by Terry Yates
Simon took one last look at the dead couple. He wanted to at least cover them up or something, but he knew that if he stayed any longer, someone might come inside the store, maybe a cop or several cops, and looking like he did, he doubted he would be believed when he told them that he saw some black gangsters leaving the place just as he happened to be walking in. They would take one look at his bat-like face and start drawing their revolvers, and he didn’t want to turn on cops the first time. He wanted his first time to be with fuckers that killed this couple.
Simon turned his collar up around his mouth. He didn’t know what good it would do. He was the only guy around dressed like he was. He walked quickly to the door and peeked out of the window. The oncoming darkness appeared to bring everyone out of doors like, well like vampires. He rolled his eyes. Vampires.
There were definitely more people out now than had been just a few minutes before. The sidewalk was almost full of people…of all kinds. He saw normal looking folk arm in arm with freaks. Hookers, housewives, druggies, ministers, and pushers all moving down the sidewalk as if they were following a song that only they could hear.
Simon opened the door. He hadn’t noticed a bell when he had entered the store, but hearing it now startled him for a moment. He’d half expected everyone on the street to look his direction upon hearing the bell, but no one paid him any attention, they just continued to move down the sidewalk. He moved quickly away from the door, making a point not to make eye contact with anyone.
He hadn’t been outside more than a few seconds when the largest spasm yet hit him. He grunted loudly as he doubled over. Christ, it sure did hurt being a werewolf.
Simon stayed doubled over. From his right, he saw two sets of legs, one wearing shorts and the other wearing jeans with more holes than jean. He was in too much pain to really hear what the two were talking about. He didn’t care much either. They each bent down extremely close to him. They both smelled as if they hadn’t bathed in weeks. They each put their heads close to each of his cheeks. His blood felt like it was boiling inside him. He could smell alcohol on both of them as they breathed into his nostrils, which were now heightened by a thousand. He could also tell that neither of them had brushed their teeth in the last several years. He wanted to gag from the odor.
“You alright, man?” he heard the voice from the left side of his face ask.
“Yeah,” Simon gasped as another spasm hit him.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
The man kept blabbering in his ear, most of what was being said was lost in the white hot pain he was feeling. What he did notice, was that as the man on his left spoke, the one on his right was running his hands up and down Simon’s leg and around to his ass. Great, he thought, gay homeless fuckers were trying to cop a feel.
“I don’t feel nothin’,” he heard one of the bums whisper quietly.
“Check his jacket pocket,” the other whispered back.
The fuckers were trying to rob him! They were feeling him up alright…they were looking for his wallet! Was there not one decent person in this town?
Simon could feel the hand on his right side making its way around his shoulder, and onto his chest. The spasms had stopped for a moment, which gave him a moment to think. He began to smile. Keep on coming, he thought. Keep on coming.
As the hand made it’s way into his jacket pocket, Simon grabbed the man’s hand and held on.
“Motherfucker’s got my hand!” the man yelled in Simon’s ear.
“Yes he does,” Simon hissed, still smiling.
He gave the hand a hard squeeze causing the other man to let out a high pitched squeal.
“Please man!” the man yelped into his ear. “Lemme go!”
“Let him go, Man!” the first man yelled, now standing at a safe distance from Simon.
Simon was almost grinning.
“Sure,” he said.
He took the man’s hand and began to pull it away from his body. He released his grip a little, which was followed by the man expelling a long sigh of relief. For a moment, the man thought that Simon was going to let go of his hand, but at the last second, Simon gripped it even harder than he had before, and pulled it toward his face. He had hoped to wait until it was completely dark before he did anything werewolf-like, but he couldn’t resist. He was maybe ten to fifteen minutes from turning, and he wanted to get off of the street, but here it was…an opportunity…not for eating, but for self-preservation. He had seen online from one of the websites that said that werewolves didn’t just kill, they also had the instinct for the survival of the species. It was built inside them…whether they liked it or not.
