Night Creatures Short Stories

by Lori Handeland

  “I saw cameras in all the rooms, too,” Will said. “Wonder what that was about.”

  “To keep track of patient care, or lack thereof. We need to find the other end of all those seeing eyes.”

  As we’d checked every room, every closet, every nook and cranny on the main floor, when I found the door that led to the basement, I started down without hesitation.

  “Hold on.” Will laid a hand on my shoulder. “Do you watch scary movies?”

  I glanced up. The bright light from the hall flared around his head, casting his pretty face in shadow. “Why on earth would I watch a horror flick when half the time I’m living in one?”

  “The most important rule forgotten by stupid heroines everywhere is: Don’t go in the basement.”

  I hated being called stupid almost as much as I hated being called a heroine.

  “I’ve got a gun.” I lifted the weapon.

  “You always do. How many times has a gun been useless against the monster du jour?”

  More than I cared for. Still— “We can’t just leave. You want to tell Edward we were too frightened to go in the basement?”

  He took a deep breath then let it out. “You could tell him.”

  “No thanks.” Edward was often scarier than anything we uncovered on the job.

  Will fumbled behind me, and light flared above and below us.

  “See.” I gestured with my gun. “Nothing scary down here.”

  Although I had to say that the extreme cleanliness was disturbing. Didn’t all basements have their share of cobwebs, dust and rats? Apparently not the basement of the Riverview Psychiatric Clinic.

  I reached the bottom of the steps and was blinded by the brilliance. Everything was painted white—floor, ceiling, walls, doors. There were two. I opened the first, leading with my gun. The lack of light in front of me after having so much behind me made me blink. Nothing jumped out and said “Grrr.” All I heard was the low rumble of machinery.

  “Furnace,” Will said.

  The second door revealed what we’d been searching for—the security office—also darkened so the screens were easy to see. The place was empty as the rest of the building. The echoing silence and shadowy atmosphere gave me the urge to tread lightly and whisper. I guess that wasn’t a bad thing.

  “Check all the screens,” I murmured.

  One glance and my unease deepened. While we’d been inside, dusk had fallen. As previously mentioned, bad things happened after the sun went down.

  “We’ll need to pull up what was recorded in the last twenty-four hours.”

  Will nodded, heading to the left while I went to the right. It only took me an instant to locate the camera we were looking for. “Hell,” I muttered, and Will immediately joined me.

  The apparatus had been mounted on the rear wall of the hospital and pointed toward the forest. I understood why. Any security issues approaching from that direction would come out of the trees. Any escaped prisoners—uh, I mean patients—would head directly for them.

  So, were the beings emerging from the evergreens formerly patients or upcoming security risks? Considering they loped in our direction on four paws, it didn’t really matter.

  “Wolves,” Will murmured. “A lot of them.”

  “Mmm,” I said, not bothering to count once I hit a dozen. I didn’t have enough bullets to kill them all. Who would have thought we’d be attacked by a herd?

  I should have. It had happened before.

  Inching closer to the screen, I squinted in a vain attempt to see their eyes. Were they wolves, werewolves or something completely new and different? Hard to tell from here.

  “Let’s go.”

  “I don’t suppose you mean home?” Will muttered.

  “Do I ever?”

  He sighed, but he followed me from the security office, down the hall, up the steps, then toward the back door. As we went, we checked our guns.

  “Not enough bullets,” Will said.

  “Make them count.”

  “Then what?”

  I patted the pure silver knife at my waist. “Then you get behind me. Find a room with no windows. Lock it.”

  “Shouldn’t we call Edward?”

  We’d reached the rear entrance to the clinic where a bank of glass overlooked the trees. “Too late.”

  Dozens of wolves blocked the exit. Darkness threatened, but there was enough light left to reveal their eyes.

  They weren’t human.

  “They’re just wolves,” Will said.

  “Maybe.”

  They weren’t behaving like wolves. They sat in a semi-circle, patient, more like well-behaved dogs expecting a treat than wild animals, their attention focused on the windows but not on us. They were waiting for something, or perhaps, someone.

  “We can’t shoot them,” Will continued.

  “No?”

  “No,” he said firmly.

  As a member of the wolf clan, Will had a soft spot for the species. According to Ojibwe legend each clan member—bear clan, badger clan, stork clan and so on—was a descendant of the clan’s totem animal. Which would make Will part wolf. However, since many of his relatives had started to slobber and slaver and chase us everywhere we went with the intent of killing us, he’d changed his opinion a bit.

  “If they’re really wolves,” he continued, “they’re endangered.”

  Not too long ago, the wolves had recovered enough in Wisconsin to be taken off the endangered species list, but recently they’d been put back again. This might have something to do with Edward’s penchant for shooting first and discovering if the beast were wolf or werewolf later. I preferred Edward’s way of doing things myself, but Will—being Will—disagreed.

  Somewhere in the clinic a bell chimed—soft not harsh—if the place hadn’t been as silent as the proverbial tomb, we wouldn’t have heard it.

  Outside, the wolves cocked their heads then got to their feet and advanced. A chill wind seemed to swirl through the hall, though not a window, not a door, was open.

