Andy Deane

by The Sticks (epub)

  "I'd like to kill it myself," said Jessica through a grimace.

  "And by the way, did you notice that this werewolf wasn't the same one we crossed paths with before?" I asked.

  "No. How could you tell?"

  "Wrong color. Too small."

  "Too small? The damn thing looked plenty big to me!"

  "Well, just take my word for it on this one. There are at least two of those sons of bitches."

  "Goddamn. That's the last thing I needed to hear right now!"

  "Sorry."

  "Well it certainly isn't your fault. We just have to make sure we're careful and that if we live through the night we get the fuck out of town tomorrow."

  "Agreed."

  "I am so scared right now, Brian. I'm trying real hard to keep it together, but I'm starting to freak out. I don't know how much more of this I can stand."

  "I'm scared too, Jess. And I promise I'll do everything I can to get us both out of this mess alive. And then we'll pack our shit and leave this town forever. Start over."

  I stood and walked out of the bedroom to check the windows for signs of the werewolf. Fear coated everything I saw like bad syrup. The trees outside were ominous as they swayed with the wind. Every shadow hid a wolf-man in its darkness and even the face of the full moon seemed malevolent. My steps were slow and silent; my eyes darted back and forth as if I were watching a tennis match. The grip of the pistol was wet with my sweat.

  The quiet was killing me. I made over ten trips from the bedroom to the living room and back, my footsteps the only sound in the house. I thought about turning on the TV to ease my nerves, but didn't want to mask any noise outside that might give me a clue to a werewolf's whereabouts. I paced back and forth hoping my brain would spit out a plan.

  The best idea I had was to get Jess and barricade the two of us in the bathroom. It had saved my life once already, though I was pretty sure the werewolf that attacked me that night was the smaller of the two, and that Jeff would have had that door down in a matter of seconds if he were in werewolf mode. But there was only one narrow doorway leading in, and that would give me a better chance of shooting the beast. I figured I could nail enough wood to the door to stop a wrecking crew, and if the wolf still got through it'd be a sitting duck. There was the problem of the werewolf coming in after us through the bathroom window, but that was a risk we might have to take. At that moment I remembered the gun Jess kept at her place and wished we'd brought it with us.

  Before getting started I thought I'd try the phone again, though I knew I'd find a dead line waiting for me. The second the receiver touched my ear the picture window in my living room exploded inward and the smaller of the two werewolves roared in rage. It rose up not ten feet away from me, its head only a foot or two from touching the ceiling.

  Great. That window was one more thing I'd need to replace if I got out of this episode alive. You might find it odd that I'd be thinking about things like the cost of a broken window when my life was on the line, but I think I'd started to get used to these episodes with wolf-people. I'll tell you one thing; werewolf attacks are expensive as all hell.

  But don't think for one second that I wasn't scared out of my mind. I just about shit my pants right then and there, but luckily I kept my head together (and my ass cheeks) long enough to make a dash for the bedroom where Jess was in the far corner screaming. I could hear the werewolf's claws tapping the hardwood floor as is gave chase behind me. It was getting closer and I could feel it pushing air at my back as it took swipes at me with its long, muscular arms. I was barely able to slam the bedroom door behind me without losing my brain through the back of my head.

  Jess kept screaming as the wolf beat on the door like a soldier trying to get out of a room with a live grenade in it. Within seconds the wood was splintering through and I could see the werewolf's fingernails tearing away at the barrier separating us. I felt fortunate that the wolf wasn't the brightest of specimens, because if it had simply tried the doorknob it would have discovered that my bedroom didn't have a lock. But the thing just kept ripping at the wood and snarling while I pictured my future self taking out a home equity loan to try and repair the house. In all truth, I wasn't so sure there was much of a future ahead of me at that point.

