She hadn’t driven a car, which meant she either didn’t have one or lived close. If she didn’t have one, the library would obviously be the closest place to her that had the internet.
Simon waited for more than an hour for her to exit the library. When she finally did, he watched her walk down the sidewalk. She looked good in her little orange t-shirt that only went halfway down her mid-drift. Her little white shorts barely covered her swinging ass. He could see the top of her thong underwear sticking out of her shorts. As her hips swung one way, her dark hair would swing in the opposite direction.
Simon got into his rig. He’d parked it on the street next to the library. Most people would just think that the truck had to make a delivery and it had nowhere to park but there. He’d kept it running, so all he had to do was to put it into gear. Simon moved slowly down the street at first, staying just behind the young girl who was walking down the sidewalk with the traffic. As he began to catch up with her on the downhill, he accelerated and sped past her, keeping her just within range of his long, side mirror. He passed an apartment complex whose first and second entranceways were divided by a small creek. The street crossed the creek as a concrete bridge. A pedestrian could remain on the sidewalk, but would be alone for a couple of moments while they crossed the bridge.
Simon stopped his rig on the opposite side of the bridge and watched the girl through the mirror. He wanted to see if she turned right into the complex. If she did, she would live to see another day. He waited and watched. For a moment, her body seemed to swerve as if she were going to walk into the first complex, but he suddenly realized that she was simply avoiding something in her path. She was going to pass it. As soon as she did, Simon turned on the hazard lights and jumped out of the rig, before swiftly moving around the truck to the sidewalk, pulling his cap low over his eyes.
As she stepped onto the bridge area of the sidewalk, he took out his sunglasses, put them on, and then bent down as if inspecting a tire. Keeping his head toward the tire, he would watch her from the corner of his eye, but he needn’t have, because he could smell her. Her hair, her body…everything. His sense of smell seemed heightened by a thousand percent. He could also hear her shoes pounding onto the walkway as if they were worn by someone who weighed three hundred pounds. Clop! Clop! Clop!
As the girl got closer, Simon started to grin. He had never done anything like this on the street, in broad daylight. He’d had most of his fun with hookers or hitchhikers or the lone girl he might pick up in a bar, but he had never snatched a girl right off the street before.
Simon pretended to twist a lug nut as she grew nearer. As the clops got louder, he hunched his back and took his weight off of his knees. He was in crouching position now. This must be what it’s like for a werewolf when it’s getting ready to pounce.
Clop! Clop! Clop! The girl was no more than ten feet away. He waited patiently, his smile getting bigger. When she got within four feet, he began to twist his body toward her…not much, but he didn’t want to be off balance when he sprang.
As she passed him, he moved with her, pivoting his body around. Once she was past him, Simon reached out with lightning speed and grabbed her arm. Barely a sound had escaped her lips before he was behind her, clamping his free hand over her mouth. With inhuman speed, he reached out and opened the passenger door. Then, with a strength that even shocked him, he tossed her into the cab as if she were a rag doll. The girl squealed as she flew through the air, hitting her head against the top of the doorway. Without taking a step, Simon leaped into the truck, landing on top of the girl. Once on top of her, he punched her hard in the forehead. One blow was enough to render her unconscious.
Simon had disposed of her quickly, quicker than normal, actually. Seeing the life ebb out of those terrified eyes that had once scorned him, had been a thing of beauty. He hadn’t raped her though. He had planned to, but once he saw her exposed throat and could hear her heart racing faster and faster, he simply went for her throat. He swore that he had seen and heard her jugular vein pulsating. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Faster and faster it went as her height of terror increased. It was also the smell. He could smell her fear, and it smelled wonderful. It was an acrid, sweaty aroma, but he loved it.
Before he knew what was happening, Simon tore into her. The girl tried to scream, but only a gurgle…air mixed with blood…emanated from the large hole where her throat had been. Simon chewed her flesh lustily, trying to take in every sight, smell, and sound of his first real feeding frenzy. As he swallowed, he looked down at her. Her eyes were wide with fright as they glassed over. His blood smeared face would be the last thing that she would ever see.
As Simon entered L.A., the first thing he noticed were two hookers who were trying to disguise themselves. They weren’t in the usual crotch-eating shorts and short blouses. These ladies were in mini-dresses, one red and one black. They weren’t fooling anyone. He could smell men all over them. He passed the hookers and made a right onto a narrow street. Ah…East L.A., he thought. It was a cesspool covered in smog, with nothing but gangs, faggots, and whores walking its streets. He would just love to clean up this town. Who knew? After he dropped his lode off, he might just scare himself up a little fun. It would be dark soon and tonight there’d be a full moon, and he would become a true lobo, and where else better to start his knew life than Good Ol’ East Los Angeles.
CHAPTER 22
“No!”
“Please, Anthony.”
“No!”
“Come on, Anthony.”
“No!”
Kyler sat back and rubbed his eyes. He needed to give the children a proper checkup, but Anthony, the Down’s Syndrome boy, whom Kyler guessed was about eighteen or nineteen years old, was having none of it. Kyler had been trying to check his eyes for the past twenty minutes, but every time he raised the scope, Anthony pulled away, screaming “No!”
“Here, watch me do it,” said Meredith Bayfield, the little, black six-year old girl who had been holding Anthony’s hand when he’d first seen the children. She took Anthony’s hand and tried to pull him off the table with very little luck. Outweighing her by roughly a hundred and twenty pounds, he just smiled down at her as she tugged on his arm. For all of her effort, Meredith simply slid down under the table while hanging on to his arm, her s
hoes and bare legs squeaking, because her tattered dress had slipped up over her head. Kyler put his hand to his head and rubbed his temples. These children were giving him a massive migraine. After his conversation with Tara, he’d walked back to his quarters and started giving the children examinations, secretly hoping that they were all going to be fine, but afraid that he was going to find otherwise. Their mental state told him that.
The older boy’s name was Dustin Lawson. He was seventeen and from Montana. His family had been vacationing in Forth Walton Beach, Florida when the hurricanes began. Dustin, his parents, and his two younger sisters, had taken shelter on the fifth floor of the Holiday Inn when the first tsunami hit the beach. It had rocked the building to its very foundation. The second tsunami eleven minutes later, sent it crashing in on itself. The family had been huddled together when the floor collapsed, sending them…and the building…crashing down onto what had, only minutes ago, been beach, into what was now ocean. Dustin had no idea how he ended up outside of the fallen building, but he did. The tsunami bounced him around, jerking his body under the water and knocking him into debris of all sizes. He managed to grab hold of a large, wooden plank, which he hung onto, while being carried away by the tsunami. The giant wave ceased, leaving him adrift amid debris and corpses of all types…dogs, cats, horses, and people. He never saw the corpse of a family member. None of them were ever seen again. He was found two days later by some National Guardsmen and sent to Camp A, the place they were now, where he’d stayed for three days before Ma Wartler picked him out of a crowd of children, and the next thing he knew, he was in a brand new Ford truck and headed for parts unknown.