  The way the animals moved—in tandem, exactly the same—freaked me out. They resembled computerized wolves on a movie screen, one wolf cloned over and over. If it weren’t for their physical differences—brown, black, ash, white, auburn fur—I would think they were clones, which would be another problem entirely.

  As the wolves neared the clinic, Will tensed.

  “They can’t get in,” I said. “No thumbs.”

  Doors were a problem for the quadrupedal. Thank God.

  “I doubt that’s going to be an issue much longer.”

  The outlines of the beasts shimmered in the half-light, becoming indistinct, then solidifying again. Each time they reshaped a little differently. Within minutes the back door opened and dozens of people filed inside.

  Stark naked, but they didn’t seem to mind, probably because they didn’t seem to know. They moved with a shuffling, zombie-like gait, and as they did they repeated the word “boxenwolf” like a litany.

  I lifted my gun; Will shoved it back down. “You can’t.

  “You saw them shift. They’re werewolves.”

  “Are they?”

  Before I could stop him—he’d always been quicker than spit—Will snatched my knife and laid the flat of the blade against the nearest person’s arm. I winced, expecting smoke, flames, screaming agony—the usual response when silver touched a werewolf in any form—but nothing happened.

  Will flipped the knife end over end, catching it nimbly by the blade and handing it back to me with a quirk of his brow that very clearly mimed, Told you so.

  Lucky for him, he didn’t say it.

  “Hey!” I set the heel of my hand against the nearest naked chest—a middle-aged guy with an impressive spare tire. “What’s your name?”

  “Boxenwolf,” he replied, and took another step.

  “Hold on a second.” I kept my hand right where it was,

  The man didn’t even glance my way before he shoved my chest so hard I flew severa
l feet and crashed into the nearest wall.

  “Damn.” I shook my head, freezing mid-shake when pain rocketed through my eye sockets and settled in my back teeth. Every time that happened, it hurt.

  “You okay?” Will stood over me, concern in his eyes. But he knew better than to fuss. Or help me up after I’d been knocked down. That only made me feel more of an idiot.

  “No.” I clambered to my feet, rubbing at the sore spot on my chest. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  “It always does.” Will turned his attention to the shuffling, mumbling mass of patients. “Strength like that isn’t quite human.”

  “Ya think?” I muttered. “So what are they?”

  “Boxenwolves.”

  I sighed. He was right, but— “What’s a boxenwolf?”

  Will shrugged.

  The residents separated, heading into the empty rooms. I strode to a doorway and watched as an elderly woman methodically put on her patient gown and climbed into bed. Closing her eyes, she appeared to sleep. Will peered into the next empty room.

  “Asleep?” I asked. He nodded.

  I moved to the bedside and tapped the woman on the shoulder. “Ma’am?”

  Slowly she opened her eyes; confusion filled them. “Are you the new nurse?”

  “No, I’m—uh—Jessie.”

  “How nice.” She gave me a sleepy smile. She didn’t seem evil.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” I asked.

  “To get well.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  She blinked at the question, which I suppose had been rude, but rude had always been my true middle name.

  “I’m crazy, child. Didn’t you read the front door?”

  “You don’t seem crazy.”

  “Does anyone?” she murmured, and went back to sleep.

  In my experience the crazy always seemed very crazy. But, also in my experience, crazy often went hand-in-hand with psychotic, murderer—be it werewolf or human.

  I returned to Will. “We’ve got to figure out what they are.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll call Elise.”

  Elise Hanover, Edward’s right-hand woman, was a scientist who knew quite a bit about what made werewolves tick. I pressed the speed dial.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Juggling the phone, I reached for my gun. Will already had his. Together we trained our weapons on the man who emerged from the shadows.

  He was a lot younger than I expected, although what I expected, I don’t know—certainly not the slim, tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in a white coat. Beneath it he wore a blue shirt and a yellow tie, the contrast emphasizing his own coloring.

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded, ever Miss Manners.

  “I should be asking you that question. This is my clinic.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Yours, as in you built it, own it, run it?”

  His lips curved. “Yes.”

  “You look kind of young to fund a place like this.”

  “My ancestors put away quite a bit of money.”

  “Lucky you.”

  I didn’t like him, and I wasn’t sure why. But as I’d learned to trust my instincts, I didn’t lower my gun. Will didn’t either.

  “Name?” I snapped.

  My annoyance only seemed to amuse him, which annoyed me more. “Dr. Jeremy Zachau. And you are?”

  I glanced at Will; he shrugged. We always have a cover story prepared before we go on a job—a cover Edward makes certain will hold up to any scrutiny.

  “We’re with the Department of Natural Resources. There’ve been reports of rabid wolves in the area.”

  He lifted one sandy brow. “And why would the wolves be inside my clinic?”

  “Yeah, why would they?”

  “Because they’re boxenwolves.”

  I blinked, and my gun dipped. I’d never had anyone actually admit to what they were doing without a little “encouragement.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. “And I don’t mean your name. What are you up to here and why? How do you know about boxenwolves?”

  “I created them.”

  Inventing a new kind of creature was never good.

  “I’ll be happy to tell you everything, Jessie.”

  I frowned. “How did you know—?”