  One of the werewolf's enormous arms came through the door with a spray of splintered wood. Jess screamed so loud from behind me that I thought my head would burst. The werewolf's arm thrashed about, opening and closing its clawed fist in hopes that it might find flesh. The wolf didn't seem to care much about what got killed, just so long as something did. I thought about firing a few rounds into the beast right then and there, but decided to wait until I had a better shot. I didn't want to run out of bullets before I could see exactly where I was hitting it, and didn't want a door between us to help ease the damage.

  I went to my closet to look for a weapon. Underneath a heap of flannel shirts that had fallen from their hangers I found an old wooden baseball bat that I'd held onto since I was about fifteen. I used it to pound the werewolf's arm with overhead swings. I was giving it everything I was worth, but the beast hardly reacted to the beating, and just kept on clawing at me through the door. Before long it had both arms through the gap in the door and I could see its enraged eyes staring at me through the damaged wood. I backed off and tossed the bat to Jessica, but she was too hysterical to catch it. It hit her in the arm and fell to the floor as she continued to scream.

  I stood watching the wolf getting closer and closer to being able to kill the both of us, the whole time hoping that I'd get a couple of good shots off at the thing with my gun and that they'd do more damage than Sergeant Matheson's had. When the werewolf had torn enough of the door away to get its entire upper torso through I knew it was time to act. The beast took a break from deconstructing my home to lift its snout toward the sky and roar at us, filling the room with the rotten stench of its breath.

  I lifted my gun and took aim. My blood went cold and I started squeezing the trigger. I fired two or three times, pumping lead into the werewolf's chest and head, sending red-black blood all over the room, some of it hitting me in the face. It tasted like a mouthful of dirty pennies, and I spat about ten times trying to clear it. The werewolf kept thrashing and roaring, stranded somewhere between injured and angry. Each round I let fly ripped a new wound in the wolf's fur and sent more blood flying. My.44 held six shots, and I was at least half way through my ammo.

  Eventually, the werewolf slowed down and started acting like something that had been shot. It whimpered, looked into my eyes, and finally dropped through the hole it had ripped through the door and hung there limp from the waist.

  Now, I've seen a lot of horror films in my life, so I knew not to get near the downed werewolf. In scary movies the monsters always get a second chance; one last lunge at the hero to save its pride. But if the beast misses, that's the end of the story. This was no exception to the rule. I grabbed the baseball bat from the floor thinking I'd club the werewolf a few thousand times, but just as I got close enough to hit it its hairy arms reached out and its jaws snapped at me. I could smell the wolf's foul rotten-meat breath as its enormous teeth chomped up and down. If it had gotten my hand between its jaws I'd probably be wearing a hook a la Blackbeard right now.

  Luckily, I was able to keep my limbs intact, and I started wailing on its oversized head with the bat until it lay still again, and then I swung for another fifteen minutes or so until the beast's head didn't resemble a head at all. It looked more like a bowl of bloody beef stew that was starting to solidify.

  At the end of all of this I went to my bed and sat down to catch my breath. I was soaked from head to toe in the wolf's dark, sticky blood and my own sweat. I couldn't stop my body from trembling, and had lost all feeling in my arms. I didn't know what in the hell to think, what in the hell to do, or why in the hell this was happening to Jess and I. She sat beside me crying into her hands, doing everything she could to keep her eyes off of the monster hanging dead in
the doorway.

  I sat bewildered, studying the werewolf, wondering if it would change back into a human like they sometimes do in the movies. But it just lay there draining onto my floor. It crossed my mind that I could end up a dead werewolf someday soon, killed by some bastard like me who was trying to avoid being eaten. I wondered if I was crazy, or dreaming, or dead and in some kind of hell, but the room was static, and the reality of the situation grew heavier on my shoulders the longer I sat.

  Thoughts went off like a strobe light in my head, appearing and then disappearing as fast as they had come. Would I somehow end up in jail for the deaths of Myrtle and Sergeant Matheson? I decided that if that were the case I'd run like hell and shoot myself when the law cornered me. No way was I going to sit in a cell for the next fifty years thinking about all this shit. How many people had the monster killed thus far? Hank? Nate and his family? Alicia?