The man squealed loudly as Simon squeezed his hand harder. He could feel the bones wanting to break. Another couple of pounds of pressure and this fucker’s hand would be jelly.
“I’m sorry!” he cried, barely able to say the words.
“Let him go, man!” the other man yelled with authority, but still holding his distance.
“Whatever you say,” Simon laughed.
He gave the bum’s hand one last squeeze, pulled it up to his mouth, then sank his teeth into it. He bit down on the meaty flesh between the thumb and forefinger and tore away most of the skin and some of the muscle from between the digits. The man gave out a loud and long howl as Simon shook his head back and forth, pulling as much flesh from the hand as he could.
Simon felt a sharp pain to the left side of his head. The other bum was hitting with something. From his years of bar fighting, it felt like a bottle hitting the side of his head. The bottle hit him again and again causing white hot pain to shoot through his head. Unlike the movies, a bottle…Simon was guessing in this case a beer bottle…didn’t always break when hitting a body part. Sometimes a brawler could use it over and over again if he or she was careful not to drop it.
Simon gave one last snarl and shake, and then shook the hand from his mouth, pulling the rest of the skin and muscle from the bough of the man’s hand. The bum gave one last cry and fell to the pavement. As Simon straightened up, the bum with the beer bottle tried to give him one last pop but stopped when…(A)…he realized that Simon was a good six to seven inches taller than his own five-foot six, and…(B)…His mouth had black skin hanging from it, but not for long because Simon was chewing and swallowing the skin. His tongue quickly flicked it into his mouth leaving blood and minced flesh on his chin.
“Oohwee!” Simon exclaimed, wiping the blood from his mouth with his hand. He broke into a broad grin. Blood stained his teeth. “It’s a little sweeter’n I expected it to be, but not bad.”
The bum with the bottle looked down for a quick moment at his friend who was curled up in a ball, cradling his maimed hand to his chest and whimpering loudly. The one with the bottle looked to be about sixty, with his two front teeth missing, and a wool cap sitting atop his head. His hair and his beard were almost solid white, and he had the look of someone who’d gone on one too many binges, and decided to just go “fuck it” one day and become a transient. Simon stared down at the bum, causing him to drop the bottle, the glass shattering on the sidewalk all around him. Simon could smell the fear on him. You should of left me alone, he thought to himself. He hadn’t wanted his first victim to be just anyone, but they hadn’t given him much choice. The whimpering bum on the ground looked to be a few years younger than the other one. Simon couldn’t really tell with since the man was rolled up in a ball.
“Are you…” the older bum started. “Are you a…a…vampire?”
“Vampire?” Simon chuckled. “I suppose my face does look like a bat if you look at it from certain angles.” He put his hand to his mouth. His fangs were a quarter inch longer than they had been just ten minutes ago. “I suppose these teeth don’t help my case much either, do they?”
“Then you…ain’t a vampire?”
“No. Don’t you know there’s no such things as vampires?”
With this, Simon laughed out loud. After a few seconds, he found hims
elf turning his head to the sky and letting out a loud and long howl. Everyone walking down the sidewalk jumped, gasped, or ran when he let it out. It was long and shrill and seemed to last forever. He was sure he looked a sight, but he didn’t care. Simon Shoals wasn’t going to be Simon Shoals for much longer…well he would be during the day, but even then, he would be different. He wasn’t exactly sure how and he really didn’t give two flying smegs, but he knew that he wouldn’t be the same. He would be whole. He would, according to legend, be almost invincible.
“Ow! Turn my feet around! That felt good!” he screamed at those around him, grinning from ear to ear.
When the pedestrians got over the initial shock of Simon’s howl, they began to disperse. With his newly acquired acute hearing, he could hear them as they walked away, muttering under their breaths.
“Freak” “Weirdo” “Psycho”, the voices said.
“You have no idea,” Simon said under his breath, still smiling.
He looked at the bum who was still shaken up by his bone-chilling howl.
“Can I give you a piece of advice, Friend?” Simon asked as he walked backward toward the curb.