  “Did you really think your feeble DNR lie would fool me?”

  It had fooled everyone else.

  Zachau’s hair fell in a charming tousle over his unlined forehead. I suddenly wanted to shoot him with silver just to see if he caught fire.

  “You’re Jessie McQuade, one of Herr Mandenauer’s best hunters.”

  “You know Edward?”

  “My grandfather did.”

  “And who was your grandfather?”

  “His name is unimportant. His work is what matters. He spent his final days in a laboratory in the Black Forest.”

  “Mengele,” I muttered.

  “Oh, I’m not related to that great man. I only wish that I was.”

  “You say great man, I say psychopath.” I shrugged. “Tomato. To-ma-toe.”

  Anger flashed in Zachau’s eyes. “Mengele was brilliant. A visionary.”

  “He was an insane, elitist pig who killed people because they were different.”

  Zachau shrugged. “In the advancement of science, sacrifices must be made.”

  My trigger-finger began to itch.

  “Jessie,” Will warned.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy. “Mengele wasn’t advancing science,” I continued, “he was building a werewolf army.”

  “He did build one.”

  Which was how Edward had become … well, Edward. Back in WW2 he had been a double agent, assigned to discover just what in hell the “great man” was up to in the Black Forest. Unfortunately, Edward hadn’t found out quickly enough. By the time he reached Mengele’s lab, the doctor had panicked at the incoming allied invasion and released everything he’d created into the world. Edward had been chasing them ever since.

  “I’ve perfected his formula,” Zachau said.

  I went cold, even though the temperature in the clinic had been set to steam bath.

  “Perfected how?” Will asked. He was always the voice of reason. Thank God. Someone had to be.

  “My wolves look like wolves, without the human eyes to alert the hunters. And silver doesn’t hurt them.”

  “What does?” I asked. Zachau merely laughed.

  “Your formula isn’t all that perfect,” Will pointed out. “It makes people insane. Or were they insane to begin with?”

  Zachau stopped laughing. “I’m still tweaking.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “My subjects were not insane to start with, and they won’t be insane once I’m finished with them.”

  Werewolves that couldn’t be killed with silver or recognized as werewolves by their human eyes was bad. Once Zachau set them loose on the world, rather than keeping them in little white rooms, there’d be no stopping them.

  Usually, I shot whatever confused me. But shooting Zachau would be murder and shooting the boxenwolves with silver wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

  Now what?

  “Once the formula is tweaked to your satisfaction,” Will said, “what then?” Will always had just the right question.

  “I’ll become a boxenwolf myself, of course.”

  “Of course,” I repeated. “Who wouldn’t want to run around on all fours, wag their tail, drool a bit?”

  Zachau scowled. “Who wouldn’t want to be immortal?”

  “You got big plans for eternity?” I asked.

  “More than you could imagine.”

  I could imagine quite a bit.

  “Put down the guns,” Zachau ordered.

  Let’s see … We had them; he didn’t. “No.”

  Zachau whistled and patients surged from the doorways. The ones closest to Will grabbed him, those closest to me did the same, then th
ey divested us of our guns. They took my cell phone, too. I probably should have tested Zachau’s statement that silver wouldn’t kill them, but I discovered myself unable to shoot a defenseless crazy person in a hospital gown. Go figure.

  “It was so nice of you stop by,” Zachau said. “I was in need of help to perform my final tests.”

  “Do your own dirty work.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Miss McQuade but to Mr. Cadotte. He’s the perfect specimen for this experiment. Wolf clan, correct?”

  Will didn’t so much as blink.

  “How do you know so damn much?” I demanded.

  “I make it my business to know. You think the two of you came here by accident? It was by design. My design.”

  “That’s impossible.” The Jager-Suchers were sent out in a rotation available only to Elise. No one could have known that Will and I would catch this case.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Zachau said. “I’ve proven that with my boxenwolves.”

  He had a point. The word impossible didn’t mean as much as it used to.

  “Take them to the lab,” Zachau ordered.

  Two burly patients grabbed each of us under the arms and practically carried us a pristine white wall at the end of the hallway. Zachau joined us, placing his palm against a metal plate. The entire wall slid aside, revealing an elevator. Which explained why we’d never found the lab.

  The guards shoved us inside, but they remained outside. Zachau joined us, and the wall slid closed. We began to descend. The doctor held our guns, one trained on each of us.

  I settled back, gaze never leaving him. Zachau would slip up eventually. Mad scientists always did. I only hoped the mistake occurred before he performed his experiment on Will.

  The door slid open, revealing a state of the art facility—lots of bells and whistles, computers, beakers, test tubes, microscopes. Who was funding this guy?

  In the corner stood a shiny silver cage. He flicked the barrel of a gun in its direction. Will and I stepped inside, and the door clanged shut behind us.

  Zachau wasted no time, moving to a table, setting down the weapons so he could prepare a syringe, then returning. “Give me your arm, Mr. Cadotte.”

  “Leave him alone,” I said, my voice impressively forceful though I felt anything but.

  Zachau lifted a brow. “You think I’d go to the trouble and expense of having the two of you sent here, capture you, then leave him alone just because you say so?”