  And what if the werewolf I'd just killed was Alicia? And why the hell had Jeff turned her into the monster that had just tried to rip Jess and I to shreds? Now, I don't know how many folks out there have had to wonder if their ex-girlfriend was the werewolf they just killed, but let me tell you, it's one hell of a shitty feeling. And I had reason to think that might've been the case.

  I knew that Jeff was the larger wolf that Jess and I hit with the Volvo after the party. I also knew that he was crazier than Rosie O'Donnell at a donut-eating contest. I think that Alicia had started fucking the guy again toward the end of our relationship, and that probably messed him up even more. I figure when Jeff saw Alicia with me at Lisp's party that something snapped inside him. I think he followed her when she went for her walk and then turned wolf and bit her. Jeff was all animal instinct when he was in monster mode, and he'd been dwelling on her all night. His desire for her may have been the only thing that kept him from eating her. So instead, Jeff spread the bloodline.

  Then again, I could be way off target on all of this. Not having all the answers sucked, but I knew I was going to have to learn to live with it if I survived the night.

  I wanted nothing more than to kill the bastard for the half ton of shit he'd dumped into my life, and if I couldn't do it then I hoped I'd never see him again, at least not while he was half wolf. In his human form, I knew pretty well that I could kick the sin out of his unholy ass without too much trouble.

  I was exhausted and my body felt like it might weigh a thousand pounds or better. Though I tried to fight it, I soon fell into a dreamless sleep beside Jess, the gun still in my hand.

  I woke an hour or so later with a start and snapped my head in the direction of the beast. It still hung there in the doorway, its fur matted with drying blood and saliva. I wiped my eyes with blood-covered, sticky hands and stood to walk over to the dead beast. Jess was still passed out beside me, her face twitching as if she were in the middle of a bad dream. I bent down and kissed her forehead and it seemed to relax her a bit.

  The dead werewolf was hideous, even more so now that it had hung there for an hour. The build on the beast was incredible. The long, lean arms covered in coarse brown fur were nothing but muscle. There seemed to be more muscles and tendons weaving beneath its skin than a human arm could hold without exploding. And I'm not just talking biceps and triceps. There were all kinds of ceps I didn't recognize at all.

  After staring at it long enough the werewolf started to look pitiful draped there half in one room and half in the other. But don't get me wrong, I didn't feel any remorse over what I'd done. I felt pretty good that the beast was bled dry and hanging instead of trying to tear me and my girl into convenient, bite-sized pieces. I've been called a redneck by quite a few folks over the course of my life, and if there's one thing every god, man and monster should know it's never attack a redneck in his own home.

  Even though I knew the thing was deader than dead I was still a little hesitant to touch it. I had watched far too many werewolf films to want to go handling one of the beasts, even one that was shot full of holes with no breath left to breathe. But I mustered up my courage and moved its arms aside so I could push against its chest. Tits. The god damned thing had tits. They weren't too much like human tits, but resembled what you'd find on a dog mixed with what you'd find on a woman. I hadn't noticed them at all while the thing was still alive and full of desire to eat my organs, and it wouldn't have made a difference if I had. But the fact that this thing was female made me shiver. If I had killed Alicia it was a mercy killing.

  I put my hands against its chest and pushed. The wolf-bitch fell back into the hallway with a thud. The beast was beyond heavy, and I had to force the door open enough for me to get out of the room. I walked over to the mush that was once a werewolf's head and grabbed the beast under the arms. The first time I tried to lift it one of its arms twitched and I freaked out and fell backward. I stood back up and took a deep breath before trying again. Heavy was an understatement. It took every ounce of my strength to drag the dead thing through the back door and into the yard. I left it sprawled out in the grass and wondered just how tough it was going to be explaining this one to the cops. One thing was for sure; I had a rock solid alibi against any murder charges they might want to pin on me.