The bum nodded, too afraid to look away.
“I wouldn’t hang out with that fella anymore if I was you,” he told him, pointing to the other bum who’s whimpering had subsided somewhat. Probably from shock, Simon thought to himself. There was a large pool of blood forming around him. “Especially when the moon is full,” Simon added, tapping the side of his nose with his index finer.
Simon let out a small chuckle, turned around, and stood at the curb, waiting for the traffic to go. When the street was clear, he ran directly across the street, and stood in front of the alley that he’d seen the gang disappear into to.
“Well, let’s see what kind of trouble we can stir up, Tex.” He looked up once more at the sky. The moon was almost full and he could feel another wave of spasms coming on. “Come on,” he groaned as he doubled over. A wave of pain hit him in the stomach like a kick from a mule. “Gimme just a few more minutes.”
CHAPTER 26
“Gimme a drink of that, Motherfucker!” D’Andre demanded as he grabbed the bottle of Old Charter from Juicy’s hand.
“D’Andre Short turned the bottle up, and guzzled nearly a third of the bottle before taking it out of his mouth. Crack always made him edgy and thirsty.
“Where’s the pipe?” he asked loudly.
His glazed eyes quickly scanned the back alley where he and his gang sat after having robbed and offed the old gooks. It was the perfect place for he and The Wugs to hang out. The Wugs was made up of sixteen black, a few mulattos, and a few Mexican kids. The cops seldom came into their part of the city, so they did pretty much what they wanted, when they wanted. They had been watching that liquor store for a week now, and decided today, after a few good pipe hits, to rob the store. Two Wugs had stayed outside as lookouts, while D’Andre and two others had walked into the store. They had been watching the traffic coming in and out of the store for an hour and a half. They wanted it to be empty when they went in. Less people to deal with. Less hassle all the way around. D’Andre had pretty much decided that he was going to kill whoever was in there before they even walked into the liquor store. He and Juicy carried the gang’s two guns…a 357-Magnum and a 32 snub-nose.
As they entered the store, D’Andre hadn’t even looked around. He went straight for the owners who were both behind the counter. The man was straightening a display while the woman was stocking the cigarettes. D’Andre walked right up to the counter, pulled the pistol from behind his back, and shot the man through the mouth. The woman immediately turned around just in time to be shot through the forehead. Both fell into a heap behind the counter. He had taken the money, which had amounted to a little over three hundred dollars, while Juicy and Tino took as much booze, candy, and as many cigarettes as they could carry. The whole murder/robbery had taken no more than two and a half minutes. No one had given them so much as a second look when they exited the store.
D’Andre let his lungs fill with the acrid tasting smoke. He held it for as long as he could, then exhaled the billowy white smoke. As he did, he felt as if he was on the world’s highest roller-coaster and going straight down at an unfathomable speed. His eyes closed as he broke into a wide grin.
“That must be some good shit!”
The crack pipe slipped from D’Andre’s fingers, shattering into several dozen pieces as it hit the asphalt. D’Andre slowly opened his eyes, still trying to enjoy the hit. But it was gone, the unfamiliar voice having robbed him of both a good hit and the only glass pipe they had.
It took a few seconds for his eyes to re-adjust to his surroundings. When his vision cleared, he saw what he thought was a man with a bat’s head, dressed head to toe in denim. He’d have to compliment Spanish Manny on his rock.
When D’Andre’s eyes completely adjusted, he saw that the bat-faced man was still there…and grinning at him. The last motherfucker that grinned at him ended up with a busted cap to the forehead. The grin was still on his face when they buried him under a trash heap. This dude’s grin was extremely creepy. It was just about dusk, and the moon was beginning to shine full. Both the moon and the sun seemed to shine on him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.
By this time, the gang had started to surround the freak. D’Andre smiled again as the circle closed around Simon.
“What is it about niggers and spics that they can’t fight on they’re own? It always takes six of ‘em to beat one little old lady.”
As D’Andre approached him, Simon’s already wide grin became even wider.