  I stood there in the darkness for a few minutes taking in the outside air until a monumental case of the creeps came over me. I closed the door behind me and locked it which was completely useless since the picture window in my living room was now in a million pieces all over my floor. If anyone or anything wanted in it sure as hell wouldn't have to ring the doorbell.

  I was sick and tired of running from werewolves and having my house torn to shit in the process. But that was the hand I was dealt and I knew I was going to have to play it to the end. I figured the first thing I'd do was get in the Mustang and hope to God it had enough gas to get Jess and I as far as Hank's place. I thought that if anyone was going to have a spare can of gas lying around it would be Hank.

  I wanted people around me, as many as I could find. Time's Square on New Year's Eve would have really done the trick, but I was going to have to settle for downtown Jefferson in September. The hard part was going to be getting anyone with half a mind to listen to me. Yeah, I had the hard evidence lying dead in the yard, but I couldn't think of a good way to get anyone to follow me home to see it.

  Hey man, a werewolf killed some folks I know and now it's dead in my yard. Yeah. Half wolf, half man. Actually, I think this one was a girl wolf. But yeah, follow me to my house so I can show you. What do you mean you have to be going? No really, I'm on the level here. Just come back to my place and I'll show you the werewolf. What do you mean you're going to call the police? On me or the werewolf?

  Realistically, I figured the cops would be by soon enough anyway. They had an officer on Monticello Road who wouldn't be answering their calls. Ever again. And once they found what was left of him on the roadside my house would be fourth in line for a visit from the police department.

  I walked back to the bedroom to get Jess, and when I got there she was sitting up on the edge of the bed rubbing her eyes. Her face was smeared black with mascara and she looked like she had been asleep for about thirty years. I was a little nervous that everything we'd been through that night might have driven her crazy, but she spoke and my mind was set at ease.

  "Please tell me that I just woke up from the worst nightmare ever," she said.

  I showed her a fake smile and shook my head no.

  "Well, can you at least reassure me that the worst is over?"

  I shook my head no again and walked over to where she sat. She hugged me around the waist and buried her face in my stomach. I leaned into her and massaged her shoulders through her shirt and she sighed.

  "Well, at least neither of us is going at this alone," she said, "I think I would've lost my mind by now if I didn't have you here beside me."

  I went down on my knees, put my arms around Jess and held her tightly. "Girl, if we get out of this mess alive I might have to marry you." And I meant it.

&nb
sp; She squeezed me and then pulled back to look at my face. She kissed my cheek and then stood and walked over to the wreck of my bedroom door to examine the war zone. I could hear her shoes sticking to the blood on the floor.

  "So what should we do now?" she asked.

  "We need gas for the Mustang. It's bone dry. We need to get in the car and hope like hell it gets us to Hank's place. I think he'll have some gas on hand."

  "Is Hank the old guy down the road that sits on his porch next to that huge Confederate flag?"

  "Yeah, that's Hank. After we get some gas in the car we head for town. Once we're there we stay wherever there's a crowd. I think we'll feel a lot safer with some more company around. We'll call the police and send them here so they can see what's happened for themselves. And tomorrow, if we can manage that whole staying alive thing tonight, we get out of town. And then we stay out of town."

  "I'm with you all the way. Let's go."

  CHAPTER 24

  I washed up a bit and changed out of my bloody clothes. My nerves were shot, and the sparse sleep I'd gotten had done little to ease my exhaustion. Jess grabbed a jacket for each of us from the bedroom closet and we left through the front of the house. Like a jackass, I locked the door before closing it, and glanced over at the glass covering my living room floor. Habits are tough to break. I shook my head and felt the tug of helplessness in the dark corners of my mind. The werewolves were relentless, and damned hard to stop. I knew that the other one, the larger one, would quit at nothing short of death in its quest to end me.