“What did you say, you ugly bitch!” D’Andre spat, a little taken aback by this dumb white motherfucker.
“I didn’t say anything, I asked why is was that niggers and spics always have to fight in numbers, that’s all.” Getting no answer, Simon continued. “I’m just curious is all. Every time I see a nigger or a spic fight somebody, there’s always a bunch of ‘em.”
“We got each other’s back,” Tino answered from just behind Simon.
“It takes a dozen of you to watch each other’s backs? And all this time, I thought it was because you were too chickenshit to face someone alone.” Simon began to chuckle. He put his hand to his mouth as he smiled. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his teeth. He discovered that his canine teeth were now sharp and pointed. “Ya’ know what’s worse than that? Now, the white boys have picked up on it. They’re startin’ to act like a bunch of coloreds now, too. The backwards caps, the pants halfway down their asses…don’t you fuckers realize how stupid that looks?” Simon could feel the circle closing tighter around.
“Choose your last words carefully, Batman,” D’Andre told him, holding his hand out to one of the gang, who quickly placed a revolver in his hands. The gang laughed at his joke. Simon began to laugh hardily, too. He thought he felt his teeth actually growing.
“Did you just say…choose your last words carefully?” he asked almost giggling. “You’ve been watching way to many movies, Boy. Well, since I’m supposed to choose my last words carefully, I think I’ll use them in the form of a question. You ready?” He could see that D’Andre had moved the gun closer to his face. “Okay…here goes. Which one of you little punks is gonna be my bitches, and which ones are gonna be food? There, I said it.”
“You got some balls, motherfucker,” D’Andre said as he pulled the hammer back on the pistol. “I hope the devil gives you a better face in Hell.”
As he pulled the trigger, Simon swatted the gun away, the bullet firing off to his right. He heard a dull thud. When he turned, he saw that the bullet had struck one of the gang members in the forehead. The kid’s mouth stood agape in confusion for a moment, before he fell back on the concrete dead. Blood poured out of the wound and down each side of his face, pooling around his head.
“Motherfucker!” D’Andre screamed at him. “Look what you made me do! That was my cousin!�
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“Not anymore,” Simon came back smiling, not caring if his fangs were showing or not. “Now…as I was asking before,” he continued, “which one of ya’ll is gonna be my bitches, and which ones are gonna be food?”
Before he could speak or even move, Simon leapt through the air, over D’Andre’s head, landing behind him. The gang, too stunned to move, stood mouths open as Simon reached around D’Andre with one arm, and grabbed him around the neck. Simon was about two inches taller than the gangster, so he bent down behind him to shield himself from the others as they started to move forward. As he pulled D’Andre up, he pressed down on his Adam’s Apple with his forearm, cutting off D’Andre’s air.
“Now, now,” Simon said softly as the gang began to surge forward. “You don’t want D’Andre’s scrawny black neck to suddenly collapse, do ya’? Thought not.”
Simon eased up on his Adam’s Apple and D’Andre immediately began to gulp for air. The other gang members could do nothing but watch as Simon grinned at them.
“I think I’ve made up my mind about you, Boy,” he started, placing his mouth next to D’Andre’s ear. “I think I’m gonna make you my bitch.”
Before any of the gang members knew what was happening, Simon opened his mouth, his fangs now almost an inch long , and bit down on the gangster’s neck. D’Andre let out a loud scream as Simon gnashed on the skin before tearing it away. Blood began to spurt liberally over his neck, his shirt, and into Simon’s face.
The gang members began to rush Simon, two armed with pistols, and the others carrying knives and bats. As they began to close the gap, Simon laughed, then with lightning speed, reached down and grabbed the back of D’Andre’s pants, and then lifted him into the air above his head. The gang gasped as Simon held him high, D’Andre’s blood now splattering the ground around Simon. D’Andre’s body was limp and his eyes were now rolled into the back of his head.
“Here ya’ go!” Simon yelled before throwing D’Andre toward the group.